Pepin

Consciousnesses arising out of natural selection over a long period of time is an expected result, as awareness of the external and internal environment is quite advantageous. To put it this way, the first organism to gain a very limited sense of sight has a great advantage over all the other organisms without sight. All that is required are the formation of crude sense devices, which is likely to occur due to generic mutation, and will be passed down and greatly refined due to selection. The mechanics of consciousness are not understood, which does not matter for this discussion. I point this out because people like to quote neurologists about how they do not understand consciousness, but they refer to the mechanics and not its existence. It is

Masturbation is quite healthy. There are medical professionals that recommend ejaculating for days a week for cancer prevention and other reasons. For females it is still recommended, but not as much. Strangely enough, people who have more sex also masturbate more according to studies. Nothing wrong with it as long as it isn't an addiction. There are a lot of porn companies now that are much better to their employees. They tend to be the more female friendly ones and owned by women. Provided you get it from those sorts of sources, I see no issue. Amateur is also a good option. If the issue is more with looking at other women, well we don't lose our base attraction when we find a partner. Looking at other women or men ought not degrade your attraction to your partner. I don't understand this viewpoint at all. Personally, I masturbate to relieve stress and to fall asleep. It also feels good, so it is a form of recreation. I use porn to get me off faster. Without it, it takes about an hour, which is too long, especially when the goal is to sleep after.

Certainly, though I would not say that it its good overall. It is like how morphine when applied after a serious injury can provide a decent transition from broken physically, to repaired. It is fine to say the morphine was helpful and played a major part in your recovery, but it its vital to understand that you would have been far better off without the injury.

I would disagree because of the connotations and other supporting theories of anarchism may conjure up a false representation of the concept you wish to put forward. Many people first hear of anarchism in regard to communist theory, and upon presenting the term they may have many preconceptions which will shape the conversation. It is quite the same with the term libertarian in the people will assume what it means through common libertarian political positions, as opposed to a principled approach. It is of course the same with terms such as feminism, platonism, atheism, and so on.I'm the long run of the conversation, it will likely work out with the curious, but if you are to use a term, it is vital to define it to save the headache.I have no issue with the preconceptions and loose associations people have, as there its limited time to really learn about intellectual theories, and many people including myself are likely to have very hazy and incorrect understandings of a concept despite the effort in learning about them. It can be difficult to abstract the commonality between many different claims, and having made assumptions based on your current understanding is understandable.Another issue its not setting of a person's flight or flight response. Words have a far greater power to do this than arguments with most people. There are stories of biologists talking to people on planes and buses about evolution without without mentioning the term evolution, the person will be amazed, and they will only be put off in the discussion until the term comes up. I have had many experiences like this myself in political discussions.I do agree with you if you are decent at communication, but most people aren't. I tend to be pretty disappointed when I hear people I agree with present their ideas. This forum in general tends to different, but unless you are good at rhetoric and presenting a concept and instances of that concept in an easy to comprehend manner, terms can be far more detrimental than not.

I do believe that I get what you mean about defining characteristics. It is like if we have a circle, and then remove the line that comprises the circle, then there is no more circle. If a theist is someone who believes in god, and later in life the theist loses faith, they can then not be considered a theist as the defining characteristic is now absent. In what I've read, most people tend to associate a part with its personality, so its interesting you associate it with its belief. But if we are focusing on a part from your psyche, it's defining characteristic is not its belief, rather it is its consciousness. A part is converted to a position more in line with reality when enough reason and evidence is used to convince it, though often it may not need arguments, and rather just need to be listened to. It is just the same as a theist "converting" to atheism. Honestly, convert might not be the best word.

I can play the part of devil's advocate. Though the method of making arguments without reference to their conceptual container, ie: "anarchism"; "atheism"; ect would work in a mentally functioning society, the current state of critical thought among the vast number of individuals in society is insufficient to have any clear effect. It is not that the language of reason is ineffective, rather that language is ineffective when spoken to those who have never learnt it. This may sound pessimistic, but it is more congruent with the problem presented, which is that people respond to words and their associations as opposed to concepts and their meaning. Though the reasons for this are of course linked to schooling and parenting, what we tend to forget that this pattern is simply being exploited as opposed to being created. When human language first came into being, it dealt primarily with percepts and entities. For a human who had never experienced fire, it was most advantageous for another human to refer to the percept through pointing, and then to scream in agony. As the development of language become more advanced, the pointing in conjunction with a verbal sound could then be used to refer to the entity: the fire, without the fire. As more and more was conceptualized, more and more associations could be made, which would aid drastically in human survival. I am not claiming that this is an accurate portrayal of language ought to be, but rather that the associative based language is more in line with how humans evolved. Language was simple not complex enough to allow for any sort of argument. Though I am all for argumentation for those who speak the language of reason, I hope it is clear that the strategies that governments; media cooperations; and parents use, are effective for a reason. Peaceful parenting will have an impact on the receptiveness of openness to argumentation in the future, but the current state of society really only allows for association based reasoning and pragmatism. Referring to debt as "the selling of the unborn" will be far more effective than a highly accurate argument which implies it. Simple associative memes such as "taxation is theft" have far more transmission power than a syllogism proving taxation is theft. Calling Obama and Bush mass murderers is far more effective than pointing out all of the people they ordered hits on. Only a very small minority of people will respond better to an argument than a catchphrase. Again, this isn't a method I like as I'd love to take the reason and evidence approach, but if we are to truly look at our audience and ask how others are winning them over, we have to ask: will the opposite strategy really work? /devil's advocate

Ideally you should be in cooperation with your parts. Being a mental dictator will only drive these parts into acting out. Even if you are an expert in repression as I was, the amount of stress it puts on your central nervous system has detrimental effects. As Stefan says, be your own stateless society. Thank you for that. I really want people to talk a lot more about subjective experience and what happens in our head. Honestly, my self-knowledge is very good as far as an understanding of the mechanics of my thoughts and emotions, but less so in terms of the more abstract ways people talk about it. Most people seem to be unaware of their own experience, or don't like to discuss it in fear of feeling crazy. Like in the post I linked, it is a method which intends to provide a resolution, but doesn't. Like with an internal bully, the bully likely will not go away until the bully is dealt with externally. This may not entail confronting the bully, but simply might mean breaking contact with them. As far as irrational thoughts that do not conform to reality, I would suggest taking off the mental filter. Provided the argument I am making is true, being aware of all of your thoughts is the first step. This can be a bit frightening, especially if you encounter racist thoughts. An IFS style dialog might be helpful. What I tend to do when I find part of me that has a belief that isn't correlated with reality, I do a ton of research on the topic. I think a lot about the subject, and talk to myself when I am driving. It often turns into a back and forth, and can be seen as reasoning with my parts. My psyche overall is very reason and evidence based, so this seems to be the best method to convert most of my parts. I am not saying that this is a good method for everyone, but I've found it has worked for me. Discovering and really feeling the scar tissue of the past really helps if it is that sort of issue.

Ah right, good catch. I hope you did not have to re-read it so many times due to the strange grammatical mistakes . I only seem to notice these sorts of mistakes hours after.

I was reading the above post and thinking, "wow, this poster seem pretty influenced by Rand", and about half way through I realized it was Rand. MFK, I would include in your post the fact that you are quoting Ayn Rand, just to avoid confusion.

I agree, though it is kind of like arguing against god without mentioning the word god or atheism. This is the strategy I take, and it can be frustrating to others as they really want you to define yourself as a word. I enjoy it because it puts the emphasis on the arguments. I consider the path to a peaceful society, an anarchic society to be one that initially involves peaceful parenting. Though the politics are of interest, I doubt that they can be tackled so early on.

To nitpick a bit, it doesn't seem valid to talk about this in terms of choosing to argue with these people. As the phrasing in your OP and title suggests, you are "drawn into" the argument, as opposed to deciding consciously. If my perception of this is correct, this is one of those things you just find yourself doing. It is like when I used to go onto certain sites, I would say to myself "I'm not going to spend four hours making arguments and providing resources nobody will read", but would all of a sudden find a wall of text in front of me. In these circumstances, like you said: the other person is certainly projecting and is completely irrational, but the benefit you get out of is a way to deal with the completely irrational within you. If your childhood is anything like mine, it consists of many instances of trying to convince authority figures of something being true, and not having your needs met because they would not listen to reason. Personally, I would go on for quite some time trying to convince my mother of the reasons to do something, and she wouldn't listen and eventually would yell at me to stop. Because of this, I often found myself in pointless and endless debates that occurred with irrational people later in life, and it was simply a recreation of this dynamic, as in attempting to get my needs met through debating an irrational person who is not willing to listen. Though I refer to this in terms of parts, it may not be conscious parts exactly, and rather just coping strategies. For instance, I have had large issues of not managing my emotions internally, and would often manage them externally through others. This strategy lends itself to people who manage are attempting to manage their emotions, but can only do so through others. The relation is really symbiotic and seems to create a codependence. Debating with irrational people is a similar relationship. The rationalist is dealing with their internal irrational thoughts externally, as a means of dealing with them internally; while the irrationalist is dealing with their irrational thoughts internally, through external means. It is tempting to say that both parties are the same in that they are both dealing with the internal through the external, but the difference is that the rationalist is avoiding as a means to not be the subject, while the irrationalist is confronting to be the subject. I hope the difference is clear because I don't know if the words I choose are conveying it too well. To provide some clarification, I don't mean to say that debating with any irrational person, or just helping a friend out, are all instances of this. Rather that when a pattern repeats that results in a continual waste of time, it is more likely that there is some sort of recreation and/or part projection occurring. As argued in this post, having parts that model irrational people is quite beneficial when you have to deal with irrational people. Though I consider myself quite rational, as in quite in line with reality, I have far too many irrational thoughts to count. Though I used to just shoot these thoughts down and deny having them, now I attempt to inquire into them and to find a resolution. To be meta, I hope this isn't projection on my part, but I don't believe it is. I also hope that this was helpful and wasn't completely gibberish. I haven't exactly had much practice at transferring these ideas into words, so it may come across as a bit confusing.

Just an idea. I put it in strong language so I don't have to qualify every statement with "it may be the case, but I am not sure". It is because there are irrational parts within your personality, and a method of dealing with them is to debate others. For instance, people often project their parental alter onto someone as a means of resolving some sort of issue. In the listener show, this occurs quite often, with Stefan being the child and the listener being the parent. The act of bullying is often an attempt to recreate experiences and to resolve it through others. In this case, there is a conflicting internal dialog in your head, and you are using others to resolve it. You are unable to stop conversing with these people because: the part(s) of you that believe this; they need a voice, as they likely have little chance of being heard internally; people external to you have little chance of providing resolution to an irrational viewpoint.

To provide some clarification, there is quantum theory and there is quantum mechanics. The mechanics is essentially pure math, and the theory is an explanation of what the math is describing. There are many different theories which are well justified in their view, but of course potentially wrong. The claim that an electron is in a superposition of states until observed is congruent with the math, but can also be explained in a different manner. I don't mean to say that the theories are loads of garbage and ought to be ignored, the theories are quite valuable, but rather to view the theories as an explanation of experimental results. Really, you have to understand the math and the experiments to get why physicists make statements like "the spin of an electron is up and down until measured", otherwise it just sounds like assertions. I can provide some resources if you are interested in understanding this, it is quite interesting in my opinion, but otherwise you are just going to have to accept these statements on the fact that quantum mechanics is the most successful scientific theory ever. Also, the OP is really making an argument in regard to QM or QT.

I am quite convinced that we deal with parts all throughout the day, but run into the issue of attributing our own thoughts to our self. The ideas we have, the things we remember, the thought that goes on behind the scenes are all instances of the mecosystem at work. I am certain that we have all have had those times where we take a few seconds to think about something, such as an answer to a question someone has asked us, and we actually don't do any thinking and just wait for an answer. I am often amazed at some of the lightning quick reasoning my mind does at times where there is a long and intricate argument that I experience, and then a quarter of second later rebuttal, and then a quarter of a second later some sort of conclusion. The majority of my thoughts are not conscious and are rather things I experience. A large part of self knowledge is to be able to identify yourself. To expand upon this, I would claim that people put too much focus on identifying parts, and not enough focus on identifying the self. There are many reasons for why this is, but my claim is that it is a far better method to have an ability to identify the self, as you will then be able to identify any part or unconscious activity as "non-self". What I've found myself is that the majority of my mental activity is unconscious. The bulk of my conscious activity involves long term planning, analyzing interpreting difficult lines of reasoning, impulse control, and identifying flaws and abnormalities in sensation; arguments; and perception, and remaining neutral among conflicting ideas and opinions whether internal or external. A large part of the mecosytem are parts that model other people. I am certain that we have all had the experience of arguing with someone in our head, and this is allowed because part of us has modeled this person. Though most people don't think about it in such terms, it is the most natural and everyday mecosystem experience we have. We will usually be playing the part of ourselves in the discussion, and the other part will be entirely separate from us. If you doubt this, next time you get into a argument or strong disagreement with someone, and are later playing through a debate in your head, take a second to slow down and observe. Make an argument and wait for the response. You won't have to wait for it, it'll just come, and it will be fully formed and thought out in the person's tone and rhetoric. To make this point even more clear, most have had the issue of not being able to stop this debate in our heads. The conversation will continue to occur despite our conscious efforts to drop the subject. This is often because the person is literally in our head, and because the part is often debating another part within us. This is why psychological bullying can be so harmful, part of our psyche will take on the part in order to handle interactions with the bully in the best manner possible, but if we have artificially constraints in our approach to handling bullies, the bully will remain within and continue to bully us. Like with all parts, there are positive intentions in this. As I suggested above, the modeling of a bully is intended to determine the best course of action in handling the bully, and not to create an internal bully that will stay with you forever. Ideally, if the conflict with the bully can be solved internally, then it can be solved externally. Though this is anecdotal evidence, my own bullying parts disappeared once I dealt with them internally. There was a few cases where I dealt with them internally, and then when I encountered the bully I played it out similar to how it was in my head, and the bullying stopped completely. For anyone who has these issues, I would suggest using the internal dialog to your advantage by finding a way to deal with the situation externally, as I would argue that this is why the internal dialog is occurring in the first place. In the case of parental bullies, the modeling is vital in providing the child an understanding of actions they can and cannot take; subjects to bring up and subjects not to bring up; who to be and who not to be. It is essentially a survival mechanism which allows for predicting the behavior of others, which is quite vital in the more tribal days of mankind, as saying the wrong thing to the wrong person would likely get you killed. It is important to remember that infanticide in prehistoric times was very common, and not knowing your parents or other members of the tribe to a high degree would lead to abandonment. This kind of modeling is far more difficult to overcome as our brains mold according to these people. Your parental parts will likely always be within you, which is why it is essential to deal with them. To provide a more positive side of modeling, it allows us to empathize and understand people with great depth. I am certain we've all had those experiences where we know exactly what a good friend is thinking; where you'll both be on the same train of thought; where something you said makes little sense verbally, but they understand anyway; where you know just the thing to say or do to cheer them up. I can go on, but my main point is that there is a tendency to think of the mecosystem in terms of unique and distinct personalities within us, when really that those parts make up a smaller subset of the mecosystem, and that the key to identifying parts is identifying the self.

Welcome to the form. So sorry for your past. I am curious, what are the actions you are taking to achieve your goals?

A direction to take the conversion might be "do ethics exist?", or "should ethics exist?". If not, that is fine as creating and enforcing your ethical system cannot be considered immoral by this person's belief, as to say it its immoral to do so is to make an ethical claim. If ethics ought to exist, then the question is "how?". If ethics are ought claims that apply to all of humanity, then how can an ethical claim exist if it cannot be practices by all humanity? What criteria ensures that claims are capable of being translated into reality? If ethical systems are to be designed, they must be objective to be implemented. Ethical systems can be designed with contradictions or a lack of clarity, but such systems cannot work when put into practice. It is like if we design a bridge without reference to physics, certainly the design may be of a bridge, but a bridge that cannot be constructed. To provide an example, if ethics applies to all humans capable of free choice, ought claims which cannot be achieved by all humans with free choice have no capability of achieving their end. Ought claims such as "you ought to rape" cannot be achieved by all humans as it requires some humans to not rape in order to be raped, meaning the claim can never achieve what it intends. On the other hand, the ought claim "humans ought not to rape" can be achieved by all humans at the same time, meaning that it can actually fulfil the end of applying to all individuals.

To take a different approach, decide for yourself what you get enjoyment out of. Screw people who tell you that you need to stop thinking, that you need to go party, that you need to let your mind go. Find what you enjoy, and find people to take part in that. I really enjoy intellectual conversations, so I gravitate towards people who like discussing any kind of idea. If I go to a social gathering, I get the most of my enjoyment from analyzing body language, seeing what people think and why, and finding entertainment. I really just love thinking and figuring things out, I mean I get a lot of pleasure when I have great thoughts or learn something new. To back away from the above, perhaps you are unable to enjoy yourself because you are depressed. Having been depressed for most of my life, it isn't a sadness, but rather an apathy. So much just feels pointless: all the inconsequential and predictable small talk, segmenting off this time to do something so people don't worry about you, putting up with a number of annoyances, having to react to people who won't stop talking to you until you give a reaction... I might posit that you avoid discussing emotions because you are avoiding your own. Unfortunately, this results in a general repression of all emotions, positive and negative, which would explain why you enjoy little. I find it likely that since you value rationality to a high degree, you avoid emotions because you find them to be irrational. To expand upon the last sentence, as a highly rational person myself, and I tend to find many of my emotions to be irrational. Having had a terrible childhood, this isn't a surprise. It seems easy for others to respond to these thoughts as if they are contingent with reality, to project childhood situations into unrelated contexts, to assign blame where it does not belong... Yet when you clearly see these thoughts as irrational and refuse to act on them, the emotional content simply is repressed. When I was around the age of seven, I began to have this thought that I was special. It was as if only I could perform a task so well, that only I could figure out problems, that only I could make unique art, that only I was intelligent. This really confused me I felt compelled to accept it due to it feeling so certain, but I couldn't find any reason to believe it, and thus rejected it. This thought continued popping up for a number of years and really gave me a disdain for emotions. Hopefully I am not projecting, but you may have something similar going on. Have you found your emotions to be irrational? Do you not like your emotions because of this?

Fetal development has a lot do with it. We are all born females as the video below discusses. A hypothesis is that excesses and deficiencies in various sex hormones during fetal development can result in a female brain with a male body, vice versa, or somewhere in the middle. The genitals form very early in, while the brain develops much slower. Though most people think in terms of chromosome being the determinant of gender and sex, it is actually the influence of the chromosomes as far as its sex hormone production in relation to the sex hormone and other chemicals the mother produces. If the mother doesn't consume certain nutrients, the fetus's y or x chromosome may not be able to fully express itself. To go more indepth in this, a small percentage of people are born neither male or female. They might have a vagina, but it would also appear that they have a small penis. What happened here is that during fetal development, the fetus grew as a female but then began to grow as a male towards the end up development while resulted in the clit turning into a penis. As another example, those with micropenises likely developed mostly as a male, but during the phase where their clit was to enlarge, it did so very little due to little presence of testosterone. As a final example, those going through sex changes will be given sex hormones and their bodies will actually start to morph into the other sex. This is most notable during puberty as it is when the most amount of changes are made in terms of bone structure and brain development. Females taking testosterone will actually begin to develop very large clits, and some will have mini-penises. This isn't just true of those trying to become the other sex, but of female bodybuilders. The follow picture is NSFW and is of the clit of a female bodybuilder. Though I am focusing on the physical manifestations of this, it is only because it is easier to illustrate the points than with the neurological ones. It is the same sort of factors that cause a female to be born with what looks like a penis as it is for a male to be born with the brain of a female. I don't wish to give the impression that this is the whole story in all instances, and that there aren't other factors, but fetal development is a huge factor. Human sexuality is very complex as the chemicals interplay in our sexual preference and expression and even our bodies change quite frequently over our lifetime. The line between male and female is far more ambiguous than it is made out to be, but even more so in instances where a person develops in a non-typical way. I don't quite understand your response. Scientific study of human sexuality requires the observation and inquiry of human preference across large segments of the population. When particular results appear frequently enough, they are classified into a class and likely studied further. For instance, in studying sexuality you may survey 1,000 people and find that 10 of those people report having no sexual desire entirely. You may then proceed to question these people further, and to search for more people who report feeling no sexual desire. After enough research is done to find that sexual desire is not necessarily innate to all humans and that this is not the result of extreme circumstance, then it is possible to create a classification which pertains to those who experience no sexual desire. As far as your conclusion goes, I'd agree that it is a conclusion, but it certainly isn't an argument. I don't quite know what the words mean, I can guess, but I'd prefer to choose not to. I just made a post previous to this going over someone the details of fetal development and the interplay of hormones in sex determination and sexuality, and I believe I've made a pretty decent case that the matter is not all that black and white. Even if we are to assume that this is a black and white matter with 90% of the population due to fetal development going very smoothly, the matter becomes quite gray in considering the 10% that have irregularities in fetal development. As said in a previous post, none of this really matters unless you have a friend who it matters to, have an interest in it, or are scientist studying human sexuality. I can't really bring myself to care about if someone is gay, transexual, crossdressing, or whatever... Unless I suppose I am attracted to them.

To push back a bit, what would it mean for these terms to not be real? That the experience of a person's sexuality is not valid? That they are lying? That the varying expressions of sexuality are not measurable? That they sexual makeup ought to be something than what it is? Why the terminology? Because it refers to something real and is important to the person in their relationships. These terms are not pulled from thin air, but are generated through the study of a large sum of unconnected people who have a similar way of describing the same experience. I want to be clear that I am not in support of this language in political contexts, but rather only in scientific and relational ones.

I am rather confused by the posts in this thread. I feel like there is something I am missing. I do know that there are certain people who use the term in a similar manner that other use "white male", but is it that bad? Maybe it is how conversations can go bad through the use of a single word and the person is unwilling to have any acceptance or curiosity about where you currently are. In talking with my girlfriend who has spent a lot of time around the LGBT community and has studied sexuality a decent amount, I've found that sexuality is rather complex. Sexuality isn't just a measurement of your sex and who you are attracted to, but also how you express your sexuality, and how you identify. Someone who is female and attracted to men, but expresses sexuality in a very masculine manner is quite different than someone who is female and is very feminine. Men who are considered metrosexual are attracted to females, yet express their sexuality in a feminine manner. This idea seemed a little odd to me at first, but it is at play everywhere. The identification aspect to me is the least important aspect of sexuality, but it seems important to most people. I think it is important to accept people who have these distinctions, or rather to not care unless they are a close friend, or unless you are intrigued in the subject. Discussions about this subject matter can be tricky as their flight or flight response tends to be easily triggered, and it is quite likely that a large portion of this person's life has revolved around thinking about their sexuality, while our own is likely something that hasn't taken up too much mental space. My main issue with the approach of most of this is that there is the premise that "the culture enforces false gender notions", which I can agree with especially in regard to religious institutions, but they will then talk to people as if they haven't been taught these notions. It is like if you are talking with a Christian who this is true of to a large extent, you don't talk about their Christianity as if it wasn't something they were indoctrinated into you. You don't get offended or amazed at stupid statements because you understand quite clearly that they were forced as a child to accept these notions.

Unreal perceptions are quite common in everyday life. A basic example is looking for your keys, not being able to find them, only to find them right in plain sight. The average person does not assume the keys were not on the table when they could not find them. This assumption does not just come from knowledge of the laws of physics, but also built in neural circuitry which developed through billions of years of evolution, not only because object constancy aids in survival, but because object constancy accurately reflects the Newtonian world. Phenomena such as seeing ghosts, drug induced hallucinations, spoons bend, astral projection, and so on are psychological phenomena that have no relation to reality. It is not that people do not really have these perceptions, but rather that these perceptions do not describe the physical world. The best method of testing perceptions against the physical world is that scientific method, which has failed on all accounts to verify any mystical claims. This mystical pseudoscience which permeates a lot of self-help is absolute junk. People who intend to link Buddhism and quantum physics together are infuriating. Certainly I am not making an argument in this respect and am simply lining up a large number of negative adjectives in a row to shoot down an obvious marketing scheme that appeals to those who do not want wish for their irrationalism to conflict with their sanity, but I am uncertain of how to make the point without saying "pick up a physics textbook".

To be more accurate, you are arguing that consciousness is not an effect of the known physical forces, but is an effect of another force which is unrelated. Essentially, it is a continuation of the Aristotle vs. Plato debate in regards to concepts and knowledge. I will not rebut any argument tonight due to needing to sleep, but I will suggest that you ought not to describe this other dimension as independent. If concepts do not interact with any of the three spacial dimensions, then that would also mean that concepts cannot affect the three spacial dimensions. If the conceptual realm is incapable of interacting through any of the physical forces due to being at a metaphorical "right angle", then concepts would be nonexistent in our reality, as they would have no capability in manifesting itself into our physical actions. What would make more sense with your argument is to not say that the conceptual realm is independent, but rather that matter has some dependency on this realm, especially in context to humans beings whose understanding of the world is almost entirely in the form of concepts.

Relaxation neurologically is when the brain and consequently your muscles are in a less active state. A common measurement of relaxation in medical studies is that of brainwave frequency, pulse, sweat, and movement. To focus on one of those measurements, brainwave frequency, someone who is relaxed will have low brainwave frequences, likely less than 10hz, while someone who is stressed will have their frequencies above 15hz. When someone falls asleep, their waves will fall into the 1hz range. There are many methods that cause relaxation, such as: meditation; exercise; progressive muscle relaxation; avoiding stimulus; healthy living; massage; watching massage videos, and so on, but is important to put relaxation into the proper context within your life. Stress states are healthy and desirable in many different activities; exercise for instance induces a lot of stress on the body; complex thought requires high frequency brainwaves; watching a great movie may put you on the edge of your seat; experiencing new things will naturally put a huge stress on you; and so on. Having been a person who was rather unaware of the massive burden of stress I was carrying around for my whole life, I will claim that the first step to relaxation is to identify your stress. I like many people would walk around with my shoulders hunched up for most of the day, and I wouldn't even notice. To correct this issue, I had to gain the ability to not only tell when my shoulders were unnecessarily contracted, but also to feel the stress that it created. An interesting thing happens naturally when you actually feel the stress, you correct the problem naturally. It is kind of like when you are in an uncomfortable position, you just kind of change position. To add something, I said that complex thought requires a high frequency brainwaves, which isn't quite the full picture. Relaxed states are very good for thinking and in particular focusing on a single topic. This isn't very scientific, but I'd describe it as more parallel processing than procedural. It is kind of like you gain more access to the different parts of your psyche when relaxed, and are mostly just dealing with your prefrontal cortex when stressed. Again, this paragraph is based on my experience and a few things I've read. To be more objective, studies show stressed states cause better performance, but that the performances declines, particularly in accuracy, when the stress state is prolonged. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxation_(psychology)

In a book I am writing, I distinguish between the two in the following way. To say something exists, is to say that it has in effect on reality. To say something exists in reality, is to say it has an effect on reality, and that it is a physical phenomenon. Physical phenomenon essentially refers to the science of physics, but can be sensibly be extended to include other sciences. The easiest way to imagine what it means to say "exist in reality" is to think of a time in the universe where there is no life. With these definitions, it is possible to say that sensations, perceptions, concepts, and dreams exist, but do not exist in reality. As a good example, the concept of a deity does not exist in reality, but the concept of a deity has a large impact on people's behavior in reality. Another good example is that someone might perceive the form of a bear in the dark distant woods, when in reality there was no bear. Though this bear does not exist, the perception of the bear does exist, and has a great affect on the person. The use the term tends to be contextual, which I think is fine for most conversations, though not for philosophical texts though. For instance, if we have a debate on the existence of god, it is implied that we are talking about the existence of god in reality, not conceptually or perceptually. If we are on the other hand talking about the existence of concepts, it likely isn't implied that concepts do not exist in reality as this sort of understanding isn't very common, and we will distinguish between existing in reality and existing perceptually or conceptually.

"I don't know, what do you think?". Talking about protection far prior will be helpful to their understanding that identifying the true problem is not as easy as you think it is.