The seer and and the seen

[Truly Enlightened]

What seems "common sense" is more often than not an optical illusion of sorts.


I've mentioned five? Not recalling that at the moment. To answer your question. In the context of human existence, there are as many realities as there are humans. In a very real sense, each of us live within our own realities, and we find common language in order to talk to each other across the expanse in a created shared reality dependent on common expressions. So currently on the planet there are around 7 Billion realities.

That's on the relative plane though. There is however only One absolute Reality, which is expressed in as many realities as there are individuals. Sort of like multiverses as expressions of a single Existence. In fact, very much like that.

That answer may seem obfuscated to you, but it's both actually. Paradoxical reality, is that which our minds can't put into it's overly simplistic categories. I can't give a black and white answer, because a black and white reality, isn't real.


That's a bit of a trick question. First part of a response to that is that non-subjective perspectives are a non-reality. Perspectives don't exist outside the subjective. Second part is that the act of defining reality, makes it non-reality. You cannot draw a boundary around something and exclude the surrounding environment, which in reality includes everything in the universe, and think that represents reality. A circle drawn on a wall, is nothing without the wall. It only exists in relation to the non-circle.

Are you asking can we perceive reality outside of dualistic frameworks, outside of divisions between subject and object? If so, the answer to that is yes. The evidence is experience, of myself, and others which you'll find in the various mystical traditions of the various religions throughout time. Does that then become a "definition" of reality? No. The best word to describe that is Openness. No boundaries. No divisions. If you define, you divide. The mystic sees nonduality. The rationalist, the intellect, sees divisions, which are a product of the mind which we then mistake as actual reality.

To me, and others who have experienced this, this is not an obfuscation of reality. It's a clarification.


I think how I might answer that is along the lines of what William James pointed out, which I believe to reflect the truth of it, is that when we experience something, the first thing that occurs is simple awareness. You could call that perception. There is only raw experience, without thought as to anything about it. Then in a seeming intanenous event, that awareness of experiences splits into two parts; objective and subjective. The mind divides it into two questions, "What was that" (objective), and "What does it mean" (subjective).

Conception occurs in both answers to those question. How experience becomes translated, and that is a good word for it, is through conceptual frameworks, based on linguist and cultural conditionings. Prior to this, in the non-verbal world, it's just raw experience floating around in a sea of perception, without being attached to this mental object or that mental object.

BTW, if you consider this an obfuscation of reality, then your argument isn't with me, but entire schools of modern and postmodern research.


Mental constructs are representational of not only physical domains of reality, but of mental and spiritual domains of reality as well. My point however in all of this has been to point out that the mental construct of whatever it is we are drawing a box around and naming it, is a collapse of reality into something the mind can process conceptually. That changes its nature to a reflection of the mind's ability to conceive of reality. What it now perceives, or experiences as the reality of the thing observed, be that physical or mental or spiritual, is not the objects actuality. It's not real reality, or really real in other words. It's a face we draw on the object itself, and call it reality.


As stated above, what we perceive through our senses is just raw data, unprocessed through the filters of the mind, yet. Then in a split second it goes through those filters into the mind's categories of "what was that", and "what does it mean", or subject/object duality. To recognize that is different than not recognizing that, and assuming how we think of a thing defines its actuality. Not recognizing that, is what is the mistaken assumption.


This is a challenging question to look at. If I am understanding correctly what you're asking, the sense of "self" is inherent in the state of being itself. Where it goes from here get's unavoidably complex. I think I'll not dig too deeply at this point, but will offer a brief thought.

There is the saying I heard years ago which says, "We are not who we think we are. We are also not who others think we are. Rather, we are who we think others think we are". There is some profound truth in this statement. Our ideas of who we are, and what we subsequently tie our innate sense of self into, when we develop an "egoic self" in early development, is very much written in the narratives of cognitive thought.

However, when we can strip away all these narrative structures that we tie our self-sense into, we find, as I said elsewhere before, "We have thoughts, but we are not those thoughts", and that what instead is left is such "being" itself. I have a personality and a history, but is that the whole of my existent "self"? The answer to that is no. That is not what is experienced when you strip away the egoic self. What is experienced is "no-self", or Self, with a capital S, which has no beginning or end. Self, without the egoic self.


I'm not sure what your question here is in the way it's worded.


Short answer to this, no. And yes. The no answer is that anything that is sensed, is using our senses. The yes answer is that not everything we sense is tied to what people have categorized as the "five senses". Those are rather crude and somewhat arbitrary assignments of "sense" to certain types of sense. But they are incomplete. Nowadays, they are saying there is over 20 some odd senses, which you can look up for yourself. But I think it's improper to take that look at how things work as defining an actual number.

I think sense can know plenty about existence, without those blunt categories. It's all sense, but where and how that exists, is much more than what we reduce reality down to when we take the metaphors of science (which they really are), and make the definers of reality. That's what this whole discussion is aiming to deconstruct here.

Not an easy thing to address, and certainly unavoidably complex and difficult once you pull back the covers that hid everything underneath "five easy pieces".


I know what other people's perspectives of those are.


I believe everything does. I believe in emergent levels of reality which cannot be reduced down to the component level, such as the reductionism of philosophical materialism in their defining reality.


Great question. The value of this is everything the mystics have extolled throughout the ages. Knowing yourself truly, behind, before, and beyond all the masks of reality we create obfuscating the truth of our own existence. The value is Peace, Joy, Freedom, Compassion, Love, and so forth.


Great, apology accepted. I still don't get the reference to Oslo. BTW, I liked this approach of asking questions for clarification. The other way wasn't work so well for us.

I was really hoping that you could answer at least ONE question, without more obfuscations, ambiguity, non-answers, fallacies, abstractions, answering with a question, or just more blatant category and composition fallacies. At least you've proven my suspicions beyond any doubt. I suppose that your argument can't be tied down by actually defining your terms clearly. As long as your word-salad stays undefined and ambiguous, you can't be held responsible for how others comprehend and interpret their meaning. You simply can deny, modify, change, falsely equivocate, or adapt to any rational challenge deposited. There will always be people who want to believe that up is down, real is unreal, mental is physical, or that superman really does exist. You simple provide the undefined and obscure terminology to validate their beliefs. This is totally dishonest, without evidence. Claiming that our brain is purposely working against us, to obscure and distort our perception of reality, by its application of mental filters, is even worst.

It is obvious that you can't answer a simple question without trying to blatantly obscure, deny, or embellish them with unnecessary pseudo-sophistry, double talk, and metaphysical gibberish. I am truly wasting my time, if you can't even clearly explain or define even the simplest of terms, with respect to their limitations and properties. At least I now understand why you are not interested in any honest discourse. You seem only interested in a platform to editorialize, and proselytize your made up undefined nonsense language.

 

[Windwalker]

I was really hoping that you could answer at least ONE question, without more obfuscations, ambiguity, non-answers, fallacies, abstractions, answering with a question, or just more blatant category and composition fallacies. At least you've proven my suspicions beyond any doubt. I suppose that your argument can't be tied down by actually defining your terms clearly. As long as your word-salad stays undefined and ambiguous, you can't be held responsible for how others comprehend and interpret their meaning. You simply can deny, modify, change, falsely equivocate, or adapt to any rational challenge deposited. There will always be people who want to believe that up is down, real is unreal, mental is physical, or that superman really does exist. You simple provide the undefined and obscure terminology to validate their beliefs. This is totally dishonest, without evidence. Claiming that our brain is purposely working against us, to obscure and distort our perception of reality, by its application of mental filters, is even worst.

It is obvious that you can't answer a simple question without trying to blatantly obscure, deny, or embellish them with unnecessary pseudo-sophistry, double talk, and metaphysical gibberish. I am truly wasting my time, if you can't even clearly explain or define even the simplest of terms, with respect to their limitations and properties. At least I now understand why you are not interested in any honest discourse. You seem only interested in a platform to editorialize, and proselytize your made up undefined nonsense language.

My God, you really aren't capable of thinking outside your box. You prove my point brilliantly. You then resort to attacking me personally like this in an attempt to deflect from your shortcomings in all of this to save face for yourself. I guess your apology to me was insincere. That's too bad, but not unexpected.

I guess "Truly Enlightened", for your name, hardly seems appropriate. I expected at least some hope for better than the standard out of the box neo-atheist thinking with a name like that, but then again, why would someone use that term to describe themselves if they actually were?


Edit to add: BTW, in case you truly believe this nonsense you posted about me making crap up to grandstand my ego, or whatever you want to tell yourself, please read this post from another respected member here on RF from yesterday afternoon. It exactly parallels everything I have said in this post linked here: Enlightement

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Our universe can be categorised into two: The seer and the seen.

The study of the seen is the field of science. Enquiry into the nature of seer comes under the domain of spiritualism. Then, how is the enquiry into the nature of the seer delusional or fantasy? How can one say that "I have completely understood the seen", if one has not known the seer?

...

Since no one says they understand (fully?) the unseen, and the seer doesnt jump out in what they dont fully understand; its not self explanatory, its really an illogical question.

If one does understand the seen, how does that mean they will know a seer?

Why isnt the seen better understood and lived without trying to think about an seer?

If anything, to understand the seer one needs to understand the seen. It makes no sense to try and guess what a seer is in order to understand the seen when the seen does not need guesses but can be used to understand literally rather than assumption and interpretation.

Still and interpretation but better guided.

 

[atanu]

Since no one says they understand (fully?) the unseen, and the seer doesnt jump out in what they dont fully understand; its not self explanatory, its really an illogical question.

If one does understand the seen, how does that mean they will know a seer?

Why isnt the seen better understood and lived without trying to think about an seer?

If anything, to understand the seer one needs to understand the seen. It makes no sense to try and guess what a seer is in order to understand the seen when the seen does not need guesses but can be used to understand literally rather than assumption and interpretation.

Still and interpretation but better guided.

May be you are correct. Let me try to understand.

How exactly will the knowledge of the seen help you to get knowledge of the seer?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

May be you are correct. Let me try to understand.

How exactly will the knowledge of the seen help you to get knowledge of the seer?

Exactly. Is it just an inner feeling? Same say it just makes sense or common sense really. I've yet to find a distinct connection but a personal one, that I can see.

 

[viole]

How can skeptics who believe the entire universe could be an in-the-moment-projection or a matrix deny unseen reality?

How can skeptics who cannot see tell those who have seen the unseen they haven't seen it?

How can people devoted to science not understand the limits of science, regarding metaphysics, like love, justice and spirit?

What makes you think that love and justice lie outside scientific inquiry?

Like all emerging properties of brains, love is quite plausibly an evolutionary adaptation. Like sending commands to hearts to beat. Especially, romantic and stable love seem to be functional towards our nature of apes whose offspring need time to become independent.

I really wonder why many believe that things like love, the sense of justice, pain, joy, etc. are something more than brain states. I mean, my brain is thrilled to have those states, but their promotion to the metaphysical seems very premature.

Ciao

- viole

 

[atanu]

What makes you think that love and justice lie outside scientific inquiry?

How do you propose to objectify first person subjective experience, including the self awareness of existence?

Like all emerging properties of brains, love is quite plausibly an evolutionary adaptation.

What are some of the emerging properties of brain?

I really wonder why many believe that things like love, the sense of justice, pain, joy, etc. are something more than brain states. I mean, my brain is thrilled to have those states, but their promotion to the metaphysical seems very premature.

Your brain is thrilled?

Then who knows that thrill? What is seen and what is the seer? Is brain both the subject and the object too?
...

 

[Truly Enlightened]

My God, you really aren't capable of thinking outside your box. You prove my point brilliantly. You then resort to attacking me personally like this in an attempt to deflect from your shortcomings in all of this to save face for yourself. I guess your apology to me was insincere. That's too bad, but not unexpected.

I guess "Truly Enlightened", for your name, hardly seems appropriate. I expected at least some hope for better than the standard out of the box neo-atheist thinking with a name like that, but then again, why would someone use that term to describe themselves if they actually were?


Edit to add: BTW, in case you truly believe this nonsense you posted about me making crap up to grandstand my ego, or whatever you want to tell yourself, please read this post from another respected member here on RF from yesterday afternoon. It exactly parallels everything I have said in this post linked here: Enlightement

Your entire post was one big distraction to avoid your burden of responsibility. Questioning my reasoning ability does not absolve you of making your ideas crystal clear and not obscure and obtuse. There is a difference in "thinking outside the box"(based of clear facts and evidence), and creating your own box(based on belief and personal bias). Even you are not silly enough to think that anyone's user name is a true reflection of who they are, anymore than your real name is a true reflection of who you are. So spare me the silly straw man. If you would spend more time defining the terms that you make up as you go, to purposely obfuscate everything out of your mouth, my patience would not be so strained.

Since you chose to answer my questions with abstract and obfuscated answers, which can mean anything you want them to mean, let me try answering the questions without using nonsense language, or "word-stroking" my ego.

Our perception, of our environmental reality is everything that we sense using our senses, directly or indirectly. This means that whenever our sense organs are stimulate by something outside of them, that sensation will travel to the various parts of the brain and spinal cord. Or, it can travel to the spinal cord and back to muscles(reflex arc). We can also perceive our internal environmental reality indirectly. There are specialized sensory organs, glands, genes, and hormones, that maintains the body's internal environment(sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, pituitary and endocrine systems). The understanding of both systems have been verified, validated, manipulated, proven, and ascertained. These processes have nothing to do with any mental, I am, or subjective assumptions. They have everything to do with being hardwired by evolution.

Our conception of reality is a meaningless assertion. We do not use our sense organs to conceive anything, period. Which of the senses do we use to conceive of love, anger, logic, or any abstract idea? Never mind, this question is rhetorical, I'm certainly not interested in more of your obscure obfuscations. The answer is, we don't. We mentally conceive things by tapping into an array of neural networks stored in our subconsciousness, and as an expression of our genetic makeup. What physical sense organ do you use to remember your name, or create an abstract image? Again, rhetorical. It is not even necessary for us to be conscious for our mind to conceive of images created from our subconsciousness. It only requires a functional physical brain. This is different to our perception, which DOES require your physical presence and awareness. Do you think the electro-biochemical processes occurring constantly(even when asleep), do not in some way manifesting itself? Why do you think our mental conceptions are usually fragmented, colorless(no visual receptors) and generally formless? Again, these questions are rhetorical. You would simply be conceptualizing, as normal. No matter how you want to conceptualize reality, your body will always be stuck here in the non-conceptualized reality, just like the rest of us. Oh, and this doesn't mean that all of reality is non-conceptual, before you misrepresent this bone.

I will continue in another post to answer the questions that I've asked. Without using the wordy song and dance rhetoric, designed to entertain and impress, not to inform or explain.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

My God, you really aren't capable of thinking outside your box. You prove my point brilliantly. You then resort to attacking me personally like this in an attempt to deflect from your shortcomings in all of this to save face for yourself. I guess your apology to me was insincere. That's too bad, but not unexpected.

I guess "Truly Enlightened", for your name, hardly seems appropriate. I expected at least some hope for better than the standard out of the box neo-atheist thinking with a name like that, but then again, why would someone use that term to describe themselves if they actually were?


Edit to add: BTW, in case you truly believe this nonsense you posted about me making crap up to grandstand my ego, or whatever you want to tell yourself, please read this post from another respected member here on RF from yesterday afternoon. It exactly parallels everything I have said in this post linked here: Enlightement

Our subjective reality/perspective is the domain of all physical reality that is accessible to our sense organs. It represents only that part of reality our senses can perceive as being real. It also represents the limits of our senses, without adding other modification or extensions. This is the perspective that allows us to navigate through the reality that our brain has interpreted from our senses. Since the brain, body, mind, and self all depend on the experience of sensory input to determine what is real and what isn't, they are not mutually exclusive. If any one of them were to disappear, ALL would disappear to an extent. Since we can't "mind meld" with another to extend the range of our senses, we are trapped within this perspective of reality. We can't even step outside of ourselves(mentally or physically) and see any objective image of ourselves. Can you see a 4 dimensional image of yourself(not the 2D mirror reflection). Again rhetorical, the answer is NO. Also, no two people can feel, see, act, or be exactly the same. No two people on the planet can have the exact same perspective or experience. Their perspectives of reality will always be mutually exclusive. If I pick up a hammer, can you feel it? Can you hear the words that states what I am thinking about you now? So how can we possibly share the same experiences? This is so obvious, that the point is moot. Again rhetorical.

Our objective reality/perspective is the domain of all physical things that exists outside of our perception, and doesn't require our presence to validate its existence. Since everything we perceive is NOT in real time(there is always a delay), we can only perceive events that have already happened. Before we can make a conscious decision, it has already been made(no free will) for us. This perspective of reality is inaccessible to us. It would require the ability to be everywhere, everything , at all times, within the universe. Only a God has these properties. If you are looking at the computer, you can't perceive events at the corner store. If you could, this would be an objective perspective of events at the corner store, from your perceptive looking at the computer screen. The act of stopping at a red light is subjective from your perspective, but objective from the traffic light's perspective. In other words, you would need to be outside of yourself to be able to see reality from an objective perspective. We simply can't, because of our sensory limitations.

I will add, conditionally, the misnomer and oxymoronic mental reality/perspective, since we seem to love obfuscating. This is the domain of all things that are represented as zero dimensional illusions, initiated only by the mental processes within the brain. Not from our sense organs. These images, feelings, emotions, ideas, cognitions, mental models, beliefs, and reasonings, are not real or exist in the physical reality. Real(in the form of existing) is anything that is perceived or inferred by the senses, exists outside the senses, is composed of matter in any state, has physical properties, and obeys the natural laws of nature including cause and effect. Unless of course you'd like to give me an example of any mental conception/construct that we can be perceived using our senses, and does physically exist. Cop-out answers don't count. Therefore, also rhetorical.

I might add that my answers are not based totally on rote parroted knowledge gained through conformational bias. It is based on intuition, common sense, inductive/deductive reasoning, science, and simplicity. More answers in the next post.

 

[atanu]

Our subjective reality/perspective is the domain of all physical reality that is accessible to our sense organs. It represents only that part of reality our senses can perceive as being real. It also represents the limits of our senses, without adding other modification or extensions. This is the perspective that allows us to navigate through the reality that our brain has interpreted from our senses. Since the brain, body, mind, and self all depend on the experience of sensory input to determine what is real and what isn't, they are not mutually exclusive. If any one of them were to disappear, ALL would disappear to an extent. Since we can't "mind meld" with another to extend the range of our senses, we are trapped within this perspective of reality. We can't even step outside of ourselves(mentally or physically) and see any objective image of ourselves. Can you see a 4 dimensional image of yourself(not the 2D mirror reflection). Again rhetorical, the answer is NO. Also, no two people can feel, see, act, or be exactly the same. No two people on the planet can have the exact same perspective or experience. Their perspectives of reality will always be mutually exclusive. If I pick up a hammer, can you feel it? Can you hear the words that states what I am thinking about you now? So how can we possibly share the same experiences? This is so obvious, that the point is moot. Again rhetorical.

In dream, we see without senses. In deep sleep we exist and remember the timeless-bliss on waking. So, existence consciousness exists without any dependence.

OTOH, a dead body has no consciousness. So, consciousness is not a property of body.

Our objective reality/perspective is the domain of all physical things that exists outside of our perception, and doesn't require our presence to validate

Who is saying this? The ‘things’ or a conscious self?

 

[atanu]

The seer is the conscious self and seen are all mental or gross objects. It is a fashion to claim “I know that my intelligence is born of these seen things”.

 

[BilliardsBall]

What makes you think that love and justice lie outside scientific inquiry?

Like all emerging properties of brains, love is quite plausibly an evolutionary adaptation. Like sending commands to hearts to beat. Especially, romantic and stable love seem to be functional towards our nature of apes whose offspring need time to become independent.

I really wonder why many believe that things like love, the sense of justice, pain, joy, etc. are something more than brain states. I mean, my brain is thrilled to have those states, but their promotion to the metaphysical seems very premature.

Ciao

- viole

People believe and understand that justice et al are more than mere brain states, since outside our brains and definitions, math and logic are universals, metaphysical in nature. Also axiomatic are all our truth definitions, presuppositional in nature.

I suggest you do as I did and ask God to provide you, personally, extraordinary proof.

 

[Windwalker]

More answers in the next post.

Please don't bother. I am no longer reading your posts, as I forewarned you would happen if you went the path of person insults with me as you have. You apologized to me about it. I accepted your apology. And then the next day you opened the floodgates wide and indulged your ego with full abandon like a drunk with a bottle of whisky, without regard for what you said previously, doing it all over again.

That's a defect I'm not willing to overlook anymore. If you can manage to control yourself, I may consider otherwise, but that's doubtful. I'd need to see a far more "enlightened" or least mature person that than in order to invest my time with as I had previously under the belief you were those.

 

[atanu]

...The act of stopping at a red light is subjective from your perspective, but objective from the traffic light's perspective. ....

Perspective of 'traffic light'? Well.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

In dream, we see without senses. In deep sleep we exist and remember the timeless-bliss on waking. So, existence consciousness exists without any dependence.

OTOH, a dead body has no consciousness. So, consciousness is not a property of body.



Who is saying this? The ‘things’ or a conscious self?

How do you know that you were dreaming? Or do you simply have memories that you were dreaming? It is the REM state of consciousness that separates it from the deep sleep state. The only sense organ for vision are our eyes. Close your eyes and you will see what I mean. There is no definitive understanding of dreams, or why we dream. There is some studies that dreams are tied to how we form our memories. As to the meaning of dreams, the explanations are infinite. But one thing for certain is, that dreams are conceptual, not perceptual. I'm not sure I understand the meaning of, "the timeless-bliss on waking". Seems a bit abstract and cryptic to me.

A dead body has no consciousness, because it is a dead body. All dead bodies are not conscious, because the body is dead. Sounds like a tautology to me. The problem here is a faulty conclusion. Consciousness IS a property of the body(mind). Just not a dead body.

Who is saying this? The ‘things’ or a conscious self?

Sorry, I have no idea what you are asking, unless you can define these terms. Things? Or a conscious self?

 

[Truly Enlightened]

Please don't bother. I am no longer reading your posts, as I forewarned you would happen if you went the path of person insults with me as you have. You apologized to me about it. I accepted your apology. And then the next day you opened the floodgates wide and indulged your ego with full abandon like a drunk with a bottle of whisky, without regard for what you said previously, doing it all over again.

That's a defect I'm not willing to overlook anymore. If you can manage to control yourself, I may consider otherwise, but that's doubtful. I'd need to see a far more "enlightened" or least mature person that than in order to invest my time with as I had previously under the belief you were those.

Not the most graceful of swansong, from a person claiming a religion of Love, Light, and Life. I put a lot of effort and time in trying to understand and comprehend the meaning of your comments. I ask questions to get a clearer understand of points that I didn't understand. My responses are usually clear, precise, and too the point. I expect the same from others. But when all I get repeated obfuscations and meaningless terms, and then told that it is my fault for having such poor comprehension skills, then this only seems arrogant to me.

Although, I do enjoy my JD, I don't suppose another apology would help?

 

[viole]

People believe and understand that justice et al are more than mere brain states, since outside our brains and definitions, math and logic are universals, metaphysical in nature. Also axiomatic are all our truth definitions, presuppositional in nature.

I suggest you do as I did and ask God to provide you, personally, extraordinary proof.

The problem with that is, of course, that believe and understand are also brain states. That includes your belief in God. Actually, it is very plausible that believes in external agencies, even when there is none, are also naturalistic adaptations of our brains.

For sure they provide survival advantages, even if they are not factual. As a matter of fact, everything we believe is totally unreliable. We have basically no natural support from our brains to even have a minimal intuition of things like electrons or spacetime. And the reason is obvious. Since iur brains are wired for survival through million of years of evolution, it is not surprising that they are not equipped with natural tools geared towards truth in realms of reality that are irrelevant for our survival (eg QM).

Even theologians like Plantinga noticed that.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

How do you propose to objectify first person subjective experience, including the self awareness of existence?



What are some of the emerging properties of brain?



Your brain is thrilled?

Then who knows that thrill? What is seen and what is the seer? Is brain both the subject and the object too?
...

Cannot say. I am not a neurobiologist. But is seems plausible, or at least not to be ruled out just because we have some metaphysical prejudice (for instance the narcissiic presumption that we are not naturally evolved machines)..

I only know that if I drink several shots of Vodka, then my spiritual “ I “ starts getting weird. It really looks like material stuff like a few chemicals can bring that awesome spiritual and metaphysical thing out of wack pretty easily.

The logical conclusion is obvious.

I cannot even exclude that I will start believing in a spiritual reality, or even God, if I get old enough so that my brain will have more holes than swiss cheese.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Windwalker]

I ask questions to get a clearer understand of points that I didn't understand.

You did, and when you did, my respect for you shot up as I saw the effort you were making. I made honest, sincere, and truthful statements of what I believe in response. Yet, you decided to deride and insult me in response to that sincere effort on my part to be clear. I did not expect that, but it is what it is. You chose that path rather than assuming I actually have something to say. If you wish to apologize again, and make another effort at this I may be game. But please take responsibility for yourself first.

BTW, if you read what that other poster I linked to said, you will see him saying the exact same things I was. That you don't understand it, it not because we are deliberately trying to be obtuse, unclear of the meaning of words, on some ego trip,or whatever thing you accused me of. I am not alone in this understanding. In fact, it's pretty common knowledge in the various schools of thought from Buddhism, to Hinduism, to Christianity, and outside religion, in postmodernist studies. While it may make you feel a sense of regaining control for your understanding to insult me personally as you have, it is not a true discussion, when that persits instead.

I'm willing to try again, but you need to step up to the table as you did in asking me that list of questions, but then follow up with some degree of respect shown to me. That's not a matter of a lack of grace on my part. It's a matter of not enabling your bad behaviors. It's a matter of not being willing to be a doormat for uncalled for insults against my integrity.

BTW, I have not said you have poor comprehension skills. You are assuming that "must" be what I'm saying here. I don't believe that. I believe you are quite intelligent, and make use of critical rational thought. That you don't follow what I, and many others like me say, is not a matter of intelligence. Being smart, doesn't get you to a knowledge of what we all are talking about. And that, is the point. I can only suggest try meditation, try defocusing the eyes. Then what is already obscured to the mind, to your and others thinking, becomes seen for what it truly is. None of this denies rationality. It goes beyond rationality. The rational mind, is not the only way we come to a knowledge of reality.

If you wish to try again, and show due respect, I'll be willing to consider that.

 

[atanu]

Cannot say. I am not a neurobiologist. But is seems plausible, or at least not to be ruled out just because we have some metaphysical prejudice (for instance the narcissiic presumption that we are not naturally evolved machines)..

This is arrogance. You do not know how a subject can be studied as a subject without objectifying it, yet you assert that it is narcissism to question the assumption that we are machines?

OTOH, imo, it is narcissism, when one presumes that even though one is a machine, one is intelligent and one has power to determine truth value of any proposition.

I only know that if I drink several shots of Vodka, then my spiritual “ I “ starts getting weird. It really looks like material stuff like a few chemicals can bring that awesome spiritual and metaphysical thing out of wack pretty easily.

The logical conclusion is obvious.

No. The body drinks and the "body-mind-intellect" gets clouded. The "I" still clearly knows that the body has over-drunk and that "mind-body-intellect" is out of balance.

Do not lightly toss this away. See whether you can differentiate between "I" that exists in states of deep sleep, dream, and waking states and the shapes of the respective states. The "I" that knows the waking state, dream state, and deep sleep is same. It is same in the drunken state too.

I cannot even exclude that I will start believing in a spiritual reality, or even God, if I get old enough so that my brain will have more holes than swiss cheese.

No one is talking of god, except you.