--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, zarzari_786 <no_reply@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > Robin's going to have quite a mess to clean up... > > If you don't mind, I'm gonna be a bit more messy..
Be my guest--as long as I don't have to do the cleanup! > This is a very clear and beautiful explanation here Judy: Thanks, but please observe what I recommended to Emily, and insert a parenthetical "(as I understand it)" after every one of my statements. This is not an area of my expertise. > > First-person ontology: only I can know what it's > > like to be me. Third-person ontology: you can > > understand what it's like to be me via what I tell > > you or what you observe of me, but it'll be quite > > limited and may be false (because I'm lying or > > otherwise behaving deceptively, or because I'm > > communicating poorly or you're understanding > > poorly). > > Isn't that basically saying that every person is closed > up in his own consciousness. That's exactly what it's saying. > It isn't really accessible to anyone else, except, mostly > by artificial means, through external knowledge, like a > brain scientist, or through ordinary communication, still > you don't get it what it is to be 'you'. (You don't get what it is to be *me*. Or, I don't get what it is to be *you*). Yes, that's right. > > Your understanding of what it's like to be me is > > a function of *your* first-person ontology: only > > you can know what it's like to be you trying to > > grasp what it's like to be me. Only I can know what > > it's like to be me trying to grasp what it's like > > to be you trying to grasp what it's like to be me. > > Yes, I am starting to get dizzy here slightly. > > > ;-) > > > > or ;-(, depending... Sorry, I was having a little fun playing with it. <snip> > > Well, he says Unity Consciousness is a real state of > > consciousness, but it isn't congruent with reality--or > > Reality--as I understand him. > > That would presuppose that reality is already defined. By whom? > If your first person ontology, is real, and unity > consciousness IS your first person ontological experience, > then it is real to you, no? This basically the approach of > phenomenology. Sure. But you can be led to doubt your experience; and that too is real to you. In this case, the experience in question is of what Reality is. Robin believed to start with that his Unity Consciousness was the experience of Reality. Subsequent events/experiences years later caused him to doubt that belief, suggesting that Reality was what Aquinas said it was. Robin's never doubted that he was in what MMY called Unity Consciousness, but he's come to doubt that what MMY called Unity Consciousness was the experience of Reality. > Anyway, I have a strong feeling that Robin misunderstands > what Unity is about. I will try to see it from the > classical approach. Unity in this case is the unity > between Atman and Brahman, not the unity between me and a > stone or you. In vedanta afaik, the nonduality is a function > of not identifying with the separate I, but realizing that, > in it's core, this I is only a reflection of Brahman. In > Brahman there is no duality, hence the oneness. Would that not encompass unity between you and a stone, or between you and me? > With all the uniqueness of my own conscious experience, which > is even unique in its reflection of Brahman, which is only > known to me, there is still the more generic fact of my > humanness, and my being conscious. As an example, you might > imagine a glass of water, the glass, the limits of it, is my > own 1st person ontology, while the water, the more generic > substance of it, is the Atman, which is basically part of a > greater whole, the Brahman. > > You can also imagine that different glasses of water, reflect > the same sun, without loosing their individual boundaries, > according to their colors, the reflection will differ, but > the recognition that it is ultimately the same reflection, and > the same light that is being reflected, is what I understand > to be the unity between atman and brahman. Well, I can't address this on the basis of personal experience, goodness knows, but in my understanding nonduality cannot by definition exclude any condition whatsoever. So individual boundaries are Brahman as well as no boundaries at all. MMY says this, in effect, in his Gita commentary: "The mind of the realized man is fully infused with the state of Being--the oneness of life--and such a mind naturally has oneness of vision irrespective of what it sees. The apparent distinctions of relative existence fail to create divisions in its view. "This does not mean that such a man fails to see a cow or is unable to distinguish it from a dog. Certainly he sees a cow as a cow and a dog as a dog, but the form of the cow and the form of the dog fail to blind him to the oneness of the Self, which is the same in both. Although he sees a cow and a dog, his Self is established in the Being of the cow and the Being of the dog, which is his own Being...." (commentary to V:18) > > I'm not sure mind reading > > would be ruled out, depending on how you're defining it. > > This is a very interesting point. > > > You might know some things that were in my mind via some > > kind of telepathy--say at a distance--for instance, but > > that wouldn't tell you what it's like to be me; it > > wouldn't be participating in my consciousness. It would > > still be third-person ontology, just using a different > > means of communication. > > Right. But the question here arises, of how far such a > knowing could go? Yes, it depends on how you define "mind reading." > Maybe somebody just can read your thoughts, okay, he doesn't > yet feel what it is like to be you, but somebody who could > enter your mind more fundamentally, who would get about 50% > of all your thoughts and feelings, would come closer to know > that. He would indeed, participate partially in your > consciousness. (Not that it is this I understand unity > consciousness to be). This is more like the Vulcan "mind-meld" in Star Trek. Spock could get inside anybody's mind and pull out of it whatever he needed. That seemed to come very close to the ability to know what it was like to be the person he was mind-melding with; it was more than just "ordinary" mind-reading. It was an intense and exhausting experience for Spock to do this, and he had to be in physical contact with the person. He'd put his hands on their face with his fingers in specific positions, and this established the connection with their mind. Here's a particularly dramatic mind-meld (the audio has been altered toward the end as a gag, but otherwise it's classic Star Trek): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCsFZ9oc0Qk&feature=related In this case he's probed every corner of her mind, against her resistance and to her obvious distress, and he has to conclude she doesn't know the information he was looking for. The mind-meld would be a distinct violation of first-person ontology. > And we might imagine, that the awareness of God, is exactly > this, an awareness of all 1st person ontologies, that God > really knows what everyone feels, just as it would be his > own consciousness. What Robin calls "omnisubjectivity." He quotes a theologian who says that God not only could write your biography, he could write your *autobiography*. > This is how I think many religious people view it, and > Robin is of course believing in God. I know you can't answer > this Judy, but in this case God would indeed have a sort of > a unity consciousness, not as I propose it to be in the > vedantic sense, but in a rather direct manner, he indeed just > might be this unity consciosuness himself - if this wouldn't > be so, you couldn't call him allmighty, omnipresent or all- > knowing, right? Sounds right to me. > Or else, you believe in a sort of deistic God, not really > in touch with your awareness, or only partially so, who > can meddle with your consciosuness, but only partially, or > if he choses so. Right. But I'm afraid I'm missing your point! > > I'm flying blind here; Robin's going to have to bail us > > out. > > I actually feel more comfortable with your explanations, > they are more clear to my mind. Could be they're clear because they're not accurate... You and I are totally immersed in third-person ontology in this discussion, BTW, trying to figure out what it's like to be Robin. > > It may be that Reality (cap R) above is equivalent to > > God's will in Robin's thinking. > > Sure, but is there then anything in existence that isn't? Messy theological question. Is human free will God's will? Is that a contradiction in terms, or does it mean that God permits us to sin? IOW, it isn't God's will that we sin, but it's his will that we have the free will to choose to do so *against* his will? That's what Western theology suggests.
