Karl

If I sense nothing, then there is no experience, whether I have the knowledge or not it makes no difference. Our awareness of something, of some knowledge that we have, that is an experience we are conscious of. Of having that knowledge.

When we are unconscious, then we are not aware of existence, even of ourselves. There is not two things here, we can move our awareness wherever we choose.

The effects of ultraviolet light, such as a burning of the skin you mean ? They weren't aware of the things we now know as ultraviolet light, but they would still get sunburn. We can now say what the cause is, but that makes no difference to either of our experiences of it, which is sunburn.

:-) go, create, produce

:-) Ask 'for what purpose do I want it' ? I love Rand's words here: "As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown." '...Where your minds wings should have grown..'

The problem is that defence isn't a heroic act in the terms of any personal gain. Defence simply prevents the loss of value, it doesn't gain one. Therefore dispatch the enemy devoid of any enjoyment of the act.

I did not experience the bite, but I did experience pain from the bite when I became conscious of it. I experience the results of the photons impinging on my retinas but only when I'm conscious.

Yes, it's a thought experiment in which you have a flea. I can experience my imagination of it. I can experience you conmunicating that idea. So, here we have a conscious aware experience.

Facts my dear Brian, just the facts. You must observe a fact. Observation requires conscious awareness. As to the radiation-of which I'm unconscious. That's the point, I'm not aware of it because I can't sense it. I could feel a sense of heat, or pain, or hairs standing up etc, but if I can't feel anything then there is no experience.

Here you say 'a room with a flea' this is you saying the room has a flea in it. How did you know it was there ? Oh yeah, look, you imagined it would be. Exactly the same is happening when you are making up the other stuff, you are confirming your own fallacy, it's a form of question begging. LOL so, if I say, in my little dream world there is no flea, then one could not have been experienced, then this is the same question begging. However I wouldn't argue that way. All we can say is that we experience a flea, or we didn't, in any particular place.

You experienced being in the room. If you were unaware of the flea then you didn't experience it. Had the flea bitten you, then you would have experienced that. If you take your argument to its extremes then you also experience the entire universe - which you don't, only the bits you can sense directly.

experience/ɪkˈspɪərɪəns,ɛk-/ noun practical contact with and observation of facts or events. an event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone. verb encounter or undergo (an event or occurrence). That's clear enough Brian, unless you have another definition of experience ? A ad hominem attack isn't an argument. I know you too well :-) your mistake was trying to support Ralis argument, you wouldn't normally have done that.

good try, primarily because this will lead into the discussion later on ;-) However, you didn't experience the flea itself.

If you were unaware of them you cannot say you experienced them Brian. Ralis specifically said he had 'experienced' non-duality and that it was 'beyond words'. An interesting choice of words to describe something as 'beyond words'.

I dislike these dual standards anyway. If we are going to be forced to look after migrants I don't see why children should be singled out. It isn't as if we have a good record with regard to looking after orphaned children. The outrage has come about because the virtue signalling liberals have been using the emotional lever of 'vulnerable children' to create an acceptance for taking in more migrants. As it turns out, there are very few orphaned, vulnerable children who make it to immigrant camps. It's not exactly suprising that a long journey across sea and land means that it is fit, young men who manage it. Of course, now the virtue signallers have been caught out lying, both they and the authorities are back pedalling furiously. Apparently all the children have been trafficked :-/ or they aged 20 years very suddenly :-(

FFS. Women choose who they wish to 'mingle' with in Britain I think you will find.

As opposed to what, to being unconscious of existence ? Bit of a problem there, because you are saying that something is 'experienced' and experience requires conscious awareness of any experience. By saying you were unconscious of the experience means that you didn't actually experienced anything. If you did experience something then you were conscious of it.

http://www.historyextra.com/article/international-history/medieval-immigrants-moving-england-middle-ages not actually true. Invaders come armed and ready to take over a government by force. We had lots of immigrants throughout British history. Of course the democratic system means that they often become part of the socialist vote and the priviliges that can bring through bribery for that vote.

If you said it was the Welfare, warfare complex, I would agree.

There wasn't any duality in the first place- it's just the old body/soul dichotomy. As there is no dichotomy we can safely comit duality/non-duality to the bin marked 'irrational mysticism and bad philosophy'. We can experience non-duality and can describe it very well, it's called being existent and being conscious of existence.

There are several kinds of judgement. You are talking about aesthetic judgements of form. Haven't we learned through our own experience what we regard as beautiful and ugly. It isn't always a matter of the form, but also of its meaning to us. We make little mention of a grey, leaden sky-it is neither striking, nor ugly. We value dramatic sky's more highly-even stormy skies. A blue sky devoid of clouds, but an overhead sun is also bland-one of the reasons photographers choose the afternoon to create contrast. We value sunsets and sunrises. Certain colours mixed with dramatic contrast of light are particularly satisfying-but no one told us to like one over another. We also value symmetry, natural balance and anything related to the golden mean in the geometrical or sense of form. We spot dis figuration and asymmetry both in vision and aurally. Our experience tells us that the deformed maybe unhealthy, that it lacks harmony of form. We weren't taught it.

That could be construed in several ways: "Thinking freely" is not "freedom to think". There are things we can change and things we cannot. There are moral boundaries, certainly not necessarily societal moral boundaries, but none the less there is moral and immoral action based on reality. I'm suggesting that this video is promoting whim.

Economics is a science, but it has become a pseudo science. The introduction of mathematical modelling has turned it into a pure abstraction, a creative expression. Trying to model economics like an empirical, physical science is an exercise in futility. However, this guy is also talking a lot of bunkum. Insects don't perform 'a service' they are simply acting according to their natures as living entities.

Yes words represent the concept, therefore at root they are actually the concepts. A concept is an abstraction, it is consciously integrated perceptual data. A concept can be a floating abstraction, not tied to reality. If you talk about education as, in effect, tipping ideas into an empty mind, by wrote, or without the application of reason/logic, then education is a hinderance. True education is to help people learn how to educate themselves. Objectivism holds that perception is an automatic mechanism, but conception is a active, conscious process that we must choose to do. Perception is the result of direct sensing of reality. We have to choose to live. Then we hold our life as the standard of value.

I was going to comment on this originally. There are many assumptions in the replies. Sometimes things that seem as if they are obvious are really not at all clear when we begin to think about them. For instance, judgement is here treated as an inherent capacity without asking whether it can be. Therefore we need to consider how we came to this pure kind of judgement devoid of prejudices. Prejudice, means to pre-judge something. Judge prior to judging. Nature here is considered in the pure abstract and no specific. It then gets twisted to say some things 'align' with this abstraction and others don't. This is really just another version of Platos perfect forms. Instead 'things' have a nature, they are what they are and the react and interact according to their nature, from this interaction we can observe something about that nature. In this way there is no disharmony, things cannot be anything other than what they. X is X a thing is a thing.