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Recent content by Anatta

  1. Anatta

    Is there anything in Zen?

    Painting circles and drinking tea are great, but they have little consequence in what we call Real Life, which is why they might not work very well for you as examples of Zen training. In order to help you understand this differently, let's discuss a much more palpable example of Zen training...
  2. Anatta

    How Bob Jones University Handles Rape

    Do you know when the victims of the horrific Bosnian war rapes would commit suicide? Not in the course of re-living their memories... It was when they would realize that society at large did not care to hear their stories, thus rendering their suffering forever unwitnessed, unrecognized, and...
  3. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    Thank you for this suggestion, Willamena. It looks interesting and I will take a look.
  4. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    I'm not crediting modern psychiatry or capitalism with inventing the concepts of free will and transcendence. I'm saying that these parasitic systems force the continued use of these antiquated, fictional concepts in order to foreclose on the possibility of examining other models of human...
  5. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    I am not implying any model of the world, nor trying to define any theoretical "souls". I am accusing the psychiatric care industry of formulating their approach to treatment in such a way that it would require their patients to possess a supernatural, transcendent "self" not bound by their...
  6. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    Here is Zizek, talking about this very thing (starts at 19:10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkTUQYxEUjs The entire lecture offers interesting insights on the concept of free will and the function of modern Buddhism in capitalist society. If you can manage to get through Zizek's...
  7. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    How can novel input be self-determined? The very word "input" suggests something coming in from the outside. It seems to me that you're reflexively positing a supernatural "self" outside the body, which is sending "novel input" into the physical brain. You seem to be splitting the self here...
  8. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    I think he is talking about a radical disruption in processing, like throwing a wrench on the tracks of what feels like your own rational thought. If this act actually hinges on any of the rational thought which forms your self-narrative, then you're still running on the tracks, you haven't...
  9. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    misanthropic_clown, you are illustrating my point perfectly. If your view is materialistic/deterministic, then you understand that you are the machinery, and no part of you exists separately from it or its resulting thought process. Who is it, then, that can undertake the task of...
  10. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    Autonomy in thought and action. A locus/source of autonomous activity external to the physical body, and unaffected by it. What is it about a Smurf that makes it blue? I am not an authority on the fantastical and imaginary, I'm just bothered by how often and how easily these are invoked...
  11. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    I've heard of this view before, most notably while watching a YouTube lecture by Slavoj Zizek. This is very interesting, because it would mean that our conscious thoughts are largely in the business of producing justifications which form a consistent story out of activity which may be...
  12. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    I suspect the concept may be entirely fictional, and a rather primitive explanation of last resort, like the stars being holes in the firmament which allow sprinkles of rain onto a flat earth. What terrifies me is that this concept is central to our entire way of life, and persists unexamined...
  13. Anatta

    How is free will possible without a soul?

    If thoughts/emotional patterns/personality are encoded chemically, how is free will possible? That is, how can a consciousness produced by a chemical pattern alter this very pattern voluntarily and autonomously, while at the same time being determined by it? This seems to be little different...
  14. Anatta

    Is consciousness nothing-in-itself?

    What leads you to believe this? Since everyone's life experience is also different, why do you prefer to account for individuality by attributing it to a "particular chemical arrangement", rather than to particular life experience, and a particular arrangement of memories and corresponding...
  15. Anatta

    The nature of self

    Why do you find us beautiful? Intricacy, our other quality you mention, usually refers simply to a large number of interacting parts and their close tolerances. I can see why you would say that about our species, although I'm not sure it's a quality unique to us, but it seems like a fairly...
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