pswfps, I am not arguing for radical idealism. The world, I sayl is my true self. Schopenhauer, an idealist, said the world is his idea. That seems to be what you've read me to say. I am only describing my point of view, a shift of perspective in which the real object of discussion is Reality, not the things within it. I'm sitting in my study with walls, floor, door, books, lamps, radio and computer, table, reading chairs, liquor bottles, etc.. This room (and, of course, its boundaries are only arbitrariy drawn here) IS me. From my perspective "I" am not some entity that is wrapped within the boundaries of the "room". The same applies to temperature, gravity, air pressure, all the physical characteristics of this dynamic and open-ended situation. This experience of a "me" in a "room" is not just an idea I am constructing; it is a totality which IS me. I grant you that the meanings I ascribe to the room, its furniture, the "fact" that it is "mine" are constructions (creations of my culturally and biologically constituted mind) no less that the "me" who is constructed to be IN it.
It is, as Fresco might put it, a field of relationships and interactions between processes, not a collection of inherently meaningful and separate static things. I am neither an idealist nor a positivist. I guess I'm a non-dualistic holist, much as in the Vedanta portion of Hinduism and Zen Buddhism, as I understand them.
I see both myself and the "external universe" to be culturally-constructed phenomena as illusions, i.e., both the so-called subjective and objective components of my world are illusory. But I live quite comfortably with such illusions, especially since I see them, much of the time, for what they are.
In other words, I do confess to a bit of madness. But "madness" here means little more than unconventional, from some perspectives but not from all. Buddhists I know consider me normal.
By the way, claustrophobia was the feeling I often had in my early idealistic days of meditation--when I had "shrunk" the universe to the size of my brain. Now, in a sense, I've expanded my brain to the size of the universe. Please don't interpret that as a megalomaniacal claim to omnicience. It's just that my (AND YOUR) experiences are the "consciousness" of Brahma.
we say that the self and the relationships it is described in are "expressions of the cosmos" etc? In this sense, what's the difference between something and nothing? I guess it's only possible to talk about the cosmos or God by taking the self for granted, therefore, the cosmos doesn't "exist" or isn't "something" in the traditional sense? Does this mean that expressions of the cosmos are only expressions from "our" perspective and ultimately there is no such thing to express anything? I think I'll try to read up on those names listed on the previous page as much as possible in the future. Fascinating stuff though, boggles the mind, madness is putting it lightly.
Ashers,
"Self dissipation" is in essence an
extrapolation from the realization that all "things" imply a "thinger". Any statement like "I see an apple" is a
hypothetical snaphot or "freeze frame" within the flux of interrelationship. In "reality" the "I" may not
see "an apple" if it has just had a meal say, or alternatively a " hungry I" will still call a partially eaten apple "an apple" whereas a shopper at the fruit stall might reject such a classification.
Quote:....Croc Dundee to punk mugger... "That's not a knife"....(pulls out his own) "Now thats a knife" !.....
A further development from this illustration of the "dynamics of reality" is the consideration that both observer and observed are
social constructions within the
a priori dynamics of "thought within language". (my fourth point previously)
In the transcendental tradition particular scrutiny is placed on the relationship "possession" as in "my car", "my child", "my life", "my mind" etc. This scrutiny yields the pitfalls of assuming such a relationship to be "permanent" or outside the flux. Indeed, within this scrutiny we may catch the logical nuance of "demonic possession" where the "thing" posseses the "thinger" as part of a symmetrical process of "existence".
Good grief JLNobody, you've turned my mind into mush! Thanks for intriguing post... I'll need some time to mull it over. Before then, I can't resist just one off the cuff question: If we are all the consciousness of Brahma (I assume is deity), why is it that humans are so divided and often hateful of one another? Is Brahma one or many? United or divided? If my consciousness is Brahma, is my will also that of Brahma, no matter what I will? (OK that's 4 questions as it turns out)
Incidentally:
Quote: Schopenhauer, an idealist, said the world is his idea.
Doesn't surprise me. Wasn't he and Nietsche the idealistic inspiration for the Nazis? Were they the consciousness of Brahma also? (damn, 6 questions, I'll shutup now.)
fresco,
Quote:In the transcendental tradition particular scrutiny is placed on the relationship "possession" as in "my car", "my child", "my life", "my mind" etc. This scrutiny yields the pitfalls of assuming such a relationship to be "permanent" or outside the flux.
Most people realise that "possession" in that sense is temporal and that everything changes. I think that humans have an ability to cope with change thus should a wing mirror fall off my car, it is still my car even though my perception of it's form has altered slightly. Everything is in flux, yes, but we can formulate order out of the chaos. A thing doesn't exist in snapshot, rather it is a thread through time which we see and identify with. We attempt to possess such threads but do so only for as long as we desire and are able to continually identify it without losing track of its nature as time unfolds.
fresco, thanks, I think I understand all of that. Taking this realisation of "things"and "thinger's" though, this dependency, what observations can we make from a position of self transcendence about reality as a whole. For instance, I might list the aspects of my monitor like colour, shape, function, this would all be done in a traditionally static sense. If we take the position of self transcendence, we lose the "I" as this "something" which stands alone but in what way could we say that, to quote JL, "It's just that my (AND YOUR) experiences are the "consciousness" of
Brahma". I took Brahma as to be replaceable with reality as a whole. If we see the dependency between things, is it possible to make such a statement about aspects of reality in a self transcendent position.
This is why I asked, outside the setting of self, what is the difference between something and nothing. Reality, to be something in this sense, has to be viewed from a non transcendent point of view, a relationship between "me" and the "world". This is why I wondered if reality as a whole doesn't "exist" in a traditional sense I guess. Is this the observation we can make from a self transcendent POV? I'm probably not making much sense but I thought I'd try and write down my thought process, normally I just sit on them in these discussions. It's nice to follow along anyway.
pswfps
I think you are missing the reciprocal nature of "thing" and "thinger". "Apple" and "self" are two sides of the same coin. It is not the apple which is "the thread" but the "apple-self". Some have even said that the permanence of "self" is evoked by the possession of "a name". "Possessions" therefore reify "selves" and detachment allows for "self transcendence".
Ashers,
The "observation of observation" is not the seeing " of self seing an apple" it is the seeing that "selfness and appleness" are facets of a mutual dynamic state of existence.
When you say "we" lose "the I" in a transcendental state you forget there is no longer a "we" to lose anything! The experience is deemed to be ineffable* and the objection perhaps comparable to the ancient view of the requirement of " a turtle to support the earth". The temptation for the "self" to "keep one foot on the ground" is the obstacle to "transcendental swimming".
* (You own dissatisfaction with your words is a pointer to ineffability)
fresco, thanks for the definition for 'observation of observation', it's what I thought it was, although that may not have been clear in my previous post.
Quote:When you say "we" lose "the I" in a transcendental state you forget there is no longer a "we" to lose anything! The experience is deemed to be ineffable* and the objection perhaps comparable to the ancient view of the requirement of " a turtle to support the earth". The temptation for the "self" to "keep one foot on the ground" is the obstacle to "transcendental swimming".
Ha! You're absolutely right, I did forget that. Funny how that happens when you become a little tangled in language. I guess what I was wondering about was, does reality exist outside of a relationship with "me". I keep thinking about reality as a whole (and distinct too, like a system with sub-systems and components) and whether it must "exist" with respect to something (other than it's own "contents") to "exist" in the same way I do or the tree outside does. This started me thinking about Berkeley (I think) and the ultimate observer etc. The ineffable nature of this is possibly worth meditating on instead...
Wonderful statements, Fresco.
JLN,
The turtle thought oribinated from a recently heard tale of an old woman who was a "flat-earthist". When asked what the turtle was standing on she allegedly replied, "No, you can't trick me...it's turtles all the way down !
OK, if I get this fresco, a perception is neither the thing or the thinger but the relationship which exists between the two. If there was no thing or no thinger, there could be no perception but on the flip side, if there was no perception then there could be no thing or thinger either. Therefore the thing, thinger and perception are all one and indivisible? All of a sudden, my notions of causality do not seem relevant since neither the thing, thinger or perception can be said to be the cause of the other two. Deep stuff...
Wouldn't that be 'thing, perception, intellect, thinger'?
I think intellect should be considered a self perception. "Perception" really encompasses every experience encountered by a sentient being, including notions of self.
Perception is the ability to realize, through whichever sense, that 'something' external to self, is present. Intellect is a facet of self that identifies the 'something' by comparison to the known. Self is the totality of the known.
Well, if I grasp what fresco and JLN are saying, perception is a relationship between thing and thinger. Furthermore, the identification of the something as you put it, is in itself a perception.
If
I grasp what they're saying, I think this...
pswfps wrote:OK, if I get this fresco, a perception is neither the thing or the thinger but the relationship which exists between the two. If there was no thing or no thinger, there could be no perception but on the flip side, if there was no perception then there could be no thing or thinger either. Therefore the thing, thinger and perception are all one and indivisible? All of a sudden, my notions of causality do not seem relevant since neither the thing, thinger or perception can be said to be the cause of the other two. Deep stuff...
is very well stated. Perception describes the relationship or process, I think intellect, if a "facet of the self", seems to be something we grasp to, maybe sometimes unnecessarily, to promote the idea of a
long term & static self, that perceives or is capable of perceiving.
Thanks Ashers, it's nice to know there's somebody else languishing at my level too!
I'm wondering how the thing/perception/thinger model works in matters of self awareness. Percpetions of self: is self both the thing and the thinger? How can there be a relationship between self and self? Or are such perceptions of self explained as a perceptual relationship between other perceptions, if you see what I mean?
pswfps wrote:Well, if I grasp what fresco and JLN are saying, perception is a relationship between thing and thinger. Furthermore, the identification of the something as you put it, is in itself a perception.
How does thing become thinger?
Ashers wrote:If
I grasp what they're saying, I think this...
pswfps wrote:OK, if I get this fresco, a perception is neither the thing or the thinger but the relationship which exists between the two. If there was no thing or no thinger, there could be no perception but on the flip side, if there was no perception then there could be no thing or thinger either. Therefore the thing, thinger and perception are all one and indivisible? All of a sudden, my notions of causality do not seem relevant since neither the thing, thinger or perception can be said to be the cause of the other two. Deep stuff...
is very well stated. Perception describes the relationship or process, I think intellect, if a "facet of the self", seems to be something we grasp to, maybe sometimes unnecessarily, to promote the idea of a
long term & static self, that perceives or is capable of perceiving.
Perception is the recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli based chiefly on memory. This is a dynamic process of comparing known perceptions to the most recently obtained perceptions. It is in this process that the known becomes known..... thing becomes thinger.
Both Ashers and pswfps are on track ! "Causality" is indeed a casualty which is no surprise since it has neither scientific nor philosophical credentials.
That's pretty close to philosophy 101; if you see the shadow in a dark cave.
