Non-duality

[Karl]

Correct. Karl is not going to get it because he refuses too.

Wrong, but you made me laugh anyway.

[ralis]

@ Karl,

 

This conversation is proving my earlier point in that one can discuss ad infinitum and never reach a conclusion.

 

Semantics are nothing more than an incomplete/inaccurate map which this discussion proves. The trick is to stop self referencing and realize that whatever one believes to be an absolutely accurate description of phenomena falls short.

[ralis]

To break it down, the phenomenal world is mostly space, but yet one's limited senses believe phenomena to be absolutely solid. The space within is not separate from external space.

[Karl]

If your cells developed cancer from this radiation, your cells must surely have had an experience of the radiation.

Does a tree experience the wind ?

 

Your individual cells do not experience anything. All experience is cognitive perception. In other words you are consciously aware of an effect, a feeling, a thought, a sensation. A cell has no cognitive faculty.

 

The problem here is a lack of understanding of the meaning of experience. Words are used haphazardly for instance a writer might say a ship 'experienced a storm', but what we are really saying is that the people onboard the ship, or any people viewing the ship experienced the storm. Even here we are using complex concepts. A new born baby onboard the ship could not even yet even begin to understand what it experienced. A young child might only note the ships motion, noise, a feeling of sickness, falling over and the smell of vomit-none of these things can he yet put together as the concept of an experience of a storm.

 

It's very important to understand the concept behind the words that are being used. As far as radiation and cells, we can only confirm by scientific measurement that there is an 'effect'. Here we have the nature of radiation interacting with the nature of cells which are seen to become cancerous. Cancer is another concept and at some point we might experience the pain, discomfort or illness of something we are told is cancer- up until then, unless we actually knew the issue, we could only point to the symptoms- which is exactly why the doctor asks us 'what are your symptoms' ? He is not asking our cells, he is asking our minds, he is asking us.

[joeblast]

lol, who are you to speak of a tree's experience?

 

I'll just stop, it'll take too long.

[Karl]

@ Karl,

 

This conversation is proving my earlier point in that one can discuss ad infinitum and never reach a conclusion.

 

Semantics are nothing more than an incomplete/inaccurate map which this discussion proves. The trick is to stop self referencing and realize that whatever one believes to be an absolutely accurate description of phenomena falls short.

You haven't reached a conclusion. All you are saying here is "you can't know that, no one can know anything for certain" or "that maybe true for you, but not for me".

 

Infact it is you who refuses to believe in absolutes, by the method of issuing an absolute that you can't know. This is simply an admission that you can't know anything and thus you disqualify yourself from the discussion.

 

To begin an argument with the premise that nothing can be proven is to utter the absolute 'nothing can be proven' - I don't know if you can see what I'm saying by this ? It's just giving up Ralis, it's refusing to think, to say the problem is that we have a mind and are ignorant because we can think. That we have eyes, but are blinded by them.

[Karl]

lol, who are you to speak of a tree's experience?

 

I'll just stop, it'll take too long.

A tree isn't conscious. You been reading too many books about Ents. :-)

[ralis]

A tree isn't conscious. You been reading too many books about Ents. :-)

 

Prove trees are not.

[Karl]

Prove trees are not.

I don't prove negatives as it's an impossibility, I won't be proving there aren't fairies, God or a whole host of other non-existents. You think I'm wrong, produce the evidence that trees are fully conscious.

[ralis]

I don't prove negatives as it's an impossibility, I won't be proving there aren't fairies, God or a whole host of other non-existents. You think I'm wrong, produce the evidence that trees are fully conscious.

 

Perhaps in your mind, but in the mind of a shaman that is not an uncommon experience.

Edited October 27, 2016 by ralis

[Brian]

If your cells developed cancer from this radiation, your cells must surely have had an experience of the radiation.

What Karl is doing is rather interesting. While he will no doubt deny it, he has abandoned the Aristotelian logic he so vehemently trumpeted as the only valid approach to understanding reality just a few months ago. Instead of striving to establish an common linguistic foundation, then formulating consistent propositions built upon that set of agreed-upon vocabulary, and then developing a coherent rhetoric to convey the conclusions, Karl instead has jumped straight to rhetoric. He has started with a conclusion and then announced a supposedly indisputable definition which is deliberately crafted to lead inexorably to his preconceived conclusion IF the definition is accepted without challenging the unstated assumption about which it is wrapped. When challenged on his assumption (and therefore definition), he presented a portion of a dictionary definition which didn't directly contradict his premise but then claimed the quoted definition validated his own interpretation when it actually didn't. He instead presents his opinion as "fact" and rejects counters by reiterating his contrived assumption-as-definition, either unaware of or regardless of the broader meaning of the term he has coopted.

 

It would be easy to roll out a list of other examples in which his definition is at odds with the common usage of the word "experience" but it would be futile because he has convinced himself that his understanding is correct and anyone who disagrees is simply an irrational mystic who rejects reason and logic -- and when someone shrugs and walks away, he dismisses that person as unwilling to engage in rhetoric when that person is instead attempting to point out that the language itself has not yet been established. This is consistent with his recent statements to the effect that he believes "true knowledge" is an idea on which you have succeeded in convincing yourself that you are correct. Most thinking people have another name for that condition.

 

Personally, I find this new development in the evolution of Karl's thought processes disappointing (although he told us long ago that his thought processes have never evolved despite his also telling us that he has swung from far-flung mystic for most of his life to the lone proponent of logic and reason (Mr. Spock being covered in honey and thrown on an anthill was the persecution language he projected recently)). I was originally pleased that he had discovered "logic" through a webinar and I encouraged him to continue his self-guided venture into logic by moving beyond zero-order logic to propositional calculus, predicate logic, etc. He rejected more complex branches of formal logic, however, as unnecessary and superfluous (remarkably similar to a religious fundamentalist proclaiming his holy book to not only contain all that one needs to accept as "truth" but all that one should accept) and, rather than continue to practice and improve his skill with that most basic form of logic, he instead seems to have fully embraced a circular philosophy which I think he honestly believes to be not just "complete" but undeniably correct.

 

I know better than to engage with him as it just encourages him to go farther down this particular rabbit hole but sometimes the nonsensicality of his bold proclamations is like fingernails on a chalkboard and I can't resist. That's one of my own personal weaknesses and attachments, I'm afraid.

[ralis]

What Karl is doing is rather interesting. While he will no doubt deny it, he has abandoned the Aristotelian logic he so vehemently trumpeted as the only valid approach to understanding reality just a few months ago. Instead of striving to establish an common linguistic foundation, then formulating consistent propositions built upon that set of agreed-upon vocabulary, and then developing a coherent rhetoric to convey the conclusions, Karl instead has jumped straight to rhetoric. He has started with a conclusion and then announced a supposedly indisputable definition which is deliberately crafted to lead inexorably to his preconceived conclusion IF the definition is accepted without challenging the unstated assumption about which it is wrapped. When challenged on his assumption (and therefore definition), he presented a portion of a dictionary definition which didn't directly contradict his premise but then claimed the quoted definition validated his own interpretation when it actually didn't. He instead presents his opinion as "fact" and rejects counters by reiterating his contrived assumption-as-definition, either unaware of or regardless of the broader meaning of the term he has coopted.

 

It would be easy to roll out a list of other examples in which his definition is at odds with the common usage of the word "experience" but it would be futile because he has convinced himself that his understanding is correct and anyone who disagrees is simply an irrational mystic who rejects reason and logic -- and when someone shrugs and walks away, he dismisses that person as unwilling to engage in rhetoric when that person is instead attempting to point out that the language itself has not yet been established. This is consistent with his recent statements to the effect that he believes "true knowledge" is an idea on which you have succeeded in convincing yourself that you are correct. Most thinking people have another name for that condition.

 

Personally, I find this new development in the evolution of Karl's thought processes disappointing (although he told us long ago that his thought processes have never evolved despite his also telling us that he has swung from far-flung mystic for most of his life to the lone proponent of logic and reason (Mr. Spock being covered in honey and thrown on an anthill was the persecution language he projected recently)). I was originally pleased that he had discovered "logic" through a webinar and I encouraged him to continue his self-guided venture into logic by moving beyond zero-order logic to propositional calculus, predicate logic, etc. He rejected more complex branches of formal logic, however, as unnecessary and superfluous (remarkably similar to a religious fundamentalist proclaiming his holy book to not only contain all that one needs to accept as "truth" but all that one should accept) and, rather than continue to practice and improve his skill with that most basic form of logic, he instead seems to have fully embraced a circular philosophy which I think he honestly believes to be not just "complete" but undeniably correct.

 

I know better than to engage with him as it just encourages him to go farther down this particular rabbit hole but sometimes the nonsensicality of his bold proclamations is like fingernails on a chalkboard and I can't resist. That's one of my own personal weaknesses and attachments, I'm afraid.

 

How long have you been composing this? Perfect timing. Although, Karl is busy composing a refutation even as I am writing this.

[ralis]

@ Karl,

 

Non-duality means; space, time, energy, thought and so forth are not the separate things we have been lead to believe.

[Karl]

I merely presented a definition Brian. If you want to challenge the definition, or present an alternative definition that's up to you. This is the concept as I understand it and as the dictionary defines it. It's not proof of anything other than defining the terms we are using. If I thought I was using it a corrupt way then I go to the dictionary first to see what is commonly regarded as the definition. If I was wide of the mark then I would have to rethink through the entire argument, to, in a sense, pick up the dropped stitch.

 

I tried explaining this before, but you insist that I'm just here to batter heads and gain points. I don't gain anything by twisting rhetoric, all I will do in fact is to fuck up my own mind through evasion. I'm just as happy to be proven wrong as am to be proven right. Indeed I get quite a thrill and a laugh out of realising I had harboured a foggy definition, or floating abstraction. It's a sort of Easter egg hunt for me.

[Karl]

How long have you been composing this? Perfect timing. Although, Karl is busy composing a refutation even as I am writing this.

Done already :-)

[Karl]

@ Karl,

 

Non-duality means; space, time, energy, thought and so forth are not the separate things we have been lead to believe.

What do you mean by 'separate things' ?

 

Can you first define 'duality' ? This being the thing you are arguing against, except by the strange use of a negative concept.

[Karl]

Karl, are you retired?

Yep.

[ralis]

Karl, are you retired?

 

That is why he is here 24/7.

[redcairo]

Non-duality means; space, time, energy, thought and so forth are not the separate things we have been lead to believe.

Oh. Is that what it means?

 

I have a whole cosmology about awareness, self-awareness, energy, space, time, and so on -- gradually instilled in me through meditative insight, not intellectual consideration (might be the worse for that :-)) -- but I never really considered any of these topics, aside from 'energy' related to dualism.

 

I exclude 'energy' because I don't think we can discuss any topic that exists without 'energy' being some part of it.

 

A long time ago, I did have this huge (and horrific) long experience where, to summarize, I had "three stages of realization." It ended with an extreme degree of 'nothingness' however I understood the polarity of 'everythingness' was the same thing, as all polarities are. Is that an example of non-duality?

 

I had a sponsored insight (as I call it when someone-internal-I-perceive-as-not-me shares a perspective on something with me) related to the issue of 'dark and light' (a sort of deep eternal battle on some level), where they said:

 

Darkness is not of the Nothingness. It is not the opposite of light, as it only exists within the realm of light itself. Darkness is just something-ness lacking color. The universe is fundamentally of light, and darkness fails to hold dominance and fails to understand why: its nature precludes it: awareness itself makes all identities children of the light.

-- Insight during Authority and Money meditation

 

Is that non-duality? Sorry to be ignorant, but, I am. Never gets solved if I don't ask questions. :-)

 

RC

[ralis]

Oh. Is that what it means?

 

I have a whole cosmology about awareness, self-awareness, energy, space, time, and so on -- gradually instilled in me through meditative insight, not intellectual consideration (might be the worse for that :-)) -- but I never really considered any of these topics, aside from 'energy' related to dualism.

 

I exclude 'energy' because I don't think we can discuss any topic that exists without 'energy' being some part of it.

 

A long time ago, I did have this huge (and horrific) long experience where, to summarize, I had "three stages of realization." It ended with an extreme degree of 'nothingness' however I understood the polarity of 'everythingness' was the same thing, as all polarities are. Is that an example of non-duality?

 

I had a sponsored insight (as I call it when someone-internal-I-perceive-as-not-me shares a perspective on something with me) related to the issue of 'dark and light' (a sort of deep eternal battle on some level), where they said:

 

Darkness is not of the Nothingness. It is not the opposite of light, as it only exists within the realm of light itself. Darkness is just something-ness lacking color. The universe is fundamentally of light, and darkness fails to hold dominance and fails to understand why: its nature precludes it: awareness itself makes all identities children of the light.

-- Insight during Authority and Money meditation

 

Is that non-duality? Sorry to be ignorant, but, I am. Never gets solved if I don't ask questions. :-)

 

RC

 

Will try to explain that later. Perhaps this weekend.

[Karl]

 

Darkness is not of the Nothingness. It is not the opposite of light, as it only exists within the realm of light itself. Darkness is just something-ness lacking color. The universe is fundamentally of light, and darkness fails to hold dominance and fails to understand why: its nature precludes it: awareness itself makes all identities children of the light.

-- Insight during Authority and Money meditation

 

 

 

RC

Darkness is a descriptive term we use to describe the inability to use our eyes to register certain frequencies and intensities of energy. It is a relative term we use to describe the lack of, or a low level of visible light.

[Karl]

Will try to explain that later. Perhaps this weekend.

Does that include defining duality ? Otherwise you are defining a negative, an anti-concept is defining what something isn't. Trying to describe a rose by it's 'not being other flowers' is a grim kind of effort.

[redcairo]

Darkness is a descriptive term we use to describe the inability to use our eyes to register certain frequencies and intensities of energy. It is a relative term we use to describe the lack of, or a low level of visible light.

Darkness is a lot more than that. Being over-literalist about language doesn't make you accurately semantic Karl, it makes you myopically obtuse about a great deal of human experience and concept that can only be described with words designed for the physical.

 

I said it that way so you could make fun of myopic referring to vision also. :-)

 

RC

[Karl]

Darkness is a lot more than that. Being over-literalist about language doesn't make you accurately semantic Karl, it makes you myopically obtuse about a great deal of human experience and concept that can only be described with words designed for the physical.I said it that way so you could make fun of myopic referring to vision also. :-)RC

LOL I like poetry, music and art RC. However we are talking philosophically not poetically. We can't live by feelings and emotions.

[redcairo]

Yes but communication is designed for human experience, which is greatly infused with feelings and emotions (actually I'm not sure what the difference is between feelings and emotions).

 

RC