MIke, No trespassing! My ancestor Owens were the original Princes of North Wales and Snowdon is rightfully mine! :-)
Edgar On May 26, 2012, at 6:13 AM, mike brown wrote: > I'm going to climb Mt. Snowden in Wales next week. I hope it's still there - > there's not much credit climbing a mountain that doesn't exist. > > Mike > > --- On Sat, 26/5/12, Merle Lester <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: Merle Lester <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Zen] The Self Illusion > To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > Date: Saturday, 26 May, 2012, 8:56 > > > edgar > then where is the real world????????? > > and where is reality? > > what amazes me is how adults have such pre-concieved minds states. > ..that once they have made their minds up..it is set in concrete and very > hard to shift. > .you need a jack hammer to get through. > .and in many cases the concrete is rotten with "cancerous" growth of > bullshit, half truths, prejudices, and lack of insight. > > .. going zen opens the mind..so one is fresh alert and prepared for the > unexpected... > just as a young child is before they are fed "how to think and feel"..through > the education system > happy "zenning"! > and long live zanism > cheers merle > > >and don't actually exist out there in reality... > > Then again, Zen is very pragmatic and would say you'd best duck when an > 'object' comes hurtling your way. This is why, after all, mountains really > are mountains... > > Mike > > --- On Sat, 26/5/12, Edgar Owen <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: Edgar Owen <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Zen] The Self Illusion > To: [email protected], [email protected], > [email protected], [email protected] > Date: Saturday, 26 May, 2012, 2:38 > > > ED, > > The self we are all familiar with is as you say a mental construct in our > mind's simulation of reality. Actual sensory input comes into organisms in > fragmented bits such as color, motion, shapes, etc. As the mind develops in > infancy these sensory bits are gradually organized by the mind into larger > more persistent constructs such as objects, one of which is the self. There > is a lot of research by cognitive scientists on how and when this occurs in > childhood but cognitive scientists assume mind just begins recognizing the > objects that actually exist out there in reality. Buddhist on the other hand > claims that the objects are all mental constructs and organizations of raw > input from external reality and don't actually exist out there in reality... > > There is also a lot of information about how the concept of objects arises > from developments in robotics. It turns out it is very very difficult to > construct (robotics calls it identify) objects from raw sensory input.... For > example most objects produce very very different sensory input depending on > their orientation and distance from the eyes so it takes very sophisticated > mental software to identify all those different perceptual views as the same > object, especially against all sorts of different backgrounds... > > So direct experience consists solely of sensory input momentary in the > present moment. The whole idea of persistent objects including the self is a > mental construct and as Zen would say an illusion not actually present in the > external (real) world. > > Edgar > > > > On May 25, 2012, at 10:29 AM, ED wrote: > >> >> >> >> Excerpt: >> "In what sense is the self an illusion? >> For me, an illusion is a subjective experience that is not what it seems. >> Illusions are experiences in the mind, but they are not out there in nature. >> Rather, they are events generated by the brain. Most of us have an >> experience of a self. I certainly have one, and I do not doubt that others >> do as well – an autonomous individual with a coherent identity and sense of >> free will. But that experience is an illusion – it does not exist >> independently of the person having the experience, and it is certainly not >> what it seems. That's not to say that the illusion is pointless. >> Experiencing a self illusion may have tangible functional benefits in the >> way we think and act, but that does not mean that it exists as an entity. >> If the self is not what it seems, then what is it? >> For most of us, the sense of our self is as an integrated individual >> inhabiting a body. I think it is helpful to distinguish between the two ways >> of thinking about the self that William James talked about. There is >> conscious awareness of the present moment that he called the "I," but there >> is also a self that reflects upon who we are in terms of our history, our >> current activities and our future plans. James called this aspect of the >> self, "me" which most of us would recognize as our personal identity—who we >> think we are. However, I think that both the "I" and the "me" are actually >> ever-changing narratives generated by our brain to provide a coherent >> framework to organize the output of all the factors that contribute to our >> thoughts and behaviors. >> I think it helps to compare the experience of self to subjective contours – >> illusions such as the Kanizsa pattern where you see an invisible shape that >> is really defined entirely by the surrounding context. People understand >> that it is a trick of the mind but what they may not appreciate is that the >> brain is actually generating the neural activation as if the illusory shape >> was really there. In other words, the brain is hallucinating the experience. >> There are now many studies revealing that illusions generate brain activity >> as if they existed. They are not real but the brain treats them as if they >> were. >> Now that line of reasoning could be applied to all perception except that >> not all perception is an illusion. There are real shapes out there in the >> world and other physical regularities that generate reliable states in the >> minds of others. The reason that the status of reality cannot be applied to >> the self, is that it does not exist independently of my brain alone that is >> having the experience. It may appear to have a consistency of regularity and >> stability that makes it seem real, but those properties alone do not make it >> so. >> Similar ideas about the self can be found in Buddhism and the writings of >> Hume and Spinoza. The difference is that there is now good psychological and >> physiological evidence to support these ideas that I cover in the book in a >> way that I hope is accessible for the general reader." >> Source: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-illusion-of-the-self2 >> >> > > > >
