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Post by andrew on Feb 12, 2018 10:09:09 GMT -5
If I go with the true self/essence idea, then it needs protection from the unconscious, insane and violent world in which we live. Physiologically a 'shell' is created to protect us, otherwise it would likely be too much for our nervous system. The emotional pain of it all would be too much. This 'shell' is what you mean by imagined or false self. The way I see it, this protection idea is the tail wagging the dog. But good point about physiology. The body has its limits, not only on the negative end of the equation but also on the positive end. U.G. frequently made that point. There's a limit to what the body can take in terms of pain as there is a limit to what the body can take in terms of joy. Ramakrishna used to say: "If an elephant enters a small hut, the hut shakes and falls down. So also the experience of spiritual ecstasy shakes and sometimes shatters the body of the devotee." I remember Abe making that same point once, saying that if Esther would literally fully allow Abraham to flow thru her it would be too much on the physical vehicle, it wouldn't survive it. Yeah that makes sense. My experience is that the positive end can be intense for the body. The energy seeks expression, and the body becomes a bit like a dam reaching breaking point if the energy doesn't express in some way. In that circumstance, I have often found that my options are often to walk, or mix house/electronic music (which provides an outlet of release).
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Post by andrew on Feb 12, 2018 10:13:37 GMT -5
If a baby has no me structure of any kind, then it is the same as an AI bot. The 'me' structure becomes conceptual as we develop, but in essence it is just a primal and preconceptual sense of self. This is what differs to the AI bot, it has no 'me' structure. You have yet to explain to me what you see as the difference between a baby and an AI bot. I thought we've already worked out that difference in the A.I thread? The robot is missing the non-physical connection. But the baby, with our without ego, does have that connection. yeah I'm saying the baby has that connection, and it is because of the primal and preconceptual sense of self that it has that connection. As we get older, we might have to consciously find that primal sense by way of deepening that connection. So I'm saying a baby can suffer because it has a sense of self. Whereas an AI bot cannot, at best it could be fitted with some kind of artificial sensors, but even then there will be no actual feeling.
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Post by Reefs on Feb 12, 2018 10:35:16 GMT -5
The main thing is an animal in pain isn't imagining any alternative (that it desires), so the very dynamic between aversion and craving isn't there. I think the same applies to infants because they haven't developed the 'knowledge of' alternative sensations, so they don't have anything the crave after, and they don't try to avoid the pain they feel. From my perspective, it's exactly the other way around. The baby and the animal both still know very well what well-being is and feels like and they very much desire it. Keep in mind that the baby sleeps most of the time and is still mostly focused in the non-physical. That's why the baby screams like an animal when in pain because it's such an extreme contrast to what it is used to. I'd even say the desire for well-being is particularity strong in the baby as compared to the adult. And there is also no resistance to that desire. That's why such a strong desire doesn't cause any additional problems. The adult, however, that's an entirely different story. Long story short: It's natural to desire well-being because well-being is your natural state. But I agree with your point that there's a lack of imagining as in adding an extra conceptual layer to what is happening right here right now.
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Post by ouroboros on Feb 12, 2018 10:41:02 GMT -5
Well, yes, but to me, saying 'me structure' is so arbitrary I don't even know what it means, so I mention more specific aspects such as volition, aversion/desire dynamics, or the Buddhist reference 'craving', because these are tangible noticeable things. It's true enough to say that an infant experiences sensation without 'other' references, though. What I mean by a 'me' structure is anything beyond a sense of self, which I would equate to a sense of existence, or sense of 'I am'. This would be a conceptual structure about the person assumed to exist. I say it's not a natural thing for and infant as it is for an adult, and it requires some cognitive sophistication. Ok, I think this answers one of my earlier questions, about whether you class those 'sets of self-referencing thoughts' as conceptualisation. Obviously you do. I'm not convinced this process doesn't happen in babies, and animals, but much more primally, or to a much less cognitively sophisticated degree, as you put it, but I wouldn't say they conceptualise. I do think one of the issues here is perhaps underestimating their capacity, and the other is perhaps overestimating the basic requirements for suffering to occur, including defining it narrowly, and imputing unnatural divisions (i.e. between psychology and physiology). There is definitely a flip side to this though, which has to do with the undoubted liberating aspect of the SR situation, and what I touched on earlier here, about being present to a situation like pain.
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Post by ouroboros on Feb 12, 2018 10:50:28 GMT -5
No, suffering is the result of pain. It is the suffering that prompts action. Eating too much, pain in belly, slight suffering, stop eating. If pain always results in suffering, the word 'pain' can also be used to refer to suffering, and the suffering word becomes obsolete. That's how assassinations work. Not really, you can have emotional suffering, terror, depression etc. All forms of suffering that we might want to distinguish from physical pain, or distress.
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Post by enigma on Feb 12, 2018 11:50:01 GMT -5
What I mean by a 'me' structure is anything beyond a sense of self, which I would equate to a sense of existence, or sense of 'I am'. This would be a conceptual structure about the person assumed to exist. I say it's not a natural thing for and infant as it is for an adult, and it requires some cognitive sophistication. So it really amounts to a thought that represents or references self, like a self image, or even just a story that concludes with identification. I usually point out the mechanism by which this is perpetuated, because the mechanism is not other than the thing itself. The main reason is people can see fairly easily the reactivity when pain arises and quite easily understand that what occurs in addition to the sensation is causing a lot of suffering. We can fairly easily notice these additions, and hence see 'the cause' of misery and how we generate it for ourselves. The caveat is, there is a body/mind central to identity, so lolly does have to see himself relative to the experience, just as you imagine a lolly whom you address and I imagine an Enigma respectively, and all this has some limitation, which can't endure anything and still survive. When the experience reaches a certain extreme, the reactivity befuddles the conscious aspect so the experience is 'cut off' so to speak. This is why we take things to their limitations and have to keep an even keel, so we can endure greater extremes henceforth. Would this apply to the energy flows you experience? In the case of an infant, it is the same in the sense that at a high degree of extreme sensation the reactive dynamic kicks in, as an infant isn't really the 'idealised being' we tend to example them as. They still have disturbed minds and they still perpetuate that self from moment to moment, or even from the last life to the next. It's just that they haven't formed the memory in their neural systems of the infant body in terms of 'known imagery'. The thing is, it's all perpetuated in an energy. The structure itself isn't continuous as such, as no part of it endures from one moment to the next, but the force which created the last body/mind also creates the current, so the present lolly bears characteristics of that just expired. Thus even though it's a whole new lolly, the past lollies amounted to it. I'm only the byproduct of all my past, and the will to live, the 'craving' to experience, perpetuates such a regeneration. For this reason I think awareness of the volition (which is awareness of the reactivities - action/reaction) is the best form of self awareness. In the meditation, then, whatever sensation arises, just know it as it is - and if (or I should say 'when') reactivity arises, then notice how it 'disturbs' the tranquility of inner space, and how such disturbance is the essence of suffering. For most it should be really easy because the mind is reacting non stop, continually making self references, and people will find as they are the one aware, and not the one reacting, it isn't really themselves which reacts, and subsequentially, acts. Then one might suddenly realise the one who reacts only exists in the aftermath of sensation, and this is what sustains that 'me structure'. Sorry, I didn't follow much of that.
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Post by ouroboros on Feb 12, 2018 11:50:24 GMT -5
No, suffering is the result of pain. It is the suffering that prompts action. Eating too much, pain in belly, slight suffering, stop eating. Well then, is the only way to end suffering to end pain? The latter is a form or the former, and the way to end it involves removing the conditions upon which it arises. This does get into a bit of a grey area when we take it to extremes, such as, as far as a situation like liberation with life-force remaining, to say the least. But any disagreement there probably won't be about whether such a state is possible, just about what it would entail.
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Post by enigma on Feb 12, 2018 11:59:08 GMT -5
Well, pretending to not struggle is a different issue, but yes, defining suffering is always problematic because it is subjectively experienced. I'd say the reason is the moving goal post problem (similar to the perpetugasm issue). There's likely going to be some self deception about what one's subjective experience really is. Is that what you mean?
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Post by ouroboros on Feb 12, 2018 12:09:14 GMT -5
Again, not so. It's just that most of these teachers are overrated, they don't know suffering, and haven't really found their way out. Even Buddha who says there is an end to suffering? It's not more likely that us dudes on a speeratchual forum are actually the ones who are misinformed? Again, it's not really about whether there is an end to suffering, more about different views on just what that would entail, i.e. the hallmarks or characteristics of such a situation. To be clear, I'm not really talking about behaviourism there as such, but I'm afraid I can't really summarise this succinctly.
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Post by enigma on Feb 12, 2018 12:18:57 GMT -5
The resistance to pain can be reaching for an Asprin. And this can happen with or without suffering. Equating suffering to the resistance to pain is, quite literally reducing suffering to an equation. An equation like that one is an example of thinking of a human being as a sort of a machine. To get wonky about it, the equation is true but the commutative law doesn't hold. Where there is suffering, there is always some resistance to some pain, but the resistance to pain isn't always suffering. The reason Andy makes pain equal to suffering is so that we can be sure nobody dismisses another's suffering on the basis that it may be just pain sensation.
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Post by enigma on Feb 12, 2018 12:37:25 GMT -5
D@mn .. .. looks like swamp guy's been keepin' lolz company in the weight room. Well, of course, he has an image to keep up.
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Post by andrew on Feb 12, 2018 12:37:58 GMT -5
And this can happen with or without suffering. Equating suffering to the resistance to pain is, quite literally reducing suffering to an equation. An equation like that one is an example of thinking of a human being as a sort of a machine. To get wonky about it, the equation is true but the commutative law doesn't hold. Where there is suffering, there is always some resistance to some pain, but the resistance to pain isn't always suffering. The reason Andy makes pain equal to suffering is so that we can be sure nobody dismisses another's suffering on the basis that it may be just pain sensation. They're not the same thing, but they are closely related, and the reason I am describing the relationship is so that the experience of babies and animals is NOT dismissed. And I am still fine to discuss the particular kinds of struggles that adult humans deal with. I'm literally arguing one thing here, and that is that it's not okay to redefine suffering to suit you. If you really want to redefine it within a small context, go ahead, but let's be clear of the assumptions of that definition and context, which is basically that all suffering is highly conceptual and abstract, that the body and mind have little to no connection, and that pain serves no useful physiological function.
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Post by enigma on Feb 12, 2018 12:41:54 GMT -5
Pilgrim is right, and the sensing of pain is not a psychological movement. It can be just a sensation. sensing is a movement. A movement of sensation.
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Post by enigma on Feb 12, 2018 12:45:53 GMT -5
Sure. I've always said biological self awareness is a prerequisite to suffering, and it applies to all animals. Babies aren't lacking that biological self awareness, it just isn't highly developed initially. To be clear, I'm not saying biological self awareness is the cause of suffering.
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Post by enigma on Feb 12, 2018 12:48:28 GMT -5
Zackly. I'm just saying we can't refer to experience to prove the truth of the matter. As in, watch this video and you'll see that the baby subjectively suffers. It's not a matter of proof, it's a matter of intuition. We have the capacity to rationally ignore intuition, and to distance ourselves from it, but in the case of 'suffering', one can only only rationalize and distance themselves so far. It would be repulsive of me to post photos that would illustrate the point to you, but intuitively you can recognize that you don't want to see those photos, because you aren't insensitive to the suffering of others. My point is, the photos would not illustrate the point.
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