[Buddha-l] Re: Magic

[curt]

Tom Head wrote:
> Okay, here's what gets me.  Bertrand Russell once pointed this out, 
> and I'm not doing him justice because it's 5:30 in the morning but I 
> think the general gist will carry:
>
> If consciousness is an emergent property of the mind.......

" ... when the Materialists stray beyond the borders of their path and 
begin to talk about there being nothing else in the universe but Matter 
and Force and Necessary Laws, and all the rest of their 'grenadiers,' I 
decline to follow them. I go back to the point from which we started, 
and to the other path of Descartes. I remind you that we have already 
seen clearly and distinctly, and in a manner which admits of no doubt, 
that all our knowledge is a knowledge of states of consciousness. 
'Matter' and 'Force' are, as far as we can know, mere names for certain 
forms of consciousness. 'Necessary' means that of which we cannot 
conceive the contrary. 'Law' means a rule which we have always found to 
hold good, and which we expect always will hold good. Thus it is an 
indisputable truth that what we call the material world is only known to 
us under the forms of the ideal world; and, as Descartes tells us, our 
knowledge of the soul is more intimate and certain than our knowledge of 
the body. If I say that impenetrability is a property of matter, all 
that I can really mean is that the consciousness I call extension, and 
the consciousness I call resistance, constantly accompany one another. 
Why and how they are thus related is a mystery. And if I say that 
thought is a property of matter, all that I can mean is that actually or 
possibly, the consciousness of extension and that of resistance 
accompany all other sorts of consciousness. But, as in the former case, 
why they are thus associated is an insoluble mystery."

T. H. Huxley "On Descartes' 'Discourse Touching the Method of Using 
One's Reason Rightly and Seeking Scientific Truth'"
full text here: http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE1/DesDis.html

Executive Summary: "... all our knowledge is a knowledge of states of 
consciousness."

- Curt