The Hard Problem of Consciousness

[Chan Tiger]

Part I

I'm starting this thread in response to some comments made by the Aphid in the Buddhism section of this forum. Although the issue here definitely intersects with Buddhism, it is actually a much wider philosophical question worth considering on its own.

Here is a section of The Universe in a Single Atom by the Dalai Lama which I have been contemplating for some time now: Crucial to understanding the Buddhist concept of consciousness - and its rejection of the reducibility of mind to matter -- is its theory of causation. The issue of causality has long been a major focus of philosophical and contemplative analysis in Buddhism. Buddhism proposes two principal categories of cause. These are the "substantial cause" and the "contributory or complementary cause." Take the example of a clay pot. The substantial cause refers to the "stuff" that turns into a particular effect, namely, the clay that becomes the pot. By contrast, all the other factors that contribute toward bringing about the pot -- such as the skill of the potter, the potter himself, and the kiln that fired the clay -- remain complementary in that they make it possible for the clay to turn into the pot. This distinction between the substantial and the contributory cause of a given event or object is of the utmost importance for understanding the Buddhist theory of consciousness. According to Buddhism, though consciousness and matter can and do contribute toward the origination of each other, once can never become the substantial cause of the other.

In fact, it is on this premise that Buddhist thinkers like Dharmakirti have rationally argued for the tenability of the theory of rebirth. Dharmakirti's argument can be formulated as follows: The consciousness of the newborn infant comes about from a preceeding instance of cognition, which is an instance of consciousness just like the present moment of consciousness.

The issue revolves around the argument that the various instances of consciousness we experience come into being because of the presence of preceding instances of consciousness; and since matter and consciousness of the new being must be preceded by its substantial cause, which must be a moment of consciousness. In this way, the existence of a previous life is affirmed.

Some other Buddhist thinkers, such as Bhavaviveka in the sixth century, have tried to argue for preexistence on the basis of habitual instincts, such as the newborn calf's instinctive knowledge of where to find its mother's teats and how to suck milk. These thinkers make the case that without assuming some form of preexistence, the phenomenon of "innate knowledge" cannot be coherently explained.

Regardless of how persuasive these arguments are, there are many examples of very young children with apparent memories of "previous lives," not to mention the numerous recollections of the Buddha's own past lives found in scriptures. I know of a remarkable case of a young girl from Kanpur in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in the early 1970s. Although initially her parents dismissed the girl's descriptions of a second set of parents in a place she described specifically, the girl's accounts were so concrete that they began to take her seriously. When the two whom she claimed to be her parents during her previous life came to see her, she told them very specific details of their deceased child's life, which only a close member of the family could have known. As a result, when I met her, the other two parents had also fully embraced her as a member of their family. This is only anecdotal evidence, but such phenomena cannot be easily dismissed.

Reams have been written on the analysis of this form of Buddhist reasoning, the technical aspects of which lie outside the scope of the present discussion. The point I wish to make is that Dharmakirti clearly did not think that the theory of rebirth was purely a matter of faith. He felt that it falls within the purview of what he characterized as "slightly hidden" phenomena, which can be verified by means of inference.


So, personally I cannot help but disagree with Dharmakirti. I do not think that the argument that 'every moment of consciousness must be preceeded by another moment of consciousness' is a reasonable argument to make. If this were true, then this would deny the possibility of the evolution of sentience from non-sentience, or life in general from non-life.

Aphid notes that Dharmakirti's argument here seems to conflict with the idea that sentience evolves from non-sentience. My response, in the original thread, was to question this idea. Does sentience in fact evolve from non-sentience?

Lurking behind all of this is the mind-body problem or what philosopher David Chalmers calls the "Hard Problem of Consciousness". Chalmers divides questions concerning consciousness into two categories; hard and soft. The soft problem(s) are essentially empirical questions that can be answered through scientific study, since they concern "the observable behavior of physical objects".

The "hard" problem, however, isn't something that we are likely to solve through scientific study, since it's basically a philosophical question. The hard problem is this: how does conscious experience arises from the brain?

In contemporary Western philosophy, the mainstream answers to this question fall into two basic camps. One is dualism, which states that conscious experience is somehow separable or distinct from physical brain-states. The other is materialism, which holds that consciousness is entirely reducible to these physical processes in the brain. In the first view, consciousness is something entirely distinct and separate from physical matter; in the second view, consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon.

Both positions have their difficulties. Dualism, which has largely fallen out of vogue, has to explain how mind and matter could possibly interact if they are distinct and separate. Materialism, on the other hand, has to explain how and why inert physical processes give rise to an conscious, experience, and an inner life---or, to use Aphid's words, how sentience evolves from non-sentience.

It is precisely this idea that makes the "hard problem" hard. The hard problem of consciousness begins with the assumption that the brain, being material, is non-sentient and composed of non-sentient entities.

Both dualists and materialists share this assumption, which can be traced back to Descartes in the early 17th century. Descartes held that the world consisted of two kinds of stuff: res cogita, "thinking substance", subject, mind, or sentience; and res extensa, "extended substance", object, matter, or non-sentience.

Although most of Descartes' theories have fallen out of fashion, the basic dichotomy of his worldview has proven so influential that it forms the basic, "common sense" worldview of most people alive today. According to this worldview, humans are unique in that we alone possess consciousness; the universe is a collection of "dead matter"; non-sentient, non-experiencing entities which interact according to deterministic physical laws. Against the cold, mechanical brutality of nature, human beings stand alone. We are not only separate from the rest of the universe; we are strangers in it. There is an overriding sense that consciousness somehow doesn't belong, or at the very least is a phenomenon strikingly different from the rest of the cosmos.

This worldview has informed much of Western philosophy for at least one hundred and fifty years. While earlier generations of theistic philosophers (including Descartes himself) saw humanity's apparent uniqueness as a blessing given by God, the more recent crop of thinkers see this largely as a random accident. Consciousness is a fluke, an frothy epiphenomenon atop what is essentially a brute, insentient universe.

In his essay On the Nature of Consciousness (http://thebigview.com/forum/showthread.php?p=78351#post78351), which you can find in the 'essay section' of thebigview, Alan Watts summarizes this worldview and it's characteristic pessimism rather nicely:

They conceived the universe in terms of a mechanism. Something, in other words, that is functioning according to regular, clock-like mechanical principles. Newton's whole image of the world is based on billiards. The atoms are billiard balls, and they bang each other around. And so your behavior, every individual around, is defined as a very, very complex arrangement of billiard balls being banged around by everything else. And so behind the fully automatic model of the universe is the notion that reality itself is, to use the favorite term of 19th century scientists, blind energy. In say the metaphysics of Ernst Hegel, and T.H. Huxley, the world is basically nothing but energy--blind, unintelligent force. And likewise and parallel to this, in the philosophy of Freud, the basic psychological energy is libido, which is blind lust. And it is only a fluke, it is only as a result of pure chances that resulting from the exuberance of this energy there are people. With values, with reason, with languages, with cultures, and with love. Just a fluke. Like, you know, 1000 monkeys typing on 1000 typewriters for a million years will eventually type the Encyclopedia Britannica. And of course the moment they stop typing the Encyclopedia Britannica, they will relapse into nonsense.

And so in order that that shall not happen, for you and I are flukes in this cosmos, and we like our way of life--we like being human--if we want to keep it, say these people, we've got to fight nature, because it will turn us back into nonsense the moment we let it. So we've got to impose our will upon this world as if we were something completely alien to it. From outside. And so we get a culture based on the idea of the war between man and nature. And we talk about the conquest of space. The conquest of Everest. And the great symbols of our culture are the rocket and the bulldozer.

I bring this up because the notion that human consciousness is a small spark in an otherwise vast, cold, empty universe is precisely that: a notion. A view, and one that most people adopt without adequately questioning. There's no scientific reason why we should accept what is essentially a metaphysical view (Watts calls it a myth, a metaphor for understanding our place in the universe) and yet many of us treat this worldview as if it were established fact.

----

Wow, that got long...I don't have time to keep going, so for now consider this "part I". In Part II I'm going to continue to deconstruct this Cartesian metaphysical baggage. I'm also going to propose a starting point for a new way of looking at the "hard problem". This should hopefully serve as a some kind of follow-up to the Aphid's comments, which is the whole reason why I posted this in the first place. :P

In the meantime, feel free to comment on anything I've written, add your own opinions, etc. :loveyou:

[scameter]

Well, I think that sentience did evolve from non-sentience, as did humans develop from non-humans; the intelligence of the species simply increased until it was capable of reasoning that it is itself. This is evident by the fact that some animals, i.e. house cats and dogs, cannot recognize themselves in mirrors, but chimps can, because they are more intelligent. However, I think that consciousness is different than sentience. Sentience is merely the recognition that you are yourself, while consciousness is the receiver of subjective experience, which is why when we are unconscious we experience nothing even though our body sometimes responds. I think that consciousness did not evolve from non-conscious animals/material, nor is it there to be found in the brain, because it is not physical: it is our soul. It is why we are here, to experience life, and it is what makes us unique. I'm not saying this arrogantly or in an anthropomorphic way. I'm simply making an observational statement.

[Flux]

Chan Tiger--First of all, I would like to point out that materialism and epiphenomenalism are two distinct theories of consciousness. Epiphenomenalism avoids the problems of Cartesian interactionist dualism (where the mental "substance" has a causal effect on the physical) by having mental events be superfluous byproducts of physical events. In epiphenomenalism, physical events cause mental events, but mental events do not cause mental events and mental events do not cause physical events.

Materialism is a trickier term than one might think. First of all, there are non reductive physicalists who are materialists in the sense that they do not think that there is any mental substance, but are dualistic in the sense that they think that mental properties can not be explained in terms that refer only to physical properties. Reductive Physcialists believe that there is no ultimate distinction between mental and physical events--our subjective experience, redness, pain, etc, is actually composed out of particles. Reductive physicalism is profoundly counterintuitive at first, but I'm currently reading Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained which has thus far succeeded in convincing me that it is at least a possibility, although I am not completely convinced.

I think that the "hard problem of consciousness" as you stated it, is in such a form that it cannot be solved. Obviously, consciousness cannot come from something that is completely unconscious, inert, dead, etc. Therefore, if consciousness arises from matter, it follows that it is not entirely correct to view matter as completely "dead". Evolution, for instance, suggests that there is a continuum between consciousness and unconsciousness, suggesting that the relatively "inert" nature of matter is a difference of degree, not of type.

Regardless of whether or not mental properties are reducible to physical properties, I agree with Chan Tiger that it is a mistake, t0 see the universe as blind and dead. To say that it is blind and dead is not really to assert something factual about the universe, but to give the already existing facts of the universe a certain connotation. Personally, I think that one must strike a balance between seeing the universe as completely inanimate, and seeing it as anthropomorphic.

[the_aphid]

It is an excellent topic Chan Tiger, but I just want to clarify in this new thread that I am not asserting that sentience definitely evolved from non-sentience. I was simply attempting to show that if Dharmakirti's assertion was correct that this possibility would be denied.

Here is another section from The Universe in a Single Atom (pg 104-106) which I feel adequately addresses the reason for differing mindsets on the topic of consciousness. That is, at least, the reason for differing mindsets between science and Buddhism. By contrast with science, in Buddhism there is no substantive philosophical discussion on how living organisms emerge from inanimate matter. In fact, there does not appear even to be an acknowledgment that this is a serious philosophical issue. At best there is an implicit assumption that the emergence of living organisms from inanimate matter is simply a consequence of cause and effect over time, given a set of initial conditions and the laws of nature that govern all realms of existence. However, in Buddhism there is a greater appreciation of the challenge of accounting for the emergence of sentient beings from what is essentially a non-sentient basis.

This difference of concern suggests an interesting contrast between Buddhism and modern science, which may have partly to do with the complex historical, social, an cultural differences that underlie the development of these two investigative traditions. For modern science, at least from a philosophical point of view, the critical divide seems to be between inanimate matter and the origin of living organisms, while for Buddhism the critical divide is between non-sentient matter and the emergence of sentient beings.

We may even ask why there is this fundamental difference between the two traditions. One possible reason modern science perceives the critical divide to lie between inanimate matter and living organisms may have to do with the basic methodology of science. By this I am referring to reductionism, not so much as a metaphysical standpoint but more as a methodological approach. The basic approach of science is to explain phenomena in terms of their simpler constitutive elements. How can something like life emerge from non-life?

...


Buddhism draws the critical division differently -- i.e., between sentience and non-sentience -- because it is primarily interested in the alleviation of suffering and the quest for happiness.

...


This fundamental difference between Buddhism and science -- whether the line is drawn between sentience and non-sentience or between living organisms and inanimate matter -- has significant ramifications, among them a difference in how the two investigative traditions may regard consciousness. For biology, consciousness is a secondary issue, since it is a characteristic of a subset of living organisms rather than of all of life. In Buddhism, since the definition of "living" refers to sentient beings, consciousness is the primary characteristic of "life".
...According to this worldview, humans are unique in that we alone possess consciousness; the universe is a collection of "dead matter"; non-sentient, non-experiencing entities which interact according to deterministic physical laws. Against the cold, mechanical brutality of nature, human beings stand alone. We are not only separate from the rest of the universe; we are strangers in it. There is an overriding sense that consciousness somehow doesn't belong, or at the very least is a phenomenon strikingly different from the rest of the cosmos.I can't help but feel that this is an overly pessimistic interpretation to adopt. Relating the discussion of consciousness back to the thread of Universal Evolution, I do not feel the notion of a progressive evolution from non-matter to matter, to life, to sentience, etc, is a pessimistic view. It doesn't suggest we are alone in the universe, that we are strangers within it, but rather that sentient entities are simply less likely to occur in the universe than say 'primitive' biological life, which itself is less likely than inanimate physical matter. Which seems to make sense, when you consider the requirements of each phenomena. Sentience appears to require biological life, which in turn appears to require a very specific environment, while the cold, dark, physical material of the Oort cloud has no requirement of life in order to exist.

Also I'd just like to stipulate that I personally don't believe that any human activity or behaviour sets them apart from every other species on the planet. Sure humans are unique, but so is every life form, and sentience as a whole is not understood well enough yet to suggest that humans are the only beings possessive of it. I am fairly convinced that at the very least, chimpanzees and bonobos share sentience with the human race.

And yes, you can consider the development of sentience to be a fluke occurrence, but that seems to suggest that it was an accident, or a mistake, that consciousness is 'unnatural' when compared with all other universal phenomena. Personally, I look at it as a 'permitted rarity' in the framework of existence. That anything and everything that can occur, will occur, given enough time and space, but that some things are less likely to occur than others.
I bring this up because the notion that human consciousness is a small spark in an otherwise vast, cold, empty universe is precisely that: a notion. A view, and one that most people adopt without adequately questioning. There's no scientific reason why we should accept what is essentially a metaphysical view (Watts calls it a myth, a metaphor for understanding our place in the universe) and yet many of us treat this worldview as if it were established fact.You are right, it is a notion, one people should not forget and simply assume to be a fact. But there is a scientific reason to favour this view over the alternatives.This should hopefully serve as a some kind of follow-up to the Aphid's comments, which is the whole reason why I posted this in the first place. :PI am pleased to have initiated such an interesting thread of discussion. :mellow:

p.s. - can't wait for part II :P

[MultipleTentacles]

This is a fascinating discussion.

I think it's fascinating reading what the Dali Lama said, because it seems to directly contradict what I wrote about in my philosophy class, viz. Panprotopsychism. I held that the entire universe has some modicum of consciousness, and consciousness is explained by a sustained system of observation and elaborations on observations. You need a brain (matter) to do that.

Now I could be wrong, but I think that when the Dali Lama talks about mind as opposed to matter, he is speaking of a wrong view of matter--i.e. that matter is some kind of self-existent, independently arising thing. If I'm wrong and he's talking about matter as just another dharma and saying it cannot be conscious, I have serious reservations about that statement. It seems to me very obvious that our consciousness is intimately tied up with the brain. If you have no brain, or matter analogous to it, you have no consciousness, or sentience, or anything like that. When I passed out to get my wisdom teeth removed, I did not "leave my body" and start floating around being conscious somewhere else, I stopped being conscious.

However, my reservations are mitigated by the observation that physical matter does not tell the entire story--there are also metaphysical possibilities. And I think the essential nature of a mind is a "reality limit" of interconnection with all things. That includes metaphysical possibilities, of which there are more than physical possibilities. But the idea that the soul is separate from the body in most forms is a pernicious idea, which is probably why the Buddha said it is better to think of the body as the soul. After all, witch burnings took place based on the assumption that you could purify a soul by burning away the impure body. This is clearly a misguided idea.

Let me take a moment to clarify my idea of the wrong idea of matter: I think there is nothing "concrete" about matter. Matter is simply information--numbers. It is not some concrete "substance" that you can take a tiny little hammer and knock on. Furthermore, I don't think there is any such thing as "space" or "spacetime" as separate from matter. Spaciotemporal location is just a property of matter. I'm fairly convinced this is the right way of looking at matter. Of course, I'm not 100% sure, because I've never studied physics in depth. But perhaps the Dali Lama was speaking to this idea of matter when he said that the mind is not matter.

[the_aphid]

But perhaps the Dali Lama was speaking to this idea of matter when he said that the mind is not matter.Basically I think that is correct. I would sum it up by saying that he suggests that consciousness and matter are interdependent, but that the mind is not reducible to the physical fluctuations of the material basis of the brain. Likewise, the physical world we experience is not simply reducible to our subjective experience. However, this is not to be looked at dualistically. There is not an independent consciousness which looks out upon an independent material universe.

Anyways, I will now attempt to revive this discussion by posting some of my recent wonderings on the nature of sentience. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the dependence of sentience. Basically I can sum it up in the question; what is sentience dependent upon?

By this I mean, is sentience dependent upon our ability to remember the past? Or is it dependent upon our freedom to choose? Or our ability to suffer? Or our sensory faculties? Suppose you spontaneously lost your ability to see, hear, smell, taste and touch, would your sentience soon follow?

[Chan Tiger]

Sorry I haven't really responded! I was planning a longer, more detailed reply and it seems I've gotten side-tracked. I'll try to respond in the next few days because I do want to continue this discussion. :)

But for now I'd like to leave a brief comment on the Aphid's question about "sentience". We should be especially careful of our language here. "Sentient" by definition refers to the capacity for sensation or feeling (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sentience); in other words, sensory perception. It may, however, be possible for there to be experience, awareness, and/or consciousness without sensory perception or sense organs.

Given that we are sensory beings, however, it is difficult for us to imagine what "experience" could be like without sense receptors. As a result, in our everyday language we often bundle the concept of "experiencing being" with "sensory being" under the referent of "sentient".

The possibility that "sensory beings" are perhaps only one particular kind of "experiencing being" is not one most people consider or are willing to take seriously---but perhaps it is something we should examine more closely.

I should also add that this everyday notion of "sentient" may cause difficulty in understanding the Buddhist concept of "sentient beings". The latter is not influenced by a Cartesian/Platonic worldview, while much of our everyday language (and hence our everyday metaphysics) is.

That just about brings me to "Part II", so I'll leave it at that for now. There are some other comments I want to address too, so hopefully this thread will become more like a conversation. I just have a lot of thoughts on this subject and it might be easier for me to just get them out in one or two large segments :mellow:

[...]

..i haven't read the loooong posts in this thread, but at the risk of being redundant i'll offer you this:

In an almost infinite universe with endless possibilities, given enough time, the chance of life evolving from nothing is 1/1.

[jonathan.s]

you will of course provide an example of a universe where life didn't arise by way of illustration

[...]

you will of course provide an example of a universe where life didn't arise by way of illustration

..don't hold your breath :p

[francis]

Part I...In the meantime, feel free to comment on anything I've written, add your own opinions, etc. :loveyou:

I agree with MT, this is a fascinating discussion. I’m looking forward to seeing where it will lead. So, in the interest of continuing the conservation, I’ll add a few thoughts.

By this I mean, is sentience dependent upon our ability to remember the past? Or is it dependent upon our freedom to choose? Or our ability to suffer? Or our sensory faculties? Suppose you spontaneously lost your ability to see, hear, smell, taste and touch, would your sentience soon follow?

Hi aphid, I don’t have any problem with sentience. I think it’s all of those things you describe. The sense organs certainly have a lot to do with how we precieve the world. Though, in the end I think sentience can be defined by the ability to reproduce, or in the case of the virus replicate. Viruses being small bundles of dna/rna, not even cells, that get other organisms to replicate their structure. In the process picking up and depositing bits of dna/rna. The rest as they say, is evolution.

To me this is a bit like in Buddhist idea that we made up of five aggregates (skandhas). Just bits put together like a table or chair, that can be pulled apart. There is no synergy, no soul. Human beings are no more than the sum of their parts.

However, in Buddhism there is a greater appreciation of the challenge of accounting for the emergence of sentient beings from what is essentially a non-sentient basis.

I think here we are getting to the “Buddha nature”. Which suggests that we are more than the sum of our aggregates. And perhaps leads to what Chan Tiger is suggesting.

It may, however, be possible for there to be experience, awareness, and/or consciousness without sensory perception or sense organs.

I think that’s true. That if we can ever get out of our own heads, and inward thinking process. Then it’s possible to be connected with the rest of the world. Some call it astral travel. I think it’s like the Samurai, who is so connected with the rest of the world, that even when surrounded by seven Ninja, he can sense the exact movement of everyone around him. Perhaps a better example is the story of the Buddha and Angulimala, the Bandit ( http://www.angulimala.org.uk/angintr.htm). Though, from a Buddhist perspective, I think it comes from the cultivation of boddhichitta (awakening mind). Which when it arrives, from what I’m told, has something in common with the Roman Catholic idea of the coming of Holy Spirit. So, I think it’s possible that there are other forms of consciousness, though perhaps on the outside of our minds, rather than inside our heads.

.lol. cheers :)

[bito]

You are consciousness discussing the hard problem of consciousness. :lol:

[MultipleTentacles]

In an almost infinite universe with endless possibilities, given enough time, the chance of life evolving from nothing is 1/1.

I don't think life truly evolved at all. What is this "nothing" you speak of? Show me how it is any different from life and I will be profoundly impressed, because you would have changed the structure of the universe!

I would sum it up by saying that he suggests that consciousness and matter are interdependent, but that the mind is not reducible to the physical fluctuations of the material basis of the brain.

See, I don't think so. What does it mean to be "physical" anyway? If by physical you mean existing in relationship to this universe, then the mind, from a Buddhist perspective, definitely is physical. The Buddhist notion of dependent origination requires that any given thing arises because of other things. The mind is just another set of things, which arise because of things. These things all exist, so they must be physical. That's not to say that they're eternal, nor absolute, nor independent. In other words, they are not "rock hard" like we tend to view the physical world. But they must nevertheless be physical, or the very notion of what it is to be physical would make no sense whatsoever.

In sum, I think the mind is physical. Period. So I have trouble with the Dali Lama's statement to the effect that it is not. Unless, he is trying to undermine our common idea of the physical as being a "rock hard" something that has nothing to do with our subjective experiences.

what is sentience dependent upon?

If you think about it, the answer is fairly obvious I think: sentience depends on the thing sensed. There is no sentience above and beyond sensations.

[the_aphid]

See, I don't think so. What does it mean to be "physical" anyway?Perhaps that is the problem, semantics. If the entire universe and all inherent phenomena are considered to be physical, than yes, you would have to consider all experience to by 'physical'. As theoretical physics and our cosmological understanding expands, classifying everything as 'physical' seems to be arbitrary. I personally feel that what is physical is quantifiable, it is expressed in packets of information, and it is subject to the rigid laws of causality (if even to allow for probabilities). It is basically the subject of entity realism that discerns the physical from the non-physical. Dark energy for example, at least as it is theoretically understood to exist, might not be classifyable in such a way. It does not exist in photons or particles, it has no 'entity form', it is believed to be a homogeneous 'aether' throughout the universe.

I also feel that this latter view more adequately describes the experience of sentience. We sum up our experiences into moments, into days, weeks, years, a lifetime. But the reality is that they bleed together throughout our whole life, conscious thoughts and unconscious dreams. Perhaps this is why I am currently captivated by concepts like 'collective consciousness', as it would fall into this same category, abolishing the notion of any single, individually centered experience. Reinforcing the notion of no-self.

And then comes the question of life, when does life begin? It is the Sorites paradox.These things all exist, so they must be physical. That's not to say that they're eternal, nor absolute, nor independent. In other words, they are not "rock hard" like we tend to view the physical world. But they must nevertheless be physical, or the very notion of what it is to be physical would make no sense whatsoever.I guess the issue that comes to mind is the role of causality. Somehwere in the reductionist approach, all of causality breaks down to probabilities. Perhaps caught in a network of feedback loops, biochemical transistors and semi-conductors, somewhere I do believe there is non-physical counterpart that influences the branches of causality.

Essentially all I am suggesting is that amongst all these dependent phenomena, that they are classifiable as 'physical' and 'non-physical', based primarily on their nature of existence and their relationship with causality. If you choose not to make such a classification, than that is fine. I guess I feel that it simply defeats the purpose of having a term 'physical', if physical simply means 'exists'.If you think about it, the answer is fairly obvious I think: sentience depends on the thing sensed. There is no sentience above and beyond sensations.Sensed or perceived? I feel this is important because I believe that there are non-sentient forms of life that certainly sense 'things' in their environment. For example, a venus fly trap I would consider to be non-sentient. It has no perceptions of food or fly, it simply 'senses' physical stimulation on the hairs in it's mouth and responds with the naturally advantageous action, which is to close the mouth. It does not 'suffer' during periods of starvation or drought, it simply survives or perishes.

Which makes me wonder if movement (locomotion) is something that sentience is dependent upon. Suffering is evolutionarily advantageous if it motivates one to seek food, shelter or companionship.Hi aphid, I don’t have any problem with sentience. I think it’s all of those things you describe. The sense organs certainly have a lot to do with how we precieve the world. Though, in the end I think sentience can be defined by the ability to reproduce, or in the case of the virus replicate. Viruses being small bundles of dna/rna, not even cells, that get other organisms to replicate their structure. In the process picking up and depositing bits of dna/rna. The rest as they say, is evolution.

To me this is a bit like in Buddhist idea that we made up of five aggregates (skandhas). Just bits put together like a table or chair, that can be pulled apart. There is no synergy, no soul. Human beings are no more than the sum of their parts.I agree that the ability to reproduce is a characteristic of life, and therefore the subset of sentient life, I don't think I would define sentience on the ability to reproduce. You mention the aggregates, and in the case of the venus fly trap, I would argue that non-sentient life only utilizes the first two skandhas. Form and feeling, but lacks perception. Then I consider that it is with the adaptation of the third skandha, you have the birth of sentience. With perception comes the awareness of that which is sensed, which spawns desire. It is not until an entity possesses the ability to perceive something as good, bad, or neutral, and this is simultaneously the birth of suffering. This is why I feel that recently I have come to look at sentience in that way. That which is sentient, suffers. Maybe it is just that Buddhism is having an influence on me, since that is essentially the first nobel truth.I think here we are getting to the “Buddha nature”. Which suggests that we are more than the sum of our aggregates. And perhaps leads to what Chan Tiger is suggesting.I am torn on this idea, that we are more than the sum of our aggregates. If I carry on with this assumption that the aggregates were accumulated via natural selection, than I would suggest that not all sentient life (first three aggregates) are possessive of the freedom of choice, and conscious discipline, that Buddha nature entails. However, this does assume that the last two aggregates are separable from preceeding aggregates.

[...]

I don't think life truly evolved at all. What is this "nothing" you speak of? Show me how it is any different from life and I will be profoundly impressed, because you would have changed the structure of the universe!

.."life" as we perceive, understand and experience it. "Nothing" would be "not actively seeking the continuation of it's form". Are you impressed?

[MultipleTentacles]

.."life" as we perceive, understand and experience it. "Nothing" would be "not actively seeking the continuation of it's form". Are you impressed?

Are you sure that life actively seeks the continuation of it's form? Good news for suicidal people--they don't have to do anything, they are already dead!

Okay, to be serious, I can understand your point that life "as we perceive, understand and experience it" is something different from things that we don't perceive understand and experience. But my point is, they are essentially of the same nature. Beings make no sense without the context of their ecosystem. The ecosystem as such makes no sense without the context of the beings that live in it. Therefore it makes just as much sense to say "the world is alive" or "the universe is alive" as "I am alive." Granted, you could say that before life appeared on the planet Earth, at least in this universe, in all probability, there was something resembling an ecosystem, but with no beings. Granted. But that is not a very strong argument. All it amounts to is saying, "ignoring the existence of life in time B, you can postulate existence with no life in time A." Which is simply a matter of where you draw some artificial lines. In fact, you could pull the same trick today, and say, "ignoring the fact that the moon significantly effects many ecosystems, the moon cannot be counted as part of a living ecosystem." This can be useful if you want to say something like, "the moon has no life." Which is, in most contexts, a truthful statement.

But I was looking more to the realm of ultimate existence when I made my comment. In the realm of ultimate existence, I think, everything exists, as existence. Life-experience arises from death, death-experience arises from life. But it is all existence, as existence, which is ultimately lucid experience. (That's not to equate this type of experience solely with mental formations, which is what we normally call experience.)

Speaking of semantics, I will now segue into Aphid's response:

[MultipleTentacles]

Perhaps that is the problem, semantics. ... As theoretical physics and our cosmological understanding expands, classifying everything as 'physical' seems to be arbitrary.

Classifying anything as anything is arbitrary. This is one of the foundations of modern linguistics.

I personally feel that what is physical is quantifiable, it is expressed in packets of information, and it is subject to the rigid laws of causality (if even to allow for probabilities). It is basically the subject of entity realism that discerns the physical from the non-physical. Dark energy for example, at least as it is theoretically understood to exist, might not be classifyable in such a way. It does not exist in photons or particles, it has no 'entity form', it is believed to be a homogeneous 'aether' throughout the universe.

I don't stake too much of my faith on quantum physics or string theory. "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." --R.P. Feynman :lol:

...I am currently captivated by concepts like 'collective consciousness', as it would fall into this same category, abolishing the notion of any single, individually centered experience. Reinforcing the notion of no-self.

I don't think you need to postulate some conscious entity above our own to reinforce the idea of no-self. In fact, if there were no consciousness at all, that would most certainly reinforce the idea of no-self! But no-self holds, consciousness or not--macro-consciousness or not, I think.

Sensed or perceived? I feel this is important because I believe that there are non-sentient forms of life that certainly sense 'things' in their environment.

Okay... I was confused about your definition of the word "sentience." This sense of sentience indicates that it would depend on things perceived, not sensed. But things perceived depends on things sensed. The venus fly trap cannot perceive, because it doesn't have a brain. So it can't make mental formations. It can still sense, however.

Which makes me wonder if movement (locomotion) is something that sentience is dependent upon. Suffering is evolutionarily advantageous if it motivates one to seek food, shelter or companionship. ... With perception comes the awareness of that which is sensed, which spawns desire. It is not until an entity possesses the ability to perceive something as good, bad, or neutral, and this is simultaneously the birth of suffering. This is why I feel that recently I have come to look at sentience in that way. That which is sentient, suffers. Maybe it is just that Buddhism is having an influence on me, since that is essentially the first nobel truth.

This is not the correct understanding of the first noble truth, I'm 100% certain of it. This sounds like the mistranslation: "Life IS suffering." Actually the correct translation is more accurately: "Life INVOLVES suffering." And I certainly believe it is possible to purify the skandhas (aggregates) without forsaking them. Enlightenment is not to go unconscious. It is merely to look at things purely. Therefore, it is possible for a fully sentient, conscious being to be completely devoid of suffering.

Nor do I think suffering is an evolutionary advantage. I think it more an evolutionary advantage to maintain the health of one's body and to procreate as an act of compassion, because compassion in fact mandates this anyway, with or without pain. And if you do it out of compassion, you're more likely to build a better society than if you do it just out of avoidance of suffering. In fact, the Buddha said that fear (of death and suffering) is one of the causes of evil deeds, and evil deeds are anything but constructive. (I would cite this but I no longer have the book handy as it belonged to the Sangha. It was in a sutra giving advice to a householder--I believe his name was Sigala.)

I am torn on this idea, that we are more than the sum of our aggregates. If I carry on with this assumption that the aggregates were accumulated via natural selection, than I would suggest that not all sentient life (first three aggregates) are possessive of the freedom of choice, and conscious discipline, that Buddha nature entails. However, this does assume that the last two aggregates are separable from preceeding aggregates.

Well there are good ways and bad ways to be inseparable. As I understand it, the Buddha taught about five aggregates because he wished to show that the self is separable--so as to destroy notions of it as permanent. If you wish to look at the dharma of a sentient being, then in fact the aggregates are not separable, because if you separate them, they no longer constitute a being. But you can still separate them, just as you can separate a working car from its motor. But then, you can no longer call it a working car.

[francis]

This is why I feel that recently I have come to look at sentience in that way. That which is sentient, suffers. Maybe it is just that Buddhism is having an influence on me, since that is essentially the first nobel truth.I am torn on this idea, that we are more than the sum of our aggregates. If I carry on with this assumption that the aggregates were accumulated via natural selection, than I would suggest that not all sentient life (first three aggregates) are possessive of the freedom of choice, and conscious discipline, that Buddha nature entails. However, this does assume that the last two aggregates are separable from preceeding aggregates.

Hi aphid, you have really put a lot of thought into sentience.

That which is sentient, suffers.

That’s a great definition. I like it because it makes the distinction between suffering (feeling pain and pleasure) and sentience.

I am torn on this idea, that we are more than the sum of our aggregates. If I carry on with this assumption that the aggregates were accumulated via natural selection, than I would suggest that not all sentient life (first three aggregates) are possessive of the freedom of choice, and conscious discipline, that Buddha nature entails. However, this does assume that the last two aggregates are separable from preceding aggregates.

I get a bit lost here too, with the aggregates. I’m not sure that it really matters about what ones are necessary to cultivate the Buddha nature. Like in the metta bhavana meditation “ May they (all sentient beings) be well, may they be happy, may their be free from suffering.” I’ve just assumed that includes all lving things, on earth and the rest of the universe; even venus fly traps ; )

Practicing the metta ( love and kindness) is for all the sentient beings imaginable. I don't think it matters if they know they are sentient or not. It's creating the metta that leads to compassion, and the cultivation of boddhichitta. Which is important.

[...]

Are you sure that life actively seeks the continuation of it's form? Good news for suicidal people--they don't have to do anything, they are already dead!

Okay, to be serious, I can understand your point that life "as we perceive, understand and experience it" is something different from things that we don't perceive understand and experience. But my point is, they are essentially of the same nature. Beings make no sense without the context of their ecosystem. The ecosystem as such makes no sense without the context of the beings that live in it. Therefore it makes just as much sense to say "the world is alive" or "the universe is alive" as "I am alive." Granted, you could say that before life appeared on the planet Earth, at least in this universe, in all probability, there was something resembling an ecosystem, but with no beings. Granted. But that is not a very strong argument. All it amounts to is saying, "ignoring the existence of life in time B, you can postulate existence with no life in time A." Which is simply a matter of where you draw some artificial lines. In fact, you could pull the same trick today, and say, "ignoring the fact that the moon significantly effects many ecosystems, the moon cannot be counted as part of a living ecosystem." This can be useful if you want to say something like, "the moon has no life." Which is, in most contexts, a truthful statement.

But I was looking more to the realm of ultimate existence when I made my comment. In the realm of ultimate existence, I think, everything exists, as existence. Life-experience arises from death, death-experience arises from life. But it is all existence, as existence, which is ultimately lucid experience. (That's not to equate this type of experience solely with mental formations, which is what we normally call experience.)

..if you make things as diffuse as you made them here, there is no real point to be made, is there? You are alive, but an amino acid isn't. That's not an artificial line, that's logic. Life starts with protoplasm, before that there is only potential. So the universe might be teaming with potential, but it isn't life yet [=nothing], therefore:

In an almost infinite universe with endless possibilities, given enough time, the chance of life evolving from nothing is 1/1.

[bito]

... said: "In an almost infinite universe with endless possibilities, given enough time, the chance of life evolving from nothing is 1/1".

Would you not have to be Infinity Objectified unto Itself in order to make this statement about You as if it is true about You?

[the_aphid]

Classifying anything as anything is arbitrary. This is one of the foundations of modern linguistics.Well, I have to disagree, as this would imply that language itself is arbitrary. In my opinion, categorization is all but arbitrary."I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." --R.P. Feynman :lol:Fair enough. But my point remains the same. That which is experienced is physical, but the experience itself is not. You can suggest that the colour blue is simply electromagnetic radiation of a specific wavelength (somewhere between 450-500nm). However, the experience of perceiving the colour blue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue) is not purely physical. But then again, this is just my opinion on the matter.I don't think you need to postulate some conscious entity above our own to reinforce the idea of no-self. In fact, if there were no consciousness at all, that would most certainly reinforce the idea of no-self! But no-self holds, consciousness or not--macro-consciousness or not, I think.Hmm :think: Now I am just getting confused. Firstly, I am not postulating the concept of collective consciousness in order to reinforce the concept of anatman. Secondly, while the existence of 'self' is debatable, the conscious experience is not. Reductionist approach or not, consciousness is experienced. The nature of consciousness is what fails to be defined.This is not the correct understanding of the first noble truth, I'm 100% certain of it. This sounds like the mistranslation: "Life IS suffering." Actually the correct translation is more accurately: "Life INVOLVES suffering." And I certainly believe it is possible to purify the skandhas (aggregates) without forsaking them. Enlightenment is not to go unconscious. It is merely to look at things purely. Therefore, it is possible for a fully sentient, conscious being to be completely devoid of suffering.Once again, I believe I am being misunderstood. I am not suggesting that the first noble truth is strictly a definition of what qualifies as life. And that at any given moment, you must be suffering in order to be considered alive. Considering this Buddhist understanding of 'living', you might be able to see what I am getting at:For biology, consciousness is a secondary issue, since it is a characteristic of a subset of living organisms rather than of all of life. In Buddhism, since the definition of "living" refers to sentient beings, consciousness is the primary characteristic of "life".
So, interpretting the first noble truth as "Life involves suffering", you can come to the realization that without experiencing suffering (at one point or another), there is no life. This does not mean that the cessation of suffering is unattainable, but rather that suffering is a requirement for life which can be overcome. Furthermore, I am not suggesting that sentient beings are liberated by eliminating their skandhas, but rather that they become fully aware of them, and thus can consciously halt the desires and attachments that cause suffering. This doesn't mean that perception no longer takes place.Nor do I think suffering is an evolutionary advantage. I think it more an evolutionary advantage to maintain the health of one's body and to procreate as an act of compassion, because compassion in fact mandates this anyway, with or without pain.Whether or not compassion is advantageous is another issue, but I find it hard to believe that you feel the biological urge to 'procreate' is fueled by 'compassion'. It is fueled by a desire, one of the most selfish, pleasurable and primal desires I can think of, and also one of the most fundamental sources of suffering.In fact, the Buddha said that fear (of death and suffering) is one of the causes of evil deeds, and evil deeds are anything but constructive.See, I feel you are misunderstanding the point I am trying to make. I am suggesting that suffering has evolved over time, that non-sentient forms of life predate sentient forms of life, and since suffering is the defining characteristic between the two (as I suggest), than it must be evolutionarily advantageous or it would not have survived.

Furthermore, you speak of fear. Yes, fear of death and suffering might not be constructive for attaining enlightenment, but that is not what I am talking about. Fear is a perfect example to assist my argument as it is not absolutely negative, but rather neutral. It can be both advantageous and disadvantageous. Fear can promote survival, avoidance of dangerous situations. If it is fear (of death or suffering) that causes the animal to flee from a predator, than obviously it promotes survival (but perhaps hinders liberation).Hi aphid, you have really put a lot of thought into sentience.Well, it has been on my mind. :unsure:

[the_aphid]

My apologies Chan Tiger, I have overlooked one of your replies.But for now I'd like to leave a brief comment on the Aphid's question about "sentience". We should be especially careful of our language here. "Sentient" by definition refers to the capacity for sensation or feeling (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sentience); in other words, sensory perception. It may, however, be possible for there to be experience, awareness, and/or consciousness without sensory perception or sense organs.While I feel we are on the same page with our respective definitions of sentience, I am not sure about the rest of your statement. Experience without sentience I can understand, awareness or consciousness not so much. How can something be aware or conscious without perception? I struggle to see a scenario where this could occur.Given that we are sensory beings, however, it is difficult for us to imagine what "experience" could be like without sense receptors. As a result, in our everyday language we often bundle the concept of "experiencing being" with "sensory being" under the referent of "sentient".Yes, I suppose this is precisely where I am. :P

[...]

Would you not have to be Infinity Objectified unto Itself in order to make this statement about You as if it is true about You?

..i honestly have no idea what you're trying to say here, bito...

[Chan Tiger]

..if you make things as diffuse as you made them here, there is no real point to be made, is there? You are alive, but an amino acid isn't. That's not an artificial line, that's logic. Life starts with protoplasm, before that there is only potential. So the universe might be teaming with potential, but it isn't life yet [=nothing], therefore:

In an almost infinite universe with endless possibilities, given enough time, the chance of life evolving from nothing is 1/1.

This is a nonsensical statement. An "infinite universe with endless possibilities" isn't "nothing" and in fact precludes nothing. If there were truly nothing, than the possibility of life evolving would be 0.

Given an infinite universe, the possibility of life evolving is 1, but that life doesn't come from "nothing". Evoking the concept of life emerging ex nihilo actually undermines your own argument.

[...]

This is a nonsensical statement. An "infinite universe with endless possibilities" isn't "nothing" and in fact precludes nothing. If there were truly nothing, than the possibility of life evolving would be 0.

Given an infinite universe, the possibility of life evolving is 1, but that life doesn't come from "nothing". Evoking the concept of life emerging ex nihilo actually undermines your own argument.

..you've failed to grasp my point Chan. So once more for those a little slow on the uptake: Life starts with protoplasm, before that there is only potential [the building blocks of life].So the universe might be teaming with potential, but it isn't life yet [=nothing]...

[Thomas Knierim]

I'd say that "almost infinite" is an oxymoron. A quantity is either finite or infinite. There are no grey areas. It cannot be "more than finite" or "almost infinite". Infinity minus x is still infinity.

Cheers, Thomas

[Chan Tiger]

..you've failed to grasp my point Chan..

And you've apparently failed to grasp mine, which is that you are employing extremely sloppy language. :rolleyes: By doing so you're making a pretty simple and intuitive statement into a bizarre non-sequitur.

A universe which is "teaming with potential" isn't "nothing". The building blocks of life aren't "nothing". Ex nihilo nihil fit, as the old principle goes. It makes no sense to equate these necessary conditions for life with "nothing" (even though that is what you are stubbornly insisting on), since obviously life didn't just pop into existence. Unless you want to contradict the laws of conservation, of course, in which case your statement is pretty much the same as claiming that God created the universe from nothing.

I also agree with Thomas. It doesn't make much sense for there to be an "almost infinite" universe. It's either finite or infinite.

And lastly, the topic of this thread is consciousness, not life....

[MultipleTentacles]

I can't respond to everything, I have a lot of school work to do, so I'll try to be as brief as possible... I apologize if I do not answer everything...

Well, I have to disagree, as this would imply that language itself is arbitrary. In my opinion, categorization is all but arbitrary.

If this were true, it would be possible to translate any word into any language. In fact, some words are not translatable into some languages. Did you know in a certain aboriginal language there is a single word which means "women, fire, and dangerous things"? So if you want to talk about women, you use this word. If you want to talk about fire, you use this word. If you want to talk about dangerous things, you use this word.

Also, in Maya Yukatec, there are words that mean "older sibling" or "younger sibling", but no words that mean sister or brother. So it is impossible to say "I have three brothers" if two are older and one is younger. (Or something like that.) Anyway, the point is, categorization is not self-evident. If it were, we would never need to translate anything. Or at the very least, translations would never have a different meaning.

Once again, I believe I am being misunderstood. I am not suggesting that the first noble truth is strictly a definition of what qualifies as life. And that at any given moment, you must be suffering in order to be considered alive. Considering this Buddhist understanding of 'living', you might be able to see what I am getting at:For biology, consciousness is a secondary issue, since it is a characteristic of a subset of living organisms rather than of all of life. In Buddhism, since the definition of "living" refers to sentient beings, consciousness is the primary characteristic of "life".
So, interpretting the first noble truth as "Life involves suffering", you can come to the realization that without experiencing suffering (at one point or another), there is no life. This does not mean that the cessation of suffering is unattainable, but rather that suffering is a requirement for life which can be overcome.

Okay, granted, suffering is a requirement for life--I didn't consider this interpretation, but I think it is a valid one to an extent. But this still seems to imply that it is impossible to have life (in the sense of possessing skandhas) without suffering. Once again, I may be misinterpreting, but I don't think it is strictly speaking the skandhas which suffer. It is attachment and hatred of the mind which suffer, because of ignorance.

Now I do think it is the physical being which suffers, depending on its nature at the time, but only if our concept of what it means to be physical is radically reformed. What I consider to be physical are what I call "bona fide things"--otherwise known as beings, or spirits. The lines which demarcate these things are not very easy to draw. It's like waves on the ocean:

http://www.core.org.cn/NR/rdonlyres/Global/D/DEBA1289-A413-4123-88D7-754AFC2EC30A/0/chp_waves_1.jpg

You can see spikes and boundaries, but it is all of the same essence, and the boundaries are really just illusions. Things are like that.

Whether or not compassion is advantageous is another issue, but I find it hard to believe that you feel the biological urge to 'procreate' is fueled by 'compassion'. It is fueled by a desire, one of the most selfish, pleasurable and primal desires I can think of, and also one of the most fundamental sources of suffering.

Well you and I would not be here, discussing philosophy, trying to work out our Karma in this precious rebirth, if not for our parents' desire to procreate. To be honest, I'm glad they did. And someday I wish to do the same for some other being.

I am suggesting that suffering has evolved over time, that non-sentient forms of life predate sentient forms of life, and since suffering is the defining characteristic between the two (as I suggest), than it must be evolutionarily advantageous or it would not have survived.

Firstly, not everything which survives natural selection is a benefit. Secondly, suffering is to me more a law of life than an inbuilt physical disposition. Suffering is hard to pin down, because it is quite possible that it never really happens to some people.

Furthermore, you speak of fear. Yes, fear of death and suffering might not be constructive for attaining enlightenment, but that is not what I am talking about. Fear is a perfect example to assist my argument as it is not absolutely negative, but rather neutral. It can be both advantageous and disadvantageous. Fear can promote survival, avoidance of dangerous situations. If it is fear (of death or suffering) that causes the animal to flee from a predator, than obviously it promotes survival (but perhaps hinders liberation).Well, it has been on my mind. :unsure:

I agree... certain types of fear can be of enormous benefit. Selfish fear of death and suffering, instead of altruistic fear, is not beneficial.

These last two subjects I am going to have to ponder over, because my responses I feel are inadequate. But I have to start doing homework right now.

[...]

I'd say that "almost infinite" is an oxymoron. A quantity is either finite or infinite. There are no grey areas. It cannot be "more than finite" or "almost infinite". Infinity minus x is still infinity.

Cheers, Thomas

..from our perspective the universe might as well be "almost" infinite. We, I, have a hard time grasping the vastness of the universe as it is, so there...

[...]

And lastly, the topic of this thread is consciousness, not life....

..this is true. Carry on, and feel free to ignore :hahaha:me

[MultipleTentacles]

I have better responses now that I've pondered a bit.

Firstly, the three poisons (anger, attachment, and ignorance) create the world of death and rebirth. The world of emptiness is the glue that holds our world together, or the space in which all things reside... all things have emptiness as their original nature. The world of arising-and-passing-away requires some form of the three poisons. Nevertheless, the entity which understands emptiness can sustain emanations in this world without harm. So yes, suffering in this view is a universal law, not merely a part of our body. I don't think it's a local, temporal phenomenon, but a pervasive, universal phenomenon.

Secondly, any emotion can be a good thing, and fear is no exception. But usually, when we fear suffering, we are going down a bad path, because it is many times indeterminate whether a worthy action will or will not cause suffering. We don't know whether doing the right thing will lead to personal harm. So, it's better to have courage rather than be guided by fear.

See, I think human consciousness is special, because we don't merely project everything onto the world, but so often, the world projects itself onto us. This is why we are so good at categorization, to the point where, as people in this thread have evidenced, we think categorization is self-evident. We can devise intricate world-views and manipulate them to the point where we can change the world in drastic ways. We can change it so drastically because we understand it so deeply. Thus, as humans, if we just pause for a moment and contemplate, the truth becomes apparent. But this only goes if we don't have "monkey-mind", caused by attachment. So mindfulness is key--self-restraint is key. The more we build mindfulness on top of mindfulness, self-restraint on top of self-restraint; the more mental space we have; the more the nature of things becomes apparent; the more we see positive, uplifting things; the happier we are; the happier we can make others.

[the_aphid]

If this were true, it would be possible to translate any word into any language. In fact, some words are not translatable into some languages. Did you know in a certain aboriginal language there is a single word which means "women, fire, and dangerous things"? So if you want to talk about women, you use this word. If you want to talk about fire, you use this word. If you want to talk about dangerous things, you use this word.See, I can't help but feel we are disputing entirely different points. I agree, words are arbitrary. A rose by any other name... But my point is that classification and categorization are not arbitrary. What a word represents is not arbitrary. You can replace the word "pain" with any other word or symbol, but what that word stands for is entirely rational. When I suggest that language is not arbitrary, this is what I mean. Language isn't just a set of symbols, they are symbols that point to an "deeper" understanding. While the symbols might be irrational and meaningless, that understanding is not.Language - wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language)
A set of commonly accepted signs (indices, icons or symbols) is only one feature of language; all languages must define (i) the structural relationships between these signs in a system of grammar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar), (ii) the context wherein the signs are used (pragmatics) and (iii) dependent on their context the content specifity, i.e. its meaning (semantics). Rules of grammar are one of the characteristics sometimes said to distinguish language from other forms of communication. They allow a finite set of signs to be manipulated to create a potentially infinite number of grammatical utterances.

Another property of language is that its symbols are arbitrary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary). Any concept or grammatical rule can be mapped onto a symbol. In other words, most languages make use of sound, but the combinations of sounds used do not have any necessary and inherent meaning – they are merely an agreed-upon convention to represent a certain thing by users of that language. For instance, there is nothing about the Spanish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language) word (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word) nada itself that forces Spanish speakers to convey the idea of "nothing". Another set of sounds (for example, the English word nothing) could equally be used to represent the same concept, but all Spanish speakers have acquired or learned to correlate this meaning for this particular sound pattern. For Slovenian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovene_language), Croatian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_language), Serbian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_language) or Bosnian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_language) speakers on the other hand, nada means something else; it means "hope".

This arbitrariness even applies to words with an onomatopoetic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoetic) dimension (i.e. words that to some extent simulate the sound of the token referred to). For example, several animal names (e.g. cuckoo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo), whip-poor-will (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whip-poor-will), katydid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katydid)) are derived from sounds the respective animal makes, but these forms did not have to be chosen for these meanings. Non-onomatopoetic words can stand just as easily for the same meaning. For instance, the katydid is called a "bush cricket" in British English, a term that bears no relation to the sound the animal makes. In time, onomatopoetic words can also change in form, losing their mimetic status. Onomatopoetic words may have an inherent relation to their referent, but this meaning is not inherent, thus they do not violate arbitrariness.
Okay, granted, suffering is a requirement for life--I didn't consider this interpretation, but I think it is a valid one to an extent. But this still seems to imply that it is impossible to have life (in the sense of possessing skandhas) without suffering. Once again, I may be misinterpreting, but I don't think it is strictly speaking the skandhas which suffer. It is attachment and hatred of the mind which suffer, because of ignorance.Firstly, I did mention that it is possible to overcome suffering, all I am suggesting is that it is a prerequisite for life, so to speak (essentially that "life begins with suffering"). Secondly, I am not suggesting it is the skandhas that suffer, that liberation comes about by relinquishing perception, or volition for that matter. I am simply positing that it is the aggregates that permit the attachement and desires that are the source of such suffering. You can remove the attachement, and hence the suffering, without eliminating the skandhas (I wonder if one could actually eliminate perception and still be sentient).:unsure:Now I do think it is the physical being which suffers, depending on its nature at the time, but only if our concept of what it means to be physical is radically reformed. What I consider to be physical are what I call "bona fide things"--otherwise known as beings, or spirits. The lines which demarcate these things are not very easy to draw.Once again, I think we just have differing views. I suggest that purely physical things cannot suffer.Well you and I would not be here, discussing philosophy, trying to work out our Karma in this precious rebirth, if not for our parents' desire to procreate. To be honest, I'm glad they did. And someday I wish to do the same for some other being.Agreed, but this is not what I was talking about. I feel that this sort of "compassionate procreation" is something of a rarity throughout the evolution of life on earth. The majority of (sentient) life is spawned by means of primal, selfish urges. It is not compassion that has lead to the current situation of overpopulation, it is desire.Firstly, not everything which survives natural selection is a benefit. Secondly, suffering is to me more a law of life than an inbuilt physical disposition. Suffering is hard to pin down, because it is quite possible that it never really happens to some people.While I agree with you that certainly not everything that survives is a benefit to that particular species, I cannot even conceive of any sentient being who has not experienced suffering. Essentially all I suggest is that sentience is an advantageous adaptation. Now, obviously this is debatable, but if suffering is a prerequisite for sentient life, and sentient life is advantageous, than there must be a benefit to suffering. I do realize that I am walking onto thin ice here, and maybe I'm not articulating my points as cleary as one would hope, but I feel my view is justified.Selfish fear of death and suffering, instead of altruistic fear, is not beneficial.What do you mean exactly by "altruistic fear"? Selfless fear? Empathetic fear? I must admit I am a little confused.