The Power of the Mind: Reason & Emotion

[Jonny_trigonometry]

Key ideas: Our minds are the emergant property of interations between two fundamental forces, reason and emotion. Our minds don't need to exist within space-time.

The mind is the interaction of two forces, reason and emotion. Or maybe I should say that our minds exist in two "environments" at the same time, rational and emotional. Traditionally, the right brain is the emotional brain, and the left is the rational brain. It's not crucial to this topic how we relate the function of our minds to how our bodies are configured, because I wish to focus mainly on this idea of a complimentary relationship of two "environments" that the mind "exists within". In other words, the functions of reason and emotion are constructs used to develop a theory of the mind, and therefore we need not speak of a brain structure, but rather of rational and emotional structure. These environments/structures/protocols (reason and emotion) don't exist within space-time, but we know they exist as concepts in this theory, perhaps in the space of imagination (or, the space of thought) if you'd like to look at it that way. This is much like how math is built, the concepts don't physically exist, but we use them to understand things both in the physical world and other concepts formed from more fundamental concepts. We could also say that the concepts of math also exist in the space of our imagination or thought-space. In other words, everything a mind needs to operate exists in this thought-space, and so wether or not a human body exists in the physical world, or for that matter, any living thing with a brain, a mind can still exist. Albeit, it is hard to imagine what the mind would think about, since all of our thoughts can be said to be inspired by our own experiances in a physical world, but on the other hand, if you've tried medetation before, you may have experianced a "glimpse" of what it would be like. The point is that under this way of thinking, our minds don't need to be the emergant property of our brains, but rather we could look at it another way. For example, our brains could be like "antennas" and our bodies like radios which output the signals received from "thought-space", which is where our minds truly exist.

Any thoughts?

 

[artrocket]

These environments/structures/protocols (reason and emotion) don't exist within space-time, but we know they exist as concepts in this theory, perhaps in the space of imagination (or, the space of thought) if you'd like to look at it that way.

It seems a vague statement to say that (reason and emotion) "don't exist within space-time", but instead relegate them as "concepts in this theory". You have based your statement on viewing space-time dimension only with what is seen and tangible, but do you consider things and issues that are unseen, intangible, confusing, ignorance, as not part of this dimension but just "concepts"? But the manifestations of the latter things do exist in the physical space-time reality and we blatantly observe it every moment when we watch the news (including from puppet media) and daily routines, would you imply instead that our space-time 'reality' in fact, considering that the intangible, unseen sources of the dilemma "don't exist within space-time", may turn out to be "illusion"?

We are dealing with abstracts here, and it won't be fair for the moderators of this forum to delete my post merely because I will be portraying the abstract concept just as it is: 'unseen, intangible, beyond measurement, beyond (not the lacking of) analysis that would obviously result to confusion to minds that are BIASED only to reason and disregarding the other concept that you are mentioning in this post. Those who are real scientists here, and not just typical technicians, should be AWARE of this. The challenge is for people here not to stagnate on the mediocre but to go beyond that mediocrity, and you are now entering the abstract, the realm of imaginations as you may say.

I am into art, but am a physics enthusiast because it seems to be the field that has the capacity to have language for the 'abstract' ideas I had in mind now. Do not stereotype me with the rest.

Let me share my personal philosophy that aptly fits with this discussion: "The Illusion of reality and the Reality of illusion".

To better understand this we will set example. What we had recently discussed may be an apt example for the "Reality of illusion".

A good example for the other concept would be Americans. Recently the Americans watching the boob tube were duped to wage war on Iraq with the pretext of WMD as drummed up by the hype of puppet corporate media. And indeed you waged war with the 'noble' cause of ridding the world with evil Saddam's WMD, which turned out to be non-existent. But at least the oil pipelines were 'liberated' and now you have oil blessings. That is a fine example of the "Illusion of reality".

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

um.

would it be safe to say that Physics doesn't deal with how people think? Therefore, the physical world as described by the most fundamental field of science is devoid of things like reason and emotion. These things aren't intrinsic parts of reality, but rather ideas that we use. In other words, there is no exchange particle for reason or emotion. Reason and emotion don't exist in the physical world, they only exist in our minds. We use these concepts to help us describe reality to each other and ourselves. In other words, the pythagorean theorem is based on idealizations of observations within space-time, but it truly doesn't exist in space-time the way that a rock or a particle does, so I say that it is a concept, and it only exists in our heads. If the universe didn't exist, the pythagorean theorem would still exist, and the sum of the reciprocals of all the perfect squares would still be PI^2/6, just like all other concepts. Reason and emotion, thus wil also, since it is a concept.

Another thing that you're pointing towards is the idea that reality to us could be different from how reality actually is. That our interpretation of reality is all we can know, and our interpretation can't be known with certainty to be truly correct. I'll be back later, I'm going to the state fair.

one last thing before I go... We should make the distinction between reality and space-time.

 

[selfAdjoint]

would it be safe to say that Physics doesn't deal with how people think? Therefore, the physical world as described by the most fundamental field of science is devoid of things like reason and emotion.

Neurology studies how people think. And neurology is closer to physics than to philosophy. Emotion in particular - what parts of the brain seem to be key to it, and how they communicate with other areas of the brain - is currently a hot topic.

 

[artrocket]

would it be safe to say that Physics doesn't deal with how people think? Therefore, the physical world as described by the most fundamental field of science is devoid of things like reason and emotion. These things aren't intrinsic parts of reality, but rather ideas that we use. In other words, there is no exchange particle for reason or emotion. Reason and emotion don't exist in the physical world, they only exist in our minds.

Physics is a tool. The obvious answer to that question would be like replying to "shovel doesn't deal with how gardeners think." It seems only mainstream, western science that's devoid of things like like reason and emotion, yet its pretext to objectivity are oftentimes used for subjective motives, like selfishness. Mainstream, western science seems manipulated to a concept devoid of those things and it is like cold and dead, because the living realities in science were suppressed from people who were manipulated to believe that it is taboo, occult, or 'evil'.

Not everything, fortunately, fall from that pit though, because hundreds of centuries ago, intelligent civilizations were already comprehending the living realities in science and it thrives today in profound Eastern philosophies like Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism; such profound philosophies that the masses, instead of perceiving these as philosophy, had made it their religion.

But back to the issue on modern day manipulation. A blatant example to these complex, creeping, extremely subjective manipulation to us all is world politics. During the cold war, the scientists behind the iron curtain were actually highly advanced in metaphysics research, while in the 'free' west these were hyped up and people manipulated to believe as occult, 'evil' regarding these profound discoveries. It may have turned out though, that behind the research was an attempt to use it as war weapon, but they discovered it improbable because most often, their subjects were between intimatedly linked people like mother and son, close friends, etc. Eventually the attempt to use metaphysics for weaponry, failed.

Western communism, with special mention to Marxism, capitulated not because capitalism was right, but because their science discovered that materialism is an erroneous ideology. You in western science should have been more inquisitive in the behavior of subparticles in quantum mechanics in the observer-observed phenomenon. But you were programmed to deal it in a science that is devoid of reason and emotion. I am not saying to deal with these things subjectively, that's the least I'd say, but rather to consider science relative, holistic with human phenomenon of reason and emotion.

Materialism in communism, as infiltrated by Marx's 'historical materialism', contributed to the downfall of these countries. Which is why communism didn't crumble in China, because their perspectives are more profound than Marxism, and less materialistic as you may notice with those recent excellent chinese epic movies oftentimes sponsored by the chinese govt. They have a refreshing perspective for their future, and their awareness to living realities will propel further with the enlightened support towards a dynamic Culture, holistically fusing with it the relative (not subjective) relationship with human reason and emotion. As materialism in western communism crumbled, eventually, materialism in capitalism will be next.

Perhaps that would be a time when fathers in other countries beyond your territories, won't have to scour a fastfood garbage bin just to bring food to his children, because by then, the manipulative dilemma will be addressed as people become more aware and humanity will be less selfish and materialistic towards each other, and with the awareness, we will act less like greedy, modern day barbarians.

As you mentioned about the distinction between reality and space-time, in this discussion I fused it as relative, because we are speaking of the life of the mind, and not dead science.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

wow, that's a lot of linkages and tangential thoughts, but if you have enough tangents, you will have a full thought circling the idea, which you seem to. I still should read your write up over a couple more times, but you talk of the materialist philosopy becomming less realistic the more we look at the world in a holistic view. Thats kind of what I'm saying too. That our minds really aren't material, they aren't made from materials in the physical world, althogh our brains and bodies are. We can't get caught up in the rat race demanded of us from those "surface of reality dwellers" who demand a great body, a fast and flashy car, a nice house to put all our favorite things that we own, and have room for other things that catch our eye. Being caught up in the rat race is the result of distracting ourselves from thinking about our situation. It may not feel that confortable thinking about the metaphysical, and how we could explain it through science, so many people would rather spend their time picking out a new color ipod that would match the colors in their car for example. I agree, materialism doesn't do much but get in the way of understanding our situation. Some say that is just fine, and others don't. It depends on wether or not you believe reality can be completely figured out with science. If you believe it can't then it is a waste of time to wonder if a tree would make a sound when it falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it; that question becomes a joke, just like every philosophical question. If you feel otherwise, then you're not materialistic, and you work to answer those questions seriously. If I had to guess, most people are a mix of the two viewpoints. I personally lean more toward the latter viewpoint, but I still shower regularly... well, mostly.

And Science, by the problem-solving attitude it emmits, seems like it could be "personified" as having the latter viewpoint also, at least, in my perspective. Albeit, any emotion we get from the "attitude of science" is subjective because science itself doesn't feel emotion, or does it? Are you saying that if we think of science as an individual mind, then it could tell us how we think? Is that what you mean with your garden shovel analogy? That western culture supresses the "living realities" of science?

I kind of get the idea that you're saying that people as a whole will evovle to think in the same terms about science, and then science will be able to tell us all how we think... Well certainly if we all thought in a unified way, we would know how we think right? Kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy?

I still got to read over your post a couple times...

 

[artrocket]

And Science, by the problem-solving attitude it emmits, seems like it could be "personified" as having the latter viewpoint also, at least, in my perspective. Albeit, any emotion we get from the "attitude of science" is subjective because science itself doesn't feel emotion, or does it? Are you saying that if we think of science as an individual mind, then it could tell us how we think? Is that what you mean with your garden shovel analogy? That western culture supresses the "living realities" of science?

Being conscious, we are already the personified, and if we get to hit the targets, then perhaps we tread the path of the "solved" in the space-time construct, like patterns that Consciousness molded for us to discover, like some kind of schooling in this existence. Science, as a tool, follows the patterns. But even insistence to supposed patterns may seem too linear when viewed relative to our situation as conscious observers, rather than objectively, and this as I mentioned before is also susceptible to subjectivity, bias to its patterns in the same way as you said about " 'emotion' we get from the 'attitude of science'".

I would have talked about "Consciousness", and "pre-existent patterns" which I narrated in a philosophical perspective on Culture that I musingly wrote. With Consciousness, I saw that my thread years ago, "Consciousness is source of gravity" was archived here, nice. When I registered again, I recently posted link to my philosophical perspective but it was deleted in my early post, probably because I did not explain further the complexity (even though the topics are thoroughly discussed in the link). But if I am assured that if I post it again or make a thread about it and will not be deleted, I might, so that it will be scrutinized. I called it "A Vision on Culture" to introduce my philosophical perspective.

Science does not always monopolize truth, that's why I'm into Art. I had another of my rocket philosophy somehow regarding this, and a caution that it is a bit intangible, so one ought to be challenged to view it beyond (not lower to) the logical:

"Why ask questions that already have answers? I prefer answers that unfold like questions." - artrocket .

 

[Evo]

With Consciousness, I saw that my thread years ago, "Consciousness is source of gravity" was archived here, nice.

The archives contain all posts, including the nonsense, it wasn't worth the effort to read and delete it all.

When I registered again, I recently posted link to my philosophical perspective but it was deleted in my early post, probably because I did not explain further the complexity (even though the topics are thoroughly discussed in the link). But if I am assured that if I post it again or make a thread about it and will not be deleted, I might, so that it will be scrutinized. I called it "A Vision on Culture" to introduce my philosophical perspective.

We've raised the bar here and the level of some of the discussions that were allowed 2 years ago aren't allowed anymore.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

Being conscious, we are already the personified, and if we get to hit the targets, then perhaps we tread the path of the "solved" in the space-time construct, like patterns that Consciousness molded for us to discover, like some kind of schooling in this existence. Science, as a tool, follows the patterns. But even insistence to supposed patterns may seem too linear when viewed relative to our situation as conscious observers, rather than objectively, and this as I mentioned before is also susceptible to subjectivity, bias to its patterns in the same way as you said about " 'emotion' we get from the 'attitude of science'".

Interesting. For the second part you bring the point that observers need to be accounted for in the whole of things, and science is supposed to be the procedure to account for the whole of things, but science was invented by the observers. If reality consists of two basic parts;
1. space-time, the fundamental forces, and elementary particles
2. the observers of the universe--conscious beings
then the problem is, how can the observers (who exist within reality), actually see truly objective reality? Because it would be like a puzzle piece trying to see what the puzzle looks like, but there is no possible way for the piece to see the puzzle from the outside. No matter what tools the puzzle piece uses to do this, it will fail, similarly, we can't use science to figure out true objective reality because we're part of it.

Refering to your first part, maybe we are the "solutions", I should say, non-trivial solutions, as we are not zero/zip/nadda/nothing. Hmm... yes, perhaps everything in the universe must be the way it is in order for it to exist, for example, my keys must be at the position they are in at this very moment in order for the universe to exist. Then we can say that everything we do is necessary for our existence wether we do it consciously or not, and we can even reverse things and say that the universe's whole purpose is to allow the existence of my keys. The reason why the universe exists is because we're playing a role in making it exist.

I think we've made kind of a tangent from where we started. What I want to know is if it is reasonable to surmize that our minds don't exist in space-time, but they do exist in reality--that there are two parts of reality as stated above.

 

[octelcogopod]

I think your puzzle analogy fails because science is not directly a part of us, nor are we a piece in a puzzle.

Your puzzle is a logical one, but it's not analogous to our existence in the universe.
The reason the piece can't see the puzzle is because it is a piece, it cannot fly above the puzzle and look at it, this is a logical physical limitation of being a piece.
However if I were to pick up the piece and hold it in front of the puzzle it would see it.
Thus science can be the hand, and we can be the puzzle.

Either way, if it was just some metaphor to visually explain how we cannot see the entire puzzle, then I ask you to come with some evidence to show this.

 

[artrocket]

The archives contain all posts, including the nonsense, it wasn't worth the effort to read and delete it all. .

Specifically with my thread, to the reality that is Consciousness, how can you say that it is nonsense?? Just because it is beyond technicalities that are beyond your bounded sense, it's conveniently excused by saying it is nonsense? There is definitely a misrepresentation of words here. To make more sense to it, it ought not be called "nonsense", but closemindedness.

We've raised the bar here and the level of some of the discussions that were allowed 2 years ago aren't allowed anymore.

Now this is nonsense. Whatever that 'raising the bar' and 'level' would suspiciously mean, pertaining to the discussions, the comment seems to relegate Consciousness itself to the level of trivialities. In the light of my being a Conscious entity, I consider this a ridiculous nonsense. Well, I guess you should also raise the level of your own conscious bar relative to the topic of this thread.

With Johnny's quote 'non-trivial solution', a target is being hit here, not necessarily because it is my subjective opinion, but because it is relatively in agreement between Conscious beings with the topic "The life of the mind".

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

I think your puzzle analogy fails because science is not directly a part of us, nor are we a piece in a puzzle.

Your puzzle is a logical one, but it's not analogous to our existence in the universe.
The reason the piece can't see the puzzle is because it is a piece, it cannot fly above the puzzle and look at it, this is a logical physical limitation of being a piece.
However if I were to pick up the piece and hold it in front of the puzzle it would see it.
Thus science can be the hand, and we can be the puzzle.

Either way, if it was just some metaphor to visually explain how we cannot see the entire puzzle, then I ask you to come with some evidence to show this.

I was just tossing around artrocket's comments, trying to make sense of them in my own way. There very well could be a "hand" that can pick us up and let us see the whole of things, and it could be science. There is no reason to conclude that it can't, or if anything can't for that matter. I'm trying to make a physical analogy of something inherently non-physical. For example, if a mind desires to "see" how itself thinks, it has to step outside of itself in order to get a vantage point where it can see itself thinking, since there is seemingly no such point where a mind can be, it is kind of like asking if an eyeball can see iself, or if a rabbit can eat it's own head. Now I guess I'm arguing against my original argument, where I was trying to define how a mind works, well I guess I was merely trying to understand an aspect and not really the whole thing.

 

[octelcogopod]

A problem with the mind is that 1. we don't seem to be able to exist in two places at once, that is, our brain is created in such a way that we cannot think about several things at the same time, but rather one thing, albeit we can switch very fast, at the bottom level, we are only thinking about one "thing."

I think an important piece of the puzzle is to find out what this thing is.
What is the most fundamental object of a thought?
Once we figure this out, whether it be metaphysical or physical somehow, we have come somewhere.

Second, if we figure out how this fundamental thought object works, we can then start to see that a thought isn't just one thing, it's several things.

For instance, when I think about a sunset in my head, I would first have to see a sunset. So the sunset I physically saw is part to blame for my thought, another facet of this is the actual physical things happening in the brain, the third thing is the alleged qualia.

Qualia is a heated topic because it's not inherently physical in nature, but I have a feeling it might just be a weakly emergent property of several physical things.

Then again, a strongly emergent property need not be metaphysical.
It's a complicated task to explain even what a cigarette is used for, with quantum mechanics.
This also points to that the most fundamental problem of any problem, is finding the most fundamental object in that system.

My conclusion in regards to your topic is that I believe the mind is an emergent property of several physical things, including the senses, and that we simply do not have enough information yet to explain it.
I also believe that it is strongly emergent, but not metaphysical.

Strongly emergent can be defined as simply: That which cannot be reduced and completely understood to its components.

So your radio/receiver theory doesn't sit quite well with me right now.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

I see. I was at the same point you are at right now, but then I started thinking about how an emergant property could be viewed as "living on it's own" completely independant of the aether that supports it. Much like a wave in a pond. The wave propogates through as if it is forcing the medium to surrender to it's influence. Much the same way, the brain may be viewed as the slave of the mind, that all it's processes occur because there is a "wave" trapped inside which is constantly self-interacting and stuff. It is a different way of viewing a dynamical system I know, but it is very subtley different. all you got to do is view the emergant property as an independant entity from the medium it is created from, and then you can say that this entity lives as the master of the medium instead of the slave, and can impose it's will on the medium.

In fact you can think of many things like this. For example think of a wide reciever in a football game. Some say that they saw themselves making the catch in their heads, and allowed their body to conform to that image. It is as if in that single moment, the player had a larger awareness than normal, as if they saw themselves from the outside as they caught the ball. You've probably heard players describe this experiance; the concept of letting ones self naturally react without thinking and submit to what they see in their mind's eye. Well in this case, isn't the player like the medium, and the action of catching like the emergant property that takes control because the player submits to it's control over him/herself? In another example, a musician will pick notes and not have any idea what they're about to play, but something becomes known to them that they like, so they submit to the necessary hand movements which keep that thing alive, and in a way the musician is a slave to the song that has emerged. The musician is the medium, and the song is the master, imposing it's will onto the musician so long as the musician is willing to be the medium. Now if you don't believe in free will, then I don't even need to add the idea that the player and the musician surrender their will, but rather they are always slaves to the emergant enteties which control them. If you do believe in free will, then perhaps we could say that the cells in the human body willingly choose to submit to the emergant property that is the human body, and the body submits to the emergant property that is the mind, so the mind is mostly in control of the body, of course things like heartbeat and hunger are things that control the mind. Why stop at cells? why don't particles have free will too (panpsychism), and they choose to be in structures such as cells because they submit to the will of the cell? Maybe all these structures are beneficial, just as the structure of government is beneficial for a population of people, and most will choose to submit to being the medium of it because it will provide a better chance of survival and a lower energy state of existence? The whole idea here is that the entity which posesses the free will can impose it's will upon the medium from which it is composed, and therefore is independant of that medium, unless that medium chooses to not submit to the entity's will, which in the case of us humans, results in cancer--i.e. the cells desire to start their own colony and try to survive and multiply as they please, against the master's wishes. Then part of the medium (the human body) will become defected--because of the defecting cells--and therefore will not fully be the slave of the master, and the master will then lose some of its ability. (I'm basically just expanding on this concept into it's many facets which I find myself thinking about every once and a while, I'm not trying to persuade you, but rather explain to you some of my perspective)

 

[octelcogopod]

Wow, that was quite an amazing read.
Lemme ponder this for a bit.

 

[artrocket]

2. the observers of the universe--conscious beings
then the problem is, how can the observers (who exist within reality), actually see truly objective reality? Because it would be like a puzzle piece trying to see what the puzzle looks like, but there is no possible way for the piece to see the puzzle from the outside. No matter what tools the puzzle piece uses to do this, it will fail, similarly, we can't use science to figure out true objective reality because we're part of it.

Why not use a bug in your analogy instead of a puzzle. This could easily get into jumble of perceptions because if you use an inaminate piece of puzzle as an example that tries to use whatever tools to see from outside, even a sniffing dog cannot help but agree with you that it will fail.

But if you just say a tiny bug, then easily you could say that its obvious tool are its wings. You should differentiate, no matter how trivial it is, between an inanimate object and an animate entity like you, because that would make things simplier and immediately lead us to a more accurate comparison, that is between an independent thinking entity, and one conditioned to drone or slave mentality.

A problem with the mind is that 1. we don't seem to be able to exist in two places at once, that is, our brain is created in such a way that we cannot think about several things at the same time, but rather one thing, albeit we can switch very fast, at the bottom level, we are only thinking about one "thing."

There is one called Everett-Wheeler-Graham theory, or Many Worlds theory, that I think implies that if one's consciousness chooses yes or no to a certain situation, then it will create, shall we say, two parallel dimension wherein one is the dimension where we said yes, and the other a dimension where we said no. I agree with this, because from the supposed 'nonsense' thread I once posted, our thoughts are faster than the speed of light. Obviously the extremely linear dimension thinking person would pull hairs about this.

Maybe I'd help them pull more. I'd mention another of my rocket philosophy: "Since matter cannot exceed lightspeed, I postulate that it duplicates instead when subjected to it."

The previous discussion about the Many Worlds Theory, had made me come up with such an idea.

The musician is the medium, and the song is the master, imposing it's will onto the musician so long as the musician is willing to be the medium.

From my experience, when I paint, it's because i wanted to express something. I may do any thing with the paint, trying that it will reflect tangibly an otherwise abstract idea I had in mind. I may mix subtly the colors in order to achieve just the right texture, or cover an unwanted stroke with another layer. I do as I deem fit to make a piece of artwork, though my skills may be limited, or my materials may not be enough. But I do not feel like a..eww.. slave to my painting, nor was I ego tripping like a master to it. Between me and my creation, it is more like intimacy.

The statement is wrong, there's no such thing as slave-master thing with it. The musician expresses his musings through music, and the song is not a master, but a masterpiece.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

You're supposed to think of the puzzle piece as a sentient individual.

As far as the slave-master thing. Sure, I know that the way I described things isn't the last say. I wouldn't say it's outright wrong though. So you're saying that you have an idea of what you want to paint before you paint it right? Can you usually "see" what the painting would be like before you paint it? If you do, then I can say that the painting existed before a physical rendering of it was made, because if you can see something, then you know it is there, and hence exists right? If you don't, then you discover it as you paint it, and it becomes revealed to you in the process of painting. When the painting is all done, then you should be able to remeber what it looks like, and you could destroy the painting, but still know what it looks like, now if it is destroyed in the physical world, but you can still "see" it in your head, you could repaint it couldn't you? Now you see that when you repaint it, you are rendering somehting which exists in your imagination into somehting which exists in the physical world, and as I was describing earlier, you paint it out of your love for it otherwise you wouldn't do the things necessary to paint it. Rendering the painting requires your labor, and from a scientific point of view, we see a man slaving away to produce a masterpiece, but it is entirely your will to undertake the activity, because you desire to commit your energy to rendering it real. Is that not a valid way of looking at this process?

Whatever you feel about what you do, do you always trust your feelings? Do you always trust your thoughts? Can thoughts stir up feelings and vice-versa? It seems the two things are dynamically connected.

The canvas is the place to put the paint, and these things (canvas and paint) are the things that, when arranged in specific ways, render a painting--an artistic expression, and the creator of the expression is the artist. Pretty straight forward right? The expression, although it is made from the canvas and paint, represents a completely different thing than the canvas and paint by themselves. The expression/painting as a whole is something completely independant than it's constitutant parts, because it stirrs up thoughts and feelings in the minds of its observers. The masterpeice represents something more than just the arrangement of colors and canvas, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Now think of the canvas as space-time, and the paint as the elementary particles. The human body represents something more than it's constitutant parts. It represents a way for minds to interact, because minds are attatched to them, just like how a masterpiece is attatched to the paint and canvas that supports it. The human body is the highest evolved way for minds to interact so far here on earth. Before there were reptiles, which could only receive part of the mind, the fight or flight mind, due to it's basic brain structure. We all know what happened as that mentality was taken to its limit; dinosaurs. All the dino brains could render to reality were simple thoughts and feelings of survival, such as being big and bad, and having armor and spikes. Then came the mammelian brain, which was more complex, and could render more abstract thoughts and feelings of survival than just fight or flight, like hunting in packs and ideas of community, and therefore they wanted to be cute and fuzzy so that they wouldn't appear as intimidating to their community members. Then came the human brain, which is far more complex and has the ability to render even more complex thoughts and feelings as we are all familiar with. The idea is that a brain is a condiut for the mind's shadow to be seen in the masterpiece that is the universe. The bigger the hole, the more water can flow, just as the more complex the brain, the greater the amount aspects of the mind can be rendered real. The mind doesn't exist in the physical world, but the more we evolve, the more the mind can be rendered into the physical world. The mind is like a light bulb that has been covered by an opaque sphere, and living things are like holes in the sphere, and humans are like the biggest holes. I'm speaking of a thing beyond space-time, particles and forces, I'm speaking of a thing that can't be comprehended, because it doesn't rely on experiances in a physical world like we do, and we can only see glimpses of its "shadow", and never see it for what it is, because we are a finite part of it--glimpses of it (referencing the puzzle piece analogy). It is like a 5th dimensionsal entity, and the physical world is only a shadow of it--a 4 dimensional shadow. <--Because a shadow of a 3D object is a 2D image, think of the concept of flatlanders.

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

I should make a small change to a sentance to be more clear...

"It represents a way for minds to interact, because minds are contained in them, just like how a masterpiece contains expressions in the paint and canvas that supports it."

Since I can't edit this becuase I waited too long, this is much more clear that what I wrote above

 

[artrocket]

Whatever you feel about what you do, do you always trust your feelings? Do you always trust your thoughts? Can thoughts stir up feelings and vice-versa? It seems the two things are dynamically connected...
...we can only see glimpses of its "shadow", and never see it for what it is, because we are a finite part of it--glimpses of it (referencing the puzzle piece analogy). It is like a 5th dimensionsal entity, and the physical world is only a shadow of it--a 4 dimensional shadow. <--Because a shadow of a 3D object is a 2D image, think of the concept of flatlanders.

Trusting solely on feelings without thinking, may be subjective just as solely trusting on objective, without considering one's empirical thoughts, may also be subjective as it chose to be biased to objectivity. Another term for the latter is "lack of common sense".

Your discussion about the reptile-mammal-human is interesting.

Since you allegorically mentioned about 'shadows', and even 5th dimension, then we could say that if indeed one has reached such evolutionary level, the shadows that we see in ourselves may cease to be as such, when we become light.