Know thy self.

No, Vikorr, there is always need for subjective interpretation of the observation. Or rather, subjective interpretation of what you observe is inevitable.
Your whole relation to the observation IS a subjective interpretation.

But Fresco is correct in saying that during the observation process itself there is no boundary between self and what self is focused on. In fact, such a boundary would be experienced as a distraction.
Thinking about the fact that you are seeing something while you are seeing it makes you see it less, and your recollection of it will not be so vivid as if you just let yourself see in the same way you breathe. Without effort.

It's the same as with perfect action. To achieve it you need to practice until you can do it effortlessly. Then there is no need for a conscious self to do anything. If a pianist wants to play a piece of music perfectly he needs to practice until he can do it without effort that requires conscious control, so that his focus can be entirely on the music. Then he will not have the experience of himself playing the music. While he's playing his experience will simply be the music.

Hi Fresco, I understand that, and yet the other parts (body & spirit) affect the thing (mind) you call self. My point is that the part you are describing as self is not and cannot separate from the other parts. Self is the whole. Again, thinking of the mind as not linked to the rest of the body/spirit is a useful tool to understanding, but is not a complete tool, because it does not take into account the whole. I don't deny the usefulness of certain perspectives, and of understanding certain aspects.

Yet I have the same objections (as above) when you separate parts/aspects of the ‘mind’, and call your experience/interpretation/belief whole, or superior (to normal consciousness, not to other people), or some other.


Actually, I disagree entirely with this statement (due to it's relation to language). Language works, because in our minds, every words is attached to a concept/picture. Language is a formulation of concepts. Language makes concepts easier to communicate, both to ourselves, and to others (though for self communication it probably hinders us as much as it helps us). It is our ability to conceptualise that leads to consciousness, free will, forming a sense of self, or however people would like to put it. People when programming their subconcscious often use pictures, movies, or feelings, rather than words. and People who have been deaf since they were born still have a sense of self.


Hi Cyracuz, perhaps you would like to give a couple of examples of subjective observation of things that don’t affect or interest you? (presuming you see these things clearly, and aren’t taking a guess at what the object is).
How about say, you’re sitting down at a park bench, overlooking a river, and on the other side of the river, just one of the many things you can see is a big rock sticking out of the ground. The rock didn't particularly register, but you saw it.
Cyr, I understand the paragraph following this quote perfectly, but not the point of said paragraph, because I don’t make sense of the above quote, as the first part of the sentence, up until the comma, doesn’t make any sense at all.

Makes sense to me...Cyr is talking about "divided attention".

NB The wiki article on "self" is useful in referencing our differences.

Yes, I am talking about divided attention.

And Vikorr, there is no such thing as a subjective observation that does not affect you. It helps to think of observation as communication. You are never passive when observing, it's only that the things you do to play out your part of the observation are so ingrained in you that you do it without effort, making it seem that sitting and watching is doing nothing.

I never suggested there was.

One way communication, sure, that's a legitimate way to look at it.

True enough if you take into account the brain has to actively translate the light emitted/reflected from the object from light into an image. And probably true enough that we categorise (ie recognise) things we see.

You do understand that humans can be objective about observations? "It's a rock" is objective. So your assertion that we dont' ever not do anything doesn't hold any meaning in this debate. Only specific examples of how we can never not be subjective will suffice. So, as I asked previously, could you give a few specific examples? I've given a few from my view.

Yes, I do understand that we can be objective about observations. But that simply means that we can weigh two conflicting sets of information against eachother on merit alone, not influenced by personal favor towards the source of the information.

But like I said, observation is communication.
At any given time, for every observation you make, there are many you never make. Two men walking into a room, told to be objective about what they experience in there, would not deliver the same account of entering the room.
One person entering the room two times will not notice exactly the same things each time he enters.

So we can never not be subjective in the observation itself, since before the unconscious interpretation of the information observed comes the unconscious choice of which information to interpret.
To an entity with a sense of self, objectivity can never be effortless, and thus can never be perfect.

I recall reading some on this very topic, about what the eyes can pick up and what the ears can hear.

It was along the lines of "We can't possibly process everything that we see. Therefore the mind makes associations with past thing "A car looks like this", and when I see a car, the mind goes 'it's a car'...and also that the mind doesn't interpret everything it sees (ie while the light reaches the eyeballs, the mind filters out things it does not consider significant, and also filters out things on the edges of vision), and yet, everything is recorded subconsciously by the subconscious, whether we are aware of it or not.



does this change the image? (of individual items) (changing the conscious image of the whole is a given, though the unconscious image is not)

"We can't possibly process everything that we see".....

This statement isn't entirely accurate, since we tend to think of what we process as what we see. We also process a great deal of information subconsciously, so it is possible to revisit an experience in memory.

You might not see an object because you weren't aware that you should look for it. Afterwards, if someone asked you if the object was there you might have an answer, since it might have been subconsciously processed, but there is also a good chance that this never happened, and then you would have no answer. You couldn't say for certain if the object was there or not.

Cyr,

I don't disagree with you. You didn't quite read everything I wrote, which agrees pretty much with what you said, but in different words

...another possibility being I didn't write my thoughts very well.

hehe.. maybe we are as much in agreement as words will allow.

Know thy Duffman:

Duffman: Hey Duff lovers! Does anyone in this bar loooove Duff?
Carl: Hey, it's Duffman!
Lenny: Newsweek said you died of liver failure.
Duffman: Duffman can never die, only the actors who play him. Ooh yeah!