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Calgar
Guest
So would that make them protestant? They just haven’t left the building yet?
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Charlemagne_II
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ThinkingSapien
**It is as though the bible is a book that they’ve heard of but have never read. I’m not sure what to make of that. **
This is a fair observation. They may not have read it themselves, but have heard it read to them from the pulpit Sunday after Sunday for many years. They know pretty much what the gospels are about. They just don’t spiritually rise to the challenge of heeding them.
But this is pretty much true of many Christians, not just Catholics. In a world saturated with materialism, atheism, and various and sundry distractions, it’s harder than ever to be a true Christian. I blame this on the liberal establishment who have secured under the banner of the 1st Amendment every possible legal permission for anti-Christian zealots to corrupt the youth of America.
But you would only know this if you had been a youth in the 1950s and could remember how relatively clean the moral atmosphere was compared to the putrid present day public morality.
**It is as though the bible is a book that they’ve heard of but have never read. I’m not sure what to make of that. **
This is a fair observation. They may not have read it themselves, but have heard it read to them from the pulpit Sunday after Sunday for many years. They know pretty much what the gospels are about. They just don’t spiritually rise to the challenge of heeding them.
But this is pretty much true of many Christians, not just Catholics. In a world saturated with materialism, atheism, and various and sundry distractions, it’s harder than ever to be a true Christian. I blame this on the liberal establishment who have secured under the banner of the 1st Amendment every possible legal permission for anti-Christian zealots to corrupt the youth of America.
But you would only know this if you had been a youth in the 1950s and could remember how relatively clean the moral atmosphere was compared to the putrid present day public morality.
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tonyrey
Guest
In the 1930s many people here didn’t lock their front door!
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tonyrey
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Sair
Guest
Such as? Obviously these truths are perceptible, otherwise we could just make them up and no-one would be any the wiser…right?
Sure. Why not?
Not an all-encompassing one, no.
‘Entirely’ is a too-sweeping generalisation, considering we don’t know how much we don’t know.
So you assume. What do you think is responsible for ‘understanding’? An entity that stands apart from the physical being?
I am not blocking off avenues of enquiry by supposing reality to be natural; the belief in supernatural realities, however, requires the assumption of realities that by definition, cannot be detected or examined with the means available to us.
On the contrary, it’s a very tangible, affective and effective entity.
What is choice, then? Choice is the pursuit of one alternative over another alternative. Our neural pathways accomplish this all the time - and as has been pointed out, studies have indicated that these decisions are often made before consciousness joins the party.
It also amounts to a physical cause in itself - we are not independent of the web of connections, but that doesn’t mean we are entirely subject to it without exerting our own influence.
Reality is reality. I simply suppose that reality and nature are one and the same. Anything that interacts with nature, with the physical universe, is likewise physical - how should it be otherwise? By supposing that this is not the case, that there is a layer of reality ‘above’ or ‘beyond’ the physical, you are assuming we already know the limits of physical reality.
Not yet, because we don’t know precisely how such a thing happens. Doesn’t mean we should automatically assume that it’s magic. How do water molecules produce ‘wetness’? Not because ‘wetness’ is an intangible concept, but because of the arrangements and interactions of the molecules. My question was asked in response to the apparent assumption that all our body parts somehow operate independently and don’t interact and affect each other.
Maybe just because it can. Why should it not do so?
Interest, rather. I don’t expect consciousness to be explained in my lifetime.
Presumably, if someone did so, they would think it was right for them to do so, or they wouldn’t care, or they would be doing it for fun. Add to that my perception that it’s wrong, and you have four possible perspectives on the one action. Was it still objectively wrong for the Inquisition to torture heretics and witches? They didn’t think so. They thought they were serving a higher good - probably what seemed to them an objective higher good. Is it objectively wrong to torture a terrorist to gain information that might save thousands of innocent lives? Murky waters indeed…
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Charlemagne_II
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tonyrey
**
In the 1930s many people here didn’t lock their front door! **
I can’t remember that far back, but I remember in my boyhood it was still so in the 1940s!
The popularity of crime today has been really great for two trades.
The locksmith and the defense lawyers.
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In the 1930s many people here didn’t lock their front door! **
I can’t remember that far back, but I remember in my boyhood it was still so in the 1940s!
The popularity of crime today has been really great for two trades.
The locksmith and the defense lawyers.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
I think it is very true that the young today have no conception of how low morals have sunk.
The prison population in this country is higher than the number of college students.
What does that tell you?
Criminality is more popular than education.
Yet I’m not even sure how much of public education today is criminal. I suppose the case could be made that public schools are for some an internship for a life of crime.
The prison population in this country is higher than the number of college students.
What does that tell you?
Criminality is more popular than education.
Yet I’m not even sure how much of public education today is criminal. I suppose the case could be made that public schools are for some an internship for a life of crime.
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Sair
Guest
Maybe criminality is just more affordable than education, in a country that despises welfare systems.
Because growing up in poverty and with few opportunities except to join a gang isn’t enough of an education in criminality, I suppose…
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Here is a website video lecture (14 minutes and well worth it) which makes an interesting case that colleges and public middle schools are a proving ground for future terrorist crimes.
link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid949801312001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAACEco_Vk~,9bOat4XcfB_88ri1a3UMdKnLpH9aM8Fv&bclid=0&bctid=1271237687001
link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid949801312001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAACEco_Vk~,9bOat4XcfB_88ri1a3UMdKnLpH9aM8Fv&bclid=0&bctid=1271237687001
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Bobber90
Guest
These studies show that mind and brain are related, yes, but do you think that there is no evidence for causation one way or another?These studies merely confirm that the mind and brain are related. Conjunction does not entail causality! It is not self-evident that our **intangible **thoughts can be equated with, or caused by, **tangible **electrical impulses. There is plenty of evidence that our thoughts can produce effects on the body rather than be produced by the body.
Do we behave as if we are robots controlled by physical events or do we act as if **we **can control physical events?Your answer is revealing…
The stimulation of parts of the brain with chemicals/cuts/magnetic fields happen immediately before things-which-we-might-call-effects, like mood/ability/memory/perceptive changes occur. These things-which-we-might-call-effects regularly follow these stimulations when they are done to other people too. An example of matter-to-mind causation would surely be pricking your finger and feeling pain. Is it just a coincidence, the hitting of a nerve and the subjective feeling of pain? Is it just a coincidence that lobotomy precedes mental health changes, that alcohol consumption accompanies memory lapses, that the infusion of anaesthetics into the blood stream predict the onset of loss of consciousness… etc etc? All through life we assume that affecting the brain affects the mind, but then when the brain is finally starved of oxygen and all function ceases, we assume the mind continues along as if none of this mattered?
Does your computer behave as if it is just a robot, controlled by physical events? Infuriatingly not, in my experience.
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tonyrey
Guest
There is abundant evidence that the mind** controls** the brain and that it receives stimuli from the brain.
If their instruments are damaged musicians cannot express themselves.
That is not because it has a mind (of its own!).
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Bobber90
Guest
Do you think the mind is coextensive with the capacities of the brain? For example, there are some children who are born without a full brain, but who develop connections across the gaps as they grow. When first born, can they be said to have the same mind as any other child, just without the stimulations other children’s brains would provide? Where does this stimulation occur? Where is the stimulator, and where is the point where the stimulator stimulates the mind - is there a physical location?There is abundant evidence that the mind** controls** the brain and that it receives stimuli from the brain.
If their instruments are damaged musicians cannot express themselves.
That is not because it has a mind (of its own!).
A more extreme example is Anencephaly, which (according to wikipedia) is a condition where babies lack a major portion of the brain, skull and scalp, due to a defect occurring between 23rd/26th day of pregnancy:
‘The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) describes the presentation of this condition as follows: "A baby born with anencephaly is usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain. Although some individuals with anencephaly may be born with a main brain stem, the lack of a functioning cerebrum permanently rules out the possibility of ever gaining consciousness. Reflex actions such as breathing and responses to sound or touch occur.’
Does that mean that these babies also have minds? I suppose there is also the question of learning - all babies go from having apparently no self-consciousness to learning a great deal about themselves, others and the world in general. Is learning merely remembering what your soul already knew before this life, as Plato would have it? Or does learning represent the development of your mind, by the development of your brain?
Language learning is an important part of this, because conscious thought is so dependent upon it. The mind seems to run on words, (as well as emotions and memories etc etc) would you agree? Give that the prevailing scientific views agree that there are components for language learning that are inherent in the brain from day 1, does that mean that this feature of the mind grows out of the matter of the brain?
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