[MD] Being-Aware

[Ham Priday]

Krimel (and Marsha) --


As the initiator of this thread, I feel obliged to add some clarity to the 
controversy which seems to have ended in a brawl.

On 9/25 this exchange was posted between you and Marsha  . ..

 [Marsha]:
> There are six senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste and
> mind.  Perceptual awareness may be of a mental pattern.
> These six senses of perception seem to cover everything.

[Krimel]:
> The number of senses is a bit arbitrary. Them as several senses
> that get lumped under touch: pain, proprioception, balance, and
> heat to name the most obvious.  But "mind" is most assuredly
> not a "sense".
>
> Sensation refers to the activation of the various receptor cells
> in our bodies that convert energy from the environment, (light,
> motion and chemistry) into nervous impulses.
>
> Perception is an entirely different process but I often fear that
> people here either do not understand or do not recognize the
> distinction.

Marsha, I won't comment on your characterization of Krimel, but I side with 
him on this issue.

It's ironic that Psychology, which began as a study [ology] of the mind or 
"soul" [psyche], now rejects the most self-evident of human attributes and 
regards "mental processes" as a product of biogenetic, neuro-physiological, 
and sociological development.

I don't pretend to know how Buddhists "study" the mind.  But it appears 
that, like the objectivists, they dismiss "selfness" and relegate 
proprietary awareness to the natural world (or its pantheistic equivalent).

Mind is not a "sense".  It is the cognitive awareness of all sensation 
relative to (i.e., identified with) a specific organism.  Mind is the 
'Knower' of experience, which is neither a sensation nor a perception, but 
self-awareness whose contents and organic locus relate to the appearance of 
being.  Fundamentally speaking, mind is being-aware.

Finite existence is differentiated temporally, spatially, and materially by 
the intellect.  Existence is a subject/object dichotomy.  Every individual 
is separated from every other object of its experience, as well as from the 
primary source of reality.  The essential link that binds the subject to its 
source is not finitude but Value.  Experience, in conjunction with 
intellection, is what brings value into existence as Being.  In that sense, 
we are all creators of our universe.

Again, I submit that man is essentially value-sensibility and functionally a 
being-aware.

Thanks for your efforts and peace to you both,
Ham