Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Oakland-ish
Posts: 6032

Your Meat Cage...

About a month ago, I went to hear a philosophy professor, Mark Kingwell, give a lecture.

One of the things he asked us to think about was what he called "the meat cage". The human body.

Essentially he thought that in choosing a material to make a container to house our souls/consciousness, meat, or flesh, was a really bad choice. It falls apart. It's vulnerable. It decays rather quickly.

So I went home and thought about this. The first question I asked is why we need something to house our consciousness to begin with. Why can't our souls move freely, unrestricted by any material?

Why not?

So, we do have these meat cages, bodies. Instead of wood, or titanium, or plastic, we are flesh. Why would nature/God design something so fragile? So dependant on exploiting other resources in order to survive?

Sometimes I look around my home and look at all the STUFF that it takes to keep this meat cage known as Inky happy and alive. Seems so excessive, wasteful. I know that probably 99% of what I own is not at all necessary to my survival. But I like it all the same.

What would my desires be if I were plastic?

So, why do we need something to house our souls in the first place?

Can you think of a better material?

Why do you think we were designed as we now exist?

And, what will we evolve into?

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35560

It might be, of course, that we have no souls at all.

We might need all this shit to keep that brain working and it's body alive.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: the heart of an awl
Posts: 3691

nothing else provides the firm, yet yielding, sensory pleasure of a slab of meat stretched over a bone.

and it's self-repairing, to boot!

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Oregon. America.
Posts: 2076

"the meat cage" - inky.

For some reason - when I opened this thread ---> I thought that it was going to be about vagina's.

"Beef curtain" and all that.

Sorry. Bye.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Oregon. America.
Posts: 2076

Oh - the answer is trust.

Trust and vulnerability - we're a species that's meant to co-exist ---> and we do a terrible, horrible job - we take advantage of one another's "meat cages" far too often - exploiting our own fragility in a canibalistic orgy of tanks, money, concrete, business, etc.

Maybe one day I'll take my penis out of my own ear and write about the socialization of experience - that, or you could go and read that post by pangloss about god from a few pages back. He makes the point in there as well.

OR you could read through my whole drunken bears thing and at some point towards the end I write about this point exactly - I think that it's like the third post from the last - it's about "participation points."

Good question.

Sorry I'm a tool.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19562

I live in a cave.

-m

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: I don't fukn' know!
Posts: 5137

it's hard to touch someone when the both of you have no body.

it's all about sensory perception yo.

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location: Houston
Posts: 545

Meat can be eaten by other organisms. Our meat cage, by design, is not much different than the chicken meat cage from KFC that I had for dinner last night. I wonder if chickens think about their meat cages?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Location Location
Posts: 26378

I would like to be made of water.

*nods*

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 987

Didn't Einstein have some theory about this? that we would eventually evolve into creatures that had no need for bodies, just sort of glowing essences or something?

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35560

quote:

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Originally posted by Firedrops
Didn't Einstein have some theory about this? that we would eventually evolve into creatures that had no need for bodies, just sort of glowing essences or something?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Sydney
Posts: 2570

quote:

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Originally posted by Paint CHiPs
I would like to be made of water.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: California
Posts: 4252

The Scientific answer:

Complexity breeds fragility. To sustain life an unfathomable amount of microscopic and complex structures are required. If we were made of steel we would be hundreds of feet tall and would be just as fragile. The body is like a planet in itself. It has lakes and rivers full of fish, mountains, valleys, an eco system etc...

Looking at the body as a whole is like looking at the universe as a whole.....beautiful, complex and fragile. You have to look closer to see it's strength.

The Non Scientific answer:
The body is not durable because this life is just a stopping point on an eternal journey. The body is intended to feel pain and suffer as well as feel joy. In the afterlife there will be no pain or physical pleasure (Sorry Chelle). Our bodies are intended to be an instrument provided to us as an opportunity to learn and experience this existence.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Boston
Posts: 6559

Fuck science's answer. Do you wanna be made of plastic? Water? Metal?

Can plastic have an orgasm? Didn't think so. Can water have an orgasm? I doubt it. Can metal have an orgasm? Once again, no. I have no complaints as to my body knowing that much.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35560

quote:

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Originally posted by Vegas
Fuck science's answer. Do you wanna be made of plastic? Water? Metal?

Can plastic have an orgasm? Didn't think so. Can water have an orgasm? I doubt it. Can metal have an orgasm? Once again, no. I have no complaints as to my body knowing that much.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Boston
Posts: 6559

quote:

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Originally posted by Smug Git


There is an 'orgasm motif' to your exposition of the mind-body problem I see.

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Mind you, my body feels damn good when I have an orgasm

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