So my arguments and descriptions represent my freedom.

Yes and no. Freedom can be represented by arguments and description of others. See, Libyans and Iraqis didn't need the freedom they were told they would have through democracy. With that 'freedom', they are worse off.

Today I had this dream that my soul was a depository of many mind-body experiences each stacked on the other in holes that were six foot deep.

My task was to dig six feet down into the subconscious of my mind body, then take off in a military Jeep - I was a major - and enrich my body-mind experience before coming to be buried.

That's my freedom experience this moment; my security.

freedom can exist even in insecurity.

It is exactly because what is freedom to Muriel might not be so to Swenani that freedom can exist in insecurity. Yes, freedom can exist in prison. It is not a traditional convenience. It is the inconvenient reality.

Something isn't real simply because it's supported by consensus. And reality isn't existence but significance.

And I have two words for the both of you: Victor Frankl "Man's search for meaning."

In this little book Frankl proved the correctness of your words above. Brick walls and metal doors or man's cruelty to man do not a prison make. For it to become a prison, the prisoner has to make it so.

Not anymore than one could threaten god.

To be honest even the body does not face any threats. It is only the mind that materializes such illusions, apparently as a 'survival' mechanism, a holdover from a wrong belief that our 'survival' is tied to a body.

You could say that.

I think it was Carl Jung (I could be wrong) who argued that the main role of the ego mind is to ensure the survival of the body. It does this largely through subterfuge. The most common is by using the senses to create illusions that in turn get us to take defensive action.

But the fact that the body can not survive for very long, no matter what we do, is a given. The body is a vehicle built for a specific and limited job and when that job is done, we move on.

Our spiritual journey does not stop because our body has died, anymore than your travel on Earth could end simply because one car has broken down.

[quote=tycho]How would you respond to this article Wakanyugi? http://pinker.wjh.harvar...004_09_27_newsweek.html[/quote]

I struggle with the structure that is often used to describe the human make up, one that, for instance, implies the mind, body, soul etc are separate entities. I only use this Cartesian/Freudian typology because that is how I was taught. Otherwise I strongly feel it is a limited way to describe who/what we are.

I therefore find Pinkers typology, using the analogy of a computer, to be similarly limited.

This I strongly believe, however:

1. The physical human experience on Earth is important but it is only a very small portion of what we are and what we are about.

2. Language and the structures of time and space (four dimensions etc) are poor tools to describe this greater reality and it is no surprise that we struggle.

3. No experience is ever wasted.

Finally, with the passage of the years I have grown to value this Earth adventure more and more. This is where I agree with Pinker that trying to eliminate our experience of depression and anxiety, by sedating us into zombiehood, reduces the full benefit of this adventure. These are integral parts of our experience here. You could protect a child from hurting himself by taking away his bike, but that is no way to teach him how to ride.

I have suffered episodes of depression all my life. Yet I have learned to be grateful for this challenge because now I realize there are some things I have learned from it that I could never have learned any other way.