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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: There is no doer [Re: mt cleverest] * 1
    #21234392 - 02/06/15 09:12 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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?


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Offlinecbub
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Re: There is no doer [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21238161 - 02/07/15 05:08 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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.


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OfflineJaegar
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Re: There is no doer [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21238198 - 02/07/15 05:41 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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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OfflineJaegar
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Re: There is no doer [Re: mt cleverest]
    #21238273 - 02/07/15 07:05 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

Zee bad case of Apophenia.


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: There is no doer [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21238421 - 02/07/15 08:43 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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?


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Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Kickle]
    #21238431 - 02/07/15 08:47 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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.


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OfflineJaegar
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Re: There is no doer [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21238452 - 02/07/15 08:56 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

Is this controversy or fact?


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Jaegar]
    #21238487 - 02/07/15 09:11 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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.


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OfflineJaegar
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Re: There is no doer [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21238492 - 02/07/15 09:13 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Jaegar]
    #21238554 - 02/07/15 09:33 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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.


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Invisiblemt cleverest
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Jaegar]
    #21238565 - 02/07/15 09:36 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: There is no doer [Re: mt cleverest]
    #21238596 - 02/07/15 09:50 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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.


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: There is no doer [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21238775 - 02/07/15 10:55 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: There is no doer [Re: Kickle]
    #21238833 - 02/07/15 11:08 AM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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.  :thumbup:


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: There is no doer [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21241495 - 02/07/15 09:48 PM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: There is no doer [Re: laughingdog]
    #21241513 - 02/07/15 09:53 PM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: There is no doer [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21241529 - 02/07/15 09:56 PM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: There is no doer [Re: laughingdog]
    #21241555 - 02/07/15 10:03 PM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: There is no doer [Re: laughingdog]
    #21241562 - 02/07/15 10:04 PM (8 years, 11 months ago)

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.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: There is no doer [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21241650 - 02/07/15 10:30 PM (8 years, 11 months ago)

"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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