Though you seem to have quite the air of superiority over me when you write your replies to me.
Wow! May I say, "That's all you" and be taken at my word? That's your creation. I could ask, "Why are you creating that? How does that help you? What do you gain?" For example, maybe one person doesn't like another person so they could villianize the other person to render their dislike quasi-okay or not their own fault. Or maybe you love the way that presumption looks on a lady and you're dolling me up in what would be more lovely to you? I dunno. Anyway, I think that presumption of superiority is yours.
When I ask you about your words and expressions on the DhO it is because
a) it's a chat forum and yer sharin',
b) I
assume you're up for bilateral exchange (by virtue of you're being here exchanging), and
c) I'll learn something about you, me, us, is-ness.
If you say, "Enough, already! No more chatting with you, Katy." Okay. That's the new actuality and I'll just go on living until I don't. (And this freedom is not available world over...so it's pretty stellar and I wish everyone freedom to create friendly life conditions).
I don't tend to think in terms of superiority/inferiority. I do tend to think, "What works here to effect xyz? What would help here? What's the effect of... What would be long-term and/or short-term good here and for just me or others" and that's just if I'm planning or shaping something. A lot of times there's just action. Like, I have sh*tload of work to do today and the planning is done and now there's just taking helpful action on those plans and not being too lazy as to ruin/thwart the work.
Yet, I can show that level of caring while still understanding that I (along with most people) am more intelligent than she is. There's nothing wrong with that.
Yes, no one here has said there's anything wrong with your superior self-regard and your presumption of your view that your cat has a lower intelligence than you. But it's plain to see that no one actually needs to make such a statement, that such a conclusion comes from your mind and its affective need to make that up. For example, we know some cats and dogs can detect and pinpoint cancer well before the doctor, and we humans apparently lack that native intelligence. So what else don't we know about cats because we never thought of ways to engage and we would start, like you, by presuming?
In computer analogy, Claudiu, it looks to me that you add code that is not needed and actually gunks up actuality. But, because you add that extra, I know that affectively you do need that code to be there. So it's kind of like a client saying, "Can you just have that screen pop-up twice?" Okie dokie... Yep, that is okay. It's extra and there's a personal need underlying.
I say, if you want to be actually free from the human condition, then yes, there is.
In your experience, what is the human condition?
In your experience, are you free from that same human condition?
And this, I suspect, is why you assert that it's impossible to know whether rocks think, because for you, awareness in essence is unrelated to anything physical, so nothing in particular would preclude a rock from being conscious on some level and perhaps being able to think.
Huh? I don't understand what you're saying, what you mean by awareness and you are presuming some unfamiliar things about me when you could make life simpler for yourself and read what I said: I don't know about rocks thinking because I just don't know. I can say I've not seen evidence of human-like thought in rocks, but I'd have to caveat that with I've never checked. I think that's just being candid.
So it seems like you need to see "katy" and "amoeba" and your cat and all animals in some certain light and so you just presume and embellish them to suit affective need. Otherwise, you'd just read what I'm writing, no?
You'd also just know that you don't know about some beings/things/conditions, no? There'd be no need to play omniscient, "Not all animals can do that", "amoeba cannot think" and so on.
You're actually spending mental energy creating extra reality because I guess the actuality of people and others before you are inadequate and need embellishing? It's like a fashion show and you're adding affective boas that make objects suit you.
Once you understand that awareness is a product of the flesh and blood body being alive
This I don't know and I so I don't force this kind of personal reality. Maybe awareness precedes bodies, maybe not. You need to presume knowledge of this; me, that's energy I will spend if I want to ponder ontology, but I have no conclusions nor need them.
You're having some trouble sticking with what I say for myself, but can you speak for yourself about how you know "awareness is a product of the flesh and blood body being alive?" and how the converse is not true?
I have no conclusion on this point, but some people just feel more comfortable if they make up a conclusion to ontological questions like this. Are you just making up an answer here that suits you intellectually, or do you actually
know?
They are not alive, so as awareness and thinking depend on being alive[1], then they are not aware nor do they think.
For practical purposes, I tend to agree with this; so my mind sees "rocks" and generally also colors this with "not-sentient". But, at the end of the day, I'm aware rocks exist much longer than my life and my parents and grandparents and apparently for many, many human generation, so I know that I don't know their actuality. I just don't know nor does anything in me compel me to make a decision here.
For me, it has been a wonder, a source of unexpected energy and something like steady mental enjoyment-engagement to start experiencing conditions/things without presumption. But I see that I do continue to presume quite a bit too. So it's just a steady process of letting the mind just experience versus occluding experience with habitual presumption.
Nothing about this is special or mystic: I've met so many people who just don't presume to know what they don't know, just regular people who are fine with seeing things as they are and doing their lives in a friendly way.
Fair point about my appeal to the "men and women of science", that was an example of the logical fallacy of appealing to authority.
Yeah, well, I've done the exact same thing, Claudiu

We can "Live and learn", as the adage goes. It's an incredibly nice capacity and freedom.
I still don't understand what you meant by asserting siddhic knowledge. Did you mean that, if instead of using intelligence and reasoning to come to the conclusion that not all animals can self-reflect, I said that I had siddhic knowledge of other animal's states of mind and knew, from first-hand experience, that certain animals cannot self-reflect, that you would not have started this conversation with me nor would you be judging me for thinking that not all animals can self-reflect?
Okay. Well, if you had said, "I have supernatural powers and I know that of all animals not all have self-reflective capacity," I would just read that for what it is. You'd be claiming some personal
direct, experiential knowledge. I've got no truck with that. I'm only me and so I can just hear people share their actual direct experience of life, siddhic-reality or not.
nor would you be judging me for thinking that not all animals can self-reflect?
What judgment has been made of you in our exchange?
I will say I queried you on your words, because my previous experiences with you have been that you seem to me often open and courteous, curious, stable and available to this. I don't assume any outcome with you. I don't ask everyone I meet about their views --- either the context is not apt or it seems that the person would not likely like an investigative exchange of views. So when something like this comes up with you, I tend to look forward to learning something with you. I never know what will happen, but I don't think we harm each other. It seems practical and useful. I trust you would tell me directly and otherwise if this exchange were harming you or were a waste to you, and we could just stop. Cheers.