Re: [Futurework] RE: But where's the mind?

[Darryl and Natalia]

Hello Arthur,     Your remark about mind being a process that goes on in the brain echoed back at me in a meditative moment yesterday. You were wondering, Where is the mind?, and if indeed we have one. I really enjoy these kinds of questions, and ask that you consider the following:     Mind is quite apart from brain because you are free to change your mind moment to moment. You can do so because, unlike brain and body, it is unfettered by physical laws.     Mind can direct brain to change its pathways because of changed beliefs.     Mind is intellectual and abstract--the brain and body are neither, and in fact are wholly subject to physical laws and the belief system that binds them.     Mind is creative and most of all is the only attribute in the individual capable of love. Again, brain is capable of neither.     From the mind source, we direct to brain and to the body in order to effect a vessel of communication or instrument of action.     As to where your mind is--is a question asked by one who insists physical explanations need apply to that which actually has no physical attributes whatsoever. To give answer to such a question would be an attempt to make physical that which is but a unique energy. Your mind is everywhere, and you cannot restrict it to a physical universe, even one so seemingly endless as the one with which you are acquainted, because there will always be a boundary at its edge to cross. Your mind is free.      Some say energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Many would say that has been proven. Some would call mind energy divine because of its ability to create in the causal sense. All will ultimately depend upon your beliefs (scientific evidence being subject to chronic change and mani- pulation for whatever suits one's beliefs or one's agenda) -- which again I will cite as something the brain cannot harbour, but because of constant exposure to belief's indoctrination, will build neural pathways that always lead to the same information or support system surrounding said beliefs.     Perception is choice. It selects and makes real what you internalize, then subsequently project. What you look for you are far more likely to find than what you'd rather overlook. What you see will depend entirely on what you think you are. You will believe that the world you project will control your destiny. Believing that will not necessarily make it reality. Truth or reality (by no means subject to perception) will not require any recognition by you for confirmation. Because of the nature of mind that has free will, it is destined to seek out reality--by choice. Unfortunately, reason lies in the right-thinking self we have cut off from awareness, and the ego-self, entirely concerned with physical preservation and physical reality, insists we stay ignorant of our true capacity, and has us constantly thinking about that which never lasts--under the guise of reason. This consequently ensures that we are left to believe ourselves as tiny, vulnerable and full of fear. It results in our feelings of impermanence and unreality. We are on Earth because of our belief in limitations. Knowledge would threaten its existence as we know it, and what we think we are. Most of all, it would dispel the insane notion that we are separate from other life.     Today's scientific experiments examining mind energy output cannot ever hope to establish capacity. There is great danger in depending upon output alone as it is circumspect in its attempts, and could lead to scientific acceptance of a measurable system or criterion, which would only become another "objective" - so called - voyage into discrimination, much like race studies that claim to have "objective" evidence for their supremacist theories.     Enjoy your mind's freedom now. It is the only moment to live for. Don't get trapped into thinking you need proof of said mind for validation to appreciate its being. Living for the future is restricting your ability to live today, and gives rise to the depressive self-censor.     Perhaps you will relate to the thought of being as infinity, a concept that only mind can wrap around.     Hoping you find some meaning in the above, Natalia                     ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 5:26 AM Subject: [Futurework] RE: But where's the mind? "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." (Aristotle) I entertain the thought that there is a mind.  Who knows maybe the mind is just the noise of the brain.  Maybe not. As for other powers, like the big guy upstairs or quantum universe: Who knows. For me the only intellectually comfortable position is to be an agnostic.  It is all interesting.  It all means something--even if it's man's search for meaning.  But I don't know, I don't know that I will ever know and am comfortable with uncertainty.  arthur     -----Original Message----- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 3:00 AM To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: But where's the mind? Arthur, At 21:33 27/05/2003 -0400, you wrote: I guess it always gets back to the cause of the first cause: What gets the mind to physically change the brain. We certainly have a brain, but where do you get the idea that we have a mind? (This is equivalent to having a soul. This is what Brad McCormick calls a medieval notion.) We have a stomach but we don't have a thing called "digestion". Digestion is a process that happens in the stomach. The mind is a process that goes on in the brain. Besides, how do we know that our minds are under our individual control? It is a demonstrable fact that our minds could be under the influence of perceptions that we are totally unaware of. In short, our brains are not closed systems. We are possibly open to a more mysterious world which some call God and some (including myself) call the "quantum universe" (for want of a snappier term). How much freewill do we have, and how much freewill does the universe have? So far, neuroscientists have had enough excitement on their plates in recent years not to investigate this more thoroughly and this matter has only been approached from other directions by eminent physicists such as Freeman Dyson, Frank Tipler, David Deutsche or Roger Penrose who have had several decades on which to ponder these matters since the dawn of quantum theory. I'm not so sure that these questions will ever be settled simply because of the physical limitations of our brains, but I think that, in due course, the dawn of life and the evolution of lifeforms will not be seen as a unique event but an inevitable product of the universe. (Which reminds me [wearing another hat] that, this week, two of my Handlo colleagues have finally finished engraving Haydn's great oratorio, The Creation, after several months' work, and that vocal, orchestral and instrumental parts are now available from the Internet at much lower prices than the existing monopolistic publishers have been charging. Thus, pace Ray Harrell, I'm doing my little bit so that great music has a chance of remaining alive and affordable to perform.)   Keith Hudson Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England