My description of pain as an unpleasant sensation is nothing like a description of neural networks. I can't see how describing neural networks predicts pain.

People with congenital pain defect do not know what pain is like because they don't experience (The same with achromatics and colour) Describing neural activity or them witnessing neural activity doesn't give them any insight into it.

I think people fail to realise that science has a conscious element in which science uses our consciousness experiences and metaphors of them to proceed. Science doesn't have direct access to an objective external world either it relies on models. The physical model is not the same as our naive sensation of the physical and is conflated with it.

Physicalism and materialism is undefined until we have a final physics theory which is probably impossible hence the impossibility of defining the physical.

I think the lack of a testable explanation of consciousness undermines the basis of our knowledge so that we could all be in a matrix like scenario. I don't think it is a minor epiphenomenal problem. if we had direct conscious access to reality as I said elsewhere then it seems we should be able to do science easily by immediately detecting how the world works and not having to make models of an imagined underlying reality.

It is the main reason for my agnosticism probably.

Andrew4Handel wrote:My description of pain as an unpleasant sensation is nothing like a description of neural networks. I can't see how describing neural networks predicts pain.

However neural networks can identify what pain is like and thus that there is pain, it's like and where it is.

If one knows what network activity detects pain in your left arm then detecting that activity would predict pain in your left arm.

That different and contradictory description of a thing are possible doesn't mean the referent is different.

Consider that descriptions of 2D projections of a cylinder are contradictory (circle and square) yet they have the same referent.

Andrew4Handel wrote:My description of pain as an unpleasant sensation is nothing like a description of neural networks. I can't see how describing neural networks predicts pain.

People with congenital pain defect do not know what pain is like because they don't experience (The same with achromatics and colour) Describing neural activity or them witnessing neural activity doesn't give them any insight into it.

I think people fail to realise that science has a conscious element in which science uses our consciousness experiences and metaphors of them to proceed. Science doesn't have direct access to an objective external world either it relies on models. The physical model is not the same as our naive sensation of the physical and is conflated with it.

OK so far...

Physicalism and materialism is undefined until we have a final physics theory which is probably impossible hence the impossibility of defining the physical.

I think the lack of a testable explanation of consciousness undermines the basis of our knowledge so that we could all be in a matrix like scenario. I don't think it is a minor epiphenomenal problem. if we had direct conscious access to reality as I said elsewhere then it seems we should be able to do science easily by immediately detecting how the world works and not having to make models of an imagined underlying reality.

It is the main reason for my agnosticism probably.

NOT OK! The usefulness of physics (and other science theories) is NOT dependent on some magic, "final answer", it depends on testability.

Disciple: Master, how would you define consciousness and pain?
Master slaps disciple: Define that!
Disciple: Ow! That hurt! Why are you mean to me? I will never forgive you!
Master: Pain is immediate! Suffering is self agitation consciously mediated in imagination and words and carried through time by an artificial sense of self conditioned into the brain—the brain has no physical pain receptors (nociceptors).

In other words:
Consciousness is a neurolinguistic and/or psychosomatic transient manifestation quickened in the wake of contact between Awareness and a living body—a dust devil, ghost in the machine, stream of consciousness, that which is interpreting this now!

Religious, philosophical, or scientific personalities don't really live in the physical realm—they live in their heads deriving a mental life out of beliefs, values, theories, meanings, and/or measurements. These insular mentalities are not very sensitive to the sensual and sensuous physical and emotional realms and the suffering of others. Being devoid of compassion and empathy they can bully and burn human beings on a stake, cut off their heads, drop napalm on villages, experiment on living creatures kept in cages—all done to enhance and protect a life style that really isn't very sensitive to life on earth—it just thinks or believes it is. Most talking heads are too preoccupied or self absorbed to be aware of where they are at or who they are with or talking to.

"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes". ~ Desiderius Erasmus

"Most conversations [postings] are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses." ~ Margaret Millar


There were three people—only identified as "Good Samaritans"—who saw the man tumble off the cliff. They descended the slope to try a rescue, to no avail; he was pronounced dead at the scene.

As I posted earlier I am a Zen dust-devil and not of this world picking up debris from other realms of experience, mixing it all together in what to me is a relatively coherent package, and then dropping it off in other spaces. If my postings are incoherent please let me know (credible posters only). It is not my intention to confuse or alienate anyone—quite the contrary. But a lot of people use other people and situations just to self-agitate. Trying to make contact with alienating aliens is quite a challenge—just look at Europe, the American Republican political party, or any internet forum!

First Contact with other realms of experience really is a dynamic Zen art form that requires constant attention and practice—a zazen labor of love. Internet forums provide a remarkable platform for the continuing evolution of human communications. Remember that which is reading this now is embedded in but not the same as its streaming belief system (BS!) made up of the totally misunderstood concept of sentience (beliefs, opinions, attitudes, moods, etc.). Very few people know or care what they are actually made of, what it is in them that wants, or even if they are evolving or growing up.

I tried to post at a philosophy forum apparently based in an academic world. A mean spirited moderator went ballistic over my first posting (there) criticizing it with condescension you could cut with a knife referring to it as new age fad which must be something like the new age speak mentioned above—I deleted my postings and left. That moderator later left the forum under suspicious circumstances so I decided to post a Zen Haiku and see what would happen—an administrator promptly moved it into an unmoderated forum and oblivion. That administrator admitted to editing postings (not his own) for his own amusement—I deleted my posting and left that forum for good and came here—forum quality matches moderation quality.

I decided to used that Zen Haiku in my first posting here and it made it through to this thread and here I am. I enjoy using this computer and GIMP to create postings that express the dust currents in my mind. I am aware of where I'm at and conscious of what I am doing and my postings indicate where I am coming from. Posting is part of my Zen practice and I do it for my own edification. I'm trying to make sense of my experience and need skeptical witnesses to my understanding. There really isn't much to the BuddhaDharma, Zen, or me—it's all just an ongoing practice of expressing human understanding in order to figure a way out of suffering.

When I first started reading this thread and came upon monkeyboy's post I had a great laugh from his avatar and wry English humour:

monkeyboy wrote:Oh sweet mercy. Here we go again!

I knew this thread was going to be labyrinthian journey through multiple minds and realms with a lot of dead ends. I also knew this would be a great topic to start off weaving my posting practice into this forum.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote: Our most disturbing perception (severe pain) is entirely mental. You don't see pain under a microscope or emanating from matter. It is private and subjective and not existant when we are unconscious

Well, you can fuck off with this bullshit. As someone that has lived with severe pain day and night for a number of years I can tell you that it is not mental and it does not go away when I sleep. And the fuck it's subjective. My back is fucked up from heavy lifting for most of my life. MRIs show exactly where the pain originates, and it isn't in my fucking head, and it isn't subjective. It's fucking real. It's physical.

I must admit I really wasn't a fan of profanity until I read this posting. This is right out of the emotional realm giving voice to a body in pain and no other words or emoticons could carry it better. I have been spared such pain so I will keep my mouth shut about it.

What I am interested in, Oldskeptic, is the nature of the heavy lifting for most of my life. Are you talking about heavy weight training in a gym and if so it's a heads up to those who practice this sport? Or are you talking about the consequences of heavy manual labor which would reinforce the need for shorter work hours or robotic technology to free humans from such labor?

Oldskeptic wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:My older brother had a deep pressure sore on his bottom due to his advanced MS and inability to move. It smelled like death. It looked like it should hurt but he felt no pain.

pudgala2: sounds like gangrene (necrosis) to me caused by reduced blood supply to the area. Dead cells don't send signals telling the brain it is dead—decaying flesh gives off a very foul odor. Bedridden people must be continually moved to keep the blood moving preventing bedsores.

You can have extensive injury without pain. And some of the sharpest pain comes from minor injuries like paper cut and tooth ache. It doesn't follow that bodily injury entails pain. Consciousness leads to pain.

Well, as long as we're doing anecdotes my older sister died of cancer that had spread through her entire body. She spent the last two weeks of her life in what amounts to a morphine induced coma, yet she moaned in pain the whole time. So there!

pudgala2: This is a situation that deserves its own thread.

Anaesthetic works by Preventing consciousness either by causing total unconsciousness or local numbness.

My pain medications work by relaxing the muscles in my lower back and reducing inflammation in tissues surrounding the problem area with no affects on my consciousness.

How anesthetics work or are supposed to work is obviously not the same as whether they are actually effective and useful to the person suffering. And becoming addicted to pain mediation is a serious "side effect" that can totally ruin a life. As I understand this post the medications Oldskeptic is taking are NOT effective in reducing or eliminating his pain! Am I reading this right?

If that is the case then may I suggest to those suffering from chronic pain or suffering to check out the 522 reviews with an average rating of 4.6 stars out of 5 for Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness at Amazon.com. Jon Kabat-Zinn is a healer and moves through all four realms of human experience.

Oooh, "quickened". What, exactly, does that entail then?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Not only that, this mysterious "quickening" happens "in the wake of contact between Awareness and a living body".

What the blue fuck does that even mean?

Everything that follows is of no use unless the reader accepts that deepity-chopra-style woo definition of consciousness.

pudgala2 wrote:Religious, philosophical, or scientific personalities don't really live in the physical realm—they live in their heads deriving a mental life out of beliefs, values, theories, meanings, and/or measurements. These insular mentalities are not very sensitive to the sensual and sensuous physical and emotional realms and the suffering of others

Oh, wow! You really are confused, aren't you? Perhaps you are trying to say, in a muddled and confused way, that eg, military scientists are insulated from the death and destruction that their weapons can cause. Perhaps you should express yourself in a more coherent way.

Hello Meta_tron,

Are we talking Metatron—scribe of God—checking out the new age competition? Let's face it, the traditional ways have pretty much been exploited by cunning political priestcraft and now these leftover ways are being further trashed by anti wooist and religious or should I say deadicated atheists who closed off the mystical realm leaving empty spiritless zombies and cunning demons to mindlessly walk, talk, and ruin the earth. I should have the Winchester brothers on speed-dial—I don't think Castiel has a cell phone and the prayer system is pretty much shot to hell!

I waited five days to make sure that interest in Defining Conscious had petered out before dumping further debris in this thread—what a relief that was. Didn't I say I was not of this world and that I was coming from another realm! You guys are so self absorbed with habitually beating a dead horse that you're not even CONSCIOUS that you're doing it—the villagers really do need to chill out.

And here am I, pie in the sky who just can't let sleeping dogs lie anymore. You really do need a slightly more elevated (higher) CONSCIOUSNESS to understand me. Translator microbes only work on speech—not written communication. Sorry about that but I am trying and face to face communications with your species is too dangerous as famously expressed and later experienced by Jesus:

"Do not give what is holy [profound] to the dogs [cynics, faultfinders, trolls]; nor cast your pearls [insights] before swine [an ignorant crowd], lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces."

And it's really not odd that Jesus ignored his own advice—he knew what he was getting himself into. Just as nurse Ratchet (rhymes with Procrustean hatchet) knew what she had to do!


Anyway did anything quicken in the empty space between Awareness of reading this post and the meat suit that Awareness is wearing? That would be the low to high consciousness this thread is seeking a definition of—how odd is that!

Blah, blah, blah.

Like Asimov, I will believe absolutely any motherfucking thing, provided the evidence for it is sufficient. You not only make gibberish claims that don't parse, you show no evidence.

"Not of this world". Start there. Prove it.

Your conciousness is insufficiently "high" for you to be able to comprehend pudgala2's explanation.

I'll go get you a stepladder. That should help.

Christ on a pogo stick, have we got another one?

logical bob wrote:Christ on a pogo stick, have we got another one?

Yep, this site collects them.

The_Metatron wrote:Blah, blah, blah.

Like Asimov, I will believe absolutely any motherfucking thing, provided the evidence for it is sufficient. You not only make gibberish claims that don't parse, you show no evidence.

"Not of this world". Start there. Prove it.

Our very postings, The_Metatron, are proof to both of us that we live in totally different worlds or realms of experience. Our postings are testimonials to that fact. What more evidence do you need to believe than the witnessing presence of yourself? I rest my case on the obvious evidence already posted! I understand where you are coming from and you obviously do not, cannot, or choose not to understand where I'm coming from and that's it.

I ignore posters I don't understand or are too difficult for me to read or who use my postings to self agitate—bitch queens are the oddest followed closely by jealous zealots and bringing up the rear of course are the parochial or should I say low consciousness villagers (it seems some have arrived on the scene–Klaatu barada nikto). Drama queens can be interesting from a distance.

And I do love to lay out a pathway of words into whatever realm of experience I am expressing or exploring—that's what I doing now and will do in the future. The proof of the posting is in the reading just like Jesus said in his now outdated parable about fruit on a tree.

So, The_Metatron–scribe of God (I just love that line) are you moonlighting as a moderator now and is my posting career here going to be cut short? If not I'm going to leave this thread now and start one of my own and continue presenting myself as I am––a half baked Buddha on the lam from the Procrustean priestcraft of the lower states of consciousness trying to get me to fit in while I'm on my way ut.

Hopefully I will become more coherent with practice and cast more effective spells of understanding to release those who are tongue-tied and imprisoned in cultural belief systems. Language is such an astonishing device for bringing sentient beings (beliefs, opinions, attitudes, etc.) into consciousness. The problem of course is becoming habituated on them and not knowing how to dissolve or let go of them and return to the ever serene Buddha fields of Original Mind.

Wow. That really sounds like the words of someone who is desperately trying to appear intelligent.

Zadocfish2 wrote:Wow. That really sounds like the words of someone who is desperately trying to appear intelligent.

I'm just curious. Why did you include the words I've stricken through? Metaphysical politics? Tribalism? Or are you just in a bad mood?

... Because if you want to negate a post in these parts (philosophy), then people like me will be prodding you for a justification of your insults/politics, especially when deplete of addressing anything that the poster you are referring to has posted.

In other words, spare us the fucking mantras and politics. Or else, try the popcorn.

jamest wrote:

Zadocfish2 wrote:Wow. That really sounds like the words of someone who is desperately trying to appear intelligent.

I'm just curious. Why did you include the words I've stricken through? Metaphysical politics? Tribalism? Or are you just in a bad mood?

... Because if you want to negate a post in these parts (philosophy), then people like me will be prodding you for a justification of your insults/politics, especially when deplete of addressing anything that the poster you are referring to has posted.

In other words, spare us the fucking mantras and politics. Or else, try the popcorn.

Stop it please. My poor irony meter

Scar wrote:

jamest wrote:

Zadocfish2 wrote:Wow. That really sounds like the words of someone who is desperately trying to appear intelligent.

I'm just curious. Why did you include the words I've stricken through? Metaphysical politics? Tribalism? Or are you just in a bad mood?

... Because if you want to negate a post in these parts (philosophy), then people like me will be prodding you for a justification of your insults/politics, especially when deplete of addressing anything that the poster you are referring to has posted.

In other words, spare us the fucking mantras and politics. Or else, try the popcorn.

Stop it please. My poor irony meter

It's significantly noticeable that your average post in the philosophy forum contains probably less than a dozen words. Need I say more? You obviously like the popcorn here. You should buy more of it. Much more. A fucking shedload.

It doesn't happen that often (okay, I'm telling lies), but there are times when I just want to like my own posts. I might even take this suggestion to the feedback forum. So there.

jamest wrote:
It's significantly noticeable that your average post in the philosophy forum contains probably less than a dozen words. Need I say more?

Apparently you do, since you seem overly-impressed by word count. Mantras like pudgala2's post is totally ok as long as it's sufficiently wordy enough