How much control does the mind have over its actions?

[Robert_Sock]

I would say that you are your mind. Thus, unless you are schizophrenic, you do have absolute control over it, for that is what you are. The soul is contained within the mind, and cannot be without the mind in this physical realm.

Saint Augustine once commented how well one’s arms and legs control their every command, but not so the mind.

 

[fakename]

It is necessary to distinguish between sexual desires and thoughts arising from sexual desires. Lust only occurs when there is **consent **to those thoughts. In other words if they are unintended they are not lustful in the true sense of the word because they are natural and not evil. They become evil only when they are not controlled.

Jesus said:

“looks” implies a deliberate decision not an impulsive action. It is quite different from seeing a woman and feeling sexually attracted to her. Normal persons are capable of controlling their thoughts even when they can’t control their desires. We can say to ourselves “I’m very attracted but I’m a fool if I think I can’t control myself!” A sense of humour is always useful…

Yeah there are differences between purposefully desiring and desiring something purposeful. But (1) if someone believes that they are able to control their motivations in the way you describe, then for that person can there ever be a lustful ulterior motive for doing things or is such a motive merely a feeling? I’m asking, is this just a way to cover up one’s ulterior motives?

And (2) I think it is (perhaps) less problematic to distinguish between the accidental and the essential in thoughts. It seems that most of the time people accidentally have thoughts that just “enter in”. If that’s the case then these thoughts have no moral value anyway. But some thoughts that start off as accidents sometimes become purposeful (and that’s especially true if one accepts my view of the mind as being true) and here I ask are they really purposeful or are they still accidental (for it seems quiet impossible that something which is just coincidence and accident should simply change ontological status and become something substantial). For instance, I might feel like I really want a burger, and this feeling is so strong that I actually think that I really do purposefully want the burger. Am I right? The answer might be that since this is a temptation then it isn’t wrong for all temptations have no moral value much less can they be wrong. Is that a good answer?

 

[Gaber]

I would say that you are your mind. Thus, unless you are schizophrenic, you do have absolute control over it, for that is what you are. The soul is contained within the mind, and cannot be without the mind in this physical realm.

If you are your mind, how do you see that you “have” one, or “have” a body? You don’t say “I am a mind,” or “I am a body,” yes? That is because on examination you find that the mind depends on awareness, an awareness that has no qualifiers other than being awake and having a component of witnessing. What it witnesses is experience, or the distinctions and contrasts the mind projects on the world, and how the mind calculates with these. It might sound far fetched, but ask anyone who has found the “off” swithch to their discursive mind, and thus discovered something astounding about themselves.

 

[tonyrey]

*It is necessary to distinguish between sexual desires and thoughts arising from sexual desires. Lust only occurs when there is **consent ***

We have to decide whether all ulterior motives are beyond our control. If so I don’t see how we can claim to be rational. Perhaps you mean that we always rationalise motives but in that case why should the motive for making that statement be any different? Irrationality is being used to conclude that every statement lacks a rational origin!

And (2) I think it is (perhaps) less problematic to distinguish between the accidental and the essential in thoughts. It seems that most of the time people accidentally have thoughts that just “enter in”. If that’s the case then these thoughts have no moral value anyway. But some thoughts that start off as accidents sometimes become purposeful (and that’s especially true if one accepts my view of the mind as being true) and here I ask are they really purposeful or are they still accidental (for it seems quite impossible that something which is just coincidence and accident should simply change ontological status and become something substantial). For instance, I might feel like I really want a burger, and this feeling is so strong that I actually think that I really do purposefully want the burger. Am I right? The answer might be that since this is a temptation then it isn’t wrong for all temptations have no moral value much less can they be wrong. Is that a good answer?

Temptations have no moral value to begin with but if we can resist them they acquire moral value. Kant observed that “ought implies can” - which sums it up neatly. We always come back to whether we are biological machines or autonomous persons.There is no other alternative. We certainly don’t have free will 100% of the time but do we have 0%? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

 

[PJM]

=fakename;9309885]How much control does the mind have over its actions?

A lot of the time people think that they can control all of their thoughts if they put enough effort into it. However they also think that some thoughts have necessary consequences like sex thoughts induce feelings of pleasure or vice versa etc.

Now both cannot be true ,obviously for then no thought would have a necessary consequent but all would be subject to the will.

Therefore I ask do you have total control over your mind or are there some things which are not under your control?

And this has many practical applications for instance, is it possible to will yourself to never experience self-delusion that is, to always be sincere with yourself. If you control all your thoughts then yes that is possible but if no then it is impossible.

Likewise can you will to always be happy or to never feel fear or to be bored at the sight of the opposite sex or to always be mindful?

Such answers to moral questions can be achieved through the answer to the speculative question of “do we control all our thoughts”?

I would opine that we don’t control all of our thoughts since then we could control whether we would like to except the truth of self-evident statements. However we cannot so control ourselves, since once we know something to be self-evident we automatically agree with it.
And so I ask that question.

GOD HAS GIFTED EVERY MAN, WOMEN AND CHILD
SUFFIECENT GRACE TO KNOW OF HIM

A MIND, INTELLECT AND A FREEWILL ALL PERMNATELY ATTACHED TO OUR SOULS [IT IS THIS TAHT FULFILL THE BIBLE [GEN.26-27] MADE IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD HIMSELF.

THESE ARE SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND GOD IS “SPIRIT AND TRUTH” John 4:

While we can’t ALWAYS control our thoughts we CAN and we MUST control the decision.

Deut.30: 19 "I [God] call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, "… Sir.15: 17 “Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him.”

God HAS enabled us to do so: PRAY and work to have a rightfully inforned conscience. AMEN!:angel1:

Love and prayers,
pat /PJM

 

[Justinian_III]

If you are your mind, how do you see that you “have” one, or “have” a body? You don’t say “I am a mind,” or “I am a body,” yes? That is because on examination you find that the mind depends on awareness, an awareness that has no qualifiers other than being awake and having a component of witnessing. What it witnesses is experience, or the distinctions and contrasts the mind projects on the world, and how the mind calculates with these. It might sound far fetched, but ask anyone who has found the “off” swithch to their discursive mind, and thus discovered something astounding about themselves.

I’m sorry, but I don’t quite get what youre saying about an off switch of the discursive mind. May you pleas explain this? I’m 16, remember.

 

[Gaber]

I’m sorry, but I don’t quite get what youre saying about an off switch of the discursive mind. May you pleas explain this? I’m 16, remember.

Ahhhh… My appologies. One of the disadvantages of the forum is a kind of erasure of age. I used to check people’s profiles before answering so that I could be more circumspect about how I phrased something. But so few had any information that helped, I kind of gave that up . I will start doing that again.

“Off switch for the discursive mind” means the successful use of any technique that will quiet one’s thoughts to the point of silence. At that point something rather wonderful happens: you make a discovery about yourself that is not available in any other way. You cannot find it in books, though many books talk about it. It is kind of like the difference between reading a book about swimming, and then suddenly finding yourself enjoying a leisurly float in a worm pool in a magnificent setting. The bopok is not the expereince, by any means.

And many will say that it can’t be done, or it isn’t Catholic or it is quietism or some such thing, Invariably those statements will come frm someone who hasn’t had the experience, or only partially, say sticking their toe in. They know there is water, but aren’t yet sure what it is, so try to continue describing it in their habitual terms.

Fact is, because we are all wired the same, and all made in the image and likeness of God, we all, if we make that journey, arrive pretty much the same way, Catholic or not, believer or not, any condition you can name, or not. The crucial point is the exhaustion of the mind’s ability to divide and contrast. So either you have to exquisitly distinguish between your mind and what that factor is that sees you have one, or exhaust the mind by giving it something it can’t devide or think about. There are numbers of ways of doing this.

One of them, of course may be a kind of what might be called “prayer,” and naturally, in the Catholic tradition, this is what might be most usually recommended. But most prayer tendts to be discursicve. That is a word related to"discourse." Discourse means “any unit of connected speech or writing longer than a sentence.” It applies to thought as well, and if you will notice, you discourse to yourself constantly while you are “awake.”

I put "awake " in quotes, because the ordinary way we are awake is asleep to the actual way we are present as awareness. We ordinarily think of ourselves as persons. That is a word from Greek meaning “what is sounded through.” That means a mask which was used as a megaphone in their theaters. So our “persons” are masks our “soul” if you will, or our awareness sounds through. But what sees that person? You can see yourself, and you can see your thinking. But what is it that sees? Turning of the discursive mind, or ceasing to tell yourself your story is the only way to see that clearly. Being so young, I may not attempt this on my own without guidance, but that is what is meant by "finding the off switch to the discursive mind. Before it is found, whatever might be said about God or religion is just that: about. It because it is book learning, even if it includes great feeling or emotion, both of which are inevitable and valuable, and not to be discounted, it is still not it, but on the way.

So in a way, ordinary life and the inconsitencies of thought within oneself and with other;s thinking is a preliminary and common way. Eventually one will ask, "If we are all made of the same stuff, why do we think so differently? It is because what we think is contents to what we are made of. Most areguments by far are about what different contents people have in their contaiiners, each one thinking “this is the one true container, it is real because it is mine, and I feel it to be me.” But few ever look at the container itself, what is there before you put anything into it.

You know, like thousands or millions of people with the same computer, but each loaded with different software. Sme have similar softeare and agree, mostly. Others don’t. They all argue about who has the true software, and never shut it of to re-boot and notice on the way that they all operate on DOS. Then you have a goood laugh, and continue using your computer, except you know it works on DOS, and others argue about what’s loaded.

There you go. I hope all that is simple enough for you to get. Thnks for asking! You have a great adventure before you, whether you get to DOS, or even before that,to “electricity” itself.

 

[JDaniel]

Are you saying that a thing is limited just in case it is a monad? And if it is not a monad, that is if some of its being is controlled by God, then it is not limited?

Fakename:

No. I think we are dimensionless exigencies within an illusion of dimensionality. If it were not for our minds, we could do no more than react. Such reacting would be essentially purposeless, for we would not know why we reacted thus and so.

If so, then I don’t think that it is true since traditionally God is both free and perfectly his own being and therefore he would be limited under your definitions though he is really unlimited. But I don’t even know what you mean by the above anyways so what do you mean?

See the above. If it does not make sense to you, please let me know.

God bless,
jd

 

[fakename]

We have to decide whether all ulterior motives are beyond our control. If so I don’t see how we can claim to be rational. Perhaps you mean that we always rationalise motives but in that case why should the motive for making that statement be any different? Irrationality is being used to conclude that every statement lacks a rational origin!

Temptations have no moral value to begin with but if we can resist them they acquire moral value. Kant observed that “ought implies can” - which sums it up neatly. We always come back to whether we are biological machines or autonomous persons.There is no other alternative. We certainly don’t have free will 100% of the time but do we have 0%? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I’m not sure how the second paragraph provides a corresponding answer to what I wrote but I’m just asking how does one tell the difference between ulterior motive and a purposeful motive that one simply couldn’t help but thinking (perhaps there is no such thing as something that is irresistably willed)? I think in fact that I just answered my own question -for there is no such thing as a thought that is like a magnate to the will.

But let me just pick your brain. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this before, but have you ever said “I’m going to have all honest intentions and no ulterior motives starting now”. Then you see a pretty woman. Now you decide to look at her because your eyes and body are so attracted to her but your say to yourself “my intentions are strictly to look at the snicker’s bar in her hand”. Now to what extent is that person’s intentions ulterior or primary or equivalently bodily or conscious? For his mind says one thing “look at bar” and his body says another “look at hot girl”. So it seems that he either has a primary, an ulterior, or two primary intentions.

This analysis is very difficult and barely intelligible but let me just say that the mind seems to be so very frustrating: it changes when observed so that one cannot see the “objective” mind and it seems to be sometimes utterly tethered to physical circumstances and sometimes to soar above these into the realm of genius. Rush expresses my current feelings on these subjects, “One likes to believe in the freedom of the mind but glittering prizes and endless compromises shatters the illusion of integrity, yeah.”

 

[Gaber]

I’m sorry, but I don’t quite get what youre saying about an off switch of the discursive mind. May you pleas explain this? I’m 16, remember.

Jst a side bar, J3: I was 17 when I had an expereince that literally pulled the rug out from under any and all concepts I had about what it menat to be a person, or awake and aware. I think I am so adamant on here about some things because the aftermath of that expereince was phenomenally disorienting and I got no useful help from the many clerics and counselors I went to, as they had no idea what I was talikng about. Now such things as what happened to me are more out in the open, as are many other things we used to hide in closets and under rugs or just pretended weren’t there. Even some in the Church have given excellent dilineations of the extreme end of spiritual practice, ograce, while those have been common elsewhere for a while. But in my opinion and practice, I think it ought to be known that there is more than is commonly thought available in the work of spiritual endevor. That’s all.

 

[PJM]

=JDaniel;9389771]Fakename:

No. I think we are dimensionless exigencies within an illusion of dimensionality. If it were not for our minds, we could do no more than react. Such reacting would be essentially purposeless, for we would not know why we reacted thus and so.

And you know of couse that “our minds” along with our intellects and freewill are permnately attached to our SOULS; which is how we emulate OUR God [Gen. 1:26-28].

And Like God they are Spiritual in Nature and can neither die of be killed.

And of couse ONLY HUMANITY of the many BILLUIONS of created things by God has them

God Bless,
pat /PJM

See the above. If it does not make sense to you, please let me know.

God bless,
jd

 

[Gaber]

And you know of couse that “our minds” along with our intellects and freewill are permnately attached to our SOULS; which is how we emulate OUR God [Gen. 1:26-28].

Human mind can be discovered through inquiry to be dependent on, but not identical with or “permanently attached” to soul. And how does one “emulate” Omniscience and all the other ALLness qualifiers of God?

And Like God they are Spiritual in Nature and can neither die of be killed.

This is ultimately true of Soul, but is it what you think it is?

And of couse ONLY HUMANITY of the many BILLUIONS of created things by God has them

Yes, in a sense, and as far as we know. Have you or anyone taken a survey of the rest of Universe? Also, what does “created” mean?

 

[JDaniel]

And you know of couse that “our minds” along with our intellects and freewill are permnately attached to our SOULS; which is how we emulate OUR God [Gen. 1:26-28].

Hello, PJM:

I prefer not to attach anything to the soul except what is attached to it by what it is. I think that our souls inform our minds, intellects, and wills, much like a hard drive informs the RAM in our computers upon the calling up of a program.

And Like God they are Spiritual in Nature and can neither die of be killed.

Yes. But, they can be theoretically annihilated by God Himself, though He more than likely wouldn’t.

And of couse ONLY HUMANITY of the many BILLIONS of created things by God has them

I think lesser beings have souls too, although their souls are different. I view their souls in the context of their extreme similarity. There seems to be an extraordinary uniqueness among humans that animals seem to possess only vaguely. Yet, they each have an animating principle, which is the composite of matter and form, which is their “souls.”

We have two minds, essentially, a reactive mind, which is very animal-like, and an analytical mind, which is very God-like. We have to have both as we live in a scenario fraught with dangers. The animal, on the other hand, has both as well. But, as we can easily see from an inspection of any animal, their analytical minds are almost, but not completely, superfluous, while their reactive minds have taken pre-eminence.

God Bless,
pat /PJM

See the above. If it does not make sense to you, please let me know.

God bless,
jd

 

[PJM]

=Gaber;9391981]Human mind can be discovered through inquiry to be dependent on, but not identical with or “permanently attached” to soul. And how does one “emulate” Omniscience and all the other ALLness qualifiers of God?
This is ultimately true of Soul, but is it what you think it is?
Yes, in a sense, and as far as we know. Have you or anyone taken a survey of the rest of Universe? Also, what does “created” mean?

***Yes acutually as best as science has permitted. We did after-all place men on the moon

"Mind, Intellect and freewill are a permnant PART OF"ones soul is the same as being attached to it. These attrubutes are essential to where one chooses to spend eternity. Without them one could NOT know eternity which would lack all meaning and purpose.

Without these “God Like” attributes; humanity could Not:

Know God

Could participate in the “Beatific Vision”

Could not suffer the JUST pains of Purgatory or hell

“Created” means "to MAKE something [actually BILLIONS of somethings] out of nothing. Something ONLy GOD CAN AND HAS ACCOMPLISED:thumbsup:

Are you SURE your a “catholic”?" If you are CAF is a good place to learn about OUR Catholic Faith. If ***not

as a FYI: ONE OF THE DEFINATIONS OF “emulate” IS TO strive TO “BE LIKE”.:tiphat:

May God Bless and GUIDE you…

pat /PJM

 

[Gaber]

Yes acutually as best as science has permitted. We did after-all place men on the moonYs, “as best as science has permitted” being the operator. And some of the astronauts, one in particualar, wondered who it was who was inhabiting the ships lined up n a crater rim watching them. That is both from a tape and from a private conversation.

"Mind, Intellect and freewill are a permnant PART OF"ones soul is the same as being attached to it. These attrubutes are essential to where one chooses to spend eternity. Without them one could NOT know eternity which would lack all meaning and purpose.

not :shrug:I am more Catholic thatn you might be able to imagine.

as a FYI: ONE OF THE DEFINATIONS OF “emulate” IS TO strive TO “BE LIKE”.:tiphat:

Yes, hence the origin of a list of questions.

May God Bless and GUIDE you…

Tat is a nice sentiment making a pre-existing and inescapable condition appear as something voluntarily bestowable.

Thanks for your time!

P.S. You might hop over to the last pages of the thread **[Can Science REALLY explain reality?](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=675070&page=38)**

 

[tonyrey]

I’m not sure how the second paragraph provides a corresponding answer to what I wrote but I’m just asking how does one tell the difference between ulterior motive and a purposeful motive that one simply couldn’t help but thinking (perhaps there is no such thing as something that is irresistably willed)? I think in fact that I just answered my own question -for there is no such thing as a thought that is like a magnate to the will.

But let me just pick your brain. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this before, but have you ever said “I’m going to have all honest intentions and no ulterior motives starting now”. Then you see a pretty woman. Now you decide to look at her because your eyes and body are so attracted to her but your say to yourself “my intentions are strictly to look at the snicker’s bar in her hand”. Now to what extent is that person’s intentions ulterior or primary or equivalently bodily or conscious? For his mind says one thing “look at bar” and his body says another “look at hot girl”. So it seems that he either has a primary, an ulterior, or two primary intentions.

This analysis is very difficult and barely intelligible but let me just say that the mind seems to be so very frustrating: it changes when observed so that one cannot see the “objective” mind and it seems to be sometimes utterly tethered to physical circumstances and sometimes to soar above these into the realm of genius. Rush expresses my current feelings on these subjects, “One likes to believe in the freedom of the mind but glittering prizes and endless compromises shatters the illusion of integrity, yeah.”

Our inability to analyse the workings of the mind fully implies that our conclusions about intentions cannot be regarded as conclusive(!) unless they are considered with other factors like free will, responsibility and the purpose of life.