Re: the secret of the Pineal Gland

On Feb 9, 3:33 am, "Justin" <soupisgoodf...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 8, 8:34 pm, "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 7, 10:20 am, "Justin" <soupisgoodf...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 2, 7:49 am, "chazwin" <chazwy...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Yes, I've read "A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes
Imagination", and it mentions this false idea of the pineal gland
being the center of consciousness.
It's a very good book, BTW. It goes into a deep, methodical look about
how consciousness "arises" from the brain. The science behind it makes
a lot of sense, but like many scientists, he's pretty damn sure that
matter creates consciousness, and isn't open to the idea that what he
is seeing is consciousness interacting with matter.

DT> Good for him! The word 'consciousness' as a separate thing which
'interacts' with matter is an archaic idea that no serious philosopher
has held for hundreds of years, even though it was championed by
Descartes. The biggest problem is that the idea of something non-
physical 'interacting' with matter can't even get off the ground, as
if it interacts with matter, that makes it material and measurable.

Why? Electromagnetism didn't arise from matter, did it?

DT> No, electomagnetism IS matter, as I'm using the word. Perhaps you
mean something by 'matter' in a sense that was used a couple of
thousand years, and so we are mis-communicating. Magnetic fields,
elecromagnetic radiation, all of that is 'physical', if you prefer
that word, as opposed to the 'stuff' that God and angels and ghosts
and magic and so forth is made of. If you are saying that minds are
electromagnetic activity, that is perfectly fine with me -- it may not
be right, but it's a 'natural' explanation. Electromagnetism, being
physical, can operate on the physical.

The reason that almost no philosophers have tried to go for non-
physical explanations of mind is that its simply incoherent to try to
explain how something non-physical (and thus non-measurable, and
having no physical properties, such as a location in space-time) could
ever even in principle act on matter. A common response is "God works
in mysterious ways", or the Buddhist or Hindu version without the 'G'
word, but these are really just appeals to magic, which is "explaining
away" rather than "explaining" anything.

I'm claiming that the physical world is 'closed' to spooks. I may be
wrong, but such closure seems to fit the data better than a mind-body
dualism where something non-physical interacts upon the physical
universe in a spooky way.

--My Divine Grace Yabba Gandhabba Dukkha Dharmakaya Trollpa

"Still round the corner there may wait,
a new road or a secret gate."
-J.R.R. Tolkien

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