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 Freedom Pigment of your imagination     Registered: 05/26/05 Posts: 6,406 Last seen: 1 month, 6 days |
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i think its our mortality that makes us imortal in other words, we aren't what we think we are. we aren't seperate from where we are born from our what we die to. If rigpa or whatever is fundamental, we die and birth from that. if its the normal world of interdependence plants and animals die to become us and we die to become everything else. or in other words there isn't a femtometer of a gap between death and birth, gain and loss, good and bad Edited by Freedom (08/30/26 01:35 PM)
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 teknix 𓂀⟁𓅢𓍝𓅃𓊰𓉡 𓁼𓆗⨻  Registered: 09/16/08 Posts: 12,120 |
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There is an alternative called "suspension of judgment" (epoché). Your current position seems abductive: conditioned process naturalism is your preferred explanation because it accounts for the evidence with fewer assumptions. But that is different from the earlier P8, which appeared to treat the denial of ātman as a deductive consequence of impermanence. Abduction can justify adopting a model provisionally, but it does not by itself disprove alternatives. I can understand why you chose conditioned process naturalism as the most reasonable working hypothesis. My concern is that this justifies a provisional belief, but you were stating its metaphysical conclusions as established facts. A working model is for utility rather than truth, using a map of the city doesn't mean the city is identical to the map. "I find awareness as process the best current model" is different from "awareness is nothing beyond conditioned processes." The former expresses reasonable confidence; the latter requires an argument that rules out alternatives such as ātman.
In a block universe, every instance of walking may be equally real as an event, but that does not make walking an independently existing entity, nor does it make any particular walker eternal. All conscious events might be equally real in a four dimensional structure without proving that consciousness is merely a process or that an enduring awareness underlies it.
"Reasonableness" depends on your starting axioms. If your axioms are "only the physical is real," then naturalism is reasonable. If your axioms are "experience is primary," then ātman is reasonable. Since the axioms themselves are not proven, the most reasonable position is to suspend judgment on which axiom is correct.
The analogy does not demonstrate that awareness is a process; it presupposes it. If "awareness is a process" means that awareness is nothing beyond changing physical and mental events, then ātman has been ruled out by definition rather than refuted. I am not claiming that awareness cannot be a process. I am saying that this must be argued for rather than assumed, especially when the disputed position defines ātman as awareness not reducible to changing mental contents and processes.
True Socratic ignorance doesn't say "I don't know, but X is most likely." It says "I don't know, and since I have no evidence for X or Y, I will not pretend that X is more reasonable than Y." Occam’s Razor is a heuristic for choosing the simplest theory; it is not a tool for determining truth.
The main disagreement at this point is the step from process naturalism to the stronger claim that awareness itself is fundamentally nothing beyond the conditioned process. When you say that awareness "is not fundamentally separate from the physical process producing it," and that it "arises, changes, and ceases when its conditions arise, change, and cease," you are not merely describing observed conscious events. You are making a metaphysical claim about the nature and origin of awareness. I do appreciate the epistemic modesty when you say "I do not know what is ultimately fundamental", but when you say things like "Awareness is a process.", "awareness arises, changes, and ceases with its conditions", "It is not fundamentally separate from the physical process producing it.", "Awareness is a quality of reality but not its defining feature.", "Awareness is like trees, exploding stars, or other particular things.", "Neither self nor awareness should be treated as an eternal ontological ground." and "no changeless awareness could exist" you are making substantive metaphysical/ontological claims. As Bacon observed, "What men wish were true they readily believe." That applies not only to religious or metaphysical beliefs, but also to skeptical conclusions that provide psychological comfort by eliminating uncertainty. The fact that a view is comforting, or that it aligns with one’s prior framework, does not establish that it is false, but it is a reason to examine whether the conclusion has been demonstrated or merely preferred.
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Rahz Alive Again  Registered: 11/11/05 Posts: 11,425 |
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Yes. I'm not adept at math but I think it's aligns with naturality. Epistemic humility is the disposition through which I look for naturality. -------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace I am I feel I do I love I speak I see I know why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.
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Rahz Alive Again Registered: 11/11/05 Posts: 11,425 |
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You've been pressing on atman, and I have deliberately declined to address it directly, which is different from what you are suggesting I have done. That said, you quoted me correctly, and some of that phrasing overstated what I'm entitled to say. What I can actually defend is that no changeless awareness has been evidenced. You seem to frame my position as needing to disprove atman to be valid, but that misreads the nature of epistemic humility.
True epoche doesn't mean treating every conceivable metaphysical hypothesis as equally probable simply because none can be definitively disproven. If someone proposes an unconditioned, non-physical, eternal entity (atman), the epistemically humble position isn't to say, "Maybe, maybe not, let's hold them as equals." The humble position is to withhold assent from the unevidenced addition. I am not claiming to have deductively disproven atman. I am pointing out that atman is an unevidenced ontological category. When you strip away extra assertions, what you are left with is the observable, conditioned process. Describing what is present without adding unproven entities isn't dogmatic naturalism, just my attempt at basic parsimony. Regarding the walking analogy, it demonstrates how functional, impersonal continuity can exist without requiring an underlying, static substance. We observe walking. We observe mental events. We do not observe the walker independent of the movement, nor do we observe awareness independent of conditions. Pointing out that process seems sufficient to describe the phenomenon isn't ruling out atman by definition. It is noting that atman contributes no explanatory value that I'm aware of to the observed phenomenon. I agree with your distinction between finding awareness as process to be the best working model versus asserting it is definitively nothing beyond conditioned processes. But that isn't a metaphysical claim of omniscience on my part. It's a matter of scope. As far as reason and evidence extend, awareness behaves as a process. To insist that we must treat atman as equally valid without evidence is where imagination steps in. I appreciate the reference to Bacon, but uncertainty is by no means eliminated here. I'm simply choosing not to place hope in an unevidenced context. -------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace I am I feel I do I love I speak I see I know why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.
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redgreenvines Kaptain Obvious 👀  Registered: 04/08/04 Posts: 47,256 |
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awareness is not conditioned process at all
awareness as active mental contents may include conditioned perception content as well as fresh sensory content and feelings, but the process of awareness is opening up to changes among mental contents. simply that. it is achieved by suppressing what is not changing among mental contents. this is happening in the same way it has evolved to happen, i.e. awareness enables creatures to detect and react to changes which may be threatening or pleasing. it is the figure ground phenomenon in action. if you can point out any awareness that you have had that does not follow changes I would be amazed. 
--------------------  _ 
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Rahz Alive Again Registered: 11/11/05 Posts: 11,425 |
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I don't disagree with the points that follow, but your own description, evolved creatures, is a conditioned process. That doesn't fit with "awareness is not conditioned process at all", but I think I understand what you mean, once a creature is in motion.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace I am I feel I do I love I speak I see I know why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.
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Freedom Pigment of your imagination Registered: 05/26/05 Posts: 6,406 Last seen: 1 month, 6 days |
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are you referring to divisive normilization? like this https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ar ai summary of it: "Divisive normalization is a neural computation where an individual neuron's response is divided by a common factor that incorporates the pooled, summed activity of neighboring neurons. Rather than serving a single purpose, it acts as a canonical computational module that adjusts neural sensitivity to process dynamic range, relative contrast, and competition among stimuli."
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Rahz Alive Again Registered: 11/11/05 Posts: 11,425 |
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To the OP, I want to highlight the gist of the thread and offer a little more consideration.
1. Freedom from external control over the self 2. Diagnosing a false or distorted view of reality as the root problem 3. Reducing or reshaping desire rather than satisfying it 4. Acceptance of forces beyond one's control 5. Anti-dogmatism / rejection of absolutes 6. A practical, action-oriented payoff I attempted to add to the list with various candidates. While most of them were rehashes or lacked universality this one was interesting. Cultivation of a cosmopolitan or universal perspective The self is deliberately situated within a larger order (nature/logos, interdependent arising, the Tao). This undercuts narrow egoism and supports a broader, less reactive stance. It is not just acceptance of what is beyond control; it is a positive reframing of one’s place in the whole. I noted that it wasn't universal, just prevalent. And considering that, it makes me think of divergence, and whether goals might be considered through opposition. Here are coherent anti-statements — the opposite goals — for each item: 1.Freedom from external control over the self Seeking or accepting external mastery / finding freedom and identity through submission to an authority, tradition, institution, or social order outside the self. 2. Diagnosing a false or distorted view of reality as the root problem Treating the primary problem as located in external conditions (society, nature, other people, material lack) rather than in one’s own perception or judgment; the mind is basically reliable and the world is what needs fixing. 3. Reducing or reshaping desire rather than satisfying it Maximizing and fulfilling desire as the path to the good life; the more one can obtain of what one wants, the better. 4. Acceptance of forces beyond one's control Refusing to accept limits; the ideal is to expand control as far as possible, resist or overcome what is given, and treat non-acceptance as a virtue. 5. Anti-dogmatism / rejection of absolutes Affirming firm, non-negotiable doctrines, sacred truths, or absolute principles that must be upheld without compromise. 6. A practical, action-oriented payoff Valuing pure contemplation, theoretical understanding, or speculative insight for its own sake, with little or no requirement that the philosophy change how one actually lives. -------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace I am I feel I do I love I speak I see I know why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.
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redgreenvines Kaptain Obvious 👀 Registered: 04/08/04 Posts: 47,256 |
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Thanks for the link to that paper which proposes logrithmic computation, and I think that does apply in certain brain areas, especially to highlight detected movement trajectories in arcs and body feelings which can spread that way.
What I am talking about in regards to awareness is certainly like what they call normalization, but this is a non-conditioned process, i.e. a thing we are born with - it is not learned. It has evolved slightly differently in each species. I did not unpack the mathematical formulae they presented but have considered it like this: There is an ubiquitous web work arrangement of short axon-ed neurons in the cerebral cortex which responds to local and neighboring cortical column activation (sensory and or memory neural activation). When signals are active in the home column - the sensory pixel or voxel as they call it, the evolved computation checks neighbor states, and previous neighbor states (for the last second +-) to evaluate if this is a new activation, sensory jitter, or a persisting activation. the default action of this web of short axon-ed neurons is that persisting neural activation is suppressed from the column activity - it is pushed into the background - and removed from active mental content - this leaves awareness as the aggregate of neural activation which is changing. memory is formed from such active mental content, you could say that awareness is the leading edge of memory formation since we do not form memory of what we are not aware (what was suppressed). Note I view this awareness issue - which is neural persistence suppression (or normalization), separate from memory formation, and reactivation of familiar memory contents which can be called conditioned mental content. The inter-columnar neural analysis and suppression circuits perform faster than memory formation and conditioned perceptive reflexes. Thus I refer to them as evolved tissue qualities not conditioned mental content qualities. We cannot learn or train ourselves to register experiential change differently but we can practice awareness cultivation activities by arranging our mindset and setting. -------------------- _
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redgreenvines Kaptain Obvious 👀 Registered: 04/08/04 Posts: 47,256 |
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I am not really sorry to have marshaled the discussion of awareness into that tangent, but this is the direction you had intended - reframing to support a less reactive stance... in a sense, having accepted that normalization is happening, or suppression of the unchanging experience from awareness, we can then determine what is necessary to support more calm stance. it is not one stance for all positions and pathways, indeed in some situations no stance suffices, only movement makes sense. -------------------- _
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Rahz Alive Again Registered: 11/11/05 Posts: 11,425 |
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A further step.
Autonomy vs. belonging / submission Internal diagnosis vs. external reform Desire-reduction vs. desire-fulfillment Acceptance vs. transformative will Openness vs. commitment to fixed truths Practice vs. pure contemplation Seen dualistically there is opposition. Seen polaristically, the opposition rests in productive tension. Autonomy vs. Belonging / Submission: Pure autonomy collapses into isolation. Pure submission dissolves the individual self. Productive tension yields agency within relationship, the capacity to belong deeply without surrendering integrity. Internal Diagnosis vs. External Reform: Turning entirely inward creates solipsism. Focusing entirely outward breeds self-righteous activism without self-awareness. Balanced together, inner clarity grounds structural action. Desire-Reduction vs. Desire-Fulfillment: Radical suppression leads to ascetic apathy, while endless fulfillment creates an addictive treadmill. The middle ground is discernment, knowing which drives to satisfy and which to transcend. Acceptance vs. Transformative Will: Acceptance without will is fatalism. Will without acceptance is constant, exhausting friction against reality as it is. Bound together, acceptance provides the accurate baseline from which meaningful change begins. Openness vs. Commitment to Fixed Truths: Pure openness leads to paralysis (a mind so open your brains fall out). Rigid commitment leads to dogma. Together, fixed principles provide an anchor, while openness allows the anchor line to move. Practice vs. Pure Contemplation: Contemplation without practice stays abstract and disembodied; practice without contemplation becomes mindless routine. Action informs reflection, which refines action. -------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace I am I feel I do I love I speak I see I know why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.
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redgreenvines Kaptain Obvious 👀 Registered: 04/08/04 Posts: 47,256 |
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what is pure contemplation?
-------------------- _
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Rahz Alive Again Registered: 11/11/05 Posts: 11,425 |
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No worries. Tangents are welcome here. I would say calmness is desirable, but perhaps not in the dualistic way I mentioned per my last response. I think you mean it in a certain context. One can also contrast calmness with being invigorated in a playful way, or in a serious way. Pure Universalism without the local/individual pole risks total abstraction, disembodied idealization, and the erasure of concrete personal responsibility (loving "humanity" while ignoring the neighbor in front of you). Pure Solipsism/Egocentrism leads to existential isolation, hyper-reactivity, paranoia, and the brittle demand that the cosmos conform to personal desire. The synergy is one no longer escapes their concrete, subjective, personal experience to reach the universal. Instead one realizes that fully inhabiting the immediate, particular moment is how the universal expresses itself. The specific self is not an obstruction to the whole. It is an exact locus where the whole comes to life. One cultivates the capacity to experience the raw immediacy of one's feelings, choices, and immediate environment (the particular) while remaining aware of the vast interdependent context containing it (the universal). -------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace I am I feel I do I love I speak I see I know why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.
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Rahz Alive Again Registered: 11/11/05 Posts: 11,425 |
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Contemplation for it's own sake, not a means to an end. -------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace I am I feel I do I love I speak I see I know why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.
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redgreenvines Kaptain Obvious 👀 Registered: 04/08/04 Posts: 47,256 |
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'random'?
free association play? i still don't get it, is there an example of 'pure contemplation', or is this an ideal concept - a polarity? -------------------- _
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Rahz Alive Again Registered: 11/11/05 Posts: 11,425 |
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Should one exercise because they enjoy it (play) or because they feel a need to be healthy and live as long as possible? If they are not mutually exclusive it can be polarity.
A person might just enjoy contemplation without a burning desire to "understand the universe". It is a conceptual polaristic consideration and no need to read too much into "pure". Not mutually exclusive, but which motive is doing the actual work of getting the exercise in, and which one is just riding along as a bonus? -------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace I am I feel I do I love I speak I see I know why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.
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teknix 𓂀⟁𓅢𓍝𓅃𓊰𓉡 𓁼𓆗⨻ Registered: 09/16/08 Posts: 12,120 |
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Lack of evidence for ātman may justify withholding belief in ātman. It does not, by itself, justify belief that awareness is nothing beyond conditioned processes. I agree that we are not required to believe in ātman merely because it has not been disproven. But the same principle applies in the other direction: we are not entitled to treat awareness as nothing beyond conditioned processes merely because a conditioned-process model is sufficient for describing the evidence.
Point of clarification. When you say that "we do not observe awareness independent of conditions." Do you mean that We have never encountered awareness without some observable conditions, Awareness cannot exist without conditions, or awareness is identical with conditioned events? I am not claiming that ātman and process naturalism should be treated as equally probable. I am distinguishing three levels of conclusion. First, empirical evidence supports the dependence of particular conscious states on bodily and mental conditions. Second, abductive reasoning may make process naturalism the best current working model. Third, a deductive or metaphysical conclusion that awareness cannot be anything beyond conditioned processes would require an additional argument. My objection concerns only the move from the first two levels to the third. Parsimony is a rule for choosing among explanations, not a proof that whatever is omitted from the preferred explanation cannot exist. If process naturalism explains the available data without ātman, then ātman may be explanatorily unnecessary. But explanatory unnecessaryness is not ontological nonexistence. Calling ātman unevidenced is a reasonable criticism of its evidential status. Calling it unnecessary is reasonable relative to process naturalism. But calling it impossible, or saying that awareness is definitively "nothing beyond conditioned processes", goes beyond those conclusions. Your position is epistemically defensible if stated modestly: we observe conditioned conscious events; process naturalism currently explains them adequately; and ātman lacks independent evidence, so we should withhold assent. But that position should not be expressed as the conclusion that awareness is proven to arise from, or be identical with, physical and mental processes. The former is an abductive preference and a suspension of belief in ātman. The latter is a metaphysical thesis. My claim is not that ātman is equally probable, nor that it has been established. My claim is that the evidence underdetermines the question, and that parsimony cannot be converted into disproof. Are you arguing that ātman is false, or only that you have no sufficient reason to believe it? If the latter, then we agree about the practical epistemic stance. But that stance should be described as suspension of assent or provisional naturalism, not as a demonstrated conclusion about the ultimate nature of awareness. A computer program depends entirely on physical hardware and changing electrical states for its operation. If the hardware is damaged, the program may stop running or become corrupted. Yet it does not follow that the program is identical to any particular electrical event, transistor, or transient hardware configuration. The same program can be implemented on different machines and represented by different physical states. (I am not saying that consciousness is software or that this proves dualism. The point is only that dependence on a physical medium does not by itself establish ontological identity with one particular set of physical events. To establish that consciousness is nothing beyond those events, one needs an additional reductive argument.) My objection is mainly to the inference from conditioned manifestation to complete ontological reduction. Dependence on conditions does not logically entail identity with those conditions. "A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence." -David Hume
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teknix 𓂀⟁𓅢𓍝𓅃𓊰𓉡 𓁼𓆗⨻ Registered: 09/16/08 Posts: 12,120 |
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The assumption that publicly observable evidence and third-person reasoning exhaust all possible access to truth, is another angle that can be approached with Gnosticism. Gnostic traditions typically hold that certain truths are known through gnosis, a direct and transformative apprehension, rather than through inference alone. On that view, experience is not merely evidence for a proposition; it is itself a mode of knowing.
Some forms of knowledge are propositional in that they are conclusions drawn from premises. Other forms are experiential or participatory where the truth is disclosed in the act of realization itself. A process-naturalist argument may account for the conditions under which experiences arise, but it does not automatically determine the full ontological meaning of the experience. If a tradition treats direct awareness or gnosis as a form of disclosure rather than as an inference from mental events, then explaining the events conditions does not by itself refute what the experience is taken to reveal. While Gnostic experience could be said to be a conditoned event, that only establishes that the experience as an event is conditioned. It doesn't automatically establish that the experience's content or disclosure is wholly reducible to those conditions. Gnosticism provides another counterexample to the assumption that truth must be constituted by discursive reasoning about experience rather than encountered in experience itself. A Gnostic could say that gnosis is not merely evidence from which one infers a metaphysical conclusion but it is a direct mode of apprehension. One may reject that claim, but doing so requires and argument about the reliability and scope of experiential knowledge. Merely showing that the experience has physical and psychological conditions does not, by itself, refute what the experience is claimed to disclose. To clarify, I'm not claiming that Gnostic experience proves ātman or changeless awareness. I am pointing out that the argument against them may assume, without defending it, that conditioned experiences cannot disclose anything beyond conditioned processes. That assumption would be epistemological and metaphysical, rather than an empirical finding. Explaining the conditions, structure, and behavior of experience is not automatically the same as explaining the experienced quality itself. For example: neuroscience may explain which neural systems are involved in pain, how pain behavior is generated, and how pain changes under anesthesia. Those are important explanations. But someone may still ask why those physical processes are accompanied by the felt quality of suffering. That is the familiar explanatory gap or hard problem of consciousness. Qualia provide a non-theological example of the same logical issue. I can accept that particular experiences are conditioned by neural and bodily processes while still questioning whether their subjective character has been fully explained or shown to be identical with those processes. The existence of an explanatory gap does not prove a nonphysical self, but it does prevent us from treating reduction as an automatic consequence of correlation. Qualia are relevant because they show that dependence, correlation, and functional description do not automatically amount to a complete ontological reduction. I am not claiming that qualia prove ātman or a nonphysical consciousness. I am saying that the existence of subjective experience leaves the identity claim philosophically open unless the explanatory gap is independently resolved. "There is something it is like to be a conscious organism." -Thomas Nagel: "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" Edited by teknix (08/31/26 01:28 AM)
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redgreenvines Kaptain Obvious 👀 Registered: 04/08/04 Posts: 47,256 |
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so motive is the culprit in the consideration of pure in the loose usage of 'pure contemplation'?
but how can motive be clearly ascertained? (not realistic in my understanding, since motive is a conflation of the habit reflex that triggers behaviors, and contemplation is a behavior) -------------------- _
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Rahz Alive Again Registered: 11/11/05 Posts: 11,425 |
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The question is not meant to determine which is fundamentally the moving motive (and which is not) but rather to determine the field of motivation, and to loosen certainty if/when one perceptual motive begins to seem prime in an unhealthy way. As a polarity, if the motive begins to move far from equal consideration it can signify a problem (excess). But that in itself doesn't mean we shouldn't hold a particular viewpoint temporarily, either for utility or "just because". In practice, holding a particular motive could be a means of moving toward balance. Seeing polar oriented motives this way can prevent overshoot AKA the roller coaster effect. While there are times that demand consideration collapse, after the last few months, considering the harm that can stem from dualism, considering the unanswerable questions in philosophy when framed dualistically, I see a path to a complete philosophical system. I've tentatively named it the Integrative Tension model. It will be similar to what Epicureanism is to Hedonism. The closest reform will be that of Pragmatism into consequence-sensitive inquiry refined by deliberate maintenance of equalizing polarity. It is currently metaphysically light and may remain that way. There's something about metaphysics that is elusive and perhaps fundamentally problematic (tension filled). Potentially a method of pulling wool over one's eyes for comfort, or of despair. Dualistically, metaphysics can be seen as a cognitive security blanket to be discarded, or as an absolute necessity that it be complete and true beyond doubt. The goal in Integrative Tension will be not to ignore metaphysics, but to leave the questions open for contemplation, sometimes just because, for "pure" introspection. Sometimes to balance gravity and levity. So I think maybe we can agree, the "pure" reference is about what happens in the absence of conflict, when a high degree of balance is already in place. In such a condition nothing seems a means to an end beyond itself. That does border on a metaphysical stance but not a first order kind. It's a second-order claim about the relationship between conflict/balance and purposiveness. -------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace I am I feel I do I love I speak I see I know why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.
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