What is objective?

[idav]

Sentient beings suffer either via metaphysical anxiety or physical pain.

There is no difference between mental and physical pain, mental pain is physical and real.

How do non-physical mind and consciousness originate from the physical?

Mind is physical. Same way water has properties that oxygen and hydrogen do not, emergence.

 

[godnotgod]

There is no difference between mental and physical pain, mental pain is physical and real.

Mind is physical. Same way water has properties that oxygen and hydrogen do not, emergence.

There is no difference in how the brain interprets pain, but on the physical side, there is indeed a difference. There may be nothing wrong at all.

What is the physical component of 'mind', as in time and space?

Your analogy is faulty. Water is physical. Mind is not. In your example, water does not 'emerge' in the same sense that those who say that consciousness 'emerges' from brain activity.

But can you answer my question: at which point does mind 'emerge' from the physical world of brain acitivity, and how?

'Emergent Theory' is not a bonafide scientific theory in the way science uses the word. It is nothing more than hypothesis, at this point.

 

[crossfire]

One is passionate because one thinks 'I' is real, the key to the subject/object split. Without 'I' there is no one who experiences passion. So in order to return to oneness with The Absolute Tao (ie; The Secret of Life), one 'strips oneself of passion'; that is to say, abandons the subject/object split.​

'Everchanging' is what you perceive as real; how it only seems to be, just as the monks perceived wind/flag movement as real, but which turned out to be moving mind. But even moving mind is an illusion. As one other monk put it:

"From brilliancy I came;
to brilliancy I return.
What, then, is all of this?"

You might find this tidbit interesting: the meaning/definition of saṅkhāra (aggregates)

Saṅkhāra is a Pali word, that is based on the Sanskrit word saṃskāra.[9] The latter word is not a Vedic Sanskrit term, but found extensively in classical and epic era Sanskrit in all Indian philosophies.[9][10][11] Saṃskāra is found in the Hindu Upanishads such as in verse 2.6 of Kau****aki Upanishad, 4.16.2–4 of Chandogya Upanishad, 6.3.1 of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad as well as mentioned by the ancient Indian scholar Panini and many others.[12] Saṅkhāra appears in the Buddhist Pitaka texts with a variety of meanings and contexts, somewhat different than the Upanishadic texts, particularly for anything to predicate impermanence.[12]

It is a complex concept, with no single-word English translation, that fuses "object and subject" as interdependent parts of each human's consciousness and epistemological process.[9] It connotes "impression, disposition, conditioning, forming, perfecting in one's mind, influencing one's sensory and conceptual faculty" as well as any "preparation, sacrament" that "impresses, disposes, influences or conditions" how one thinks, conceives or feels.

Saṅkhāra - Wikipedia
​

 

[idav]

What is the physical component of 'mind', as in time and space?

Entanglement.

Your analogy is faulty. Water is physical. Mind is not. In your example, water does not 'emerge' in the same sense that those who say that consciousness 'emerges' from brain activity.

That was the purpose of the analogy was to show you physical components not showing attributes of its parts, just like when you describe it also as an ocean and waves united as one.

But can you answer my question: at which point does mind 'emerge' from the physical world of brain acitivity, and how?

There is no specific point that I know of to say here is mind and here it isn't. Just like with the color spectrum frequencies there is no answer to when a color is officially different or when it is life and when it isn't. We can point to various organisms and say that is closer to life or awareness but it emerged through evolution .

'Emergent Theory' is not a bonafide scientific theory in the way science uses the word. It is nothing more than hypothesis, at this point.

Idealism is just a hypothesis also.

 

[RedDragon94]

So a bit of an open ended question what is objective?

Objectivity is the ability to examine or think about a topic without formulating an opinion. It requires knowledge but it also requires careful thinking.

 

[godnotgod]

You might find this tidbit interesting: the meaning/definition of saṅkhāra (aggregates)

Saṅkhāra is a Pali word, that is based on the Sanskrit word saṃskāra.[9] The latter word is not a Vedic Sanskrit term, but found extensively in classical and epic era Sanskrit in all Indian philosophies.[9][10][11] Saṃskāra is found in the Hindu Upanishads such as in verse 2.6 of Kau****aki Upanishad, 4.16.2–4 of Chandogya Upanishad, 6.3.1 of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad as well as mentioned by the ancient Indian scholar Panini and many others.[12] Saṅkhāra appears in the Buddhist Pitaka texts with a variety of meanings and contexts, somewhat different than the Upanishadic texts, particularly for anything to predicate impermanence.[12]

It is a complex concept, with no single-word English translation, that fuses "object and subject" as interdependent parts of each human's consciousness and epistemological process.[9] It connotes "impression, disposition, conditioning, forming, perfecting in one's mind, influencing one's sensory and conceptual faculty" as well as any "preparation, sacrament" that "impresses, disposes, influences or conditions" how one thinks, conceives or feels.

Saṅkhāra - Wikipedia
​

Yup! As Deepak Chopra put it:

"The spiritual experience is the merging of observer, the observed, and the entire process of observation into a single Reality"

As I understand it, there has been found a gene in the brain which 'wakes up' in this process.

 

[godnotgod]

Entanglement.

But entanglement is not a physical thing. You said the mind is physical.

That was the purpose of the analogy was to show you physical components not showing attributes of its parts, just like when you describe it also as an ocean and waves united as one.

The analogy is erroneous. Hydrogen and oxygen are physical forming physical water. I am asking how physical brain chemistry creates non-physical 'mind'.

There is no specific point that I know of to say here is mind and here it isn't. Just like with the color spectrum frequencies there is no answer to when a color is officially different or when it is life and when it isn't. We can point to various organisms and say that is closer to life or awareness but it emerged through evolution .

Yes, but in the case of brain chemistry and mind, we are going from one state to another. The hypothesis of emergence cannot show us a specific point of change nor a gradual one, from a physical state of brain chemistry to that of non-physical consciousness. This is quite different than color gradation and gradual evolution of species.

Idealism is just a hypothesis also.

Perhaps, but Emergent 'Theory' is offered up as 'theory' when it is not.

 

[David T]

Objectivity is the ability to examine or think about a topic without formulating an opinion. It requires knowledge but it also requires careful thinking.

Thats Exactly how it's defined. Its only a process of human thinking as defined. If its only a process of human thinking then it's just reductionism. If its just reductionism, it's valid in discussion of how a car engine works. We can stAnd outside know the entire structure and discuss. When we turn nature into a car engine we have big problems. In religion we have the car engine nature as a created by an engineer god, in science we have a car engine that follows "laws" of physics imposed upon it. We then can argue reductively, standing outside nature and argue reductively into a nested conversation that is infinitely large but self contained. It believes it's contained nature psychologically and has domesticated it and explained it, it has not.

 

[godnotgod]

Thats Exactly how it's defined. Its only a process of human thinking as defined. If its only a process of human thinking then it's just reductionism. If its just reductionism, it's valid in discussion of how a car engine works. We can stAnd outside know the entire structure and discuss. When we turn nature into a car engine we have big problems. In religion we have the car engine nature as a created by an engineer god, in science we have a car engine that follows "laws" of physics imposed upon it. We then can argue reductively, standing outside nature and argue reductively into a nested conversation that is infinitely large but self contained. It believes it's contained nature psychologically and has domesticated it and explained it, it has not.

There are two 'principles' that Reason inherited from theology: first is that the universe is governed by a set of laws. Reason, in breaking off from theology, simply eliminated the lawmaker, but kept the laws. Secondly, the notion that the universe is an artifact: a thing 'made', like a car engine, for example. And so the idea was/is that via disassembling the machine into its component 'parts', ie; 'reductionism', the whole can then be understood. This is a purely mechanical view of the Universe. But it is failing both on the micro and the macro scales of investigation. Michio Kaku, in attempting to find a mathematical solution to the unification of Relativity as applied to black holes , threw up his hands and exclaimed: "Physics is having a nervous breakdown; nature is smarter than we are."

 

[godnotgod]

I do not leave any thing out, but nonetheless they are conflicting 'subjective' religious beliefs, especially if any one view is egocentrically presented as fact



Yes, but it remains a 'subjective' experience of the mind only from my perspective.

As long as a notion of 'I' and self are maintained, that is indeed the case. But when the facade of 'I' and self are pierced, there is no longer any such subjectivity, nor objectivity. There is only the seeing of things as they are. What is called 'objectivity' is a mental construct which is directed only to the phenomenal world and its behavior and characteristics as a means of prediction. IOW, in terms of Tao, only to the manifestations, to outward appearances. This is perceptual reality, confined to the 5 senses and its extensions. It is not the fundamental Reality upon which the phenomenal world is based. To touch upon that, another kind of view is required, one that is beyond the senses.

 

[David T]

There are two 'principles' that Reason inherited from theology: first is that the universe is governed by a set of laws. Reason, in breaking off from theology, simply eliminated the lawmaker, but kept the laws. Secondly, the notion that the universe is an artifact: a thing 'made', like a car engine, for example. And so the idea was/is that via disassembling the machine into its component 'parts', ie; 'reductionism', the whole can then be understood. This is a purely mechanical view of the Universe. But it is failing both on the micro and the macro scales of investigation. Michio Kaku, in attempting to find a mathematical solution to the unification of Relativity as applied to black holes , threw up his hands and exclaimed: "Physics is having a nervous breakdown; nature is smarter than we are."

Amen. We tend to lose sight of reality (nature is bigger than us) and down the fantasy arguements we go. I posted on another thread" in order to understand God you have to understand nature, in order to understand nature you have to understand God. " that gets an equal push back from reductionists in religion as well as secularists. Its like talking to Ken ham in secular drag arrrgh. One harsh religion critic said he understood how nature worked even!!! I said " I never said HOW NATURE works like a car engine I said UNDERSTAND. By that I mean know your place. Arrogance, reductionism leads to absolute arrogance and it is recursive and is dangerous, it is bad religion and bad science in mutual agreement. And that to me is the supposed religion science conflict reductionism arguing with reductionism. Reductionism determined it understood God and then decided it no longer needed God. Ha what is nature?

 

[godnotgod]

Amen. We tend to lose sight of reality (nature is bigger than us) and down the fantasy arguements we go. I posted on another thread" in order to understand God you have to understand nature, in order to understand nature you have to understand God. " that gets an equal push back from reductionists in religion as well as secularists. Its like talking to Ken ham in secular drag arrrgh. One harsh religion critic said he understood how nature worked even!!! I said " I never said HOW NATURE works like a car engine I said UNDERSTAND. By that I mean know your place. Arrogance, reductionism leads to absolute arrogance and it is recursive and is dangerous, it is bad religion and bad science in mutual agreement. And that to me is the supposed religion science conflict reductionism arguing with reductionism. Reductionism determined it understood God and then decided it no longer needed God. Ha what is nature?

...and during all of this, no one was asking the question: 'who is it that is asking these questions and reducing reality to its 'component' parts?...Who...or what... is it that is making reality an object of observation when that which is doing so is not separate from that same reality, when the observer is none other than that which is being observed?' As the Hindus tell us: 'Tat tvam asi'....'Thou art That'.

 

[godnotgod]

...and during all of this, no one was asking the question: 'who is it that is asking these questions and reducing reality to its 'component' parts?...Who...or what... is it that is making reality an object of observation when that which is doing so is not separate from that same reality, when the observer is none other than that which is being observed?* As the Hindus tell us: 'Tat tvam asi'....'Thou art That'.

*To clarify: this does not refer to how things are manifested (form), but to what is manifesting them.

 

[Lucida Sidera]

Objectivity is an issue of power over the subjectivity of others.

 

[godnotgod]

Objectivity and Subjectivity

This story is a reminder about perspective and the difficulty of defining objectivity and subjectivity:

Chuang Tzu, a popular Taoist, was strolling across a bridge with Hui Tzu, the Confucian, when he observed,

“Look how the minnows dart hither and thither at will. Such is the pleasure fish enjoy.”

“You are not a fish,” responded Hui Tzu. “How do you know what gives pleasure to fish?”

“You are not I,” said Chuang Tzu. “How do you know I do not know what gives pleasure to fish?”

Zen Story: Objectivity and Subjectivity - Graceguts

 

[godnotgod]

Unifying Subjectivity and Objectivity

Abstract

The contribution of modern science to the progress of civilization is immeasurable. Even its tendency toward exclusive concentration on the objective world has had salutary effects of great value. Modern science has wiped away much that was merely superstitious or speculative. Its rejection of unfounded opinions and prejudices has helped the thinking mind question conventional beliefs, shed preferences and prejudices, and challenge established authority. But modern systems thinking inherited from natural science is the suppression of the subjective dimension of reality. Many complex systems are an attempt to define and represent all subjective experience in physical terms. The modern man has a bias towards objectivity. The powerful influence of sense impressions on his mind and thinking makes him ignore the subjective experience and consider only objective facts as a valid, legitimate and representation of reality. Observing objective factors that are physical is easier than observing subjective factors that are subtle. The mechanistic view of reality has led to the rejection of the role of the individual in social development as insignificant. The individuals determine the development of society. Their social power has its roots both in subjective factors and objective factors. Economy, politics, society, and culture are inseparable dimensions of a single integrated reality. Subject and object constitute an integrated whole. The mind sees them as separate and independent. Or it views one as completely subordinate to the other. Unbiased approach to the study of all human experiences may prove that subject and object are interdependent dimensions or elements of reality."

Unifying Subjectivity and Objectivity* | Cadmus Journal

So what does it mean, then, to 'see things as they are'? It simply means, as Deepak Chopra has said: '...the merging of the observer, the observed, and the entire process of observation into a single Reality.'