NationStates Jolt Archive

I think I know the answer I'm going to get from the NS general population on this. And I don't expect the thread to last long. I just want lots of people to vote on the poll. This is a trap. I'm expecting you to vote 'mind' on this public poll. Then I'm going to start a new thread where it will be implicit that the general opinion is that the body is more important.

mind

When we get smart enough we cann build stuff to house our mind in after teh body dies. and I think the should be spelled teh.

just to be argumentative

BODY

without your body you havent got much so take care of it. you should keep it in the best possible condition no matter what limitations you have. youll feel better and think better.

Where is the flood of irrational posters spewing curd out of their facial orifaces? I feel betrayed by General now. :(

...

curd? That's such an amusing typo I'm going to leave it in.

just to be argumentative

BODY

without your body you havent got much so take care of it. you should keep it in the best possible condition no matter what limitations you have. youll feel better and think better.

...You've got your mind.

both, you cunning trickster you!

Arthur C Clarke wrote a pretty interesting story about beings as intelligent as humans, but without our dexterity and control of objects - they were vaguely unicorn shaped, I think...

Body shape is what let us evolve our minds to the state they are now - they're more than a mind-delivery system, they help shape the way we are.

Or, the other way to think of it, a crippled body is just as upsetting and hard to cope with as a crippled mind.

What's more important: your body or your mind?

They are equally important. In fact, they are one and the same.

My mind. If my body was crippled, I'd go into some kind of life-support machine for several hundred years. In the process, I would slowly become detached, inhuman and embittered. Eventually I would have a new, artificial body, but I would hate my setbacks and have gone slightly wonky during hundreds of years of incarceration. I would be like a Dalek.

Much better than going senile.

Mind.
I have above average intelligence and below average physical ability.
And why are people taking this to the extreme 'If my body died was crippled etc'?.You do need both to live, but that doesnt mean to have to nurture/neglect both equally.

neither are important(wtf= with that fuck);)

Fine, have it your way, be rational and take the middle road for all care! You guys are just like the British weather - never what you're expected to be.
*sulks and composes the linked read like I said I would*

Mind.
I have above average intelligence and below average physical ability. Same here. At least, I think I have above average intelligence… ;)
And why are people taking this to the extreme 'If my body died was crippled etc'? Because. That could lead to some kind of sci-fi story and I'd become a twisted brain-emperor-Dalek thing with a constant throat infection.

Mind.
I have above average intelligence and below average physical ability.
And why are people taking this to the extreme 'If my body died was crippled etc'?.You do need both to live, but that doesnt mean to have to nurture/neglect both equally.

You rely on both, though; you need to nurture your body to help stop negative stuff happening, while nurturing your mind generally brings positive things.

So, do 1 to gain nice things, and the other to stop bad things.:D

I think my mind will only achieve importance if I develop some kind of original insight and publish it, which I worry is of a very small likelihood.

I think my body will only achieve importance if I develop some king of unique, unprecedented tumor that is published in medical journals, which I hope is of a very small likelihood.

Mind by a mile. I'd rather not move than go so senile that i forget what year it is.
*knock at old folks home door*
Ehh... whass that? Oh God Japs! RUN FOR THE GUNS! AHHHHH!
*runs in circles (well walks slowly with cane/walker)*

Two words:
Carbon Freezing

Mind

I have never seen a 90-year-old that had anything but a frail body (though I am sure they exist somewhere), but I met a woman just the other day who was 102 and had an amazing mind. She couldn't walk, but it didn't seem to bother her.

If I had to pick which would go bad, I'd let my body go over my mind.

You people are out of your goddamn minds. A mind can't really exist [they can phyiscally, but not functionally] without a body and vice versa: trying to create a dichotomy where one doesn't exist is one of the most disgusting philosophical errors I can think of. You can't say the mind is more important than the body because if you seperated the two, the mind [if it could continue to exist at all] would quickly go insane or otherwise become non-functional. Sensory deprivation experiments have proven this time and time again.

Likewise, the absence of a mind makes a body utterly useless, as it has no mechanism by which to guide its action. A mind without a body is a ghost, and a body without a mind is a corpse.

Well said, Melkor. However, if you had a body and mind which met the bare minimum requirements to allow to live, which would you prefer to improve: Mind or Body?

Anyway, with that said. Linky to my other thread to challenge their views that the mind is more important.
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=458580

You people are out of your goddamn minds. A mind can't really exist [they can phyiscally, but not functionally] without a body and vice versa: trying to create a dichotomy where one doesn't exist is one of the most disgusting philosophical errors I can think of. You can't say the mind is more important than the body because if you seperated the two, the mind [if it could continue to exist at all] would quickly go insane or otherwise become non-functional. Sensory deprivation experiments have proven this time and time again.

Likewise, the absence of a mind makes a body utterly useless, as it has no mechanism by which to guide its action. A mind without a body is a ghost, and a body without a mind is a corpse.

This, of course, begs the horrendously annoying question, "What is the mind? Indeed, is the mind?"
Would you say that animals have minds? And if you call what they have minds, then what do we have? And if they don't, then you can't say that body and mind are codependent, can you? Do you believe that a mind is just a function of brain structure, or something separate?
(And to think that I haven't even started my Philosophy of Mind course yet - imagine how pedantically annoying I'll be then! At a guess, Melkor, I'd say you're a materialist, yeah?)

On a non-philosophical bent, I'd rather have my mind than my body, to a certain degree. But Parkinson's - that'd be horrible. I'd almost rather have Alzheimer's...

Well said, Melkor. However, if you had a body and mind which met the bare minimum requirements to allow to live, which would you prefer to improve: Mind or Body?

Anyway, with that said. Linky to my other thread to challenge their views that the mind is more important.
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=458580
That's fine, but that's not the same question now is it?

I kind of took the question as asking whether you might value the aesthetic/athletic external attributes as being worth more of one's efforts than what might be called the intellectual pursuits, or vice-versa.

Not that there can't or shouldn't be a balance, I suppose.

Of course it isn't... I didn't mention prostitution in this thread :P

However, it's going along the same lines. In a society, where the mind is considered to be superior to the body, we condemn prostitution.

I clearly haven't thought this through. I keep coming up with a hundred different reasons against my own argument.s

This, of course, begs the horrendously annoying question, "What is the mind? Indeed, is the mind?"
I'm assuming here that we're discussing the immaterial aspects of one's thought rather than the organ that generates it--since the mind is a component of the [i]body, so it's kind of ridiculous to ask just how a body can function without all of its components.

Would you say that animals have minds? And if you call what they have minds, then what do we have? And if they don't, then you can't say that body and mind are codependent, can you? Do you believe that a mind is just a function of brain structure, or something separate?
Of course they have minds; they're just not as sophisticated as ours and react to a completely different set of stimuli. They interpret things differently and act on different impulses--impulses that certain sectors of "morality" will have you beleive are not "natural," despite the fact that such impulses occur regularly in nature [and in our own minds still] every day. One time I had a diehard Christian tell me that masturbation wasn't "natural," and then stammered hopelessly when I asked him why monkeys did it. Maybe monkeys were one of the species that [i]Satan made, eh?

A 'mind' [i]is in fact a function of the organ itself, as your last question asks. No one is sure yet exactly how it works, but that in and of itself doesn't demand that that knowledge be forever out of our grasp. A lot of people like to argue that since neuroscience still doesn't know how thoughts are generated, that must be taken as evidence of some sort of "spiritual" or "supernatural" realm, through which we attain consciousness. 70 years ago, we didn't know that the moon wasn't made out of cheese, but that "evidence" alone isn't enough to state beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was.

(And to think that I haven't even started my Philosophy of Mind course yet - imagine how pedantically annoying I'll be then! At a guess, Melkor, I'd say you're a materialist, yeah?)

Through and through. It's one of the very few things Marx and I agree on.

Fair enough. That point about animals having minds, I realise, was pretty spurious - I wish I could remember what was going through my head that made me go "Yeah, that should go in!"
Pretty much in agreement with you on everything, but the point about the "moon of cheese" can easily be reversed - you don't know that the mind isn't a duality, even if you believe it isn't.

Fair enough. That point about animals having minds, I realise, was pretty spurious - I wish I could remember what was going through my head that made me go "Yeah, that should go in!"
Pretty much in agreement with you on everything, but the point about the "moon of cheese" can easily be reversed - you don't know that the mind isn't a duality, even if you believe it isn't.
True, but my point is that medical science doesn't unlock all of the body's mysteries at once. We'll get to it eventually, and when we do the Dualists will grasp for another, completely new set of straws.

the heart/soul is the important thing. you can be a wuss and have your heart in the right place, and you can be dumb but have your heart in the right place.

mind

When we get smart enough we cann build stuff to house our mind in after teh body dies. and I think the should be spelled teh.
I plan to invent that. I fear death enough to be scared of driving a car. B'omarr monks! So I'll give you a call if I ever figure it out.

Both

They are equally important. In fact, they are one and the same.
Seconded (or whatever, didn't check the entire thread).

This is a trap. I'm expecting you to vote 'mind' on this public poll. Then I'm going to start a new thread where it will be implicit that the general opinion is that the body is more important.

Devious white text trick. I'm on to you.