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dblaney
Human Being

Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
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Since reason and objectivity is the act of conforming one's thoughts to reality
I think this is a point where I'd like to comment on something.
From your posts, I gather that you see conforming one's thoughts to reality as one of, if not the highest goal and highest metaphorical plane that man can ascend to. But here's the thing: if man's thoughts are not separate from man the thinker, and man the thinker is not a separate entity from the rest of existence, then every thought man thinks is already completely conformed to reality, as they can't exactly deviate, just as a monkey can't somehow become more of a monkey, or less of a monkey.
In this sense, a Zen master will use complicated tricks to eventually help the student realize this fundamental truth, as well as helping them transcend thoughts (since no matter how true to reality thoughts may be, so long as at some basic level the student identifies with the thoughts or the thinker, a sense of division between thoughts/thinker/reality exists). Don't confuse this with the thoughtlessness of infants, as they aren't a fully grown human and have not yet become capable of this identification or perhaps even thinking in any form.
Once one is capable of existing in a state of no-thought (and of course this isn't generally an easy task, as one has to transcend all attachments and desires in the process), then one can experience unitive knowledge of Reality, by contrast with rational knowledge (not to suggest that this unitive knowledge is irrational, rather it is transrational) of reality. Unitive knowledge of Brahman/Atman is also known as liberation or enlightenment.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: Consciousness - the hen or the egg? [Re: Deviate]
#5457539 - 03/29/06 10:38 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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so you're saying you have no beliefs?
Yes.
isn't that the exact type of irrationality you've been arguing against?
Maybe.
Edited by MushmanTheManic (03/29/06 11:04 PM)
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Deviate
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Re: Consciousness - the hen or the egg? [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#5457568 - 03/29/06 10:47 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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but you've stated beliefs multiple times throughout your posts. "You'll never be able to enjoy the near infinite void of wonder if you constrain yourself with beliefs and delusions. "
^that is a belief.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

Registered: 04/21/05
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Re: Consciousness - the hen or the egg? [Re: Deviate]
#5457608 - 03/29/06 10:58 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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I know.  I could argue it's a necessary truth, but I have decided to spare you from such articulate babel, instead I shall provided you with this masterfully rephrased for Meta-Mushalogical accuracy quote: "I doubt you'll be able to enjoy the seemingly near infinite void of wonder if you constrain yourself with beliefs and delusions."
Edited by MushmanTheManic (03/29/06 11:00 PM)
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Deviate
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Re: Consciousness - the hen or the egg? [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#5457639 - 03/29/06 11:05 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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i could also qualify all my statements with "i doubt that..." or "it seems likely to me that...."
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

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Re: Consciousness - the hen or the egg? [Re: Deviate]
#5457748 - 03/29/06 11:31 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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You should.
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SkorpivoMusterion
Livin in theTwilight Zone...


Registered: 01/30/03
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Loc: You can't spell fungus wi...
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Re: Consciousness - the hen or the egg? [Re: dblaney]
#5457855 - 03/30/06 12:22 AM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Mushman wrote:
Firstly, I'd like to clarify that I've not committed philosophical suicide, so consequentially, I'm not an Existentialist!
And I'd like to point out to Markos as well, that I am also not an Existentialist. I may be a Realist/Naturalist/Atheist/Aristotelian/Objectivist, but Existentialist I am not.
Dblaney, context, context, context. You're speaking in the context of existence, whereas I'm speaking in the context of factual knowledge, logic and sensory evidence.
Btw, Markos, I think you've given the obvious impression that I [and those in the same boat as I am] hold some "grim" view of reality. You've described a "nightmare existence" from which you are trying to "awake" from. I don't follow that reality is intrinsically "nightmarish" or "grim" - it simply is as it is; it is metaphysically objective. It is only because of this that I, can construct my own benevolent life; that I can have a benevolent Sense of Life. You've admitted that the "mystic view" makes life more livable. How this isn't glaring enough of a fundamental bias for escapism is beyond me.
In a sense though, I have a similar view - in that I recognize I ought to 'romanticize' my life if it is to be a fully enjoyable, passionate one. However, the basis upon which I establish such romanticizations is the verifiably objective, absolute reality that requires no leaps of faith. In short: by the grace of nature itself. I choose the reality orientation.
And nor is such a disinclination to mysticism a sign of 'short-sighted spirituality'. In fact, it is because I've learned to think in long-terms [read: conceptually] regarding consequences of philosophical principles, that I hold the positions which I do today.
-------------------- Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
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BlueCoyote
Beyond


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For me it will stay a riddle, how one can dismiss something completely, only because there is 'partly' untruth in it. Even scorpivo said there is not everytime falseness in imagination, aka perceptions of what not exists. For me, it is to bring the true and good parts from imagination, who can become real. Then, you have your example of something, which pre-existed somewhere not perceivable by others (in my head) and became reality. To dismiss it completely is to throw out the child with the bath. I like it to grasp a reality, which is much bigger (in micro and macro and other 'dimensions') as we can perceive with our limited rational abilities. Like future has proven many concepts, who were previously imagined, became true, yet, one can also see this causal relationship the other way round to find something 'behind' the reality of conscious perception of something, or the existence of the perceived. The goal is, to make these imaginations as precise as possible. Like someone said before, without derivation with the aid of imagination, we still would be apes, or less.
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fresh313
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Re: Consciousness - the hen or the egg? [Re: dorkus]
#5458087 - 03/30/06 02:23 AM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
dr_mandelbrot said: Does consciousness organize as matter (all matter) or does matter exist prior to consciousness and thus neurons produce consciousness?
it seems u need matter to create the architecture before u can achieve/recieve conciousness
does it organize as matter? i think conciousness effects many systems most people would believe are purely physical in nature.
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MarkostheGnostic
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"You've admitted that the "mystic view" makes life more livable. How this isn't glaring enough of a fundamental bias for escapism is beyond me."
Physically, I am fully ensconced in the cosmos [world], psychically I can identify with my physicality or my spirituality, and spiritually, I am Consciousness which, being unbounded, contains my mind-body and the entire cosmos. It is not a matter of escaping the physical as it is a matter of turning my psyche to Realize myself as Consciousness.
"I choose the reality orientation."
'I choose the Reality orientation,' in the Platonic sense of trying to grasp the Pure Ideas that give form to the material cosmos. However, I am like a scuba diver who has forgotten his weight belt and must make a serious effort to swim down to a depth before being brought back up to the surface of things. Having received glimpses of The Deep, I am sustained in my mundane natural existence. I Know that there is an underlying reality that both creates and sustains the surface appearance of psychophysical reality.
Inasmuch as both Plato and Aristotle were students of Socrates, it is weird that their respective metaphysics are being argued in this, our dialogue, more than two millennia later. Introverted Intuitive and Extroverted Sensing types will always see things along these disparate philosophical lines, and never the twain shall meet. I say we call it a day.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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dblaney
Human Being

Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
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Quote:
SkorpivoMusterion said: Dblaney, context, context, context. You're speaking in the context of existence, whereas I'm speaking in the context of factual knowledge, logic and sensory evidence.
The way I see it, there is no difference whatsoever between existence and factual knowledge, logic, and sensory evidence about existence. While these methods of knowing existence are good and can take you far, they do have a limit. So long as you buy into factual knowledge at some level, and believe it to be something more than simply symbolic of existence, then it's exceedingly difficult to realize that you are a manifestation of existence itself. This is why so many have said that man's final end is unitive knowledge of Reality. Rationality and logic are very powerful tools, but they should be recognized as means to the end.
And speaking of sensory evidence, think of all of the monks and practitioners and sages of new and old who have practiced and meditated and achieved unitive knowledge of Reality. They all say essentially the same thing, that Nirvana and Samsara are the same, and that one ought to always Be Here and Now. They also speak of the illusory nature of reality.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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SkorpivoMusterion
Livin in theTwilight Zone...


Registered: 01/30/03
Posts: 9,954
Loc: You can't spell fungus wi...
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Re: Consciousness - the hen or the egg? [Re: dblaney]
#5458874 - 03/30/06 09:52 AM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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The way I see it, there is no difference whatsoever between existence and factual knowledge, logic, and sensory evidence about existence.
Both exist, that is the commonality. However, there is a constitutional difference between arbitrary, imaginary existence, and factual, objective existence. My thoughts can either adhere to the Law of Identity, or it can run amok in babblative, meaningless, noise. And if you reply something along the lines that "But we're all just making babblative, meaningless, noise.", then that ends this discussion - I refuse to discuss with those who waste my time.
While these methods of knowing existence are good and can take you far, they do have a limit.
A is A - anything actual has a limit.
So long as you buy into factual knowledge at some level, and believe it to be something more than simply symbolic of existence, then it's exceedingly difficult to realize that you are a manifestation of existence itself.
Assuming you're applying this to myself, I think you meant "something less". But of course, it's not that I don't have a problem thinking of myself as a manifestation of existence itself. There's a hint.
Rationality and logic are very powerful tools, but they should be recognized as means to the end.
Indeed and agreed.
And speaking of sensory evidence, think of all of the monks and practitioners and sages of new and old who have practiced and meditated and achieved unitive knowledge of Reality.
I'm not following this esotericism very well. But for all I know, I may have had a similar experience, but simply processed/interpreted/viewed it differently.
They also speak of the illusory nature of reality.
On the other hand, I speak of the real nature of reality. Why espouse some belief that reality is "just some dream"? [Overlooking the fact that it denies the Primacy of Existence] What's the purpose of such a belief? What does it accomplish?
-------------------- Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
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dblaney
Human Being

Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 7,894
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The Primacy of Existence vs. The Primacy of Awareness [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
#5476199 - 04/03/06 07:25 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Okay, I've been away for a couple of days and have had some chance to think about this topic, because I view it as a fundamental cornerstone of all philosophy.
I maintain that since the subject and object are of one and the same substance, call it what you will, then what we perceive as duality is actually illusionary. Here's why: when you break everything down to its smallest level, you have minute quanta bouncing and moving about inside empty space. Form and space: one of the highest forms of duality. But you couldn't have empty space if you didn't have form, and vice versa: you couldn't have form if you didn't have empty space. So they imply each other, just as the front of a coin implies the back of a coin. But the front and back of a coin are still part of the one and the same coin.
So what is the Reality that underlies form and space? If you say that the universe we are perceptually aware of is ALL of Reality (such as Spinoza saying Deus sive Natura), then I would say that you are looking at it from too limited of a perspective. For this universe had a concrete beginning, and science acknowledges that it will have a concrete end. If this universe is Reality, then that would mean that Reality had a beginning and an ending which doesn't make much sense, since that would mean that before the universe and after the universe there will be mere Nothingness, boundless empty space (Void), but then that too would be part of Reality. So we must conclude that Reality is timeless (eternal). Quantum mechanics also shows us that there is an infinite sea of unmanifest potentialities. For instance, I could be scratching my head right now, but I'm not, so the action of me scratching my head remains an unmanifest aspect of Reality. So then Reality consists of the manifest and the unmanifest. Thus I conclude that Reality is both eternal and infinite.
Now however, we come across a paradox. The universe is not Real (since it is finite), yet it is also not non-existent. And yet, this paradox is merely a statement of fact, which is called Maya. Maya has its basis in Reality (also known as Brahman).
There is another problem: the relation between the finite and the infinite. "If we believe that the finite has an absolute reality of its own and that it has emerged from the Infinite and is an actual transformation of the Infinite, or if we regard the Infinite as a transcendental first cause of the phenomenal world (a position held by most Christian theologians), then we must admit that the Infinite is infinite no longer. A God [a charged term, here I think it is used interchangably with Reality] who transforms Himself into the visible univese is Himself subject to transformation and change - He cannot be regarded as the absolute reality. A God who creates a world limits Himself by the very act of creation, and thus ceases to be infinite. The question, 'Why should God create at all?' remains unanswered."*
Ok so let me now return to the original question of the true nature of Reality. There are many views on this, obviously. As I mentioned in a previous post, Dionysus the Areopagite talks about Reality with negations. Since Reality is infinite and eternal, anything you say about it cannot possibly encompass It in its entirety, hence Huxley's terming Reality "immanent-transcendent". Now then, I'm not sure if one can successfully craft a logical argument for Reality being pure unbounded Awareness (consciousness), or at least, I haven't seen one. Likewise, I haven't seen such an indisputable argument for Reality not being pure unbounded Awareness. I dispute the argument that consciousness MUST be of an object, because during deep sleep, for instance, there is still a most basic level of consciousness intact, yet it has no object, not even itself. What evidence is there for this? Upon awaking, the mind still remembers "I knew nothing." What reason have I for believing the Primacy of Awareness? Without fail, every person who has achieved Liberation (from the illusion of Maya), Enlightenment, unitive knowledge of Reality, whatever name you would like to apply to the phenomenon, they all say that our very essence is Atman, pure, undifferentiated awareness, that Atman is not different from Brahman (Reality), and that Maya (the material universe as we know it) is but an illusion superimposed on the ultimate Reality, just as one can superimpose the image of a snake onto a rope if one has recently seen a snake.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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dorkus
don't look back
Registered: 04/12/04
Posts: 1,511
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Re: The Primacy of Existence vs. The Primacy of Awareness [Re: dblaney]
#5476282 - 04/03/06 07:43 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Very well said.
This thread turned out well. Despite my folly of electro-magnetic fields.
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dblaney
Human Being

Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
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Re: The Primacy of Existence vs. The Primacy of Awareness [Re: dorkus]
#5476377 - 04/03/06 08:04 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Hehe, well I'd bet that electro-magnetic fields do have some subtle impact upon us that we just aren't aware of.
I'm glad you made this thread, it has (at the very least) helped give me impetus to think through a few crucial philosophical ideas.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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dblaney
Human Being

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Posts: 7,894
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Re: The Primacy of Existence vs. The Primacy of Awareness [Re: dblaney]
#5482991 - 04/05/06 01:39 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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I just wanted to bump this and add a quote by the Dalai Lama:
Quote:
When talking about the beginninglessness of consciousness, I don't personally think that there is a possibility of coming up with an affirmative argument or reason. Although one can explain it on the basis of tracing the substantial continuum of consciousness, I don't think one can come up with a one hundred percent affirmative proof in the sense of a logical deduction. However, the strongest argument is that if we adopt a contrary position, which is that there is a beginning, then we have to accept that either there is an external creator, an agent, which also leads to problems, or we have to accept some type of uncaused event, one which has no cause and conditions. Again, that is logically incoherent and inconsistent.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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Shampioenier
Storm in aTeaCup


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The Egg came first then the chicken [Re: dblaney]
#5485694 - 04/06/06 08:40 AM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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don't you guys know anything? Chickens evolved from dinosaurs, and dinosaurs had been crappin out eggs way before any chicken gave a single cluck; i.e the egg came before the chicken; the REAL QUESTION IS; WHICH CAME FIRST, THE REPTILE OR THE EGG? BUT IN ESSENCE MANY PROTOSOA HAD BOTH PROPERTIES OF EGG AND CREATURE, SO it was hard to establish at this point where binary logic had no heresay.
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