Karl

Who told you that ?

You haven't been reading my Objectivist 101 :-) we can believe our eyes, but our cognition can be erroneous.

We should stop filling them with conflicting concepts and mumbo jumbo and we could trust them a bit more.

Part 8 Consciousness as possessing identity (I'm I still doing this, I must be crackers I've got stuff to do) Consciousness has identity. Every existent is bound by the laws of identity and causality. Consciousness is an existent, it is limited, finite and lawful. It is a faculty with a nature. It is a something that has to grasp its objects somehow. Objectivism stands alone in that view. Every attack on human cognition and the senses take the view that consciousness should not have identity and since it does, it is invalid. The naive realists accept the same premise because consciousness is a characterless mirror. The standard argument of the skepticist remains the same as ever. That the nature of the senses intrudes on our ability to view reality directly. That we only see reality as it appears to man, not as it really is. The Kantians twist the argument slightly, but in essence it remains the same; that if we had a different sort of mind, or conceptual apparatus our idea of truth and reality would be different. Human knowledge is therefore only human and thus subjective. In other words, all these philosophies note that the consciousness is 'something' with a specific nature and thus disqualified as a faculty of true cognition. As Rand observed of these philosophies "man is blind because he has eyes, deaf because he has ears, deluded because he has a mind-things he perceives do not exist because he perceives them". I would add one further clause "unconscious because he is conscious and non existent because he exists". Objectivists deny that there is "reality as it really is" because there is no "reality as it really isn't". There is no difference in this context between what appears and what is real. It is reality-just as it appears to any consciousness. To deny it is to believe the notion that grasping something is not to grasp something. Neither do objectivist succumb to the idea of "things in themselves" or "things in relation to consciousness" as it assumes that the mere fact of existing is an agent of distortion. Objectivist reject the skeptic claim "that man doesn't perceive reality, but only its effects on the cognitive faculty". Objectivists insist on consciousness. That consciousness has a nature does not invalidate it. Identity is not a disqualified of consciousness, but it's pre condition. It is the principle by reference to which all standards of cognition must be defined. Every process of knowledge requires an object of cognition and a means of cognition. Succinctly: what do I know and how do I know it ? The object is always an aspect of reality and nothing else needs be said. The means pertains to the kind of consciousness and determines the form of cognition. There is no conflict between these elements. The means of cognition cannot be used to deny the object of cognition as the skeptic would say. That the object is reality cannot be used to deny human cognition of it as the Mystics believe. The how cannot negate the what, or the what to negate the how. A is A, consciousness is consciousness and theforefore it has definite identity.

You probably didn't want to say "a being of pure enlightened knowledge against the darkness of ignorance" so I said it for you :-)

You, Junko, Apech, BES, Liminal-luke, Dusty, Nungali, Bindi, Cheshire Cat, Dreambliss, spotless, Kar3n, Taoist texts appear to be animals according to your avatars. Zerostao appears to be a mythical animal.

Infinite debunking regression ? :-) Don't like the first chapter of the book by the way- riven with fallacies.

If we deliberately go wandering into a maze with the intention of getting lost, then it shouldn't be at all surprised to discover it is an achievable intention. Neither should we be confused that we feel confused. The only one in that maze is you and it's one of your own construction and one on which you have laboured many hours. You need to figure out the original purpose of its construction.

Sometimes I don't believe you sometimes don't believe the things that you say, but only sometimes, most times I do.

I prefer Caulibage, it's a far more interesting vegetable, half brain and half bagel.

You have to make the choice of what is best for you. You are on one train and you can slow it down, speed it up, get off, get back on, wait a while on the platform, or take a different train. No one can tell you exactly what you have to do. Do you leave it to chance and intuition, do you trust and have faith, do you think it doesn't necessarily matter and get on and off trains if one doesn't seem to go where you had planned, or because it doesn't feel so good ? You see I do not think its the trains that are flawed, I think they are just trains going multiple places, but if it were me, well I would want to read the timetables, I would want an idea where I was headed and which was the best train to get on. With esoteric, meditative practices no one can really tell you where you are headed, the destination is shrouded in deep mystery-some say they know, or have a good idea and you can choose to interrogate, or just accept they know and that you like their approach/ attitude and that's sufficient. At some point though, you have to either plow on, or take stock. Is the progressive verifiable and in what context ? Is it increasingly divorcing you from reality/yourself and are is that the way you want to go ? Would grounding be slowing progress, or is it a useful part of the process ? I wouldn't try and answer for you. I know what I did and why ? In a sense I had an inkling, but it was only after that I could look back and see what I could not. I'm not minded to say that this, or that is the answer you seek, but if you feel a conceptual fog allied to a feeling of progress, then I would say you chose feelings over reasoned cognition. There are many here-well most-that would argue that the heart is the proper approach to these things, but as you know, I'm not one.

Part 7 sensory qualities as real. Let's consider the metaphysical status of sensory qualities themselves. Since objects have a nature independent of us, it must be possible to distinguish between form and object; between aspects of the perceived that derive from our perception (such as colours, sounds and smells) and the aspects that belong to metaphysical reality itself, apart from us. If they are not in the object, as is often asked, then they are merely in the mind, therefore subjective and unreal. Most recognise this problem as one of basic philosophy that crops up on this forum often enough: This is the problem of the common object such as a table which is solid, brown and motionless and the table of science which, it is said, is largely empty space (and here I add to LP commentary and suggest we have not yet adequately defined 'space'). To the scientist the table is defined by colourless racing particles, and/or charges, rays, waves or fields. Rand says "we CAN distinguish form from object, but this does NOT imply the subjectivity of form or the invalidity of the senses". The task of identifying the nature of physical objects as they apart from mans form of perception does not belong to philosophy, but to physics. Whatever such attributes turn out to be they have no philosophic significance, neither metaphysical or epistemological. If it turned out that the entire universe was composed of nothing more than 'puffs of meta energy' acting on men's means of perception it would prove nothing philosophically. If everything was made of 'meta puffs' then so would man including sense organs and brain. The process of sense perception would remain a certain kind of relationship between external entities and those that comprise the human perceptual apparatus and brain. The result would still be the material world as we perceive it with all its objects and qualities. Even under the present hypothesis such objects and qualities would still not be the products of consciousness. Their existence would be a metaphysically given fact. A consequence of meta puff interactions and outside mans power to create or destroy.the things we perceive in this theory would certainly not be primaries, but they would never the less be unimpeachably real. A thing may not be condemned as unreal on the grounds that it is only an effect which has a deeper explanation. One does not subvert the reality of something by explaining it. One does not make objects or qualities subjective by identifying the causes underlying them. In reverse. A being who knew only the meta puffs would not know an aspect of reality that we know. Philosophers have chosen to define only two possibilities in regards sensory qualities. In the object, or in the mind. The former denies mans independent means of perception (intrincisist) and the latter is taken to mean 'subjective/unreal' (subjectivist). Rand regards this as defective false alternate- they are not object alone, or perceiver alone , but object as perceived. In a deeper sense, however, such products are in the object. They are so not as primaries independent of mans sense organs, but as the inexorable effect of the primaries. Consciousness is the faculty of awareness; it does not create its content, or sensory forms in which it is aware of that content. In a sense, everything we perceive, including those qualities that depend on mans physical organs is 'out there'. Those who condemn the senses as deceptive as they are merely effects on men are guilty of re writing reality. It ignores the fact that the metaphysically given is an absolute. Perception is necessarily a process of interaction: there is no way to perceive an object that doesn't somehow impinge on ones body. Sense qualities therefore must be effects. It is to reject the senses for existing whilst yearning for a fantasy form of perception which is logically impossible. Those that condemn senses on the grounds that sense qualities are different from the primaries that cause them (the scientific table) are guilty of the same fallacy. They demand primaries are given to man pure-in no sensory form. This view of perception is the mirror theory. That consciousness acts like a luminous mirror reproducing external entities faithfully in its inner world, untainted by any contribution from the sense organs. This is an attempt to re write the nature of consciousness. Consciousness is not a mirror or an ethereal medium. It cannot have any kind of similarity or analogy with a physical object; the concept is axiomatic. Consciousness is not a faculty of reproduction, but of perception. It's function is not to create and study an inner world that duplicates the outer.its function is to look directly outwards, to perceive that which exists and to do so by a certain means. As to the claim that puffs, particles or waves make up what an object do not look like the object we perceive, this is a reversal of the truth. Looks means appearing to our visual senses. The object is precisely what the puffs look like as perceived by man. We can know the content of reality 'pure' apart from mans perceptual form, but only by abstracting away the perceptual form. Starting with sensory data, the performing a scientific process. The senses cannot give us pure content and demand it is to rewrite the function of senses and mind. To demand a precept of that which is the object only of a concept. Rand is often accused of naive realism, but that's incorrect. NR. Is an ancient form of mirror theory. It claims the senses do give us pure reality. The senses NRs hold, are valid BECAUSE sensory qualities exist in objects independent of mans means of perception. Which, in defiance of all evidence to the contrary, are held to contribute nothing to our experience. The intention of NR to uphold the validity of the senses is correct, but the content of the theory, unable to deal with the issue of sensory form, fails to implement its intentions and plays into the hands of the anti-sense tribes.

Part 6 the senses as necessarily valid. Metaphysics from the objectivist viewpoint is highly delimited. It identifies only facts and not particular existents or to guide men to goals. This is different from epistemology-the science studying the nature and means of human knowledge. Human knowledge, though based on sensory perception is conceptual in nature. On the conceptual level consciousness is neither automatic or infallible; it can and does err, distort and depart from reality (through ignorance or evasion). Man must therefore discover a method of cognition-unlike animals. He must learn to use his mind to distinguish truth from falsehood and to validate conclusions. Before getting to conceptual knowledge we need to cover sense perception and volition. Since concepts, according to objectivism, are integrations of perceptual data, there can be no concepts apart from sense experience. There are no innate ideas. Consciousness begins tabula rasa (a blank slate); all concepts are derived from sensory evidence. If the senses are invalid then so are concepts. If one can put no trust in the senses, then thinking is worthless. The validity of the senses is an axiom. Like the fact of consciousness, the axiom is outside the province of proof because it is a precondition of proof. Proof consists of reducing an idea back to the data provided by the senses. These data are the foundation of all subsequent knowledge and precede any process of inference. They are primaries of cognition and are self evident. The validity of the senses is not an independent axiom; it is a corollary of the fact of consciousness. If the senses are not valid, neither are concepts, including those used in any attack on sense validity. The senses merely respond to stimuli acting upon them, making us aware that something exists. We are not aware of what they are, merely that the are. "The task of the senses" writes Rand "is to give evidence of existence, but identification belongs to reason-only that something is, not what it is, this must be learned by the mind". A stick in water appears bent is not a perceptual error. It is a testament to sense reliability. The senses do not censor their responses they respond in full context of the facts including that light travels through water at a different rate than air. Our senses do not of course identify all facts, constituents, compounds, atomic and electrical forces at work within entities, but it does provide a first form of grasping which will later lead to scientific discovery. Science is the unraveling of sensory data and has no other data on which the proceed. Conceptualisation involves an interpretation that may not conform to reality. Therefore someone can "think about nothing" I.e nothing real such as a perpetual motion machine, demonic possession or Santa clause, but the senses sum up what is. Once the mind has aquired a certain content of sensory material. It can then contemplate its own content such as dreams. This isn't sense perception at all, but a process of turning inwards, made possible in the first instance by the individual having perceived them first through the senses. There is no difficulty in differentiating dreams from perception. The concept of a dream has meaning only because it denotes a contrast to waking awareness. If a man were not able to recognise wakefulness, the word 'dream' would be meaningless to him. A difference in sensory form amongst observers-something brought up many times by Brian-is precisely that: it is a difference in the form of perceiving the same object, the same one reality. Such a difference does not pertain to cognitive content and does not indicate a disagreement between different parties viewing the same reality. The senses of a man with normal vision, do not contradict those of a colour blind man. When the former says the object is red, he means in reason "it is an object in reality of a specific nature, such that, when it acts on my senses, I percieve it as the colour red". It is true when the colour blind man describes it as a shade of grey . Neither statement conflicts with the other. Both men percieve what is in a specific form. Neither can anyone come to a different conclusion about the nature of the object. In this respect, differences in sensory form DO NOT matter. They have no consequences as regards cognition. A blind man and a sighted man do not come up with different theories of physics despite the differences. No type of sense perception can register everything. A is A and any perceptual apparatus is limited. By virtue of being able directly to discriminate one aspect of reality, a consciousness cannot discriminate some other aspect that would require a different kind of sense organs. Whatever facts the senses do register, are facts. These facts eventually lead the mind to the rest of its knowledge.

Perfectly :-) it's worth noting that you can't give up until you choose to give up and that giving up cannot just be something you refuse to do, but something you have reasoned sufficiently is unnecessary. I would say welcome to the club, but it's probably more accurate to say welcome to life as a fully realised, seperate, independent individual. I should also say, if you haven't got all your conceptual dots lined up and your definitions crossed- it's highly likely that you haven't- then you will not fully accept your position and likely begin to feel a certain longing to return to known practices. Don't let that put you into a quandary where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. It takes a while to fully understand and hammer out reality in a way that you are totally confident in your developed philosophy. If you relapse a bit don't sweat it, sometimes that happens.

I've replied with in the body of your text in square brackets. I can't get multi quote to function on my iPad. Maybe that's because I'm a Luddite :-)

Part 5 idealism and materialism as a rejection of basic axioms ( especially for Nikolai and Ralis :-)) As the previous part might have enlightened readers to why I believe there is some connection between the over arching aims of Daoism, then this part hopes to finally lay to rest the accusation that Objectivism is either dressed up Idealism, or extremist materialism. The idealists-Plato,Plotinus,Augustine, Hegel-regard reality as a spiritual dimension transcending and controlling the world of nature, which they regard as deficient, ephemeral, imperfect or as partly real. Since spiritual has no meaning other than pertaining to consciousness, the content of true reality in this view is some function or form of consciousness. This amounts to nothing more than the primacy of consciousness-to the advocacy of consciousness without existence. Ayn Rand describes this epistemology as mystic "Mystics of spirit". Mystics because they hold that knowledge (true reality) is not derived from sense perception, or reason based on it, but from an otherworldly source such as revelation or its equivalent. A typical example is religion and the belief in the supernatural that is common to all idealist creeds. Supernatural means 'beyond nature'. It would have to be a form of existence beyond existence; a thing beyond entities; a something beyond identity. It is an assault on everything man knows about reality. It is a contradiction of rational metaphysics and a rejection of the basic axioms of philosophy. It simply brushes aside everything perceived or known and replaces it with unproven myth. The popular version of idealism is the belief in a super natural God: Is God the creator of the universe ? Not if existence has primacy over consciousness. Is God the designer of the universe ? Not if A is A. The alternative to design is not chance (as Einstein said God doesn't play dice). It is causality. Is God omnipotent? Nothing and no one can alter the metaphysically given. Is God infinite? Infinite is larger than any specific quantity-it is no specific quantity. It would be a quantity without identity. As A is A every entity is finite; it is limited in the number of its qualities and extent;this applies to the universe also. One can suggest a number sequence, or the division of a line is infinite, but the reality is that wherever one stops counting or dividing, there one is at the finite. Can God perform miracles ? A miracle is not merely the unusual. A woman giving birth to full size elephants would be a miracle. Is God purely spiritual ? Spiritual means pertaining to consciousness and consciousness is a faculty of certain living organisms. Such a thing would require to be non-conscious. If one is to postulate a supernatural realm, one must give up reason, proof and definitions, instead relying on faith. Objrctivism advocates reasons mans only means of knowledge therefore it does not accept God or the supernatural. We reject every spiritual dimension, force, form, identity, power that is alleged to transcend existence. We reject idealism and only accept reality. This does not mean Objectivists are materialists. Materialists-Hobbes, Democritus, Marx, Skinner champion nature but deny the reality or efficacy of consciousness. Consciousness, in this view, is either myth or useless by product of the brain. In objectivist terms this amounts to the advocacy of existence without consciousness. It is the denial of mans faculty of cognition and therefore all knowledge. Rand describes materialists as "Mystics of muscle". "Mystics", because, like idealists, they reject the faculty of reason. Man, they hold, is essentially a body without a mind. His conclusions, accordingly, reflect not the objective methodology of reason and logic, but the blind operation of physical factors, such as atomic dances in the cerebrum, glandular squirtings, S-R conditioning, or the tools of production moving in the contortion known as the dialectic process. Despite their implicit mysticism, materialist typically declare that their view point constitutes the only scientific, or naturalist approach to philosophy. The belief in consciousness, they claim, implies super naturalism. This claim represents a capitulation to idealism. Consciousness is an attribute of perceived entities here on earth. It is a faculty possessed under definite conditions by certain groups of living organisms. It is directly observable by introspection. It has a specific nature, including specific physical organs and acts accordingly. Lawfully. It has a life sustaining function: to perceive the facts of nature and to enable the organism to act succesfully. It is neither unnatural or supernatural. There is no basis for the suggestion that consciousness is separable from matter, let alone opposed to it. No hint of immortality and no kinship to a transcendent realm. Like the faculty of vision (one of conscious aspect) and the body, the faculty of awareness is wholly, this worldly. The soul is not mans ticket to another realm; it is a development of and within nature. It is biological datum open to observation, conceptualisation and scientific study. Materialists argue that consciousness is unnatural on the grounds that it cannot be perceived by extrospection, has no shape, colour or smell-all of ehich applies equally to the faculty of vision. One may just as well argue that the eyeball is unreal because it cannot be perceived by introspection, does not have the qualities of a process of awareness, cannot theorise itself, suffer neurosis, or fall in love. These two arguments are interchangeable. It makes no more sense arbitrarily to legislate features of matter as the standard of existence and deny consciousness, than to do the reverse. The facts are that matter exists and so does consciousness. Materialists sometimes dismiss consciousness because it cannot be defined. This overlooks the fact that there cannot be infinite regressions of definitions. All definitions reduce to primary axioms. The concept of matter, by contrast does require a definition as it is not axiomatic, it does not as yet have one. To provide one is not the task of philosophy, but of physics. As far as philosophers are concerned, matter denotes merely the objects of extrospection-that which all such objects are made. In this usage, the concept of matter, like the concept of consciousness can be specified ostensively. There is no valid reason to reject consciousness or to struggle to reduce it to matter; not if such a reduction means to define it out of existence. Even if consciousness was one day explained scientifically as a product of the physical, this would not alter the observed fact. The monist insistence that, despite the observed facts, reality (or man) can have only one constituent, is groundless. It is an example of re-writing reality. The materialist equation of physics with science is equally groundless. Science is systematic knowledge gained by the use of reason based on observation. In using reason, however, one must study each subject matter by methods and techniques suited to its nature. One cannot study history by the methods of chemistry, biology by economics, or psychology by physics. Pythagoras attempted to equate mathematics with cognition and construe the universe as numbers. The modern behaviourist with far less excuse, commits the same error in regard to physics. I behaviourist wants to deal with entities he can weigh and measure just as the physicist does. For him, consciousness represents a stumbling block that denies his dream of turning men into predictable robots. Instead of dealing with consciousness he decides that it must therefore unreal and sweeps it beneath the rug in an effort to stamp it out. He is attempting to rewrite reality by deliberate ignorance. The primacy of consciousness use to deny consciousness ! A philosophy that rejects the monism of idealism or materialism does not become dualist. That term is associated with platonic or Cartesian metaphysics; it suggests a belief in two realities, in the mind body opposition, and the souls independence of the body. All of which are denied by objectivism. None of the standard terms applies to objectivist metaphysics. All the conventional positions are fundamentally flawed, and the ideal term-existentialism has been pre empted (by a school of advocates for non existence). A new term is required and that term is Objectivism. As yet it does not dredge up old and irrelevant associations

Part 4 the metaphysically given as an absolute. The objectivist view of existence culminates in the principle that no alternative to a fact of reality is possible or imaginable. All such facts are necessary. The metaphysically given are facts inherent in existence apart from human action-man made facts. Man made facts are objects, institutions, practices or rules of conduct that are man made. For instance Death is a metaphysical given, but murder is man made. The solar system is a metaphysically given and communication satellites are man made. Absolute in this context means necessitated by the nature of existence and therefore impossible to change by human, or other agencies. A fact is necessary if it's non existence would involve a contradiction. A fact that obtains by necessity, is a fact that obtains by identity. Necessity in the present sense is not a datum above and over existents; it is the identification of existents from a special perspective. To be, is to be necessary. In holding the metaphysically given as an absolute, Rand is not denying the power of creativity. The power to adapt the materials of nature to ones own requirement-such as the irrigation of a barren desert to make is bloom. A barren desert is a metaphysically given, but man has the power to change the circumstances responsible for its barrenness. The desert necessarily remains barren. Creativity is not the power to create something out of nothing,more to make an entity act contrary to its nature. It is, instead a re-arrangement of natural elements that had not existed previously. Francis Bacon: 'nature to be commanded must be obeyed'. The difference between the metaphysically given and the man- made is crucial to every branch of philosophy and human life. They must be treated differently according to their nature. Metaphysically given facts are reality. They must be accepted without evaluation. Man made facts, being products of choice, must be evaluated. The man made cannot be aquiesced to merely because it exists. The man made must be judged then accepted, rejected or changed when necessary. The attempts to alter the metaphysically given is to attempt to re-write reality. A common example is those who condemn life because man is capable of failure, frustration and pain. They yearn for a world in which man knows only happiness. Yet if the possibility of failure exists, then it necessarily exists (it is inherent in the fact that achieving a value requires a specific course of action and man is neither omnipotent, nor omniscient in regard of that action). A variant on this is that death makes life meaningless, but if living organisms are mortal, then they are necessarily so by the nature of the life process. To rebel against death is to rebel against life and reality. It is to ignore the fact that indestructible objects have no need of value or meaning. Respect for reality does not guarantee success in every endeavour; the refusal to evade or re-write facts does not make one infallible or omnipotent . However, such respect is a necessary condition of succesful action and it does guarantee that, if one fails in an undertaking, he will not harbour a metaphysical grudge as a result. He will not blame existence. The thinker who accepts the absolutism of the metaphysically given recognises that it is his responsibility to conform to the universe and not the inverse. Plato concluded that matter is a principle of imperfection in conflict with the highest ideals of spirit. In a perfect universe, he thought, matter should obey consciousness. Since it does not, Plato believed the universe flawed. A perpetual battleground between the noble and the actual. When men expect reality to conform to their wish, simply because it is their wish, they are doomed to metaphysical disappointment. This leads to the dichotomy: my dream vs the actual which thwarts it, or the inner vs the outer; value vs fact; moral vs practical ; the spiritual vs the material realm. Here lies the mind/body dichotomy which has corrupted every branch of philosophy. It does not have its root in a real conflict, but a breach between some men's consciousness and existence. The basis of the theory is not reality, but human error; the error of turning away from reality, of refusing to accept the absolutism of the metaphysically given. The man whom follows the opposite policy comes to the opposite conclusion. He dismisses the metaphysical dichotomy. A faculty of perception is not an adversary of the world, or the body. It has no weapons with which to wage any such war; it has no function except to percieve. ( we might see the same kind of wars played out by current political policy. The war on poverty, drugs, terrorism etc. It is a clear falsity, no such war can ever be fought. What is being foolishly attempted is the war between men's spirit and reality). Ayn Rand holds that the conventional viewpoint is wrong.; man does not have to make impossible choices between the spiritual and material sides of life. It is not a clash, or warfare, but integration, unity and harmony. The theory of mind body harmony, like its platonic antithesis, has its roots in a real correlate. Its root is the fundamental harmony and serenity that flows from accepting as an absolute, the axiom that existence exists- and there we might glimpse the correlation with the Dao as it might be understood .

Sometimes I really can't tell the difference ;-) I'm going to have some of that cariflower with a rich, creamy cheese sauce, sometimes I think I'm eating brains.

That's quite a story.

Yet then you must decide who deserves that justice. You must judge who gets and who does not get for you cannot feed everyone, nor everyone feed you. In the end it's a nice sentiment but logically implausible. It is nothing more than communism, which works in a small group, but is a failure beyond a few. It is better than everyone produces as trades volitionally. More is produced and fewer go hungry.

That maybe, but unfortunately we humans are living entities and life is movement. We cannot sit like rocks or wait for the divine to fill our stomachs or empty our bladders. We are forced to plan ahead, even if subconsciously. We must decide either to sit still or find food. Sitting still is therefore not to be regarded as not making a decision. we also require all the accumulated knowledge and experience accumulated to that point in our lives, so we must live through the now, neither in the past nor the future but dependent on both.

Well I'm not beyond wishing for a longer, younger, healthier life, but I can only do so much to keep it that way and medical,advances have not reached the stage where we can arrest disease/ageing or get over serious trauma. I wouldn't, for instance wsh to extend my life by living in total incapacity-such as locked in syndrome-or to do so as a mental equivalent of a vegetable in a healthy body.

Yes, both. If you are talking of true immortality of a human-beyond the obvious unlikelihood-would mean invincibility. In other words you couldn't be killed by anything, not accident, disease, lack of air, food, neither burning nor explosion so, totally indestructible. No need for a planet or any other kind of thing. Despite this being impossible, it would be undesirable. Without the need of survival there would be zero incentive to do anything at all. It would mean not only immortal but inhuman. The nature of man is mortality, if his nature is immortality then man ceases. We then talk of an entirely different kind of entity than we are. I don't know of anyone who has proven their immortality and those who tried aren't alive to tell of it. Those that say they are immortal mainly avoid providing proof, which strongly points in the direction of their own evasion. They still eat, get old, fall ill and eventually die anyway.

can you describe how that would come about, in what sense and exactly why such a thing would even be desirable ?

It's in off topic. If you don't want to read it, go elsewhere. As explained, this isn't a materialistic philosophy, it counters the muscle Mystics completely. If you stick with it we will get around to that, if you don't, never mind. I had considered putting it in personal practices, but many, as I do, won't generally post in personal forums in case their input is deleted. Unless it turns nasty I see no reason for that kind of protection. In due course I will refute your very important point.