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Who Am I?
It is interesting to hear your journey. And, yes, the Taoist journey is quite different from 'normal' religious practice I suppose. At least the outer social aspects. Chapter 20 sums up the situation...
[chref=20]The multitude are joyous
As if partaking of the 'Tai Lao' offering
Or going up to a terrace in spring.
I alone am inactive and reveal no signs, [/chref]
Well, first what is a "Taoist"? Ironically, the deeper you connect with 'it', the less you may think of yourself as a "Taoist". Taoist disciplines can be pretty 'loaded' socially speaking, i.e., [chref=24]excessive food and useless excrescences'[/chref]. Thus, non 'spiritual' [chref=70]homespun[/chref] social activities, like "learning Spanish", having fewer self righteous undertones, may offer a more sincere connection in the long run. At least that's been my experience. Personally, I "connect" with other "Taoist" by 'crawling in the shoes' of the birds and insects in my back yard.
Oh, I'm all in favor of the practice of Tai Chi! But as a social lubricant,...? Let us know if this works out satisfactorily. I love to be proven wrong!
[chref=20]The multitude are joyous
As if partaking of the 'Tai Lao' offering
Or going up to a terrace in spring.
I alone am inactive and reveal no signs, [/chref]
[cite] TommyO:[/cite]... my desire to "connect" with other Taoists. I now am seeking out groups that practice Tai Chi, Feng Shui and other Taoist related disciplines. ... I am learning Spanish with my wife.
Well, first what is a "Taoist"? Ironically, the deeper you connect with 'it', the less you may think of yourself as a "Taoist". Taoist disciplines can be pretty 'loaded' socially speaking, i.e., [chref=24]excessive food and useless excrescences'[/chref]. Thus, non 'spiritual' [chref=70]homespun[/chref] social activities, like "learning Spanish", having fewer self righteous undertones, may offer a more sincere connection in the long run. At least that's been my experience. Personally, I "connect" with other "Taoist" by 'crawling in the shoes' of the birds and insects in my back yard.
Oh, I'm all in favor of the practice of Tai Chi! But as a social lubricant,...? Let us know if this works out satisfactorily. I love to be proven wrong!
Comments
That may sound a bit [chref=78]paradoxical[/chref], but correlating qualities hints at an underlying [chref=56]mysterious sameness[/chref] which helps sort it out; [chref=16]emptiness; stillness; returning to one's destiny; the constant; impartiality; perpetuity[/chref] all correlate to nothing and death.
Oh, death! Is this not why we cling so tightly to all those 'things' which we truly are not?
I used to think the attitude crowd was nuts. Now I think there is something to it. I think of attitude as being what you say about yourself. Your actions will reflect whatever conversations you have about yourself or the conversations other have about you that you buy into.
Remember the analogy about peeling an onion, the self being the onion? After you've peeled off all thelayers what is there? Nothing.
I believe the "self" is an illusion and we are a nothing that is connected to everything, which is also nothing.
I would agree.
I attribute lanuguage to that aspect of our being.
I attribute all creation to language.
But not in a discrete sense of it.
What we create will be whatever is in complete alignment with all of our language (thoughts and speech). Causing complete alignment is nearly impossible for beings at our stage of development; hence, the illusion that there is no self control (AKA Free Will). (Can you tell I am baiting Carl?)
I can't say that you are right or wrong because I cannot be without language to test it. Neither can I be sure that I am right or wrong.
I don't see that you can have thoughts or feelings without language. I can't recall a rainbow without saying or thinking rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green blue, indigo, violet, or remembering a time when I saw one. I can't recall an image without language. I can only recognize it if I see it again. I can have certain biological sensations (like gas pains, etc) but to have emotional feelings, I have to have language. Details of events, details of images, and thoughts that elicit emmotions all rely on language to recreate them.
If you and I had no language and you took my dinner, I might react "angrily" and snatch it back. But once I have back, it is over. I can't hate you because I have no language with which to sustain that hatred. I can't remain agry at you because I have no language with which to sustain that anger. Even if I didn't get my dinner back, I would go look for something else to eat and forget about you readily because I have no language with which to keep your memory alive. If I see you again, I might guard my dinner because I recognize you as a potential threat to my dinner.
As animals, I assume we have all the same basic physical brain activity that, for example, a dog has. A dog will recognize someone that has been cruel to it but has no ability to "remember" that person without them being present. But you will notice dogs tend to generalize even more than humans. They may have an aversion to all large people instead of just the one large person that was cruel to it.
I believe Helen Keller said that before she gained language, she had no distinct memories. She was unable to create memories without language.
Anyway, for me thought implies the use of language, words and names. If thought includes all perception, like feeling emotion and 'seeing' the stuff of the five senses, then all animals have thought. If so, then what does that bird out my window think of me?
Hmm, now is 'like' a thought or a feeling. Let's ask the ant who appears to 'like' honey more than vinegar. Hmm again... are we not just like ants, spending most of our life chasing what we like and avoiding what we dislike. How natural. As a test, notice how emotion precedes thought. When you feel good, good thoughts bubble up. When you feel crappy, crappy thoughts bubble up.
(1) To paraphrase: [chref=2]The right and the wrong complement each other...[/chref] The notion there is more reality in one than the other is why people have so much 'fun' misunderstanding each other.
(2) So are we are lumping "thoughts" and "feelings" into the same language based phenomenon? Thus, if a living thing has no language it doesn't feel? I know you don't mean that, or is suffering not a feeling?
(3) Exactly! Memories are the stuff of language. Language and the sense of a future and past (memories and plans) - the cozy cabin we hang out in until old death comes a knockin' at the door. Cozy 'inside', yet disconnecting us from the 'outside' - inside vs. outside; right vs. wrong. Language tames the wild beast of awareness by squeezing awareness and shoe horning it into the politically (i.e., socially) correct paradigm of the era. Yet, in the end, its promise is always broken, and the chickens always come home to roost. Reality trumps [chref=32]names[/chref], and the arbitrary languages they create, every time.
Seems to me that animals remember. Topher says
What is the dog's recognition of the person if not memory? So what if the memory doesn't arise until the person is present, it is still remembering. And how do we know the dog doesn't remember the person who is not present---how could we tell? Maybe when the dog is lying there dreaming and all his feet are moving he is running away from the cruel person!
It could be that what we call memory in humans we call conditioning in dogs, as if we are all above conditioning.
Another story: I tethered Joe the goat so that he would eat the star thistle. He didn't like it. For 2 days everytime he saw me he tried to butt me. He had a resentment, which is remembered anger.
1) Yes, but what about when you forget about feeling bad and start thinking about something else and suddenly start feeling good? Sometimes thought precedes emotion. In fact, other than physical suffering, which can be pretty compelling, I think all emotion is preceded by thought.
2) "Thought" I used to refer to language based talk that goes on in our head; not instinctual brain activity that requires no language. Speech is just spoken thought; though some of it is animal-like, instinctual reaction. I think that most of the emotion we assign to animals is an attempt to humanize them and is misdirected. However, I also consider that maybe they have a rudimentary language that allows them to have some thought and emotion. Their reactions might not all be instinctual. I don't really know for sure.
Dogs don't suffer as much as humans because they can't keep the story of their suffering alive without language. Most of human suffering is in the story about it after the actual events. Of course, if it turns out that dogs have as much or more thought than humans but just don't have speech, then my whole theory goes out the window.
Then you've never had PMS.
1) Basic brain level activity and conditioning; perhaps based on some rudimentary language.
2) I think humans have "conditioning" in common with anumals. But we also have the capacity for language; thought and speech. It might be that all we have in difference with animals is speech and that speech is what makes language so powerful.
3) I stll think it is conditioning because until he saw you he was probably pretty content. But like I said, there may be some form of language there, too.
Worse, I was run over by a drunk. All the hollering I did before I went unconscious was probably pretty primal and involved little or no thought. Once unconscious, I have no recollection of any thought or emotion.
Now, where was I...
OK, I'll bite! I'm afraid we have become unwitting prisoners of language. What began as a useful tool, shared to some degree by all species, has totally taken over human consciousness to the point that very 'intelligent' people believe that there is no consciousness without language. Ha! Tell that to the tree outside my window, or to the window for that matter, or the multitude of cells which cooperate to give 'me' life. Just because we can't talk to a tree does not mean it isn't conscious. If anything, language impedes awareness by funneling it down the tried and true trails of language and the cozy paradigm (prison) it allows us to create. [chref=23]Words[/chref]!
What if all cells are just machinery that are programmed to act and react a certain way. Humans have that much in common with everything for sure.
It is all "belief". Even the things we think we can prove are proof only of repeatability within a certain space and time. We draw conclusions way beyond our evidence. Global warming is one of those. Drastic climate changes have been happening all throughout time as far was we know. Of course, they may have been caused by green house gases emitted by volcanoes or other natural forces.
I act like I know sometimes but I have no idea. I really dislike people who think they really know. None of us knows. We're mostly just a bunch of idiots running around trying to make other people think and do what we want them to think and do.
I mean that most affectionately.
1) So either animal lack emotion or have thought. Which shall it be?
2) So you really equate thought and emotion? And instinct is neither in your view, I assume. Your view exemplifies the species centric perspective I'm often ranting about. The distinctions an animal perceives in the world around it always fulfills the underlying purpose of advancing its own agenda. For example, when it makes its way through the jungle and draws a distinction between a stick and a snake. Our brains permit us to take this one step further: we draw a specie-centric human hierarchical-instinct-driven distinction between 'animal instinct' and 'human thought / intelligence'. It is pure fantasy aimed at making us two legged primates with a big brain feel 'extra special' - 'God's creation'. Among animals, we are like the opera divas in being deluded by our own sense of importance. But, that said it is not our fault. We can't help it. We have no free will, and only a slight ability to [chref=61]take the lower position[/chref] and see ourselves as we are, i.e., biologically speaking - essentially no different than the rest of life on earth.
And that is why we suffer more than dogs. We see ourselves, not as we are, but as we think and wish we were, which leaves us feeling perpetually disconnected from the rest of creation - Eden lost.
Good one!
Cute. :roll:
Too bad we really don't know.
Keep in mind that I haven't got a clue; not unlike everyone else.
Unless animals have language (thought & speech) there is something distinctly different between us. I know that not all my actions and reactions are driven by a deliberate mental process. There is some level of basic brain activity that requires no language. Perhaps this is what animals have and perhaps they have more. I don't really know. I see no evidence of language and I am assuming it isn't there but not ruling it out.
1) I don't consider pain or pleasure or sexual attraction, etc an emotion. The emotion is all the other stuff humans make up about it.
2) Yes. Perhaps, but maybe we need the species-centric view and the nonspecies-centric view to figure it all out. Isn't that why you and I are exchanging ideas?
I didn't come here to tell everyone how it is or to find out how it is. Just to see what other people are thinking and learn something from it.
I thought about this some more. I think humans have something to deal with that goes beyond pure instinct. I am not really sure of the nature of it. I have been exploring the idea that it is thought and language. But I can't be certain that is it because I don't know that other animals don't have some form of language other than instinctual behavior. And I don't know whether human behavior around communication isn't purely instinctual.
So the best thing to do in my view is to explore both ideas and see what comes of each. It may be some of both.
ok, just to clarify, it is proven that many animals do indeed have a unified language. Think of dolphins that communicate in clicks and whisltes, or whales that speak in that long moaning type fasion. Animals definatly have some form of comunication, although perhaps not as developed as human speech, i think that animal communication is likely more effective than our words. They communicate essential ideas or concepts, like where to find food or water, or "look out! a predetor behind you!" yet they to not get caught up in the complexities of words that dilute human humility....i doubt there are animal philosophers
The Taoist view holds that seeing similarities (also [chref=56]known as mysterious sameness[/chref]) feels 'truer', and will help us [chref=16]return[/chref]. The world of 'men' obviously [chref=41]laughs out loud[/chref] at such a notion. Seeing (and making the most of) differences is the 'norm'.
Having this Taoist point of view causes me to see that we are not different from other animals, even though the vast majority of folks disagree. Naturally so, for it is the human 'norm' to see and think that differences are real. Moreover, we are the same as other animals in noticing differences more than similarities. Seeing more 'reality' in differences is part of survival biology, e.g., distinguishing a stick from a snake, a predator from prey, a friend from an enemy.
Similarities calm (or bore) us, differences get our attention - we stop and look. We, meaning all animals. For humans this differences' bias has a 'big perceptual field' (i.e., the brain's mind) in which to play itself out. First, the [chref=32]names[/chref] and [chref=23]words[/chref] of language are built on differences (which is why Taoism has such low regard for the them). Thus, language itself is biased from the start towards a 'differences point of view'. That, along with our instinctive bias to notice differences combine to make us feel 'special'.
(1) And there is a difference between a moth and a butterfly, and ant and a termite, and so on. The question is, is the difference 'significant and real' or 'trivial and relative'. Same question of course applies to the differences between men and women, blacks and white, old and young, rich and poor, intelligent and stupid, [chref=2]good and bad, beautiful and ugly[/chref]. No wonder why many [chref=41]laugh out loud[/chref] at the Taoist point of view.
(2) Next, are you not taking liberties with the meaning of emotion, unless your observations tell you that animals have no strong feelings, feel no joy, anger or sadness. Anyway, the dictionary say:
emotion >n. a strong feeling, such as joy, anger, or sadness. ->instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge.
-ORIGIN from Fr. émotion, from émouvoir 'excite', based on L. emovere, from e- 'out' + movere 'move'.
My word, enough words, eh!
I guess this all started because I asserted that the conversations (thoughts & speech) we have about ourselves, life, and others is what makes us who we are. Similar to attitude but I actually think your attitude is created by what you say (or think). Why I brought animals into it, I don't know. How would I ever know what an animal is or isn't thinking? I am not even sure I know what I am thinking.
I am an intuitive (expressive) person but I also lean strong on the logic side. I am keenly aware of my lack of facts. Even what I think I observe, may not be what it appears. But I can operate without facts and make a best guess.
It is not even so much that it is true that our conversations make us who were are, but it may leave an opening in life for those who find they are stuck.
Maybe I am not a taoist and never will be. I think you can learn as much by observing the differences as the similarities. In any case, I am not so much interested in what is true as I am in how things work, especially the emotional & spiritual aspects of the human.
I didn't think I was. I even checked the dictionary and thought what I was talking about fit the definition. I actually don't know what animals are feeling or thinking. Pain is not an emotion (look at your definition). Sadness is, according to my thinking and your definition.
I know I can feel pain physically. I can react to pain by withdrawing from the perceived cause of it (without thinking about it first). Animals seem to react in the same way and I assume have similar brain processes that control that. I don't know that they don't have emotion about it (like sadness). But I think my sadness is based on the conversation I have about what just happened, not a physical sensation, though, a physical sensation may accompany it. My sadness can last a lot longer than the event because I keep that conversation going. Why I would choose to put myself through this kind of misery, I have yet to figure out. I know the sadness leaves when I drop the story about it and move on.
When I began, I made the assertion that animals don't do this. I now see that I don't know that they don't. But I know that I do.
This is not going to affect my eating habits. Hmm, I wonder if I have a steak in the freezer....
Maybe I did... I usually do, for I consider myself an animal like the rest I see around me. It is easy to 'know' what it feels like to be another animal, even a spider for example, as soon as we stop thinking we are different. Try it! There is a bonus. Much of the loneliness subsides.
Certainly all observation - difference or similarities - is illuminating. As far as what is "true" - I define true as what works. False is what doesn't work and leads to a dead end (in every sense of the word).
Sadness is not painful? To my knowledge, all animals that form pair-bond and mate for life suffer deep sadness, emotional wasting away, when they lose their mate. It's just biology. Of course, for us imagination enter into this process. We suffer 'imagined' gains and losses, whereas other animal respond to what actually happens. It's just biology again - we've got the brain adept at imagining fanciful illusions. Dare I say, like the illusion, 'I am', 'I have', 'I will', ...
Yes, but not only "what just happened", but what will happen, may happen, or may not happen as well. Much of our "conversation" takes the form of foreknowledge which causes us a 'special' suffering that animal avoid, by and large. Imagination allows us to drop the 'fruit' of this moment and abide in its 'flower' instead - A kind of virtual reality generated in the 'personal computer' we were born with,... our brain. Sure, it make us [chref=18]clever[/chref] enough to rise to the top of the food chain, but at a cost.
[chref=38]Foreknowledge is the flowery embellishment of the way and the beginning of folly.
Hence the man of large mind abides in the thick not in the thin, in the fruit not in the flower.
[/chref]
Just a quickie: I don't have a clue either. Birds fly, fish swim, hearts beat , brains think, I'm enjoying your postings.
I concur with this. The foreknowledge part of it is big. I would add that it is also about the meaning of things which is kind of the same thing. Like if you guys told me to get lost and quit posting, I would make it mean that I am not likable and that I am a pest. Well, maybe, but mostly that is made up. You might get the whole world to agree with you but I don't have to have that conversation about myself even if the whole world agrees.
However, the conversations that the world has about you are also very powerful. Instinctually we know this so we either try to avoid it or control it by staying away from people we don't think we can win over or by trying to get people to approve of us.
Notice the most powerful people in the world (socially & politically speaking) have the agreement of many people (either by force or by charisma).
I concur! The 'tribal' instinct, which drives our social needs and fears, is perhaps the most powerful of all. Stronger than sex, food, and perhaps survival itself at times (suicide bombers and kamikaze pilots come to mind immediately). Of course belief ties right into this instinct. The Taoist dismissive view of words and names, and the beliefs they articulate, is what attracts me most. I guess it offers me a degree of freedom 'outside the societal box'. I mean, how wonderful the concept: [chref=2]Therefore the sage keeps to the deed that consists in taking no action and practices the teaching that uses no words.[/chref] For once something without [chref=18]hypocrisy[/chref]. Now that is [chref=11]Something[/chref] I can aspire to.
I neglected to repsond to this.
The def. of emotion says sadness is an emotion but it also says "instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge" which would rule out sadness as an emotion in my opinion, because sadness is all based on reasoning and knowledge. Whereas, getting hit in the face would hurt without reasoning or knowledge.
That was really my whole point.
For all we know, the lack of a mate is the source of "apparent" sadness. In humans, a mate is spiritually (AKA emotionally) and physically essential outside of mitigating circumstances. Dogs I believe have this same basic need. What you see in the dog could be just a biological response to the lack of a mate and not the kind of "sadness" you and I would feel because of the story we have about not having a mate. The only reason I say this is because I feel language is necessary for "sadness" and as far as I can tell, dogs don't have it.
I could be full of crap and there is no way for me to know for sure.
I still feel that certain "emotional" things humans go through are based on language. I do think humans have a biological need for a mate and that the lack of one is disconcerting biologically (in otherwise healthy and whole adults). So the human would suffer the lack of one even without language.
I feel a large portion of our "feelings" are all language based - reasoning and knowledge. There is the biological and there is the emotional & spiritual (the latter based in language). I do believe that dogs have some level of the spiritual because I believe they are also spiritual creatures. (I am a heretic to traditional christian thought.) I really don't know to what extent but it would be to whatever extent they have the ability to reason and know and communicate.
I still don't know too much about animals and what they are thinking or not thinking.
Physical pain is biological. The extended suffering over it, once the source and injury is gone, is all emotional & spiritual. But my definition of emotional is exactly opposite of the dictionary and so I need to find another word.