On Saturday, October 12, 2013 12:34:42 AM UTC-4, freqflyer07281972 wrote: > > > Hey Craig, thanks for the feedback. Please refer to below: > On Friday, October 11, 2013 5:10:39 AM UTC-4, Craig Weinberg wrote: >> >> >> >> On Friday, October 11, 2013 2:58:13 AM UTC-4, freqflyer07281972 wrote: >>> >>> The vocable "I" becomes attached to each impulse that arises in a >>> psychic complex, no matter how mutually contradictory such impulses may >>> appear to be. From this process springs the idea of a multitude of "me"'s. >>> >>> The impulses in question are affective, so that the inferential "I" is >>> affective rather than intellectual. >>> >>> What is the origin of the vocable "I"? Every "living" phenomenon, every >>> sentient complex must necessarily have a centre, call it "heart" or "head". >>> >>> Such centre in itself is as phenomenal as the appearance of which it >>> forms the "heart" or "centre", but its necessary function is the >>> organization and care of the phenomenon which it controls. Emotions such as >>> fear, greed, love-hate arise on behalf of the phenomenon for which they >>> constitute protection and stimulate survival and perpetuation in the >>> space-time context of manifestation. Consequently the vocable "I", >>> representing this "centre", represents the physical body, and this >>> representation is responsible for the identification which constitutes >>> bondage. >>> >>> This "centre", then, is the phenomenal basis of an I-concept or ego or >>> self, which is inferential and has no existence in the sense of being >>> capable of independent action as a thing-in-itself. On account of the >>> emotions of physical origin for which this I-concept assumes >>> responsibility, the whole complex has the appearance of an independent >>> entity which it is not-- since it is totally "lived" or "dreamed" by the >>> noumenality which is all that it is. >>> >>> It is this "centre", and every impulse that arises in a psyche, to which >>> is attached the vocable "I", and this it is to which is attributed >>> responsibility for each thought that arises in consciousness and every >>> action of the apparent "individual". It is this, of course, to which the >>> term "ego" is applied, whose functioning is known as "volition". In fact, >>> however, it merely performs its own function in perfect ignorance of what >>> is assigned to its agency. >>> >>> It was never I and never could it be I, for never could any "thing", any >>> object of consciousness, be I. There cannot be an objective "I" for, >>> so-being, it would have to become an object to itself and could no longer >>> be I. That is why "Is-ness" must be the absence of both object and subject, >>> whose integration in mutual absence is devoid of objective existence. >>> >> >> Nice post. Why can't is-ness be the reconciliation of both object and >> subject instead though? Not an absence, but the presence of the sense of >> absence from which all implicit and explicit experience is appreciated in >> solitude/solace/peace. The vocable "I" may be ignorant of its agency, but >> the noumenal privacy which dreams the I may not be ignorant, and it may not >> be fundamentally different from the representations of itself that it does >> experience. Greater, certainly, but not alienated from it absolutely. We >> need not doubt our own agency, even if the doubter is not identical in >> every way to the agency that it doubts. Human consciousness is multivalent >> and only semi-unanamous, but that doesn't mean that awareness itself is >> similarly fragmented split off from itself. Volition is not an illusion, it >> just has incomplete access to knowledge of itself. The is-ness of the >> objective world would not be very convincing if everyone walked around as >> omniscient immortals. >> >> >>> >>> >> First of all, let me say that I am no fan of determinism, even when it is > clothed up in the fancy reasoning that Bruno provides. I do believe in > irreducible agency and volition, and I don't think (a la John Clark) that > all states of affairs can be exhausted by simple repetition of double sided > tautologies... nature proves amply that binary thinking is bad thinking, > and I always hate (but also love, because John is such a good reasoner, > given his assumptions) to see arguments that get cashed out in terms of a > basic set of binary values.I think there are more choices than > random/determinate, but we probably can't distinguish or frame them, just > like prehistoric planaria couldn't distinguish between more/less light. I > think the thing I'm trying to say is that the reconciliation of subject and > object is something like when you bring together the picture of something > and its negative... when you superimpose those things you get 'nothing'... >
Right, because contrast drops to zero and sense has nothing to discern. The capacity to discern, however, does not vanish when superimposed with its opposite because there is no opposite of sense (even nonsense is a kind of sense, even absence is a sense of the absence of a remembered presence, etc). A photo *graphic* positive and negative are both opposing reflections of light, not light itself. Put red and green light together and you get something that is completely unprecedented, unique, an unlike either red or green but at the same time, completely familiar and sensible when we see how it fits aesthetically 'between the two' (See Genius Palette http://multisenserealism.com/glossary/). Put red and blue together and you get a magenta color that is unique but not unprecedented and hints at the union of the two. Put blue and green together and the cyan that you get is the opposite of both cyan and yellow in that it seems entirely predictable and is a simple midpoint between one shade and another. Forms, being distortions within some sense modality, will cancel each other out, but sense will only reveal more, and make more sense (and possibly too much sense within a given modality) through its multiplication. > now, that doesn't necessarily mean a blank or an absence... actually, that > reconciliation is the biggest fullness of plenum you can conceive, because > you have brought two (by definition) contradictories together that they add > up precisely to 'no thing' -- no distinguishable thing, anyway, the thing > you are left with is figure and background all merged into one, and that is > what we are, but then again, > I think that's because we are (rightfully) used to looking at 'things' that we sense, rather than contemplating the sense of sense itself. Opposites don't always cancel each other out. Male and female are fertile. I think it's not that figure and background are merged into one, but that they were diffracted from one in the first place. The 'one' is not nothingness, it must be everythingness. Not a plenum which is full, but a dissolution of boundaries into Absolute signal rather than noise or cancellation. > I'm already conceptualizing and therefore making an object of the > experience, so it is once again subject to the dialectical subject/object > figure/ground eternal dance we are all caught up in. As soon as you claim > "a presence of the sense of absence" you've already made a presence that > can be ignored, accepted, or otherwise argued about. > I don't think that a presence, as I am using it, can be denied or ignored because it refers to that which our attention presents to us directly. It doesn't have to be 'real', only unlike nothingness in some way - an experience of some kind, even one of uncertainty. If you ignore the presence, then you have the presence of a sense of ignoring a presence. > And I know volition is not an illusion. I am quite certain of it having > tried to live my life as a determinist for many periods, and always finding > that inner tension of "no, you can do something different now, if you so > desire"... > Yes, I have tried the same, and even factoring in the assumption that we could theoretically have a confirmation bias projecting the such monologues to maintain an illusion, I think that ultimately it cannot make sense that even the debate over whether free will exists could exist in a universe where it was not possible, owing to the lack of purpose of a deterministic phenomenon 'debating' with itself about its inability to choose any side of the debate intentionally. so many intuitions about the first person perspective are simply unamenable > to the third person proof structure that Bruno seems to prefer, even though > I also know that at some deep level he knows exactly what I am talking > about, but it would be cashed out in terms of talk about Lobian machines > and (relatively)self-consistent theorem provers.. intuition in these > schemes tends to be a crutch or an unavoidable consequence of being a > machine embedded in a larger mathematical space ... thing is, as I was > trying to get to in my last post, we are that very space of possibilities > itself... > I don't think that we are any space at all. We are the enduring witness of spacetime collapsing in front of our face and expanding behind our back. We are not embedded in mathematics, mathematics is embedded in larger here-now, within which the experience that we are is diffracted. Mathematics is the gap that sense uses to organize itself, but experience cannot live within mathematics. > I could never be anything, I CANNOT EVEN BE I, for all being is >>> determined. >>> >> >> Who could determine anything other than you/us/awareness? >> > Precisely, this is the question. Who is the determiner? This is the > question we must always ask ourselves. And I don't think we will get > answers by asking this, but we will move along a path... where it leads, I > don't know, but I do know that asking this very question obstinately and > constantly is the only way we will make any kind of progress. > I don't think that there has to be any other awareness than one which is identical in some sense to our own. It seems redundant. Then you have to explain this other awareness too. Who determined that it is the determiner? No, I think that sense as the Absolute finishes it. The problem is solved. > >> >>> Nor could I ever be identified with anything objective, and "an I" is a >>> contradiction in terms. I am no "thing" whatever, not even "is-ness." >>> >> >> I don't know about that. I am speaking to you know through these >> objective characters on your objective screen. Why make yourself a nothing? >> Nothing is what is not even "is-ness". Nothing is an idea that something >> has about the absence of everything. But there is no such thing as the >> absence of everything. There can be no "is-not-ness". In my estimation, you >> are the experience of every Homo sapien that has ever lived, every cell and >> molecule that has ever been, every mind who has every contributed to >> civilization, etc., plus you are an unrepeatable instantiation of pure >> uniqueness - a tendril extending from the Absolute improbability of >> awareness itself (primordial pansensitivity). >> >> Thanks, >> Craig >> >> >>> >> It seems as though you think nothing to be a bad thing, or somehow > undignified or unbefitting of "ourselves"... > Not at all. That's a projection on me. What I think is that nothing is impossible and inert. If nothing is doing something, or can potentially host anything, then it is not really nothing at all. Nothing is an illusion (in both senses). > but when you really do a good dose of introspection combined with an > understand that 'nothing' need not necessarily mean 'absolute absence' > Yes it does. "Nothing" is meaningless if it is not absolute absence. > but might also mean 'perpetual presence'... > Yes, but then it is just that - perpetual presence, i.e. everythingness, not nothingness. > I totally understand your metaphor of the "unrepeatable instantiation of > pure uniqueness"... but who is it who knows this? who knows it is an > unrepeatable instantiation? > It's not about knowing it, it's about being it. Knowing assumes repetition and so, from the Absolute sense, is based on agreements of sense which filter out the underlying uniqueness - similarity is a local approximation. Knowledge is about sorting through the residues of the past - the forms and reflections of experience. It cannot touch experience itself. > It can't just be a given person, say Dan or Craig, it is a knowledge built > into the universe... > Why a knowledge? Why not a sense? A capacity to experience in more and more novel ways. Why have just knowing when you can have feeling, seeing, etc? > this is where our identity lies, and not just at a local level, but really > at a universal level. I think there is such a thing as the absence of > everything, and it is precisely this... the world of illusion we find > ourselves in.... > Illusion can only exist in an association with the expectation of reality. There need not be any 'illusion' from an absolute perspective. A presented experience is a presence in the universe, period. > if there were not an ultimate absence, if there were an actual real > presence, everything in the universe would have to be subsumed under it and > it would be very obvious... > It is very obvious, but not from within it. Water is not obvious to fish, just as air is not obvious to us until it blows on our sensitive skin or eardrums. > I think we frequently take absences for presences, and this is part of the > delusion that we need to transcend in order to get a little (happiness?) > ...no probably not, just peace, I guess. > Peace is the thing. Solace, solitude...that's the local human version of the Absolute. It's not about transcending delusion, it is about accepting that there is no way to transcend it absolutely since all of the universe is nested delusion. > > Sorry about misinterpreting you (because I'm sure I have at some point, > being just one more lens of an aperture whose nature I don't understand) > but I hope I make at least a little bit of sense about these very weighty > (to me)issues. My intuition tells me, though, that we are more similar that > we would even imagine is possible. I'lll leave it at that. > No problem. You're not far off, just flip one more switch at the root of it all from off-ness to on-ness, and let space be the gaps within worlds instead of the container of them all. Thanks, Craig > Cheers, > > Dan > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
