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mt cleverest
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There is no doer
#21190551 - 01/28/15 09:40 AM (9 years, 1 day ago) |
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"Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof." - buddha
What does this mean to you? Because it sort of sounds like there is no doer. In which case who cares about spirituality?
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Icelander
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It means that you don't have much if any free will. And so then spirituality comes into question. But we all do things that are irrational it seems.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Chronic7
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Quote:
mt cleverest said: "Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof." - buddha
What does this mean to you? Because it sort of sounds like there is no doer. In which case who cares about spirituality?
It invalidates spirituality as being an egoic attainment but it doesn't invalidate an interest in (caring about) spiritual paths, at least not early on where that may be necessary as identification with doership is very much in force
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deff
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Quote:
In which case who cares about spirituality?
it seems Buddha cared about it (teaching it and all)
I don't see a discrepancy between there being no independent entity behind actions and yet still engaging in beneficial spiritual pursuits. it's like saying there's no doer so why eat food? it does mean that spirituality isn't a pursuit to make a better doer, but it doesn't invalidate the benefits imo and getting to the actual realization that there is no doer i think requires some sort of inner work to bring about - it's easy to intellectually agree with it and another thing to actually live without a sense of doership
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Icelander
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Re: There is no doer [Re: deff]
#21190729 - 01/28/15 10:30 AM (9 years, 1 day ago) |
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The fact that people look to a Buddha instead of themselves is very telling imo.
It's quite possible that the buddha wasn't really enlightened enough to keep his mouth shut and live out his dream. He actually thought people would benefit from his teaching? I think it's just another way for humans to either feel inflated or inadequate.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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deff
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whatever floats one's boat
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Icelander
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Re: There is no doer [Re: deff]
#21190821 - 01/28/15 10:56 AM (9 years, 1 day ago) |
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Really?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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deff
just love everyone



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why not? why worry what other people find beneficial so long as they aren't harming anyone in the process
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yeah


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allow yourself to become an instrument of god and no longer resist the present moment
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Spacerific
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Re: There is no doer [Re: yeah]
#21191124 - 01/28/15 11:53 AM (9 years, 1 day ago) |
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I am seeing a blue planet in the sky, leaves and worms are being eaten, sunlight converted to plants to shrooms to elks to birds to primates, I see long cycles, a whole molecular dance and fun times taking place, but there's no real individual identity to any part of it. A fish is a process that makes more fish, it's the planet that's fish-ing, or cat-ing or bird-ing or tree-ing or human-ing or dolphin-ing.
There's on one level nobody to care about spirituality, but on another THE WHOLE PLANET cares about it, and one of its forms that it does this in, is you or me.
The same way that nobody really cares about the magnesium content of rotting wood, EXCEPT the worms and mushrooms that deal with it directly, they're quite busy at it, enjoying to the max a good piece of magnesium-rich wood, or whatever wood happens to contain 
It's all loops loops loops, through hoops hoops hoops. The whole exists, the divisions between parts are illusory. There is no individual doer, because the whole of it organically does itself.
For comparison, who runs your body? The muscles, the nerves or the blood cells? Does any of them have individual control? Which part of you is more spiritual, your left eye or your nose?
-------------------- Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. - Matthew 13:16
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Pope
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exactly what it says, and you said, there's no individual doer, things just happen. nobody care about spirituality, but there's still caring about spirituality. just like nobody actually gets burnt, but there's still burning. there is never a doer, everything is verbs, a lot of it verbs disquised as adjectives. anywhere you look there's no doers to be found, things just grow or decline or absorb or emit or anything else on their own, or not on their own, but they are those things and nothing before or beyond it. there's just a constant death/birth going on at a very rapid pace at all points and at all times, just change. there's the appearance of a doer at times, or a 'center' that everything happens around, and 'flows' out of, but this is just awareness of a reference, limiting awareness for the sake of gaining some chunk of understanding, every thing is a center and also 'part' of the outside of every other center. i'm not sure on a self though, i don't think it means there's nobody at all, just no doer.
I wana add on to this a bit with an edit to clarify 'every thing is a center and also part of the outside of every center', it's on a more 'base' level than just 'things', the word things might give the wrong idea, it's more points. so not thing as a recognised and agreed upon object, like an orange or a sparrow or a river, but just a point. so any agreed on object, like a river or an orange, contains huge numbers of centers/peripheries. any center is made up of and defined by the centers surrounding it, overlapping, and just the same is overlapped onto the centers surrounding it and is part of those centers also. you can have two 'centers', and move into the peripery or the gap between those centers, and suddenly those centers are no longer centers, and the gap between is now the center. anywhere you go you can find a center, because there is none, just the 'illusion' of it, and in turn this would mean there's no doer.
Edited by Pope (01/28/15 02:10 PM)
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Pope]
#21192463 - 01/28/15 04:33 PM (9 years, 1 day ago) |
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I think this whole mega-process, the fractalic molecular symphony/dance/game that's happening here, we can pretty much all agree on what it is, the animation, the visual parts of it, but where humans don't agree much is what exact mouth noise should go with what thought or process 
Seriously, I could start tackling things like:
Quote:
everything is verbs, a lot of it verbs disquised as adjectives
and say that everything is process, that even "verbs" is simply a mental mouth noise that primates tell to themselves or each other, and the "tree" outside (the pattern in which water and chlorophyll exists for a while in one place, that primates call "tree") - that pattern is NOT the same thing as the mouth noise that primates use for it.
It's indeed just looping, loop loop loop, everything going around everything else, changing states, jumping from one bag to another, orbiting and looping.
I do have an idea that the electrical part of it is a bit different than the molecular/physical part of it, in the sense that "We" as the consciousness, might well be just something to do with the electricity, and we can run "on" the physical pathways set by material neurons and nerves, but we're just "running along" those lines, we're not exactly "of" the material, chemical molecular realm.
We (as in, the electrics) might be individuals (no way to tell really, as we can't look up to see if we're distinct) or just individual fingers from a larger hand, like an oversoul.
In any case, on the physical plane, all the molecules and bodies, the birds and trees, that's all clearly just loops and patterns going ta-dee-dah, tro lo lo, dancing around and around
-------------------- Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. - Matthew 13:16
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Pope
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oh no i know this full and well, words have nothing to do with anything and are inherently false understandings, i had a period where i went almost completely silent for a couple of years, just because words were glaringly wrong and misleading things to me, and i felt like i was by default lying anytime i spoke. i think now though that they can point to things, or get a person closer to a proper understanding. verbs pretty much mean motion, and like you said, looping and jumping and dancing and all that jazz, & i think 'all is verbs' is still delusional thinking, but its agreed meaning implies something closer to the looping and dancing going on, points to it. a rose is never the word rose, but if you wanted someone to grab one for whatever reason but you didnt know what language they spoke just for example, eventually after you've went through enough of the words for rose one will ring a bell and theyll go ah and grab the rose. i think mouth noises can be beneficial in the same sense, they dont get you there but they can, if you translate your idea correctly for their worldview and wordage, if you hit the right button, get them within reaching distance of whatever it is.
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Spacerific
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Pope]
#21193211 - 01/28/15 06:53 PM (9 years, 1 day ago) |
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It's all good, as long as people eat the food, not the menu with the food names
-------------------- Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. - Matthew 13:16
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MarkostheGnostic
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Quote:
mt cleverest said: "Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof." - buddha
What does this mean to you? Because it sort of sounds like there is no doer. In which case who cares about spirituality?
The realization of such ideas is a spiritually reflexive act. The resultant awareness, void of contents, is a spiritual verity.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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cbub
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Quote:
mt cleverest said: "Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof." - buddha
What does this mean to you? Because it sort of sounds like there is no doer. In which case who cares about spirituality?
It means the self is an illusion, it's all only a story. There is no identification, nothing is personal. No metaphors here. It's more like you are a thought thinking itself into (illusory)existence, but that's not really true, because there is identification here in this sentance. It can't really be put into words properly, it's just made that way. For a reason  I guess enthusiasts who find it interesting care about it.. it's a trap like any other, but like you pointed out.. it's not really up to you if you will get trapped or not. When you see this, you see that it's easy to forgive.. actually there is nothing to forgive and wow, what an epic story! who is awed by it?
-------------------- It's fine.
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Sam Hardy
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Re: There is no doer [Re: cbub] 1
#21195330 - 01/29/15 07:42 AM (9 years, 11 hours ago) |
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How I have realized it from personal experience is that there is no trying to do anything, there is just doing. Likewise, I am not trying to be anything or anyone, I am just being myself.
When a bear starts chasing me, I am not trying to run. I run away naturally without me thinking one second about it because of danger.
-------------------- Author of http://www.ZenDevil.com - psychology of freedom. Interested in exploring consciousness, shame, guilt, zen and psychedelic drugs.
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laughingdog
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Sam Hardy]
#21231169 - 02/05/15 03:36 PM (8 years, 11 months ago) |
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if 'you' decide to do something is it still spontaneous?
say you decide to lift your arm
we can ask if it's spontaneous if you planed it.
we can also break it down, in terms of awareness:
when we were talking and you reached for your coffee cup were you aware of which fingers you used while holding the tiny handle?
we can also break it down in terms of time:
this is what Tai chi does it slows everything down so one becomes aware of the micromovements.
there is always so much going on, and 90% or so of it is unconscious ... much is habitual ... culturally conditioned ... avoiding pain seeking pleasure
anyway it would seem 'real' spontaneity has a quality of surprising oneself. joy seems to come from not trying so hard to be in control. so perhaps 'no doer' maybe thought of as a release rather than a loss?
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laughingdog
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also in idea of no doer is release from guilt, shame and blame if we give ourselves this gift we maybe less judgemental of others
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cbub
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Quote:
laughingdog said: also in idea of no doer is release from guilt, shame and blame if we give ourselves this gift we maybe less judgemental of others
Absolutely.. but it's not even a gift, it's the truth. This is exactly what Jesus was talking about when he said "Only truth shall set you free."
-------------------- It's fine.
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DividedQuantum
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I'm not saying I disagree with this completely, but I feel compelled to ask: Does this mean we are conscious automatons? Everything is just happening and we are only watching, powerless to steer anything? That consciousness is completely unnecessary?
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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cbub
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: I'm not saying I disagree with this completely, but I feel compelled to ask: Does this mean we are conscious automatons? Everything is just happening and we are only watching, powerless to steer anything? That consciousness is completely unnecessary?
What a great question. I sense this one being really tricky for some reason. It's paradoxical.. as if the entire history and future is determined only in the current moment. The doing is not really ego's(yours) to claim. Yet it all happens in alignment with your state of consciousness. We can't take the illusion lightly, it's much more than just smokes and mirrors when we take a stance of identifying with the thought. We all become identified with (a part of) the illusion, where you can - at it's mercy - be tricked into believing anything and make it real - because that's the power we have. But it's a fools game. While in this "reality", there's no outsmarting it, because this "reality" is all of it. I think the game is about seeing it for what it is and keep your heart open no matter what.. I think that's the true free will, if there is such a thing. When you can manage to keep it open, it has to mirror it back, due to it's very design - or so it seems, can't really say I know anything at all, I can't even claim the knower.
-------------------- It's fine.
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Jaegar
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Uneccessary for what? It still would of played it cards for our survival.
Edited by Jaegar (02/07/15 05:43 AM)
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Jaegar
Formless One



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Zee bad case of Apophenia.
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Kickle
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: I'm not saying I disagree with this completely, but I feel compelled to ask: Does this mean we are conscious automatons? Everything is just happening and we are only watching, powerless to steer anything? That consciousness is completely unnecessary?
What do you think?
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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DividedQuantum
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Kickle]
#21238431 - 02/07/15 08:47 AM (8 years, 11 months ago) |
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I do not think we are conscious automatons. I think if consciousness exists, it more likely than not serves an evolutionary purpose. Even though we act like machines the vast majority of the time, it seems to me that we are not machines. Advances in physics in the last hundred years prove determinism to be false. Culture has not caught up.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Jaegar
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Is this controversy or fact?
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DividedQuantum
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Jaegar]
#21238487 - 02/07/15 09:11 AM (8 years, 11 months ago) |
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Both, in a way. Most physicists subscribe to the Heisenberg version of the Copenhagen interpretation, which essentially expressly denies determinism, and denies that mass-energy is the fundamental reality. Obviously, if matter is not fundamental, then the "billiard-ball universe" of determinism is rendered moot.
However, there are some physicists who subscribe to the "Many-Worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, which in a nutshell converts the wave function back to determinism, saying that every possibility is realized, so there is no room for consciousness to be a causative agent. Most physicists, however, subscribe to the Copenhagen interpretation, which unequivocally banishes determinism and automatism. In a quantitative way.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Jaegar
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Good answer. We just don't know. I like the idea of probability..which isn't randomness.
Edited by Jaegar (02/07/15 09:22 AM)
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DividedQuantum
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Jaegar]
#21238554 - 02/07/15 09:33 AM (8 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Jaegar said: I like the idea of probability..which isn't randomness.
That's a very perceptive point, Jaegar. Most people assume that because quantum theory uses probabilities to determine physical situations, that nature is somehow inherently random. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that we're going to need a deeper theory, in the future, to account for exactly why we need to use probabilities, and what is really going on at the deeper level. To assume we've got the final theory and everything is a blind roll of the dice is unfounded, and unscientific.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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mt cleverest
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Jaegar]
#21238565 - 02/07/15 09:36 AM (8 years, 11 months ago) |
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Well that's good enough for me! Now I can go to bed easy knowing that I am in control. It's just too bad its going to take forever for our stupid culture wrapped up in nondoership and enlightenment to catch up.
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DividedQuantum
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Nobody said anything about control, or free will. All I am suggesting is that to say that there is no such thing as a conscious will (which has a very small, but nonzero, say in things), and that we are conscious machines, is a polarization and is basically throwing the baby out with the bath water. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Nature is more subtle than that.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Kickle
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I personally really enjoy the Buddhist teachings on emptiness because while they negate all things ultimately they never deny the existence of them. Rather they explore the complete entanglement of all things and lack of independence. Saying that there is not an independent thing to be found.
If one applies that to consciousness one can arrive at "no independent consciousness", or in context of the thread, no independent doer. But one must also acknowledge that in saying this one is also saying there is entanglement with thoughts, emotions, environment, sound, taste, smell, and on and on and on which are very personal indeed. And if one of these changes, the effects can be seen elsewhere.
no independent consciousness does not refer to consciousness being impersonal IMO. it refers to it's lack of distinctness and solidity. to it's interconnectedness and malleability. to let loose one's grips on it as though it could be held, but also not to forget that it does change.
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DividedQuantum
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Kickle]
#21238833 - 02/07/15 11:08 AM (8 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: no independent consciousness does not refer to consciousness being impersonal IMO. it refers to it's lack of distinctness and solidity. to it's interconnectedness and malleability. to let loose one's grips on it as though it could be held, but also not to forget that it does change.
Quite right.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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laughingdog
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Consider the following. What is the essence of "the self"?
Obviously it's not the body. Lose an arm still a self. Next, they ask is, it the mind? Well thoughts run rampant thru the mind, dreaming or not, along with changing emotions & beliefs, so mind per se seems not to have a stable center.
That leaves awareness. Without awareness we experience nothing. The pinnacle of awareness is awareness of awareness. So true self is awareness of awareness. But awareness of awareness is immaterial, or pure context.
Just as space is context for objects, and does not move them. Likewise awareness is context for our lives and does not 'do' them. So 'self' is not a doer , but is rather an observer.
According to this viewpoint, as I understand it at this time.
So this does not deny so called 'small' or conventional self, but says that as it is a conditioned phenomenon, if it is identified with suffering results.
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DividedQuantum
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Yeah but we don't know what awareness is (or does), so statements about it seem rather vague.
I would just like to reiterate that I am not really even disagreeing with the spirit of the OP, just suggesting that things may be more complex than we like.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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laughingdog
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DividedQuantum if you knew what awareness is that would be content not context.
Do you know what space is?
Do you know what time is?
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laughingdog
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Seems the gist of the no doer idea is to free us from struggle so we enjoy the show.
you ask ; "Does this mean we are conscious automatons? "
this is subtle and profound
no 'we' are not automatons
because there is no 'we'! It's all empty.
that's the idea anyway
most folks would think it nonsense not a high percentage of folks are buddhist monks
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DividedQuantum
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Quote:
laughingdog said: DividedQuantum if you knew what awareness is that would be content not context.
Be that as it may, I would be particularly interested in a scientific treatment of consciousness (which I feel is possible).
Quote:
Do you know what space is?
Do you know what time is?
No, not really. I feel that both are relative dimensions within the explicate order, are not fundamental, and are conditioned by higher dimensions within the nonlocal implicate order. Why they have the appearance and essence they do, I have no idea. Once again, I do not regard them as fundamental.
You said this above:
Quote:
Likewise awareness is context for our lives and does not 'do' them. So 'self' is not a doer , but is rather an observer.
So are you saying awareness doesn't do anything? Because I feel that this ignores a lot of biological evolution, even the evolution of the cosmos itself. This is not a solid syllogism, in my opinion.
Perhaps, in the end, these are just silly word games. I don't know what consciousness is, but I feel dominant ideas about it are ludicrous.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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laughingdog
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"So are you saying awareness doesn't do anything?" Exactly Silence is context for sound, it does not make sound. Space is context for objects but is immaterial, and doesn't effect them. (although it does have some properties: there are only 17 wallpaper groups in 2 dimensions for example) Also more abstract than objects are thoughts. Awareness is the context of thoughts. Awareness is more subtle than space, but still, awareness is no more mysterious than "experiencing". If no awareness then no experiencing. We have made it into a big deal because we are so focused on the material. Everything is awareness. We never see the world. The world as we see it is two images upside down on our retinas, recombined in a brain that is totally dark, by multiple modules. This type of processing is true to some degree of all 'our' perceptions'. In that sense we are like automatons. I think the aim of vipassana practice is to disentangle the mix of perceptions that normally create a sense of self. The claim is that at some point the whole house of cards collapses. It is never claimed that just by thinking about it we can "get it".
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Kickle
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awareness is no more mysterious than "experiencing". If no awareness then no experiencing.
the same can be said of the experiences themselves and maybe even more directly if no experiences, no experiencing
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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DividedQuantum
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Quote:
laughingdog said: "So are you saying awareness doesn't do anything?" Exactly Silence is context for sound, it does not make sound. Space is context for objects but is immaterial, and doesn't effect them. (although it does have some properties: there are only 17 wallpaper groups in 2 dimensions for example) Also more abstract than objects are thoughts. Awareness is the context of thoughts. Awareness is more subtle than space, but still, awareness is no more mysterious than "experiencing". If no awareness then no experiencing. We have made it into a big deal because we are so focused on the material. Everything is awareness. We never see the world. The world as we see it is two images upside down on our retinas, recombined in a brain that is totally dark, by multiple modules. This type of processing is true to some degree of all 'our' perceptions'. In that sense we are like automatons. I think the aim of vipassana practice is to disentangle the mix of perceptions that normally create a sense of self. The claim is that at some point the whole house of cards collapses. It is never claimed that just by thinking about it we can "get it".
No.
I just see things differently.
To me, awareness is consciousness is the implicate order (which has been treated quantitatively by Dr. David Bohm) is the macroscopic wave function, and it underlies everything. To me, the universe is almost certainly conscious, throughout. So, therefore, to me, awareness does something. I am now talking about realms and processes well beyond an individual human mind, but it is mirrored in the individual, and I do not think it is as simple as you seem to.
Conscious automatism is false. It is a by-product of Cartesian dualism, and Newtonian determinism. Science has even shown this to be the case.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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laughingdog
Stranger

Registered: 03/14/04
Posts: 4,828
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I have no idea what "implicate order" means anymore than the "holy ghost"
you say "universe is almost certainly conscious"
I ask do you think the universe has a self?
dualism to me is when you divide the world into consciousness plus a subject that is conscious of an object, actually three parts here.
I think physics got stuck between particles and waves till they came up with fields and transcended their dualism
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,818
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Quote:
laughingdog said: I have no idea what "implicate order" means anymore than the "holy ghost"
you say "universe is almost certainly conscious"
I ask do you think the universe has a self?
dualism to me is when you divide the world into consciousness plus a subject that is conscious of an object, actually three parts here.
I think physics got stuck between particles and waves till they came up with fields and transcended their dualism
I have no idea whether the universe has a self, or really, what a self even is in this context. Regarding the rest, it would be way too involved to go into it here, and none of it really has any place in this particular forum. Suffice it to say, I think consciousness is more fundamental than mass, energy, space and time, but that all of these are a kind of special extension of it. The rest is for another place and time.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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