Guest guest Posted March 2, 2005 Report Share Posted March 2, 2005 Pedsie2 wrote: > > In a message dated 3/2/05 6:16:18 PM, lbb10 writes: > > > >>L: It does not matter ultimately and such communicating and sharing and >>debating these universes can serve to show that conceptual universes and >>beliefs in them are unnecessary for living and to unseat hidden beliefs >>or attachments to them, since beliefs ultimately serve no useful purpose >>in life. >> >>Lewis >> > > P: Yes, you are right about that, what I try to do is show people the role of > labels, > explanations, and beliefs in their search. Show them that they are blinded > by the > brilliancy of their own ideas and chasing like bulls after a cape. Does it > really matter to posit consciousness, or matter as the matrix, the ground > of being? Not really. We are only fooling ourselves that we know either. > Both, are completely mysterious in their nature. It really doesn't change > our perceptions a wit to pick one or the other. > > But you are wrong when you say, that belief serves no purpose in our life. > Belief in an eternal consciousness gives comfort and protection from > the fear of death, beliefs are a road map, a sense of direction, even > when sages know the map leads nowhere, they offer it as a trick to > entice beginners into searching for liberation. But quite a few here > are ready to let go of such pacifiers. I think Michael is ready for > a good steak, tender, but not overcook. ) > > Pete Yes. We do create imaginary worlds that have nothing at all to do with what is undergone. Yes, too the last paragraph as well, and though it is understood what you mean by " wrong, " this is not quite the word to use since beliefs [ultimately] serve no [useful] purpose in life. What beliefs do in addition to what you have said Pete, and on the other side of it, is to confound experience, confuse it, by creating multiplicities of thought and concept in the appearance. This is done by beliefs that by their very composition section, compartmentalize, chop and lob off, deny, ignore, add, multiply and otherwise imagine, filter and distort experience. The division between what is undergone and what is believed and construed to have been undergone creates more than dualities and layers upon layers of imagined experience. On the one hand it has and does serve as a control and guide towards construction and development and security in the conventional world as it goes and on the other it has and does serve as the bases for destruction of the appearances every kind. Any one belief leads to both construction and destruction since belief inherently has criteria for inclusion, that which is accepted, and exclusion, that which is rejected and so to maintain the belief, what is accepted is gathered and nourished and protected and promoted and what is rejected is discarded, ignored, condemned or destroyed. Belief is by nature both " boon " and " bane. " Because of the boon, belief is precious and protected, because of the bane there is seeking to be released from it. As for Michael, I do not yet know what he is about and await his word. Lewis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 3, 2005 Report Share Posted March 3, 2005 > > Hi Lewis and Pete and all, > > Hi Lewis, > What are concept breakers or > belief busters? I make out they are > those observations which unmistakably > evade those nets. Some would say that Michael. Observations bashing other observations into smithereens. These observations are better than those and so forth. These observations can and may become beliefs and systems of belief and then these can and may be used to bash others into smithereens. There is also the simple view that concept and language is limited, in all the ways that that can be said and demonstrated, in its ability to describe precisely what is indescribable, whether it is ice cream, brain, or consciousness or any other. What can be described and argued over is anything. It becomes a matter of skill in gathering the conceptual objects arranging them in some persuasive and satisfying order and presenting the whole in a cogent and coherent fashion to win over the differing or opposing view. The Tripura Rahasya is an argument leading to a position where there is a certain type of experience in relation to Abstract Intelligence. It starts at A and moves to Z through a series of stories and explanations. One need not believe these conceptual objects or arguments to present them. One may use them to good effect without belief in them. No belief in them is required to use them. Science is not a matter of belief. Neither is religion or philosophy. When these become beliefs, therein lies the bane. Paradigms dissolve as a > result of new observations and new > observations come about as a result of > new means of observation. Sometimes. The sun revolves around the earth, the earth is flat, microbes cause disease dies and still dies hard. What new > telescope is clapped to the single eye of > the seeker in the matter of > Body/Brain/Mind & Consciousness? Whatever can be used. > Meditation allows one to notice what is > going on, nama focusses and irradiates > with presence and actual darshan if it > can be had is precious. Whatever works. > > You will possibly have read that section > of the Brh.Up.IV.iii seq. which tries to > support a claim to psychological evidence > for the nature of consciousness. I have. In > another part of the Vedanta wood it was > shown that Brain/Mind/Body is inert until > pervaded with consciousness. Can this be > supported by any observation? That would be hard to experience for most and easy to believe for some. The Deep > Sleep/Sushupti argument claims to be such. > In the states of waking and dream it is > entirely possible that consciousness is a > result of brain activity although there > are philosophical arguments to be drawn > down against that. And there always will be as longs as there are different ontologies, epistemologies and the criteria emerging from these for either position that are used in making the hypotheses, observations, and conclusions. We see how we filter experience, which is unavoidable if language and concept is used as the medium of expression. However it is at > least an intelligible claim that finds a > niche in the materialist worldview which > is today the dominant one. As the > Upanisad puts it 'the light is within the > body' in those cases. What of Deep Sleep? > The Upanisad claims that we know on > waking that we were in a state of Deep > Sleep. How could we know unless there > were consciousness in that state? An obvious answer is that one dozed off tired into sleep when the clock said about 10:25 PM when last looking at it and then awoke refreshed at 7:00 AM when the alarm went off. Another answer is habit. Another answer is that someone told us this was so and from that time we believed it happened, and so on. That > consciousness is 'in the body' because it > is a report of a state of the body, but it > is not of the body because the bodily > functions that sustain the capacity to > report are in abeyance or shut down. Are they in abeyance or shut down? One could argue that personal identity continues through the duration of sleep because if it did not when we awake we would not know who we are and where we are or anything. Recognition of this, " I am awake and another day has started and ..... " could be a brain function of memory and aroused consciousness and nothing more. We sleep and then awake to continue what is left undone as dictated by memory and aroused consciousness both utterly dependent on brain function. One could argue for consciousness continued in the sleep state by saying that objects are no longer presented so there is no sense of awareness though awareness continues. Both plausible. Add to this astral projection. And those who claim to be aware during sleep. > > Here Pete's point must be granted. He > would be correct about unconscious > consciousness if in fact it was > concomitant i.e. if we knew that we were > in the state of deep sleep during the > time that we were in the state of deep > sleep. But that knowledge is only > available to us on waking. Yes. > > This then is an argument which purports to > show the nature of consciousness and that > it is other than its supposed source in > the brain/mind/body, which is the > materialist view. 'It's consciousness > Captain Lewis but not as we know it' > > Michael. > > PS:We are on a 6 hr.time difference so if > you need untardy clarification from me > post early. Is that a Sarlomoron - > Michael's Clarification? Yes. It is consciousness in a different conceptual universe than that used by Pete and is in direct opposition to materialist monism. As you say Michael, these are arguments made from different conceptual universes and the finer points are yet to be made on either side. Do you find it necessary Captain M to believe these arguments as to the truth of these positions? Can these positions be made without belief in them, as a sort of exercise of capacity or some other purpose? Do you believe that one can win either argument? Is there evidence or explanatory power that makes one more convincing than the other? And is it fair to say that both can simultaneously be taken without confusion? And if one refined either argument to its utmost limit wouldn't the end be the same? Witness Captain M, if you have not already, Amit Goswami's presentation of quantum and classical brain as a means to present an Absolute Consciousness. Some believe he has resolved the problem of brain and consciousness. He believes he has and calls for a paradigm shift in science. See http://twm.co.nz/goswam1.htm. Such a shift would evolve new criteria for observation and new scientific views based on monistic idealism that is identical to that found in the Tripura Rahasya and other Advaita Vedantic teachings. If accepted, there would be a duration of its eminence and then it would fall back towards the middle as it is an extreme view as is materialist monism. It is another interesting story about that which is utterly indescribable. There is no reason not to understand this view so that one can share it and be able to communicate with others who know it and or believe it. There is no harm in it competing with material realism for it has been for thousands of years as monistic idealism. A new suit of clothes has been put on and it sounds more modern and perhaps to some more presentable. I have no difficulty in drink either view after all I am only the helmsman... The captain designation is not accurate, Captain M. Helmsman would be more poignant. Pete and you are the captains of this discussion ship, I am just a crew member. I stepped in as things veered off course and I notified the captains of it.....You two are in charge of directing the ship. I am just steering in the directions both of you chart and try to keep the heading so as not to fall off the end of the flat earth....:-) Lewis ****************************** Hi Lewis, Cap'n Lewis was supposed to be a jocose reference to the Star Trek catch phrase 'It's life Jim but not as we know it'. I'll grant you though that you got the conversation of the rock of rant and rancour. A few small points, 'the night cometh when no man can work'. Do I discern in you the empiricist assumption that the mind is a tabula rasa and that we carve the world in whatever way occurs to us using whatever criterion we choose. Credo: there is no nature. Alternatively we carve nature at the joints which are adaptively beneficial forinasmuch as there is something it is like to be a man. This is a very deep and perhaps unbridgable chasm. I would say that there are arguments which persuade and convince. You speak of this assent as belief but if that is belief where does belief go, what constellation does it pick out. Yes I know constellations are imaginative projections or organisational conventions. The major topics in philosophy continue much as they ever were, the matter of judgment is a mysterious thing. The paradoxes of Zeno and Nagarjuna seem logical but our judgment does not assent to them. The appearance idea or that what we are immediately in contact with is an appearance to our consciousness is an idea whose power I understand but one that I cannot accept. And so it goes on, call it constitutional, pre-conceptual, pre- cogito, non-thetic awareness (Sartre)or what you will, they cannot pass the bullet proof glass of judgment. Are these beliefs by any other name or positions that the philosphy you will finally settle on resolves. The deep sleep argument is not I will admit clear cut. It's deniable. The observation may be so exiguous as to evade all but the jnani. I'm a champion napper; sometimes I jolt back into full waking mode and know that I have been asleep but yes it is psychological and therefore fallible. A philosophy is like a net of fine mesh, individual sections can be attacked but as a whole, the reticulated strength is enough to hold whatever we're after. Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 3, 2005 Report Share Posted March 3, 2005 Nisargadatta , " adithya_comming " <adithya_comming> wrote: > > Nisargadatta , " anders_lindman " > <anders_lindman> wrote: > > > > Nisargadatta , " adithya_comming " > > <adithya_comming> wrote: > > > > > > [.....] > > > > > > Further, ...you can not really, truly claim the possession of any > > > basic, core ingredients that are eternal, > immortal, ...indestructible > > > just by their Very Nature. > > > > > > You can't claim possession of ...Space. > > > You can't claim possession of ...Energy. > > > > > > They have existed long before the object that you might call > `your > > > body' came into existence. > > > > > > They will continue to exist even when your body has died and > > > dissimilated into the earth, water and Air ... > > > > Most people seem to believe that after they have died there will > still > > be a world that will continue to exist. This is the view ordinary > > people usually have. Then there are the sages who say that the world > > is in you, not you in the world. Even Deepak Chopra has said this. > So > > what I propose here, is that your view of things is maybe not > correct. > > I am not saying that you are wrong. I am only saying that your claim > > cannot be categorically said to be the truth until we can verify > that > > claim. > > ...and which `claim' you think, ...I am making Here ? > > regards, > ac. > > [.....] " They will continue to exist even when your body has died and dissimilated into the earth... " Here you say that the body will dissimilate after it has died, but this requires a world existing after you have died. That is the claim I am talking about. /AL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 3, 2005 Report Share Posted March 3, 2005 Nisargadatta , ombhurbhuva <ombhurbhuva@e...> wrote: Continued from Message 20406 - Nisargadatta/message/20406 > > The captain designation is not accurate, > Captain M. Helmsman would be > more poignant. Pete and you are the > captains of this discussion ship, I > am just a crew member. I stepped in as > things veered off course and I > notified the captains of it.....You two > are in charge of directing the > ship. I am just steering in the directions > both of you chart and try to > keep the heading so as not to fall off the > end of the flat earth....:-) > > Lewis > > ****************************** > > Hi Lewis, > Cap'n Lewis was supposed to be a > jocose reference to the Star Trek catch > phrase 'It's life Jim but not as we know > it'. Oh. Consider me Sulu then at the call of Captain Kirk. I'll grant you though that you got > the conversation of the rock of rant and > rancour. A few small points, 'the night > cometh when no man can work'. Do I > discern in you the empiricist assumption > that the mind is a tabula rasa and that we > carve the world in whatever way occurs to > us using whatever criterion we choose. > Credo: there is no nature. There is no such conception or belief in a mind or it being a tabula rasa or mind. Also, neither of these are assumed. There is also no conception or belief that there is or is not a nature. Alternatively > we carve nature at the joints which are > adaptively beneficial forinasmuch as there > is something it is like to be a man. What sort of being is this? Speak plainly, Michael. > This is a very deep and perhaps > unbridgable chasm. Has a chasm been drawn with assumptions about me and then declared unbridgeable? Are your questions idle with no concern about their answer? Am I sold under.....? I would say that there > are arguments which persuade and convince. Yes. There are minds that can be persuaded and convinced. > You speak of this assent as belief but if > that is belief where does belief go, what > constellation does it pick out. I do not speak of assent as belief. It was clearly stated that belief is " to have or maintain a " state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing, " some who or what; " " to have a " conviction of the truth of some statement of the reality of some being or phenomenon. " This is more than assent. As defined in this way, and not mere assent that can be had with a yes or no at minimum, belief goes where its true includes and leads and away from where its true exludes and denies. >Yes I > know constellations are imaginative > projections or organisational conventions. Yes. > The major topics in philosophy continue > much as they ever were, Yes. the matter of > judgment is a mysterious thing. Yes, judgment can be mysterious. Generally, judgment is defined as a conscious, cognitive or thinking process, dependent on knowledge, for reaching a decision or drawing conclusions from whatever is under consideration. It is not mysterious in this sense. It is a cogitation towards making a conclusion about something. There is also a mysterious distinctionless judgement that occurs without effort or apparent cognition. There is also snap judgments, considered judgments, irrational, rational and non-rational judgments Which do you speak of? The > paradoxes of Zeno and Nagarjuna seem > logical but our judgment does not assent > to them. Whose or what's judgment, Michael? > The appearance idea or that what > we are immediately in contact with is an > appearance to our consciousness is an idea > whose power I understand but one that I > cannot accept. What are you referring to here? What is being said here is unclear. And so it goes on, call it > constitutional, pre-conceptual, pre- > cogito, non-thetic awareness (Sartre)or > what you will, they cannot pass the bullet > proof glass of judgment. Are you referring to appearances not being able to avoid judgment? To live and move about in the world the appearances are dealt with usually in a taken for granted way. Within this, there is a union of mediation, differentiation, judgment, assumption and more (as much as one would like to complicate it) is always going on during waking life under awareness about the appearances as they are encountered. The quality, quantity, direction, change, adjustment of these processes affect action and the appearances. To walk down a crowded street wait for and then board a bus and to sit down and then to get off at certain stop requires an unspoken philosophy of life. Judgment is just one component in the whole of experience. Are these > beliefs by any other name No. or positions > that the philosphy you will finally settle > on resolves. No explicit " philosophy " is needed or required. All the " philosophy " required is given as it is by living experience alone if it is understood how that occurs. Or one may go into the world of ideas and concepts made by others and these are abundantly available and of varying quality and uses as seen by users, if one wants to go that route to the exclusion of own experience, or one may go in for the experience of living, common sense, and a combination of other stuff as it is usually for most or some other way of living. I do not adhere to any philosophy. I try to understand these as they appear, notice the effects in the appearances and then put them down and pick them up as necessary. > The deep sleep argument is not I will > admit clear cut. It's deniable. The > observation may be so exiguous as to evade > all but the jnani. I would like to meet the jnani who is aware during sleep and to hear the experiences undergone. I'm a champion napper; > sometimes I jolt back into full waking > mode and know that I have been asleep but > yes it is psychological and therefore > fallible. > > A philosophy is like a net of fine mesh, > individual sections can be attacked but as > a whole, the reticulated strength is > enough to hold whatever we're after. > > Michael There is no reason to attack a philosophy. It has no life in it. It cannot be killed, it is lifeless. It is harmless... It is the holder of the philosophy that feels attacked when what one believes or cherishes is attacked. In this case, the attack feels personal because the philosophy has become us through our belief in it it, it has gained life, and, therefore, becomes necessary to maintain and protect for it is valued as a limb, a heart, a mind, a protector, a guide, a director and when it is slashed we bleed as if we were slashed and cry out and sometimes slash back to end the attack or to defeat the threat to our ontological security, to our dependence on it for what it does. I see no reason why one may use a philosophy to live as one would use a hammer to drive a nail into wood. You pick it up use it and then put it down. The hammer requires no allegiance, demands no attention, nor expects anything, it does not protest if it is forgotton or not used and it is replaceable. There are many kinds of hammers used for amny purposes. It is one tool of many. Each is used simply and then put away. Lewis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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