What is the meaning of life?

Discussion in 'Serious Discussion' started by sid_16, Jun 9, 2013.

  1. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    Well both have got a folding structure because of best usage of space.
    The spread cerebrum is around the size of a page of a newspaper, intestines around 6 meter length.

    What's really interesting is not the similarity of appearance, but the interaction of both and their functions.
    The intestines' neural system consist of around 100 million neural cells, one can consider them as a second brain with own nervous system (ENS). They are connected via the vagus nerve.
    Also neurotransmitters such as serotonin play an important role. The 'gut feeling' is reasoned by neurotransmitters.

    Besides of that intestinal bacteria and brain can interact; the bacteria can modulate hormones. There are interesting papers:
    http://www.nature.com/news/the-tantalizing-links-between-gut-microbes-and-the-brain-1.18557
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867415002482?via=ihub

    Many people consider the brain as major part of central nervous system, yes even the location of 'consciousness'.

    What I already tried to illustrate is that the brain is overestimated on that score.
    The job of the intestines is not just digestion...:) the mechanisms how both do communicate are not yet understood.
     
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  2. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    Is this the "Road to a man's heart is through his stomach" grandma wisdom? :D :D :D
     
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  3. Yen

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    Yeah, perhaps in the sense that there has to be stimulus on both systems to get him. :)

    IMHO it is really interesting. Science should do more research...
    The immune system and the ENS (enteric nervous system) also belong together.

    Also gut feeling versus analytic intellect.

    The analytical mind is usually preferred when it comes to personal decisions, anyway there is intelligence in gut feeling based decisions...there is 'consciousness' before the analytical mind and reason are addressed.
    And there is no valid reason to diminish 'it'.
     
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  4. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    I can vouch for the opposite, m8... You should date a bit more, I think... :D :p :D

    Nah, I think you should.... :D Empirical research, as it were... :D

    I think you will find that most of that "gut stuff" is learnt, socially induced, as it were, over many years of growing up, learning, experiencing, a socially coloured type of "reasoning" a la gut... ;)

    I think you are missing a so called critical approach, Reason based, which encompasses all the elements of Human capacities...

    But OK, it's been fun... :D
     
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  5. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    #285 Yen, Nov 28, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2017
    Yeah I know ....to many men sexual stimulus is enough already. I personally know with good cuisine one can impress...regardless women impresses man or the other way around.....or if not there are the butterflies in the stomach maybe an additional ENS stimulus who knows? :D
    I bet serotonin plays a role here, lol...

    I rather thought about focus/feeling and modulation of hormones..for instance what happens biochemically when one relies on 'gut feeling'.
    Or what exactly denotes a (active) focus on it?

    The history of the nervous system and its evolution and the layers of perception.
    There are automatized and autonomic processes and there is aware focus on gut feeling.....women statistically rely more on it than men.

    Gut feeling has no strict definition.....one should clearly differentiate intuition from instinct.

    It's not much worth...determinations which force other relations. The question alone what is really Reason(able) has issues enough. One cannot deny them by determination of Reason and human capacities.
    Humans can achieve unbelievable 'things' at special situations (maybe by temporarily extending nervous systems/network?!)...pre-determination of human capacities can be questionable...

    There are ways of intercommunication of nervous systems / Hormones without any 'Reason'...to most humans the intellect does make such big noise that subtle communications and 'consciousness' are not even present...there is no delicacy of feeling....


    There is a (weird) publication by Timothy Leary. "Neuro Logic" :D.... it seems to have more sense than any definition of Reason. Human Reason is a product of thought and does not exist beyond thoughts. It's the intellect that determines something as reasonable...
     
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  6. sid_16

    sid_16 MDL Giveaway Organiser

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    #286 sid_16, Nov 28, 2017
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    (OP)
    I was passing by this side of the forum and this discussion caught my eye so chime in here :p I knowingly avoided this discussion section due to some reason but...
    My own definition of intuition, i.e., 'Knowing' something without being aware of how we know it, or believing something to be true without the awareness of any supporting evidence.
    'focus/feeling' may/not be the most precise term, but any organism that is capable of feeling emotions, and has a history of exposure to the contingencies (that elicit emotional reactions) within a given stimulus setting, is likely to experience similar emotional reactions when subsequently presented with the same or similar stimuli -prior to an 'expected' experience of the historical contingency.

    e.g., If you believe that dogs experience emotions then consider X’s dog when he heard the bell, and his salivation increased (per his conditioning) in 'anticipation' of getting some meat, don't you think that he was also experiencing some other feelings besides excess drooling?
     
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  7. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    Yen, perhaps if you'd take the notions in a broad scientific and philosophical sense and not push your own twist to them into all of it, maybe we could get some place safe... :D
     
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  8. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    It's not easy. Even authors of translations firstly make clear how they 'interpret' notions..remember Anschauung

    I think it is better to try to illustrate the own meaning to get understanding...the own meaning is mostly closer to common human meaning than academical definitions. Sid also started to post an own definition...
    Besides of that I am 'marked' when it comes to Vernunft :D....Vernunft is something for the lame establishment. lol


    I guess it is a tie of an unconditional complex and a conditional complex by learning...whatever the complexes are...

    This also works with addictions.....
    You can for instance smoke cigarettes when you are emotionally stressed..... firstly together with other people (who share the same situation, for instance just being right before exam) in a calm and loose atmosphere...(we are in the same boat emotionally)...

    The loose and calm atmosphere can be tied to the cigarette so to say...
    You can do that without the social environment you had before whenever you are emotionally stressed you can smoke to calm down. I learned that mechanism at study lol...and it still works..I would have to de-condition it...


    Actually I am mostly faced with 2 issues. Translation and different meaning at different academical branches and common use.
    Feeling generally
    Emotions and
    instinct based feelings
    sensations
    perceptions....

    I'd define emotions as body response to thoughts. Emotions mostly have nothing to do with current life situations.
    You can lie on your couch but at the same time you can have fear. You respond emotionally on your sorrows of the (thought) future for instance. Or you are happy about past memories...or upset about a past event...
    There has to be thoughts first... then as body response emotion....many people are not aware of this sequence.
    There are also processes which are considered as automatic or autonom. But in fact they are sequences which can be noticed as such when having more awareness/focus on them.

    Instinct based feeling is when you are in a life threatening situation...falling, drowning....there is real danger instinct based feeling is no response of previous thoughts...instincts based feelings come from another (older) historical part of the nervous system...

    I agree with your own definition of intuition. I'd extend it..it also results to new ideas....
    When having a closer focus on it intuition comes from another consciousness. It is not derived from stored patterns of thoughts and hence there is no evidence base. It comes 'suddenly' from the Now.
     
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  9. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    #289 gorski, Nov 29, 2017
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2017
    These are very fickle "definitions", i.e. differences, I must say... Moreover, they are excluding the other, whomever disagrees. Hence the appeal, of course, since anyone is an "expert" (for him/herself/the followers)...

    "Instinct" is a rather loaded notion, which is doing the rounds between "natural" and "social" sciences and all of those layers need to be undone to get to grips with the issues themselves... First we need to know the basics, like a difference between simple reflexes and apparently non-learnt, complex set of behavioural patterns, then we need to understand our own interpretative notions, our methodology etc. etc. in order to be able to judge what, if anything, is actually an "instinct" etc.

    "Anschauung/predodžba/insight" of this or that kind is frequently "mystical" or only open to "insiders" (remember peripathos ?), which in itself voids it of any "measurable", meaningful judgement and so on and on...

    But Vernunft has a long and open-to-all-history, Enlightenment based, inclusive and revealed to all interested (after proper studying and that is not at all questionable - quite the opposite is the case, if one stands on an emancipatory grounds!), open to debate and reinterpretation, so not at all exclusive, as opposed to the above mentioned notions, which are open only to the "initiated", of course!
     
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  10. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    You are right, but we should not forget that the philosophical systems and notions are human products.
    Verstand (Mind) and Vernunft (Reason) come from theoretical Philosophy and have changed their meaning during history of Philosophy.

    The issue of notions and their changes are also a question of what includes what...

    I know Vernunft is a major tool in Philosophy..anyway I always had problems. Vernunft is a pure theoretical notion. It excludes metaphysical recognition, but includes human awareness of a higher entity such as god.
    Which Reason determines the boundaries and what about god's Reason?

    Kant delivers a reasonable system, but it is theoretical.

    'Feelings' are practical sensations. A definition of notions can be made from practical experiences...
     
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  11. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    No, Yen, you got it backward: it is not a tool... This is where Frankfurt School went off the track completely. Even Marcuse came up with "instrumental Reason" nonsense, which is a "wooden steel" notion. This is an encompassing notion, an instance which is the critical instance, as opposed to Mind (Verstand) and they got it all mixed up badly, in their zeal to be "critical" towards Modernity, under a severe experience of 2 WWs and Holocaust etc. etc.

    And no, this is not just "theoretical", whatever that might mean - just as your musings on the theme are not just "practical".

    Since you are mentioning Kant, he is the one who posited the primacy of Practical Reason, btw... ;)
     
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  12. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    Yes, OK.
    The question is anyway....is there a sense when determining Pure Reason?. I mean what is subject of Reason? Who 'owns' the rules of Reason?

    Finally objections about one's post always end with the argument that notions are not conform to somebody's Philosophy...
    It's also a personal Anschauung.

    To translate Anschauung with insight is also not comprehensive.
    Anschauung firstly requires a S/O dualism. Somebody who looks at something. It can be reduced to a pure physical process, but Anschauung also claims for a personal view on it. It claims for basic idea and includes the way of looking at things. (perspective, approach (to) and view (of)...it is the Betrachtungsweise.)
    It also includes imagination and impression...it can be intuitive or discursive. (When it's from Kant only intuition)...
    Anschauung can even become an own ideology. (Weltanschauung) Anschauung of the world.

    What else is included then when doing it (intellect, Reason, mind, gut feeling) does actually not matter...

    One can have a reasonable Anschauung without using philosophical notion.
    To respond to the topic one had got an Anschauung. :)
     
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  13. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    #293 gorski, Nov 30, 2017
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    Nobody "owns" the rules, Yen! Yet again, you are setting the Q badly and so you are looking in the wrong places, using the wrong methods...

    This is Enlightenment/Modernity we are talking about, not Middle Ages, Inquisition and whatnot. Open-ness, capacity to learn is matched with tools and general context, or as Kant would put it "we created the conditions under which this is possible" and in principle these institutions and processes are open to anyone who can and is willing to learn, study, research. Of course, it is not yet the case for absolutely everybody but we have moved the goalposts in Enlightenment/Modernity BEYOND measure of all the previous epochs put together and we are still working under those principles, in order to push it farther still!

    Reason/Vernunft/Um is OUR HIGHEST CAPACITY, HUMAN temporal intelligence, the critical instance, as opposed to Mind/Verstand/razum or sensus communis/common sense/zdrava pamet/etc. which are the instances of dealing with the merely existing, the given set of conditions, finding our way to cheese, here and now, our spatial, LAB RAT intelligence. Only through Reason can we question EVERYTHING relentlessly, as opposed to commonly held prejudices, mores, prevailing ethical rules etc. etc. which Verstand deals in. Vernunft is THE source of our imagination, creativity, our capacity to learn and change, to better ourselves, to come up with new rules, better principles etc. This is profoundly Human. As Aristotle puts it, we sit, methodologically speaking, between animals and God. God does not need to strive, learn etc. S/He is all powerful, all knowing, s/he does not "need"... Animals, on the other hand, can not learn the way we do, can not communicate across generations and aeons and so on and on and on...

    The ongoing battle for freedom and recognition would never have been on the cards had it been just for Verstand and sensus communis. Get it straight, m8. This is the common heritage we all have, you included, no one excluded, especially nowadays, with most of it being readily available...

    As for your personal leanings, where to search for your "answers" to Modern questions - you are the only one to answer for yourself, of course... :) However, the "instruments" you are using in your quest, I can tell you that much, are subject to critical approach by anyone and you should also use your capacity to uncover where you got your "tools/perceptions/die Anschauung/predodžbe" or even "notions" from, what they entail, how they "shroud" more than "reveal" etc. etc.
     
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  14. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    #294 gorski, Nov 30, 2017
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    Anschauung in Serbo-Croat is predodžba, literally predočiti, pred očima, something that one immediately "imagines" or "perceives" on a given issue, here and now, in a "knee jerk reaction" manner, on a "gut level", something one "presumes" or "perceives" on an anecdotal, individual level, through personal experience, BUT which (personal experience and gut feeling or knee jerk reaction) is always already moulded/coloured/skewed by a set of prejudices one gets through socialisation, commonly held beliefs, prevailing mores, ethical standards which are held by a majority of people we grew up around and "picked up" unquestioningly from them etc. etc.

    As opposed to a set of scientifically and philosophically questioned presumptions and perceptions brought to the level of Notion/Begriff/pojam. Period.

    There is nothing "mystical" about it. Get over it. Seriously...
     
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  15. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    #295 gorski, Nov 30, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2017
    As far as Humans are concerned, our "Being" is in constant "becoming/verden/postajanje" (or not, as the case may be): dynamis <=> poiesis <=> energeia, i.e. the moulding of potentiality into reality as production, to put it a bit imprecisely...

    Just to add: in Philosophy, notions of Nous/Vernunft/Um/Reason and our other capacities have not been unambiguously differentiated from the beginning of Mediterranean-Western-European civilisation and culture (I include the Arabs/Semites into it, as you can see). This proper differentiation we get later on but the general "idea" or "trend" is already seen in, for instance, Aristotle...

    Firstly, generally speaking, to try to shed some light on the issues, there is a narrower meaning of Nous/Vernunft in a division of our capacities, "reserved" for "theoria", as opposed to "praxis" and "poiesis", with their own relevant capacities. But also a wider, all encompassing meaning which unifies all three ("episteme" as in - when it comes to Hegel - Reason/Idea/Absolute/Absolute Idea/Philosophy/Absolute Science/Absolute (his) Philosophy/God/Spirit/etc., in various parts of his System)... :D

    This, for people without such training/education, of course, can be confusing at times - but then again, same issues go on in Science, with the jargon etc. One simply must... learn, sorry... :D
     
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  16. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    ...and I thereby answered the title of the thread... :D :D :D
     
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  17. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    Gorski, there is nothing wrong with what you have posted. :)
    And I do not want to 'diminish' it in any way. All what you have mentioned has its importance for humankind and history.
    I know there is nothing 'mystical' about it.

    Anyway all that is a human process nothing static (thank god). During history systems have changed. And we know the current 'condition' of humankind has 'flaws'.
    They appear as 'problems' still coming from a false self-identification. Our dealing with nature, other humans, violence, pollution. It seems the world outside is a reflection of our inner own.

    And it seems current 'state' of Philosophy is stuck and cannot have the needed influence that would make humans to get over it. Wars, pollution, hostility, irresponsibility....

    It seems the Triebfeder (driving force) of humankind is not Reason based, but suffering based.

    Talking a bit more of myself....:)
    When I was a child I noticed already that I am sensitive to 'nature' and an 'unity' to it. Contrary to that all the 'misbehaviours' of the adults....
    Later then I noticed that I have got talent for Chemistry. When I was 14 years old I started a project how common human pollutants have an influence on plants and as result on foods.

    I thought I could get answers from Chemistry.
    I came to Pharma. First organic synthesis, then until today phytochemical research. I 'developed' my social contribution by developing remedies for human diseases.

    Anyway my 'curiosity' and the fact that there are questions left made me to have a look at other 'places'.
    I started to travel. I got familiar with Hinduism, Buddhism, eastern Philosophy, yes also Christianity.
    When I travel it is important to me to get most of 'original' culture there...
    When I was faced with Kant, Hegel at school I did never get real access I have to admit.
    There are basic 'differences' which do not fit for whatever reason.

    When I can only 'experience' being by constantly becoming something... I am hunting...away from that what currently IS! There will be ever something missing, something needed to be (peaceful)...

    Only from a self-awareness that is reasoned in self-knowledge the way that what I am IS already (complete, a whole, as it is..) I can (naturally) become.
    I know then what I become comes and goes, all of it is impermanent. I do not search for happiness, something permanent there where I am constantly disappointed. I have a home so to say. It requires Seinsbewusstein a consciousness that is independent from what I become. I am.
    Relying on that life situations are losing their 'heaviness'. Life gets friendly, people respond friendly.
    The 'power' can come unadulterated, that what is communicates unadulterated and is experienced as unity of all beings, real compassion. That what becomes becomes with most quality is echt (real) and unaffected.

    That I have learned from the simple people, from people who are not intellectually dominant, from poor people who don't have much things except their presence.
    It is 'something' that is present in childhood..and gets into background when becoming adult. It's something to re-discover.

    To 'receive' that one needs an antenna. The 'unobserved thinker' is an isolator. The categorizing instance is an obstacle. :)
    It's not about to 'deny' thoughts, it's about a natural use.

    I usually do not talk about such private and personal 'things'. Sometimes at topics like this. I do not want that people believe ....believe that it is 'right'.

    I did it for a better personal understanding. :)
     
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  18. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    #298 gorski, Dec 2, 2017
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    It seems you have completely "forgotten" a whole school of thinking, showing our environment "teaches" us how to think, feel, act, how it forms our relationships...

    I would warmly recommend, for instance, Erich Fromm's "The Art of Loving", to see how the very foundation of our relationships is founded in the current paradigm of life-production...

    And if that doesn't change the way you jump to conclusions without seriously thinking things through from wider than this personalised stuff - nothing will... :)

    There are 2 ways of responding:

    1) Yep, terrible, blame philosophy, aha... :rolleyes: Never mind the fact politicians in power choose the kind of "philosophers" to suit their simplistic, cynical world-view and current political needs... And need I remind you of the currently prevailing phenomenon of idiots electing idiots (and not people they could look up to), at the moment, the world over?!?

    2) Sometimes when philosophers were "consulted" on how to ground the state (see Schmidt) we ended up in the darkest possible corner of Human "endeavour"... So, beware what you wish for!

    That is you and you alone talking. If you talk to the idiots electing idiots, they are hopeful their suffering will diminish (if they drive out "the other" for instance, cheapening their labour and whatnot)...

    Here is a good example of how it's done: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/collins-paygo-tax-bill

    Hehe, look above, m8 - that was all you and nothing but a reflection of who you are, your individual preoccupations etc.

    Wake up! :)
     
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  19. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    No, I don't have forgotten that. You are right.

    I mean the way how we deal with nature and fellow human beings..badly. 'Something wrong' in us appears as bad dealing with nature, as a reflection there. Found as violence, pollution, exploitation etc...
    I do not mean damage control (outside) I mean tracking the cause/root which is 'in us'. The world outside's condition is a reflection of our (humans) inner condition.


    They are not only Philosophers. It applies to scientists as well. Your mentioned idiots are also choosing 'scientists' for their interests.
    So how does proper Philosophy come to humans for a benefit of all?
    I came to the conclusion that I can care only for myself. By living it I can 'affect' others. By learning I can change myself.
     
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  20. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

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    No, Yen, you do not even begin understanding the issues without understanding how our world, and especially the structures and processes we created, affect us as we grow up and socialise into a specific HUMAN environment - THAT forms our irrational relationship with nature in Capitalism.

    Serious thinkers like Ernst Bloch even claim that positing "Humans are open to both good and evil, as a stance, reifies."

    We do NOT know how our "nature" would change if we changed fundamentally the way we reproduce life.

    In other words, epochal change (from Antiquity/Slavery to Feudalism and on to Modernity/Capitalism) changes the way we see/feel/think/act, i.e. our very nature has changed!

    What would happen, if we were to abolish Capitalism and introduce a radically different mode of production - we simply can not, in all honesty, predict, with any great certainty.

    So, one can not PRESUME we would stay the same as we are today, just as one can not say that we were always the way we are today. What a preposterous idea and downright falsehood that is!

    Conservatives want to sell you a nasty and static view of "Human Nature", i.e. that "we are all the same", regardless of where and when we lived, what kind of society we grew up in, what modus of production moulded us, what we were taught in school, in our families or even individually or group-wise, which school of thinking we belong to, what we studied, our world-view etc. etc. Spiritually lazy to the bone, but effective in terms of forming a simple and easy to understand narrative etc. Dogma has a stabilising function in society, of course...

    However, speaking seriously - subject matter is way more complex and intriguing!!!!!! :)
     
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