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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 13, 2017 - 02:39pm PT
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sublime nature of that mystery and the importance it lends to us as human beings
Or it could all just be entirely random chance and there is no more importance to us as human beings than as to a speck of interstellar dust. You seem in general to push the notion humans are somehow special and important.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 13, 2017 - 03:29pm PT
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a deity of some interactive sort
Interesting choice of words. Do you mean interactive in the traditional sense?
If there is no need to invoke the notion of deity then why distinguish sorts of deity?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 13, 2017 - 04:20pm PT
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You seem in general to push the notion humans are somehow special and important.
Absolutely. And it's one of the great flaws in contemporary thought not to recognize the fact that the extraordinary nature of human capability requires extraordinary responsibility. And this is of course counter to the prevalent notion of our insignificance: we are a bit of nothing on a speck of dust. What that idea ignores is our ability to know and experience and be aware in a manner no other thing we have yet to discover can.
Simply with the knowledge of our own inevitable mortality we step into a kind of opportunity for nobility.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 13, 2017 - 04:24pm PT
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Sez Ed: In particular, I believe that Largo has posited that there is a causal relationship which schematically goes like this:
Nothing → Something
My sense here is that Ed has a different take on casual than I do in this regards, based on an indirect or 3rd person take on observable external objects, then tried to graft those onto the mind discussion. This works wonderfully on the mechanical aspects of brain function, but runs aground on the objectless shores of awareness.
But let's return to the issue of pure awareness - especially in regards to Healyje's philosophical position that awareness is a mind state that is inexorably tied to content. I refer here to a paraphrased article on the subject by Jan Sinclair.
One of many ways to encounter "pure" awareness (by anyone bothering to try) is to witness the nature of your consciousness in the "gap" between two thoughts. In that "gap" -- after one thought has vanished but the next thought has not emerged -- what remains? Is that "gap" a mere nothingness? Do you cease to exist? If not, then what continues in the absence of any conceptual cognition taking place? What is it that continues? In other words, what is consciousness like when there are absolutely no thoughts taking place within it?
Let's be even more precise: What is consciousness like at the time when there are neither thoughts nor external sense perceptions arising -- for example in a state of total sensory deprivation? The mind doesn't simply cease, does it? Even if one has no thoughts or perceptions there is still a naked awareness. But if we observe that naked awareness just as it is, what do we find? What is it like?
If you examine this in your own experience you may find that it is basically emptiness without any characteristics, yet it is also "awake" or imbued with a quality of epistemic being. There is nothing there at all with any characteristics that can be identified, reduced, defined, measured, or isolated in any way. You cannot be "wrong" about this because there is no thing, perception, or quality to be wrong about. Yet at the same time it is not a mere nothingness -- there is a quality there that is self-aware of itself, of its own emptiness (no content).
This is not something that can be understood from simply reading these words; you have to empirically stop calculating, stop evaluating, let your mind settle until you experience it yourself and are certain that this is actually what awareness really is like. Again, I am not referring to any sort of subjective perception or subjective "state" because it is totally non-conceptual, pre-subjective and pre-state.
State, by definition, is "any of various conditions characterized by definite quantities." Pure awareness is the total absence of qualities, definite or otherwise.
The sticking point for most people is that pure awareness is non- conceptual, and so you have Healyje scrambling to paint it this color or that and functionally attribute "it" to something observable or at any rate, conceptual. An evolved something. But in doing so, he has already arrived at the game too late, once qualities have already arisen IN awareness.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 13, 2017 - 04:34pm PT
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Intelligent design usually refers to a deity of some interactive sort
True. But what of the notion of the mathematical universe where no such entity is proposed - merely the underlying mathematical structure of reality? Can only conscious beings be considered intelligent rather than some ground of existence that displays a bewildering organization? Are we intelligent because we can decipher the rules of physical reality, rather than create them?
. . . there is a quality there that is self-aware of itself, of its own emptiness (no content)
Careful. To be aware of itself is to have an object of awareness.
In general, I agree with some of what you say. But I remain unconvinced that a "study" of raw awareness will lead anywhere productive.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 13, 2017 - 04:37pm PT
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What is consciousness like at the time when there are neither thoughts nor external sense perceptions arising -- for example in a state of total sensory deprivation? The mind doesn't simply cease, does it?
Not unless the brain ceases to exist.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 13, 2017 - 04:45pm PT
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You don't necessarily have to invoke the notion of deity to realize the sublime nature of that mystery and the importance it lends to us as human beings.
That is a lovely image, Narcissus.
However, you should look around at the other things which were inherent in the primordial plasma, like Rodney Dangerfield, the broken shoelace, and the 380,000 or so species of beetle.
If you don't look away from your own image, there will be trouble.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 13, 2017 - 04:50pm PT
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Sullly = Sycorax
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 13, 2017 - 05:05pm PT
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We have those pesky things we call the five senses that somehow limit the boundaries of this discussion.
Wayno,
Are these the five senses you refer to:
taste, sight, touch, smell, and hearing
I know of others.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 13, 2017 - 05:44pm PT
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The sticking point for most people is that pure awareness is non- conceptual, and so you have Healyje scrambling to paint it this color or that and functionally attribute "it" to something observable or at any rate, conceptual. An evolved something. But in doing so, he has already arrived at the game too late, once qualities have already arisen IN awareness.
The sticking point for you is you don't see that awareness is on a continuum with what my cat does. You make a problem where there is none. Awareness is absolutely not a "problem" for me. It is an emergent property that is the result of evolution on this planet. What's the big deal?
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 13, 2017 - 05:52pm PT
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Are these the five senses you refer to:
taste, sight, touch, smell, and hearing
I know of others.
Me too. Which ones were you thinking of?
Some on this thread have mentioned what their education and background and careers entail. As if it mattered. I don't think it does as far as general discussion like this is concerned. Maybe if we were talking more specifically about a purely academic endeavor. I bring this up because we mentioned the five senses and more. I am a cook. Not a chef, although people call me that all the time. I do not have a college or university degree but I have taken more than a few classes at the college level. The one unique experience that I have from my work, and it just occurred to me recently is that I use all of the "five senses" continually to get my job done and have good results. That makes me really effing special. Not. Just an interesting observation, that pays rather poorly.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 13, 2017 - 05:53pm PT
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If you don't look away from your own image, there will be trouble.
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
Beetles, life on this planet it's all fascinating and remarkable, but human consciousness and what it produces, its ability to comprehend, to know and to make/produce is like nothing else on this planet. The human mind has extended its senses to different planets, something beetles with all their fascinating qualities have yet to do. I don't think it's narcissistic to realize what you are, on the contrary with it comes a realization of your responsibilities.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 13, 2017 - 05:58pm PT
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Responsibilities? Please go on...
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 13, 2017 - 06:15pm PT
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True. But what of the notion of the mathematical universe where no such entity is proposed - merely the underlying mathematical structure of reality? Can only conscious beings be considered intelligent rather than some ground of existence that displays a bewildering organization? Are we intelligent because we can decipher the rules of physical reality, rather than create them?
I brought this idea up ages ago and typically it was trashed: the divinity of number, referring to the eternal nature of mathematical relationships that seem to be a reflection of an intelligence within the universe itself. "Ground of existence that displays a bewildering organization," yes, strange and mysterious.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 13, 2017 - 06:17pm PT
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An unexamined life is just as worthy of being lived as any other. Most people chose to not "take it to the wall" in their mind.
Tell it to the Greeks.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 13, 2017 - 06:18pm PT
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I'm with Jim and Wayno, I hope. You don't need to know what mind is or how senses work in order to make good use of them.
If you need to know who you are before you make a move, you are in the camp of hermeneutics, where you have all kinds of questions to ask before you can interpret a text.
It all makes work for the working man, whether chef or philosopher.
edit:
Of the senses humans have I was thinking of the sense of balance, Wayno. It is one you are not as directly aware of as you are of what you touch or smell or taste, but it is a sense. It turns angular and linear accelerations of your head into nerve impulses.
But the real question was a follow-up to your own. If we did have other senses, how would our knowledge and discussion become less limited?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 13, 2017 - 06:59pm PT
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The sticking point for you is you don't see that awareness is on a continuum with what my cat does. You make a problem where there is none. Awareness is absolutely not a "problem" for me. It is an emergent property that is the result of evolution on this planet. What's the big deal?
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As has been mentioned many times on this thread, human consciousness is private, only directly accessible to the person who has it. The above is derived entirely from a 3rd person perspective based on external observation of things and phenomenon. Of course "awareness" is not a problem for you because you are not even looking at it. You're looking at your cat.
The big deal is that you have conflated mind, an emergent property of the brain, which organizes the incohate stuff of experience (the X's and 0's to use a computer analogy), and awareness, which we DO share with your cat and ever other entity that flickers with some modicum of consciousness. The difference between the consciousness of your cat and your own consciousness is that the cat doesn't have the higher level capacities of your human mind, so it doesn't enjoy the subtlety and dept of experience that you do.
But I can appreciate the impulse of you and others to scramble around trying to peg awareness to the brain. But if you should ever be bothered to stop stop starting at your cat (or anything external) for a moment and witness your own awareness, between thoughts or other input from your mind, you will find that every category and quality you now ascribe to it is entirely missing. So what about it is "evolved?" Nada, amigo. Find out for yourself.
Ed asked an interesting question, and that is how might some thing morph into or in some way relate to nothing. This short video goes a ways in that direction per what the physicist mentions re "open space."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgpvCxDL7q4
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 13, 2017 - 07:17pm PT
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Krishnamurti is a mayavadi impersonalist.... Even an atheist is better off than a mayavadi impersonalist ......
This actually speaks volumes and it is why those who do NOT support theism need to keep the charge.
We need to change this climate... where this kind of talk is okay... where this kind of talk goes unanswered.
It's a space where the room for improvement, or for progress, is obvious.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 13, 2017 - 07:36pm PT
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Nothing has changed or become more complicated in humans understanding humans since then ?
Much has changed but up is still up and down is still down and so on. The religious proclivity in philosophy belongs to those that would diminish the role of humanity as sinful and unworthy and no more significant than a beetle: read your bible.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 13, 2017 - 07:45pm PT
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But let's return to the issue of pure awareness - especially in regards to Healyje's philosophical position that awareness is a mind state that is inexorably tied to content.
It is a state of mind, however, the bits in bold are wholly your projection and nothing I said or think. So maybe stop doing exactly that sort of bullshit and just speak your own mind.
blah, blah, blah...Even if one has no thoughts or perceptions there is still a naked awareness... blah, blah, blah
Well, frigging duh! Are we still rehashing and restating the obvious this far along? Oh and I'm guessing one of us has spent way, way more 12-hour stretches in sensory deprivation tanks than the other and it isn't you.
blah, blah, blah... -- there is a quality there that is self-aware of itself, of its own emptiness (no content)... blah, blah, blah
And that, specifically, is what makes it a state - a state of self-awareness (that is, unless you're going to squawk and complain that self is just more 'content'). Again, coming out of an unconscious state, job one is self-locating and self-identifying - that does not involve 'content' and until that's done you are neither conscious, in 'possession' of a mind nor aware. As I said earlier, an elongated version of that process can be seen in newborns which is actually fairly fascinating.
State, by definition, is "any of various conditions characterized by definite quantities."
Nonsense. State, by definition is a "mode or condition of being" - note the complete absence of properties, quantities and content.
The sticking point for most people is that pure awareness is non- conceptual, and so you have Healyje scrambling to paint it this color or that and functionally attribute "it" to something observable or at any rate, conceptual. An evolved something. But in doing so, he has already arrived at the game too late, once qualities have already arisen IN awareness.
Again, you are a veritable marvel at putting words in other people's mouths that they didn't say in order to then shoot down your own words. Super annoying and bordering on an unhinged form of debate. And somewhat sadder in that is the fact we are basically saying the same thing once one plows through the meditation 101 drivel and the semantics.
Check it out: when you boot up from an unconscious state (there's that nasty word again) there are no 'quantities' and there is no content. There is only a mind grasping for awareness, i.e. NO-THING is happening or present other than the process of self-location and self-identification. Until that process is complete and the mind has achieved [pure] awareness, there is literally no place for 'quantities' or content. Once the mind reaches a state of awareness there is then a stage for all the shite you love to try and shuffle to the side and thread in-between in order to snatch fleeting glimpses of that pure initial state of awareness.
Crikey, and this is where we're at 14k posts later? Sigh.
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