Machine in the Ghost

[dev]

A while back on OF, pre-hack, I and others had an interesting discussion concerning the Ghost in the Machine and I found it really interesting.

I had listened to Chomsky that proposed a Machine in the Ghost i.e. we are supposed to realise we are in fact not solid, but we have created the machine (body) within the soul, and the spiritual self is thus goverened by this machine.

Contrary to the fact, as Plato says, that the body is the sepulchre of the soul, and that we have to get the soul out of the body (the ghost in the machine) instead of the body out of the soul (the machine in the ghost)... :o_O:

[m1thr0s]

It's interesting that the concept of "Soul" has varied greatly from place to place and time to time. When comparing Soul to Spirit, some have concluded that the Soul itself is the vehicle to which Spirit is the spark. The Body then is actually one of the Soul's natural rungs, or levels. The Egyptians (and others) seem to have held this view. Others have drawn the line between Body & Soul and then Body becomes the vehicle to the Soul and we have a very different sort of definition going on where Body & Soul are sort of at odds to each other. I am distrustful of the latter view and think it amounts to a fatalistic outlook on corporeal existence in general, an attitude that was not commonly held in very ancient times that seems to have picked up steam as we approach more modern times. Earlier Hinduism for instance did not hold this view whereas later Hinduism (and then Buddhism) assumed more of this world view...that corporeal existence is basically a condition of entrapment that we need to escape from to ever really be free etc... This makes no natural sense to me personally since I believe more along Hermetic lines that the Union of Heaven and Earth is where the Great Work actually lies.

m1thr0s

[Ratatosk]

I have to say that my view agrees more with m1thr0s - in that I feel that any attempt to separate body/mind/soul/spirit is fraught with error. Just as trying to separate the energy and mass of matter, or the wave and particle properties of light, etc, etc - it is all a thing in whole and should be looked at from that perspective.

[dev]

I agree also and I guess I was not clear enough in my statements... I am also pro-unity but I was talking on a more social, or society based, angle where we are so ruled and so dictated by the Body and things material that it manifests itself within our spirit/mind/soul (whatever you wish to call it), that the 'looking in' and 'freeing the mind' becomes difficult because we have placed a machine within our mind, a too logical and mechanical outlook on existence. Generally speaking that is, perhaps not amongst those that visit this forum...

[m1thr0s]

well...now you're going to set me off on my logic vs logick rant. logic is a good thing...an indispensable tool really. I don't know who came up with the idea that it should altogether replace intuition or feeling sense but they obviously had their heads planted square up their ass-umptions. I believe in the ennobilizing of logic...of taking it to a higher level where it works in tangent with every other faculty we've got onboard, instead of being pitted against all other aspects of mind, body and spirit...

m1thr0s

[fr.novumorganum]

there is a Marxist trope of 'internal logic'---its a dialectical logic but not in a confrontational manner; rather inner logic refers to a state when all levels of a system, through all media of its representations, are working together, so that what is happening on the level of say base/body is syncretic with superstructure/mind.

Dunno, the idea just resonated with this thread. Leaving aside the politics, Marxism is a philosophy rooted in holistic/totality concepts.

[dev]

well...now you're going to set me off on my logic vs logick rant.
That is ok. I haven't really expressed my own opinion at all in this thread. The great thing with forums is you can just throw out ideas that have been bothering you and see the response, if any... and perhaps another idea will form.


So please keep going off!