From an old blog called Fiaschi, reachable only through the WayBack Machine
I think we can only suffer by reason of having bodies. We can imagine not having bodies. Indeed this happens every time we dream. We seem to be nothing but thought then. Still, a dream is influenced by pain, a full bladder, extraneous noise.
Most philosophy behaves as though our bodies and the material world are an inferior kind of reality, as in Plato’s story of the cave whose dwellers only see shadows projected on the wall. (I am surprised no one claims that Plato invented the cinematograph.) Indian philosophy says the world is Illusion, Maya.
New Age view says consciousness is all: that even water has consciousness. Do I believe that? The influence of Plato lingers on, as homeopaths say that vibrations linger on in water molecules.
This is my philosophy: we are animals. Our emotions and pain are to protect us from threats. So was our thought, originally. Like the antlers in a red deer stag (elk in American) our intellect has overgrown its utility. We should find a practical use for it and not worship it. Blessed are the simpletons, for they are less troubled by it. the world is only complicated because human intellect is.
Examples of threat: If I am ignored by everybody, I can feel insecure, frightened, threatened. If I am an escaped prisoner of war in a country whose language I cannot speak, I will be glad to be ignored. It will help me feel safe.
We translate all these things into abstraction as if logic (as in computer programs) is somehow a “more scientific reality”. This is where it gets misleading. Thinking is a capability that we have: thinking and imagining that which is not. It does not mean that mind is separate, on the analogy of soul inhabiting the body.
What I am saying is that everything is physical and everything got here by evolution.
But this explanation does not seem adequate and there seems to be a more overarching reality. Like God.
Author’s note: apologies to any readers. This blog is to write my random notes and you may not make too much sense of it.