They are idealistic conceptions. What happens when you add entropy to the mix?
Are you not creating temporal forms in the OP by separating mind/body and spiritual/physical?
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Mind, Body, Duality, Theism, and Atheism
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They are idealistic conceptions. What happens when you add entropy to the mix?
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
Why would you think all atheists believe that the material is eternal? We have no way of knowing that.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Is it reasonable to think there is anything eternal about the known existence? I do not think so.
If not, then an ultimate cosmic beginning exists.
So then your talking existence from non existence. That is not likely to me.
There must be an underlying reality that is eternal.
If spacetime is emergent from the quantum reality. Then perhaps the physical emerges from the non physical.
If there is a reality beyond the physically knowable, then perhaps, a mind/body duality exists.
That all hinges on life being intelligently created. And also an ultimate cosmic beginning.
Non existence is an impossibility.
If not, then an ultimate cosmic beginning exists.
So then your talking existence from non existence. That is not likely to me.
There must be an underlying reality that is eternal.
If spacetime is emergent from the quantum reality. Then perhaps the physical emerges from the non physical.
If there is a reality beyond the physically knowable, then perhaps, a mind/body duality exists.
That all hinges on life being intelligently created. And also an ultimate cosmic beginning.
Non existence is an impossibility.
MonkeyFire
Well-Known Member
Pleasure is only a human attachments to feelings we can experience , Pleasure arise and fall, so not something that is constant. only tempoarlynot sure where you got it that buddha said that pleasure is constant. Because his teaching clearly say that pleasure is araising and falling
Teaching of impermanence
Pleasure is meant to be eternal and that's where I place my faith. There is no ideal to impermenance. Only bad things are temporary. If impermenance itself were impermenant, would one day impermenance cease?
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The first words from Buddha's first sermon upon his awakening:
"There are these two extremes that are not to be indulged in by one who has gone forth. Which two? That which is devoted to sensual pleasure with reference to sensual objects: base, vulgar, common, ignoble, unprofitable; and that which is devoted to self-affliction: painful, ignoble, unprofitable. Avoiding both of these extremes, the middle way realized by the Tathagata — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding.
Impermanence/change is a characteristic of all component things due to the actions of cause and effect. To negate impermanance would be to negate cause and effect. Please keep in mind that pleasure is an effect when considering this.
MonkeyFire
Well-Known Member
Love is the single most important thing you can render, I will remain a lover.
i wonder if paul was alluding to that
1 Corinthians 15:44
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
entropy is the loss of energy into the work, or process that is attempting to be accomplished. its not absolutely lost energy.
you're confused.
something that is physically in motion at all times; doesn't have a definite form, nor does a mind have a definite form. there are forms that have minds, consciousness but that form isn't representative of consciousness, or physical.
i'm using the term loosely and in respect to theists too. atheists tend to be materialistic and generally do not like the term spiritual but do like the term mental.
if as an atheist you follow scientism, or want factual, verifiable evidence and not just belief, or thought, then the idea of the big bang and other cosmological theories proposes that the universe is eternal in some state of physical being.
I'm referring to entropy in the sense of the loss of order, not energy. The movement from order to disorder. The encroaching of chaos.
I guess even definitions are temporal.
I suspect so.
The threshold problem is 'What do you mean, 'mind', exactly?
Which usually leads to the obvious point that a real thing is real (has objective existence, is found in nature &c) and an 'immaterial' (or 'supernatural' or 'spiritual') thing is not real (has no objective existence, is not found in nature &c) and therefore can only be imaginary.
In other words, the idea of a real immaterial mind is incoherent.
After that come all the other usual questions, each ending with the one question, 'How do you know?' For a small sample, consider ─
─ What is the mind? What is it composed of? Where did it originate? How did it evolve? Do all living things have one?
─ What does the mind want a body for? What can the mind do that the brain can't, and vice versa?
─ How did the mind get from wherever it came from to the body? Why that body and not another?
─ What methods and resources does the mind employ in order to perceive reality, to think, feel, remember, reason?
─ How come the link between brain function and mind function is so all-encompassing? For instance, how come what fouls up brain function fouls up mind function? Foul-ups include fatigue, sleep deprivation, anoxia, genetics, trauma, disease, drugs and alcohol, stress, starvation, dehydration, and so on.
─ if the mind is immaterial then it's not affected by physical forces eg gravity. So how does the mind stay with its body as the body moves around the room, the room rotates with the earth, the earth orbits the sun, the sun moves with the circling galaxy, the galaxy moves relative to other galaxies &c?
If any dualist here can clear these points up (including 'how do you know?') I'd be interested to hear.
I agree more or less, with minor difference in understanding. In Vedanta, the spirit is Atman, which is pure consciousness of the intrinsic nature of knowledge.
The objects of consciousness comprise, first a non local universal mind and concurrently also an appearance of many minds. It is like many isolated whirlpools in a river or like many waves in an ocean. The water represents the non dual atman.
The mind is changeable. But the ability to discern (the Atman) is immutable and non dual.
The knower of Atman cannot be a separate entity from the Atman. But realisation of the non dual underlying truth that enables all discernment is possible for us because in truth we are that.
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Theism and atheism aren't belief systems. They're just the presence and absence of one particular belief.
No it isn't. A theist is a person who believes in the existence of one or more gods. That's it. There's no need for a theist to believe that "the spirit = mind is eternal".
No it isn't. An atheist can believe anything he wants about spirits and minds just as long as no gods are involved.
Howard Is
Lucky Mud
I don’t know how you could confirm that. This kind of reductionism is rarely correct.
There are certainly plenty of what I call ‘militant atheists’ on this forum, and I think your view may have been distorted by them.
Unfortunately the highly polarized atheist/theist confrontation has become a feature of modern life. This is particularly true in the US because of an ongoing struggle between the religious right who are committed to theocracy if they could swing it, and the liberals who are trying to maintain a division of church and state
Correct.
Correct.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
You know what bothers me immensly as both an atheist and a human?
The need of some people to want to put labels on people's foreheads and the almost obsessive need to describe everything in absolute "-isms".
"scientism", "materialism", ...
What nonsense.
"Scientism" especially is one of those words..... It's so empty and shallow.
Theism <> monism and atheism <> dualism.
dfnj
Well-Known Member
Atheism is not a belief system. The absence of something is NOT something. The absence of something IS nothing.
Our understanding of nature and ourselves is bounded by the limitations of our human language. Not many people study linguistics theory and just assume the words they are using mean a whole lot more than what they actually do.
There is a fascinating idea with regards to categories of dialectics called "Unity of opposites". The most basics of physical experience is the equation Time = mass - Energy. Without having opposites (mass and Energy) with some form of tension (the subtraction part of the equation) then you would not be able to experience time. All meaning in language comes from some form of a unity of opposites.
"This divine Logos, or law of the universe, centers around the idea of eternal flux, that things within the universe are constantly changing. Heraclitus explains this flux by examining the unity of opposites. It can be found that all things undergo transformations so that they may become their opposites. That which is hot will inevitably become cold. Every life is guaranteed death and with each death, there can be found new life."
Unity of opposites - Wikipedia
Here's a fantastic video on a lessons of non-duality:
Without duality you do not exist.
loss of order doesn't equate to loss of energy. my point was that energy is not temporal. order/disorder are qualitative and subjective. quantity isn't