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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2014 12:23:53 GMT -5
Oh, well taking events that physically happen as "actual" (which is just another way of saying that they are true), is a worldview that is based on an assumption of an objective reality outside of you that you are a part of. Let's say you go for a walk in the park, pick up a rock and hold it in your hands for a sec, put it back down and walk away. Later on in the evening, as you're lying in bed, is the rock still where you left it? Does the rock have an existence that's independent and separate from your interaction with it? Sigh...to me, using the word truth is a can of worms, whenever it is used. So is the word actual, if it's used in a model of the world. On the rock question, I'd say it is easy to see that the rock is separate. So this separate object has it's own existence distinct from yours, right? Objectively speaking, you and the rock both actually exist, right? |
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Post by enigma on Sept 9, 2014 12:26:08 GMT -5
Yes, claiming that what one experiences is actual (or face value), is an attempt to validate one's stories about what is actually happening. Yes there is that, but what I meant is that whereas one may say that what is experienced is 'actual', another may say that what is prior to experiences is 'actual', or another may say that what is intrinsic to all experiences is 'actual'. Yes, there is that.  |
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Post by enigma on Sept 9, 2014 12:29:09 GMT -5
So how does one separate experience from interpretation so that he knows what's actual and what's a story? It's fairly simple for me: The experience is the event(s) itself/themself, iow, what I call WIBIGO. Interpretation is afterwards, when a person is either beginning to sort out for themselves and/or discussing it with others, iow interpreting the whys and hows. But interpretation can also be one's rendition of the 'actual' events, which can vary considerably prom person to person. |
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Post by silver on Sept 9, 2014 12:31:05 GMT -5
Sigh...to me, using the word truth is a can of worms, whenever it is used. So is the word actual, if it's used in a model of the world. On the rock question, I'd say it is easy to see that the rock is separate. So this separate object has it's own existence distinct from yours, right? Objectively speaking, you and the rock both actually exist, right? Yeah, the separate 'object' hs its own existence distinct from mine. Yeah, the rock and I exist.  |
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Post by silver on Sept 9, 2014 12:33:40 GMT -5
It's fairly simple for me: The experience is the event(s) itself/themself, iow, what I call WIBIGO. Interpretation is afterwards, when a person is either beginning to sort out for themselves and/or discussing it with others, iow interpreting the whys and hows. But interpretation can also be one's rendition of the 'actual' events, which can vary considerably prom person to person. Right, but how many people can tell the difference or care? That is the question for me....which reminds me of the other day when I went to the pharmacy, the clerk had a tattoo on her arm that said "Trust no one."  |
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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2014 12:37:02 GMT -5
So is the word actual, if it's used in a model of the world. So this separate object has it's own existence distinct from yours, right? Objectively speaking, you and the rock both actually exist, right? Yeah, the separate 'object' hs its own existence distinct from mine. Yeah, the rock and I exist. So would you say that you and the rock are part of the same, greater and all-encompassing existence? And what's the difference between these two sentences? You and the rock both actually exist. You and the rock both really exist. |
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Post by silver on Sept 9, 2014 12:39:05 GMT -5
Yeah, the separate 'object' hs its own existence distinct from mine. Yeah, the rock and I exist. So would you say that you and the rock are part of the same, greater and all-encompassing existence? And what's the difference between these two sentences? You and the rock both actually exist. You and the rock both really exist. Yes. I don't see any appreciable difference in them. |
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Post by enigma on Sept 9, 2014 12:39:33 GMT -5
In my opinion, the reason that the third one sounds contrived to me is because of my deeply ingrained conditioning to conceive of myself as an individuated entity separate from everything that I take myself not to be. This is an intersection, that I find interesting, between noticing, acausality, and the nature of personhood/conditioning. The reaction of contrivance is noticed, which is of course, mind-stuff mixed with emotion. This has an appearance of being the effect of a cause, in this case, of a complex of thoughts and feelings centered on the notion of "me", or "I". But the set of distinctions involving that conditioning really has no boundary. It's the result of a machine put in place billions of years before I was born. Life arose somehow, humanity emerged from that and eventually developed a culture, including language, that has self-reference so intricately woven into it's fabric as an unquestioned assumption as to essentially go mostly unnoticed. When it is questioned, the questioning seems so odd and foreign as to usually be dismissed, and often unconsciously resisted with great tenacity. It could be that. I considered the contrivance before and wondered if it was the conditioning, and it could be that. Then I also sat for a minute and considered the nature of 'I'. Yes the self-reference is a big old abstraction that can be done without, but in another way, the 'I' is incredibly...'natural', in the sense that if speaking occurs, then there is always going to be an 'I' involved. So I'm not sure if its the conditioning that makes it sound contrived, or if its the sense of avoiding what is natural that creates the sense of contrivance. What seems natural is what we've been conditioned to see as natural. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2014 12:40:21 GMT -5
But interpretation can also be one's rendition of the 'actual' events, which can vary considerably prom person to person. Right, but how many people can tell the difference or care? That is the question for me....which reminds me of the other day when I went to the pharmacy, the clerk had a tattoo on her arm that said "Trust no one." U.G. visits Ramana MaharshiRamana: I can give you, but can you take it? UG: *stare* ( thinking to himself: I am on my own. I have to go on this uncharted sea without a compass, without a boat, with not even a raft to take me. I am going to find out for myself what the state is in which that man is.) |
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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2014 12:43:12 GMT -5
So would you say that you and the rock are part of the same, greater and all-encompassing existence? And what's the difference between these two sentences? You and the rock both actually exist. You and the rock both really exist. Yes. I don't see any appreciable difference in them. That's what's meant by "objective reality", and at the core of it is an assumption so deeply ingrained as to be essentially unconscious, which is the assumption of material realism. To question this assumption flies in the face of commonsense, but I can assure you, that this assumption is flawed. |
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Post by silver on Sept 9, 2014 12:47:42 GMT -5
Yes. I don't see any appreciable difference in them. That's what's meant by "objective reality", and at the core of it is an assumption so deeply ingrained as to be essentially unconscious, which is that of the assumption of material realism. To question this assumption flies in the face of commonsense, but I can assure you, that this assumption is flawed. If living breathing creatures are given senses then there must be stuff to sense. We are making an impact on one another here, and in the 'audience', and by the time any of us gets the right answer (if there is one), we'll all be dead, our solid parts anyway. Plus we're all given such a passionate push to live and keep on living, I'd say that's pretty impossible to ignore. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2014 12:53:06 GMT -5
That's what's meant by "objective reality", and at the core of it is an assumption so deeply ingrained as to be essentially unconscious, which is that of the assumption of material realism. To question this assumption flies in the face of commonsense, but I can assure you, that this assumption is flawed. If living breathing creatures are given senses then there must be stuff to sense. We are making an impact on one another here, and in the 'audience', and by the time any of us gets the right answer (if there is one), we'll all be dead, our solid parts anyway. Plus we're all given such a passionate push to live and keep on living, I'd say that's pretty impossible to ignore. Do you perceive a contradiction in what you wrote and what you responded to? Questioning the material assumption isn't a direct challenge to the idea that there is stuff to sense, but it does call into question the way that we orient ourselves toward that stuff, and at a level that is so deep as for us to be mostly unaware of the orientation in question. Challenging the fact of the stuff itself is a different round of identity poker. |
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Post by enigma on Sept 9, 2014 12:55:37 GMT -5
But interpretation can also be one's rendition of the 'actual' events, which can vary considerably prom person to person. Right, but how many people can tell the difference or care? That is the question for me....which reminds me of the other day when I went to the pharmacy, the clerk had a tattoo on her arm that said "Trust no one." The point is only that the perception of events is already subjective, and just becomes more so when one tries to interpret events. To perceive what ZD refers to as the actual is actually a radical thing. One does not even know what one is perceiving. To know that is already to subjectively interpret. |
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Post by enigma on Sept 9, 2014 13:00:14 GMT -5
That's what's meant by "objective reality", and at the core of it is an assumption so deeply ingrained as to be essentially unconscious, which is that of the assumption of material realism. To question this assumption flies in the face of commonsense, but I can assure you, that this assumption is flawed. We are making an impact on one another here, and in the 'audience', and by the time any of us gets the right answer (if there is one), we'll all be dead, our solid parts anyway. Plus we're all given such a passionate push to live and keep on living, I'd say that's pretty impossible to ignore. When you sense something in a nightly dream, is there really something there to sense or is it just an assumption you make when dreaming? |
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Post by silver on Sept 9, 2014 13:00:21 GMT -5
If living breathing creatures are given senses then there must be stuff to sense. We are making an impact on one another here, and in the 'audience', and by the time any of us gets the right answer (if there is one), we'll all be dead, our solid parts anyway. Plus we're all given such a passionate push to live and keep on living, I'd say that's pretty impossible to ignore. Do you perceive a contradiction in what you wrote and what you responded to? Questioning the material assumption isn't a direct challenge to the idea that there is stuff to sense, but it does call into question the way that we orient ourselves toward that stuff, and at a level that is so deep as for us to be mostly unaware of the orientation in question. Challenging the fact of the stuff itself is a different round of identity poker. I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying/getting at. |
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