'Evening Vince,
Have a read of some rants that happened as i was exploring beliefs.
Thanks a lot for the link really enjoyed reading it.
Some wonderful pointer I found there :
from Nona:
"So obviously there is a belief that i am not greedy."
Actually, this is false; the belief that produced the anger was not that you are not-greedy; it's the belief that yes, she's right, you are greedy, but somehow that's bad.
from Michel:
"I think we are OK about the fact that if there is no "I", there can't be "other", and so, there can't be any separation feeling. So, by hunting all emotions which proves you the existence of the "other", you can deduce if really there is no "I" and then look more acutely to this."
from Lisa:
"These lovely feedbacks point to the core. When we recognize, usually via feelings,that we are going round and round, we can look further into the mirror of the external. This helps us realize that we have projected outwardly our very own 'story about' and then identified with it, i.e., temporarily believed that the story and the outward reflection are REAL things and oh so important! Then back to round and round we go.
Unless we look for core. That happens when we probe below the surface for the foundational beliefs beneath the more obvious ones. Eventually those core ideas dissolve (they can't endure the light of clarity), leaving the surface ever more smooth and undisturbed. Shining of clarity light, in my experience, sometimes has to happen numerous times. In the end, it does it. Dissolution of unconscious belief.
"
This is very helpful to me !!
There is so much embedded in a belief. Lots of implied (connotation) facts in a belief. In a sentence.
So for instance if I think that you vince is enlightened this means that I believe there is a vince, that vince is enlightened. And the fact that I believe that also may means that I believe that seb is not enlightened and that seb is inferior or that seb is enlightened too and seb is equal. All of these thought apparently create a world backed up by sensations of frustration or happiness. Both world are imaginary.
A belief as I see it here is one thought saying that another thought is true. When both could be wrong :).
Seb said: Would you have a very concrete down to earth example to help me grok if more fully ?
We'll come back to this..
Looking forward to it vince :) :)
The more I look and relook the more I'll "dissolve" it as Lisa puts it. This makes me so happy.
Seb wrote: raw sensation and perceptions are not fully clearly seen yet.
Can you see THAT they are different (looking from experience)
What is different from what sorry ? Do you mean different flavor of sensations compared to other sensations ? Or sensation (appearing as internal) v/s perception (appearing as external) ? Or something else ?
Can you see HOW they are different ?
Pls let me know where you want me to look on that one :)
Can you see that for practical purposes, that raw sensation is simply the data that we use to construct the world.
That there is only perception that is responded to.
We create the world from our perceptions, and the responses to this is how we create our experiencing.
Beautifully put Vince ! I agree with you that practical purposes is the way to look at this.
Lots of internal mechanism are not perceived and perception/sensation are happening inside this "environment" of breathing/hormoning/regulating so to speak.
(this is what Gendlin point to in A process model when he criticises the "old model":
http://www.focusing.org/process6b.html)
Our thoughts are happening into this "occurring" of underlying processes and vice versa ie our underlying processes (whether perceived or not) are happening simultaneously with thoughts, interaffecting each other here and now (without the need to actually separate them). The "spectator" point of view is a construct that comes late in the evolution process). Of course this itself (a process model) is a MODEL. It is not what actually IS.
From a Sellars perspective the raw sensation itself is NOT a basic given.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j ... wyRXPjwrgg
"
According to Sellars’ view, the distinction between purely theoretical objects and observable objects is methodological, rather than ontological. That is, theoretical and observable objects are not different kinds of thing. They differ only in how we come to know about them. Theoretical objects are ones of which we can only have inferential knowledge, while observable objects can also be known noninferentially; theoretical concepts are ones we can only be entitled to apply as the conclusions of inferences, while concepts of observables also have noninferential uses. But the line between things to which we have only inferential cognitive access and things to which we also have noninferential cognitive access can shift with time, for instance as new instruments are developed. Thus when first postulated to explain perturbations in the orbit of Neptune, Pluto was a purely theoretical object; the only claims we could make about it were the conclusions of inferences. But the development of more powerful telescopes eventually made it accessible to observation, and so a subject of noninferential reports. Pluto did not undergo an ontological change; all that changed was its relation to us. (Notice that this realism about theoretical entities does not entail scientific realism in the sense that privileges science over other sorts of cognitive activity, although Sellars usually discusses the two sorts of claims together.)
"
Ie in the example of recovery from blindness there is no
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovery_from_blindness
https://theeveningrednessinthewest.word ... cal-fable/
Also backed by Jean Piaget : how we infer the continuity of an "object" is not given it is learnt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1JWr4G8YLM
(No need to read all that, I'm also referencing for personal future access)
You can build stories that link events and say that this happened because that condition was present, but of course, the complexity of the circumstances is beyond comprehension.
Nicely put again :).
Or we could say with Gendlin that interaction if first always in the here/now. And then we derive separate object that look like they cause such and such.
Agrees with you that in both paradigm the complexity is enormooous.
The only thing that occurs to me is that the influence over what might happen, it inversely proportional to the resistance presented to the flow. That is the more resistance, the more distortion happens.
That's a good one indeed. I see what you mean now.
I would like to explore more this "resistance" and what is the nature (ie what is it MADE OF) of "dukkha"/"unsatisfactoriness"/"suffering".
Resistance could be seen as slow moving acceptance. Like an increase in the viscosity that is whatever is happening now. Could we say that the resistance IS the suffering itself ? What resist ? In direct experience a sensation of heat or density + a thought that comments and say "I dislike/refuse/reject" what is happening. A sensation of contraction. An internal move to hide to run away from people and situation. A frowning. A Blur a fog a panic. Fight and flight response.
If there is total acceptance, willing surrender, absolute yielding to what life-ing offers, then there is the least amount of distortion applied.
Does this mean that we are affecting the outcome ?
Ok and then it's like free flowing through life. Nobody in control just life observing life unfolding.
Could we affect the outcome ? Yes and no. This organism acts. The acts changes the lava lamp designs locally and globally with enough time (the dinosaur's fart)
Ha, yes. Guiding is a fantastic way to do this. Maybe you will consider it when the time is right?
Maybe. How much this helped you to deepen your understanding ? How many beliefs got blown away by guiding ? Realizing that there were some attachment to such and such truth of how things really were ?
While there are not actually any parts, but only the mind dissecting it for communication purposes.
Is is possible to appreciate the forest while labeling the individual trees ?
Yes yes yes. Not looking at the spheres and blobs as objects but seeing the whole lava lamp as our entire experience here and now.
We are the 6 dimensional lava lamp of 5 senses sensations/perceptions and thought. The whole is happening at once like the lava lamp as a whole no separation between blob 1 and blob 2. Like no separation between current sound and current vision and current sensation (finger on keyboard)
..and here we wake up from a dream into another dream. (turtles all of the way down)
Can you please give me more pointer on that direction ? What do you mean exactly ? Do you mean keeping deconstructing the story and the story of deconstruction of the story in an infinite regress way ? (What Derrida called "an event" his critique of the transcendental signifier postulated by Levy-Strauss claiming that his (Levy-strauss) story of the oedipus myth was superior to Freud's and Derrida saying that "language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique"
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=k1L ... ss&f=false
That's a good "how" story.
Is it a paradox that this is true, as well as it being true that it is entirely our own creation ?
I love these paradoxes :). Like a good Koan. The story comes up and is made up (like basic myths) and come to explain itself as a source.
Seb said : Because we cannot find an external world (like in Goran Backlund's book) we cannot know how this world is generated. There seems to be a reality to it though.
Like the brain creates the illusion that a sound is emanating from a particular location, the seeing reality, is a useful illusion.
It is definitely useful to navigate the world. It is practical. It doesn't mean it is not empty or not separate. We enjoy watching movies and playing video games in virtual realities. And these are not real. These are empty. And the beautiful thing is that our very experience is like that too. Empty of intrinsic objectivity. The image I have of the fruit in front of me is at zero distance from me it is "me". And the sound of the colleague passing by too. Everything is in direct experience right here right now. When I think about object in the past they are not here. And the news is when I see them here and now are they also not here ! What is here is the awareness of them the knowing of them.
Certainly our beliefs shape our creations.
Or is it rather that our belief make us see what IS in such and such way (like the multi layers of white by the eskimos or the fact that blue didn't exist in Homer time "the wine-dark sea" as it was called) ? So our belief gives us different line of separation that cut through THIS making it a million separate pieces. So we could see enlightement as giving up cutting THIS into pieces (appart to solve pragmatical problems for which physics and mechanics are useful) as no cut (not even Rupert Spira or Ramana Maharsi cut) will ever describe THIS perfectly.
No, the mind arrives later to say that it could have chosen not to have one. Consider that, given all of the conditions that resulted in that happening, that nothing else could have happened.
Looks like pure deterministic/mechanical description of the universe. Where is free will ?
Yes, yes. It is a persective thing. A bigger picture is seen. Consequences are more obvious.
Let's come back to wisdom though. It is a pet thing that i haven't really articulated yet.
Ok so it's not so much free will but a change of perspective that will make this possible. This change of perspective (how or from where we look at THIS) is what we can call wisdom or free-will. It is not free will just a NEW set of conditions that will make tempering with THIS stop in a way.
Or rather maybe as a nice story of non separation I realize that everything is me so it doesn't make sense to separate and isolate things for my own comfort. Therefore if I help "others" I ultimately just help me. Like as I used to say it is like you stab your anesthetised left hand with your right hand and a few hours later it wakes up and you realize the pain (the "karma") of having done so. Killing a snake or a mosquito works the same. There is only you (in a way) as "everything".
Let's keep exploring wisdom yes I would be happy to !!
Otherwise there are a few things that I am not (yet) seeing too clearly :
a) habit/conditioning/programming/repetition of the "same"
b) ignorance (was it is precisely)
c) suffering as in "dukkha" (was it is MADE OF precisely)
d) belief (now a bit clearer though after reading your blog)
Thanks a lot vince !!
