Progress in consciousness?

Don't be mad at me, twyvel told me to do it
*Dismounts high horse*

Just ignore my post and read twyvels last one.

twyvel:
The problem that we are having is that we are trying to communicate using the same lanquage, but unfortunately using different meanings for the same words.
The only Buddhist that I have understood
is JLNobody ......and that is because he defines his
belief using langauge which is not obscure,willing to
come down from his nondualistic nirvana to a pragmatic coherance when the occasion demands it, and says so, in a constructive didactic effort.
To go back and ponder over obscure and
incoherent statements that have no regard to the ambiguities that are continually being born therein,
will be a wasted exercise. What is needed is a clear, direct, use of language with words using
the commonly accepted meanings, and using concepts that are realistically based......that is,
realistic to the rest of the conscious world, in general.
I am not trying to ridicule your belief system
I am merely trying to point out to you that being
obscure in your presentation of your well-thought out belief, is not constructive. Not that my own presentations of my belief system , (which is in a process of development as JLN knows), can pass by
without criticism....even self-criticism.

Rex, I like to think of the quest for certainty as being similar to the quest for a blue rose. Neither exist. The best we can do regarding the rose is to paint one blue. But that would be the equivalence, I guess, of religious faith.

Alikimr, I want to stress that some people consider my efforts too subjective and unclear. I'm relieved that you understand me. Tywvel's utterances ARE very often difficult to understand, but I must acknowledge that he attacks issues that are often deeper than those I attack. His obscurity is a function of the esoteric issues he confronts. When you understand him, you will have progressed considerably.

alikimr

Yes I love the way JLNobody develops and articulates his thought and intuition. And if JL's words are conducive to your understanding then great , they certainly are to mine.

I try to be as clear as clear as I can, avoiding dogmatism and choosing instead a kind of street language, (as if I had a choice,....well I guess I do...) though I do recognize that sometimes prerequisite understandings are of significant importance in comprehending many of these, what appears as obscure issues.

I see it as straightforward. I.e. All objects of awareness are not the self if the self is that which observes. And all selves that are observed from first person observations are objects to that which observes, which is what we are, but which cannot be observed Etc. As Buddha said, (and many others), "There are no entities and never have been."

Be that as it may, it is indeed paradoxical to the ego that is the thought that it is somebody, but that's all the ego is.

Here's a little something...

______________

On Being Nobody

A rabbi is overcome with spiritual ecstasy and runs up to the altar, throwing himself on his knees, crying, "I'm nobody Lord! I'm nobody! Nobody!"

The cantor witnesses his state of humility and unity with the One and is so deeply moved, he too runs to the altar exclaiming, "Lord, I'm nobody! I'm nobody, Lord!"

The janitor mopping the floor is dumbstruck, and also deeply moved. Filled with piety and a fervent spirit, he drops his mop and also dashes to the altar, proclaiming, "I'm nobody! Oh Lord, hear me, I'm nobody! Nobody!"

He prostrates himself beside the rabbi and cantor still repeating "I'm nobody! I'm nobody!" The rabbi takes notice, turns to the cantor, and with a dismissive gesture, says, "So, look who thinks he's nobody."
___________

Let me add, Alikimr that when discussing mystical matters I have tried to keep the same general dualistic style that we are used to. I often do this by reference to Hindu terms like Brahma, Atman, Shiva and Vishnu, treating them as "objective" things in the world. They are used as metaphors, of course, and my final goal is to arrive at or hint at non-dualistic understandings. By speaking dualistically, however, my language seems less obscure. But my points are not. They must be grasped intuitively. This is the same with Twyvel's arguments. They may seem like obscure logic, and we frustrate ourselves trying to grasp them logically. But they, too, must be grasped intuitively. The more we try and the more we meditate (if that's what we do), the greater will become our intuitive capacity. I like to say that something a mystic writes does or does not ring a bell for me. In attempting to understand, especially by means of meditation, I eventually come to "grow" the bells which non-dualistic utterances ring.

Article

I was trying to construct something else

Gel, I read only the first part of the statement by Paul Bloom. I stopped when it became apparent that he used the term, dualism, too narrowly. He only applies (at least the material I read) to the belief in a dual being, a being with both a body and a soul. Dualism as I, Twyvel, Fresco and others have used it here, is much broader in its scope. fundamentally it refers to the notion that all things stand against complementary oppositions: e.g., up vs down, good vs bad, true vs false, beautiful vs ugly, male vs female, one could continue indefinitely, but the most important bifurcation of experienced reality is "I" vs "it", the subject-object split.

In short, BoGoWo.

JLN: You say that your" final goal is to arrive at non-dualistic understandings". That I was aware of
as our discusion developed. And you acknowledge that by "speaking dualistically,however, 'your'
language seems less obscure" That I totally agree with .
But where the difficulty begins is when you emphasize that in order to understand the points you are making (which ofcourse are the essence of your Buddhist belief), the only way they can be
"grasped" is INTUITIVELY.
This means to me that Buddhist knowledge can only be obtained without recourse to inference or reasoning....much like any religion.
That is very disheartening to someone who considers that the use of critical and/or dialectic
thinking is the more assured method of arriving at
an acceptable interpretation of our reality....indeed,
a more acceptable "awakening" .
When you say that our existence is
proplematical,that is ofcourse , not an Existential
position in itself, but to make this assertion intuitively is no mean paradox. The nature of this
tytpe of "awareness " puzzles me, let alone the necessity of even introducing this totally unnecessary concept . You can do what you want with your ego , but the body with its thinking brain is hard to dismiss so readily.
I realize that all the above statements might appear to you as totally irrelevant in the nondualist world which anchors all
your belief system, and therefore should be dismissed from your consideration directly.....but I
will argue that when I ponder over your nondualism
statements , I do not dismiss them out of hand...
and I feel that you will give them the same attention as you have given in the past.
I say this because there are so many
aspects of Buddhist thought that could easily prevail
without the necessity of resorting to our intuition,with its mystical overtones.

Alikimr, I don't know what to say, but I think there is a need to understand what I mean by intuition. It IS thinking, of a sort. It's a cognitive process that includes unconscious as well as conscious processes. Even when we grasp something "logically" or "mathematically" it includes "intuitive" understanding. But it is more than a purely conscious logical inference. I don't really think that logical thinking happens so superficially. That is our "superficial" view of the process of reasoning.
You remark that this perspective is
"...very disheartening to someone who considers that the use of critical and/or dialectic thinking is the more assured method of arriving at
an acceptable interpretation of our reality....indeed,
a more acceptable "awakening."
I agree that the word, "awakening" COULD be used to describe an understanding that results from critical or dialectical thinking. But as you say, that understanding is an "acceptable INTERPRETATION" of our reality. But mystical insight is NOT interpretive. It involves no inferential step; it is immediate, a kind of "aha".
Mystical insight may overlap with philosophical understanding; but they are different. The former is always non-dualistic and intuitive, a form of perception (in-sight); the latter is usually dualistic and logical and mainly conceptual. Some philosophers, like Nietzsche, seem to push the philosophical method up to the door of mysticism, and may even unlock that door, and even get a glimpse of what's inside. But they do not enter.

I should add that I'm not as clear on the nature of intuition as my comments suggest.

A baby's smile ..... is there a part of us that knows what is known? If, from the recipie for a brain cell , a skin cell can be grown .... and vice versa .... why should it be impossible to replicate the product of the brain, a thought? Is there such a thing as original thought? Does thought extend beyond the exoderm .......

You're travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind...a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead...your next stop,
THE TWILIGHT ZONE!

Sorry, woke up with a funny feeling.....

Gel,

Well I stepped away from this topic for 10 months on purpose.

Its too difficult to measure if consciousness is increasing daily.

Its kind of like the growth of your hair: difficult to measure 1 day's growth, but easy to see 10 months growth.

Growth of Consciousness is obviously different.

And I still wonder: Has humanity as a whole expanded its consciousness in the last 10 months?

Really? Can you give an example?

***

I realize the question might be flawed.

But it all makes me wonder:

Have we expanded our consciousness at all in the last say 5,000 years?

Are we going in circles?

***

I realize this may start a whole series of semantics wars.
What do we mean by consciousness, blah blah blah.

***

I guess what I'm wondering is, is humanity going anywhere at all?
I mean yes we know a lot more science & technology.

But is that it?

Heck, the only place we're making concrete progress is in the science lab?

Once again, its almost as if we are robots?

The reelection of GWB indicates a regrettable shrinking of consciousness in the US in the last 10 months. <sigh> I don't know if enough individuals in the world have expanded their own consciousnesses to make up the deficit.

Certainly humanity has expanded its collective consciousness in the last 5,000 years, and not just in the technological areas. There has been progress in acknowledging the rights of women, children, animals, prisoners, people with mental illness and physical disabilities, workers, and others who were once mistreated with impunity. Conflicts are more likely to be resolved by negotiation rather than wars and violence.

5,000 years ago no one had the slightest idea of how the brain worked or that thoughts and behavior are determined to a large degree by brain structures that have evolved to enable us to live in society. Social institutions have become much more complex as have rules governing behavior. We understand a whole lot more about how consciousness exists, even if we cannot agree on why. That in itself represents significant progress.

Thomas Friedman was commenting on Bill Gates complaint that our educational system is so deficient that he will eventually not be able to hire Americans to do the tasks of his company. Chinese and Indians will make up the bulk of his "thinking" work force. That IS a problem, depending on your perspective. But this involves too narrow a conception of education, and, from the perspective of this discussion, CONSCIOUSNESS.
I've complained before that every time there emerges a politically effective criticism of our educational system, educators are pressured to add more mathematics courses, and if this requires re-allocation of existing funds, this is done at the expense of art, music and physical education classes. It does seem that the principal function of education in the U.S. is to support the "engineering" needs of industry and commercial values in general.
Consciousness, to me, refers both to our awareness of our personal reality, that is the basis of my descriptions of mystical buddhism as a psychology of mental hygiene. But I also consider our general sophistication in "worldly" matters to be of profound importance. As such, I would like an educational system that gives great (certainly increased) attention to the social sciences (history, psychology, anthropology, sociology), the arts (visual and performance), physical health (nutrition and atheletics), and, even in the pre-college phases of education, humanistic disciplines like literature, poetry and philosophy. An educated society is not adequately defined in terms of the success of industry and the gratification of consumer values and interest.
Most important, is the fact that "happiness" is promoted not only by material gratification but also by the fact that a sophisticated mind is a mind that is more able to find life interesting.

Terry, that was an excellent post.

Several years ago...I did one of those "consciousness expansion" things...

...and I am satisfied that "my concept of what consciousness expansion is"...indicates that my consciousness was expanded.

It is not what I thought it would be.

I was surprised...and exceedingly pleased...by the results.

Ball in your court!