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Post by enigma on Sept 9, 2014 13:52:38 GMT -5
Your description of the inquiry relates an insight, a realization, and at the core of it is how you orient toward the objects that appear in your perception. From our dialog it seems that at one point in the past you had an assumption of the materiality of these objects that's now broken. Would you say that you were conscious of that assumption of materiality prior-to the inquiry? Now, perhaps this came into your consideration before the inquiry ... I'm not so concerned with the experience of the inquiry itself at this oint, but with the previous ongoing experience of an objective reality. When you took reality to be objective, by your recollection, were you conscious of that assumption? Yep I was conscious of that assumption prior to the inquiry. I'd heard the idea that everything exists in awareness, but when I'd investigated it, it still seemed like objects were separate and independent. I would get occasional "flashes" of things not existing if they weren't in awareness, but there was a lot of thinking smothering the glimpses. I could test this with things like trying to see both sides of a coin. When I turn a coin over, one side vanishes as the other appears. This not being able to find things outside of awareness is part of "the weakening" that happened at the sig retreat in 2012. I can do an experiment now by closing my eyes, noticing awareness and what I can perceive visually (sparkly dark). When I open my eyes, objects burst forth and appear, but it's clear they are made of seeing, with that seeing coming from/out/in awareness, so the things in front of me, in my direct experience, are made of awareness. I'm not sure if I'd say it has been fully broken, but it's currently on much shakier ground This is why the discussion of where, if ever, experience is objective rather than subjective, becomes important. We can see that some folks see their interpretation of events as the subjective part and the event itself is somehow objective. Actually, a perceived event is already subjective, and the apparent identified objects moving through time and space external to a perceiver is a subjective conclusion and not something perceived. We don't actually know anything about all that through the act of perceiving. All we know is that appearances are apparently appearing, about which there's nothing to say without imagining all sorts of things. The rest is conjecture that has become so habitual that we have trouble seeing it as such. There's nothing wrong with imagination and stories about what is appearing, it's just that it's useful to understand where, in the process of experiencing, this begins.
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Post by enigma on Sept 9, 2014 13:59:04 GMT -5
So in terms of this: ... the version of "external reality which is in us" is a limited version? Necessarily so. Only Supreme Ordering Intelligence is aware of everything, even every sparrow that falls......... sdp To be 'aware of' something requires individuated consciousness, so I don't see our notion of singular Intelligence as being aware of anything. That Intelligence IS awareness.
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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2014 14:00:51 GMT -5
Yep I was conscious of that assumption prior to the inquiry. I'd heard the idea that everything exists in awareness, but when I'd investigated it, it still seemed like objects were separate and independent. I would get occasional "flashes" of things not existing if they weren't in awareness, but there was a lot of thinking smothering the glimpses. I could test this with things like trying to see both sides of a coin. When I turn a coin over, one side vanishes as the other appears. This not being able to find things outside of awareness is part of "the weakening" that happened at the sig retreat in 2012. I can do an experiment now by closing my eyes, noticing awareness and what I can perceive visually (sparkly dark). When I open my eyes, objects burst forth and appear, but it's clear they are made of seeing, with that seeing coming from/out/in awareness, so the things in front of me, in my direct experience, are made of awareness. I'm not sure if I'd say it has been fully broken, but it's currently on much shakier ground This is why the discussion of where, if ever, experience is objective rather than subjective, becomes important. We can see that some folks see their interpretation of events as the subjective part and the event itself is somehow objective. Actually, a perceived event is already objective, and the apparent identified objects moving through time and space external to a perceiver is an objective conclusion and not something perceived. We don't actually know anything about all that through the act of perceiving. All we know is that appearances are apparently appearing, about which there's nothing to say without imagining all sorts of things. The rest is conjecture that has become so habitual that we have trouble seeing it as such. There's nothing wrong with imagination and stories about what is appearing, it's just that it's useful to understand where, in the process of experiencing, this begins. yup yup
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 9, 2014 14:29:54 GMT -5
Necessarily so. Only Supreme Ordering Intelligence is aware of everything, even every sparrow that falls......... sdp Well then, in terms of this: Simultaneously, there is an external reality which we are in, and, which is in us. ... what's the difference between the "external reality" you assert and the objective reality based on the materialist assumption? SOI, is one obvious difference, but is there anything other than that? Yes, there are thousands of reports of more. Some people accept the reports as accurate, some think they are merely fantasy. Opinion doesn't answer the question one way or the other. If you were ever to have an ex-tra-ordinary para-normal ex-tra-sensory experience, you would then have to at least speculate there is more than a materialist world. sdp
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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2014 14:43:59 GMT -5
Well then, in terms of this: ... what's the difference between the "external reality" you assert and the objective reality based on the materialist assumption? SOI, is one obvious difference, but is there anything other than that? Yes, there are thousands of reports of more. Some people accept the reports as accurate, some think they are merely fantasy. Opinion doesn't answer the question one way or the other. If you were ever to have an ex-tra-ordinary para-normal ex-tra-sensory experience, you would then have to at least speculate there is more than a materialist world. sdp That's not what I asked. Personally speaking, my woo-woo's all came long after I'd started questioning objective reality, but to this day, other than how they orient me to the pointers, I've never taken them for anything more or less than what they were: experiences. What I asked was about the difference in world view between your statement and a statement of objective material reality. While your version of "external reality" might allow for phenomenon that a hard-core realist would reject, you're still operating with a model, and an associated assumption, that there is something real external to you. That you exist within a greater reality ... and that's exactly the same assumption as the objectivist.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 9, 2014 15:10:04 GMT -5
Simultaneously, there is an external reality which we are in, and, which is in us. sdp Are the two the same? Yes and no. Example. You have a baby inside pregnant mother. Via the umbilical cord, mother is inside the baby. For the time being, mother and fetus are one, until a certain maturity, baby can't survive without the mother. So in one sense they are the same and in another sense, not. There is another example of a figure/thing/object which is at once inside and outside, an example of a reality which we are inside and which is inside us (and actually most probably good depiction of the whole of reality). If topology were around he could probably name it in an instant. Edit: No takers. It's called a torus, more specifically a Clifford torus or a 3 sphere torus. Wikipedia shows a cool Clifford torus. I'll give a sort-of hint. Do you know what a Mobius strip is? It's an object with at least one less dimension than the object mentioned above, and has a significant bearing on this thread. It is a rather curious little object, you can make one easily, if you have not done so before. First, cut two strips of paper about 12" x 1". Cut one in two, length-wise (we'll get to why in a minute). Have some scotch tape handy. Take the other 12"x 1" piece, twist it once and tape the two ends together. Now take a pencil and start on one side and draw a line down the center of one side. What happens? Now take a pair of scissors and make a little notch in the middle and then cut down the middle of the Mobius strip (IOW, not cutting the edge), until you have cut down the middle of the entire strip (like you did with the first strip). What happens? (Compare this with the first piece of paper you cut). sdp
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 9, 2014 15:14:00 GMT -5
Yes, there are thousands of reports of more. Some people accept the reports as accurate, some think they are merely fantasy. Opinion doesn't answer the question one way or the other. If you were ever to have an ex-tra-ordinary para-normal ex-tra-sensory experience, you would then have to at least speculate there is more than a materialist world. sdp That's not what I asked. Personally speaking, my woo-woo's all came long after I'd started questioning objective reality, but to this day, other than how they orient me to the pointers, I've never taken them for anything more or less than what they were: experiences. What I asked was about the difference in world view between your statement and a statement of objective material reality. While your version of "external reality" might allow for phenomenon that a hard-core realist would reject, you're still operating with a model, and an associated assumption, that there is something real external to you. That you exist within a greater reality ... and that's exactly the same assumption as the objectivist. That makes sense, but I don't understand the point you are making? sdp
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Post by relinquish on Sept 9, 2014 16:25:28 GMT -5
External to all body/mind organisms (none of which actually exist). But the external reality does? Not REALLY, no. But from the illusory point of view of a body/mind organism that contains the belief that a multiplicity and diversity of objects actually exists, it certainly SEEMS to.
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Post by enigma on Sept 9, 2014 17:34:41 GMT -5
But the external reality does? Not REALLY, no. But from the illusory point of view of a body/mind organism that contains the belief that a multiplicity and diversity of objects actually exists, it certainly SEEMS to. In that context, so does the mind/body organism.
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Post by relinquish on Sept 9, 2014 17:56:30 GMT -5
Not REALLY, no. But from the illusory point of view of a body/mind organism that contains the belief that a multiplicity and diversity of objects actually exists, it certainly SEEMS to. In that context, so does the mind/body organism. Zack Kelly. And that right there is the illusory internal/external duality. So the external that SDP was referring to is simply external to the internal. Both contain each other. Just like positive and negative.
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Post by enigma on Sept 9, 2014 18:21:42 GMT -5
In that context, so does the mind/body organism. Zack Kelly. And that right there is the illusory internal/external duality. So the external that SDP was referring to is simply external to the internal. Both contain each other. Just like positive and negative. Oh, I see. When SDP said the external reality is in us, he meant in the separate person. At least it's all in the same (limited) context.
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Post by silence on Sept 9, 2014 18:32:35 GMT -5
Been listening to a Rupert Spira interview on Batgap - batgap.com/rupert-spira/ At one point he is giving Rick a bit of a grilling about what his direct experience is - around the 1hr 20mins mark. This all got very interesting for me (and I'm summarising in my words) - Rupert talks about awareness being the fundamental ground of being, which I get and is obvious to me. - He talks about how everything arises in awareness and therefore is made of awareness (I'd heard this before, but something resonated differently and is currently resonating differently, which was a bit of a leap for me) - I can experiment with this using my visual field - eg, I close my eyes,.. awareness is present, I open my eyes - same awareness present, and my visual field is now full of objects. Those objects appeared in awareness, so from actual direct experience, they are made of/from awareness. When I open my eyes and see the telephone on my desk, in this moment its just made of seeing, and seeing is made of awareness (as it has arisen in/from awareness, so how could it be anything else?). It's not a separate independent hard object, its made of seeing. if I pick up the handset, or it rings etc, then its made of touching, or sound etc. This was not new to me as an idea, but interesting that I can see the direct experience of it now. So what?
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Post by relinquish on Sept 9, 2014 18:43:33 GMT -5
Zack Kelly. And that right there is the illusory internal/external duality. So the external that SDP was referring to is simply external to the internal. Both contain each other. Just like positive and negative. Oh, I see. When SDP said the external reality is in us, he meant in the separate person. At least it's all in the same (limited) context. Yeah. I do think it can be worthy of some exploration, as it can come as quite a shock to realize that the internal contains the external JUST AS MUCH as the external contains the internal.
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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2014 19:30:20 GMT -5
That's not what I asked. Personally speaking, my woo-woo's all came long after I'd started questioning objective reality, but to this day, other than how they orient me to the pointers, I've never taken them for anything more or less than what they were: experiences. What I asked was about the difference in world view between your statement and a statement of objective material reality. While your version of "external reality" might allow for phenomenon that a hard-core realist would reject, you're still operating with a model, and an associated assumption, that there is something real external to you. That you exist within a greater reality ... and that's exactly the same assumption as the objectivist. That makes sense, but I don't understand the point you are making? sdp That there is an assumption in common between: Simultaneously, there is an external reality which we are in, and, which is in us. ... the "external reality" that you mentioned there, and the "objective reality" that I mentioned here: So I'd conclude that now you see things differently than the objective reality consensus. As Earnie found out with his Spira inquiry, that assumption is false. We've reached this subject before in our correspondence on Quantum Mechanics.
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Post by tzujanli on Sept 10, 2014 5:18:00 GMT -5
But the external reality does? Not REALLY, no. But from the illusory point of view of a body/mind organism that contains the belief that a multiplicity and diversity of objects actually exists, it certainly SEEMS to. What about a 'body.mind' that acknowledges the actual direct experience of multiplicity AND oneness happening simultaneously, manifesting to the individuated experiencer according to where that experiencer places their attention? what about the experiencer that acknowledges what is actually happening without fitting that happening into their preferred model?
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