I understand that men can pee sitting on the toilet.

I understand that regardless of gender, position, or WHATEVER, if you are physically capable of doing so, you should be cleaning up your own urine.

@1 — addressed that on the show, amended my response. Thanks!

@2 — I completely agree. That's not in contention.

When I was working retail, I was thankful every day I was not responsible for cleaning the bathroom. I'm 100% sure people treat their bathrooms at home better than public restrooms. Though maybe, judging by the caller being discussed, some people treat their own bathrooms that way, too. Jesus, the amount of pee I almost sat in/did step in/had to wipe off the toilet seat.

And of course paper towels and water all over the sink counters and floor, but I find that less egregious.

Emma Liz- a legit dance movie that could be of interest:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/11/yuli-the-carlos-acosta-story-review-ballet-biopic

Regarding the pee situation, I got a portable urinal for kink purposes, and I gotta say, it's great to use when you got a boner; no more nearly breaking your dick to try to get a good angle or peeing all over the place at the slightest movement. Just be sure to clean it occasionally!

It would appear that the etiquette of urination is so far the dominant topic this week (as an occasional splasher myself, I will note that most toilets have a supply of disposable paper that can be used to clean up after yourself), my attention was grabbed by the contentious philosophical statement made by the poor woman whose ex thought surprise anal would be a good move. “My body is not me”, she states. I have to disagree with her on this. My body is me - even those things which seem to be seperate (consciousness, memory etc) are bodily processes. It is not a significant point, I suppose, but I do wonder if we are perhaps more inclined to accept uncomfortable or even distressing violations by distancing ourselves from our bodies. I am coming to realise in my own personal life the extent to which I have allowed others to disrespect me by disrespecting my body. I am now starting to insist that people who want to use my body respect me, not as merely an inescapable attachment to my body, but as an integral part of the sexual/romantic experience they have with me.

The beauty of having a little land with tall trees, is that the males go pee under them. It’s enough to get them to change the toilet roll.

Good comment @8 Pan Sapien: Yes, I did notice that in one of the letters, and it confused me.

Re the advice to ITROW to give non-monogamy a chance: In some cases I'd agree with this advice. She's lost him; she loses nothing by giving non-monogamy with him a chance. Except that this LW said she felt physically sick at the thought of non-monogamy. That convinced me that she shouldn't give it a chance. If she had said she didn't think it was for her, or that she had no interest in it, or that she had concerns, then perhaps giving it a try could have been enlightening. But even if the "physically sick" reaction was melodramatic phrasing, it's evidence of a hard limit for her. Move on.

New Reader, one acronym you may see without explanation is DTMFA. That stands for Dump The Mother Fucker Already.

Husband who can't aim or clean up his pee? That would spell sex strike to me. Only adults get to have sex, not children. He learns to pee like an adult, he gets to have sex. Or buy him a SheWee -- is that the same as a pee jar? Perhaps some light emasculation might do the trick.

It’s been a while since I’ve read Dan. I still listen to his show religiously. I have to say I am loving the incorporation of different media into the reader round up and on the show.

@11.

Yah. She shouldn’t be doing it if it makes her ill.

"...sign-offs...acronyms. Not all do...sometimes I do it for them."

You do? That's disappointing. I've loved thinking that when I replied to a LW "You ASSHOLE..." I was simply using their (deeply deserved) self-identification. Maybe let us know when you do it for them?

Anyway, I'm impressed with whoever makes them up. I've written a couple letters to Dan(1), and I found coming up with "cute and/or on-point acronyms" thoroughly frustrating.

(1) not answered, I think because if the questions I asked weren't impossible to answer I wouldn't have needed to write them

@8 Pan Sapien As per Gilbert Ryle, "the ghost in the machine," as it were.

@14: curious2, care to post them here and let the commentariat have at them?

@16 nocutename
Thank you for asking, but I think I'll pass sharing my questions that are impossible to answer. (I didn't mean to issue a challenge, I was just putting it that way since Dan has repeatedly noted that such questions naturally don't make the column.)

Even if they weren't impossible, I'd probably not want to share them from this username anyway (and I have no wish to post from multiple accounts); I've already let myself share too much identifying information here (in order to establish my expertise in various areas when countering a few toxic asshole trolls here). And given the existence of these assholes, it wouldn't feel like the most positive space for me to share my impossible-to-answer questions anyway. Particularly since the last time I mentioned these questions, some replied noting how much people would relish commenting upon them. Yeah, no.

But thanks nocute, really!

Hey DarkHorse, good to see you.

I think you’re brave writing to Dan, curious.
Dan, sure, he is usually sweet and balanced, he’s Libra after all, after that though the fine toothers come in, and some of it is not pretty.

Is this a religious thought, ‘ my body is not me.’ because hate to break it to the LW, when the body dies, so too do all its processes, memories etc. Or is it a disturbing disassociative strategy people have developed, women particularly, to cope with the aftermath of abuse and rape.

Re @9, I can’t believe I used the word pee.
It’s piss or having a slash.

@20 LavaGirl
I confess I missed wherever someone said 'my body is not me'.

But I agree it's often a healthy psychological step to /not/ disassociate from one's body; to identify with one's body rather that think of it as an object (my hand, not /that/ hand).

Tangentially, one thing often noticed through meditating, it that it can be healthy to say 'my thoughts are not me'; what's really /you/ is that which watches your thoughts. The thoughts are mostly about conditioning, not the fundamental you.

Pointing Percy at the porceline, etc.

LavaGirl, I think we would get along fine. Don't need a tree though. Every boy learns to write his name in the snow.

@8 Pan Sapien, I had similar thoughts. I think I'm this case the meaning is more along the lines of "I'm not just a piece of meat", in the sense of being completely objectified (although we are meat sacks with sophisticated neural meat).

*in this case

Thank you. Christopher J. Oh, that’s one our sub tropic living men can’t enjoy,

@22, curious. Your thoughts are not you, it’s true.
Even you watching the thoughts is not you. There is no concrete you, we change depending on causes and conditions. We have patterns of behaviour sure and repetitive responses which feel concrete, but they can change.
I find understanding humans via Buddhist Teachings a much more fluid approach to our internal powers. Training the mind has been a revelation to me.

We can’t separate mind from body. We are one unit.

I should learn to shut it because my explanations can leave me open. I’m talking about the mind here, and how we use it. How we conceive of ourselves, etc. We can’t change everything about us, our sexual orientation seems pretty fixed, though people can go from active to being non sexual. Having no orientation at all.
Somebody who has suffered extensive neurological damage, there is very little chance of much change here.

Curious @14, yes, Dan has said before that he or staff sometimes make up acronyms when the LWs don't. Which is why, if the only mention of something is in a sign-off acronym, we can't take it as fact -- Dan or a staffer might have just picked a particular phrase to make the acronym into a word. Those can distort our reaction to letters, though.

Pee-on-the-floor guy already had a kid with LW. My stance is that you do not want to raise a child with a person who, after being informed that it's not acceptable, is still perfectly comfortable with his wife stepping in, and then having to mop up, his piss simply because he is too lazy to do it himself.

Pissing on the floor now and then is not DTMFA-worthy, but not giving a shit that she has to clean up his bodily wastes because he can't be bothered to? That points to a world outlook that most definitely IS.

LavaGirl
@28 "Even you watching the thoughts is not you. There is no concrete you..."

That's true too because 'the watcher' is both you, and everything/everyone. And 'the watcher' is not concrete because virtually nothing can be said about 'the watcher'.

@29 "We can’t separate mind from body. We are one unit."

Yes they are one. They are also different.

Thanks CMD, did you see it?

@11 BDF Yes exactly. We've talked about it before, but there's a difference between trying something you feel neutral about or that isn't your preference and trying something that disgusts you or depresses you or makes you feel any other terrible or unpleasant emotion. This is a very important distinction.

Regarding acronyms, I remember there have been a few times when the sign off name included things that would seem insulting or insensitive for Dan or the staff to make up, and Dan pointed out that the LW was the one who came up with it, not him. Since then, I often wonder whose it is.

Regarding pee guy, I'd say his inability to piss without making a mess is the secondary issue. The primary one being why doesn't clean it up even after being asked to do so. Having to tell a grown man to clean up his own piss repeatedly and having him refuse would make me feel like I was in an impossible situation: a) you are a nagging bitch if you carry on about it, b) you have to face the fact that he doesn't give a shit about your feelings or your labor if you just shut up and clean up after him every time which can feel degrading, c) you have to live in a stinky filth if you just ignore it. I hate the concept of a sex strike since it implies that the person striking doesn't also want sex and just does it as a reward or withholds it as a punishment, but my guess is that dealing with that above impossible situation would kill any sexual desire for that person, just naturally. These are the sorts of minor things that slowly grind away at a relationship and kill it off.

@34 "I hate the concept of a sex strike since it implies that the person striking doesn't also want sex and just does it as a reward or withholds it as a punishment..."
Calling it a sex strike doesn't imply that the person withholding sex doesn't want it.

You've described what strikes actually are. Laborers suffer while on strike because they're not being paid; that's why scabs exist, because they cross the picket line to work and be paid. They're striking because they hope to benefit when it ends. And it /is/ a punishment: they're punishing the employer by refusing to work until their demands are met. It's a similar thing with boycotts.

@nightscrawl, I'm aware of that. But that's my whole point. The laborers are doing something they don't really want to do (they don't work for free) but are being paid to do it. They might like their job, but it's still labor- an exchange of a portion of their life for a reward (money). Exactly my point- calling it a sex strike assumes the sex is transactional in the first place.

I’m more in two minds about reincarnation than I am about a heaven/ hell. Some of those Tibetan Lamas get to exalted states of consciousness.

FWIW the mind/body dichotomy is not a Buddhist thing in the first place so they wouldn't think of the mind as being all over the body any more or less than they would think of it being separate from the body. Their view is of dependent origination which means that nothing exists independently of anything else and everything arises in relation to everything else. What we call the brain is simple- it's so much flesh and electrical impulses, etc. What we call the mind arises from the interplay of subjects and objects through the five aggregates and it goes like this: 1) form (material world object) exists, 2) sensations of that form exist (interplay of a subject with those objects which does not require sentience), then 3) perception of those sensations (sentience), then 4) mental formations (including emotions) based on those sensations and perceptions that lead feed back into your future perceptions (this is also volitional unlike the other three) and then 5) consciousness arising from the interplay of all these things.

You could use the word "mind" to refer to either 4 or 5 since there really isn't a Buddhist equivalent to "mind" the way we use it. There are three Pali words for "mind" and they are all slightly different. If you mean "consciousness" in the way I used it above in terms of the five aggregates, then you are talking about "vinnanna" (consciousness). And if you just mean general mental activity (volitional thinking, mental formations like mentioned above), then you are talking about "mannas". If you mean in terms of "state of mind" then you are talking about "citta". Though I don't recommend a lot of Thich Naht Han's teaching, his book "Understanding the Mind" does a pretty good job of explaining all this.

Just FYI, rebirth and reincarnation are different things, though sometimes people use them interchangeably (usually mistakenly). Reincarnation is more like transmigration- usually implies a soul but definitely an individual who will be born again in another form or another life- so for example, the avatars of Vishnu or a bodhisattva who can control future births. Rebirth is what you are referring to Lava, the Buddhist concept that your karma exists in endless cycles of death and birth in the material world. Like Lava, I'm of the opinion that we all die and that's it, but I think there's some truth to your karma lingering in the world, I just don't see what can possibly be reborn in the first place if you eliminate a self and a soul. I've had monks and teachers try to explain it to me and I just can't grasp it.

@37 LavaGirl
Consciousness is not the same as the body (and I'm sure Buddhism knows that).
(I'm afraid I really shouldn't spend the time defending that assertion, but I shouldn't have to because everyone has had experiences that demonstrate the interconnectedness of multiple individuals' consciousnesses. And there is solid experimental evidence of individuals whose consciousness performs feats not just outside their body, but both backwards and forwards in time.)

Well I'd like to hear examples of that Curious because I've never had the experience that demonstrates the interconnectedness of multiple individual's consciousness, unless you mean this super loosely like- we live in a culture that is violent and therefore you and I are both affected by and contributing to that violence, etc. But if you mean literally that my consciousness is connected to someone else's in a literal sense, I guess I need examples to clarify. As far as I can tell, every individuals' inner life is private to them. And I really get lost on the time travel and feats outside their body part- like what in the world and/or astral plane do you mean?

That’s my understanding EmmaLiz, that the mind is seen to be thru out the body. I don’t know what you mean re there being no body/ mind split. Not in the Teachings and books I’ve had/ read. Yes, there is no inherent existence, that’s not a denial of a body and mind.
Not sure what you mean curious. I’ve had lots of instances of serendipity.

Ants and other eusocial organisms have a collective "consciousness," though I would maybe give them the third level of EmmaLiz' hierarchy. The whole is greater than the sun of its parts. Shoaling and schooling fish (those are similar but different things) as well, although to a lesser extent; they don't act as much as one unit as eusocial organisms do.

I would say the great mystery of human consciousness is that, like a colony of ants, in a human mind the whole seems greater than the sum of its parts. The human mind is a marvel, and likely the most complex thing to have developed in the universe (aside from potential extraterrestrial species with comparable or greater cognition).

In terms of the human mind being distributed throughout the body, there are interesting studies about mind-body integration. The dichotomy between cognition and the body outside the brain is not as stark as science previously believed.

More relevant to me is the evolving understanding of the distribution of cognition in cephalopods. Cephalopods (like squid, cuttlefish, and octopods) don't have all of their cognition and processing centralized in their main "brain." Their central nervous system functions are distributed throughout their body, such that each arm effectively does have a "mind of its own." The arms are capable of acting independently of the central brain. This can lead to faster response times to stimuli, but there are likely other benefits and/or implications that we haven't unraveled yet.

While parts of our central nervous system outside the brain certainly can have limited autonomous functions, there is nothing comparable in vertebrates to this distributed neural network. It's incredibly fascinating to consider modes of existence outside our own experience. Does an octopus have one mind, or many? Maybe both?

@41 EmmaLiz
I absolutely do not mean "super loosely", I mean "literally".

As one would imagine, I can't answer this briefly. And I am very busy (despite the appearances of the time I've shamefully been wasting here). But if you're really interested...

I will consider it because I have written much of what would be a response in various places over many years. I think I can find them in my gmail archives and paste and edit them together without needing to start from scratch. By the time I would do this significant time will have passed, so I will need to post to a then-current thread to direct you back to this one.

However, if you're really a person who has never had such experiences, I'm not sure that merely hearing of them is gonna be persuasive to you anyway.

Two things Lava, trying again. The first is that there isn't a Buddhist concept of the mind- it is three different things in Buddhism in the first place so you are thinking of two things -body, mind- whereas they are thinking of four things- body, consciousness, mental formations, mental states. The second is that you are talking about a dichotomy whereas they see all four of these things as arising in an interplay as the other- it's not separate things but rather aspects of reality that arose in dependence on one another (as well as other aspects). And the teaching of no self (that no inherent existence that you are talking about) doesn't mean they aren't real but rather just that you can't break them down into things with their own independent identity. Like you said above when you were talking about the watcher and what you watch- if you start trying to say where the "I" resides, you'll never find it, same with the body / mind and any other aspect of reality if you try to get to the core of it- it all only exists in relation to everything else, has no inherent identity.

The Buddha was a man, EmmaLiz. He tried denying his body and became too weak to meditate. He knew the body had to be taken care of, hence he taught the Middle Way.

Anything is possible curious, in a way. Look around us, gravity keeps us here on this giant planet moving around a sun. Out there are galaxies and galaxies. Pretty darn awesome, all of it.

@45 p.s.
"...merely hearing of them..."

On second thought (as I sit here creating an outline), I can share not just experiences but experimental evidence, some of it very well-known.

Curious, I'm a skeptic. I also have a pretty firmly established and well investigated worldview and ideology, etc. So if you'd only be posting in order to "persuade" then don't do it. I'm not interested in being persuaded anymore than you are likely interested in trying to persuade me.

However, I'm also extremely curious about hearing about such things, partially just because it's interesting and I like stories, but also because - being a proper skeptic- I like to have new things constantly challenge my worldview and ideologies so in any case, I would honestly like to hear it and I'd read it honestly and enjoy it / possibly learn from it without bothering with what I think REALLY HAPPENED. Just like when I hear a good ghost story or alien story or celestial visitation or past life remembrance or any other great other worldly story - I love stuff like that, and I don't bother with whether or not I think it's TRUE but rather with whether or not you are TELLING THE TRUTH which is two different things. And I've talked to you enough to believe you are telling the truth.

Now whether or not you want to indulge me is up to you and your own priorities and if you are too busy to share or you don't want to share it with me since I'm mostly just interested from an amusement point of view, then that's totally understandable and you should feel no pressure etc.

Calliope, I'm not sure I know enough about hive animals to have a real opinion nor have I ever talked to Buddhists about it or read about it. I know that it's hard for animals to develop karma because the nature of their existence naturally limits their volitional options, ha ha. And what would karma be to an ant anyway? Probably a lot different than our own. To be fair though, I was just responding to what Buddhists teach about "the mind" not necessarily what is true. But yes, this idea of emergence (think Aristotle in the West or dependent origination in the East) is exactly what I'm getting on about. If there is a purely materialist explanation for it, we aren't there yet AFAIK.

Calli, btw cockroaches are the same with the scattered neurological systems.

I know it's different, but it's worth noting that in humans, we do have something similar in both the heart (intrinsic cardiac nervous system) and the gut (the enteric nervous system). Neither have consciousness of course but they do work independent of the central nervous system. I don't have the slightest idea how analogous this is to cockroaches or octopuses (octopi?).

EmmaLiz @34, I do agree, any calls for sex strikes mean the striker is punishing themself by also depriving themself of sex. But in this case I can't see actually retaining any sexual attraction to someone who couldn't clean up his own pee. I would not be at all surprised if this woman becomes a seven-year-itch statistic, with some guy going "I never saw this coming! Women, amIrite? Nothing you can do, they just get bored with sex."

@40. No, curious, consciousness is as much a process of the body as splashing all over the loo when the one-eyed trouser snake is unleashed. I am much less sceptical of woo than EmmaLiz and LaxaGirl (I’m taking seriously the possibility that the strange glimpses of people I thought were ghosts when I was a child are, in fact, ghosts)), and I certainly think it possible that, in the same way that the atomic matter that is me will exist, my life energy may also survive and take other forms. But everything that is meaningfully me, my thoughts, memories, sense of self, are all caused by my body. Although it seems counterintuitive, my body is more me than my mind.

Pan Sapien, that's basically the Buddhist interpretation of rebirth, but change energy to karma. I still can't wrap my brain around it though. Since they negate the existence of a soul then I'm not sure what gets reborn, so I've asked before- does this mean it's the karma that is reborn- and the answer is always no that's not quite it. I've asked also if it means that this energy or karma or whatever not-soul thing it is that gets reborn is scattered about or if it goes into other new being and the answer is some combination of "both and neither" so it leaves me frustrated.

But generally yes I'm open to something along the lines of what you say too- maybe that's what goes down or maybe it's not. I really have no idea and investigations of the 'experts' (as I stated above) leaves me feeling inadequate to really understanding it. As we all are I guess- but yes I am the culmination of my memories and experiences, but "life" (including my own) is more than just my body and mind. The emergence of life seems to have something MORE and I'm a part of it though it's not about me at all.

@50 &51 EmmaLiz "Octopuses" is absolutely fine. "Octopi" is okay as well, though slightly incorrect since "octopus" comes to English from Greek, not Latin. If you were going to use the original Greek plural, it would be "octopodes," which is occasionally used in Britain, according to my sources. I often say "octopods," which is popular in biology because the taxonomic name for the order is Octopoda, and it's a standard way of referring to members of a particular clade (see "tetrapods" for Tetrapoda).

I am aware of distributed neurological function in many insects, though I'm not sure I had heard cockroaches in particular. I find the phenomenon in cephalopods, especially octopuses, more interesting because they have been shown to have such a high level of cognition and problem-solving, especially for an invertebrate. While each arm is capable of operating practically independently, they can also be coordinated in precise fashion to facilitate involved problem-solving.

How can the two be reconciled in one organism? What is the hierarchy of octopus "thought?" It's utterly fascinating.

The theories are very compelling on how such a distantly related organism evolved possibly comparable cognition to other nonhuman animals with high levels of cognition, like other primates, cetaceans (whales and dolphins), corvids (family of birds including crows, ravens, jays, magpies...), etc. Especially fascinating is the fact that pretty much all other "intelligent" animals evolved this intelligence in a highly social context, while octopuses are generally solitary.

What are the implications for human cognition and consciousness? What possibilities could there be for any extraterrestrial intelligence?

@50 EmmaLiz
Thanks for your thoughtful and considerate reply. Yes, I'm on the same page, not into persuading or being persuaded either. But like me you sound open which is all I hoped for.

Consciousness is a lifetime interest for me as primary as any, and I very much wish to discuss it. Though I'm not sure (particularly since I've given too many identifying details in the past) I want to share my personal wealth of relevant stories. And I wouldn't even consider doing so if I didn't have more than stories.

I've already taken a look at some new research, and refreshed my memory.

I will need to retract what I wrote above about a very well-known experiment, because it turns out the one I thought of has turned out, in light of a further 2011 experiment, to not be relevant. (Bummer, I was thinking it could be incontrovertible evidence.)

But I do have another less definitive one in mind. And it looks like some new ones support it. If the case looks strong enough maybe I'll add some of my stories, at least the most relevant ones.

I will write something, though it may be weeks or months (since I have a great responsibility on my shoulders I need to discharge before enjoying a rabbit hole) but I'm sure you're in no hurry for this. If this thread isn't still open for Comments I might have to use another; I'll get your attention then.

@53 Pan Sapien
I don't understand how you started that with "No", since you're rephrased what I said to something I don't disagree with. When I wrote "Consciousness is not the same as the body" I was simply prepared to defend that it can act outside the body (and tangentially, also outside what some may want to call the extended body of chi that doesn't stop at the skin), and your metaphor of pissing all over the toilet directly uses a bodily process that acts upon something outside of the body!

To turn to your phrasing "process of the body", how can I have an opinion since I've always had a body? I'll let you know once I don't (wink).

Oh and I forgot about ghosts! I'll add those stories to my list, though might not tell them. (It's really no fun for me to tell stories just to share; it's more embarrassing.)

I had an out of body experience many decades ago, where my spirit seemed to leave my body, and I watched myself. Very scary.
I’m open to all sorts of forces operating on us, and around us. I agree curious, consciousness is amazing, and seeing the states great meditators can reach are surreal. Some of them, their bodies don’t start to decompose for a few days after death.

I've started meditating (mostly) daily for the last couple of months, mostly modified Buddhist-type meditation. I often get this feeling when I'm really focused that I suppose is a mild out-of-body thing, where it feels like my arms are not really my arms, like they're floating a few inches above themselves.

I don't take this so much as a consciousness-is-more-than-physical thing, more of a the-brain-is-wild-and-weird thing.

Occasionally the rest of my body is floating above itself, too, though I can't visualize it. It's just a sensation.

@57 LavaGirl
Hey it sounds like you know the thing I thought I was arguing for as well as anyone!
(Maybe I can relate; I remember when I took way too much liberty caps one time and felt really sick, it felt like I was being pushed out of my body and I didn't like that a bit.)

@60 p.s. That reminds me that many of my stories are like that, solo ones. And I can't imagine people who haven't had one believing those.

OTOH, I'm inclined to think that my stories involving multiple people (in which I think I did a good job as an impromptu amateur experimenter controlling for other explanations) might be more persuasive.
Er, if I wasn't just a guy on the internet who could be a dog for all y'all know. Oh well, I don't expect anyone will be convinced by my stories. But perhaps combined with a few experiments I think some might become more open to the possibility...and that's really much of it; I know people with such experiences themselves that just repress them out of cognitive dissonance or even fear of believing/sharing their own experience when the belief isn't socially supported. Which is why I say most people wouldn't talk about this stuff, it's not likely to receive a supportive reaction. You are brave, LG!

Does any able-bodied adult male really miss the toilet on anything more than an exceedingly rare basis? Spray and splash seem more likely to me.

In any case, I pee sitting down at home because I have peed in urinals while wearing shorts and am aware that a non-zero amount of splashing can happen. At urinals, I angle the stream to hit the porcelain at a small angle and, I guess through the wonders of surface tension, that eliminates noticeable spray. Oh, and if the guy is uncircumcised, e obviously needs to pull back his foreskin.

There's just no need to make a big mess.

Curious, that's not what I meant at all, that's not it, at all, to quote from Prufrock. Alas, I suspect I was rather too preoccupied with finding perfect Australianism for pissing to consider how mealy-mouthed the whole''process of the body' formulation was. (And
i fucked that up, too - i should have pointed Percy at the porcelain). I should have been much clearer. There is no such thing as a consciousness.. The mind is some actions the brain does. We do not have thoughts, we think. We do not have memories, we remember. Consciousness can no more happen separately from the brain than running can occur apart from our legs. In short, 'mind' is a verb, not a noun. Our brains use a number of language tricks to unify our often disparate and contradictory impulses and desires by, for example, using memory and language to create narrative of self that gives an illusion of continuity and connectedness, as well as the very simple trick of using verbs as nouns, which makes transient and limited actions appear as concrete and real objects (think of 'a run' as an allegorical noun which can linguistically have some sort of seperate existence from our legs, even if, in practice, a run exists only as an entirely mental object.) I am entirely content that my rather vague and unformed hypothesis that the examples of consciousness continuing outside the body you refer to could be equally covered by my concept of a 'life energy' or 'karma' or some such, which seems an entirely fitting way to deal with ghosts and heaven and reincarnation and other things whose existence might reasonably be questioned by many observers.

And, just quickly, EmmaLiz, I found it really useful to think of this 'life energy' or 'karma' as being like the atoms that make us material creatures. Those atoms will exist until the end of the universe, and some of them will certainly to be subject to this force of life (depending on what animals and plants consume our bodies). And energy can certainly act at a significant distance from its source. (I reckon I may have picked the concept up when I was bumming around Asia trying to 'find myself' - just a pro tip, but we are very unlikely to find ourselves in a place where we can't read the street signs

One of the weakest tools of a skeptic is to say "I don't believe is X, it's just Y" when Y is also something they don't believe in.

@63 Pan Sapien
"...the examples of consciousness continuing outside the body you refer to could be equally covered by my concept of a 'life energy'..."

I'm more interested in what's going on than the semantics, but I acknowledge that that might be an interesting point too.

Tap is cool and all, but I liked the ballet boys better.

Curious, I hope I catch it if/when you do decide to post.

Calli, fascinating stuff about the octopods! I'd like to read sort of a for-not-scientists book on that subject, an airplane read on distributed neurology and its implications for consciousness. Nothing heavy hitting since I'm not up to it, just enough to make me sit back and have my mind slightly blow if you know what I mean. If you have a recommendation?

Pan Sapien, your interpretation is likewise where my own imaginings take me, but this is not what Buddhists claim. I'm not saying Buddhists are right, only that I can't even understand their concept of what it is that gets reborn enough to evaluate it in the first place. But yes, I have thought about what you said before. I remember in Bill Bryson's book A Brief History of Nearly Everything, he opens up by talking about how there's a little bit of Elvis scattered throughout all of us. Not that I give a fuck about Elvis, but it was fascinating to think of all our atoms floating about through all of time and space forever. Sometimes when I'm in the right place mentally, I can get a sense of the sublime- it's almost euphoric. And I'm talking about without drugs (it's easy to do with drugs but that's not what I mean!). I don't know what to do with that though. It seems irrelevant to the daily life and suffering in the world.

BTW when I said not what Buddhists claim, I meant, when I was struggling to understand what it is that gets reborn in the Buddhist concept (as I was taught it, which was Theravada teachings in Bodh Gaya some many moons ago), I asked about that- that it is the karma (or energy) scattered about the universe that survives, and the answer was no that's not quite it. Since there is some linear idea of going from one specific being to another. Not that I'm saying your interpretation is wrong or that I disagree or that other Buddhists don't interpret it that way. Just that this was a sticking point for me- I was never able to reconcile it despite having otherwise good teachers, and it still frustrates me that I was never able to get my mind around it. Maybe I was overthinking!

@67 EmmaLiz I do! I have a couple! They're both meant for a general readership.

One is more of a memoir about experiencing octopuses firsthand than it is about hard science: "Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness" by Sy Montgomery. She's an excellent popular science writer.

The second is about the evolution of consciousness more generally, though focused mostly on octopuses: "Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness" by Peter Godfrey-Smith. He is a philosopher of science, and really knows his stuff and does very thorough research. The evolutionary explorations are especially interesting to me.

I highly recommend both books. "Soul of an Octopus" is better if you're looking for a narrative, first-hand experience. "Other Minds" is better if you want to get more into the science and evolution. Of course, you could do what I did and read both!

"Soul of an Octopus" was published in 2015 and "Other Minds" was published in 2016, so they're both fairly recent and up-to-date, as well.

Wow thanks Calli! Both seem right up my alley. A few months ago I got an interesting rec from Lava, and I've also had recs from NoCute and CMD- one of the reasons I really enjoy this forum.

You're welcome! I love it when people love to read. Seems fairly common around here, happily.

CM @69 Thanks, both titles bookmarked.

I hate to say it, but the only solution to the pee problem is for her to refuse to clean his pee. And if it stays dirty, she first refuses to use that bathroom, then if necessary refuses to stay in the house. He will either get the message and start cleaning after himself, or he will find himself alone in the house, and possibly the relationship. But this way, it’s clear what’s happening and why.