Ready

[ConcordBorn]

OK about the hand and the table.

I don't know how big I am.

I can't find where I begin or end so maybe I don't do either. I can't find any boundaries.

I can't find any place between inner or outer so I don't think there is a distinction between the two. Those two words lose their meaning.

There's nothing solid and unchanging in the center of experience and it would be hard for me to say where that might be. What I am has no center.

In revisiting the scenario of my repeating positive affirmations, I can see that the words coming out of my mouth were consistent with the phrases written before me but that the thoughts showing up in awareness were spontaneous.

[nenad]

Good, there is no boundaries, no inner or outer, nothing solid and unchanging at center and no center.

So, some words seem to be consistent with something that is written down. So? How does that show they are controlled?
Write something down. Put the paper in front of you and read those words. Do you control the reading?

[ConcordBorn]

No, I don 't control the reading.

[nenad]

Right.

Our language, our culture and even our senses cause either a belief or assumption that there must be something substantive for these things to be happening to or for, something receiving them, a receipt point.

In what way does sensual experience suggest a receipt point? How is a receipt point sensualy experienced?

[ConcordBorn]

Each of the 5 sensing units is located in a particular part of the body where it performs its own sensing.

If I'm eating soup, let's say; I taste it, not someone else. My tongue tastes soup; not my ears, eyes, nose or skin. The receipt point is my body, specifically the tongue. There's a similar story for each of the other 4 senses.

Apart from the _content_ of sensing, the receipt points themselves (eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin) are only sensually experienced by the sense of touch.

The phenomenon of sight doesn't cause me to sensually experience the receipt point (eyes) but touching them does.

[nenad]

Ok, there can be tactile experience called eyes [somewhat painful ;-)]. Is there tactile (or any other) experience of eyes performing seeing?

[ConcordBorn]

I don't have any experience of eyes actually performing seeing. Ditto for the other 4 senses.

They do _seem_ to be a necessary element of the phenomenon of sight however. If I cover my eyes, I don't see. People who are born without eyes or who lose them through some very unfortunate event also don't see or lose their sight.

One thing that has always perplexed me was that, one time when I popped out of my body, I could see my body from a perspective of a few feet above my right shoulder, looking down on it. My eyes certainly weren't above me and behind me.

[nenad]

Hi :)

Good, there is no experience of eyes performing seeing.

Yes, they SEEM to be necessary for seeing, but if there was at least one experience of seeing without eyes as you mentioned, then how can they EVER be necessary?

You say with eyes covered you don‘t see. Interesting. Isn‘t there visual experience of blackness?

You say “ one time when I popped out of my body“. Are you in the body?

Warm regards, Nenad

[ConcordBorn]

Re: "popping out," OK, bad description on my part. My perspective altered, temporarily bi-located. One perspective was from my eyes to the ground. Another was from above and behind my right shoulder, looking down at my body.

What I really am, is in the body and everywhere else too.

As for sight, I may need a bit more help here. I don't consider the blackness that is present when I close my eyes to be a visual experience. To me, it seems to be the absence of visual experience.

If you really want to press this point, I'll grant that it's possible that the blackness is the content of what the eyeballs perceive with eyelids closed.

The time I had 2 visual perspectives is still a mystery to me, a fluke. I didn't consciously make it start or stop. Now that it's stopped, I can't make it restart. I don't think it disproves that eyes are necessary for sight _in most cases_. I think it proves that there's an alternative method of seeing that is largely unknown to us.

I can't decide to change my visual perspective except to move my body. I can't turn on and off the alternative way of seeing that doesn't require eyes.

Do blind people have an alternative way of seeing available to them, which doesn't require eyes? If so, I've never heard of it. If you know of one, let's go into business together and get rich teaching this method to blind people.

What do formerly sighted people report that they see after they go blind?

[nenad]

Hi :)

Re: ‘popping out‘: Good, this new description is more descriptive. :)
You mention perspective from your eyes. Aren‘t all your assumptions about eyes seeing due to this impression that vision is experienced from perspective of your eyes?

Re: blackness: Can you actually experience the absence of something or only the thought about something being absent? This is not about you granting me something, let‘s not turn this into intellectual debate. Actually look: Close eyrs. Really look at this blackness: Is it a thought about vision being absent or an actual experience of blackbess. Look at it closely.

Also look into this: Close eyes. Open them. Close. open. close...and so on.
Look how does it happen: Is there first a thought about closing them and then blackkness or is it the other way around?

Nenad

[ConcordBorn]

Re: assumptions and perspective, no. While I do seem to see from the perspective of the eyes, people who lose their eyes can't see. If there was another way to see, they would do it. Eyes are necessary.

Re: blackness, what I see is the blackness with eyes closed. Absence of anything can't be viewed.

Re: opening and closing they eyes, I decide to follow your instructions, then eyes close, then blackness, then thought.

[nenad]

Hi!

Re: blackness: yes, right :)

Re: closing and opening eyes: you say you read instructions and then you decide to close them - how does this deciding happens? What is the experience of deciding?

Nenad

[nenad]

Sorry you actually said you decide to folow instructions ~ how is this decision experienced?

[ConcordBorn]

No clue. LOL. It's a mystery. I'm not causing it and it happens, like thoughts and actions.

[nenad]

Good, you are not causing it. Then what do you mean by:“I decide to folow your instructions“?