Metaphysics / Philosophy of Mind
Discussion of the Interconnection of the Mind, Body &
Universe
On How our Mind can Sense the Motion of Matter in the Universe
Philosophy of the Mind Quotes, Mind Puzzles, Infinite Mind / Collective Consciousness
Our Essence of Mind is intrinsically pure. All things are only its manifestations, and good deeds and evil deeds are only the result of good thoughts and evil thoughts respectively. Imagination, thought and will make deeds, and by our deeds we make ourselves. All that we are is the result of our thoughts; it is founded on our thoughts, made up of our thoughts. (The Patriarch Hui-neng)
The stuff of which the world of our experience
is composed is, in my belief, neither mind nor matter, but something more
primitive than either. Both mind and matter seem to be composite, and the
stuff of which they are compounded lies in a sense between the two, in a
sense above them both, like a common ancestor.
(Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind p. 11, 1921)
Introduction to Metaphysics / Philosophy of Mind
NOTE - I am working on this page. It is still a bit disordered / incomplete! Sorry.
Geoff Haselhurst
~~~~~~
To understand the mind you must first understand what exists that causes and connects the mind with our common experience of other material bodies (including other humans and their minds) in the space around us.
To do this we begin by showing that evolution deduces that our mind evolved from physical reality, since all our minds experience sleep, hunger, sexual lust and orgasm, fight or flight instincts, etc. That is, things that can only be explained in terms of Darwinian evolution of life on earth.
Then we consider the mind in terms of the most simple solution for describing physical reality, founded on the one thing we all commonly experience, Space, and the wave structure of matter. This leads to solutions to several important problems of the mind.
This is followed by a summary of the main Idealist philosophers / philosophies and their types of Idealism, showing how a WSM solves their respective problems.
I end with the problems of the mind that still remain elusive, the two most obvious being;
i) The problem of representation. How does our mind convert / represent these wave energy interactions into our mental experiences, e.g. a frequency of light to a 'color' that we 'see' with our mind.
ii) What are the complete properties of space? We can show from physics that space must have the property of a wave medium to propagate waves that cause matter and time. However this does not explain how my mind can experience pain for example, how wave interactions (energy exchanges) are represented as painful mental experiences. Does space have more properties, are these needed to explain morality and people's religious experiences? I don't know. Space has the properties it has, it is our job as scientists and philosophers to try and understand these. It is possible it has properties beyond our mind's comprehension - and this should be the true foundation of postmodernism.
Why is understanding the mind important?
Because while philosophers are trapped in the mind, uncertain about the existence of the external world, then you get very little (if any) truth or wisdom from philosophy, which given this is its fundamental purpose, is thus a failure of philosophy (postmodernism).
I think this failure of philosophy is the fundamental cause of all the problems that now confront humanity. Popper sums it up nicely;
In my opinion, the greatest scandal of philosophy is that,
while all around us the world of nature perishes - and not the world of
nature alone - philosophers continue to talk, sometimes cleverly and sometimes
not, about the question of whether this world exists. They get involved
in scholasticism, in linguistic puzzles such as, for example, whether or
not there are differences between 'being' and 'existing'. ...
Denying realism amounts to megalomania (the most widespread occupational
disease of the professional philosopher). (Popper, 1975)
I hope this page will make you aware that we can escape from the mind to the real world around us of waves in space - that we can correctly imagine matter interactions in space - to show you that we are amazing structures of the universe - where mind, matter and space are one extended interconnected dynamic thing.
Geoff Haselhurst
1. The Problems of Idealism
(Why the Mind is not the substance that exists)
I get a lot of people who write to me claiming that the mind is the thing that exists, the world around us purely a construction of the mind.
Perhaps Idealists think they are clever and aware, rising above the naive realism that dominates most humans (and all animals). Those who think the world around them exists as they see it, who do not understand these subtle difficulties of connecting the mind and our mental experience of things (which is all we have) .
And idealists, who are threatened by a wave structure of matter, argue that this space around us is merely an idea of our mind - physical reality of matter moving around in space does not exist - only mind exists.
This argument between Realism and Idealism has remained unresolved since the time of the ancient philosophers.
Can we imagine physical reality
The only solution is to understand physical reality - and this must explain this common experience of mind, matter and space.
While it is true that the mind represents our senses to us, the following arguments show that it is also true that physical reality does exist which is the cause of these senses. Evolution presents many examples of properties of the mind that can only be explained from Darwinian evolution of life / physical evolution of the universe (physical reality).
The Mind Evolved in Humans and thus did not Exist in the Past
All minds have memory of being a child, that our mind evolves as we grow
older. This is clearly related to our Darwinian evolution as a species and
that we did not always exist, were born by our mother, who was likewise
born by her mother, ....
Thus one billion years years ago our single celled ancestors must have existed
(without minds) for us to have evolved. Thus life evolved on the surface
of the earth from physical reality before human mind's evolved.
The Mind Experiences Hunger, Thirst, Breathing, Sleep, Sexual Lust and Orgasm
'We can call the reflective element in the mind the reason, and the element with which it feels hunger and thirst, and the agitations of sex and other desires, the irrational appetite - an element closely connected with pleasure and satisfaction.' (Plato)
Darwinian evolution explains these 'irrational appetites' as evolved states of the mind to ensure / enhance survival and the propagation of our genes and species - but all based upon us really existing as humans that evolved from primates on earth, in space.
Darwinian evolution explains our instinct to sleep at night (there were lots of predators in Africa!), which is also a state of the mind. The Earth, existing in space, spinning in its orbit around the sun, causing night and day, obviously explains this.
Likewise in Nature we see many seasonal behaviors (hibernation, migration) that are driven by the earth's yearly orbit about the sun.
There will be many aspects of the mind that show that it has evolved from matter on earth, as a structure of the universe (since the energy from the sun drives our evolution). All confirm that the world around you does exist and is the cause of your mind. This is obvious once you think about it.
On the Connection between Mind, Matter and Space.
The Mind can Move Matter in Space. Walking around, eating, breathing, typing are all examples of this. This is why we have evolved hands and feet, arms and legs - so our mind can move our body around. The motion of matter and mind in space are one connected thing - the wave motion of space.
The Mind is Affected by Drugs (Matter). It is well known that certain drugs, which are made of matter, can have profound effects upon the mind. Again this clearly confirms the connection between mind and matter, that matter has a profound effect on the functioning of the mind.
The Mind Produces Brain Waves in Space when Thinking. Again, this is well known and they can now use this knowledge to build machines that allow us to do physical things to external objects (e.g. turn lights on) merely by thinking. The wave structure of matter explains why these brain waves exist, because matter and mind are formed from wave motions of space.
2. The Substance that Exists is Space and its Properties
(Uniting Science and Metaphysics)
It is true for all humans that we experience not only our own mind, but also many other minds and material bodies. However this is always within one common space. Thus both Occam's razor (simplicity in science) and metaphysics (unity of substance to explain causal connection) require that we explain reality in terms of one thing, space, rather than many things, mind or matter.
This is very important. If you try to describe our interconnected reality with many things (either matter or mind) then you must also invent some further existent to connect these things.
For discrete matter 'particles' we added the concept of forces / fields to connect them in space and time. For mind we require a 'universal mind' or 'god' to connect the many minds.
This is poor science, for two very important reasons;
i) In each case we are explaining the connection between things we all experience with things that we do not experience (forces, universal minds, god).
ii) If minds do fundamentally exist and are connected by a 'universal mind / god' then you have the profound problem - why are our minds connected with respect to logic and sense experiences (which are common to all of us) and yet not connected when it comes to our personal thoughts and feelings.
However, if we describe reality in terms of one substance we all commonly
experience, Space, then we inherently have our source of interconnection
- space.
From here it is easy to deduce that matter is formed from spherical in and
out waves in this space. The wave center forms the 'particle' like point
(that has caused physics such confusion) and the spherical in and out waves
explain how matter is connected to other matter in space.
I should add here that irrespective of whether people understand the Wave Structure of Matter it is well known in physics that matter is a large structure of space, as required by Einstein's general relativity and quantum physics.
"When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... The particle can only appear as a limited region in space in which the field strength or the energy density are particularly high." (Albert Einstein - The theory of relativity)
"A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement. Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated ‘basic building blocks’, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole." (Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, On Quantum Theory)
We can now understand this perfectly - and most simply - by assuming the existence of only one substance, space, with properties of a wave medium.
By understanding the mind in terms of the wave structure of matter in space we unite science with metaphysics while also explaining how the mind can have these types of knowledge.
Science
i) Simplicity / Occam's razor: We apply this to science itself to deduce
the most simple science theory of reality.
ii) Empirical: We all experience existing in one common space.
iii) Logical: Waves
/ interconnected wave patterns behave logically.
Metaphysics
i) Substance: Only one substance exists,
this space we all commonly experience existing in.
ii) Causation and Necessary
Connection: By describing reality in terms of only one substance, space,
we can easily understand how matter's spherical in and out waves are necessarily
interconnected with other matter in the space around it. This is why you
can see distant stars - your body and mind are an inter-connected wave structure
of the universe, vibrating with all this other matter.
3. Famous Idealists on Mind, Idealism, Definitions
The Philosophy, Physics and Metaphysics of Idealist Theories
Below are some of the most famous types of Idealism. In each case they have problems due to incomplete knowledge (how the many things are connected together) and there is a tendency to fill this gap with "God connects things".
Thus the most complete statement (and fundamental puzzle) of the mind is the connection between Mind, Matter and Space. Here we do not ignore God, but rather define God as the one infinite eternal substance that unites mind, matter and space as a dynamic unity.
This does not explain anything unless you explain what the word 'god' means. The theology page discussess this.
Plato and the Form
++++
Descartes: Mind, Matter and God
Despite the fame of Descartes and the duality of mind and matter, which are connected by god, this is an incomplete conception given that we always experience mind and matter existing in Space.
The following quote from Chomsky helps to explain this (I have added my comments in brackets);
The possibility of affecting objects without touching them
just exploded physicalism and materialism. It has been common in recent
years to ridicule Descartes's 'ghost in the machine' in postulating mind
as distinct from body. Well, Newton came along and he did not exorcise the
ghost in the machine (motion of particles in space and time): he exorcised
the machine and left the ghost intact (instant gravity forces across space
/ action-at-a-distance / god).
So now the ghost is left and the machine isn't there. And the mind has mystical
properties. (Noam Chomsky on Newton's discovery of gravity
and Action-at-a-Distance)
The important point of this quote is the realization that if you describe an inter-connected reality in terms of discrete and separate particles (Newton) then you have to invent forces to connect them which act instantly across the universe (action-at-a-distance). This 'magical' connection of matter, the 'ghost in the machine or god' causes numerous problems for science.
The solution is found by adding to Descartes "I think therefore I exist" the fact that we all "Think we exist as mind and body in space and interact with other minds and bodies (matter) in the space around us".
Clearly this is a common experience of all humans. This argument necessarily leads us to a wave structure of both matter and mind.
Berkeley's Idealism
Berkeley connects Idealism with Theology (he was a Bishop after all!). To Berkeley many minds exist and are connected by God.
Esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived).
.... All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth - in a word, all those
bodies which compose the frame of the world - have not any subsistence without
a mind. ...
Everything we see, hear, feel, or any way perceive by sense, being a sign
or effect of the power of God; as is our perception of those very motions.
(George Berkeley, 1710)
David Hume gives a great reply to this!
To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit. (Hume, 1737)
Once we realise that matter is large, that matter and Universe are one and the same thingthen we unite the subject and object and thus understand how they can be connected (without the need for a personal god).
It is also important to remember that these philosophers lived several hundred years ago, we have 1,000s of times more knowledge now. And one common error they lived with was Newton's mechanics, and the idea that matter is made of solid inert particles. It isn't!. The Spherical Standing Waves determine the size of our observable universe within an infinite space. See Cosmology: Finite Spherical Universe within infinite Space
You can see this particle concept in the following quote, and thus the error;
By matter therefore we are to understand an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure and motion do actually subsist. (George Berkeley, 1710)
Let me show you the beautiful power of truth to correct errors. Let us just take the second half, and add to it thus;
Space is the substance, in which extension, figure and motion do actually subsist as spherical wave motions of space - the matter particle forms at the wave center.
So we see how extension comes from space, figure comes from the spherical shape of the waves, and motion is obviously the wave motion of space. Berkeley's error is in describing matter as inert little atoms, matter is the exact opposite, it is active and universal, part of the dynamic unity of reality.
(the cause of our ideas of time), a spherical wave that obviously explains why matter can move in Space, because matter is the wave Motion of Space.
Kant's Critical Idealism and Postmodernism
A more sophisticated view, which now seems universally accepted as the foundation of postmodernism, is that physical reality does exist, but we are unable to know this reality, our knowledge is limited to our mind and its symbols and relationships, words and ideas which science works with to form ever closer approximations to truth.
If we take away the subject (Humans), or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time, but even space and time themselves disappear; and that these, as appearances, cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the nature of objects considered as things in themselves and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us. Not only are the raindrops mere appearances, but even their circular form, nay, the space itself through which they fall, is nothing in itself, but both are mere modifications or fundamental dispositions of our sensible intuition, whilst the transcendental object remains for us utterly unknown. (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781)
However, Kant made one critical error in his foundations that led him to this conclusion. Kant is correct that Space is a priori, or first necessary for us to have senses (which are a posteriori).
Natural science (physics) contains in itself synthetical judgments a priori, as principles. ... Space then is a necessary representation a priori, which serves for the foundation of all external intuitions. (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781)
His error is to assume that Time is also a priori or necessary for us to sense the motion of matter 'particles' in Space. He writes;
There are two pure forms of sensible intuition, as principles of knowledge a priori, namely space and time. (Kant, 1781)
And from this he concludes that because Space and Time cannot be united, they must both be merely ideas. His error can be found in the following quote where he writes;
... even that of motion, which unites in itself both elements (Space and Time), presuppose something empirical. Motion, for example, presupposes the perception of something movable. But space considered in itself contains nothing movable; consequently motion must be something which is found in space only through experience -in other words, is an empirical datum. (Kant, 1781)
Please read this quote several times, for it contains an error that has had profound repercussions for humanity. The error? That 'space considered in itself contains nothing movable'. And this error then leads Kant to conclude that;
..in respect to the form of appearances, much may be said a priori, whilst of the thing in itself, which may lie at the foundation of these appearances, it is impossible to say anything. (Kant, 1781)
The solution to Kant's error
is to realise that the exact opposite is true, that Space considered
in itself contains wave motions, i.e. Space physically exists as
a substance with the properties of a wave medium and contains wave motions.
Kant's error is obvious
in hindsight, because he followed Newton,
and thus was conditioned into thinking that motion applied to matter 'particles'
in space and time. Thus 'empty space' had no 'particles' thus motion could
not exist.
The solution is found by replacing the particle conception of matter in space and time with the wave structure of matter in space.
Thus the two pure forms of sensible intuition, as principles of knowledge a priori, are namely Space and (wave) Motion - that we must place in this a priori concept of Space the correct meaning - that Space is a wave-medium and contains within it a second thing, wave motions of space that form matter (i.e. synthetic a priori knowledge).
Thus we move from the Metaphysics of Space and Time to the Metaphysics of Space and (wave) Motion and finally unite these two things that give rise to the inter-connected motion of matter in space, as the wave structure of matter in Space explains.
Idealism, Quantum Physics and the Copenhagen Interpretation.
One central component of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics is that the observer collapses a probability wave function when observing a particle, thus without the observer (human minds) the particle could not exist.
I do like Einstein's reply to this;
"I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it." (Albert Einstein)
The solution is to understand that matter is a large spherical, spatially
extended wave structure of the universe. There never were any particles,
just localized energy exchanges at the high amplitude wave centers of spherical
standing waves, due to the interactions of their in and out waves with other
matter waves in the space around them.
Quantum physics is correct that subject and object are one interconnected
thing - that in observing something you change how you vibrate with it,
which also changes how it vibrates with you.
But because of their particle / mathematical foundations (that had evolved from Newton) they ended up with a statistical interpretation, using the waves mathematically as 'probability waves' for find the location of the 'particle', never realising the underlying wave foundations of reality that caused this. It is this incompleteness of knowledge that leads to the statistical foundations of quantum physics (as Einstein realised) and thus to this form of Idealism.
Solution to Idealism
With a spherical wave structure of matter in space you can then solve these problems;
i) Mind, matter and space are not separate things - they are one interconnected thing.
ii) All minds experience existing in space.
iii) All matter moves in space.
iv) Space is One thing, mind and matter are many things.
v) Unite science with metaphysics.
vi) Connect subject and object.
vii) Explain empirical and logical knowledge of the mind.
viii) Deduce the laws of Nature correctly as observed.
ix) Explain why the mind is dominated with experiences caused by the earth and sun.
x) Explain why the mind is dominated with experiences caused by evolution of life on earth as part of a complex ecology of matter in the universe.
A plea for sanity and help.
Mind matter and space are one interconnected thing - this universe around you in space does exist - your minds and bodies are created and maintained by it.
Don't be blind to an amazing reality and let it die - when understanding this unity of mind, matter and space will save so many from dying.
Nature does exist - Nature is dying - it really is happening - its not just in your mind - it is a part of you - we all depend upon it for our survival.
And once we understand the truth - well we have amazing power to evolve the universe - to do good things.
I hope you will all go for a walk and look at things around you, look at the stars, birds in the trees, the sky, the clouds, the earth, gravity, light, how you share these same thoughts with everyone else - we all experience existing in space, experience these many things in the same space.
There is one very good reason for this - space exists.
4. How the Mind Functions
"One of the things I often find myself talking to the public
about, for example, is the increasingly inescapable evidence that we are
machines; that a human mind in all its glory is a mechanical consequence
of the lawful interactions between trillions of very simple moving parts,
and not some kind of vitalistic magical essence attached by a silver thread
to a body.
For most people this is very hard news to take, and they rebel against it.
"What about culture?", they say. "What about free will?" "How dare you suggest
I'm some kind of jumped-up pocket calculator!"
But as an engineer I have a huge respect for machinery and see things differently.
Recognizing that we are machines doesn't demean us at all; it just shows
us what astounding and beautiful things machines are capable of. I find
it awe-inspiring." (https://machineslikeus.com/machines-like-us-interviews-steve-grand.html)
I completely agree - the human body and mind are evolved machines, wave
machines of the universe.
When we have errors in our programming (myths) then we think and act stupidly
(we are stupid machines) and this is reflected in the state of our world.
When we have the correct programming (truth and reality) then we think and
act more intelligently, and it is this tansition from stupid machines to
intelligent machines that is necessary if Humanity is to survive.
Lets now consider some aaspects of the mind machine, how this relates to the wave structure of matter.
On Science and the Mind's Two Sources of Knowledge
By understanding that matter is a large wave structure of space, we see
how these logically interconnected wave patterns in space are effectively
the computer and processor (clock speed of 1020 Hz) that maintains and
connects our body and mind with all other matter in the universe / space.
This explains how our mind can process and store the two types of science
knowledge;
Empirical: The spherical in waves carry empirical knowledge
from the rest of the universe into our wave center 'particles' that form
the matter of our body and brain.
Logical: We can store and relate this knowledge using the
logic of interconnected repeating wave motions. Or more simply, waves in
space behave logically
And here it is important to emphasise the repeating aspect of these connected wave patterns which makes them stable over time. Thus the way they change is logical because it is repeating and thus certain in the future (similar to the logic of a pendulum clock). This is why we measure time using repeating motion (e.g. pendulum clock). It is also the sourcetime, and all enduring truths in time, particularly in mathematics and mathematical physics where the relationship between physics, mathematics and music / waves is well known.
On Thinking and the Motion of the Mind
The Mind is always in motion because it is formed from motion - the wave motion of space.
Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. That is to say, one can feel a sense of flow in the stream of consciousness not dissimilar to the sense of flow in the movement of matter in general. May not thought itself thus be a part of reality as a whole? But then, what could it mean for one part of reality to 'know' another, and to what extent would this be possible? (David Bohm, Wholeness and The Implicate Order, 1980)
Regarding the mind, there is no place where mind can be located. Evidently mind is not static thing, but a moving phenomenon. It is therefore, in reality, the process of consciousness arisen between sense organs and objects. (DHAMMA - The Noble Doctrine of The Buddha - Sayadaw Bhaddanta Pañña Dipa)
The Holographic Mind
The holographic mind is close to the truth - physical reality is similar to a hologram, formed from waves where each wave center 'particle' has knowledge of the rest of the universe within it (because its spherical in waves are created by the out waves of all other matter in the observable universe).
The Non-Local Quantum Mind
The Extended Mind
Global Consciousness
The mind's extended reach remains to be fully defined in scientific terms, but research on human consciousness suggests that we may have direct communication links with each other, and that our intentions can have effects in the world despite physical barriers and separations. We are compelled by good evidence to accept correlations that we cannot yet explain. It appears that consciousness may sometimes produce something that resembles, at least metaphorically, a nonlocal field of meaningful information.
The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) takes this possibility as a starting point for a speculation that such fields generated by individual consciousness would interact and combine, and ultimately have a global presence. Usually, because we are busy with individual lives, there is little to produce structure in the field, so it is random and not detectable. But occasionally there are global-scale events that bring great numbers of us to a common focus and an unusual coherence of thought and feeling. To study the effects of a possible global consciousness, we have created a world-spanning network of devices sensitive to coherence and resonance in the mental domain. Continuous streams of data are sent over the internet to be archived and correlated with events that may evoke a world-wide consciousness. Examples that appear to have done so include both peaceful gatherings and disasters: a few minutes around midnight on any New Years Eve, the first hour of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia, the Papal visit to Israel, a variety of global meditations, several major earthquakes, and September 11 2001.
The GCP began recording data in August, 1998. It has grown to more than
50 sites around the world, each generating and reporting second-by-second
data.
Please accept references to "global consciousness" as a convenient
metaphor. It is a label for a possible source for effects and correlations
that remain essentially mysterious. All this is subtle, and we can at this
point only report the data, hoping to understand its meaning better as we
go along.
5. Puzzles of the Mind - Problems to be Resolved
The Problem of Representation
The one central thing that the Wave Structure of Matter does not explain is how our mind represents our senses. While we can understand how mind, matter and space are interconnected, (by waves in space) it is difficult to imagine how we can then represent these wave interaction as ideas of color, pain, love, hunger, etc. i.e. The WSM says says nothing about the representational side of our mind. This is important so I have presented an example to clarify this;
With the WSM it is easy to understand how our mind and body are connected
to the sun. Light waves really do exist in space, but they are not separate
from us, they are part of our in waves that form our body's matter (the
wave centers of the spherical in and out waves that we currently confuse
as separate matter 'particles', a very naive world view).
So the physical / wave connection between things is really quite simple
at a fundamental level. However, we do not see frequencies of waves, we
see colors of light which our mind constructs from the raw sense data of
the waves. It is this representation from real waves to the mental experience
that is still very puzzling!
What are the Properties of Space?
We can show from physics that space must have the property of a wave medium to propagate wave motions that cause matter and time. However this does not explain how my mind can experience pain for example, how wave interactions (energy exchanges) are represented as painful mental experiences. Does space have more properties - are these needed to explain morality and people's religious experiences? I don't know. Space has the properties it has, it is our job as scientists and philosophers to try and understand these. It is possible it has properties beyond our mind's comprehension - and this should be the true foundation of postmodernism.
6. Famous Philosopher's Quotes on the Mind
Knowledge, Memory & Mind Quotations from Famous Philosophers
Mind undoubtedly is the mechanism of the past and it keeps us firmly bound to the past. Mind is the arch creator of bondages. Whatever we think about becomes our bondage. (Sudharta S.D. I Am All)
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind, 1921. (1872-1970)
The stuff of which the world of our experience is composed is, in my belief, neither mind nor matter, but something more primitive than either. Both mind and matter seem to be composite, and the stuff of which they are compounded lies in a sense between the two, in a sense above them both, like a common ancestor. (Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind p. 11, 1921)
Russell said that his original interest in philosophy had
two sources:
On the one hand I was anxious to discover whether philosophy would provide
any defense for anything that could be called religious belief, however
vague; on the other hand, I wished to persuade myself that something could
be known, in pure mathematics if not elsewhere. (1959)
'the whole of what we perceive without inference belongs to our private
world. In this respect, I agree with Berkeley. The starry heaven that we
know in visual sensation is inside us. The external starry heaven that we
believe is inferred.' (Russell)
Understanding words does not consist in knowing their dictionary definitions, or in able to specify the objects to which they are appropriate. Understanding language is more like understanding cricket: it is a matter of habits, acquired in oneself and rightly presumed in others. To say that a word has a meaning is not to say that those who use the word correctly have ever thought out what the meaning is: the use of the word comes first, and the meaning is to be distilled out of it by observation and analysis. Moreover, the meaning of a word is not absolutely definite: there is always a greater or less degree of vagueness. (Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind p. 197-8, 1921)
.. He came to the view that inductive inference cannot be
enough for 'science', and moved towards a surprisingly Kantian position
that some 'principles of inference' must be presupposed: 'And whatever these
principles of inference may be, they certainly cannot be logically deduced
from fact of experience. Either, therefore, we know something independently
of experience, or science is moonshine.' (Russell, Human Knowledge 1948)
such inadequacies as we have seemed to find in empiricism have been discovered
by strict adherence to a doctrine by which empiricist philosophy has been
inspired: that all human knowledge is uncertain, inexact, and partial. To
this doctrine we have not found any limitation whatever. (Russell, closing
words, Human Knowledge 1948)
Philosophy proper deals with matters of interest to the general educated
public, and loses much of its value if only a few professionals can understand
what is said. (Russell, 1948)
One Hundred Twentieth Century Philosophers, Stewart Brown, Diane Collinson, Robert Wilkinson. Routledge 1998
Plato Quotations On the Mind
'Do we learn with one part of us, feel angry with another, and desire the pleasures of eating and sex with another? Or do we employ our mind as a whole when our energies are employed in any of these ways?'
'We can call the reflective element in the mind the reason, and the element with which it feels hunger and thirst, and the agitations of sex and other desires, the irrational appetite - an element closely connected with pleasure and satisfaction.'
'So the reason ought to rule, having the ability and foresight to act for the whole, and the spirit ought to obey and support it. And this concord between them is effected, as we said, by a combination of intellectual and physical training, which tunes up the reason by intellectual training and tones down the crudeness of natural high spirits by harmony and rhythm.'
'Certainly'
'When these two elements have been brought up and trained to their proper function, they must be put in charge of appetite, which forms the greater part of each man's make-up and is naturally insatiable. They must prevent taking its fill of the so-called physical pleasures, for otherwise it will get too large and strong to mind its own business and will try to subject and control the other elements, which it has no right to do, and so wreck life entirely.'
'Then let us be content with the terms we used earlier on for the four divisions of our line - knowledge, reason, belief and illusion. The last two we class together as opinion, the first two as intelligence, opinion being concerned with the world of becoming, knowledge with the world of reality. Knowledge stands to opinion as the world of reality does to that of becoming, and intelligence stands to belief and reason to illusion as knowledge stands to opinion.' (Plato, Republic)
This last quote is very important, I have written it most simply as;
Belief and illusion are opinion (the world of becoming) - Reason and knowledge (of reality) are intelligence.
And some other ways of relating this important concept of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom;
Opinion / Faith / Transient - Truth / Reality / Eternal
Foolishness - Wisdom
In terms of the wave structure of matter. The world is 'becoming', that is what waves do, they are wave motions of space, waves are always in motion, moving. This gives reality its dynamic changing properties that we mistakenly call time, when it is simply vibrating space.
Our mind represents this transient world of waves in space as solid separate objects because wave interactions (energy exchanges) occur at the high wave amplitude wave centers. This naive realism is well know by philosophers, it is disturbing that the general population is largely unaware of this.
Physical reality itself is the total system of waves in infinite space, which is eternal and the source of eternal (absolute) truths.
Plotkin, On Epistemology
... knowledge, in its most common meaning, denotes a mental state that bears a specific relationship to some feature of the world. (Plotkin)
... memory, some kind of enduring brain state, must exist in the case of knowing by the mind, and is responsible for the bridging of that time gap between when the events occurred and any claim to know about them. (Plotkin)
7. Buddhism and Mind (Positive Control of Mind)
The Buddha described everything as made from mind and matter. Both mind (citta) and matter (rupa) are not conceived as static things, but as a moving process.
The entire phenomenon of mind and matter is understood as vibrations, of a continuously ephemeral nature, arising and passing away. This is the ultimate truth (paramattha saccaparamattha sacca) of mind and matter - permanently impermanent; nothing but a mass of tiny bubbles or ripples, disintegrating as soon as they arise (sabbo loko pakampitosabbo loko pakampito). (Vipassana Research Institute)
As you experience the reality of matter to be vibration, you also start experiencing the reality of the mind: vinnana (consciousness), sanna (perception), vedana (sensation) and sankhara (reaction). (S N Goenka, 1995)
The Metaphysics of Space and Motion and the Wave Structure of Matter explains the buddhist conception of vibration as the vibration of Space (spherical standing waves - see links to articles on left of page) which form matter and mind.
The Eastern Philosophers further express the importance of controlling the mind, (as does Michel de Montaigne);
Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good is it to control the mind. A controlled mind brings happiness. ... It is the mind which gives things their quality, their foundation and being. Whoever speaks or acts with impure mind, him sorrow follows, as the wheel follows the steps of the ox that draws the cart. (Dhammapada - Ancient Indian Text)
Just as fallow lands, when rich and fertile, are seen to abound in hundreds and thousands of different kinds of useless weeds so that, if we would make them do their duty, we must subdue them and keep them busy with seeds specifically sown for our service; so too with our minds. If we do not keep them busy with some particular subject which can serve as a bridle to reign them in, they charge ungovernably about, ranging to and from over the wastelands of our thoughts. (de Montaigne, The Essays)
The Wave Structure of Matter demonstrates how the mind, body and universe (mind, matter, space) are interconnected and how matter can store knowledge through interconnected repeating wave motions. Further, it is likely that our minds, as resonant structures, are subtly interconnected with other minds. To what extent we influence one anothers thoughts is not clear, but when we think, we move matter (e.g. I am thinking to move my fingers to type these letters) and due to the wave structure of matter (matter is large, as a structure of Space) this must affect other matter and thus minds in the Space around us.
The whole thrust of Buddha's teaching is to
master the mind. If you master the mind, you will have mastery over body
and speech ... Mastery of the mind is achieved through constant awareness
of all your thoughts and actions ... Maintaining this constant mindfulness
in the practice of tranquility and insight, you will eventually be able
to sustain the recognition of wisdom even in the midst of ordinary activities
and distractions. Mindfulness is thus the very basis, the cure for all samsaric
afflictions.
(Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Journey To Enlightenment)
In the Yogasutras, Patanjali lays down that man should control the ramifications of his mind. In the Bhagavad-Gita, while Lord Krishna enlightens Arjuna about the Yoga of equanimity, Arjuna makes a very pertinent objection. How can the turbulent ocean of the mind, in which mighty waves arise, be made waveless - he asks. The mind is restless; impetuous, strong and obstinate. Lord Krishna admits the force of Arjuna’s argument and says: 'Doubtless, it is hard to control the mind but by practice of non-attachment control can be acquired.'
We can eliminate negative characteristics by developing beneficial ones: in the words of the Yoga Sutras, 'Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked.' (Yoga sutras)
The
Words of Truth - Quotations from the Dhammapada
(Ancient Indian Text, Translated by Radhakrishnan)
All (mental) states have mind as their forerunner, mind is their chief, and they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts with a defiled mind, then suffering follows ..
All (mental) states have mind as their forerunner, mind is their chief, and they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts, with a pure mind, happiness follows one as one’s shadow that does not leave one.
This fickle, unsteady mind; difficult to guard, difficult to control, the wise man makes straight, as the fletcher the arrow.
Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good is it to control the mind. A controlled mind brings happiness.
He whose mind is unsteady, he who knows not the Good Teaching, he whose confidence wavers, the wisdom of such a person does not attain fullness
Whatever harm a foe may do to a foe, or a hater to another hater, a wrongly-directed mind may do one harm far exceeding these.
Neither mother, nor father, nor any other relative, can do a man such good as is wrought by a rightly-directed mind.
Make haste in doing good; restrain your mind from evil.
Watchful of speech, well restrained in mind, let him do no evil with the body; let him purify these three ways of action, and attain the Path made known by the Sages.
Excerpts from the discourses of Shri S N Goenka and Sayagyi U BA Khin on Vipassana
Observing, observing you will reach the stage when you experience
that the entire physical structure is nothing but subatomic particles: throughout
the body, nothing but kalapas (subatomic particles). And even these tiniest
subatomic particles are not solid. They are mere vibration, just wavelets.
The Buddha's words become clear by experience: Sabbo pajjalito loko, sabbo
loko pakampito. The entire universe is nothing but combustion and vibration.
As you experience it yourself you experience that the entire material world is nothing but vibration. We have to experience the ocean of infinite waves surging within, the river of inner sensations flowing within, the eternal dance of the countless vibrations within every atom of the body. We have to witness our continuously changing nature. All of this is happening at an extremely subtle level. These kalapas (subatomic particles) according to the Buddha, are in a state of perpetual change or flux. They are nothing but a stream of energies, just like the light of a candle or an electric bulb. The body (as we call it), is not an entity as it seems to be, but is a continuum of matter and life-force coexisting.
As you experience the reality of matter to be vibration, you also start experiencing the reality of the mind: vinnana (consciousness), sanna (perception), vedana (sensation) and sankhara (reaction). If you experience them properly with Vipassana, it will become clear how they work.
Buddha discovered the way: whenever you experience any sensation,
due to any reason, you simply observe it. Every sensation arises and passes
away. Nothing is eternal. When you practice Vipassana you start experiencing
this.
However unpleasant a sensation may be - look, it arises only to pass away.
However pleasant a sensation may be, it is just a vibration-arising and
passing. Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, the characteristic of impermanence
remains the same. You are now experiencing the reality of anicca. You are
not believing it because Buddha said so, or some scripture or tradition
says so, or even because your intellect says so. You accept the truth of
anicca because you directly experience it. This is how your received wisdom
and intellectual understanding turn into personally experienced wisdom.
Only this experience of anicca (impermanent) will change
the habit pattern of the mind. Feeling sensation in the body and understanding
that everything is impermanent, you don't react with craving or aversion;
you are equanimous.
Practicing this continually changes the habit of reacting at the deepest
level. By observing reality as it is, you become free from all your conditioning
of craving and aversion.
https://www.buddhanet.net/bvk_study/bvk21d.htm
(Sourced from ''Buddha's path is to experience reality'' by S N Goenka.
OCT 95 Vipassana english news letter, ''Samma Samadhi'' April 95 hindi Vipassana
patrika, discourses of Sayagyi U Ba Khin-Sayagyi U Ba Khin Journal-VRI Igatpuri)
Buddha on Mind and Matter
The Buddha described everything as made from mind and matter. He described the parts of the mind and the qualities of matter. These are called "elements" which is confusing today when we use the same word for chemical elements and I prefer the translation to be "properties". The 4 properties he described were likened to earth, air, fire and water .. but are to be understood as the qualities of hardness, cohesion, vibration and expansiveness. These are a correct description for a tensile aether, just like Maxwell arrived at later and which I was also convinced lay behind the structure of cycles and of the wave nature of matter. (Ray Tomes, WSM Group)
The Abhidhamma Pitaka investigates and analyses Mind (citta) and Matter (Rupa), the two composite factors of the so-called a being.(Pali term 'Abhidhamma' is composed of two words 'Abhi' and 'Dhamma'. Abhi means subtle, higher, ultimate, profound, sublime and transcendental, and Dhamma means Truth Reality or Doctrine)
PRIMARY ELEMENTS / PROPERTIES
According to the Buddhist conception, all inanimate objects are aggregates of the following five inherent elements, namely:
(1) The Element of Solidity (Pathavi),
(2) The Element of Fluidity (Apo),
(3) The Element of Heat (Tejo),
(4) The Element of Vibration (Vaya)
and (5) The Element of Space (Akasa) .
In the case of animate objects, all living beings are also aggregates of six inherent elements, i. e. , the above five with addition of mind.
By taking the whole view of the physical phenomena to one-pointedness,
one should understand, discern and realize that the body composed of hairs,bones,
teeth, blood, sweat, wind etc, is nothing, but the particles or atoms of
these four primary phenomenal element which are for ever and ever arising
and passing away without any stop even a very short moment.
Being so, the so-called body named such and such with a conventional term
is, in the sense of ultimate reality merely proton, neutron and electron
of physical phenomena, but not infinite soul; nor mine; nor am I, nor my
personality nor ego or self.
Regarding the mind, there is no place where mind can be located. Evidently mind is not static thing, but a moving phenomenon. It is therefore, in reality, the process of consciousness arisen between sense organs and objects. When mind comes in contact with an object through any one of six sense-doors, a new mental phenomenon or consciousness arises and immediately it passes away. Even during such a very short moment of consciousness, the mental process has happened many times very swiftly.
So the comprehensive discernment of physical and mental phenomena in its real nature is called (Vipassana Ñ ana) Insight knowledge.
DHAMMA - The Noble Doctrine of The Buddha - Sayadaw Bhaddanta
Pañña Dipa
https://www.erowid.org/spirit/traditions/buddhism/buddhism_dhamma.shtml
Links Metaphysics Physics Philosophy of the Mind
Metaphysics: Problem of One and the Many - Brief History of Metaphysics and Solutions to the Fundamental Problems of Uniting the; One and the Many, Infinite and the Finite, Eternal and the Temporal, Absolute and Relative, Continuous and Discrete, Simple and Complex, Matter and Universe.
Philosophy: Education - Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Albert Einstein and Jean Jacques Rousseau on Philosophy of Education, both for the Individual and their Responsibility to Society. On True Knowledge of Reality as Necessary for Education of Critical Thinking.
Philosophy: Realism Idealism - The Rise of Absolute Truth and Realism, the End of Post Modern Relative Idealism. Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Einstein. 'The more plebeian illusion of naive realism, according to which things 'are' as they are perceived by us through our senses ... dominates the daily life of men and of animals; it is also the point of departure in all of the sciences, especially of the natural sciences.' (Albert Einstein)
Berkeley, George - Explaining Berkeley's Idealism from Realism of Wave Structure of Matter in Space. On how our Mind is Interconnected to our Body and all other Matter in the Universe.
Freud, Sigmund - Discussion of the Famous Psychologist Freud's 'Society and its Discontents' on our Conflicts between Cultural and Biological Evolution.
Jung, Carl - Quotations from Psychoanalyst Carl Jung's Undiscovered Self and Synchronicity analysed from the Wave Structure of Matter.
Help Humanity
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
(Mohandas Gandhi)
"When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence:
Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... The particle can only appear as a limited region in space in which
the field strength or the energy density are particularly high. ...
The free, unhampered exchange of ideas and scientific conclusions is necessary for the sound development of science, as it is in all spheres
of cultural life. ... We must not conceal from ourselves that no improvement in the present depressing situation is possible without
a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm
and the misguided. ...
Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive!" (Albert Einstein)
Our world is in great trouble due to human behaviour founded on myths and customs that are causing the destruction of Nature and climate change. We can now deduce the most simple science theory of reality - the wave structure of matter in space. By understanding how we and everything around us are interconnected
in Space we can then deduce solutions to the fundamental problems of human knowledge in physics, philosophy, metaphysics, theology, education, health, evolution and ecology, politics and society.
This is the profound new way of thinking that Einstein
realised, that we exist as spatially extended structures of the universe - the discrete and separate body an illusion. This simply confirms the
intuitions of the ancient philosophers and mystics.
Given the current censorship in physics / philosophy of science journals (based on the standard model of particle physics / big bang cosmology) the internet is the best hope for getting new knowledge
known to the world. But that depends on you, the people who care about science and society, realise the importance of truth and reality.
It is Easy to Help!
Just click on the Social Network links below, or copy a nice image or quote you like and share it. We have a wonderful collection of knowledge from the greatest minds in human history, so people will appreciate your contributions. In doing this you will help a new generation of scientists see that there is a simple sensible explanation of physical reality - the source of truth and wisdom, the only cure for the madness of man! Thanks! Geoff Haselhurst (Updated September, 2018)
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. (Max Planck, 1920)
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