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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 26, 2016 - 07:28am PT
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Recent memory is not used nor is past memory only the original all encompassing memory foundation is used. Without a solid original foundation, nothing will ever live nor last.
The quiet part of my mind sees that sun is Werner under sedation.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 26, 2016 - 08:38am PT
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MikeL writes:
He [Jgill] doesn’t get it. Won't get it. Doesn’t want to.
but I thought he [MikeL] was arguing there wasn't an "it" to "get"...
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Nov 26, 2016 - 11:06am PT
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Its is a quaint tradition among intellectuals to acknowledge, by citation, the work of others...
Had no idea... learn something new everyday.
The argument for mind and intelligence as something special seems at least as valid as the counter argument.
And then there's that issue of the apostrophe.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Nov 26, 2016 - 12:16pm PT
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But it’s still one dimension. even though infinitely bracketed
Oh dear, [MikeL] has had too much turkey and wine. Let me explain. You are confusing the domain of a function with the range of a function. Algebra 101. All those oodles of dimension of experiential bliss you are concerned about are in the domain, not the range. To illustrate on an elementary level: I can design a function on the three-dimensional cube with sides one unit long that is one-to-one with points on the one-dimensional interval [0,1]. Here's how it's done: suppose we have a point in the cube, say (x,y,z)=(.325,.671,.549) Then
F(x,y,z)= .365274519000...This procedure applies to N-dimension cubes. True, these are only numbers, but you can see how your many-dimension items might be mapped since it's not theoretically impossible.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 26, 2016 - 08:29pm PT
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The man with several avatars here . . .
What on earth are you talking about? Too much holiday wine? "Avatars" an understudy for "degrees?" Or are you lumping together all the science-types on the thread? If so, elegant literary touch. And the issue of "it's" vs "its" is right up there with String Theory. As [MikeL] would so eloquently put it, "pffft."
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 27, 2016 - 09:34am PT
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in today's NYTimes Sunday Review section, an opinion
Actually, Let’s Not Be in the Moment by RUTH WHIPPMAN
"Perhaps the single philosophical consensus of our time is that the key to contentment lies in living fully mentally in the present. The idea that we should be constantly policing our thoughts away from the past, the future, the imagination or the abstract and back to whatever is happening right now has gained traction with spiritual leaders and investment bankers, armchair philosophers and government bureaucrats and human resources departments."
...
"So perhaps, rather than expending our energy struggling to stay in the Moment, we should simply be grateful that our brains allow us to be elsewhere."
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Nov 27, 2016 - 12:24pm PT
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Mindfulness is an easy target especially since it is being commodified. You can become a mindfulness teacher with minimal experience or qualifications. Even the buddhist community has expressed concerns of what "mindfulness" is really proposing. http://www.lionsroar.com/the-real-practice-of-mindfulness/
Trunkpa warned against spiritual Materialism (doing a practice to get something for your self) early in his teaching of westerners.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 27, 2016 - 07:26pm PT
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From PSP's link:
"According to the Abhidhamma, consciousness arises and passes away each moment as a series of episodes in a continuing process. It is not a thing that exists, but an event that occurs—again and again—to yield the subjective experience of a stream of consciousness. Consciousness itself is rather simple and austere, consisting merely of the cognizing of a sense object by means of a sense organ. This event serves as a sort of seed around which a number of other mental factors crystallize to help consciousness create meaning from the stimuli presenting themselves so rapidly and relentlessly at the doors of the senses."
I like this.
Dr. Ford, in Westworld believes that consciousness doesn't exist. This HBO fantasy is something posters here might want to watch.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Nov 27, 2016 - 09:57pm PT
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JGill I thought you would like the clarity of that article on mindfulness. It is informative and straight forward and also showed how the commodification of mindfulness is generally off the mark from buddhist practice of mindfulness. This isn't surprising because as JL often says "it is slippery " and commodification doesn't like slippery environments such as working with dualism .
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 28, 2016 - 07:59am PT
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commodification doesn't like slippery environments such as working with dualism
A student of figures of speech and rhetorical devices recognizes this as personification.
An example from Jonathan Berkowitz on CBC Radio's North by Northwest:
"Why should you never attribute human characteristics to animals?"
"Because they hate it when you do."
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 28, 2016 - 09:07am PT
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Jgill: All those oodles of dimension of experiential bliss you are concerned about are in the domain, not the range.
Sez you. (How would you know? Are you reporting your own raw, unelaborated experience?)
True, these are only numbers, but you can see how your many-dimension items might be mapped since it's not theoretically impossible.
Nothing is theoretically impossible. You’ve imagined it, . . . haven’t you?
Ruth Whippman: The idea that we should be constantly policing our thoughts away from the past, the future, the imagination or the abstract and back to whatever is happening right now has gained traction with spiritual leaders and investment bankers, armchair philosophers and government bureaucrats and human resources departments.
Another sign of a speculative imagination. This articulation seems very interpretative to me. Just try relaxing, instead. I have not seen that one can police thoughts, nor have I heard of anyone else does that. PSP is right; I’ve seen it presented at conferences: mindfulness is now a management technique. Ugh.
Experience is full-bodied and presents not only with what can be imagined but also with hidden or unconscious expressions. If you notice, you can find periods where you think that nothing particular going on. But we seem to be constellations of personalities, moods, attitudes, fears, images, thoughts, feelings, passions and obsessions, and underground currents that play with one another. It appears to be that we cannot say what we are. One *may* say that awareness is chemical reactions, neurons interacting, but these declarations are conceptualizations and abstractions, rules of thumb, ego, fantasies, metaphors, expressions that are more artistic than truly objective. These declarations are actually subjective, no different than the indescribable experiences that appear to spawn them.
I think people here read what some of us write and perhaps think that the only thing “experience” points to is an ascetic, always-upward, absolute, god-nearness, peak experience, self-validating, self-justifying, godlike, intense, intrinsically valued, personifications of cloudlike wisps, with visions, away from physicality, away from what is materialistic, flight-like, transcendent, altered states of consciousness. This would seem to be nirvana. There is purportedly also samsara. More advanced masters say there is no difference between the two.
The 5 senses, emotions, passions, what’s been called the shadows (of that which you are unaware of in yourselves), feelings, images, dreams, etc. . . . all these things also seem to be what we are. (I know, it’s confusing, especially when I won’t light on one view or one perspective.)
Here is something the His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote to Peter Goullart:
———————
The relation of height to spirituality is not merely metaphorical. It is physical reality. The most spiritual people on this planet live in the highest places. So do the most spiritual flowers . . . I call the high and light aspects of my being spirit and the dark and heavy aspect soul.
Soul is home in the deep, shaded valleys. Heavy torpid flowers saturated with black grow there. The rivers flow like warm syrup. They empty into huge oceans of soul.
Spirit is a land of high, white peaks and glittering jewel-like lakes and flowers. Life is sparse and sounds travel great distances.
There is soul music, soul food, soul dancing, and soul love . . . .
When the soul triumphed, the herdsmen came to the lamasaries, for soul is communal and loves humming in unison. But the creative soul craves spirit. Out of the jungles of the lamaseries, the most beautiful monks one day bid farewell to their comrades and go to make their solitary journey toward the peaks, there to mate with the cosmos. . . .
No spirit broods over lofty desolation; for desolation is of the depths, as is brooding. At these heights, spirit leaves soul far behind . . . .
People need to climb the mountain not simply because it is there but because soulful divinity needs to be mated with spirit.
————————
Be well.
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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Nov 28, 2016 - 10:22am PT
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The relation of height to spirituality is not merely metaphorical. It is physical reality.
Mark 12:30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
"For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth."
3 John 3
The truth was in Gaius, and Gaius walked in the truth. If the first had not been the case, the second could never have occurred; and if the second could not be said of him the first would have been a mere pretence. Truth must enter into the soul, penetrate and saturate it, or else it is of no value. Doctrines held as a matter of creed are like bread in the hand, which ministers no nourishment to the frame; but doctrine accepted by the heart, is as food digested, which, by assimilation, sustains and builds up the body. In us truth must be a living force, an active energy, an indwelling reality, a part of the woof and warp of our being. If it be in us, we cannot henceforth part with it. A man may lose his garments or his limbs, but his inward parts are vital, and cannot be torn away without absolute loss of life. A Christian can die, but he cannot deny the truth. Now it is a rule of nature that the inward affects the outward, as light shines from the centre of the lantern through the glass: when, therefore, the truth is kindled within, its brightness soon beams forth in the outward life and conversation. It is said that the food of certain worms colours the cocoons of silk which they spin: and just so the nutriment upon which a man's inward nature lives gives a tinge to every word and deed proceeding from him. To walk in the truth, imports a life of integrity, holiness, faithfulness, and simplicity--the natural product of those principles of truth which the gospel teaches, and which the Spirit of God enables us to receive. We may judge of the secrets of the soul by their manifestation in the man's conversation. Be it ours today, O gracious Spirit, to be ruled and governed by thy divine authority, so that nothing false or sinful may reign in our hearts, lest it extend its malignant influence to our daily walk among men.
CHARLES SPURGEON
Hebrews 5:11 Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
...Where the tire meets the road outward and inward, we should use all we have, heart, soul, mind, and strength!
And we all know, "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 28, 2016 - 11:19am PT
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It doesn't surprise me that people are trying to police their thoughts or direct their meditation toward some codified realm where good things are likely to happen. This is a pretty classic example of what PPSP was warning about per "designing your own practice." You're left with a conditioned ego trying to transcend itself (at least in theory) though policing itself. As was said many centuries ago, "how can this not lead to a great confusion."
The very words, "doing nothing" seem paradoxical. Radical allowing might be easier to understand as a concept. It usually takes a long time to realize that the practice only starts to catch fire at the threshold of self acceptance, whereas self-policing is actually a form of self denial insofar as you have decided going in what is "good" and otherwise. You are, in essence, trying to control the outcome, presuming to know where it should go. Or assuming that the outfit selling the course knows where it should go. These kind of mistakes are totally rookie errors, like stepping on the rope with crampons on. It amazes me that this stuff (codified paths) passes for expert commentary or sage advice.
Much of the confusion or muddling we find here arises from trying to
answer ontological questions (what IS this) with functionalist answers.
The beginning assumption with functionalism is that "real" is the exclusive domain of third-person external objects or phenomenon.
A kind of pathologically stubborn example of trying to apply this belief system was played out some decades ago by behavioralism, which sought to fully explain and understand human behavior by way of observable phenomenon. This also leads people like Daniel Dennett and others to nonsense statems like, "You only think you have first person experience. But it's an illusion." What's real, is machine registration, which we can observe and measure.
Ironically, though not surprisingly, this whole "mind as illusion" side show immediately dissolves once you try and apply it to, of all things, to what's called "hard A.I.," in particular to the persistent belief that it is theoretically possible to (among other things) build a sentient machine.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 28, 2016 - 12:06pm PT
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Mindfulness in Denver public schools
. . . the only thing “experience” points to is an ascetic, always-upward, absolute, god-nearness, peak experience, self-validating, self-justifying, godlike, intense, intrinsically valued, personifications of cloudlike wisps, with visions, away from physicality, away from what is materialistic, flight-like, transcendent, altered states of consciousness
That's a mouthful.
Ironically, though not surprisingly, this whole "mind as illusion" side show immediately dissolves once you try and apply it to, of all things, to what's called "hard A.I.," in particular to the persistent belief that it is theoretically possible to (among other things) build a sentient machine
I hope you're watching Westworld (HBO series - not the old movie).
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 28, 2016 - 01:20pm PT
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John, I love Westworld and a lot of Sci Fi stuff. I liked Blade Runner, too, but I never thought it was told the future. Both are fictional narratives that are made to see real because the writers knew how to pull that off. Building a replicant (al la Blade Runner) is a different thing, but I don't blame people for believing it will be done. That's the power of narratives. But one only has to dig into Dennett's statement, "we only think we have subjective experience, but it's actually an illusion," to immediately find the problems.
And this wonderful quote: ". . . the only thing “experience” points to is an ascetic, always-upward, absolute, god-nearness, peak experience, self-validating, self-justifying, godlike, intense, intrinsically valued, personifications of cloudlike wisps, with visions, away from physicality, away from what is materialistic, flight-like, transcendent, altered states of consciousness."
Funny, we know perfectly well that this montebank who spewed this dross never bothered to try mindfulness for one second, but professes to an expert evaluation based on second-hand reports. Not good science.
Isn't it interesting that people so often conflate the content with the sentience of same - the stage with the play, so to speak. Poor rube doesn't understand that experience also points to the physicality and directly toward the materialistic stuff he furtively defends.
One of the problems of Dennett's Folly (subjectivity is an illusion) is that he uses the agency of experience to announce the primacy and verity of so-called objective things while dismissing the agency itself as illusory, or conflating it with machine registration. The ability to believe this kind of thing must be why the tooth fairy et al (narratives) found such great traction.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 28, 2016 - 02:11pm PT
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Funny, we know perfectly well that this montebank who spewed this dross . . .
Oh my!
;>(
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 28, 2016 - 02:59pm PT
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^^^^^^^
Well, that would be me, and I said that it's *not* that, but that many folks think that it is something like that.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 28, 2016 - 03:15pm PT
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Have to have some fun on this thread or it gets deadly and sinks like a ship's anchor. Poking fun at what we perceive are silly beliefs is part of the bargain. But the greatest howler so far has to be, "You only think you have subjective experience. It's really just an illusion."
Like I said, if hard AI kooks ever tried to unpack this whopper - using nothing more than the Socratic method - they'd be in for an adventure.
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