Are we biological robots?

[GreenWoods]

 

On 4/1/2021 at 1:53 PM, Rilles said:

Youre whatever you see yourself as.

On 4/1/2021 at 2:05 PM, Someone here said:

Not quite. 

@Someone here

If you believe you are a frog, you are a frog. You are the ultimate Authority. 

Whether your body actually changes and takes the form of a frog, and thus satisfies the common idea of what a frog is, doesn't matter. Human body or frog body, as long as you believe you are a frog, you are a frog lol.

[Someone here]

23 minutes ago, GreenWoods said:

 

@Someone here

If you believe you are a frog, you are a frog. You are the ultimate Authority. 

Whether your body actually changes and takes the form of a frog, and thus satisfies the common idea of what a frog is, doesn't matter. Human body or frog body, as long as you believe you are a frog, you are a frog lol.

Bullshit ?

[Mu_]

On 4/1/2021 at 7:34 AM, Someone here said:

Our knowledge in the fields of biology and medicine are quite vast. We know quite well what we are on a physical level.. and I suppose we could define ourselves as “biological robots” in a very broad sense (Collins defines “A robot is a machine which is programmed to move and perform certain tasks automatically.”)

We indeed are machines made of organic micro-components (cells.. each being a programmable machine itself.. and we have recently learned how to read and edit their own code, the DNA). we can perform complex work.. and we can accept complex “programming” in the form of learning (our “firmware” is very limited compared to other animals.. but we make up the difference with a lot of “memory” and “computing power”). As to out ability to think and do mathematics and so forth. 

Look at the human brain.. Play with the neurotransmitters and you can fuck with your personality and you're changing your mind and mood just by affecting your dopamine and Serotonin levels. That goes to show how machine -like we are. 

For example.. Depression is caused by lack of dopamine and Serotonin in the brain.. And then cured by taking medications that work on as elevator for those chemicals... What does that tell you about how you work? Are you a biological machine? 

You may find this article interesting, as it shows how brain metaphors and metaphors in general have effected thinking and beliefs.  It goes over how metaphors of different time periods influenced how we spoke about and understood the brain (this is true for many aspects we hold as true with each body part, the way the world works, what its about, what its called).

https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2016/05/since-brains-not-computer/

After reading this, ask yourself is "organic" actually so, or is it a way of seeing/thinking/talking.  Same for "brain".  Same for "physical".

[GreenWoods]

20 hours ago, Someone here said:

Bullshit ?

If you believe it is bullshit, then it is 

 

What makes you a frog? There are certain criteria that must be fullfilled so that you can be considered a frog. And it is 100% onto you to set these criteria. The only authority there is, is your authority. If the criteria/definition which you set (of what is a frog) is met then you are effectively a frog! From your dad's pov, you are not a frog, but that doesn't matter, only your judgement matters. So if you believe that your criteria is met, and when you believe that you are therefore a frog, you LITERALLY are a frog. What else would make you a frog? 

What would make you be no frog? Not the judgement of somebody else. Only your judgement matters. You live in your own 'universe'. So if your judgement says that you are a frog, then that is what is true for you.

If you believe you are a frog, saying that you are a human is completely false.

Edited April 3, 2021 by GreenWoods

[Enlightenment]

On 1.04.2021 at 1:34 PM, Someone here said:

Depression is caused by lack of dopamine and Serotonin in the brain.. And then cured by taking medications that work on as elevator for those chemicals

This has been disproven already. Lowering serotonin in healthy people doesn't necessarily lead to depression. Depression is not caused by low neurotransmitters neither it's even close to being cured with antidepressants - they doesn't cure shit

Depression very complicated evolutionary adaptive mechanism to stress. It affects the whole body and 8/10 genes associated with an inflammatory immune system response are also associated with major depression

[Someone here]

13 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

This has been disproven already. Lowering serotonin in healthy people doesn't necessarily lead to depression. Depression is not caused by low neurotransmitters neither it's even close to being cured with antidepressants - they doesn't cure shit

Depression very complicated evolutionary adaptive mechanism to stress. It affects the whole body and 8/10 genes associated with an inflammatory immune system response are also associated with major depression

 

On 4/2/2021 at 3:50 AM, Javfly33 said:

@Someone here That's the same as saying " Sadness is caused because of low energy and low mood". instead of actually looking deeper than that an observe that sadness was just the result of maybe your family member dying. AND after the sadness builds up there's low energy and low mood.

In the same way the neurotransmitters levels are just "representations" of a type of life and personality and habits. 

Answering your question: No, it doesn't seem we are biological robots. We can change stuff in our body and mind, and THEN the neurotransmitters levels will change.

Understand the chemical levels of your brain as the representation that can change anytime depending how you use your mind. Not the other way around.

Why the denial of the mechanical aspect of being human? Everything affects everything else. So if it's gonna be a cause from outside (like external conditions maybe losing your job etc) or internal conditions. (chemical imbalance) It's basically a chain of causality that you are a slave of. 

[Carl-Richard]

On 1.4.2021 at 1:34 PM, Someone here said:

For example.. Depression is caused by lack of dopamine and Serotonin in the brain.. And then cured by taking medications that work on as elevator for those chemicals... What does that tell you about how you work? Are you a biological machine? 

This is inaccurate. You can establish a symptomatic diagnostic criteria of depression and then see how regulating some aspects of serotonergic and dopaminergic activity is correlated with those symptoms. However, the "cause" of those symptoms is not necessarily the chemicals themselves.

From this paradigm, you would instead say that depression stems from the inability to regulate one's own chemistry, and this is in virtually all cases mediated by some behavioral dysfunction, either as a result of trauma, neurotic patterns, poor life situation, or less commonly accepted by the mainstream; spiritual confusion.

Any psychiatrist worth his salt will always make the patient try to fix any of the three aforementioned conditions before concluding that the cause is purely chemical. This is for example Jordan Peterson's reasoning for why he took anti-depressants his entire life despite believing his life was in relative order (not true now); he thought he had reduced it down to the chemicals. However, what I'm claiming is that JP is missing out on the last and arguably most crucial condition: spiritual growth. This is most likely why his system is dysregulated. It's not because of an inherent malfunction of something like gene transcription or transmitter function.

Now, if spiritual practice hooks you up to a free and permanent stream of pleasant neurochemicals, how does this square with the idea that we're just biological machines? The relationship between the action of sitting and doing nothing and reaping the largest chemical reward that the system could ever capably produce seems ridiculously asymmetrical from a mechanical point of view. What is the explanation for why the machine can seemingly break its own source code like this? Maybe there are other models that can give much more intuitively sound and logically straightforward explanations of what we truly are: cognitive-spiritual beings.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Someone here]

@Carl-Richard nice perspective. 

As I said earlier.. It's both external condition and chemical imbalance.. Who causes the other?? Doesn't matter. At the end you are a slave to this causal chain - - input >output (low quality of life >chemical imbalance >depression).   My point still stands valid. 

man is a biochemical computer and nothing more. Unless you can provide evidence of a soul or a transcendental aspect to him.

The Buddha has said that all things are composite and there is no self.. no soul.. no spirit.. no ‘I’.. which seems to agree with my viewpoint. So every part of your body and the environment depends on each other but none has independence or inherent existence. My point is.. There is no self or soul. All that's left is the apparent body and mind. Which are pretty much biological machines and nothing more.

Man certainly is a biocompute.. but something more too. About ninety-nine point nine percent of people it can be said that they are only biocomputers and nothing more. Ordinarily one is only the body and the mind..and both are composites. Unless one moves into meditation one cannot find that which is something more.. something transcendental to body and mind.

[Nahm]

@Someone here

It all seems like the thoughts you’re focusing on and believing.  While it may seem like the way to liberate from causality and reactionary experiencing is to figure it out, to think more...because the duality is only in thoughts, the opposite ‘direction’ of letting thoughts come and go without believing them is the way. Even the thoughts are spontaneously appearing. 

[Javfly33]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

 

Why the denial of the mechanical aspect of being human? Everything affects everything else. So if it's gonna be a cause from outside (like external conditions maybe losing your job etc) or internal conditions. (chemical imbalance) It's basically a chain of causality that you are a slave of. 

Because it's imaginary and ultimately it all depends on your will as God to be depressed or be happy.

[ForTeap]

On 03/04/2021 at 10:29 AM, Javfly33 said:

Because it's imaginary and ultimately it all depends on your will as God to be depressed or be happy.

So depression is "imaginary" Javfly33?

So people just need to believe they are willing as a "higher entity"  to end their depression and puff magic happens, they are now happy yada yada. No depression or trauma anymore...

You can't be serious.

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by ForTeap

[ForTeap]

On 02/04/2021 at 5:07 PM, GreenWoods said:

If you believe it is bullshit, then it is 

 

What makes you a frog? There are certain criteria that must be fullfilled so that you can be considered a frog. And it is 100% onto you to set these criteria. The only authority there is, is your authority. If the criteria/definition which you set (of what is a frog) is met then you are effectively a frog! From your dad's pov, you are not a frog, but that doesn't matter, only your judgement matters. So if you believe that your criteria is met, and when you believe that you are therefore a frog, you LITERALLY are a frog. What else would make you a frog? 

What would make you be no frog? Not the judgement of somebody else. Only your judgement matters. You live in your own 'universe'. So if your judgement says that you are a frog, then that is what is true for you.

If you believe you are a frog, saying that you are a human is completely false.

Pure idealism. 

[Javfly33]

3 hours ago, ForTeap said:

So depression is "imaginary" Javfly33?

So people just need to believe they are willing as a "higher entity"  to end their depression and puff magic happens, they are now happy yada yada. No depression or trauma anymore...

You can't be serious.

 

No, people don't need to do anything because whatever is happening in his lifes is because they are imagining it.

If you are imagining depression and then imagining that the depression is caused by the brain and you have to do stuff to solve it and you are stuck, then that's what you are imagining.

See I recently became Conscious that I imagined all of my "traumas" and illnesses from my ego. I imagined lack of self love, self esteem, social anxiety, etc...

There wasn't anything to do because the dream of being stuck in those traumas and perspectives was precisely what I was imagining.

And now maybe I will imagine that I will get out of that shit. Or maybe not. It doesn't really matter anyways. I'm God, I'm alone, and this is an eternal and Infinite dream. So I can imagine what I want. No limits ..

In fact making it with deep suffering and frustration is even more enjoyable for God because the contrast is so much.... In reality Infinite Love is the truth. So I guess it's actually hilarious to live such a thing as a life with "suffering".