The ancient Romans before AS TACTICS converting to their own Roman variant of Christianity (Catholicism)
worshipped a number of divine beings (tradition; rituals). And each in own way, one man's idea about a divine being was at least as valid as another's.
How you for yourself presented god-animals mattered far less than your BEHAVIOR - properly perform the rituals as prescribed by The Senate.
The Romans cultured a kind of religious 'animism' - presuming that divine invisible and untouchable 'animals' were everywhere (spirits),
and decisively influenced all aspects of daily life.
Quite practical, because in the end The Senate had to run a well oiled warmachine.
The idea of 'separation of church and state' would have seemed to a Roman as unimaginably stupid.
Worship-rituals filled every aspect of Roman public (and private) life.
Every action a Roman took, whether as a politician in public life, or as citizen tending his farm,
was with some ritual directed towards a goal. The citizen, when head of a family (paterfamilias) acted as a kind of family wizard who knew the prescribed ritual behavior.
It was the Senate who prescribed rituals for all important things, and made all important decisions.
Romans were practical in using their god-animals.
Every rite had some practical purpose, rituals played a central role in Roman life.
'Catholicism' was the Roman answer to rising 'gnosticism' in shape 'Christianity'.
A way to go on with 'animism' (god worship) and slavery, while pretending to change behavior.
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Intermezzo: Religion gradually turns into Fascism
This fiction was ritually continued by fundamental protestants in The New World as The US Empire after The French Revolution.
Start of ages of human-animal cruelty (the SUPREME ritual 'genocide', at present called War on Terrorism): 'God's Warriors' ritually extinguish most Red Indian human animals.
'Digital thinking' ages later produced multinationals like IBM, based on computer science (digital thinking) as educated in 'schools' with divine level 'university'.
Human-animal hunting squad' multinationals like Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed and many others became top supplier of Capitalist armies.
A computer version of the 21st century Science FICTION series 'Stargate' by the firm International Protestant Mission (IPM) with title Superior No Thing will soon conquer 'the market'. Before things on planet earth get totally corrupted: let's start worldwide to see life again in a common sense way
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Back to Ancien Times: Religio
Remember that ancient big Roman slaves owners had to find a way to use religio to stay dominant AND to make slavery accepted.
That means to drug the masses and slaves into being be happy with their 'nothingness'.
The solution: using the shiploads of gold and silver from the destroyed temple in Judean Jerusalem
to build a 'Colosseum' where the masses were made addicted to bloody games, offered by their divine Emperor.
In the 21st century a simular situation develops. The Central Banks of America and Europe try with ALL means to prevent a stock exchange crash.
That's why the egoist members of Senate invented digital life. with 'sinful houses of flesh' (slaverish bodies), steered by 'soul' (intuition).
And immaterial divine 'spirits' who could move into such houses of flesh, to control the 'soul'.
And were allowed to erase the intuition of their house (the soul) to let 'the house' give them pleasure (in God's image)
A struggle between divine 'spirits' (The Senate) and sinful 'intuition (The People)'.
Of course in the famous 'Colosseum' slaves-bosses (soul-controllers), were
serving the dominant 'spirits' in The Senate.
Giving The People the Illusion to share in 'the power of the stars'.
'The Emperor' (son of God), was without problem exchanged with 'The Pope', when Christianity proved
irritatingly tough.
And so on....
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Mind Body Split = Apartheid
Intro 1: Western 'spirit' (gods) versus Asian common sense 'chi'
(Conflict Model = Dividing Reality in 'Good' and 'Evil')
Catholicism and Slavery (
divine christians help 'spiritless apes')
Is it the idea 'spirit' that differentiates 'christians' from 'terrorists'?
How can we find such immaterial Roman Christian 'spirits' ??
Why did the Romans copy the Aristotelian idea 'spirit
Is 'spirit' a clever way to split animals and human animals ?
Do 'terrorists' have no 'spirit', and feel no pain?
| Your body archived your most effective wisdom |
René Descartes (1596-1650) with his "Deus ex Machina" was inspired by the BASIC Idea 'spirit' of Christian Science that 'Divine Minds' (males) have immaterial 'spirit'.
| Stop the total non-sense of Slavery |
The Judean
Jesus alreay many ages earlier used common sense in saying:
End of Slavery and even worse Equal Rights for Women
threatened the Roman Conflict Culture.
Ancient Greek city states governed with 'polity' ('rule by the many' mixed with 'rule by the powerful').
The Macedonian dictator Alexander the 'Great' made Greek goverments allow TOTAL slavery. Roman Society was built on slavery and The Senate hated popular common sense leaders like Julius Caesar
who ruled by 'intuition' .
The Roman Senate preferred abstract Nicomachean Ethics above proven common sense ('divine' rules
allow to prescribe Law and Order).
With credo 'Divide and Rule' the Roman Senate
could very well 'play god' in bloody conflicts, but was blind for the common sense of the Judah muslim Jesus: everybody is similar and conflict is waste of energy.
The Senate had Julius Caesar 'removed', just like later Old Testament writers Paulus and Petrus. Much later in the Latin version of the New Testament the Aristotelian ' split of mind and body' was added.
Instead of as dictators Roman leaders saw themselves as 'bodies with minds' (= good) and soldiers as bodies without much mind (=bad).
But zombies just like dictators are pure predators.
In Enlightenment The New Rich replaced dictatorship (absolutism) with the
Deus ex Machina as formalized by Descartes in the logic 'rationalism'. Start of dual 'computer thinking':
1 = 'TRUE'; 0 = 'FALSE'.
'Zero' is a brilliant IDEA in technology, but disastrous as abstract (immaterial) 'spirit' in social life
To Intro 2
 |
Body Spirit split for Shareholding Dummies:
1 living 'spirit' = 1 flying UFO
body + 'spirit' = body + UFO
Spiritual Ownership = Intellectual Property =
UFO = Spirit in the Sky.
Bodies only need Physical Food
THEN Being Rich in Money = Clever Hallucination |
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Descartes' Dualism: Eternal Knowledge and Daily Practice
Descartes' Error
The pious Catholic scientist-priest Descartes tried to save
catholicism from a fight with science. The ambition of Descartes was to enrich philosophy with the clarity of mathematics.
Descartes used the certainty of mathematics together with the controversial Catholic philosophy of life
to create a dual structure of logic and belief, 'science' and behavior, metaphysics and physics.
Descartes wanted to produce results about life as certain as those of math.
Descartes conveniently imported in 'rationalism' the Aristotelian/Catholic a priori 'god exists' and (since the Council of Chalcedon) the Catholic a priori 'soul exists'.
Have some fun with a youtube: 3 minute philosophy.
Descartes wanted to make the medieval fuzzy rituals around 'god' subject of religion,
and metaphysics (Aristote's 'anima') the subject of science (mathematics/ratio).
Descartes saw the world in 'mechanical way'. This perspective allows to see slaves as machines (industrialism, capitalism),
and not as human.
During the Middle Ages Catholicism had not succeed to bring 'theory' and practice together conceptually.
Theory showed little results, with the result that 'theory' was not proof against common sense.
Descartes saw a way of bringing 'theory' (creationism) into nature.
Descartes with his spell "I think, therefore I am" made the 'law of nature' numerical.
This, he thought, is true without a shadow of doubt.
This was the FIRST time that nature was presumed to follow 'natural law',
and that such 'law of nature' was formally made into an accepted logic.
Descartes from descriptions appears as a reasonable guy, only saw mathematics as 'divine knowledge'. That is:
he believed in absolute truth (cartesian dualism), like everybody in Western Europe in the Age of Absolutism.
Descartes in addition imagined that such a truth could be expressed in 'rational' a priori and was researchable with 'ratio'.
Descartes speaks of things that have possible existence, in addition to speaking of things as having actual existence.
Descartes also speaks of eternal and necessary truths. Without me going into it, here he points at 'a priori' necessary to give his logical view sense
Catholic leaders gratefully accepted the Cartesian view of the mind-body problem
as a gift from heaven to end the role of the seemingly independent mind in the uproars. Among them were powerfull and very rich Roman Catholic churchleaders. They wanted predictable labor force and not
unpredictable revolutionary creativity.
For catholic leaders abstract 'mind' was attractive, because this mechanical way of thinking allowed divididing humans in divine minds with a lot of 'spirit' and worthless bodies with little 'spirit' (slaves).
It allowed slavery.
Descartes strongly believed in the link between language and intelligence.
Descartes considered language not as behavior, but as a property of 'mind' (spiritual).
In essence Descartes still believed in the superiority of human 'creators'. But Descartes
was far from 'political', only tremendously 'conservative'.
To Descartes 2
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Juggling with Words (logic) iso Using Sense Experience
Descartes
Via all kinds of experiments Descartes concluded that he could not be sure
that he had a body but only be sure that he had a 'mind': "Cogito ergo sum";
Very catholic: I cannot be sure of my bodily senses, only be sure that 'god' exists (body-mind split).
That's like: "I'm sure that my 'a priori' 'god exists' is right.
Descartes somewhere writes:
I rightly conclude that my essence consists only in my being a thinking thing [or a substance whose whole
essence or nature is merely thinking]. And although I may, or rather, as I will shortly say, although I certainly
do possess a body with which I am very closely conjoined; nevertheless, because, on the one hand,
I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in as far as I am only a thinking thing and unextended thing, and as,
on the other hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an extended thing and unthinking thing,
it is certain that I [that is, my mind, by which I am when I am] am entirely and truly distinct from my body and may exist without it.
Descartes did believe in ghosts!
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Aristoteles: teaching brutal killers takes splitting mind and body
Descartian logic is Aristotelianism in logical shape.
Socrates and Plato were freethinkers and worldcitizens, aiming at enjoyable life for everybody.
Aristoteles was the first 'scientist',
with as highest goal 'totum bonum' (his self defined rules of life), house wizard of warriors.
In fact Aristoteles was source of the much later Cartesian Mind-Body Split.
384 BC Aristotle born. 342 BC Alexander born
348 - 325 BC Aristotle became Plato's best student.
End of Ancient Greece, start of dictatorship 'Hellinistic Greece' under the Macedonian Temenid dynasty:
338 Philip of Macedon became ruler of Athens, his rule of terror destroyed direct democracy of classical Athens.
Demosthenes held his famous 4 philippics, expressing what most people in Athens thought: Philip ought to be stopped.
Aristoteles grew up in the household op this Philip of Macedon.
As a result he saw slavery as natural law. Aristoteles' father was serving Philip as adviser in physics.
Until age 17 young Aristoteles lives near the very luxurous household of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Terrible.
Athens had gotten completely dependent of slave labor, and Philip was by far the most important supplier of slaves.
This by fighting brutal wars as far as Egypt
325 BC At age 60 Aristoteles goes to Macedon to become 'live' tutor of 17 year old quite spoiled Alexander.
He later even accompanied Alexander on his bloody missions. Such plunder missions were called 'war', but the sponsors expected shiploads of slaves.
To be able to do that Aristoteles designed a total
split between mind and body. Killing was animal behavior and necessary for human instincts. And Aristoteles invented 'good reason'
as talent of eternal 'spirits' (eudaimonia).
Slave suppliers like Philip appreciated this complete split between the dirty and bloody fighting and mind affairs.
Like crushing some skull while their mind enjoyed heavenly music.
Aristoteles division of life in two halves completely disagreed with the Zoroastrian view of seeing life as a ONE.
That minor problem was solved by Alexander the Terrible at young age when he completely annihilated Zoroastrianism in Persia and its ages old library 'Avesta'.
Zoroastrianism was the mother culture of Judean Christianity. The Zoroastrian Persian king Cyrus liberated the Judean Jews from Babylon.
| Zoroastrianism also as The Early Religion essentially influenced Chinese Ch'an Buddism (Zen) |
323 - 322 BC Lamian War. The unsuccessful revolt of the Greek states from Macedon after the death of Alexander the Great.
This war made Aristotle flee Athens to escape death penalty. But the outcome of the war was further suppression of Greek resistance by Macedonian domination.
A child slave might sell for 18 tetradrachms (35 gallons of wine or 18 salted fish).
In war time a hired slave soldier was paid 1/2 a tetradrachm a day (1 gallon of wine) and a sailor half of that.
It helps to recognize Alexander as an ancient version of Hitler, and Aristotle as
an ancient Dr. Wernher von Braun.
| You might remark: "But US leaders made Von Braun head of NASA". That indeed shows that in social ethics Aristoteles was of the dubious level of IBM |
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Martin Luther, the tragedy
Martin Luther ( 1483 -1546) was a German monk, priest, professor, theologian, and church reformer. He deeply influenced the Lutheran and Protestant tradition and Western civilization.
Luther's translation/interpretion of the bible (message: truth at all costs) heavily influenced the English King James
The following two quotes are typical for Luther:
Peace if possible, TRUTH at all costs.
Pray, and let GOD worry.
Luther saw an disturbing paradox in Catholic religion, and predicted clearvoyantly that someday this question was going to cause trouble.
Luther wrote about law versus gospel, when he meant 'rules' versus 'soul'.
Two kinds of of viewing the 'spirit' 'God', one through the law (invented rules) and the other through 'soul' (another word for 'spirit').
The 'gospel' for Luther is not a matter of 'reason' (here Luther makes sense in attacking the law and order thinking of Aristotle).
For Luther the law = 'religion' and 'the gospel'= 'soul' (take extreme care: Luther didn't mean bodily soul or emotion, but saw daydreaming [praying] as being 'spiritual').
The essential task of theology in view of Luther was to distinguish between the two.
Luther in his first year at the University of Wittenberg (1508-09) lectured on the
Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle .
Getting rid of Aristotelian influence (Nicomachean Ethics) in Roman Catholic Church was the Real Reason for Luther's Reformation
When Luther spoke of "reason" he meant the control freak in Aristotle.
Luther was not essentially disturbed by Catholic corruption, but by use of Aristotelian Ethics
in Catholic Church. He some way recognized birth of 'religion', on its way to rigid 'bureaucracy' (fundamentalism) and finally fascism.
This realization made him very 'angry'.
Luthers tragedy is that he recognized the fascism in Aristotle's law and order addiction ("a heathen teacher"), but
as individualist completely missed the MUCH more dangerous fascism in the
superiority ideas of Aristotle (expressed as 'spirit').
In view of Aristotle only Greek aristocrats had a lot of 'spirit'.
Luther only attacked the law and order addiction, and his 3 main theses are very much Aristotelian about individualism (superiority), about 'spirit', and about sin (displeasing 'God').
And the churchleaders of the later Protestant Church only used Martin Luther as
a wedge, but continued practicing the Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle.
The churchleaders of the Protestant Churches were happy that Luther confirmed the ideas of the ancient Thomas Aquinas (known from "5 way to prove the existence of God"; have fun with a youtube: 3 minutes philosophy),
that IMMATERIAL 'spirits' exist.
According to Aquinas 'the intellect' is an immaterial power and, since a thing is as it acts, the soul itself is immaterial and can live without the body.
This Aristotelian 'Law and Order' thinking was perfectly suited to
safeguard the 'aristocratic' positions.
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Martin Luther: the theses
Luther 'thunders' about his love for THE 'spiritual' Truth.
55 theses (!) are only FEROCIOUS protests against the madness of pardons in Catholic Church (corruption), or just without additional content. Or just disqualifying Catholicism or the Pope. Or just bullshit.
2, 5, 6, 11, 13, 26, 27, 29, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 42-1, 53, 54, 55, 57, 59, 61, 65, 66, 67, 69-93, 95
In fact ALL 95 theses can be summarized by Thesis 1, 3 and 4
- Life is admittance of guilt (the Joker: life is seen as source of SIN, sin = displeasing to GOD or deviating from THE Truth. Absolutism. )
- Admittance of guilt changes body and spirit. (the Joker: assuming existence of the abstract idea 'spirit')
- Self love should be practiced as true path into 'the kingdom of heaven' (the Joker: individualism, or egoism).
1. 1507 Martin Luther preaches individualism (Lutherian Religion or Protestantism)
2. After 1600 the Jesuit priest Rene Descartes invents the technologic Rationalism
3. Say 1775 the fundamentalist protestant Immanuel Kant preaches that abstract fantasies (Roman Christian a priori or THE Truth) are NECESSARY for HUMAN behavior
All three based on the split between spirit and body, and together the ingredients for Industrialism, Capitalism and the Powerthinking behind Western Democracy
Roman Christianity is like burned milk, a white fluid representing body with a thin burned layer representing spirit. But after some shaking the milk gets a bit sour (protestantism).
And after more shaking completely rotten (Apartheid, Slavery, Fascism and World Wars) |
No mistake: I myself was born protestant. It was terribly confusing to grow up in a fantasy world of Good and Evil like
as if constructed by the Protestant German Grimm Brothers (Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859), educated in Reformed Calvinist Church).
In their typical scholarly style with 'fragile good angels' and 'mighty evil devils' treated as if existing beings. In the Baptist US centuries later the 'fragile angels' developed in cartoon hero's like Spidermen, Batmen, Terminators ...
Luckily my common sense never accepted such fairy tales. My reality was filled with creative beautiful sexy people of all cultures. |
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Apartheid of Mind and Body
Mind Body Split, Trennung von Korper und Geist, Trennung von Kopf und Korper, Scheiding van Lichaam en Geest
History is fascinating .....
The Protestant Reformation (1517) is said to have changed the face of Western Civilization. Roman Christian religion differed
from original Christianity in the dubious distinguishing of body and spirit that invited protestantism. But true, protestantism allows weird thinking.
Already during Enlightenment in 1619 the protestant sect "the Baptists" in America started the very profitable and convenient daydream 'slavery'.
In 1652 a Dutch expedition of 90 Calvinist settlers (adherents of the theological fantasies of John Calvin),
under the command of Jan van Riebeeck,
founded the first permanent settlement near the South African Cape of Good Hope . Especially Calvinists were drawn by the myth of 'apartheid'.
The dubious 'mind body split' doctrine was changed in: whites have lot of spirit and blacks as much as animals
Most Calvinists were sure that 'blacks' were a kind of apes,
because much later the related fundamentalist protestant Immanuel Kant would say:
blackness denotes not only ugliness but stupidity as well.
South Africa had bad luck. England was as culture isolated from Europe, and always conspirating with America. And the same English who introduced Baptism in America won the Boer Wars in Transvaal between 1880 and 1902.
And before from 1860 to 1865 caused and lost the bloody Civil War in America.
In that Civil War the Baptist South of America was defeated and slavery ended at the cost of more than half a million lives. But Baptism remained a tremendous stealthy force.
And the Boer wars gave Europe a fundamentalist power thinker like Winston Churchill.
Even more serious is that seen from a distance the world had (1) Napoleon, who was defeated in Russia; (2) Hitler, again defeated in Russia; (3) the US president, capitalism defeats Russia.
Different in cruelty, but without doubt a European made threat. Obviously consequence of the ethics dominant in West European societies, and especially in the European superpowers.
Russia was the buffer with Buddhist China.
| Churchill was a 'butcher' in the Boer Wars, in which the killing of children was made a military practice.
But he would be elevated to saintly status, not hindered by the fact that 'the British' invented concentration camps in South Africa.
Hitler was an admirer of Churchill, he recognized another evil genius. Stalin was of simular 'level'. |
In the 21st century after Nelson Mandela South Africa is in danger of entering a next stage of apartheid.
Mandela and his brave ANC friends were rationally educated. A (hidden) basic of rationality is 'apartheid of mind and body'.
Sure the ANC is honest. But this time apartheid of educated versus uneducated is already developing. The new 'slaves' will be those who failed having 'enough' of formal education.
The only way out is drastically stopping of all rational education in non technological sciences (especially universities).
And preparing an 'uninfected' generation (not yet in university) for leadership.
DON'T underestimate mind addictions, they beat poison gas or deadly viruses in being treacherous.
People who think to be 'sound' might seen with common sense have become totally 'sick'.
After many years and 1001 compromises a top-culture and a bottom-culture are in murderous battle.
Slavery and Apartheid are primitive shapes of 'body mind split paradigms'. A next and much more
treacherous shape is a mix of industrialism.htm and capitalism.
Indeed ..., already functioning in the USA.
Another perfect example is the Israel Palestine Conflict.
Both the Roman Empire and the protestant world power US are 'robber cultures'. I.e. to make others accept their dubious compromises, they need extreme military force, by being superior in technology.
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Deus ex Machina
This cultural law 'in a box' or 'walking head' was INVENTED by Descartes to fit the at that time general 'a priori' about life into 'a god in the machine'.
Inherently this way of thinking implicated that finally thinking was superfluous, because all the laws of nature fitted in a box (the 'soul' = a computer based on rational logic).
This Descartian VIEW on life (called 'interactionism') was based on the Greek view that the in-physical spirit/soul was trapped in a physical body.
It was borrowed by the Romans when being forced to accept Christianity, because it didn't object the Greek using slaves. Without aiming for it Descartes produced an nightmare that
was going to produce slavery, Apartheid, Capitalism, Western Democracy, and the power-thinking behind 2 World Wars.
Not obviously murderous, but subtly starting with 'gray' rational scientists.
In the 20th century after WWI and WWII such rational zombies in Cambodja under Pol Pot, another time showed their inherent capacity for killing.
First Roman Catholic Christianity only settled in Europe as an earthly power, but in the Dark Middle Ages failed to become a spiritual power.
This changed after the Enlightement logic rationalism made god into a 'computer', and proved to fit PERFECTLY the Roman conviction that religion only is for spirit-massage.
Or: priests are there to keep our soldiers addicted to war. Funny is that a major application of 21st century computers is still playing war games.
Computerthinking is the Hope that Thinking will become Superfluous.
When used for reasoning, it is easy to prove that computers built on rational logic, can't produce other then rational decisions.
Anologue computers are 'closer' to common sense. Brains are extremely fast analogue computers, using many different analogue logics. |
Descartes in 'Enlightenment' distinguished between the 'res cogitans' and the 'res extensa' or between an immaterial 'thing which thinks'
and the material stuff of the body.
In recent years neuroscientists recognized that this dual view of 'spirit' and body made no sense.
'Mental functions' are physical, although WAY too complex for 21st century computer software (and to be expected for the next ages).
Most 21st century 'Soul' adepts (Henk Tuten: I don't mean the music culture 'soul, which is quite common sense) see man as a DUO Of BODY and SPIRIT (soul), were immaterial 'soul' is the part of humans which keeps
the animal Body close to peculiarly enough catholic 'natural laws'.
20th century 'functionalism' also saw 'mind' as analogous to a computer, and denies .
that 'mental states' can be reduced to brain physics.
Maybe right, but functionalism presumes the existence of 'mind', that should be the debate.
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17th Century Reactions
Malebranche (1638-1715) and Occasionalism
Another Parisian priest Nicholas Malebranche began to read his collegae Descartes in 1664. Around 1775 he argued that both of
Descartes' substances, mind and body, are causally ineffective. God is the one and only true
cause. Malebranche imagines that all the actions triggered by the human will are done by God.
So God moves every muscle of any human. Humans in this way are only extensions of an absolute God. God is identical to 'good'.
Three famous leading quotes, leading in the sense of pretending to know what is 'good':
1) Though Mr. Newton is no physicist, his book is very interesting and useful for anyone with good training in physics; he is also an excellent mathematician
2) Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the spirit
3) We should seek justice before dispensing charity
Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677).
The Dutch Jew Spinoza traded Descartes' two-substance view in favor of what has come to be called double-aspect theory or Spinoza's Substance theory.
Double-aspect theories are based on the notion that the mental and the physical are simply
different aspects of one and the same substance. For Baruch Spinoza, that single substance was God (modern people would say 'truth'). Apart from
the religious aspect remarkably 'modern' and in theory uniting metaphysical pure thought and empirical pure experience. The only really non Cartesian Theory. Realize that Spinoza's relativi-ish God is totally different from the absolute one of Malebranche and Leibniz
That shows well in the three following famous free interpretable quotes:
1) Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice
2) He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason
3) There is no hope without fear, and no fear without hope
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and parallelism
In this view the dualism of mind and body is kept, as well as accepted that they correlate.
Parallelism rejects occasionalism and dual-aspect theory on the grounds that no third entity,
whatever that might be, could be responsible for such vastly different effects.
Parallelists simply accept the fact that every mental event is correlated with a physical event in such a
way that when one occurs, so too does the other.
Comparing spirit and body to two clocks that agree perfectly,
Leibniz argued that there are only three possible sources for this agreement.
It may occur through mutual influence (Cartesian interactionism), through the efforts of a
skilled workman who regulates the clocks and keeps them in accord (occasionalism),
or by virtue of the fact that they have been so constructed from the outset that their
future harmony is assured (parallelism).
Leibniz rejected cartesian interactionism: because he couldn't imagine mind to influence body and vice versa
Leibniz rejected occasionalism as he didn't believe in a Deus ex machina
Leibniz held to parallelism because he believed in pre- established harmony of mind and body. I.e. In that harmony the body is only automatically reflecting what is done by the mind when executing the 'given by God' (absolute) principles.
And another way of saying 'given by God' for Leibniz was 'a priori'.
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18th Century: Mind, Matter, and Monism
The 3 mentioned views, even that of Spinoza, make some distinction between mind and body.
The 18th century added Monism, in fact only believing in material things.
George Berkeley (1685-1753) and Immaterialism
Berkeley denies even the possibility of mindless material substance.
In extreme this view completely denies the existence of mental events.
- Extreme: animals are purely physical automata.
- Less extreme form: mental events are causally dependent of bodily events.
Mental actions are not denied, but supposed to be passive reactions.
Three famous quotes:
1) The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes, and the round into the square
2) All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth--in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world--have not any subsistence without a mind
3) Of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate
In my view after the 18th century discussions get weird, and only serve as proves of taken standpoints
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Catholic Supremacy Notion 'Spirit'
The Vatican (Henkt the Axe: quite circular)
Unity is of the essence of the Church.
The Church is one because of her source: the Trinity of Persons, of one God
the Father (1) and the Son (2) in the Holy Spirit (3) .
The Church is one because of her "soul": "It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those
who believe and pervading and ruling over the entire Church,
Spirit Over Matter - Catholic Sermon
God is Spirit.
God's words are Spirit and they are life.
Spirit created matter.
Spirit controls matter.
Spirit Controls everything on Earth
Feed your spirit by reading and obeying the Bible.
Operate in the Holy Spirit (obey God)
Constantly maintain spiritual control over material things
A 21st century catholic:
Human beings were created in the likeness and image of God.
They were created with a soul and God has raised them up above the animals to give them a dignity which no other creature,
short of an angel possesses. As a creature of God created in His likeness they are called to chastity which
means a successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being...
Human beings are called by God to live a moral life, following the virtues and living a life for others: first and foremost, for God; and then for his fellow men and women. He is to realize the dignity that God has granted him and to do nothing that would endanger that.
To work out one's salvation is to follow Jesus, carrying one's cross. Which above all means following the Gospel, living the Gospel generously, denying oneself and carrying one's cross. Any seeking after pleasure, for the sake of that pleasure without regard to God's wishes is intrinsically disordered and damaging to the human person, in short, sin.
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My own 21th century standpoint
The discussions around 'spirit' ('mind') and body is basically a debate
abstract individuality versus common sense reality.
Either (1) you believe as does the Roman version of Christianity
in 'spirituality' ('spirits' that are illusions produced in the brain). Logical thinking is
a powerful tool, but easily result in brain-addictions, like this 'dualist thinking'.
Or (2) you believe (like Africans, Red Indians, Polynesians, Asians ...) that humans (however creative) are part of nature. This came to to known as 'physicalist'.
:
The ROMAN Christian bible claims: the 'dignity of human beings' consists
in their being created 'in the image of' an immaterial fantasy called 'God'.
That way in Western view this 'dignity of human beings' is immaterial, and this 'dignity' was translated in
immaterial terms: individual freedom and individual prosperity.
In the common sense 'Eastern World' freedom is recognized as non-sense
and individual prosperity as egoism.
Nevertheless also the Eastern World heavily suffers under egoism.
The dualist view gives brilliant non-sense like:
'Mind' is more than behavior, 'God' is more than emotion.
'Mind' does not need sensory input, mind is meta-brain'.
'Brains manage behavior and minds manage consciousness and thought'.
'Brains kill but minds are innocent'
In 'Freemasonry' that is seen in a strong belief in a 'Supreme Being', and rigid ceremonies.
Essence: In the Roman Christian world body (common sense) and religion are split.
The presumed split of 'politics' and religion is a mind-body split.
Pure Reason in the very end becomes fascism.
But the nationwide debate in Turkey in 2007 makes a point. Open debate should not become 'religious' and die in bureaucracy and ceremony around conflict MAKING
slogans like "Allah is Great" or "God is the Supreme Being", but playfulness (flexibility) should again steer the common sense FAMILY-game 'Open Debate.
The Illusion 'Understanding: Management
'Understanding' is a fully abstract notion (fantasy).
In a nutshell this hallucination developed in Enlightenment after 17th century Western researchers
started formalizing the Aristotelian division of THE reality in 'science' and experience: 'science' for prescribing THE laws of Nature
(a priori) en Experience voor Research and as training for how to use 'science'.
According to this BELIEF wisdom is executing rules (this is fascism disguised: Law and Order) . So wisdom fits in a spirit-machine ('deus machina' or 'god in a rucksack' or 'computer'). People die, but 'spirit machines' survive.
That rucksack finally became a clone of an IBM-laptop. And 'Google' archives all wisdom in this belief in the Google Mountain bunker.
Learning turned into googling'.
This fascination for wisdom by rules and measuring, is seen in bureaucracies and in the notion IQ .
Experience in human shape is replaced black rules on white paper and numbers.
There never were Korean, Japanese, or Chinese versions of Aristotle, Pythagoras, ..,
Newton, Leibniz, Darwin, Einstein....because in Asian culture the Western
'understanding' is recognized as an empty myth ('communism' is dominant in China, but realize that 'communism' is a Western made brain attacking epidemy ).
Result: Ever more 'rational' managers with weird diplome's, who completely miss recognizing
Asian common sense wisdom.
In 'rational worlds' experience is transferred less and less by training, and ever more
made 'virtual' in computerized bibles as 'certified knowledge' (the Rules of THE 'rational game') .
But soldiers (fight-slaves) killing physically in war on terrorism when viewed in common sense show behavior 'kill everybody anywhere who obstructs OUR WAY'.
And afterwards 'managers (on any level) sigh: "not my fault, I EXACTLY followed THE rules".
And in an often quite agressive ritual 'explanation' or 'proof' of the religion 'rationality' start praying THE rules.
'Above' level 'skill' (behavior) institutions turned into RATIONAL-RULE-factories
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The Myth artificial 'Intelligence'
Common Sense knowledge: Computers are 'rational rule machines', absolutism in pc shape.
Computers are nothing new, dictionaries and encyclopedias in machine shape (wikipedias in googles). 'Rational' machines based on digital logic.
Ideas are just new rules, more steps away from common sense.
Human apes have an emotion-motor (braincomputer).
The interaction from 'reality' and 'part of reality = body' is emotion. Most human emotions are superemotions made by our brain from simple emotions.
Emotions + superemotions run ape bodies. Without simple emotions no superemotions.
Our braincomputer has a DNA-memory and uses the 'made by evolution' common sense logic
Instead of awfully simple Intel Chips TREMENDOUSLY complex DNA strands.
And not based on elementary absolute 0-1 logic, but based on near to completely flexible common sense as optimized in billions of years evolution (absolutism that might be seen as relativism).
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Body = Unity including Brain.
Belief in Artificial Intelligence (intelligence in a rucksack) is the belief
that a 'mind' apart from the body exists
is in fact .
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Randomness another word for 'Human'
Seeing computer and battery as one undivisible unit appears to be essential, without battery no functioning computer and without computer the whole car doesn't run. Maybe it has a spirit, but it's certainly not swinging.
So mind and body seem a symbiosis. It helps to see the brain as a kind of Jellyfish with nerves as
tentacles. To survive this brain needs blood, and to secure a continuous transport of blood it must assure minimally that the heart keeps
pumping.
This symbiosis causes the dualism mind and body. Only dying of one of the constituting
entities brain and heart also results in dying of the other part.
But surgery proved that a human heart
for a short time can survive without help of the brain. And the same seems near in brain surgery.
Remains only the non-question: is a random computer a machine? A machine per definition is not random.
Thus both points of view contain 'truth'.
Both brain and body are machines, and there is something that distinguishes different machines.
Trying to be human, is another way of indicating the trying to get ever closer to real randomness
Let call the 'amount of' randomness the ability that defines the quality of machines, and makes computerbrain mind.
And then it seems right to say that this ability (say spirit) ends with the dying of the machine. End of movement is end of random behavior.
If every person has its own randomness, then you can consider that ability as being human or having an individual spirit.
That fits with accepting that
intelligence is being unpredictable
Simple Machines up to the present generation of computers use only 1 logic (for instance rational logic).
Humans are VERY complex, and apart from a thin toplayer in society use the multiple logic '
common sense.
That makes them awfully random machines. Only the powerful top of society started more and more thinking
like a computer playing chess, and such rational behavior is based on an extremely limited ethics.
In religious Buddhist Sanskrit 'manussa' describes any being able to develop its mind, indicating static knowledge combined with dynamic intelligence in learning. Dolphins can be 'manussa'. The present
Supercomputers are only mildly 'manussa', but might possess the 'sleeping' ability to decide based on multiple logics.
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Mind Body Problem result of Aristotelian creationist fantasy
Mind Body Problem related to by Roman 'Christian' Church INVENTED ethical notions: pain and death. |
In all common sense ethics humans were seen as individable. It were the Romans
who introduced the idea 'death' as moment when 'the spirit' leaves the body.
The Romans used the Old Greek myth that humans are a spiritual essence trapped in a body.
The IDEA of 'spirits' having 'divine intelligence' by the Romans was used to immunize
the danger to their practice of slavery of the
common sense Gnostic Christian message saying that "all people are similar".
IN FACT Western Christianity (Catholicism)
corrupted common sense Judean Zoroastrianism (Gnostic Christianity)
, this by following the old Greek in stating that 'spiritual essence' is trapped in a physical body.
Islam is mainly a Muslim copy of Catholicism, but just like the original Hebrews
kept firm in believing that mind and body are one.
That's why Muslim Mullah's can be mighty warlords, and Western Christian priests became tricky 'spirit-massagers'. |
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ETYMOLOGY: 15th Century: from late Latin poenalis concerning punishment, from poena penalty]
'penally adverb(ial)
The word penal is closely related to pain. This terminology presented a very precise message: punishment as administered by the penal law system is the conscious inflicting of pain. Those who are punished
by The Catholic Doctrine are supposed to suffer. |
In Chinese language there are several words trying to give sense to the English notion 'spirit'.
Obvious is that common sense Chinese has no basic words pointing at a fantasy (abstract) notion like 'spirit'.
Nevertheless the Chinese invented mathematics, but math is about MATERIAL things
Chinese has the word 'sui' pointing at evil influence.
Chinese also has the word 'shen' pointing at the English notions 'God, unusual, soul, spirit, divine essence'
When trying to point at immaterial aspects like the catholic constructs 'divine', 'holy'
common sense Chinese helplesly (and mistakenly) uses words pointing at 'heart, top, intelligence, superior'.
Because 'superior intelligence' was a creationist FANTASY of Aristotle that conveniently
gave the Romans an excuse to continue 'slavery' |
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Creation or Evolution
In AD 451 at the Council of Chalcedon the early 'European' Church split from the common sense Middle East and Asian beliefs.
The issue concerned was if Christ was immaterial 'god' (Aristotelian and Roman Catholic)
or talented human. Or said another way: worshipping The Creator, or sensing that surviving is done by yourself.
A creator who takes care of EVERYTHING, and even implemented and forgives all crimes.
Or trust in 'the family' and yourself.
The Romans in 'The Western World' succeeded in pushing common sense FAR away.
Rome was full of slaves in those days, and even fantasizing about slaves having common sense for Romans was 'satanic'. Blind Egoism is as old as humanity.
The original messages of Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus were clear. I.e. Life is ONE, Love of Life means life-forms need and use each other in proceeding towards future,
and thus stay away from Exploitation of Fellow Life.
People who worships Creators tend to compromise, because they have no clue where to go ethically.
Such people invent concepts like 'continuity', 'time travel',etcetera.
People who trust family and themselves tend to make DECISIONS. Such people see life as one, and as discrete (every decision is a jump).
People who trust 'spirit' tend to trust 'Natural Law' (at present 'rational' law).
Such people see life dual (good versus evil), and as continuous (all you need is conflict-management = law and order ).
They believe that 'spirit that takes them above body and mind.
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'Common Sense' pictures the life-style in Middle East, Asia, Africa and Polynesia.
Haile Selassie of Absynnia (Ethiopia) inspired famous and admired Western leaders like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Malcom X. All three corresponded with him.
7 Arab countries founded after WWII the Arab League. Nasser became a hero in Egypt, because to Orthodox Christian countries like UK and USA knowingly or unknowingly as an alien Muslim he appeared less threatening than the also
Christian Coptic Church. Nasser cleverly used their mythical fear to finish a rivalling 'tribe'.
Sympathetic but revealing quote:
The most striking - and a unique - feature of the mind is the acceptance
and use of things as symbols standing for other things.
Symbols may stand for, refer to, or mean other things
which may or MAY NOT LIE WITHIN THE WORLD OF PHYSICS
.....In this sense we find the mind in computing machines.
Richard L. Gregory in Mind of Science
Henk Tuten: So computing machines may use NON PHYSICAL ideas (fantasies) ??
A typical Western mind-body split. Not non-physical 'mind' uses symbols, but our
physical brain transfers sense observations of symbols into quite physical BEHAVIOR.
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China, Philippines, Malaysia, New Zealand, rural Indonesia etcetera are still very much using common sense
in Chinese language, in Tagalog, in Malay, in Maorian, in Indonesian, ...
For common sense wisdom, look in those languages..
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Popper revives Cartesian Interactioanism
quote Nietzsche in Also Sprach Zarathustra: But the awakened and knowing say: body am I entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body.
Popper inherently argues:
It is NOT the bodily experience through its senses that creates sense experience, but that is caused by our fantasy (of our soul?) that there is an experience.
It is NOT reality that triggers sense experience, but our fantasy that there is a reality.
If a stone hits our head, than the fantasy 'stone' hurts, it wouldn't hurt if we fantasized 'strawberries'.
Popper completely rejects the claim of Wittgenstein that philosophical problems result from language interpretation.
But the inventor of falsification writes: No doubt some people talk nonsense, but I claim that there does not exist a logical or language-analytical method of detecting philosophical nonsense
In common sense non-sense is what doesn't make sense, and seen in common sense most philosophy is nonsense.
Popper rejects the thinking of Russell and Wittgenstein, and considers language as more than physical behavior. That means he rejects evolution as creator, and believes in a 'spirit' called 'God' as creator.
This is Aristotelian thinking, invented by the ancient Greek Aristotle to cope with the genocide practices of his boss Philip II of Macedon (and of his 'student' Alexander the Terrible).
Inherently Popper sees humans as made by 'God', and as superior to animals (including slaves).
Such a spirit called 'God' brings rules called 'Laws of Nature'. Luckily
Roman Christian ones.
So the dualism is: 1. Bodies show behavior triggered by experience. 2. Minds
at birth are gifted with a knowledge of 'Natural Laws' as given by 'God'.
So sinfull bodies might throw around with nuclear bombs, but that doesn't effect the innocent minds.
There are also sinfull minds who believe in wrong 'gods' with wrong 'natural laws' , they should be treated as 'terrorists'.
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Cash Machines
Western people often feel offended when being considered a human animal. Maybe Westerners prefer being seen as cash machines (robots optimizing 'property' in terms of 'money').
Without room for discussion such Western people pose things like: philosophy and art are existential differences between man and animal. Man is capable to do THE good. Every man possessing 'individual spiritual activity'
It doesn't seem a big difference but seeing mind and body as one or as two has HUGE impact.
Considering mind and body as different entities leads to computers consisting of a Central Processor Unit and a passive storage part. You can see it as a body with a removable spirit.
That in its turn lead to machines having an intelligent removable 'brain' and a large distance controlled muscle 'part'
On the other side physicians that when ill something like 'willpower' can accomplish amazing things.
This 'willpower' is part of our bodily behavior too, and seems mainly fuelled by the brain.
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Imagine yourself a robot built that way to try to imitate human extreme skyjumpers. I.e. jumping out of a plane and accelerating head down direction earth playing with the air. The human body is the ultimate machine, and enjoys doing this. I'm afraid the poor robot will end on a scrap heap. There's no brute force that could have made him make the necessary subtle movements to fly.
This to indicate 2 things:
1. Brain Science is still a huge way from even nearing brain capabilities.
Suggesting so is claiming superiority over nature, arrogant and ignorant. Robots playing chess is easy, but robots skateboarding or making love is of another level.
2. Artificially splitting brain and body will 'never' result in robots as subtle as a human mind/body that integrates all senses.
Man does not differ from animal by having replaced material intuition with immaterial 'spirit.
Kungfu warriors with 'spirits' blocking their muscles can't fight.
They learn to act as ONE, realizing that understanding only is an energy slurping fantasy
that considerably slows down VERY fast intuition.
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Time to move beyond the mind-body split
"Mind" is physical and social and is neuroscience
The 'mind' is since Enlightenment seen as thought-generator within Catholic ethics,or 'an Ego that thinks' (quite circular). Like saying 'a dreamer is a thing that dreams'.
This model misrepresents reality and creates a virtual reality (in the end a fascist reality).
Human beings exist in a common sense reality.
The 'rational' aspects of the painting Guernica by Picasso (like pigment , brushstrokes, colors, shapes) are 'rationally' interesting, but what matters is the created common sense emotion (historical, cultural, and personal)
We'll never be able to feel thoughts, beliefs, and values if we think of them as abstract. Emotions like sadness, obsession, fear, and madness are reality and not only 'rational' numbers.
Worlds that "opens up" to a fruit fly, a fish, or a bat are unimaginable to us, but nevertheless caused by the same reality.
We are simply not in a reality that is virtual.
Surely Marxism (the dominant interpretation of the views of Karl Marx) uses the Cartesian dualism too.
This time in imagining the conflict
THE Poor versus THE Rich.
'Rationally' designing conflicts in reality is destructive behavior. |
Pretending 'spirit' existing independent of body ends in seperating politics and religion or dividing 'politics' and personal.
That leads to politicians seperating 'thinking' of 'divine humans' and working of 'common people' (slavery), and observing millions of people dying of hunger and saying: this must be judged RATIONALLY.
Islam is in an ethics crisis, but here highlights a HUGE weakness of Western thinking. |
Split of Mind and Body or belief in souls is the Aristotelian Superiority
expressed by giving 'masters' a special place in evolution.
And imagining an immaterial 'God' outside earth (creationism). Human life is only a tiny part of eart evolution. In some ways 'smart', in many ways making no sense.
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Digital technology is based on the dual thinking behind the mind-body split. Opposite of the Buddhist view 'Unity of all life'.
IBM Microsoft and Google being prominently settled on many Chinese universities is VERY dubious.
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Spirit over Matter = the doctrine behind slavery
I. The Halfgod The Emperor (Mr. Ego) brilliantly created 'ego' out of 'no thing' (made immaterial 'ego's' = 'spirits').
The mind-body problem can be stated as, 'is 'mental' different from physical?'
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