I consider "mind" to be the combination of inputs of all the senses. There is something to discussing the brain as its own receptive sixth sense when it comes to sensing changes in blood chemistry. Hormones, alcohol, caffeine, and whatever other drugs you can think of... These things are...
It's not that I'm against the concept of chaos, it's just that to even have things like "order" and "disorder" I think that the particles themselves must have some fundamental character that is irreducible. In order to have forms that are distinct, there must be differentiation. For there to be...
The emergence of those peculiar and complex structures is what makes it hard for me to believe that their movement is the chaotic movement of an underlying homogeneous fabric of particles. I either have to believe that there is some fundamental replicated particle that composes everything and...
What isn't an illusion then? I agree that these are all labels which could be collapsed down to one description of "interactions," but those interactions seem to have their own types of agency, preferences, etc... Not sure that it qualifies them for conciousness, but their "liveliness" makes...
The whole "non-life creates the illusion of life" is nonsense when you think about it. If life is an illusion, then what can we even refer to as life? We would have to assume that we are a bunch of machines that were created by some other being that is "truly alive," and not emergent properties...
I think all this bickering is still about abstract concepts and words. In my experience with meditation and Buddhist thought, it is on a good track, but still based in a very literal tradition that always sidetracked me a lot. I've found it more helpful to recognize that it's bodily sensations...
I think I agree with your last paragraph, although you use different terms than I would, but I especially have difficulty with the terms "imperfection" and "perfection" and I'm not sure if it's a matter of you not defining the terms, or if I actually disagree with your premise.
Monotheistic beliefs emerged out of monocultural civilizations. Prior to sedentary monoculture, most humans were animists who believed that the world is made of a variety of personalities, all with their own distinct types of agency and experience. With monoculture, the "sameness" or "oneness"...
You're pretending to know what it's like to be disembodied.. Pretending you have access to a realm which lacks any sensation in which to ground or describe your experience. You're assuming that every experience must have a dualist opposing experience, even if that experience must be invented. I...