Most Logical After Death Scenario

[RZoo]

Let me further clarify what I mean by egotism: it is the belief in an inherently existing ego, which operates independently of the causal processes that make up Reality. It is born out of biological necessity, and maintained by the lack of insight into the fundamental nature of reality in which all things are ultimately bounded in indistinguishable unity by causation.

"all things are ultimately bounded in indistinguishable unity" - If all things in bounded in indistinguishable unity, then how am I able to distinguish things? ;-)

"by causation" - Isn't causation merely a theory of our invention, an interpretation? We see effects and posit a cause.

What I'm getting at is: aren't your beliefs about reality (unity, causation, etc) just as arbitrary as another's beliefs (their ego, distinguishable things)? Are they not merely two different interpretations, and why is yours better?

You've already admitted that belief in an inherently existing ego is born out of biological necessity, so why should we fight against it and replace it with belief in a "causal unity"? Is your belief in a "causal unity" not also "merely" born out of biological necessity? (You couldn't tolerate belief in your ego - while it is comforting for others, it was discomforting for you - so you replaced it with something else.)

Finally, what the hell is so good about transcendence of egotism if you're just going to replace it with belief in some other arbitrary and delusional (certainly no more "truthful") interpretation of the world? Now, if you were going to transcend (or destroy) all beliefs by it, then enlightenment would be interesting. Of course, then you'd also destroy belief in truth or in the value in the destruction of all beliefs and find yourself renewed in a new, higher era of beliefs, freed from a burden....

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Views consciousness as an organ....

Either he wasn't thinking clearly or you aren't :)

All of our knowledge being "a fancy"...except for that knowledge, how to drive a car, etc.

Maybe you could replace "all" with "most".

It's definitely true that most of the ideas people hold regarding the nature of reality are momentary fancies. The nature of reality being what is experienced, which does not change because we dream up gods and assume theories.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The nature of reality being what is experienced, which does not change because we dream up gods and assume theories.

But at what stage are you becoming conscious of "what is": that "nature of reality". What moment you reflect upon it and what kind of consciousness it enters?

The idea given by Nietzsche is that there's a processing going on "beyond human", a wiser, more thoughtful, more intuitive and understanding nameless entity. But one which doesn't reflect any self-consciousness. Does it even "experience" its own being? By the given definition: not! That can never be person or super-ego.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Nietzsche views consciousness from an evolutionary and biological perspective: as an organ, developed for survival utility and power enhancement, something unnecessary, limited, and highly overrated (ie. by some people on this forum ;-). He questions whether it belongs to ascent or exhaustion, and whether perfection wouldn't be unconscious (more efficient and automatic). He views thought, feelings, and emotions (it sounds like your beloved "social passions" fit in here) as things filtering through our consciousness. We have no access to anything that may lie outside of our consciousness (the source of the things that enter it, from our perspective) although we may try to find a scientific explanation (for the utility of controlling and manipulating people). All of our "knowledge" is "ultimately only a belief, a fancy" (from the above quote).

Fair summary. Although your last usage of the word "ultimately" counters the lack of knowledge or access. Even Nietzsche explores as some determination of a "truth" -- but he's at least "responding" to something. He writes actually quite often about it and names it many things (least of all "god"). Knowledge might be part of the responding, of the action. Not as much the deliberation, phrasing, reflecting and sharing. This is why philosophy works so bad in social settings, as project or community. And least of all in academics, the realm of historical consciousness, a.k.a. death or "heaven".

[Glostik91]

As is obvious, my idea is that consciousness does not properly belong to the individual existence of man, but rather to the social and gregarious nature in him; that, as follows therefrom, it is only in relation to communal and gregarious utility that it is finely developed; and that consequently each of us, in spite of the best intention of understanding himself as individually as possible, and of "knowing himself," will always just call into consciousness the non-individual in him, namely, his "averageness"; - that our thought itself is continuously as it were outvoted by the character of consciousness - by the imperious "genius of the species" therein - and is translated back into the perspective of the herd. Fundamentally our actions are in an incomparable manner altogether personal, unique and absolutely individual there is no doubt about it; - but as soon as we translate them into consciousness, they do not appear so any longer.

This makes sense to me. When I consider past memories, I cannot seem to recall instances of the mundane such as walking to school or eating anything in particular. These mundane things are nebulous. The idea that they are mundane however seems insane though. Why is eating mundane when it is the only thing keeping me alive?

On the other hand, the particular memories I can recall always have some sort of social emotion attached to them. I remember my first kiss for instance. I could tell you literally everything about the room, about the girl, about how I felt while kissing her. These kinds of social memories happen to be my most conscious memories.

I think Nietzsche is on to something here, however why am I this consciousness? Why is it the case that I control these hands, and these eyes, etc. This explains consciousness itself well enough, but it doesn't explain how I got in this consciousness instead of another.

[Glostik91]

Logic is certainly closer to the ideal of a "thing" since it's changing less and is more connected to universalities. But I guess I cannot deny whatever you are experiencing, just that the experience itself has no necessary relation to a thing (even causality, or any "now") existing or not.

If I draw a bunch of squares, do these squares have no relation to the logic of squares?

No, I meant causality, logically spoken, as axiomatic truth. But whatever you experience is "nature" by definition, in terms of characteristics and qualities. They are "phenomenons" but not accessible in the rather abstract sense of the object "being" somewhere and opening a peeping hole or translation agency. That's just not what happens. It's only the way we describe that introduces the Kantian unknowable "thing" or "realm" [perhaps a function of social consciousness & its framework of needs and passions?]. But it's not just unknowable, it even has no "existence" in the way we normally think of existence or what we "demand" of existence to mean. Noumenon is a long, long way from emptiness. Causality however is virtually interchangeable.

But causality isn't inherently logical. It isn't logical to think of things as parts of other things because there is ultimately nothing that all these parts are a part of. Its just practical to say that this thing is made of parts is it not?

[RZoo]

Even Nietzsche explores as some determination of a "truth" -- but he's at least "responding" to something. He writes actually quite often about it and names it many things (least of all "god"). Knowledge might be part of the responding, of the action. Not as much the deliberation, phrasing, reflecting and sharing. This is why philosophy works so bad in social settings, as project or community. And least of all in academics, the realm of historical consciousness, a.k.a. death or "heaven".

Sorry, it's hard to understand. Could you clarify?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

If I draw a bunch of squares, do these squares have no relation to the logic of squares?

Hard to know what you're getting at mainly because I'm not sure what the "logic of squares" would be here. Platonic philosophy assumes certain geometry to be more fundamental than other forms. But I was not really thinking about that either.

But causality isn't inherently logical. It isn't logical to think of things as parts of other things because there is ultimately nothing that all these parts are a part of. Its just practical to say that this thing is made of parts is it not?

Parts? Just dependent arising. Anything at all which is being examined physically or logically breaks down in a multitude of factors, dependents, causes and changes. What more needs to be established? Existence is a product of consciousness, but that's also true for absolutes. The difference is that existence as belief becomes ignorance and an absolute like causality as realization becomes wisdom: it has the possibility to free up and unbind.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Even Nietzsche explores as some determination of a "truth" -- but he's at least "responding" to something. He writes actually quite often about it and names it many things (least of all "god"). Knowledge might be part of the responding, of the action. Not as much the deliberation, phrasing, reflecting and sharing. This is why philosophy works so bad in social settings, as project or community. And least of all in academics, the realm of historical consciousness, a.k.a. death or "heaven".

Sorry, it's hard to understand. Could you clarify?

This was mostly about your last sentence in that post describing Nietzsche's view (but is it like yours?): All of our "knowledge" is "ultimately only a belief, a fancy".

So we have this belief of Nietzsche (and perhaps yours) to deal with. Now I was suggesting to reframe the idea of "knowledge" as part of a response or even just mode of inquiry ("the way") instead of necessarily being part of the usual deliberation, phrasing, reflecting and sharing, which would be part of Nietzsche's idea of human self-consciousness as being mostly in "relation to communal and gregarious utility".

Then I suggested that if good philosophy would challenge this type of consciousness than it's clear that philosophy will not work at all in any social setting or community and especially the academic community. Not only because of the networks and interactions needed but because its fundamental reliance on linguistics (and therefore the social, naturally). My last sentence was pretty obscure, I admit, but refers to my idea of "historical consciousness", basically a similar notion, which maps to the concept of "heavens", the past, the "Law", and the seat of our "gods". In a sense we "moderns" live in the past, come from the past and deliberate over the past in this mode.

This in contrast to any metaphorical inheritance of Earth. For me this ties in with an orientation toward "future", new possibility and visionary speechlessness instead. But with future I don't necesarally mean simple time based forecasting and prophecies. Only the historical past is linear or "time" to us. Projecting a past on some future time is not very responsive thinking and still not what I'd call "Earth based".

[Russell Parr]

"all things are ultimately bounded in indistinguishable unity" - If all things in bounded in indistinguishable unity, then how am I able to distinguish things? ;-)

Because we are caused to. Our senses and thinking apparatuses were evolved to demarcate reality into bits and categories of information suited for our needs and desires. Beyond these senses and thoughts, there is no differentiation appearing and thus we're a left with the indistinguishable unity that is Ultimate Reality (or the Infinite, or God, or whatever metaphysical term that least offends you :) ).

"by causation" - Isn't causation merely a theory of our invention, an interpretation? We see effects and posit a cause.

What I'm getting at is: aren't your beliefs about reality (unity, causation, etc) just as arbitrary as another's beliefs (their ego, distinguishable things)? Are they not merely two different interpretations, and why is yours better?

My ideas may be merely another interpretation, but they aren't arbitrary if they are logically consistent and reasonable. Do you consider logic and reason to be arbitrary?

You've already admitted that belief in an inherently existing ego is born out of biological necessity, so why should we fight against it and replace it with belief in a "causal unity"? Is your belief in a "causal unity" not also "merely" born out of biological necessity? (You couldn't tolerate belief in your ego - while it is comforting for others, it was discomforting for you - so you replaced it with something else.)

It's not so much about fighting against the ego as it is putting it in proper perspective.

Reaching an enlightened perspective obviously isn't a biological necessity, almost everyone lives and dies without it. However, as you correctly imply, the desire to transcend the ego is an egotistical one. An unenlightened seeker is necessarily burdened with ignorance until transcendence.

[RZoo]

"by causation" - Isn't causation merely a theory of our invention, an interpretation? We see effects and posit a cause.

What I'm getting at is: aren't your beliefs about reality (unity, causation, etc) just as arbitrary as another's beliefs (their ego, distinguishable things)? Are they not merely two different interpretations, and why is yours better?

My ideas may be merely another interpretation, but they aren't arbitrary if they are logically consistent and reasonable. Do you consider logic and reason to be arbitrary?

Your belief (in a causal unity) is no more "logically consistent" than belief in an ego. Your belief is one possible belief out of greater than one equally valid options, which makes it arbitrary.

Reaching an enlightened perspective obviously isn't a biological necessity, almost everyone lives and dies without it. However, as you correctly imply, the desire to transcend the ego is an egotistical one. An unenlightened seeker is necessarily burdened with ignorance until transcendence.

By that same logic, belief in an ego isn't a biological necessity either, as a few people live without it. Where do you draw the line between biological and non-biological? Do you believe that the spiritual can break free from the biological?

[Glostik91]

Hard to know what you're getting at mainly because I'm not sure what the "logic of squares" would be here. Platonic philosophy assumes certain geometry to be more fundamental than other forms. But I was not really thinking about that either.

You know... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square

Parts? Just dependent arising. Anything at all which is being examined physically or logically breaks down in a multitude of factors, dependents, causes and changes. What more needs to be established? Existence is a product of consciousness, but that's also true for absolutes. The difference is that existence as belief becomes ignorance and an absolute like causality as realization becomes wisdom: it has the possibility to free up and unbind.

The idea of causality is just a practical idea. Its like the idea of free will. However this experience that's going on is very real. I can say the universe is nothing but emptiness all day, but what happens if I stub my toe? haha That is real. Thinking you have some sort of absolute wisdom that explains everything and is beyond ordinary and simple life is just fantasy.

The idea that a computer is somehow 'whole' when all the parts are there is just a fantasy. When it comes down to it, the experience of what happens is all there is. There's no wholeness or parts. The same thing is with a square. I can say that squares have four sides that are the same length, but what has the four sides? The square has the four sides. Well what's that? Its that thing, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... simple.svg. Ah I see now. I see. Isn't it ironic we use the experiential word 'see' to communicate that we logically understand? The experience is what is real, the logic that it has four sides is just fantasy.

The cells in the cerebral cortex are never replaced. This must give me the continuity of experience or stream of consciousness. But why am I these cells and not others? What's so special about these cells that I happen to be them? This is the question I struggle to find an answer to.

[Russell Parr]

Your belief (in a causal unity) is no more "logically consistent" than belief in an ego. Your belief is one possible belief out of greater than one equally valid options, which makes it arbitrary.

Lol, if you say so. What about your ideas? Are they arbitrary too?

By that same logic, belief in an ego isn't a biological necessity either, as a few people live without it. Where do you draw the line between biological and non-biological? Do you believe that the spiritual can break free from the biological?

Everyone, short of those with serious mental dysfunctions, develops a belief in an inherent self in order to interact with his environment. It is a normal part of becoming conscious. From there, nearly everyone, for nearly the whole of their lives, remain ignorant of the true nature of the self and it's causal linkage to the rest of reality.

The spiritual doesn't break free from the biological. Enlightenment doesn't describe anything that's apart from the biological, it is simply what it is defined to be: a state of disillusionment, or the full and pure comprehension of truth and reality.

[RZoo]

Your belief (in a causal unity) is no more "logically consistent" than belief in an ego. Your belief is one possible belief out of greater than one equally valid options, which makes it arbitrary.

Lol, if you say so. What about your ideas? Are they arbitrary too?

No! My belief is the one and only right belief!

The mistake you make, Russell, is putting too much value in logic and the web of human concepts that it operates on. You're ready to invent a fictitious "causal unity" for the sake of being logically consistent, rather than admit that your premises might not be truthful or that life might not be logical.

[Russell Parr]

I think what you're trying to say is that there's no way to be sure that one is being completely logical or truthful.

Does what you say apply to yourself as well? That your own premises may not be true?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

do these squares have no relation to the logic of squares?

Hard to know what you're getting at mainly because I'm not sure what the "logic of squares" would be here. Platonic philosophy assumes certain geometry to be more fundamental than other forms. But I was not really thinking about that either.

You know... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square

It seems to me that geometry and mathematics in general doesn't constitute "logic". But when you draw, or talk about, any concept being it mathematical or logical, surely there's a relationship being established, a reference. Actually close to a multitude of references. But there's no "ultimate square" waiting for you somewhere, as object or truth. What is referred to is the mathematical framework of definitions and axioms. Those axioms are logical truths. But whatever shape is drawn, there always will be a reference to truth if a meaningful display is intended. And the framework of truth finding itself is based on causality and identity. Therefore I say again that you end up referring to existence, logically as causality, experimentally as nature or "quality".

I can say the universe is nothing but emptiness all day, but what happens if I stub my toe? haha That is real. Thinking you have some sort of absolute wisdom that explains everything and is beyond ordinary and simple life is just fantasy.

That's all true apart from your conclusion that any feeling that your toe is hurting would justify the belief that it's "reality". Because obviously not every strong, sudden feeling is an indicator of reality. And certainly the intensity cannot be a decisive factor. If you'd suffer from leprosy, is the reality of the event now suddenly less? No, every leper has to examine through other means to find out if a stubbing has taken place. He's deducing the event but it doesn't make it less "real". Therefore we have to define differently what makes something real or not.

Isn't it ironic we use the experiential word 'see' to communicate that we logically understand? The experience is what is real, the logic that it has four sides is just fantasy.

It's better to think in terms of "what is true", relatively to a context. This is a function of reason and yes, it's seeing more than communicating it. But keep in mind it also keeps moving inside an already moving context. It then seems more like an orientation toward reason or a turning away from it. What is found might not be "the truth" but what is done can still be reasonable or "responding to ratio".

The cells in the cerebral cortex are never replaced. This must give me the continuity of experience or stream of consciousness. But why am I these cells and not others? What's so special about these cells that I happen to be them? This is the question I struggle to find an answer to.

Wouldn't that be the question all self-awareness asks the moment it becomes self-aware. Why me? Why now? "Nr. 5 is alive" (from that movie about the robot). But the point here is that those questions, although a function of self-awareness and unavoidable, can never lead to anywhere since the consciousness is not yours to begin with. Or like the Buddhist call it: you are the aggregate function, where a sense of self only appears to happen as one of many things. And as mentioned earlier by Nietzsche, it's really a superficial thing too.

[Cahoot]

Reaching an enlightened perspective obviously isn't a biological necessity, almost everyone lives and dies without it. However, as you correctly imply, the desire to transcend the ego is an egotistical one. An unenlightened seeker is necessarily burdened with ignorance until transcendence.

Desiring to transcend ego is not a motivator for action to effect change. It’s an academic theory. Non-attachment to ego is a result of awakening to awareness that is unclouded by the ignorance that causes such attachment. Renunciation of desire and attachment is properly understood as a description of a natural evolution into the view of take it or leave it, rather than as the violent internal conflict of imposing an academic belief of what renunciation should be, upon natural impulses. Logic that does not conform to reality is not logical, however what is perceived as not logical, or limitations in logic, may in fact be evidence of limitations in understanding.

“A man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress.”
- Ayn Rand

[Russell Parr]

When I talk about transcending the ego, I am in fact referring to non-attachment. When discussing the ego, it's not always easy to get on the same page because it is expressed in so many different ways.

I'm not all that familiar with Ayn's work, but that quote reminds me of Weininger's context of the word. For example:

"The man of genius is he whose ego has acquired consciousness. He is enabled by it to distinguish the fact that others are different, to perceive the "ego" of other men, even when it is not pronounced enough for them to be conscious of it themselves. But it is only he who feels that every other man is also an ego, a monad, an individual centre of the universe, with specific manner of feeling and thinking and a distinct past, he alone is in a position to avoid making use of his neighbours as means to an end."

[Cahoot]

Yes, that is consistent with her thinking. She also asserts that capitalism is a logical assertion of that view.

Reason integrates man's perceptions by means of forming abstractions or conceptions, thus raising man's knowledge from the perceptual level , which he shares with animals, to the conceptual level, which he alone can reach. The method which reason employs in this process is logic -- and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.— Ayn Rand

[Leyla Shen]

Well, there is much to address here and regrettably for me, it will have to wait. But I do want to remark on this:

The idea given by Nietzsche is that there's a processing going on "beyond human", a wiser, more thoughtful, more intuitive and understanding nameless entity. But one which doesn't reflect any self-consciousness. Does it even "experience" its own being? By the given definition: not! That can never be person or super-ego.

If by all that what you really mean is that Nietzsche's idea of the will to power is one of non-entity on the order of a coherent rank and order of drives, then I agree.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Well, there is much to address here and regrettably for me, it will have to wait. But I do want to remark on this:

The idea given by Nietzsche is that there's a processing going on "beyond human", a wiser, more thoughtful, more intuitive and understanding nameless entity. But one which doesn't reflect any self-consciousness. Does it even "experience" its own being? By the given definition: not! That can never be person or super-ego.

If by all that what you really mean is that Nietzsche's idea of the will to power is one of non-entity on the order of a coherent rank and order of drives, then I agree.

We should perhaps talk about a better description or understanding of the "order of a coherent rank" and "order of drives". Otherwise it would be tempting to refer to some branch of current sociobiology and be done with it as object of scientific study. Away with philosophy! Wheel in the praxis! For me the most interesting aspect is the potential ability of responding to what Nietzsche calls elsewhere the powerful present intuition, which I belief refers to Spinoza's epistemology:

• Of the philosophers who have claimed absolute knowledge, only Spinoza has offered it, not as the reception of a divine revelation, and not as the fulfillment of a historical process, as in Hegel’s epistemology, but as a means for intuitively affirming the truth inherent within all of reality. Reality is susceptible to such an intuition, he said, because every being is a mode of it, or a way that it expresses itself. In other words, for us to come to know the “absolute” is for the absolute to come to know itself. There is thus something basically self-reflexive and introspective about Spinoza’s epistemology. At the same time, knowledge for Spinoza is always of what he calls God or Nature, which can also be understood as the universe itself.

This is still way too vague when read in summary but the linkage between these thinkers itself is interesting, in the way they have defined the landscape. My own interest right now lies in examining reason (knowledge principle) to understand its position in nature and especically human nature. Reason as "ghostly schemata" versus living truth telling. This all might lead to a seperate topic soon.

[Pam Seeback]

Diebert: My own interest right now lies in examining reason (knowledge principle) to understand its position in nature and especically human nature. Reason as "ghostly schemata" versus living truth telling. This all might lead to a seperate topic soon.

By "ghostly schemata" are you referring to man's reasoning by way of agreed-upon metaphors and myths to express a "story-telling" understanding of Self (idealism) and by "living truth telling" are you referring to the in-the-moment intuitive reasoning of one's "place" in nature/the universe ("ism-less" actualization of will to be)?

[Glostik91]

Hard to know what you're getting at mainly because I'm not sure what the "logic of squares" would be here. Platonic philosophy assumes certain geometry to be more fundamental than other forms. But I was not really thinking about that either.
It seems to me that geometry and mathematics in general doesn't constitute "logic". But when you draw, or talk about, any concept being it mathematical or logical, surely there's a relationship being established, a reference. Actually close to a multitude of references. But there's no "ultimate square" waiting for you somewhere, as object or truth. What is referred to is the mathematical framework of definitions and axioms. Those axioms are logical truths. But whatever shape is drawn, there always will be a reference to truth if a meaningful display is intended. And the framework of truth finding itself is based on causality and identity. Therefore I say again that you end up referring to existence, logically as causality, experimentally as nature or "quality".

I agree there's no ultimate square out there waiting to be found just as there is no ultimate principle or truth waiting to be discovered that is without contradiction and has relation to what is seen. I may be referring to causality, but I'm really not referring to anything. If I explain this, I feel like I'm trying to explain the color blue to a blind man. Anything I say or think is just illogical. Any description falls short. The idea that things cause each other is ultimately ironic.

That's all true apart from your conclusion that any feeling that your toe is hurting would justify the belief that it's "reality". Because obviously not every strong, sudden feeling is an indicator of reality. And certainly the intensity cannot be a decisive factor. If you'd suffer from leprosy, is the reality of the event now suddenly less? No, every leper has to examine through other means to find out if a stubbing has taken place. He's deducing the event but it doesn't make it less "real". Therefore we have to define differently what makes something real or not.

I agree that intensity isn't a decisive factor, but let's say I was a leper and had no feeling in my toe. The only experience I have is that I see my toe getting hammered. No deduction takes place upon the sight of a toe getting hammered. haha Seeing someone else's toe getting hammered and feeling my toe getting hammered are quite different experiences. Its almost as if my toe isn't even my toe because I don't feel it.

Isn't it ironic we use the experiential word 'see' to communicate that we logically understand? The experience is what is real, the logic that it has four sides is just fantasy.

It's better to think in terms of "what is true", relatively to a context. This is a function of reason and yes, it's seeing more than communicating it. But keep in mind it also keeps moving inside an already moving context. It then seems more like an orientation toward reason or a turning away from it. What is found might not be "the truth" but what is done can still be reasonable or "responding to ratio".

What exactly do you mean when you say, 'what is true' and 'what is found might not be the truth?' Either truth exists, or it does not yes? If everything I experience could be false, then what is true? Is even the supposed experiential state of knowing truth a true experience?

Wouldn't that be the question all self-awareness asks the moment it becomes self-aware. Why me? Why now? "Nr. 5 is alive" (from that movie about the robot). But the point here is that those questions, although a function of self-awareness and unavoidable, can never lead to anywhere since the consciousness is not yours to begin with. Or like the Buddhist call it: you are the aggregate function, where a sense of self only appears to happen as one of many things. And as mentioned earlier by Nietzsche, it's really a superficial thing too.

The consciousness is not mine? Whose is it then?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Diebert: My own interest right now lies in examining reason (knowledge principle) to understand its position in nature and especically human nature. Reason as "ghostly schemata" versus living truth telling. This all might lead to a seperate topic soon.

By "ghostly schemata" are you referring to man's reasoning by way of agreed-upon metaphors and myths to express a "story-telling" understanding of Self (idealism) and by "living truth telling" are you referring to the in-the-moment intuitive reasoning of one's "place" in nature/the universe ("ism-less" actualization of will to be)?

It's close enough. What I'm still trying to get more clear, if possible, is that "in-the-moment" intuitive reasoning. It seems more than just about one's "place" in nature. Although certainly that's its foundation while at the same time it seems way broader and wilder than just that. But it cannot be just another form of speaking in metaphors and myths, not even using "direct language" whatever that is. Soon I'll start a topic approaching this from another angle.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The idea that things cause each other is ultimately ironic.

Yes, it is the ironic quality of all things. Causality can be said to exist, like change can be said to happen. By definition really. But any specific effect or "thing" remains fundamentally ambiguous and therefore ultimately ironic when rendered. Baudrillard already remarked in his hyper-ironic language (which tends to happen when when philosophizing about objects): "From the moment they pass through medium or image ... objects exert an artificial and ironic function by their very existence". Or even bolder: "It is not desire that we cannot escape, but the ironic presence of the object, its indifference, and its indifferent interconnections, its challenge, its seduction, its violation of the symbolic order".

The only experience I have is that I see my toe getting hammered.

My point was more that the leper will usually, by regular body checks, deduce such a hammering did occur at some point and make sure it's taken care of. The event lies in his past but it seems hard to contest that reality. One could see this as no different than any signal of pain, just slower and involving more (complex) deliberation. It's the same with our whole construction of reality: many signals, deductions, filtering going on and they all together create some more or less coherent image: our organic world view. One strong signal really cannot be "real" just by itself, like one rusty nail does not present "table".

If everything I experience could be false, then what is true? Is even the supposed experiential state of knowing truth a true experience?

A good question and goes to the heart of philosophizing. But if you mean "knowledge", it's called epistemology. Truth appears to work inside a context, like something being "in accordance with reality", meaning that we have now defined something called reality as background "truth maker". If the context of the absolute (of constance, unmoving), absolute truths are nothing but truths in accordance with that "constant" nature.

But the point here is that those questions, although a function of self-awareness and unavoidable, can never lead to anywhere since the consciousness is not yours to begin with. Or like the Buddhist call it: you are the aggregate function, where a sense of self only appears to happen as one of many things. And as mentioned earlier by Nietzsche, it's really a superficial thing too.

The consciousness is not mine? Whose is it then?

You mean which other self-consciousness can I introduce to own it? How could that ever answer the deeper question here? This is not an attempt to avoid the answer though but it needs probably another context to make more sense.