Perhaps you have only ever experienced being conscious of something. Perhaps you have never experienced consciousness without an object. Therefore, you assume it is impossible.
I'm saying that you are mistaken and my reason for saying this is my own personal experience (as well as the experience of many others).
IFeelFree wrote:The object is whatever you consider your "experience" to be.Perhaps you have only ever experienced being conscious of something. Perhaps you have never experienced consciousness without an object. Therefore, you assume it is impossible.
IFF wrote:I'm saying that you are mistaken and my reason for saying this is my own personal experience (as well as the experience of many others).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading
I am saying it is an experience which many people have had, and which you could have as far as I know. It is analogous to saying that if you learned quantum mechanics and solved the Shrodinger equation for the hydrogen atom, you would understand why the energy levels are quantized. I may be asserting some knowledge that you don't presently have, and that many people do not have. However, that knowledge is accessible to you, as far as I know, if you care to investigate it.
IFF, pretty rich and diverse explanation for the stages of enlightenment a few pages back, thanks. Although I appreciate the contrast between these stages you note in terms of subject/object (in a theoretical sense), I guess I'm wary of placing too much emphasis (outside of pure discussion) on levels of enlightenment/awareness.
I've read a bit about meditation experiences or more extreme and random bolts of fear and loss of ego but I always like to fall back on the more "simplistic" and "beginner's mind" ideas of Zen in practice.
Not that this is in respect to your post, just generally speaking, but there is something incredibly un-intuitive in my eyes about focusing specifically on anything (be that a guide, hope or future identity) to achieve some label of enlightenment.
Besides I think the very idea of enlightened people is a bit overused and misguided. I like that Buddhist saying about before "enlightenment" trees are trees, during, trees are not trees and afterwards, trees are once again trees.
It is special pleading in that you are are expecting your personal and idiosyncratic description of the meaning of your experience to be accepted absent any verification, which is not at all the same as referring to replicable experiments or independently erifiable data.
You wish people to just accept that what you claim your experience means is valid, and then you employ argumentum ad numerum by claiming that many people have had the same experience (also unverifiable in that there is no way to test or verify that their experiences were the same, or that they were lead to the same conclusions by their experiences, rather than a preconditioned desire to believe that they would experience what they claim to have experienced--the same criticism can be leveled against your claims about the meaning of your experience, in that it is entirely possible that you expected to "experience" this special consciousness, and, Hey Presto! you did);
finally, you employ argumentum ad populum in its narrower sense, of appeal to an elite experience or opinion (which is what you were also ingaged in when you claimed that if people don't understand, they lack the "higher consciousness).
Your claims are riddled with logical fallacies, and what is worse is that you have the gall to compare the claims you make about your experience with an understanding of mathematics and science. We have only your word for the meaning of your experience--all that anyone could "learn" from them are what they are expected to claim themselves about their experiences if they mimic your methods. Nothing of substance is in your claims, which is a HUGE distinction between your claims and science or mathematics.
I suppose you could assert that my statements about quantum mechanics are a delusion as well. Anyone who didn't understand quantum mechanics would have to decide who is credible.
IFeelFree wrote:I suppose you could assert that my statements about quantum mechanics are a delusion as well. Anyone who didn't understand quantum mechanics would have to decide who is credible.
Principles of quantum mechanics are externally verifiable and derived from external phenomena. They are not even remotely analogous to your experiences or to your argument.
echi wrote:IFeelFree wrote:The object is whatever you consider your "experience" to be.Perhaps you have only ever experienced being conscious of something. Perhaps you have never experienced consciousness without an object. Therefore, you assume it is impossible.
What I am referring to consciousness not conscious of anything in particular, or rather consciousness conscious of itself. It is experienced as awareness in which there is no thought. Pure consciousness.
Quote:IFF wrote:I'm saying that you are mistaken and my reason for saying this is my own personal experience (as well as the experience of many others).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading
It would be an argument of special pleading if I asserted that only certain special people can have this experience. I am not saying that. I am saying it is an experience which many people have had, and which you could have as far as I know. It is analogous to saying that if you learned quantum mechanics and solved the Shrodinger equation for the hydrogen atom, you would understand why the energy levels are quantized. I may be asserting some knowledge that you don't presently have, and that many people do not have. However, that knowledge is accessible to you, as far as I know, if you care to investigate it.
IFeelFree wrote:I don't understand.What I am referring to consciousness not conscious of anything in particular, or rather consciousness conscious of itself. It is experienced as awareness in which there is no thought. Pure consciousness.
Quote:Did you care to investigate the link that I just gave you?It would be an argument of special pleading if I asserted that only certain special people can have this experience. I am not saying that. I am saying it is an experience which many people have had, and which you could have as far as I know. It is analogous to saying that if you learned quantum mechanics and solved the Shrodinger equation for the hydrogen atom, you would understand why the energy levels are quantized. I may be asserting some knowledge that you don't presently have, and that many people do not have. However, that knowledge is accessible to you, as far as I know, if you care to investigate it.
Consciousness is what you are. Normally you are conscious of objects. The most subtle type of objects are thoughts. Thoughts arise from consciousness. It is possible to experience thoughts at a subtler and subtler level until the subtlest level of thought is transcended and there is only consciousness without thought, without an object. That is transcendental consciousness. There is only a subject and no object.
If there is some other feature of special pleading that I am missing, please inform me. In any case it is a weak response to say, in effect, "You are wrong. Read this article and find out why." Don't tell me to go read an article. If you can't tell me why I'm wrong, then I have to doubt whether you know what you are saying.
If there is no object then there is no experience.
I didn't want to assume that you were unfamiliar with this fallacy, so I opted to just provide a link. Can you give me a source for your definition. I can't find anything on the web that supports your definition of special pleading as an assertion "that only certain special people can have this experience".
echi wrote:If there is no object then there is no experience.
Your experience at any moment depends on what your attention is focused on. When one is conscious but attention is completely disengaged from thought, there is no object of attention, there is only pure awareness.
IFeelFree wrote:echi wrote:If there is no object then there is no experience.
Your experience at any moment depends on what your attention is focused on. When one is conscious but attention is completely disengaged from thought, there is no object of attention, there is only pure awareness.
You are trying to have your cake and eat it too. You cannot have an experience of the eternal; that's an oxymoron. Or, if it was not an experience, per se, but rather a sort of "gap" in your experience of the passing of time, you still cannot deduce that in this gap you must have been in a kind of eternal state. Having no memory of it your best bet is to go with the most likely explanation; it seems your confirmation bias prevents you.
You can have an experience of the timeless realm of pure consciousness or Presence.
The experience of self-transcendence is replicable and verifiable. However, unlike scientific evidence it does not involve sensory experience. Also, my description is no more personal and idiosyncratic than if I used the word "love" in referring to an experience of love. How do I know that I experience love the same way that you do? That doesn't prevent us from discussing subjective experiences such as love.
I will also claim that many people have had the same experiences of love, sadness, jealousy, anger, happiness, etc. as me, even though there is "no way to test or verify that their experiences were the same, or that they were lead to the same conclusions by their experiences." That is a limitation of discussing subjective experiences. Also, with regard to "expecting" these experiences, I assure you that most of my spiritual experiences were a complete and utter surprise to me. In the case of my "heart attack" experience, it took me some time to realize that it was a spiritual experience. Only after I noticed a dramatic presence of a blissful energy in my heart region did that become apparent.
As I have already pointed out, I have no reason to believe that my experiences are any more "elite" than knowledge of quantum mechanics. As far as I know, anyone can have this experience, just as anyone can learn quantum mechanics.
There is no way to talk about spiritual experience other than to report your experience and the experience of others. If you think that I am deluded about what I have reported than you are entitled to that opinion. I suppose you could assert that my statements about quantum mechanics are a delusion as well. Anyone who didn't understand quantum mechanics would have to decide who is credible.
IFeelFree wrote:You can have an experience of the timeless realm of pure consciousness or Presence.
You can have an experience of Happiness too. And you can experience feelings of hunger and sadness and longing and confusion also.
Is this thing you call "the timeless realm of pure consciousness or Presence" just the description of a feeling you are having, or is it something else?
It is something else. Happiness, hunger, sadness, longing, and confusion are all states associated with thought. Self-transcendence is the experience of a state of pure awareness in which there is no mental activity, and yet you are awake, aware. My descriptions may have been confusing because I also sometimes refer to the state in which pure consciousness is present along with normal object consciousness. The progression is this: Object consciousness (normal awareness) => Transcendental consciousness (experience of pure consciousness as the state of no thought) => Cosmic consciousness (the experience of the pure consciousness along with object consciousness). In other words, repeated experience of self-transcendence (no thought) cultures the nervous system so that it is able to sustain the experience pure consciousness while engaged in activity.
No, the claim about "self-transcendence" is replicable, anyone can make the claim--the experience which you claim entails "self-transcendence" is not verifiably replicable, because there is no way to assure either that you have had the same experience as someone else, or that what you claim you experienced actually was "self-transcendence," and finally, because "transcending self" is a subjective judgment on your part, there is no standard by which to measure whether or not the "self" had been "transcended."
Certainly we can have discussions of the subjective experience which we choose to call love. That does not assure that we are describing identical experiences, and it certainly is not an appeal to the supernatural or to "spiritualism." If you alleged that your experience of love were proof that there were a supernatural realm, or that there were a "spirit" existent apart from the physical self--i'd laugh at you just as loudly and as long.
So? Your claim is no better founded--which is to say, not founded at all--than your phony baloney claims about "spriritualism" and a higher consciousness. I also don't for a moment believe you when you claim that your "spiritual" experiences were a surprise to you, and that you weren't conditioned by expectations. I read a post of yours recently in which you casually referred to getting in touch with your chakrahs (or some such langauge--don't bore me and others with the terminology, i'm not interested). Therefore, it is obvious that you do have expectations with which you approach your "spiritual" experiences, and it would not only be foolish not to acknowledge the likelihood that this conditions your description of the experiences you allege, it would be foolish to assume that you actually have the experiences you allege; rather, it would be the balance of wisdom to assume that you began with an expectation that there were a spiritual realm, and unsurprisingly believe that you found it when you set out to do so. It doesn't matter how many emotional experiences you name or appeal to--none of it substantiates a claim that there is any supernatural or spiritual realm which exists outside your noggin.
However, you nevertheless appeal to argumentum ad numerum when you base your thesis upon a claim that others have the same experience--and when you peddle bullshit about attaining enlightenment, and when you say, as you have, that those who don't understand what you are talking about have not attained enlightenment, you are appealing to the narrow, elitist sense of argumentum ad populum. It is certainly no fault of mine if you are unfamiliar with common logical fallacies, and that ignorance doesn't excuse the fallacious nature of your claims.
Quantum mechanics, if it is to survive as a scientific theory, will have to be successfully predictive. The ability to verify a prediction of the theory will require a means of observing and measuring results. The same is not true with your spiritual drivel. We have no way of observing or measuring it, and can only rely upon your subjective statements about your experience, and given your repetition of the tenets of eastern mysticism, you are a suspect witness. Believe it or not, you are not personally to be considered as source of objective evidence.
If quantum mechanics cannot produce the data and the predictive results, and stand up to the test of falsifiability required in the scientific method, it fails as a scientific theory. It is either incredible arrogance on your part, or incredible stupidity, to compare your spiritualist dog and pony show with a theory of quantum mechanics.
If I were proposing a theory of consciousness or some such thing, you might have a point. I am simply reporting my experiences and relating those experiences to those reported in the traditional spiritual literature.