Realism versus mind/body dichotomy

[coberst]

Realism versus mind/body dichotomy

 

Idealism is a label for the philosophical position that rejects realism. Realism is the view that the world is only matter and that objects are independent of mind and can be known as they really are. Idealism stresses the spiritual (other worldly) characteristic of mind, which is different in kind from body.

 

Idealism has many definitions but all focus on the assumption that consciousness is detached from its concrete socially situated subjects. Such an assumption leads to the isolation of ideas from the concrete body. Theories, beliefs, human conduct and other products can be understood and analyzed in isolation from the historical subject. A giant unbridgeable gap develops between mind and body.

 

Idealism holds the twin principles; nature or matter on one hand and spirit, God, ego, etc. on the other. Man and woman are creatures harboring two distinctly different realities within one structure. We are bipartite beings. Thought, especially theoretical thought is a substance of the spirit thus intellectual, moral, artistic and such are activities of the spirit.

 

Consciousness is the property of the spirit and because spirit transcends the world of matter then philosophers surmise consciousness is autonomous and independent, governed by non-material principles.

 

This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy and psychology regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.

 

The three major findings of cognitive science are:

The mind is inherently embodied.

Thought is mostly unconscious.

Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

 

These findings of cognitive science are profoundly disquieting for traditional thinking in two respects. “First, they tell us that human reason is a form of animal reason, a reason inextricably tied to our bodies and the peculiarities of our brains. Second, these results tell us that our bodies, brains, and interactions with our environment provide the mostly unconscious basis for our everyday metaphysics, that is, our sense of what is real.”

 

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson

 

Questions for discussion

 

I think that human nature is animal plus something else. The something else I will call soul but soul does not mean ‘other world’ substance. What do you think?

 

I think that humans have a need for concepts such as soul, which have been co-opted by religion and thereby given them an ‘other worldly’ character that makes it virtually impossible to use these concepts in a secular manner. What do you think?

[Queso]

Our brains are big. We evolved to the point where we think about our own thoughts.

 

The soul is a balloon in which human beings use, and will continue to use to rise higher, furthering the evolution of the mind.

 

The soul is like a bridge some cross to a physicless playground.

 

Although some can't see it, some can. Yin yang here.

 

Somehow, we are able to leave our bodies in our own mind and with enough awareness and enough praxis, one can do whatever they want.

 

It's so beautiful. And this is only the beginning! I can't even imagine what is to come of our consciousness.

 

Warm. Wet. Density.

[REASON]

Questions for discussion

 

I think that human nature is animal plus something else. The something else I will call soul but soul does not mean ‘other world’ substance. What do you think?

 

I think that humans have a need for concepts such as soul, which have been co-opted by religion and thereby given them an ‘other worldly’ character that makes it virtually impossible to use these concepts in a secular manner. What do you think?

 

Interesting topic coberst. I like the way you have set it up. I consider myself a realist, or at least my philosophy is based around realism.

 

I contend that the concept of soul has been perpetuated, particularly among religious groups, to provide a means for an afterlife or eternal life. It is the link to 'other worldly' experience, and provides a sense of peace to a mind that can't get a grip on the concept of death. The survival instinct is very strong among living things. The soul, Heaven, God, and the promise of an afterlife, are therefore incredibly tempting to believe in.....They're like a soothing medication that quiets the noise of nonexistance in the mind.

 

So what do you think the need is of humans for concepts such as soul?

[coberst]

Reason

 

The urge for abstraction originated in the sense of immortality within primitive wo/man. The conjunction of abstraction with immortality in turn developed in the concept of ‘soul’. This chain of events subsequently created religion; art then led beyond abstraction to the objectivizing and concretizing of the prevailing idea of the soul.

 

Anything produced objectively in a period by the current idea of the soul was considered to be beautiful. The aesthetic history of the concept of beauty is likely to be nothing more than changing contemporary conception of the soul that resulted from the ever increasing knowledge.

 

Artistic creation, “art-will” must be comprehended as an expression of both a personal will of the artist and also as an expression of the collective ideologies, i.e. the religious and philosophical ideologies, effecting the artist. “The artist as a definite creative individual uses the art form that he finds in order to express something personal”. We might well ask ‘what are the motives and processes that trigger the art-will in order to create an art-achievement’?

 

To comprehend art and the artist we must focus upon the art-will of the artist and we must also consider the religious and philosophical tendencies of the times; we must consider the collective ideologies of the time. The artist must use what is at hand to express something personal and creative that is somehow connected with the collective nature of the times. The individual artist creates her art while simultaneously using the art in vogue at the time.

 

The belief in immortality seems to express it self both in art and in social institutions like religion in a parallel manner. The essence of the art-will seems to be to eternalize the object of the art-accomplishment. To give an object of art immortality in an abstract form is to bring it to its absolute value. There is in art an “instinctive urge to abstraction”; religion being the best example of that urge. The primitive religious belief in souls is abstract in conception and has been called by more advanced religions wherein gods have already taken a concrete form

 

The idea of soul as it progresses through history is important consideration here. Original primitive art is an attempt to make concrete what is abstract. The soul, an abstraction, is represented in a concrete manner. It is evident that art and religion are conjoined from primitive times to the present.

 

Religious art is a display of the ever changing concept of what is beautiful. The concept of the beautiful that inspires the art of a period is derived not from the abstract concept of soul but from the concretization of that concept.

 

Religious art concretes the abstract idea of soul and thereby makes the soul convincing; it creates something tangible and lasting of a concept as it moves down from generation to generation by a mystical verbal tradition that became fixed only later.

 

“This close association, in fact fundamental identity, of art and religion, each of which strives in its own way to make the absolute eternal and the eternal absolute, can be already seen at the most primitive stages of religious development, where there are as yet neither representations if gods nor copies of nature.”

 

Quotes and ideas from “Art and Artist” by Otto Rank

[HappytheStripper]

Speaking of Realism is the same as speaking about reality.. and I have a good statement for reality..

 

Your currently reality is that which you perceive.. perception is that which the conscious mind thinks.. and knows.. and.. that which you think based on your perception is entirely over to you..

 

Ashley

[coberst]

Happy

 

I think that reality is layered much like an onion. Most people spend most of their life on the surface never making any attempt to examine the deeper layers. That which appears to perception without much thought is the surface.

[HappytheStripper]

Happy

 

I think that reality is layered much like an onion. Most people spend most of their life on the surface never making any attempt to examine the deeper layers. That which appears to perception without much thought is the surface.

 

 

As I stated.. that which you perceive is entirely over to you..

 

I am perceived by many as Happy and by others as Ashley

 

Ashley

[REASON]

Speaking of Realism is the same as speaking about reality.. and I have a good statement for reality..

 

Your currently reality is that which you perceive.. perception is that which the conscious mind thinks.. and knows.. and.. that which you think based on your perception is entirely over to you..

 

Ashley

 

I tend to think that there is reality, and then there is perceived reality, which is some portion of reality that has been filtered by an individual's conciousness.

 

Reality is what is. It cannot be known in its entirety by an individual, and what portion can be known is often distorted by the indiviual's perception filter.

 

For me, reality is truth, whereas perceived reality may or may not be.

[Queso]

Your reality is channel 3.

 

Ever changed the channel?

[jungjedi]

Your reality is channel 3.

 

Ever changed the channel?

 

I want to ride my bicycle.i want to ride my bike.i want to ride my bicycle.i want to ride it where i like