The perfect Chair, or Cat, or Anything. more Plato

[Plissken]

Hey, Jem. 3 cubits seems pretty un-thin to me, but perhaps that's just the way I look at it...

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

...
err....
.5 cubits? or .25?

[Plissken]

Well, the traditional length of a cubit is from the elbow to the fingertip of an "average" man. I suppose the width of an average woman would be about .75-1.5 cubits.

(How arcane is this getting?)

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

hmm.. well let's settle on .685 cubits. just to make the point.

[Avatar]

Actually, Plato felt exactly that physical reality was totally malleable. My professor called it 'spatial temporal goo' where we create everything we see from our ideas of reality. You change the idea, you change reality.

Physical reality? Maybe. The physical reality is the difference between one chair and another. But didn't he pretty much think that the underlying reality was composed of his "forms"? Meaning that while we manipulate our perception of reality, there is still a "template" that is unchanging/unchangeable?

I think that the underlying reality is just as malleable as the "imitations" of the forms.

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I think there are definate limits on how we think, just by being humans... I don't want to get all metaphysical, and I think it was a clumsy way of expressing it, but I really do think we're made up of a few basic components, if for no other reason than by the limits of our senses and the wiring in our heads. Maybe it would be just as malleable if we were limitless, this underlying reality, but we aren't.

[Avatar]

Aah, this is a whole other question, isn't it?

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours. -- R. Bach

What limits us? The wiring in our heads? We're infinitely re-programmable though, aren't we? I think so.

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

We've gotten into this one before Av...
Well, program yourself to fly, jet over the ocean to Ohio, stop on by at my house and let me know how it went...

[Avatar]

Aah, the diificulties of reconciling what you believe and what you know. Collectively, we know that it's impossible. If we knew with the same intensity that it were possible, if we believed it, heart, body and mind, there's no reason that we couldn't do it, or some reasonable facsilmile thereof. That's what I like to believe anyway.

If I could just convince my body about the insubstantialty of reality as easily as I can my mind. But the body has a mind of it's own, as it were.

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

You know, yesterday all messed up on drugs I realized that I've never reconciled my body and my brain as a single entity. I always think 'my hand' and think of it as a seperate thing that I have to deal with.. and it is in a way... but if I inject it with the idea of 'me' as in 'this hand is me, just as my brain is me' it might help me in some way.

[Avatar]

An excellent point. I still can't reconcile them as a single entity. I tend to see my body as nothing much more than a vehicle for my brain, as it were.

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

But your awareness of your body is even MORE direct than your awareness of your brain, isn't it? I don't think it's very different... actually, my body often makes decisions before my brain even seems to get involved, like "Ow! Don't touch that!"

[Avatar]

Not sure if I'm with you here. Are you asking if I'm more aware of my physical nature than of my "mental processes?"

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Maybe what I mean is, I feel like you're at least AS aware, but don't recognize it as such. Just think how effective you'd be as a person without.... you know, locomotion? How does your three-dimmensionality in the world impact your consciousness... Pretty strongly, I'd imagine.

This stuff comes out of a recent drug experience, just so you know So take it as you will

[Avatar]

Very interesting things can come out of such experiences, as long as you remember to do all things in moderation, and only infrequently.

It's a very interesting question. In fact, I can't say whether or not it's ever occured to me before. Generally, as I said, I'm not particularly aware of being connected to my body. I tend to take it for granted.

While I could argue "effectiveness" without locomotion, I get the feeling that you meant "if people had never been mobile".

But it's that last bit that really catches my attention. How does my three-dimensionality impact on my consciousness?

I'm not sure I can ever work it out. It's such a fundamental factor that I' struggling to think beyond it. We never have been 2-d, and as far as we know, things that are have no consciousness. Is consiousness a product of three dimensions? Can't be I suppose, but it could be a factor?

Certainly your physical actions are an extension of your thoughts. I mean, nobody thinks *raise arm* to lift their arms. It just happens. That's a thought I had long ago. That's why I don't tend to think seperately of brain and body, because the body is part of my will, or so it seems.

--Avatar

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

But the body can also act directly against your will, correct? No matter your resolve of holding your hand in a fire, GENERALLY most people will pull it out before it's burned to the bone, yes?

[Avatar]

Sure. But I'd argue then that the will wasn't particularly strong. Your body acts in what it percieves to be self-defence, which is, usually, as automatic as breathing. Removing yourself from a pain stimuli is automatic, unless you exert your will. With enough motivation, your will can overcome most impulses.

But the body's autonomy, as it were, is, I would argue, not related to consciousness, for very good reasons. If you had to consciously regulate every body-process, you'd be left without any time to do anything else.

--A