loads of humans arent ashamed of being naked.and anyway we only know that the thing in the mirror is us through experience and being taught that it is the case.you also have to be taught that a painting of a person is actually a representation of a person.for example does Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! actually look like a smiling face?no but we have been taught that it does.
.....so what does self-consciousness man anyway? is it particularly human would you say?.....isit like consciuousness truning back on itself, and seeing it in an objective way?
Duendy, I think the comparison with animals is a blind alley. We can not know how animals think or feel, we can only make wild speculations. Maybe we can show our intellectual prowess in these speculations -- but this is it. We cannot actually prove the difference between a dozing cat and a meditating monk. Really, I think that the problem of defining what is human, is in fact a general methodological problem of what definitions are.
No one has to teach a human to recognize his own mirror image. The mirror image does the same things as me, that's how I know it's me, but an animal has no self to relate to. I think everything is kind of "conscious". Matter is the first level of consciousness. It expresses itself only by drawing things toward it (magnetism), cooling down and paralyzing.
Duendy, Well, Buddhist monks also just sit -- when they sit, they sit, and when they get up, they get up. Ideally, at least. But anyway, this is not the point here. True. But if we leave it undefined -- how then can we justly speak of anything? * * * I know this has been mentioned to you many times ... I'd still like to bring it up again. I would like that your posts were more readable. When you click the "reply" button to a post, you get to see a window, in which you type the reply, right? In the left upper corner of this window, it is written [ QUOTE]. Please delete this. Also, in the lower right corner, it is written [ /QUOTE]. Please delete this too. Then use your imagination to mark the part of the text you are quoting (like, *** text ***), so that we'll know which is quoted, and which is yours. This does not depend on what sort of a system you have. If you write your replies in a reply box, then you can do what I am suggesting above. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
do you remember the very very first time you looked in a mirror?probably went like:you patting the mirror,then parent saying "its you".havent you seen babies do this?
I think you are confusing the notion of "conscious of the body" and "self-consciousness," which requires ego or self-objectification, the reflection of an image of oneself. If animals were not conscious of their bodies, then they would be completely numb and unable to walk, fly, run, swim, mitose, reproduce...anything. They must be aware of being. and of the contours of their structure in order to relate to their environment.
Onefinity, I don't agree. Animals operate with instincts. They don't think, they feel. I can also do things without being conscious of my body. Generally, when you listen to music, you can feel as though your body does not exist, there exists only the presence, the observer. If animals were aware, they would think, and they would do stupid things.
Onefinity: Why do you ask? LightEagle: In what way are dogs and cats driven by desires anymore than we? And who is to say that cats and dogs do not hope? Does not the wounded animal still yet seek to survive, hoping for life to persist even if it is in dire straits? Animals never kill themselves, for instance, but live till they can no longer. They endure incredible hardships and still seek, sometimes in vain, for a way to survive. duendy: Gary Busey is an American actor who espouses nonsense conspiracy theories - including belief in the Illuminati - such as yourself. He was recently featured on "Celebrity Fit Club", and once had his own show on Comedy Central called "I'm with Busey". There is nothing inherently evil about raping a child. You will have to objectively prove evil to make this claim. Yes, that is what I was refering to. Christian beliefs of Lucifer are nonsensical. Because the Illuminati have absolutely no proof for their existence and, in general, the sources which claim they exist are unreliable, filled with inconsistancies, borderline insane, and are politically biased. www.rense.com, for instance, is the biggest piece of trash website on the net. David Icke is also a mad man. But it is. Emotion can plumb no depths of the universe, realize nothing, et cetera. Intellect is the secret to unleashing all. Not re-action? One cannot be sad without a reason. One cannot be sad "just 'cause". Sadness develops due to the presence of a stimulus. This it not simply what an "intellectual observation will do", but what is actually happening. ACtually, Zarathustra was the first prophet of Dualism, predating the "intellectual Orphics" by more than two millennia. Moreover, if thought developed in bacterium before humans developed, this "Dionysian ecstatic rituals" still came after the development of thinking. Not to mention that these rituals still used such things as fire, incense, et cetera, all created by the intellect. The cthonic nature of women, as traditionally been noted, isn't a generalization but a fact. Tradtionally, woman is associated more with the Earth. It is reductionist and darwinist. It cuts up reality and places it beneath it, as the rational mind has been able to discern the very nature of reality and thus is obviously a master of it, specifically as once we know something, we may control it. Once we knew how to split the atom, we created the atomic bomb and nuclear reactor. Once we knew how to make fire, we made fires of all types. Once we understand something, we control it, and thus we impose our intellectual will and master it. We become as Gods. So you deny we have found the four forces of nature? The laws of thermodynamics? The laws of motion? All other scientific facts? Why does it not surprise me that you've dabbled in psychedelics? But I shall check out this man's works, just to amuse myself. Live long and prosper. water: Yet do not thoughts relate to reality?
I think you are giving short shrift to what it means to be an organism. Animals are not robots. Do you happen to have any pets?
I want to know whether my internal evaluation of your level of maturity vs. level of intellect is based in fact, or whether I am erroneous in my thinking. I'm sure you will appreciate the rationality of my inquiry.
Prince, But in what way?! Is there a necessary and adequate relationship between our thoughts and reality? * * * Onefinity, What does it matter how old he is?! Are you judging the person or their arguments? I do not appreciate the rationality of your inquiry, it shows your bias and inability to keep to the argument.
Prince James says quoute....'there is nothining inherently evil in raping a child'....not a oneof you reacts to tat utter vile remark. so i will dude. i find you completely vile person. i have readyour views at oter treads and i do noteven want to fukin communicate with you......tis isrealy rare for me to say this. i have stuck it out with many differetn kinds of people...some quite offensive. but nothin as offensive asi find you.....so --i ner say never. if you realy provoke me i may respond. but i am just lewtting yo know, i wouod cross te roda rather than walk past a disgrace like yourself......you are de-human-ized
put it this way. with some of the people i know, who are real people--in tat teyaren't hypocrites, and he came out with that, tey would slap him good and proper
I didn't say they are. No, but I've always wanted... a cat. Yesterday... I was taking things from my mother's car.... and I watched behind me... and I saw a black cat looking at me from a distance. I would want to be a cat... but it's hard.... because I'm so conscious...
Don't take Prince's argument personally. Prince pointed out one of the terrible consequences of a biologically-based definition of what it means to be human. And most definitions that have been presented so far, of what it means to be human, were biologically-based (be it "human = member of species Homo sapiens", or "human = traits derivable from the biological substrate, traits like consciousness, intellect, emotions etc."). Namely, if there is no *ethical* component in the definition of what it means to be human, then statements like Prince's (that raping a child is not evil in and of itself) are perfectly valid. So the big issue here is to provide a sound ethical basis for what it means to be human.
