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Post by Portto on Sept 12, 2011 17:19:43 GMT -5
Yes, I'm pretty much a consensual reality bot. I'm not very well versed in the neural pathways and such but it's basically a magnificent chain of reactions that happens when I touch or see something. If touching or seeing is the first step in the chain, what would be the last step?
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Post by tathagata on Sept 12, 2011 17:28:49 GMT -5
Andrew,
Here where it gets really esoteric lol...your awareness becomes habitualized into manifesting within a set of accepted parameters, habitualized parameters. Your awareness manifests on autopilot until one of a few things happen.
1. you die...when you die your awareness stops the habitual autopilot manifestation of this particular identiy, desolves this particualr identity, and then starts over with a fresh slate into a new identity. If your awareness has not stopped the autopilot in this lifetime it will move into another autopilot in the next lifetime until the autopilot is turned off in one of your awarenesses lifetimes. But to be clear, your awareness's lifetimes is defined as an interval where your awareness manifests into a particular identity.
2. you become aware of your manifesting of self on autopilot, and by increasing degree turn off the autopilot and begin manifesting conciously or not manifesting at all, again by degrees as you become more and more concious of your awareness doing.
3. having experienced the cessation of awareness in eternal stillness, and having become fully aware of the habitually manifesting nature of your awareness/i amness, and the kind of bondage it is, you surrender your awareness totally and utterly to the eternal stillness, having done this you become free of the autopilot manifestation, and conciously manifest or not manifest in each moment as it arises without any desired outcome...in this way you become a window of god or stillness into the world, you become a surrendered bodhisatva...when your awareness has gone completely off of autopilot, and has experienced a cessation while manifested into a particular identity it will no longer manifest into a new identity on autopilot...this is why its said that budhas are not reborn...as an aside its not that budhas are not reborn, its that they are not reborn on autopilot into a new identity. If they are reborn then it is out of a concious doing.
herein lies another paradox...you go from not really making real choices in what you manifest becuase you are in the bondage of habit and autopilot....to an interval where you are making some choices that are liberated from autopilot, and finally in surrender you are making no choices again, but this time when things happen without making choices they are not happening from autopilot, i.e. from bondage. So here is the paradox, you go from making no choices as a result of bondage, to making no choices as a result of complete liberation, and in the middle a whole lot happens by stopping the happening by degrees lol
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2011 20:32:01 GMT -5
Okay, that's fine. Is awareness form? Does it occupy space? no and no. I don't know. It can't be located, I suppose, since there is nothing to locate. So no, I guess. Somewhere is only defineable by things that can be located there. Or it could be defined in relation to somewhere else. But neither somewhere nor somewhere else have within them something that can not be located. So if it is not locatable then it can't be either here nor there. Okay if Awareness is neither here nor there then what is it that is looking at these letters right now and where is that? Wait, am I sure it is not locatable? Does something have to have form to be locatable? hmmm... ![:-/](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/undecided.png) Okay let's say that this Awareness is neither here nor there. So that renders option #2 in the original post pretty obsolete. wow! But does it follow that #1 is the only other option? but but ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) but that can never be known, eh? isn't that just conjecture? what could possibly remain to confirm such a proposition? not a single memory. Isn't there some sort of anaesthetic used now in operating rooms that effectively destroys all memory of the event that is happening under the drug? The scenario you are describing above in deep sleep is akin to that, huh? It makes sense and i suppose it could be true but it could never be known (in the way that i understand knowing). good stuff!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2011 20:37:50 GMT -5
Yes, I'm pretty much a consensual reality bot. I'm not very well versed in the neural pathways and such but it's basically a magnificent chain of reactions that happens when I touch or see something. If touching or seeing is the first step in the chain, what would be the last step? when attention is on something else? not sure. there's a magic marker on the table here. It's orange and the cap is off, another one lost. orange, capless, lying on side. all those are little idea-tags that encapsulate the set of visual stimuli in the visual cortex. there isn't really a final step right now as i keep glancing over to that marker -- i can even see it in my peripheral vision. there is no stop until, in just a minute, a shut this computer down and head to bed. I'll turn away from that marker and there will no longer be any active stimulation coming in. There will be memory. And I may ponder it for a while, seeing it in my mind. But that memory will no longer be the same thing as the visual experience. The memory will be a thing in itself. So i'll draw the line when I can't see it anymore.
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Post by enigma on Sept 12, 2011 21:22:00 GMT -5
Okay, that's fine. Is awareness form? Does it occupy space? no and no. I don't know. It can't be located, I suppose, since there is nothing to locate. So no, I guess. Somewhere is only defineable by things that can be located there. Or it could be defined in relation to somewhere else. But neither somewhere nor somewhere else have within them something that can not be located. So if it is not locatable then it can't be either here nor there. Okay if Awareness is neither here nor there then what is it that is looking at these letters right now and where is that? Wait, am I sure it is not locatable? Does something have to have form to be locatable? hmmm... ![:-/](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/undecided.png) Okay let's say that this Awareness is neither here nor there. So that renders option #2 in the original post pretty obsolete. wow! But does it follow that #1 is the only other option? but but ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) From 'here' it looks like things are starting to get clear 'over there'. Hehe.
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Post by andrew on Sept 13, 2011 1:51:47 GMT -5
Andrew, Here where it gets really esoteric lol...your awareness becomes habitualized into manifesting within a set of accepted parameters, habitualized parameters. Your awareness manifests on autopilot until one of a few things happen. 1. you die...when you die your awareness stops the habitual autopilot manifestation of this particular identiy, desolves this particualr identity, and then starts over with a fresh slate into a new identity. If your awareness has not stopped the autopilot in this lifetime it will move into another autopilot in the next lifetime until the autopilot is turned off in one of your awarenesses lifetimes. But to be clear, your awareness's lifetimes is defined as an interval where your awareness manifests into a particular identity. 2. you become aware of your manifesting of self on autopilot, and by increasing degree turn off the autopilot and begin manifesting conciously or not manifesting at all, again by degrees as you become more and more concious of your awareness doing. 3. having experienced the cessation of awareness in eternal stillness, and having become fully aware of the habitually manifesting nature of your awareness/i amness, and the kind of bondage it is, you surrender your awareness totally and utterly to the eternal stillness, having done this you become free of the autopilot manifestation, and conciously manifest or not manifest in each moment as it arises without any desired outcome...in this way you become a window of god or stillness into the world, you become a surrendered bodhisatva...when your awareness has gone completely off of autopilot, and has experienced a cessation while manifested into a particular identity it will no longer manifest into a new identity on autopilot...this is why its said that budhas are not reborn...as an aside its not that budhas are not reborn, its that they are not reborn on autopilot into a new identity. If they are reborn then it is out of a concious doing. herein lies another paradox...you go from not really making real choices in what you manifest becuase you are in the bondage of habit and autopilot....to an interval where you are making some choices that are liberated from autopilot, and finally in surrender you are making no choices again, but this time when things happen without making choices they are not happening from autopilot, i.e. from bondage. So here is the paradox, you go from making no choices as a result of bondage, to making no choices as a result of complete liberation, and in the middle a whole lot happens by stopping the happening by degrees lol I kinda like this too. I highlighted the bit I liked most.
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Post by Portto on Sept 13, 2011 6:14:22 GMT -5
I'm not very well versed in the neural pathways and such but it's basically a magnificent chain of reactions that happens when I touch or see something. Max: I'm talking about the chain of reactions. If perceiving an object consist of a chain of reactions that happens when you touch an object, the steps would be something like: - activation of nerve endings under your skin - neural impulse travels up your arm - signal reaches your spine - etc... What would be the last step in this process of perceiving? In which step are you directly perceiving something? (the first step would be skin pressing against an object, not you feeling smth)
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2011 7:20:33 GMT -5
From 'here' it looks like things are starting to get clear 'over there'. Hehe. chalk another one up to enigma's concept extermination service ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png)
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2011 7:31:19 GMT -5
I'm not very well versed in the neural pathways and such but it's basically a magnificent chain of reactions that happens when I touch or see something. Max: I'm talking about the chain of reactions. If perceiving an object consist of a chain of reactions that happens when you touch an object, the steps would be something like: - activation of nerve endings under your skin - neural impulse travels up your arm - signal reaches your spine - etc... What would be the last step in this process of perceiving? um well -- action potentials continue up into the brain -- the phenomena / model of touch is apprehended or something like that? there's magic in that last bullet (meaning, i don't really understand the physical/mental connection). hmm, that's an interesting question. my first reaction was to say the last step, so I'll go with it. Wasn't it Penrose who first started directly stimulating different parts of folk's brains which would then elicit some sort of remark from the patient about this or that perception? In other words, only that part of the brain needs to be stimulated for a perception to occur. So all of the steps preceding that would be unnecessary. The interesting thing about that experiment is that they wouldn't be 'directly percieving something' they would just be experiencing the perception itself, not the something.
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Post by Portto on Sept 13, 2011 9:20:59 GMT -5
Can you bite the bullet and talk more about the last step? What exactly do you know/see about it? What is it that the physical and mental connect to? What is it that sees the brain activity?
If not, a better alternative is to follow ZD's advice of ATA.
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Post by question on Sept 13, 2011 10:31:39 GMT -5
Nothing happens in deep sleep, there's just the going and coming of consciousness, and 'something' knows this. Mind concludes that there is evidence of this incident, and that this is how it is known.If memory is admitted as evidence then it already contains the conclusion about the outcome, memory is thus not neutral evidence and what we end up with is a circular line of reasoning, where the outcome is secretely determined by the skewed evidence admitted to court. So memory isn't evidence at all unless we slightly modify it with our favoured conclusion in such a way that it permits only this favoured conclusion. Like I said in a previous post, if we let memory remain neutral, then all that we can conclude using memory is that presently memory remembers that it is intermittent and doesn't tell us a continuous story. But from this alone we can't conclude anything about awareness. We have yet nothing that allows us to say that awareness is aware of the coming and going of consciousness. It would have to be the same who watches over the regulation of body chemistry, muscle movement etc. We can now make at least two choices about who is watching the clock. Your choice seems to be that it is awareness. The second choice is that the watcher is some sort of non-aware objective material reality where 'watching' is really an unaware process based on cause/effect. But both choices are based on inference. I think that this point too is a dead end. I'm not sure I understand this. Are you saying that there is a state called deep sleep full of a lonely awareness and empty of events? Like Max, I also think that it's just an idea impossible to verify. I can also imagine that you're making a more subtle point. 1) The notion of there being the state 'deep sleep' void of awareness is circular and a conclusion based on a evidence (memory and logic), which, if used to prove the existence of deep sleep, must already be skewed towards that conclusion. 2) Since 'happens' is imaginable only as a subjective experience, then the idea that there is deep sleep is as contradictory as a squared circle. So if we think that there is no awareness in deep sleep, then there can't be a deep sleep happening. Or, if there is deep sleep there can't be anything happening in it, because 'happen' is meaningful only in a subjective context -- but deep sleep suggests absence of subjectivity. I'm not sure if I'm making much sense. I think what it comes down to is that I see how the traditional question and how the traditionally understood answers suffer a significant erosion, but the excercise stops there. It's like I'm overwhelmed by the exploration of what can be said and what can't, but the point that you're making seems to go far beyond the mere collapse of the question and your point escapes me.
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Post by enigma on Sept 13, 2011 10:35:27 GMT -5
From 'here' it looks like things are starting to get clear 'over there'. Hehe. chalk another one up to enigma's concept extermination service ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) We accept all major credit cards and Paypal. ![8-)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/cool.png)
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Post by enigma on Sept 13, 2011 11:00:42 GMT -5
An unaware process knows what time it is and follows your intention to awaken at a given time?
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Post by question on Sept 13, 2011 11:09:48 GMT -5
A material cause/effect process that doesn't watch and doesn't know. I'm not saying that this is how it is. I'm just saying that I don't see how this choice is less plausible than saying that there is an awareness that keeps track of time while consciousness is absent. Further I am pointing out that if you say that awareness keeps track of time then you also have to admit that it regulates body chemistry and muscle movement etc.
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Post by question on Sept 13, 2011 11:48:24 GMT -5
Maybe "who is watching the clock" isn't so much about finding and defining that which is watching the clock, but to notice that the question is set up in such a way as to suggest that there is a watcher before it is even established that 'watching the clock' has even occured. Obviously I haven't watched the clock and am stumbling in the dark merely trying to figure out a logical consequence of just who it would be that would have to watch the clock IF there had been such an event.
But, again, I can't go further than trying to figure out what can be said and what cannnot. Whereas you seem to make a different point altogether, not merely trying to put thinking in its proper place, but rather to point to the actual existence of some sort of eternal everpresent awareness.
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