Faith, not in linguistic level

[farzad didehvar]

Is thinking or any mental activity is just in linguistic level?

Some thinks so, but I think even in simple examples there are mental activities

which contradicts it.When you see a clock to know time, there is a lag of time

to understand it as a mental activity.For sure, that mental activity is not in linguistic level, although it ended

in a liguistic level, when you know realy what time it is.

Clock and time are limited subjects, seemingly some has some experiences about the concepts around infinity, such that the same process of the example of clock(a limited subject)is not able to be ended to a linguistic level, and if we say some possibly logically we fall in contradictions.(Real infinte or seemingly infinit, the situation of(a weak mind and a large subject or concept).

So we have the other level mentalities. As an experience in faith, many feel such situation as

personal experience.Let we call it:"INNER LEVEL"(or perception level) in contrast to "LINGUISTIC LEVEL".

 

The questions are:

 

1.Is it possible some have faith in "linguistic level" but not in "inner level"?

2.Is it possible some have faith in "inner level" but not in "linguistic level"?

 

My tendency is saying no to 1, but being agnostic to 2.But not sure. What is your idea?

I think this question could be a central question.

Edited March 11, 2013 by farzad didehvar

[PeterJ]

I;d say 'linguistic' is the wrong word and would swap it for ;'intellectual'.

 

Then your two statements might become true in some cases, depending on how you define 'faith'.

 

They may be even more interesting if you swapped 'faith' for 'knowledge'.

 

.

[tar]

farzad didehvar,

 

I do sense you are asking the same question I am.

 

And PeterJ. So it probably is a central question.

 

The answer though, what we each lock onto as an answer, is probably the definiton, or at least an indication of, ones religion or "belief". That is, what it is that one has their faith in the most. The inner or the outer.

 

Gets really complex though, my inner, being your outer and vice-a-versa.

 

Immortal has choosen the inner, for instance, and discounts the outer, or anyone that has faith in the the outer.

 

Some, like myself have faith in the outer, and the inner, because I can not figure or imagine how the inner could be anything but an internalization of the outer. A reflection of, and a consequence of the outer. This makes it not only alright, but necessary to have faith in the outer, because it is evidently available to and internalized by everybody else as well. Hence science, where we all count on each other to verify which and what of what we have internalized is commonly found on the outside, by all internalizers. Then religion, if its faith in the inner we are talking about, becomes alright, if and when we agree that each others inner belongs to the same outer "thing".

 

My theory is that we all know this, and have a common faith in the outer. Disagreements come when we think we are the only one to have noticed and parsed the situation correctly.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

And linguistic level is the level we have developed to express to each other, the same meaning.

We talk to each other in language, and we talk to ourselves in dreams, our own internal language.

There is no easy way, however, to express ones own internal language to the outside. It just comes out weird. Hence, its more sensible to listen to yourself in the same language that the people around you understand, than to listen to yourself in a language that is jibberish to everybody else.

 

Consider Google translate. Go to Google translate and think of a private thought. Enter it in your language and translate it into another. And copy and paste the result into the box asking Google to translate back into yours, or into another language.

 

How can google do this, if there is not a mapping between your thoughts and your words, and not a mapping between your thoughts and the words of others, and not a mapping between your thoughts and the thoughts of others.

 

 

Must there not be a meaning behind any of the words you use, that someone else can mean as well?

 

Conversely, type some jibberish and you will find google did not understand what you meant. It was not on the meaning map.

 

Below, is the above copied into Google translated to hindi, the hindi rendering translated to german and the german to enlish.

 

I do not understand, ask the same question I am.

 

And peterj. So it is likely a key issue.

 

The answer, as we do. An answer to every lock, definiton perhaps, or at least the ones religion or "faith" is an indication This means that it is the one. Most in their faith Internally or externally.

 

However, my hair is very complex, its exterior and vice versa is a.

 

Elected as immortal inner and outer, or someone who has faith in the outer discounts.

 

Reflects, and is the result of an external. So all internalisers science, where we all count on each other, and to which we have internalized, to check what is usually found on the outside. Sun religion, when we talk about their faith in the interior, even if and when we agree that each other inside the same external "thing" is.

 

My theory is that we all know it, and the exterior is a common belief.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

And a second level of the language developed to express the same meaning.

We talk in the language, and we dream, our own internal language speak for themselves.

There is no easy way, but the subscription rights of people to express their own internal language. It's just weird.

 

 

Consider Google Translate. Go to Google Translate and you think of a personal opinion. Enter your language and translate it into the other. Ask Google to translate and copy and paste again in you, or the result is displayed in a different language.

 

 

 

The preamble to the US Constitution put through the same process.

 

We the people of the United States, form a perfect union, justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ourselves and our posterity freedom ordain do Safe blessing औ ramerika establish this Constitution for the United States.

 

 

There is something that our words mean.

[Dekan]

Could it be translated into lucid Basic English? If not it looks like a load of crap.

[PeterJ]

Tar - Hi there. What you say above makes much sense but there is another way of looking at all this.

 

Have you considered the idea that 'inner' and 'outer' is not a fundamental distinction but a conceptual construct? It's a tough idea, but it would be necesssary for Buddhism's 'theory of emptiness' and more generally for nondualism. I mention this because it does away with the need to reify or 'have faith in' either 'inner' or 'outer' as the supreme reality, and thus with the need to argue about which is to be preferred or which is more real.

 

Here's an interesting and easy to run experiment.

 

Usually we feel as if we are seeing the world 'out there' from a location 'in here', just as you assume, such that 'I' am infinitessimal and 'my world' is infinitely extended. But this can't be right. What we are 'seeing' from 'in here' is an approximately infinitessimal structure of electro-chemical signals inside our heads. We have never seen anything 'out there' and never will. This is why solipsism is unfalisifiable. It is easy to forget that what is 'out there' is always something we infer, not a truly empirical phenomenon. As you say, there is some faith involved.

 

If the world that seems to be 'out there' is just these e-c signals, then who is 'seeing' them and where from? If we say that the seer is just another collection of electro-chemical signals somewhere else in the brain/mind then we have an infinite regression of neural signals or higher order thoughts and this is absurd. The need for a better theory makes it interesting and necessary to test the assumption that we are, in fact, 'in here' looking out at a world 'out there'. There must be some sense in which 'you' are on the outside of 'your world', after all, even if it is only in the trivial sense that 'you' are located somewhere else in 'your' brain than what 'you' are 'seeing'. Our seeing encompasses all that we see. .

 

So, sometime when you are out walking on your own, preferably out in the country with a big view, the top of a mountain would be good, ideally on a summer night staring up at the vast canopy of stars, just stroll along trying to figure out whether you are inside of your world looking out or outside of it looking in.

 

This may take a bit of practice, there is a knack to being able to see it both ways, a switch that needs to click, but I think you'll find that after a while it becomes very difficult to decide which it is. Logical analysis cannot decide, since both externalism and internalism fail in philosophy, This suggests that some form of compatablism may be the answer, a middle way view.

 

But I think you have to do the experiment to see the problem. In philosophy it's all too easy to start by assuming that we are 'in here' looking out and not even notice we've done it. If we do the scientific tests, however, examine our awareness of the world first-hand and taking nothing for granted, then we find that this is not a necessary assumption, and that even our own experience of the world cannot show it is more than an assumption. .

 

At any rate. it would be a mistake to think that mysticism is the pursuit of the 'inner' as opposed to the 'outer', or even the prioritisation of one over the other. It is the pursuit of a state of being where one can see that there is no 'inner' and 'outer', never was and never will be.

 

If there is ever any doubt about what nondualism says about philosophical issues such as this one, then it always endorses compatabilism. In philosophy global compatabilism.is what it is. This makes it very easy to figure out what doctrines such as Middle Way Buddhism, Taoism and so forth say about philosophical problems, and it saves a lot of bother when trying to disentangle inconsistent presentations of these doctrines,. . .

 

My apologies to the OP. Not exactly relevant to the question.

[tar]

PeterJ,

 

I think I have run the experiment and considered it both ways. My conclusion was that the body/brain/heart group, that is the living TAR2 entity, is separate from the rest of the universe, and likes it that way. I want to live. Be in this separate state, because it allows me to witness and internalize, and know the rest. It I did not have this body/brain/heart group to distiguish myself from the rest, and serve as a particular place and time, within the rest, then I would not be me.

 

In your above experiment and argument you changed the definition of you around and forgot your original asumption inorder to do it.

 

Start first with a definition of "you" so I can follow your logic. If you do this, then distinquishing between outside and inside is not difficult. If you blur the definition and allow you to be outside you for real, then your initial definition is blown to peices.

 

I have determined over the course of many exchanges with you, that you are smarter than me, and more well read, and understand the logical barriers to maintaining a certain philosophical stance, and what such stances are called, and where they have been found to be untenable and such. But I don't know that I agree with the logical walls that philosophers run themselves into, when they may have switched modes, without acknowlegeing the switch. And assumed a theoretical stance to support another theoretical stance.

 

This is my main argument against Immortal. He has come to the conclusion that the rest of us have to be inside his head and since his atman understands brahman, then we all are one...and then he destroys his own argument, from both direction by telling the "rest of us" that we do not understand this simple truth. Already defeated, he gets even worse, and suggests that therefore, all the real outside stuff (which there should not be any of by the understanding Brahman pretense) is illusion, orchestrated by some supernatural platoon of gods, which are in turn illusions orchestrated by the eminations from Brahman, and its our "job" to be progressing toward understanding and become one, with the thing we already are, and then distinquishes himself from the rest of us, by saying he knows this truth and the rest of us are oblivious to it. Cementing himself thouroughly within his own imagination, and unquestionly defining the meaning of "inside ones head" to TAR2, an entity which definitely knows he does not exist within Immortals head. What image of me that Immortal holds, is one of an unseen other. Analogous to me, and made up of the forms and patterns of reality, placing me in actuality outside his head, or he would not be able to have an image of me, within it.

 

If you start with my defintion, that TAR2 is a particular living body/brain/heart group, living on Earth, and PeterJ is a different and distinct, unique living body/brain/heart group, then inside and outside have distinct and meaningful meaning. Anything of PeterJ inside TAR2 is imaginary (specially since I'm straight). I do not have the actual PeterJ in my head, in the chemicals and neurons, I have an analog representation of you. Incomplete and inaccurate to be sure.

 

One should not use what is known to be an image, as the real thing. Nor call a real thing an image. The thing and the image of the thing are already understood by virtue of the two pure intuitions Kant figured we each are endowed with, that of space and that of time. And any understand occurs at the now, and at the here. And the only place and time I have, is where the body/brain/heart group of TAR is. And the only here and now that you have is where the body/brain/heart group of PeterJ is. We can coincide, as in being on the same talk board at the same time, or being in the same place, should we run into each other. But there is a clear distinction between what goes on inside TAR2 and what goes on inside PeterJ. And we each are on the the outside of the other.

 

I know this to be true because every single one of us knows there are billions of "other" body/brain/heart groups wandering around the Earth. We have already correctly parsed this inside outside thing, even if the parsing is all done inside our heads. We already know the difference, base on our equipments ability to know the difference. To know the difference between memory and prediction. To know the difference between a hamburger sitting outside on the plate, or inside in the stomach. We must have already figured these things out. They are not a mystery, or a logically impossible stance to take.

 

What is impossible is for you, not to be you witnessing what ever you are focused on.

 

Or put another way, you can not focus on that which you are not focusing on. And its always you, doing the focusing, whenever you are refering to something that the body/brain/heart group of PeterJ is doing.

 

And if there were to be no you, who would you ascribe the point to, should you reach such a point as you were successful in dissolving your Atman into Brahman? With no separate PeterJ to consider, there is no one to acheive a high score, in PeterJ's estimation.

 

But we are WAY off thread, and I am off my rocker. This stuff is really silly to argue about, because we are already both assuming the existence of the other,(you existing outside me, and me existing outside you) to even be arguing the point with each other.

 

Regards, TAR2

[PeterJ]

PeterJ,

 

In your above experiment and argument you changed the definition of you around and forgot your original asumption inorder to do it.

 

Start first with a definition of "you" so I can follow your logic. If you do this, then distinquishing between outside and inside is not difficult. If you blur the definition and allow you to be outside you for real, then your initial definition is blown to peices.

I was not defining 'you'. I was suggesting you examine your 'you' in order to answer your questions about what is inside and outside rather than jump to conclusions. .

 

 

I have determined over the course of many exchanges with you, that you are smarter than me, and more well read, and understand the logical barriers to maintaining a certain philosophical stance, and what such stances are called, and where they have been found to be untenable and such. But I don't know that I agree with the logical walls that philosophers run themselves into, when they may have switched modes, without acknowlegeing the switch. And assumed a theoretical stance to support another theoretical stance.

Well shucks. I'm just someone whose had time to study things that few people bother with. Most people are specialists, and have no time for exploring the connections between areas of knowledge. Thus I can become an expert in my field without being a genius. There's little competition.

 

I know of no 'logical' walls and do not switch modes in order to defend stances. Yes, most philosophers run into logical walls, more usually called 'barriers to knowledge' or 'ignoramibuses'. But I know know how to get around these barriers. As far as I know there are no barrriers to knowledge.

 

Tar - This is my main argument against Immortal.

 

PJ - No main argument is required. As you say, he was perfectly capable of shooting himself in the foot with his own arguments.

 

 

Tar - If you start with my defintion, that TAR2 is a particular living body/brain/heart group, living on Earth, and PeterJ is a different and distinct, unique living body/brain/heart group, then inside and outside have distinct and meaningful meaning.

 

PJ - Yes. This is clearly true.

 

Tar - Anything of PeterJ inside TAR2 is imaginary (specially since I'm straight). I do not have the actual PeterJ in my head, in the chemicals and neurons, I have an analog representation of you. Incomplete and inaccurate to be sure.

 

PJ - Yes, but this is irrelevant. The suggestion is not that you and I are merged inside our heads. The suggestion is that you and I are a conceptual overlay on the unity of awareness, a distinction that is not ultimate or fundamental, and can be reduced just as Kant suggested. Inasmuch as you are you and I am me, then we are distinct centres of experience with distinct physical forms. Only at a level of awareness beyond 'you' and 'I' would this unitification of identity become apparent. Or 'by reduction' might be a way of putting it. Thus by reduction many well known philosophers arrive at this idea. But in philosophy it is a conjecture derived from logical analysis. In religion it is a knowledge claim from direct experience.

 

Tar - One should not use what is known to be an image, as the real thing. Nor call a real thing an image.

 

PJ - Amen to that. Now you just have to discover a phenomenon that is not an image. I would suggest that there is only one.

 

Tar - The thing and the image of the thing are already understood by virtue of the two pure intuitions Kant figured we each are endowed with, that of space and that of time. And any understand occurs at the now, and at the here. And the only place and time I have, is where the body/brain/heart group of TAR is. And the only here and now that you have is where the body/brain/heart group of PeterJ is. We can coincide, as in being on the same talk board at the same time, or being in the same place, should we run into each other. But there is a clear distinction between what goes on inside TAR2 and what goes on inside PeterJ. And we each are on the the outside of the other.

 

PJ - Kant was clear. The intellect cannot be understood unless we assume that it reduces to a phenomeon that is not an instance of category. Such a phenomenon could not belong to you or me, it would be the orgin and destination of you and me. The suggestion here is that from absolute viewpoint there is no 'Tar' who can be distinguished from anything else.

 

Tar - I know this to be true because every single one of us knows there are billions of "other" body/brain/heart groups wandering around the Earth.

 

PJ - Yes. Of course.

 

Tar - We have already correctly parsed this inside outside thing, even if the parsing is all done inside our heads. We already know the difference, base on our equipments ability to know the difference. To know the difference between memory and prediction. To know the difference between a hamburger sitting outside on the plate, or inside in the stomach. We must have already figured these things out. They are not a mystery, or a logically impossible stance to take.

 

PJ - Hmm. I think you are skating over the issue here. You do not speak of a knowledge, of things but of the appearance of things. Solipsism is unfalsifiable because what you are referring to is only relative knoweldge. It is only when you attenpt to develop a fundamental theory based on this 'knowledge' that the logical difficulties become apparent. This is why it is a non-topic in physics but the central issue in philosophy. Mind you, the idea that the universe is one interconnected entity is gaining ground all over.

 

Tar - What is impossible is for you, not to be you witnessing what ever you are focused on.

 

PJ - Have you ever spent some time trying to see exactly who is doing the witnessing?

 

Tar - And if there were to be no you, who would you ascribe the point to, should you reach such a point as you were successful in dissolving your Atman into Brahman? With no separate PeterJ to consider, there is no one to acheive a high score, in PeterJ's estimation.

 

PJ - Yep. I wouldn't put it in the same words,but something similar. There is nothing to be attained and nobody to attain it. This would be a crucial insight for those who study awareness. . .

 

Tar - But we are WAY off thread, and I am off my rocker. This stuff is really silly to argue about, because we are already both assuming the existence of the other,(you existing outside me, and me existing outside you) to even be arguing the point with each other.

 

PJ - I don't think it is silly or off-topic. I think you are on the right track and think about these things seriously and honestly, which is fairly unusual, but that you haven't quite seen the real subtlety of the view you're opposing. I am not assuming the existence of anything at all. For my view, which in one of its forms is Middle Way Buddhism, nothing would really exist. If it did then Buddhism would fall apart as a metaphysical theory.

 

I've often wondered if the claim that nothing really exists is testable in physics but I suppose not. It is testable in logic, however, and it works very well as a solution for philosophical problems. But the proviso 'really' would be crucial, since obviously things exist in a sense.

 

I don't want to argue about these issues, you can believe what you like, but I'm happy to explore it.

 

Perhaps the Matrix is an interesting case study, because it is debatable whether Neo's world is inside or outside of his mind.

 

This is all relevant, because the suggestion would be that for Neo to understand his reality he would have to go well beyond faith, language and even the intellect. Then we are not beset by theory-laden perceptions and intellectual preconceptions and can see past the images to what is actually real and true.

 

Then we see what the writers of teh Upanishads meant when they said that if we see the voidness one thing we see the voidness of them all.

 

You might like to check out Beaudrillard's 'Desert of the Real'. This would be very relevant here. It is the title of the chapter of the book in which Neo hid his computer disk.

.

Edited March 28, 2013 by PeterJ

[tar]

PeterJ,

 

What I argue against, is the unfunctionalbily of sophistry. My favorite joke in college, while I was a Philosophy major, was that I wanted to start a Sophists Club.

 

My favorite joke, when I was interviewing for jobs, was that no Corporations had a resident philosopher position opened.

 

Point being, that it is both true that we are capable of imagining "no divisions" and true that it is impossible to actually acheive such a state. Not while being a living human. The mere fact of being a living, conscious human, separates us from the rest. For real.

 

The reuniting with Brahman idea, does not work out, while you are alive. It has to be something you can sort of hold in your back pocket, 'til later. An ace in the hole, so to speak. But "you" can never play the card. Not really. "You" cannot find comfort in being dead. "You" cannot find truth, without a "you" to be informed of it. So while there is no "other" source and destination, than "the all", it is not a hidden, secret, mystery thing, available only to those who have forgotten themselves. It is rather the obvious truth, that we only know because we are alive, and separate from it, and have an Atman to do the noticing and remembering, and forgetting, and "listening to the silence" with. Or so it is that I have figured. Chances are, that for me, things will be, when I die, much as they were before I was born. Meanwhile, being TAR2 is the ONLY thing I can be...for real. Any suggestions to the contrary, are baseless fantasies.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

One of my favorite current jokes is "everywhere I go...there I am". But it is not possible for me to go anywhere without taking me along for the ride. You say otherwise, but I strongly disagree. I think you are making such a disolution of your self, up. Nirvana will have to wait, until you are in no condition to enjoy it...OR you can enjoy the view, now, from here, while you have such a vantage point. Seems realistic to me. We can only know of, and appreciate a "greater" reality, from here and now. From this Atman vantage point. In this sense, it is our job, for the moment, to forget we are Brahman. And by the looks of things, its going to be quite a while 'til the universe pulls itself back together. I don't think that eventuality is anything we need be concerned about, at present. We'll just have to save that for later.

[PeterJ]

I see. So you know it all already. Even though you know that you don't know that what you are saying is true, you say it as if you know it is true. This is not science or philosophy, It's a lottery ticket in the great game of guess the truth and then argue for it. It's a game I have no intention of playing. .

[tar]

PeterJ,

 

Not so much a wild guess, as a vague approximation, or an estimation.

 

In an effort, not so much to argue that my way of looking at it is correct, but in an effort to determine if we are talking about the same thing, or not.

 

There is a fall-back principle that I operate under, that states that as far as "true" things go, true things that apply to both you and me, we MUST be talking about the same truth. Talking about the same instance of a true thing. As such, the thing must fit in both your understanding, and in my understanding, inorder for it to be a common truth. If it is a true thing, we can find the mapping of my experience of it, to your experience of it. And a true thing, will already exist, and fit perfectly when you look at it another way. That is, if it is an objective truth, it will be true, it will fit, it will work and be the case, anyway you look at it, any aspect of it you focus on, it will be true, not ONLY in the way you mean it to be true, but in other ways as well.

 

In efforts to comprehend our existence we no doubt each come up with private claims and test them against reality. We each know best, when the claim is falsified, or when it continues to work, continues to fit, and continues to be a good guestimate.

 

Personally, I have ruled out anthropomorphic gods, and secret gods, and therefore figure that if you and I are talking about the same truth, it must be accessable and understandable to the both of us. And be true, not only to me, but to you, all the time, and stand up to any test we wish to try against it.

 

Regards, TAR2

After all, whether you are an Atheist or a Theist, a realist or an idealist, there are still flowers. They are true and beautiful even to a bee.

[PeterJ]

I can agree with a lot of that.

 

But why approximations and estimations? These can never be truths.

 

It seems to me you're overcomplicating the issues. But it's hard to know what to say about it all. I'm not sure I understand your view yet.

 

You say - "Point being, that it is both true that we are capable of imagining "no divisions" and true that it is impossible to actually acheive such a state. Not while being a living human. The mere fact of being a living, conscious human, separates us from the rest."

 

We are not capable of imagining 'no divisions'. The intellect requires divisions in order to operate. These are the categories of thought. Also, why do you say it is impossible to achieve such a state while being a human being? This is not a finding based on experience or logic. This is why I referred to guesswork. A guess cannot be presented as a fact. .

 

Guessing is fine as a guide to research, as you say, but it is not a result. I feel that your guesses are getting in the way of the facts.

[tar]

PeteJ,

 

Well perhaps there is the issue. One cannot have the "no division" state, if one tries to say anything about it.

 

If you must use a category to say anything about something, to think anything about something, you must be in a state other than a "no division" state, inorder to say or think something.

 

I extend this condition, to actually applying to our human condition. We are a self, exactly because we are not the all.

 

It has its correlary in Genesis where eating from the tree of knowledge, knowing the difference between good and evil, expelled man from the Garden. The fall of man from the all, the distinction of self from all, and the introduction of sin, or evil.

 

My contention is, that the trip back, can only be made hypothetically, or imaginarily, WHILE you are alive. You cannot dismiss yourself without the loss of the distinctions that make yourself, and the application of categories of thought, possible in the first place.

 

So, the only reasonable answer, to me, is that we never fell from grace, but are currently partaking in it. We can see the entire universe, points of light trillions of miles away, representing immense stars and galaxies of stars, from here and now, exacty because we are the size and place and moment we are, as mortal humans. We cannot be anything else, but human, until we lose the distinction. At which point, the categories would no longer apply, because we would be deceased, and no longer alive, and no longer able to talk and think.

 

What is interesting to me, what I find the most "like" god, is the fact that we are all in the same now, all us humans in the same here, defined by the extent of the Earth. We are in sync with each other. There is only one instance of PeterJ extant at the moment. And only one of TAR. Even though TAR has been knocking around, and doing and thinking many different things, and making various judgements, in various places, from New Jersey to Japan, from Germany to Delaware, from Maine to Florida, from Newark to the Yucatan or Hawaii or California or Texas, over the past 59 years, there is only one instance of me, and it corresponds exactly, to the one instance of you. We could plan to meet, at a particular place and time, and shake hands and both "selves" would be distinctly there, and exist in no other place at that moment. To me, THAT is reality, THAT is God, the fact that we are all of and in the same immense and longlived thing, sharing the same moment, and able to say something about it.

 

Regards, TAR2

[PeterJ]

PeteJ,

 

Well perhaps there is the issue. One cannot have the "no division" state, if one tries to say anything about it.

 

If you must use a category to say anything about something, to think anything about something, you must be in a state other than a "no division" state, inorder to say or think something.

Yes. This is exactly correct.

 

 

I extend this condition, to actually applying to our human condition. We are a self, exactly because we are not the all.

 

But this extension would be a mistake in my view. You are taking a limitation on your intellect to be a limitation on the world. I would say we think we are a self because we are not aware that we are the all. You may not agree, but you do not know that it is not the case. If you could establish an independent self then you would have to conclude that Buddhism is nonsense.

 

 

 

.

[overtone]

The experience of thoughts and perceptions happening without reference to a self is important here - many religions provide rituals or methodologies for evoking this experience, and the resultant exhiliration is something the recurring self often finds memorable even if the self cannot create or consider anything but a shadow or residue of the event.

 

One takeaway lesson for the self, when recreated, is that the division of self from everything else occurs in a larger context and is only a part or aspect of a larger universe - not a necessary and all-encompassing property of reality.

[tar]

Overtone,

 

Well, I think that is true, but the larger context, is always just one step up...so to speak. All encompassing would only pertain to the largest expanse of reality that you could claim ownership of, or knowledge of, or association with.

 

To illustrate, consider this. One might consider being realistically responsible for what happens in their home or neighborhood, or company or country, or even on the entire planet Earth. It would matter to them and their children and their childrens children. But how many generations should one consider important and real? How far out, in time, and how far out in space, is our responsibiltiy? How big is the all, in all-encompassing?

 

How many years into the future is your domain?

 

Sometimes at work, on a particularly stressful or frustrating day, I utter something I heard once. "In a hundred years, nobody will remember, know or care, what happened here today". Its mostly true, and maybe a little false, in the sense that what you did that day, maintained something, started something, corrected something, broke something or otherwise made an impact on the world and its future, but mostly true, in that you most likely won't be around to remember, and no one is likely to ask. (Unless something Earth shakingly wonderful or horrible happened that day.

 

So how many years into the future is "all-encompassing", and how many lightyears out?

 

When a human being has an epiphany, or a religious moment, or touches timelessness and spacelessness and selflessness, it has bearing only on the one doing the touching. The "touched", in reality, is not tickled to the extent that the toucher imagines.

 

This became obvious to me with the consideration of the effect on reality, that a monk on a mountaintop, reaching Nirvana, has.

 

About zero, was my calculation, when just considering the rest of the planet as the ALL in all-encompassing. No mountains were moved, no illnesses cured, nobody noticed, nothing else noticed or was affected. Maybe someone he/she told later, or someone reading the manuscript he/she wrote after the event, but at the time of the incident, the Monk's reach, was not quite as far as he/she imagined. He/she, sensed the thing, knew the thing, but did not encompass it, did not become it. It remained intact and separate from the Monk...in reality. The Monk is in and of the thing already, before the Monk notices. The noticing is an aspect of the Monk, not an all encompassing aspect of reality.

 

Regards, TAR2

[overtone]

 

All encompassing would only pertain to the largest expanse of reality
that you could claim ownership of, or knowledge of, or association with.

If we are agreed that dividing the universe into self and non-self leaves out a lot of the universe, that significant properties or features of reality are not divisible or classifiable in that way and cannot be accurately labeled with either term, then I'm settled.

 

 

When a human being has an epiphany, or a religious moment, or touches
timelessness and spacelessness and selflessness, it has bearing only on
the one doing the touching. The "touched", in reality, is not tickled
to the extent that the toucher imagines.

The existence of reality that has not been divided up into the toucher and the touched can be established by way of reason and bootstrap rationality, but the experience of it is perhaps more informative - it would prevent assertions about "the one doing the touching", by directly displaying their meaninglessness in this context, for starters.

 

This became obvious to me with the consideration of the effect on reality, that a monk on a mountaintop, reaching Nirvana, has

Or Copernicus, looking through a telescope at stuff millions of miles away; or Newton, sitting around under apple trees having thoughts.

[Tim the plumber]

I don't get this idea that thinking is only done in words.

 

It might be in your head but not in mine.

 

Whilst building a stone archway I had to shape stone into blocks which had a 80cm radius segment of a cylinder on one face which had to be at right angles to the front face of the block and very accurate in shape and all angles.

 

To do this I build a machine. The mechanisim used a butchered electric planer as the cutting tool and was made of a wooden slide hanging from the ceiling beams which could rotate on an 80cm radius. The device had a few other features but that was the basic form. I called it a "zum-zum" because that was the noise it made. You might call it a stone shaping jig. Whatever.

 

I did not think in terms of words when thinking of how to make it.

 

No design process is word driven. It's all shapes and stuff.

[PeterJ]

It is no use stating what the monk knew and don't. know. You don't know. How can you make statements about this when it's just guesswork?

 

Your idea of 'all-encompassing' is odd. This is not a person in spacetime. I think this idea will make no sense to you until you see what is actually being proposed. As Overtone says, the idea can be reached in logic or experience, but it has to be one or the other.

[tar]

PeterJ,

 

Guesswork, maybe. I cannot know what is going on in someone elses mind, but I can try and put myself in their shoes.

I am not as knowledgeable or as smart as many, but I can make a vague guess at what must be, or very well could be going on, in someone else's mind.

 

It is amazing similar, the way two human brains are put together. We are quite alike. I understand people's arguments about qualia, and reluctance to consider that anyone else can be experiencing the same things as they are, but I have some very large amount of experiences that tell me there are things people feel and think, that are close. When the same roar of exhaltation, or the same roar of disapproval comes out of the mouths of thousands of people simultaneously at a sporting event, responding instantly in unision to the witnessing of a event on the field, it tells me we have simiiar stuff, going on in our heads.

Same senses, same basic wiring, same chemicals. We respond to endorphins in a similar fashion, we respond to pheremones in a similar fashion, we all get hungry and tired and thirsty and feel urges and discomfort for similar reasons in similar situations.

 

You yourself know we are alike. Enough to think that you can tell whether or not I ever experienced what a Monk might experience. If I told you I had, you would think I could not have, because I didn't follow the recipe, I didn't know how to OM myself into the right chemical state. To which I would say, you don't know my history, my own epiphanies, my own run ins with powerful insights and emotions and thoughts and "states of mind".

 

Be assured, that I have had my share. Enough to know what you are talking about. And I am as sure as sure can be, that there is a difference between feeling at one with reality, and being one with reality. We are already, by definition, one with reality, there is no other option, no other way to be, if you discount your life, if you discount the separate state, the unique time and place, that a human finds themself. But "you" cannot do both. "You" can actually do neither. You cannot be dead, and you cannot be in another place and time, than the moment you are in. Except in your imagination.

 

I know this is true of me. I know this is true of you. Because its obvious, and pertains to every human I ever met, talked to, dreamed with, loved, hated, read about, or was told about. I have witnessed many people "thinking" they were in a state of mind that transcended reality. In all cases, the state did not "truely" exist. Not as truely as as reality exists. Everybody, comes back to their senses, goes crazy, or dies. There are no examples of where someone has actually "transcended" reality, and found themselves no longer bound by the laws of physics, and no longer bound to their physical body/mind/heart group. It is an impossible thing to achieve such a state. Therefore, I can say with certainty that a Monk can think they have transcended reality, but they really have not left us behind, a whit.

 

Regards, TAR2

Smartest man I ever talked to was a Prussian Professessor of Philosophy and Religion. He solved integrals for fun and relaxation, and could do it WHILE he was talking to you on several different levels at once. I don't pretend I can know what was going on in his head. But he never was able to walk through walls or float in the air, or go very long without supper and a drink.

And unfortuneatly he died, and is no longer able apply his genius to our problems. He left us behind alright, but had to die to do it.

The world without Professor Zucker, has lost a bit of the adult supervision it had while he was alive.

 

I do not miss Moses or Mohammed, or Jesus or dead Monks, quite so much as I do him. Having him alive would make a difference to the world. Having a Monk reach Nirvana, does not add anything to my existence. Just the Monk feels it.

 

Hey, I found that there is at least a peice of Dr. Zucker I can share. I don't have membership to get the paper, and I have had the benefit of listening to his lectures and speaking with him on many occasions in social settings, so I know a little, what he would say...but read this abstract, it pertains to the discussions we have been having here.

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2164-0947.1966.tb02397.x/abstract

I can't be as smart as Dr. Zucker, or as loopy as a Monk, but I can know what it is they are talking about. And I can tell the difference between reality and and myth, and know very well when I am talking sensibly and when I am talking about impossible things. Being human, I can count on being a little smart, and a little loopy. Enough to imagine what it might be like to be less or more smart, and less or more loopy.

I suppose we need to set up some sort of truth table, to decide when people are smarter than they think they are, or not as smart as they think, and when people think they are crazy and when they are crazier than they think.

 

Some Monk once said, you have not gotten anywhere until you get tired of being tired of being tired. (or something like that)

Edited April 2, 2013 by tar

[PeterJ]

Okay. No point in disussing this further if you can make up your mind on the basis of this kind of thinking.

 

.

[tar]

Okay.