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The personal self as a function of the human brain
My philosophy and personal experience each tell me that the "personal self", the experiencer of chit jada granthi, is also a function in the human brain. To me, this is a bundling of concepts or rules into a first-person thinker and point-of-perspective within one's actual self. This bundle can be emptied and ultimately untied and it's function will no longer occur. All other functions will continue without the personal self function.
I'd be curious about what you think of that. Because I would love this to be found (medically). I think it would be a great discovery.
I'd be curious about what you think of that. Because I would love this to be found (medically). I think it would be a great discovery.
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Frankly, I'm so tied up with living, thinking, speaking and acting skilfully, that I don't have time to consider such matters.
I'm sure others might spend hours cogitating and pondering this.
I'm just saying its not conducive to my personal practice....
Thanks for posting.;)
I am so thankful for my wonderful girlfriend. She called me out on all the crap I was spewing about: "There's no self. There's no person here. The self doesn't exist. You are not your thoughts. You must change your views. Suffering doesn't happen to anybody, so it doesn't matter. All things are concepts."..
and on and on and on..
Until I realized I was still a little selfish idiot. I was still being unskillful in my work ethic, my relations to others, I was still being arrogant. Therefore I learned in my experience that it's not beneficial to ponder about anything. It's much more intelligent to focus and see things clearly. Ultimately it really doesn't matter on an intellectual level to figure out what the self is or what life is because you're still left with this experience regardless. However, it does matter to practice and help yourself through the mindfulness practices, because it does garner less suffering for yourself and others -- this actually does change one's experience of life in a positive way. And as far as thoughts go or the 'personal self' in your brain as you call it.. I love them, they help me drive, do my homework and make intelligent decisions for my survival. Pretty useful don't ya think?
Cheers,
Mark
What 'false concept' are you talking about?
Things are simply the way they are. My own concern is cohesive interaction with others that is constructive and harms no-one. Where's my 'false concept' there? Good luck to them, if indeed they are working on it, I hope it brings them positive results.
In lab conditions this is an admirable question to ponder. For us "unscientific lot" on a Buddhist forum - it's probably a waste of time....
maybe you could contact a centre which conducts scientific research into workings of the brain (which is completely different to workings of the MIND, of course) and see if they'd be interested in conducting the research?
I am utterly serious by the way.
That would be perhaps a more productive avenue for you to pursue....?
Best of luck.....
Here's your religion...
"I don't make it about me, at all. I don't stop to consider things like this, it's a form odf ego-appeasement. I simply consider my actions in relation to the 8Fold path and 5 precepts, and make Effort to harm no-one. "
So why are you in this thread of discussion? You see "ego-appeasement" through your spectacles on me? No thank you. Sounds like you a re working on your personal self, and not mine - thank you!
Of course going to the medical community is the way to go, and going with a source of interest is the way I start, but not with participants in this discussion who negate it, oppose it, and choose to show up for it anyways.
I hope you get more responses more in line with what you want to hear, but I'm merely explaining it's not easy to do that.
"I assure you, I'm not 'preaching my religion' to you or anyone. It's just the way it is. Where am I incorrect, exactly? Your question is neither 'positive' nor 'negative'. I would say it's pretty neutral, but it's futile to cogitate upon here, because there is nothing we can reply with that is definitive or conclusive. "
I would say that is you preaching. You have decided that this matter is futile, as you say, "to cogitate on here" - we can't be definitive.
I didn't plan on anyone here being definitive. But you are not conversant. I was not so egocentric as to suggest that I would single-handledly make this some kind of personal or even personally-defining task that I would then single-handedly perform - these thoughts don't occur to me.
You wrote...
" (I wrote: "Here's your religion...")
"I don't make it about me, at all. I don't stop to consider things like this, it's a form odf ego-appeasement. I simply consider my actions in relation to the 8Fold path and 5 precepts, and make Effort to harm no-one. "
Actually, I think you'll find it's pretty much the focus of most people on here. To recognise suffering and to work towards its cessation. That's what the Buddha taught, and that's what it is.... "
Do you hear what you are saying? "Actually, it 's the focus of most people here".. To do like you - to think like you, in this thread, cut it out. You project your personal self all over this thing, and what you personally believe. I don't. I think its a healthy scientific curiosity, and I don't have to have the answer to it to have my own peace.
Oh, and I love the way you put yourself... "and that's what it is". You have to preach your way through stomping around here. Look at all the preaching going on here, and I think it's just your personal self, and not your school. I think its all you.
In fact, if you quote a good school, I'll still bet its you, and the way you take it, wield it, use it, as an ignorant party to your own extent.
You wrote, "Actually, I think you'll find it's pretty much the focus of most people on here. To recognise suffering and to work towards its cessation", and where was the part that you then linked that in to say that you are doing just that, and that this discussion is opposed and does not produce these results, as you see it, as you say. You say you oppose this as producing good results.
But I say you know too much. I say that you are the problem for you know more than you ever needed to. This is too innocent, good, decent and positive a line of development for you and your school to stomp on it and condemn it and call it something that causes pain in this world.
Perhaps it causes pain in you?
I hope someone does. I think it would be a great discovery.
The 10 indeterminable subjects deliberately undeclared by the Buddha:
1: The cosmos is eternal
2: The cosmos is not eternal,
3: The cosmos is finite...
4: The cosmos is infinite...
5: The soul (mind) & the body (brain) are the same. (inseparable)
6: The soul (mind) is one thing and the body (brain) another. (separable)
7: After death a Tathagata exists...
8: After death a Tathagata does not exist...
9: After death a Tathagata both does & does not exist...
10: After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does he not exist.
“And they lived arguing, quarreling, and disputing, wounding one another
with weapons of the mouth, saying, "The Dhamma is like this, not like that.
The Dhamma's not like that, it's like this." Ud 6.4
Due to their irresolvable nature, these 10 questions should be laid all aside,
since they only provoke endless and fruitless dispute, which needless to say
blocks any progress toward the ending of suffering!
Sources:
AN 10.93 Ditthi Sutta: Views A v 185
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an10/an10.093.than.html
MN 63 i 426 Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta: The Shorter Instructions to Malunkya
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html
Ud 6.4 Ud 66 Tittha Sutta: Various Sectarians
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.6.04.than.html
AN 7.51 A iv 67 Avyakata Sutta: Undeclared
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an07/an07.051.than.html
I agree science is very sound.
6: The soul (mind) is one thing and the body (brain) another. (separable) "
Perhaps the Buddha did not declare either because the answer is completely relative?
Also, wouldn't separable/inseparable be a duality?
Some people would say they are separable. Others would argue they are not separable. but they may not necessarily be arguing with each other, they might simply be presenting them as isolated/separate factors or topics for dicussion....
Yes, I am seeing that, and I may find myself out of context here. I do have great appreciation for seeking. I am not "Buddhist" actually, I've read some of it, and my background is Hindu, and I worked as a student for 20 years, and last March, I began making a list of points about the personal self, based upon that period.
One of the points was this one, and I think it would be good, because I think such a thing scientifically documented would carry a lot of force in the ways people think. I think it could affect the value of humility and self-destruction. If we find a function and say that ending it is the way to go, all of society is getting this message when science is backing it.
When I first posted, there were a number of reasons in my head for why this would be a good line of pursuit, but I didn't take the time to share them all, so maybe it sounded like I was someone who was going to solve my personal problems this way, when I think it is more-so a positive group exercise. I appreciate the comment that I should go to the medical community. I would like to go armed. But I should have provided more of the reasoning behind it here. I think chit jada granthi is too easily taken as a general concept, where I would give it more specific regard. It's graphic, and I would agree with it. It is like a rope with a knot tied in it, and I think the personal self fills it, like a sphincter filling up with shit, with rules and concepts, as it governs the physical organism. When it empties, it can become untied, and its function will no longer occur. I actually believe this, and so I confess, I just haven't given enough thought to how far out in the yonder I may actually appear to be coming from, here. I am a bit of a free-wheeling loose cannon type with my thinking. I didn't mean to break eggs! I have reasons to think this is a constructive line of inquiry.
- Mark
And the entry on skandhas here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha
These could be descriptions of brain functions, so maybe that's a way to approach it, broken down as such. What is called "ego" in psychology, with skandhas as a collection of ego functions.
However, one of the skhandas "creates" ego. The Buddha taught ego is one of seven tendencies in-born into human beings. It is a survival mechanism, merely a mechanism or function.
But Buddha taught ego is ultimately not true. If ego is seen clearly & deeply for what it is, it actually has no substance. It is merely a thought creation. It is born of ignorance. It is an ignorant way of regarding life & the five aggregrates.
Importantly, ego is the root of suffering.
For example, if my loved one dies, I suffer but you do not suffer. Why? Because they are "my" loved one and not yours.
The Buddha taught how the "assumption" of "self" arises, here:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.081.than.html If you wish to learn more about the Buddhist view, read here:
http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Books7/Buddhadasa_Bhikkhu_Anatta_and_Rebirth.pdf
All the best
DD
This does not make the ego real. This is to say that the physical anatomy coincides with the psychological or spiritual problem. I think it is necessary for the ego to be completely accessible to the unwitting individual - in support of it involving physical support.
The Skandhas do look to me like good contenders for finding things that physically correspond to them. I think they can functionally participate in development up to what we call an ego, or a conceptual self, as layers of human ability.
The ego ability is I think a wild ability, since it is a completely conceptual entity thinking like it is some kind of real first person who really needs to do certain real-world things, or the sky will fall on our heads.
Thanks....
Is there dictation in what we provide as an example?
If everyone believed as I did, then poof, like magic!
Lets be realistic to begin with, never in an infinite number of lives would all minds be able to swallow what you're feeding.
The answer to this question from your stand point is that I simply am not ready..... Christians have a similar stance concerning understanding.... It's very convenient for the believer.... We are here, they are there..... Their suffering is their choice.
If the expression of humanity could be freed and evolve at an exponential rate, then I ask a very simple question.... Why are we still chasing pieces of paper around in a monetary assessment of worth? Why is there still stratification of class?
Why hasn't the critical mass within Buddhism created a parallel physical existence that embodies the freedom of body and mind?
Do I need to strum a guitar to see where that has happened?
Even if the thought process is correct, you should be able to prove it without dictating what a mind should accept.
How did we achieve this.... LET ME SHOW YOU
Let me guess, we're not ready?
Ready or not, it shouldn't impact your own capability..... That capability should build so far beyond what we are now, it shouldn't matter what people believe...... If that belief hasn't already accomplished this, it's time to question it's effectiveness.
From exchange with Dhamma Dhatu; I think what the Buddha was saying was that what the ego says is not real. The ego above grabs onto a table that is not real. This is the "real imagination". The existence or not of the table has also not yet gotten to the point of whether or not there is some bundling of rules and concepts into some kind of "real imagination". So, the brain is real, but the stuff of it is not anything that it may refer to. That is real brain effectively producing a total falsehood.
I wanted to add these thoughts for consideration, since I think it is possible that the Buddha would agree. The things, such as ego, that are not real, are "real imagination". I think one might have to agree. And also, they will have their own, real physiology (regardless of the subject's opinion on this).
In the hospital, and with pain in patients, I think it is recognized today that a patient can produce real pain with their mind. One might say that coming from the mind is falsely produced, however; what the pain doctor today holds is that the pain the patient may have created with their mind is also real. We manifest out of the nonreal, and manifestation in this case is an ugly business - it makes an ugly reality out of what was only a concept before.
I think the reality of a concept is in the brain and the mind. At this point, the mind can be seen physically, and the body can be seen psychologically. I think there is a growing translation from one into the other. So what we think also happens in our brains in some real way. That which the thought refers to is never what the thought is, but the thought has its own reality.
I am enjoying what I've read so far about atta and anatta. The project I am beginning to envision now is the work of drawing or mapping ancient metaphysical/anatomical systems to paper and brain functions documented by science to paper. Then, to find links from one set of maps to the other. I'll have to mosey around and try a little research on just that. There is probably existing work on that. It involves scholarly work from each of the two camps.
MAN, Tthat was a good one...!!!!!! :rocker:
But the physical and the imagination - what an interesting pair. The brain is the reality of the imagination. The imagination is the (alleged) reality of the ego and the consciousness. I think also this would be to say that we make physical brain by thinking a certain way.
I think the brain may be the home for the spirit and consciousness, without the spirit, the brain is lifeless, but without the brain, the spirit and conciousness still exist, at least that's one theory supported by buddhist teachings. sincerely John
Aye, that's the twist. Here's the next question. Does the brain correspond to the consciousness? Because I think this question can be lost by seeing consciousness without brain. In this case, though, the word "consciousness" is being used and we should define it. Patanjali (yoga sutras) has consciousness as something that ends with the ego. I think one's ego-consciousness needs the brain/central nervous system to manifest itself, and one will need these to manifest out of thought without any ego. Is the mind in the brain? I think study of the brain is showing correspondence between what we call mind and what we identify in the brain, but that correspondence doesn't mean the mind is in the brain. It would support saying that the brain needs to be right to have the right mind corresponding to it. Maybe that is part of picking the right parents (picking the brain you like). hee hee Or, growing brain the way you like.
This one makes me get philosophical and ask, "Did the egg come from an Ostrich?" And if the answer is no, I'd like to suggest for consideration, based upon that, that the egg is actually a chicken.