possible worlds...

BoGoWo

When Albert junior blows ALL observers away YES ! The "Universe ceases to exist" because each word in that sentence has "meaning" only in relationship to "human experience". When we talk about any historical or spacially remote location in "the Universe" it only coherent within the minds eye in its relationship to current experience. To say "the temperature" at the "Big Bang" was such and such is meaningful in as much as WE have a concept of "temperature" and "Big Bang" and that these concepts are retrodictive (hence "explanatory") of the status quo FOR US.
Now if you are arguing by induction for the continuity of "something" after the demise of observers, you need to start by objectivising "time" such that the words "before" and "after" and "eons" are meaningful without a human reference point. My challenge is that we are stuck with "anthropomorhism" and there is no way out, therefore as Shakespeare said, "the rest is silence".

being
Fresco, I just lost a long argument. Maybe it was for the best, but it is so enervating for one's efforts to go for naught. But your argument--which I accept essentially--has energized me again. The subjectivist position is undoubtedly true, but it is but one side of the "truth." Nothing exists without human experience, because what we mean by the existence of things IS our experience (or potential experience) of those things. And the properties of those things are clearly dependent on our meaning-making abilities. But my experience of things also depends on the objective functioning of a conditioned nervous system (which is, of course, a meaningful concept in my subjective field) and the things are also experienceable in terms of other frameworks such as their molecular structure; they present a range of potential phenomena experienced only by means of sense-extending instruments like microscopes. What I am trying to say is that my experience of the world requires the world, something which IS (perhaps Kant's "noumena" has some value still) but has no phenomenal properties apart from human perception and conception. So, as you have argued elsewhere, human reality (or Reality?)is a function of interactions. Things (as we know them) do not exist without our subjective experience and construction of them, and subjective minds cannot exist without objective environments containing the raw materials by which we create their worlds. A zen master once said that when we die we take everything (i.e.,"our" world) with us (but not that of other people, other world makers) and the Hindus argue conversely that "tat tvam asi" (thou art that)--we are our environment--ultimately. But let me ask everyone, can we talk of a universe as having an environment or of a universe being but one of many, without renaming it? I find the notion of Universe meaningless. It cannot have any boundaries if it is "uni", and that would derive it of any thingness.

fresco;
"the words "before" and "after" and "eons" are meaningful without a human reference point";
Agreed, however, my point is that, while discussing this amongst ourselves, a few parameters are usefull, but, within the "big picture", we probably are not even a discernable smudge at the edge of the print.

JLN

Yes "thingness" is another species specific limitation. (Frogs for example do not "see the thingness" of dead flies and will starve to death surrounded by potential nourishment).

BoGoWo

"Argments amongst ourselves" indeed need agreed "useful parameters". Wittgenstein pointed out that much "word salad" is gnerated by different intentions of word usage. My response to you was in the spirit of the previous questioner who had problems with "no time prior to the Big Bang". I perhaps should have established this linkage.

However it seems that the "interesting questions" in philosophy are fairly limited, and concern the nature of existence in general and human existence in particular. For me such questions have no satisfactory answers except with respect for our motivations in asking the question. Mere "curiosity" or "exploration" is never objective because what constitues "relevant data" can only be recognised in the light of some guiding hypothesis.

So what are the motives in asking these question ?

1.Some have a clear need to alleviate the fear of mortality and look for evidence of a caretaking deity/grand designer.

2. Some have a concept of "evolutionary progress" in which humanity figures as a stage towards "the Truth".

3. Some (perhaps myself included) have a holistic concept in which "problems of the self" are dissipated/dismissed as local perturbations in a cosmic unity.

.....and the list goes on... but stepping to one side for a moment I see that all have in common our desire as sentient beings for prediction and control, or the desire for a reason to relinquish such control. I therefore conclude that "control" is the key concept in our motivations and that this should form the basis of our "useful" parameters.

The point is BoGoWo we are the "Big picture" and the smudge, the universe and the speck.

Parameters are useful but not if they deceive us which unfortunately they usually do.

Yes JLNobody we take everything with us, meaning there is nothing to take,

being
Hi, Twyvel. Yes we take it all with us because it is "nothing" but our on-going creation. Once the creator's gone (i.e., there's no more creating) that which he creates ceases to be. But what about the "things" being created by others who are still alive and creating their worlds? All of this is SO difficult and precarious, based on a world of assumptions (mostly tacit) and regulated by the logic of grammar. I am most comfortable with the monistic notion that the world is a unity, that we are, as you say, simultaneously the universe and the speck, the whole and its parts (the latter of which is our division of the Great Nothingness into small things).

being
Talking with a2kers convinces me of what I've always suspected, that in the world of Western thinkers there are at least three types of philosophers--whose differences are profoundly rooted in almost genetic foundations: the objectivist/materialists, the subjectivist/idealists and the integrationists, those who try to combine the truths of the previous two. Bogowo seems to represent the first, Twyvel the second and Fresco and myself the third. But I have the haunting suspicion that ULTIMATELY and mystically (not intellectually) Twyvel is right. He reports what he sees; Bogowo, Fresco and I (most of the time) report what we think.

knowledge
Fresco, I agree that "mere curiosity or exploration is never objective because what constitutes "relevant data" can only be recognized in the light of some guiding hypothesis." You sound like a "qualitative" social scientist for whom the principle is axiomatic "Knowledge is a function of the knower." I would ADD to your "guiding hypothesis", however, the looser notions of "research problem" and the culture of his/her research discipline.

hi, JLNobody

Wouldn't the world idea continue in all mind/body mechanisms or entities that it can work through at all levels of consciousness?

Are they other worlds,..... in terms of the 'other' minds problem?


Or is there any such problem?

Does the facadic separation of this body and this monitor also separate your mental contents from mine? It's a mystery we don't even know where these thoughts come from, let alone why I have these ones and not yours or other ones. But then I'm getting lost in the " I " again as there's no one who has these thoughts, nor do these thoughts constitute a thinker. The problem is we are obsessed thinking/believing we are somebody doing something and therefore are a 'being' with something to loose.

But who am I a mystery to?


If we discovered and interacted with beings from other planets it would just be more content to my mind and not 'other worlds' as such. It would be fascinating none the less or even more so as I or this "consciouness' would be manifesting it.

All the monsters I see are me. I am heaven and hell, I scare the **** out of myself with other asepcts of myself. Scared of my own shadow, literally. That is until the veil of this illusary separation lifts, the separation (of subject and object) that Krishnamurti said was the fundamental cause of all suffering.

thinker of thoughts?
Twyvel, this is so rich. I have nothing to say, and if I do it is only to show that I understand you. Let me nevertheless drop a few responses to some of your comments.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "world idea".
I do feel that the "other minds" problem is artificial. There IS no problem outside of some philosophers need to generate analytical make work.
We do experience our thoughts as ours, and as manifestations of our will to think them, when in fact they just come. Try to empty your mind in meditation and learn that thoughts come of their own accord, like your breath. It's as if we are being breathed and our nervous system USED by something larger (zennists might call this "big/universal mind)) to generate thoughts. As you note "there is no one who has these thoughts, nor do these thoughts constitute a thinker." So much for Decartes. Yes, even the thought that there is a thinker of one's thoughts is just another thought. Who's having them? We can only THINK about who's having them. When I try to see who is the subject of my experiences--when I try to sense this subject--I only have another experience, a sensation about sensations. It IS a monstrous experience--which most of us have most of the time--to feel separated from the world, to be surrounded by "it", to have sensations happen to us. Conversely, it is literally ecstatic to realize that we ARE those experiences (tat tvam asi). We are the world. But this is very illogical and impossible to appreciate in the philosophical mode. I hate to present myself as so illogical, but I think this is right.

mind
Twyvel, the problem with this kind of talk is that it tries to present very "personal knowledge" in the form of "public knowledge," and that only makes for trouble--as you have seen.

I would say that the assessment of my approach as being pragmatic (materialist)/objective is by and large correct; however, dare I say it, I feel that I operate on a somewhat instinctive/experiencial mode, building actual sensory data into the more complex layers of perception, and reality.

As for "motive", I have none, wanting to know is, I feel, hardwiring built in to the "beast"; it can be avoided with effort, but not "removed".

But my prime point to try to put forth here is the imposition of simplicity over the pall of extreme complexity that always obscures the core of meaning.
I think it was attributed to Sherlock Holmes, (and thus inherited from Conan Doyle) that if one is to seek the facts of a matter, be it personal, or universal, one must pare away all that does not belong; and what is left, is the "truth"!

knowledge
Oh yes, Bogowo. Knowledge (scientific and philosophical) in the form of descriptions and analysis of the world always involves SIMPLIFICATION of the world. It would be impossible to completely describe even a small part of it. We must also always select ASPECTS which we then organization into MODELS of the parts of the world of interest. The trick is not to over-simplify, Use Occam's Razor only as much as necessary.

I'm afraid my Occam's razor is a straight blade; no timid safety fabrications for me;

Slash and burn, slash and burn, slash and burn...........

Well put JLNobody

"we are being breathed"

It's unimaginable that breathing is only an idea, and all the more amazing.


The 'world idea' , said the tortoise as s/he stretched her/his neck out from his/ her solipsistic shell, is the common illusion/dream called perceivable universe[s], i.e. even though your perceptions are my perceptions of you apparently perceiving, I can imagine that you are as real as I am; have pain, thoughts, suffer are conscious etc. A kind of anti solipsism.

But your experience of red is as distant from me as your experience of god. That's the 'other minds" problem which I think is directly on topic as 'possible worlds'.


It is a monstrous experience as you say, being separate and thinking one is separate from other people, animals, trees etc. Imagine, could there even be such an impending war if your interests were mine and vice versa? If Bush an Sadamm had a sudden [the only kind] nondual experience there would be no war.
........

People who never or rarely think about these issues, i.e. their own existence, tend to be realists, hence the term, 'naïve realism'. Most of us had/have to work our way out of straight jacket materialism/realism.

BoGoWo

The problem is when you pare away at the "self" there is nothing there.

But if you pair away at the self, you end up schizoid!

mind
Schzoid, Bogowo? How is that?

JLN and twyvel

I empathise with this dialogue and just a couple of points.

twyvel brings in Krishnamurti who has some good oneliners:
e.g. "Where the self is, truth is not". He also goes for the observation of the movement of thought as the key to "the cessation of thought" which evokes "Truth".

I think the Krishnamurti approach, adopted by Bohm the physicist (in "Wholeness and Implicate Order") does lead to an interesting restructuring of the concept of "reality" but relinquishes "control" in the sense I outlined previously. The traditional concept of "knowledge" is a maintenance of control and Bohm's reputation as a "scientist" suffered as a result.

A possibly more fruitful approach to formalising "observation of the observer" may lie in "second order cybernetics" (see Google) where control is central.

knowledge
Fresco, good topic for discussion: multiple kinds of "knowledge." I am, philosophically speaking, a pragmatist more than anything else. If we wish to think, think usefully (or artistically). Krishnamurti's sense of "knowledge" or "knowing" (and "truth") is quite different from that of the pragmatists or Science or the Philosophy of Science. As I understand him or other mystics the goal of Practice is give up control, not in order to have truth or knowledgein the everyday sense of the words, but to be able to live--spiritually speaking--without them. To live with a sense of the wonder of each moment of a world that IS you, not a world that must be controlled BY you in order to give you peace. Yet, at the same time, in temporal terms, this world which IS you must be controlled to prevent negative events for your body, our ego, your nieghbors, etc. This requires science and its engineering/medical offspring. When we talk about spiritual peace--a corny word I know, and one I've said maybe three times in my life. Science and philosophy are of little help. Krishnamurti's talk and that of mystics usually does us little good when we hear or read it from a non-mystical perspective. That's why I think the utterances of Twyvel (pardon me Twyvel) ring no bells for most people. I wonder how many theoretical physicists actually disrespect Bohm's mystical/intitive approach to physics. I should think they would appreciate his attempt to seek an ADDITIONAL (not an alternative) perspective for theoretical physics. I don't know. But with respect to our striving for peace, the mystically inclined do not really need Bohm. But this issue of control, and its relevance for ALL kinds of "knowledge" is interesting. By the way, mystics that I've reada or talked to do not use the word, knowledge, or when they do, it is not like the knowledge of science or everyday life. Let's see how much of this I'll have to eat later.
By the way, I see the approach of fundamentalist Christianity as a pseudo pragmatic (utiilitarian?) method for accomplishing the practical goal of "getting to heaven" or obtaining a ticket to the rapture.

hi fresco

"observation of the observer"


The observer cannot be observed, so there is no "observation of the observer".

empirically....

A few weeks ago I was sitting in a café having a tea and looking down at the floor there was this sudden observation that there was no one looking, it became obvious that I as a 'seer' was not in my own field of vision. There is 'nothing' looking. And in that moment there is a pull, a magnetic draw towards the percept/object of observation, as if there were no distance between you as observer and it. No distance because there is no seer.

Seeing is impossible yet it appears to happen.


Anyway the point is consciousness or awareness cannot observe itself, because it cannot be represented or be defined as an existent....


JLNobody I know what you mean. I get a sense you are caught like me and others in the hell of two (at least) places, afraid/unable to let go of the firm grip of one (the separate self) for a weak grip of another, the truth of the ever present transcend, (metaphors just don't cut it), after all who is to let go and/or grip anything?

In one sense 'ego death' is bullshit for there is nothing to die, there is no transformation to take place for nonduality is always already the case. It's an insane paradox.

You might appreciate this, although it's a bit long.


http://www.wie.org/j12/wilber.asp

An excerpt:

When Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a great (though controversial) Tibetan master, first came to this country, he was renowned for always saying, when asked the meaning of Vajrayana, "There is only Ati." In other words, there is only the enlightened mind wherever you look. The ego, samsara, maya and illusion all of them do not have to be gotten rid of, because none of them actually exist: There is only Ati, there is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only nondual Consciousness anywhere in existence.
Virtually nobody got it nobody was ready for this radical and authentic realization of always-already truth and so Trungpa eventually introduced a whole series of "lesser" practices leading up to this radical and ultimate "no practice." He introduced the Nine Yanas as the foundation of practicein other words, he introduced nine stages or levels of practice, culminating in the ultimate "no practice" of always-already Ati.