The word poetic
scot...@earthlink.net
positive meanings. The word seems to be related to surrealism in a
significant way. There is a reverence for the word here.
I find the word deeply disturbing. I do not like the word.
The word poetic may represent a point where my thinking departs in a
serious way from the thinking of others who are interested in
surrealism. It may separate me in a very significant way from whatever
it is that surrealism is.
On the other hand my prejudices against the word may be so great that
I am unable to clearly understand the meaning implied in other
peoples use of the word. I may loose track of the other person's
meaning when I come into contact with the word.
I would be interested in seeing a discussion of the word poetic here.
What does the word really mean to people? What does the word mean
when it is used in association with surrealism?
To me the word as it is used seems to signify an elevation of that
part of the human body/mind that is most associated with language
skills to a position superior and more respected than other specific
aspects of the human body/mind... a position superior and more
respected than even the larger gestalt of the human body/ mind. In
this I find the word insulting to my totality. Intuitively I sense
that any respect I give the word may be potentially injurious to
whatever potential I have to interact as fully as possible with myself
and the environment.
In my mind the word as it is used seems to be a kind of secular
replacement for the word --spiritual-- and presents me with the same
difficulties the word spiritual does. (In noting this I should add
that I read recently there is some evidence that "spirituality" and
"religiousness" seem to be associated with specific areas of the
brain.)
barrett john erickson
The poetic experience is not confined to the expressive channels we
construct. It is not the output but the input of the imagination. It is a
dimension of the marvelous just beyond the reach of reason, of the
revelations just behind our studied postures.
We might encounter the poetic dimension in our dérive through the waking
dream, on the passionate playgrounds of arousal, in the harmony of white
noise, behind the prism which recombines the rainbow, with the nitrous oxide
that preserves the aromas of orgasm, in a cuisine of absent lovers and the
caress of a distant galaxy.
The poetic is a dimension of reality as revealed by the imagination, the
dimension denied by "pragmatists" and "realists" and corrupted by
"believers" and "mystics". It is the dimension of metaphor, the dimension
of embedded living, the dimension that spices all sensual experience, the
dimension on which all meaning is found or avoided.
[end excerpt]
note that what i am talking about here is the imagination as _another_
sense, fully integrated -- the sense which continuously explores the
interconnections and relations between what we normally perceive as distinct
elements of our reality-as-experienced.
-- barrett
bar...@MagneticFields.org
http://www.MagneticFields.org/
"Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of
the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and
future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be
perceived as contradictions."
...André Breton
scot...@earthlink.net
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I still do not like the word
poetic. However I love and feel affinity to the word as you define
it.
On the back of a paperback copy of Nadja I find: "Born in France in
1896, Breton came to be known as the leader of the Surrealist movement
in literature, and is still so regarded today."
The following is a post I originally was going to put in a different
thread. I think It will go here.
On Fri, 5 Mar 1999 18:47:27 -0600, "barrett john erickson"
<bar...@magneticfields.org>
wrote:
>Perceptor wrote in message <36E04870...@optonline.net>...
>>>
>>
>>Hi Barrett
>>
>>Your point is taken and now I would like to know if there is
>>a site that is surreal,
>
>concisely put: no.
>
>"surreal" is not a characteristic which can be found in things (physical or
>cyber).
>
>
>> or if there is a site with with surrealist content that you would reommend for
>>excellence ?
>
>[i use the term "surrealist content" in the sense that the content reflects
>the activities of surrealists.]
>
>visit:
>
>http://www.execpc.com/~bogartte/links2.html
>
>and take your pick.
>
One of the links found there leads to a page by Johannes Bergmark
titled:
Butoh - Revolt of the Flesh in Japan and a Surrealist Way to Move
the address is:
http://www.flashback.net/~bergmark/butoh.html
The Page notes: "The word butoh, which means "dance step",
has the air of a descending, stomping dance." It quotes Tatsumi
Hijikata as saying, "I would never jump or leave the ground; it is on
the ground that I dance." It describes the objective of another
dancer, Min Tanaka, as being to "express the subconscious of his
muscles, the memory of his cells."
Bergmark says, "...I see surrealism as part of butoh and I see butoh
as part of surrealism."
I'm not sure I have much understand of Butoh. I'm not sure I trust
what I read. But, I enjoyed Bergmark's article, and tend to think
(and want to think) Bergmark is correct in linking butoh and
surrealism.
It is easy to come to love language. I think the body, dirt, rocks,
and ants should be loved. Odors should be loved. Language should be
viewed with suspicion.
Language is a seductive sticky trap that subtly but inescapably ties
the user to the mechanics of the culture the language is attached to.
This is true even when language is used within an attempt at total
revolt.
Language helps a human being become a machined facsimile of an ant...
a degraded, undignified ant. Ants are beautiful beings. Humans are
beautiful beings.
Language as text sticks the user to the mechanics of the culture more
completely than does language as it is spoken.
I want my ties to the human culture to be through the flush of skin,
vocal tone, dilatation of the pupil, animal smells.. and I want my
own sweat and the ache of my muscles and tendons to be part of it.
.
Sometimes I think that surrealism hates and aims to kill the human
body and the physical world .....as completely as the church had
hated and wanted to kill the human body and the physical world.
Surrealism now is bits and byes of text flowing electronically around
the world making strange connections in cascades and trolls...
Or so I read here sometimes.
and there is no scent... and I can not even tear a bit of paper
attached to the text and put it in my mouth.
A piece of newspaper on my tongue feels like the communion wafer I
was given when I was seven years old.... and then I taste a bit of
the chemistry... and I can play with the paper with my teeth and
tongue and invent a small mocking weapon that is attached to my
spit.... and every book I pick up is attached to small scents left
by the physical touch of other human beings that i know without
knowing it.
Surrealism does not hate the physical world or want to kill the human
body.
I think Surrealism like butoh dance involves a recognition that at the
center of everything, life demands that it feel and grab and create
itself in acts of interaction with physical world ... and that the
points of connection be as complete and direct as life can manage.
Sometimes I fault Surrealism for the fact that the early collaborators
were mostly poets and writers. I wish there would have been
continents of athletes and dancers with them stirring the pot.
the following quote from Bergmark's web page is from the butoh dancer
Susanna Akerlund:
"Butoh has always existed. The dancer takes form from the environment.
The stone and the wind are out teachers, the flies and the birch-tree
our dance-partners, the grove and the dunghill our dance-floor, the
autumn leaves and the cows are our audience. (...)
When I dance my hands are not hands, my face not face, my feet not
feet. My body is part of the environment. The space inside of me and
the space around me are one and the same. When the space around me is
changed (for life is change) my body is changed as well.
Look at the palm of your hand. The eyes see the palm of a hand. Look
at the palm of your hand with your soul and you can see also the upper
side of the hand. The butoh dancer puts eyes on each part of his
body, on the back of the head, on the forehead, elbows, between the
toes, in the rearmost tier of the theatre we put eyes and under the
floor and behind....
The stone exists (or do you doubt?). Whatever I and you say, it
stands there in thousands of years, and the moss on the stone, cracks
and cavities, the ants crawling around. The light of the sun hits the
surface, the shadow of the stone. Everything exists.
That is butoh."
Dale Houstman
scot...@earthlink.net wrote:
> Thank you for your thoughtful response. I still do not like the word
> poetic. However I love and feel affinity to the word as you define
> it.
Oh well, you can name the ugly baby anything you like, since you're
the parent! Beatrice. Lorelei. Lucifer. All nice names. But please
not "Heather" or "Jason."
I think what Barret meant by saying there is no "surrealist" site is
that surrealism cannot be "bound" in physical form. We may only have
affinities for it. I know little of butoh but what few articles I have read
but would have to agree it has "surrealistic content" both in its Baudelairean
mixture of the strange and beautiful and in its critical/confrontational
approach toward societal claims. It is a graceful weapon.
Much of what you begin to say about language is true, but all the more
reason to free it from its staid stays. I think a "love" of language (like
love in any context) does precisely that, in freeing both the subject
and the object to be both at the same time.
Language and the surreal (or poetic) use of language pre-dates all
the societal evils we have become so used to. And if language can
be used as a weapon against the human, so can those "rocks" we
should also love. Anything can be used by any enemy you might
imagine. So do we avoid the confrontation and cede the field to
the philistines and fugers? I do not think so. The challenge in language
is to reclaim it again and again. Language is the highest human
achievement, and the basis of most others. To avoid it because
it can be mis-used is to surrender before the struggle is lost.
Rimbaud was not an ant. Shakespeare not an ant. Lewis Carroll
not an ant. Artaud not an ant. Etc.
As for the body and the surrealist attitude toward it, I must say
your understanding here goes astray: the Surrealists celebrate
the physical world of the marvelous (as opposed to the spiritual
labyrinth of mystery) and opposes the barriers against the
completion of desire. How is this then a stricture comparable to
the church?
>and there is no scent... and I can not even tear a bit of paper
attached to the text and put it in my mouth.<
Oxygen also has no scent, yet it pervades and supports your world
of ants and rocks. Light has no scent and yet it reveals your ants
and rocks.
>Sometimes I fault Surrealism for the fact that the early collaborators
were mostly poets and writers. I wish there would have been
continents of athletes and dancers with them stirring the pot.<
Interesting. One of the earliest surrealists was a boxer. Does that count?
Breton was a medical man. Artaud an actor. Picabia was rich and
owned a sportscar that he installed in a tower so he could drive it
around and around the parapet. Peret fought in the Spanish
Civil War. Man Ray designed covers for fashion magazines. Etc.
I don't know about dancers... anyone?
Enough. Intriguing letter.
DMH
Brandon J. Freels
>Sometimes I think that surrealism hates and aims to kill the human
>body and the physical world .....as completely as the church had
>hated and wanted to kill the human body and the physical world.
Brandon:
Were the Parisian Surrealists not materialists, and does materialism not
believed the mind and the body to be one?
I believe the freedom of the mind will be simultaneous with the freedom of
the body. Although I have not investigated this idea I think it deserves
some attention. Any suggestions or comments?
PK
> Were the Parisian Surrealists not materialists, and does materialism not
> believed the mind and the body to be one?
>
> I believe the freedom of the mind will be simultaneous with the freedom of
> the body. Although I have not investigated this idea I think it deserves
> some attention. Any suggestions or comments?
Perhaps you could ask some political prisoners whether this was
true or not.
#Paul.
hap...@my-dejanews.com
"Brandon J. Freels" <Fre...@ethergate.com> wrote:
> scot...@earthlink.net wrote
> >Sometimes I think that surrealism hates and aims to kill the human
> >body and the physical world .....as completely as the church had
> >hated and wanted to kill the human body and the physical world.
>
> Were the Parisian Surrealists not materialists, and does materialism not
> believed the mind and the body to be one?
The mind controls the body.
> I believe the freedom of the mind will be simultaneous with the freedom of
> the body.
Perhaps, but the mind in most cases, is enslaved by the body.
> Although I have not investigated this idea I think it deserves
> some attention. Any suggestions or comments?
If my brain was wired correctly, I could stand to lose a finger
and grow one back in its place. If the body was controlled by
the mind there would be no disease. Materialism is a disease
of the body. It is simply one aspect of maya. Materialism is
the manifestation of self-doubt and replaces knowledge of the mind
with objects of knowledge. Materialism creates boundaries and encourages
mental slavery. If the mind were truly harnessed there might not
be a need for a body, and therefore no need for materialism.
HapLoid
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Dale Houstman
> The mind controls the body.
It is not this simple at all; a sick body will drag down the "mind"
(which is just a function of physical interaction at some high level),
and a very sick body will kill the mind. If mind controlled body,
we could will ourselves into immortality, or a myriad of other
magical tricks.
And to say the mind is "enslaved" by the body is too easy also;
though our imagination may be stymied by the physical limitations
of the body, the mind is not a separate entity in the way a slave
is to a slaver. A slave dies and the slaver goes on. A body dies
and the mind dies simulataneously. To say otherwise is to delve into
mysticism.
> If the body was controlled by the mind there would be no disease.
But you said that the mind DID control the body?
> Materialism is a disease of the body.
Materialism is the belief in the body.
> Maya.
Maya is magical bullshit which wishes to deny man's senses
in service to prolonged miserablism.
> Materialism is the manifestation of self-doubt and replaces knowledge of the
> mind
> with objects of knowledge.
Knowledge of the material world, unencumbered by desire-denial
and "pie in the sky" spiritualisms is sufficient knowledge.
> Materialism creates boundaries and encourages mental slavery.
Unlike the grand history of spiritualism? To always believe that
what we can see and touch is "maya" is to deny each human being
personal access to the world, and to create that endless parade of
"wise men" "priests" "shamans" and so on that have so badly interpreted
the universe for man. These "go-betweens" are parasites on human
sensibility.
> If the mind were truly harnessed there might not be a need for
> a body, and therefore no need for materialism.
Total sci-fi nonsense: the mind is a function of the body; there
is no essential separation in man's existence. We have not fallen
from some pastoral or unified grace.
DMH
Brandon J. Freels
>The mind controls the body.
Brandon:
How does this happen? If the mind is not a material substance how is the
interaction between mind and body possible? Please explain the interaction
between the immaterial and the material.
My view is that not only is the existence of the immaterial metaphysical and
therefor impossible, but proving that it would have any effect on the
material world is an even more impossible.
If we accept the mind as material then the interaction of mind and body is
possible, and through empirical means we can see the cause and effect
relationship between material objects.
---BJF
Brandon J. Freels
>If my brain was wired correctly, I could stand to lose a finger
>and grow one back in its place.
Brandon:
I think you are confused here.
Notice this:
If the "body" was wired correctly you could stand to lose a finger and grow
one back in its place.
Now possibly you will see that there is no difference between the body and
the mind. Our senses come from both the body and the mind and therefor the
body and the mind are one thing and not two separate functioning things. The
problem seems to be this idealistic division which is impossible for an
immaterial object can never effect a material object, and if the body is
material and the mind is immaterial, as you suggest, then the connection
between the two is impossible. Unless you are saying that they are both
idealistic for then a connection is possible, but not needed.
scot...@earthlink.net
> Materialism is a disease
>of the body.
In June of 1885 next to his lye pit on the outskirts of Dodge City
Kansas a mule skinner doused himself with turpentine and set
himself on fire. There were three witnesses to the suicide. They
all reported that around noon the man had become agitated. He
began shouting nonsense about the loss of his shadow and how
he had no wish to become a God.
----
I personally have no wish to go to heaven.
hap...@my-dejanews.com
Dale Houstman <dale.h...@gte.net> wrote:
> hap...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
> > The mind controls the body.
>
Yes, it is.
> a sick body will drag down the "mind"
> (which is just a function of physical interaction at some high level),
The point is to control the body with the mind.
> and a very sick body will kill the mind.
No. Art has been an effective transmission medium for mind.
You cannot kill mind. You can only limit its growth.
> If mind controlled body,
> we could will ourselves into immortality, or a myriad of other
> magical tricks.
Actually, you're on target this time. With the death of Kubrick
at hand, I'm suprised you've forgotten the rule of Clarke's law.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology
will be indistinguishable from magic."
> And to say the mind is "enslaved" by the body is too easy also;
> though our imagination may be stymied by the physical limitations
> of the body, the mind is not a separate entity in the way a slave
> is to a slaver. A slave dies and the slaver goes on. A body dies
> and the mind dies simulataneously. To say otherwise is to delve into
> mysticism.
The mind can propagate ideas. Memes are the children of the mind.
> > If the body was controlled by the mind there would be no disease.
>
> But you said that the mind DID control the body?
Yes. But do you know how to do it?
> > Materialism is a disease of the body.
>
> Materialism is the belief in the body.
...Over and above the qualities and quantity of the mind.
> > Maya.
>
> Maya is magical bullshit which wishes to deny man's senses
> in service to prolonged miserablism.
You're wrong. Maya is real. Take television and cinema, for example.
They are based on optical illusions that the mind perceives as
a a fluid continuity when in reality they are made up of single frames.
> > Materialism is the manifestation of self-doubt and replaces knowledge of
the
> > mind
> > with objects of knowledge.
>
> Knowledge of the material world, unencumbered by desire-denial
> and "pie in the sky" spiritualisms is sufficient knowledge.
You don't get it. The material world is not really material. It
just appears that way to you.
> > Materialism creates boundaries and encourages mental slavery.
>
> Unlike the grand history of spiritualism?
I am arguing for mind not spiritualism. Do you enjoy fighting
strawmen?
> To always believe that
> what we can see and touch is "maya" is to deny each human being
> personal access to the world, and to create that endless parade of
> "wise men" "priests" "shamans" and so on that have so badly interpreted
> the universe for man.
It is illusion simply because the mind reconstructs reality from
the senses.
> These "go-betweens" are parasites on human
> sensibility.
We are the go-betweens.
> > If the mind were truly harnessed there might not be a need for
> > a body, and therefore no need for materialism.
>
> Total sci-fi nonsense:
Your claptrap? I agree.
> the mind is a function of the body; there
> is no essential separation in man's existence.
I wasn't arguing that there was. You seem to be. I argued that
the mind controls the body. You seem to have a problem with reality.
Oh, this is alt.surrealism, I'm sorry.
>We have not fallen
> from some pastoral or unified grace.
Who said we did? Are you a fundamentalist surrealist?
Brandon J. Freels
>The point is to control the body with the mind.
Brandon:
Where did you get this idea? And if the mind controls the body then how does
the body imprison the mind if the body is subservient to the mind?
>No. Art has been an effective transmission medium for mind.
>You cannot kill mind. You can only limit its growth.
Brandon:
This does not dispute what Dale said. Besides, your definition of the mind
as that which controls the body proves that without the body the mind is
meaningless, and that the body without the mind is also meaningless, which
leads me to my conclusion that the two are one in the same.
>"Any sufficiently advanced technology
>will be indistinguishable from magic."
Brandon:
Bringing magic into this will only complicate matters. How about this: any
sufficiently "produced deception" will be indistinguishable from magic.
>...Over and above the qualities and quantity of the mind.
Brandon:
No, the mind and the body are the same so the qualities and quantities are
the same.
>You don't get it. The material world is not really material. It
>just appears that way to you.
Brandon:
You don't get it. Any discussion of a world beyond experience, a
metaphysical existence, is meaningless for it is not varifiable and can only
be taken by faith. I suggest you read A.J. Ayer.
>It is illusion simply because the mind reconstructs reality from
>the senses. We are the go-betweens.
Brandon:
So you are assuming that there is a material world in itself (something like
Kant's naumuna), but that we cannot be aware of it, and translate it as
"reality"? The problem with this idea is that you are talking about
something you have no knowledge of. Like the unconscious it is impossible,
by definition, to know if this other world exists, rendering it meaningless.
To know this other world is impossible, even through illusions, yet you talk
about it as if you know it.
>I argued that the mind controls the body.
Brandon:
You have not been paying attention to your own worlds. In the beginning of
this discussion you stated that the body imprisons the mind, but here you
are contradicting yourself by saying that the mind controls the body, so are
you saying that the mind imprisons itself?
Dale Houstman
haploid wrote:
> The mind controls the body.
>
I wrote:
> It is not this simple at all;
haploid wrote:
> Yes, it is.
Well, that sort of reply proves that there's something simple
around here. This isn't rhetoric, it's religious pretension, and
words from on high. Nobody with a mind will care...
DMH
Dale Houstman
It may be useless to discuss any subject beyond breakfast with
this haploid; and even that could turn into a discussion about
how the eggs are only tulpa stones.
This is the pure self-deluding disintergration of rhetoric which is
necessary to protect the religious mind from revelation. Its
sewer system of interlocking tautologies and self-important
proclamations disguised as "wisdom" are almost impenetrable.
It hates language (as this one has so distinctly declared) and
reveres only the sight of its own ass floating before it like the
face of "a world without substance".
One hates to say it, but: lost cause...
DMH
Ktzoah of Pic
>>If my brain was wired correctly, I could stand to lose a finger
>>and grow one back in its place.
>
> Brandon:
> I think you are confused here.
>
> Notice this:
> If the "body" was wired correctly you could stand to lose a finger and grow
> one back in its place.
Maybe if his body's wired correctly, he could stand to lose a mind and
grow one back in its place.
> Now possibly you will see that there is no difference between the body and
> the mind. Our senses come from both the body and the mind and therefor the
> body and the mind are one thing and not two separate functioning things. The
> problem seems to be this idealistic division which is impossible for an
> immaterial object can never effect a material object, and if the body is
> material and the mind is immaterial, as you suggest, then the connection
> between the two is impossible. Unless you are saying that they are both
> idealistic for then a connection is possible, but not needed.
In a way, "mind" is just another word for "information". Pretending
that the patterns of information have some kind of existance outside
their physical embodyment is what leads to dualism.
_
Brandon J. Freels
>Maybe if his body's wired correctly, he could stand to lose a mind and
>grow one back in its place.
Brandon:
Yes, and maybe we should ask him what that mind might "look" like if it were
to grow back.
Brandon J. Freels
>The mind controls the body. That is a fact.
Brandon:
I would like to see some proof of this.
Brandon J. Freels
>The mind controlls the body. That is a fact baced by biopsychological
>and biophysical evidence, not a belief.
Brandon:
There is no proof of the mind's existence so how can you make any scientific
statements about it. The mind is only a metaphysical construct.
Brandon J. Freels
hap...@my-dejanews.com wrote
>I didn't "get it" anywhere. I "do" it.
How do you know, assuming you have both a mind and a body, that the body is
not controlling the mind to think that it is controlling the body?
>Another strawman. I never defined mind because mind cannot be
>adequately defined at this time.
Brandon:
Of course you cannot "adequately" define the mind, and you will never be
able to for it is a metaphysical construct, but you attempted to define it
pure and simple.
>The mind does not require the body.
Brandon:
Prove this.
>> >I argued that the mind controls the body.
>The mind controls the body. Yes, it is that simple.
Brandon:
Prove this.
Jody Brewster
The brain is a filter, filtering out all of the information that is
unecessary. The brain doesn't control any bodily actions. It's a sponge,
that's it.
Everything gets sucked into it from our five senses. It's all this stimuli
and force, that makes us perceive that the brain is functioning on it's own
and controlling the body. Everything that makes us tick comes from the
particles of energy that are found throughout our environment, internal
and external. So the next time you decide to type unecessary information
in this newsgroup, we forgive you cause it wasn't your fault.
I'm going to filter what you state now....
Thanks,
Jody Brewster
-----------------
The International Massurrealist Society
http://www.massurrealism.com
The Space
http://www.thespace.org
The Free Art Project Database
(currently looking for artists to join)
http://fap.thespace.org
Brandon J. Freels
>Perhaps, but the mind in most cases, is enslaved by the body.
Brandon:
You stupid fuck. Here is where you said it.
Brandon J. Freels
>I have stated scientific facts. I can back up everything I've
>said with current peer-reviewed literature. The fact that you've
>challenged me to do so demonstrates your ignorace.
Brandon:
Where are these scientific facts? All I've read from you is bullshit lies
and nonsense metaphysics. And our call for evidence is somesort of
demonstration of our ignorance? Why should we trust you? Why should we
believe your words without evidence?
Brandon J. Freels
hap...@my-dejanews.com wrote
>If my mind was wired correctly, I could choose to embrace a human body,
>an artificial body, no body, etc...
Brandon:
Why are you assuming that your mind isn't "wired correctly?"
>I said the mind controlls the body. You are trying to determine whether
>or not there is a difference, not me.
Brandon:
I am trying to show you that the body and the mind are the same, for I have
already "determined" that they are. If they are the same, then to state that
the mind controls the body is meaningless, like much of your comments.
>No. Mind came from body and now mind has evolved beyond body. That is
>a fact. In less than 30 years I will be able to hold a chip in the palm
>of my hand that thinks ten million times faster than your brain.
Brandon:
So now you can see the future? What is your proof that the mind came from
the body? There is no need for the mind to "come" from the body for the two
are the same.
>No. I've suggested that the mind has outrgrown the body.
Brandon:
How do you measure this growth?
>Indeed, there will be dualism. If I decided to upload my mind to a
>computer, then yes there will be two minds and two "bodies".
Brandon:
If you upload you mind (i.e. information) onto a computer there will not be
two minds, but a replica of information that will lack any performance that
hasn't already been produced by the body. As for dualism, that is only a
priest's wet dream.
Brandon J. Freels
>The brain is a filter [etc...]
Brandon:
I agree, but it should be pointed out that the "mind" and the "brain" are
distinctly different according to most "dualists". In my opinion the mind
(or the brain) is just another organ, but in a dualists opinion the brain is
somesort of connection between the immaterial mind and material body.
hap...@my-dejanews.com
>
> How does this happen?
By choice.
> If the mind is not a material substance how is the
> interaction between mind and body possible?
I never said the mind wasn't material. I said that materialism
was a disease of the body.
> Please explain the interaction
> between the immaterial and the material.
You're confused.
> My view is that not only is the existence of the immaterial metaphysical and
> therefor impossible,
I'm not talking metaphysics. I'm talking computer science. You've brought
all these issues into this. Do you always project yourself into a thread
like this?
> but proving that it would have any effect on the
> material world is an even more impossible.
I have no idea what you're going on about here.
> If we accept the mind as material then the interaction of mind and body is
> possible, and through empirical means we can see the cause and effect
> relationship between material objects.
You can state whatever proposition you want, but the mind still has the
ability to control the body. That is a scientific fact, not a religious
statement. For some reason you've been talking about religion, so I
can only assume you hold religious beliefs of some kind or another. They
are irrelevant to this thread.
The mind controls the body. That is a fact. There are no religious
beliefs here and there are no contradictions.
You and your nyms are confused by reality.
hap...@my-dejanews.com
Dale Houstman <dale.h...@gte.net> wrote:
> >
>
> haploid wrote:
>
> > The mind controls the body.
> >
>
>
> > It is not this simple at all;
>
> haploid wrote:
>
> > Yes, it is.
>
> Well, that sort of reply proves that there's something simple
> around here.
You, perhaps? The mind controlls the body. That is a simple
scientific fact. I find it amusing that you treat it as a religious
belief. Are you always this confused?
> This isn't rhetoric, it's religious pretension, and
> words from on high. Nobody with a mind will care...
So, you care!
You're obviously obsessed with religious beliefs for some
reason or another? Why, do you embrace them?
The mind controlls the body. That is a fact baced by biopsychological
and biophysical evidence, not a belief.
Get a clue.
hap...@my-dejanews.com
> >The point is to control the body with the mind.
>
> Brandon:
> Where did you get this idea?
I didn't "get it" anywhere. I "do" it.
> And if the mind controls the body then how does
> the body imprison the mind if the body is subservient to the mind?
Control does not imply "imprisonment" nor does it imply subservience.
One can choose to be controlled by anger or control anger. One could
choose to control love or be controlled by love. It is not a sub-dom
thingy. You are consumed by oppositional thinking. You're so confused
you don't know what to think.
> >No. Art has been an effective transmission medium for mind.
> >You cannot kill mind. You can only limit its growth.
>
> Brandon:
> This does not dispute what Dale said.
I dispute everything you and Dale say. Wholeheartedly.
> Besides, your definition of the mind
Another strawman. I never defined mind because mind cannot be
adequately defined at this time. Within the next thirty years, however,
I predict that a definition will not only emerge, but will be
led by technological growth and the emergence of new biospychological
models of the mind. Eventually, machine intelligence will define
what mind is because we will have surpassed the clunky interface
of the human brain.
> as that which controls the body proves that without the body the mind is
> meaningless, and that the body without the mind is also meaningless, which
> leads me to my conclusion that the two are one in the same.
The mind does not require the body.
> >"Any sufficiently advanced technology
> >will be indistinguishable from magic."
>
> Brandon:
> Bringing magic into this will only complicate matters. How about this: any
> sufficiently "produced deception" will be indistinguishable from magic.
You don't get it.
> >...Over and above the qualities and quantity of the mind.
>
> Brandon:
> No, the mind and the body are the same so the qualities and quantities are
> the same.
The mind came from the body. And with the development of AI, it shall
leave the body.
> >You don't get it. The material world is not really material. It
> >just appears that way to you.
>
> Brandon:
> You don't get it. Any discussion of a world beyond experience,
The mind controlls the body. I know this from experience. You are daft.
> a
> metaphysical existence, is meaningless for it is not varifiable and can only
> be taken by faith. I suggest you read A.J. Ayer.
There is no faith, here. I suggest you read, period.
> >It is illusion simply because the mind reconstructs reality from
> >the senses. We are the go-betweens.
>
> Brandon:
> So you are assuming that there is a material world in itself (something like
> Kant's naumuna), but that we cannot be aware of it, and translate it as
> "reality"?
No. I never assumed anything. You did.
> The problem with this idea is that you are talking about
> something you have no knowledge of.
There he goes, knocking down the old strawman.
> Like the unconscious it is impossible,
> by definition, to know if this other world exists, rendering it meaningless.
Here he goes debating with his strawman.
> To know this other world is impossible, even through illusions, yet you talk
> about it as if you know it.
Are you talking to me or your strawman?
> >I argued that the mind controls the body.
>
> Brandon:
> You have not been paying attention to your own worlds.
You have not been paying attention to my argument.
The mind controls the body. Yes, it is that simple.
> In the beginning of
> this discussion you stated that the body imprisons the mind,
I challenge you to demonstrate where I have *ever* said that.
You have created your own personal, pet strawman to debate with.
Are you a machine? Are you having difficulty understanding the
English language?
> but here you
> are contradicting yourself by saying that the mind controls the body, so are
> you saying that the mind imprisons itself?
No. I'm saying, you're imprisioned by your slow inefficient mind.
hap...@my-dejanews.com
> >
> > Brandon:
> >
> > Notice this:
> > one back in its place.
>
> Maybe if his body's wired correctly, he could stand to lose a mind and
> grow one back in its place.
If my mind was wired correctly, I could choose to embrace a human body,
an artificial body, no body, etc...
> > Now possibly you will see that there is no difference between the body and
> > the mind.
I said the mind controlls the body. You are trying to determine whether
or not there is a difference, not me.
> > Our senses come from both the body and the mind and therefor the
> > body and the mind are one thing and not two separate functioning things. The
No. Mind came from body and now mind has evolved beyond body. That is
a fact. In less than 30 years I will be able to hold a chip in the palm
of my hand that thinks ten million times faster than your brain. Your
mind has already evolved beyond a physical body by the fact that the
technological mind has overtaken the biological mind and has surpassed
its necessity.
> > problem seems to be this idealistic division which is impossible for an
> > immaterial object can never effect a material object, and if the body is
> > material and the mind is immaterial, as you suggest,
No. I've suggested that the mind has outrgrown the body.
> > then the connection
> > between the two is impossible. Unless you are saying that they are both
> > idealistic for then a connection is possible, but not needed.
>
> In a way, "mind" is just another word for "information". Pretending
> that the patterns of information have some kind of existance outside
> their physical embodyment is what leads to dualism.
Indeed, there will be dualism. If I decided to upload my mind to a
computer, then yes there will be two minds and two "bodies".
Deal with it.
hap...@my-dejanews.com
Dale Houstman <dale.h...@gte.net> wrote:
> Brandon,
>
> It may be useless to discuss any subject beyond breakfast with
> this haploid; and even that could turn into a discussion about
> how the eggs are only tulpa stones.
How could one discuss anything with you? What a joke!
> This is the pure self-deluding disintergration of rhetoric which is
> necessary to protect the religious mind from revelation.
There you go again. You mistakenly project your own deeply religious
argument onto me. You have created your deeply religious metaphysical
strawman. I hope the two of you have fun together.
> Its
> sewer system of interlocking tautologies and self-important
> proclamations disguised as "wisdom" are almost impenetrable.
I have stated scientific facts. I can back up everything I've
said with current peer-reviewed literature. The fact that you've
challenged me to do so demonstrates your ignorace.
> It hates language (as this one has so distinctly declared) and
> reveres only the sight of its own ass floating before it like the
> face of "a world without substance".
>
> One hates to say it, but: lost cause...
>
> DMH
Yes, I suppose civilized discussion is a lost cause with someone
so stubborn and hard-headed. Continue to read whatever you want to
read into my argument. I feel sorry with someone so pig-headedly
stupid and unwilling to reflect on the known physical reality of the
mind.
The mind controls the body. That is a fact.
Dale Houstman
I think to state baldly that the brain is "just" a filter is to go just that
little bit too far that get our "feets stuck in our mouths." If it is just
a filter, it is one of such a higher degree than say a collander that it
it becomes a different thing altogether. The brain is essential to what
is human in a way that no other filter is essential to the existence of
what its container is. This is not to be metaphysical. If we are to
say the brain is a filter, then we have to remove the evil dualism
entirely and say that the entire body (including the brain) is a filter
of inchoate energies. But since energy and matter are equivlaencies
matter appears to filter itself. I think this is utterly more complex
(without becoming mystical) than pure "filterism." It comes down
to the complex but poetic self-regulations of evolution taken to
the level of physics, where each particle attempts to "diversify"
and to fill available niches until complex systems are wrought.
Or words to that efffect...
Dualism is one of the great evils of the world; it reduces the
multitude to drivel and disallows us access to the unitary. "A
priest's wet dream" indeed. And a nightmare for the rest of us.
DMH
Dale Houstman
Jody Brewster wrote:
> I can't stand it anymore, AHAAAAHAAAHHHHH!!!!!
Weak, aren't we?
I would be happy to remove your brain so you could flit about
in your energy meadow without restraint. Free at last! Free at last!
Thank Ion, we are free at last!
DMH
barrett john erickson
Jody Brewster wrote in message <36E897BF...@gate.net>...
>The brain is a filter, filtering out all of the information that is
>unecessary. The brain doesn't control any bodily actions. It's a sponge,
>that's it.
perhaps this is a clue to the curiously benign and passive objectification
the "massurrealists" seem to mistake for "surrealism":
from the Massurealism site:
<<<
What is Surrealism?
Surrealism is art that is much like your dreams. Surrealism is fantasy,
world of dreams, (such as paintings by Giorgio de Chirico) and/or off-beat,
odd images. Some surrealist art is mysterious or scary, like fantasy
pictures taken from children's books, or the feeling like you are on your
own episode of the Twilight Zone. Some surrealist art also uses symbolism,
or warps an object in some way, like Salvadore Dali's paintings of a strange
world. Paintings by Rene Magritte also had an-off beat oddness in them.
>>>
-- barrett
bar...@MagneticFields.org
http://www.MagneticFields.org/
"Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of
the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and
future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be
perceived as contradictions."
...André Breton
barrett john erickson
hap...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
<7ca0s2$aqd$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>I have stated scientific facts. I can back up everything I've
>said with current peer-reviewed literature.
do it. offer you supporting documentation so the validity of your claim can
be examined.
[but when you say "peer-reviewed", i hope you understand that we expect an
argument from, and supported by cognitive scientists _of recent vintage_,
not fellow trollers with disconnected brains.]
>The fact that you've challenged me to do so demonstrates your ignorace.
the fact that you accuse others who question your tenuous grasp of cognitive
science demonstrates your fear of being revealed.
>Yes, I suppose civilized discussion is a lost cause with someone
>so stubborn and hard-headed.
so far all i've heard from you are groundless assertions of anachronistic
concepts which have been loosing credibility among cognitive scientists
since the 70's. but even 25 years ago no scientist ever had the arrogance
to claim them as "facts".
yet you insist they are "scientific facts".
perhaps you misunderstand science. perhaps you misunderstand what you've
read. perhaps you're just playing troll.
but your comments are so vacuous that the only obvious conclusion is that
you're not a very creative thinker.
>The mind controls the body. That is a fact.
go ahead, offer your support for this statement.
Jody Brewster
Greek...
Your brain has somewhat of control over your body correct, but I can clarifiy
"control" better by stating that the brain is filtering information through
particles of energy. What the brain does, is that it opens neurological
pathways of energy, which seems to "control" our lives and thought. If it
doesn't open these pathways, the brain is filtering unessecary information.
So it's primary function is filtering information, much like opening and
closing a water valve. But opening and closing a water valve still needs
external stimuli in order for the valve to operate. This is where I'm trying
to tell you, that unfortunately you have deduced this from your own thought,
but since (in order) Descartes, Aldus Huxley, Donald Hebb, and around 85% of
the population of today's cognitive neurologists.
Let's take a neuro transmitter for example, a neuro transmitter receives it's
information from another transmitter, not from the brain, (indirectly from
the brain though). But since man was ignorant on the brain in general, which
is perhaps the last anatomical stepping stone (if you will), some people will
still to this day believe that the brain controls bodily functions when all
it does is filter information (which is energy).
And your liver filters piss, but that still doesn't control your body (even
though you can't live without one).
DMH, I'm sorry for replying to you, I wanted to reply more to Brandon, but
the discussion is pretty big now and I clicked the wrong person, my apologies
if you read this.
And to DMH's question to me on revealing to him the exsistence of mind
without body (without using religion) :
I can say that religion is genetic (no shit really is) and I was blessed by
not having it. And, of course, religion without science is blind. It's a
personal belief of mine that we live in an environment that's based on a
basic algorithm. You couldn't exsist in this algorithm without a brain since
having a brain is the rule of the algorithm. Which we could also say that
the brain is "controlled" by this algorithm, everything appears move in that
general direction. If you've looked at a fractal it's so complex and so
infinous that our brains couldn't comprehend all that, so our brains only
take little portions of it in at a time. For all the people that were
ignorant of this, be glad you are, I also believe that us smart asses are
worse off than you.
Jody Brewster
Dale Houstman wrote:
It's a general theory accepted by the majority of the massurrealists;
that surrealism isn't new anymore, and generally lacks in interest and
discussion. Unfortunately, I've just been proved this point.
Last post for DMH,
Jody Brewster
Brandon J. Freels
>Surrealism is art that is much like your dreams. Surrealism is fantasy,
>world of dreams, (such as paintings by Giorgio de Chirico) and/or off-beat,
>odd images. Some surrealist art is mysterious or scary, like fantasy
>pictures taken from children's books, or the feeling like you are on your
>own episode of the Twilight Zone. Some surrealist art also uses symbolism,
>or warps an object in some way, like Salvadore Dali's paintings of a
strange
>world. Paintings by Rene Magritte also had an-off beat oddness in them.
Brandon:
What a strange definition of Surrealism. Surrealism is not art. Surrealism
is not Giorgio de Chirico. Surrealism is not "odd images." Surrealism is not
mysterious (that's Symbolism).
Surrealism is the freedom of the thought. Surrealism is the freedom of the
imagination. Surrealism is the removal of the shackles of society.
Surrealism is a revolution.
barrett john erickson
>For my finale, I'll sum it up a little better since I must have been
speaking
>Greek...
i, for one, _am_ having a bit of difficulty following your argument, but i'm
willing to attribute that to my distraction rather than your posts.
assuming i understand what you're trying to say, the problem i have is with
the implied premise that there is some kind of pre-existing "information"
for the brain to "filter" (whether you describe that as energy or
whatever -- your algorithm perhaps), the narrow concept of cognition you
appear to offer, and the passive (or at least contextually determined) role
you assign to it.
first, "information" is a utilitarian concept which only has meaning in the
human context of communication. to speak of the brain as a filter implies
that the characteristics or attributes of our reality are somehow latent in
the environment, waiting for us to discover (adapt to) them.
i think cognitive science is in the process of developing a much more
sophisticated understanding than this.
the enactive cognitive model posits a process whereby "information" about
reality is determined as much by sensory exploration as what that
exploration engages. cognition (as Varela said) becomes a "history of
structural coupling which brings forth a world".
or as Heisenberg said (relative to quantum measurement): "what we learn
about is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our methods of
questioning."
our evolution, viewed from this perspective, isn't a matter of adapting to a
pre-existing reality, but rather a matter of creative experiments and
explorations (the process of living) which enrich (or fail to enrich) our
experience of what might be described as "latent reality" -- that is, the
unknown potential (that pre-measured quanta) that we transform into reality
through our actions.
mind/body or brain/mind or conscious/subconscious dualities all disappear in
an understanding of the ever increasing complexity of the cognitive process.
many theoretical problems posed by previous theories of evolution are also
resolved.
Ktzoah of Pic
> No. I've suggested that the mind has outrgrown the body.
>
>> > then the connection
>> > between the two is impossible. Unless you are saying that they are both
>> > idealistic for then a connection is possible, but not needed.
>>
>> In a way, "mind" is just another word for "information". Pretending
>> that the patterns of information have some kind of existance outside
>> their physical embodyment is what leads to dualism.
>
> Indeed, there will be dualism. If I decided to upload my mind to a
> computer, then yes there will be two minds and two "bodies".
>
> Deal with it.
Hey, it don't bother me none if you wanna uplode yerself int'some
kind'a sentient toaster. Go right ahead.
Of course, the realm in which all this happens, in which "the mind
controls the body" exists only in your mind... or our minds... or our
mind... or the Mind. Maybe it doesn't "exist", but there it is.
_
barrett john erickson
>It's a general theory accepted by the majority of the massurrealists;
>that surrealism isn't new anymore, and generally lacks in interest and
>discussion. Unfortunately, I've just been proved this point.
of course, any "general theory accepted by the majority of massurrealists"
concerning "surrealism" which begins with the definition previously quoted
from their web site is fundamentally flawed at its inception.
and reading alt.surrealism can't prove or disprove anything about
"surrealism".