brokenhead wrote:This is a huge fallacy. I implore you to think about it.DQ wrote:What is beyond consciousness is unknowable by definition. It cannot be known or experienced by anyone or anything.
Consciousness cannot step outside of itself and peek at what lies beyond consciousness.
What lies beyond consciousness is unknown by definition. Knowabilty is not salient in any way.
If you have read my other posts in this thread, you will see what my reasoning is. In short, you have not defined "consciousness" sufficiently to make claims about what its definition necessarily implies. If your definition is "that which is unknowable," then your statement above must be logically true. But again, it is not necessarily a statement about anything. If a thing is unknowable, then it must be unknown. To say it is unknown can mean any number of things. Unknown by whom? You have not demonstrated that there is any thing that is unknown by every possible consciousness. Therefore, you cannot make the claim that any thing is unknowable.
To the degree that we posit an objective reality outside consciousness which forms our experiences, to that same degree we are positing an unknowable realm that cannot coalesce into a form. It is unknowable because it is inherently impossible to know - by anyone or anything. It is unknowable because it lacks any form to know.
Yes, it can learn about forms within consciousness, but it can't learn anything about what is forever beyond consciousness, apart from a few basic deductions.Consciousness has no need for taking a step outside itself and peeking at anything, as you put it. What is does is expand to take in what is outside of itself so a thing is no longer outside it. It learns.
James wrote:David: All we can say is that what exists beyond consciousness is reality in its unformed and unknowable state, while what we experience within our consciousness is reality manifested as forms.
Wrong. While it is unknowable it is not unformed. Essentially unformed could only mean “completely non-existent”, which is not a logical physical possibility.
Being unformed means that it is beyond the categories of "existence" and "non-existence". It lacks form so much that it even lacks the form of a non-existent thing. Only forms can exist or not exist.
At root, we can't really talk about it in any meaningful way because all our descriptions and categories only have meaning and applicability within the realm of forms - that is, to the things we experience in consciousness. It is wholly beyond our imagination in every possible way.
In the absence of presenting as a particular or specific form, in what way could reality beyond consciousness appear as a form?James wrote:Your mistake is here:
"Kevin and I agree that consciousness is a necessary condition for existence. This is because an existing thing can only exist by virtue of having a form of some kind and, in turn, a form can only exist by virtue of presenting an appearance to an observer."
The truth is that “a PARTICULAR or SPECIFIC form can only exist by virtue of presenting an appearance to an observer” - but this does not mean reality is unformed without consciousness.
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