The mind is not a thing, it's a process

Love; Overwhelming Joy; Compassion; and Equanimity - which fill the body and inform the mind about the “other-worldly” nature of this world!

It does not matter silly rat. This is the world you live in. Real things have real consequences. That why we use independent verification. Try pretending objects don’t exist outside your brain/consciousness and see how long you live.,… Silly rodent!

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I often have to remind myself that my atheism has been “bought” pretty cheaply, and that others have encountered a far more perfidiously bullying and toxic version of the snake oil that I was allowed to simply make up my own mind about in the end.

Kudos to you, mine was a far easier path through no effort or achievement on my part. The next time an apologist tries to play the victim of persecution on here, just because their attempts to peddle their snake oil here is exposed as irrational and unevidenced, I think this simple tale would be an apropos counter?

I can’t say it any better than the Hitch:

"“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”
Christopher Hitchens

…and we ought never to forget it, since in many parts of the world, the snake oil is still not being offered as a simple choice, and the consequences for abandoning the belief can be very severe.

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Straw man red herrings, really? You are adding magic, please demonstrate some objective evidence for the claim, if you want now to shift the goal posts from magic to organs other than the brain then off you go and evidence those claims as they are not mine but yours.

A dictionary would suffice I feel, as an intense feeling of deep affection can be felt for all manner of things. Ever heard any say they love ketchup? Do you imagine this is the same emotion they’re describing as when someone says they love their child?

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Do you, how odd? I have done and seen this done, and received precisely that. You made precisely that claim, again if you can do it without using your senses and the internet, computer et al then please do so?

Did I actually claim that? These endless straw men expose the dearth of evidence for your appeal to magic, they don’t alter that fact or the fact that the emotions described by the word love are never seen without a functioning brain, which was what I actually claimed, your attempt at an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy is based a straw man fallacy, what do you imagine stringing two known common logical fallacies together says about your argument?

Neither of which evidence your claim that love involves magic, though an opportune MRI scan could easily eliminate these latest straw men.

I can read a dictionary, you ought really to give it a try.

Very ingenious fair play, simple fool that I am, I just printed myself a certificate and framed it. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Eww! Eww! Just wait! That’s not even the good copy.

I’ll upload the unillustrated version when I get home!

And … hey. Wait! Did you just complement me, or insult me?

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What? It’s not the case that a heart and liver are requirements for life, which are then requirements for love? There’s no undermining going on here wagging tongue

I’ve heard people say they love catchup more than their children.

I’m not speaking of common place phrases. “I love you” “I’d love to do that” “I’m in love” “I love the summer” - I’m not taking about that. I’m taking about “pure love” - the pure feeling of comfort acceptance and good-will (to list a few synonyms.

Biggus Dickus

You said it can’t happen without a brain. Then I said it can’t happen without a heart. Then you said I’m throwing a straw men red herring. So now, you are throwing the fish and straw!

What argument?

What’s the meaning of meaning according to a dictionary, hmmm?

For now…perhaps not in the future, ratty.

Cybernetic brains?

Anywho. As promised. The good copy of the causes and conditions resulting in supermundane states of love; joy; compassion; and equanimity.

Ratty ;you silly rodent… demonstrate a Chakra. The holes in your head do not count as evidence for Chakra.

The answer would be in whether you know, surely? :innocent:

How does repeating the straw man help your argument?

You see the word more in there, right? Scroll back and understand how this undermines your claim about love.

Firstly that was the word you used, secondly this is as good an example of a no True Scotsman fallacy as I have ever seen.

So an arbitrary definition that fits your argument then? I shan’t follow your example, and make up nonsense as if it is sound reasoned argument.

Deflection

Did I? Quote me please, as I think you’re misrepresenting it.

Indeed, and as with your appeals to magic, the claim is as yet all we have.

The one you presented, obviously.

Again, try reading one and you will know.

So, the word “love” is being misused and conflated. In colloquial speech “love” is used very often in a figurative sense.

Examples: “I love the shoes”

This is fetishism. This isn’t love.

“I’m in love with her.”

Misuse. This is not “love”. This is “infatuation”. But! Depending on the nature of the relationship, of course!

It’s entirely reasonable to properly love another human being, animal, or plant. But not “insects”. One can be “interested” in an ant. One cannot properly love an ant.

So, like any word, the true meaning gets distorted by figurative language (hyperbole, exaggeration, conflation).

This is not a “true Scotsman” fallacy. This is the definition of a word, versus its colloquial use.

You’ve done exactly the same! You started this convo by saying (approximately), “that love is a word used to describe a range of emotions …”

On the contrary; “love” is defined by one emotion and all of those other emotions within your so called “range” have other appropriate words to define them.

Love is strictly a feeling shared for oneself or other living beings (insects are an exception to this).

“I love this steak” simply means “I enjoy this steak.”

The word love is misappropriated constantly! So much so that the appropriate definition is obscured by all of the other conflated nonsense.

image

So, if I want to know the meaning of life, I should look in a dictionary!!! Bullocks!!!

Certainly.

Nonsense, you’re at it again. Love is a word we use to describe a range of human emotions, none of which have ever been demonstrated to exist without a functioning physical brain.

You’ve made this statement indicating a relationship between “love” and the “functioning physical brain.”

You might do better to clarify your self at the beginning, as opposed to leaving your statements open to interpretation and then accusing your opponents of straw menning them because only you know what you actually mean! Jeesh :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I can provide you with three levels, ranging from concrete to obscure (and undemonstable).

  1. a “chakra” is a blanket term used to define a system of muscles and ligaments within the body.

A) the root chakra. “She’s a real tight ass!” - the sphincter … the muscle implicated in urination, defecation (ie. shitting) and ejaculation. Often tensed (for obvious reasons); relaxed during urination and defecation; suddenly relaxed and tensed in a rhythmic fashion during the ejaculation process. Has physiological and psychological implications for all humans. When one “releases energy in the root chakra” one is simply relaxing the sphincter to one degree or another. Or, settling nervous energy to maintain composure.

B) the sacral chakra. Implicates the sacroiliac and its networks of ligaments, muscles, and tendons - crucial for mobility and breathe. Essentially serving a different function in a similar way as the above.

C) the “Manipura” Chakra - the “power” chakra. Located below the breathing diaphragm. Releasing tension here allows for more relaxed breathing.

(Getting the idea yet?)

D) heart chakra - don’t ask me. I don’t describe matters of the heart

E) throat chakra - blah blah blah

F) ajna - third eye - brow chakra - indicated in the pineal gland

G) crown chakra - no direct physiological relation to the body. Is more of a “esoteric” type of placeholder

Next!

Each chakra has an affiliation with a endocrine gland

A) prostate B) testes C) adrenal D) thalamus E) thyroid F) pineal G) pituitary

Next! And the most esoteric - spinning colour wheels and “emotions” (I won’t go into the emotions because … I don’t know about that).

A) Red B) Orange C) Yellow D) Green E) Blue F) Indigo G) White

A rainbow of “human emotions”!!!

Fair enough?

Please be careful with the use of the word logic.

Logic, is a subcategory of philosophy, it is a learned subject and the vast majority of people learn absolutely nothing about it.

Yet, the vast majority of people use the word, as if they inherently have knowledge on how it works.

I find a comfortable starting point to learn about logic, and how best to determine what is and isn’t true, is to start with logical fallacies.

Learn all the logical fallacies, and you can refrain from falling prey to them.

After that, rational skepticism and epistemology are worthy subjects.

It’s an outrage these subjects aren’t mandatory in all schools, teach the youth to think rationally, and within a generation ludicrous religions will be starved of new membership. Maybe.

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No this was an attempt to pretend the word love described a single type of emotion or attachment, by creating and excluding sub-groups. Love is a word we use to describe a range of human emotions and attachments. However none of this evidences your assertion that it is supernatural, are you likely to ever address this?

No it isn’t, platonic love, romantic love, love of one’s country etc etc, love of superstition I’m given to understand can be extremely powerful. If you loved your children the same way you did a sexual partner you’d likely end up in trouble with the law.

The word love can be used as a metaphor for a range of emotions, that these emotions are synonymous with other words doesn’t change this. None of which evidences your claim:

Are you going to even try and demonstrate any objective evidence for this claim? Or are these pointless semantics to be it?

That depends, if you want to know the meaning of the word life then yes, if you want to answer the loaded straw man you have used here then no.

So no then I didn’t say it can’t happen, I said it had never been demonstrated to happen, two very different assertions, and you did in fact misrepresent what I’d said. It leaped out as false, as I am usually very careful not to make sweeping absolute claims I can’t evidence.

Oh ratty ratty, it is you who has totally misrepresented what I said, “never been demonstrated to have happened”, and “can’t happen” are two entirely different assertions, and that doesn’t need any clarification, you need to learn better the difference between the statement of fact I made, and the straw man unevidenced and likely unfalsifiable claim you misrepresented me as making. I made the former, but I did not nor have I likely ever made the latter sweeping claim. Can you really not see they are totally different assertions? That might explain a lot.

FYI, yourself is one word, not two.

I wholeheartedly agree, I really do think we would serve children’s education better to teach them common logical fallacies than filling their heads with supernatural myths.

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Yes. You keep insisting on this definition. I beg to differ.

No. You’re obscuring the reality.

Platonic love … love without intimacy
Romantic love … love with intimacy (or simply intimacy for God’s sake)
Love of One’s Country - “patriotism” or “nationalism” - it’s colloquial. One cannot properly love a country. Affection? Excitement? Pride? … sure. But “Love”. Not possible.

Come over here and give me a big kiss! That’s the best I can do for you!

Why? Because the proof is in the pudding.

If you knew what I knew … if you knew why nothing is real in strawberry fields … or why there’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be … then you’d know why.

So either one of us is wrong, or one of us doesn’t know the meaning of the word love.

A huge slap in the face … yes. But I mean transcendental love. Love without conditions. Not love “for” or “of” or “with” … just “Love”.

By and by … why so many negations in “All You Need is Love” by the Beatles?

It’s not a definition, it is a statement based on the definition.

Love
noun

  1. an intense feeling of deep affection.

So you are making semantically incorrect assertions about the word according to the dictionary definition.

Again semantical nonsense, you are arbitrarily insisting love means only the one type of emotion you want it to, when I just demonstrated the word can apply to a range of emotions.

So just the bare claim then, and you cannot demonstrate any objective evidence that love is supernatural as you claimed. Which is why I disbelieve your claim.

Well you are demonstrably wrong, as the dictionary demonstrates. The word love means “an intense feeling of deep affection”. Thus it can and does apply to a range of human emotions.

Then you should have said so, and not used a broad descriptor, that now means you are shifting the goal posts. However this specific descriptor is unevidenced subjective belief in superstition, as you just admitted, since you can demonstrate no objective evidence for it.

Ah, you intend to roll past your false claim that I had said consciousness “can’t happen” without a physical brain, when in fact what I said was it had never been demonstrated to have occurred without a functioning human brain? If I make an error I’m inclined to acknowledge it.

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Ratty I am , for once , going to help you out here. I was lucky(?) enough to get a couple of years of classic education so I can tell ya, you are both utterly wrong and a little bit right.

Go study Ancient Greek then come back to argue:
here are the 7 different kinds of love as I was taught By Mr Richards whose 'Philia" was certainly not just of the friendly affectionate kind when it came to small boys in pajamas.
Eros – Romantic, Passionate Love (Of the Body)
Philia – Affectionate, Friendly Love.
Storge – Unconditional, Familial Love.
Agape – Selfless, Universal Love.
Ludus – Playful, Flirtatious Love.
Pragma – Committed, Long-Lasting Love.
Philautia – Self Love.

(Thanks Google for reminding me of the last two)

This should straighten things out in your muddled rodenty head.

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Thank you, I have something of a hangover this morning, and to be honest the semantics was testing my usual resolve. Oh, note that resolve here is being used as it’s secondary definition. Look at that I’m getting my mojo back, and mojo here is a metaphor obviously as I don’t believe in magic…I’m on fire…another metaphor, woohoo…

Oh, Ratty! Thanks so very much for stepping in to take up the gauntlet when Sherlock locked himself out! You’re a real team player!