Enlightenment and such

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
SeekerOfWisdom
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote: I get what make-believe is. But you aren't really contributing anything to the discussion, that is, my goal is to possess someone's body, and you haven't provided any valuable data on the subject. Your goal is to find the truth, presumably, but when I present some raw data scientists discovered about the mind, you just say it's make-believe meaning making. That is precisely the point, I want you to make me a meaning, a theory, from the data I provided.
Why would you want to do that?

Meaninglessness is the theory of no theory.

"So then, should I post theories of consciousness? In the brain, thoughts seem to be made up of audial signals, but highly dampened. When you say outloud your thoughts, your voice has more thickness and timbres than the floaty creamy voice in your head. Science says that when you see something, it is upsidedown, and that your brain has a sort of physical screen consisting of "pixels"...that is your brain re-renders what you see, in physical space, like a theatre a physical theatre in your mind, with the pixels corresponding to real physical space. But who watches the theatre, is it a feedback loop? For all we know you could be on another planet plugged into a radio. For example...Why am I me...and not you?"

No. Yes thoughts do seem to be made up of 'audial signals' in a sense, but that again is a meaningless distinction. I wouldn't say it has more 'thickness', try listening to your thoughts in meditation, you may be able to experience them more clearly and 'solidly'.

"Science says" a lot of shit, according to a lot of people who aren't scientists, or a lot of scientists who aren't philosophers.

There's a common thing everyone's doing. They have faith. They have beliefs. They have theories. They have a story. They are basically a broken record repeating what they've heard from a source they deem reputable, hearsay.

Belief in god, hearsay.

Belief in your upside down pixelated story, hearsay.

You hear it, it sounds good, you say it.

Meaninglessness is the theory of no theory.
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GreatandWiseTrixie
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by GreatandWiseTrixie »

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:
GreatandWiseTrixie wrote: I get what make-believe is. But you aren't really contributing anything to the discussion, that is, my goal is to possess someone's body, and you haven't provided any valuable data on the subject. Your goal is to find the truth, presumably, but when I present some raw data scientists discovered about the mind, you just say it's make-believe meaning making. That is precisely the point, I want you to make me a meaning, a theory, from the data I provided.
Why would you want to do that?

Meaninglessness is the theory of no theory.

"So then, should I post theories of consciousness? In the brain, thoughts seem to be made up of audial signals, but highly dampened. When you say outloud your thoughts, your voice has more thickness and timbres than the floaty creamy voice in your head. Science says that when you see something, it is upsidedown, and that your brain has a sort of physical screen consisting of "pixels"...that is your brain re-renders what you see, in physical space, like a theatre a physical theatre in your mind, with the pixels corresponding to real physical space. But who watches the theatre, is it a feedback loop? For all we know you could be on another planet plugged into a radio. For example...Why am I me...and not you?"

No. Yes thoughts do seem to be made up of 'audial signals' in a sense, but that again is a meaningless distinction. I wouldn't say it has more 'thickness', try listening to your thoughts in meditation, you may be able to experience them more clearly and 'solidly'.

"Science says" a lot of shit, according to a lot of people who aren't scientists, or a lot of scientists who aren't philosophers.

There's a common thing everyone's doing. They have faith. They have beliefs. They have theories. They have a story. They are basically a broken record repeating what they've heard from a source they deem reputable, hearsay.

Belief in god, hearsay.

Belief in your upside down pixelated story, hearsay.

You hear it, it sounds good, you say it.

Meaninglessness is the theory of no theory.
I know it's hearsay, but so is the theory of the atom. I mean, have you actually ever SEEN an atom in an electron microscope? Same with string theory and the speed of light time dilation. Have you ever actually experienced time dilation first hand? Can we be sure it's not just a hearsay hoax? However, my belief in God isn't exactly hearsay...

Why would I want to do that? I'll tell, if you know of a way to do it first.

As for meditating, never really a big fan of it, found it boring. What you say seems different though. When peopel taught me to meditate, they told me it was about having no thoughts at all. Though I found it hard to mute my subconscious, I could mute my conscious mind for short periods till it became so boring and pointless I decided not to. But when you say "meditate" you refer to something different, because you say its about listening to your thoughts. What do you mean by this?
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Bobo
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by Bobo »

SeekerOfWisdom wrote: "Science says" a lot of shit, according to a lot of people who aren't scientists, or a lot of scientists who aren't philosophers.
If that's original this quote is quite genius. I may use that sometime.
SeekerOfWisdom
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

Original, feel free.

Yeah Trixie all that is meaning-making also. There's a quote from a text "The Buddhist bible" attributed to Buddha

"They do not realise that things have nothing to do with qualified and qualifying, nor with the course of birth, abiding and destruction, and instead they assert that they are born of a creator, of time, of atoms, of some celestial spirit. It is because the ignorant are given up to discrimination..."

Meaning-making.

Meditation is definitely not about ceasing to think. Or activating.chakras, or any such fantasy. It's about attentiveness, awareness, observation, experience without unconsciousness or distraction, and thus understanding.

I'll add that I don't meditate, I did and it was helpful probably, but simply spending time in solitude can.be just as 'eye -opening'.
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Cahoot
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by Cahoot »

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:Meditation is definitely not about ceasing to think. Or activating.chakras, or any such fantasy. It's about attentiveness, awareness, observation, experience without unconsciousness or distraction, and thus understanding.
You describe a combination of mindfulness and contemplation. Contemplation, which involves conceptual understanding, is not meditation.

"What is meditation? It is commonly understood to be concentration on a single thought. Other thoughts are kept out at that time. Eventually, the single thought also must vanish at the right time. Thought-free consciousness is the goal."
- Sri Ramana Maharshi
SeekerOfWisdom
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

The goal of meditation is not to be thought-free, what would that achieve with nothing else? Described only like that? To be thought-free is not the goal, only a method. The goal is understanding, brought about by concentration, attentiveness, self awareness. Thoughts or attachment to thoughts may cease in the precess and that would most likely be beneficial.
Bobo
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by Bobo »

It's also a skill. If the goal was to be not moving for example, it may be a skill that may help in the path to enlightenment, but also may have nothing to do with it. Or as in action-without-action, taking either one to be absolute would be missing the point that they are also relative. Maybe a better goal would be to take the ego from thoughts or the toughts from the ego, heh.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

jupiviv wrote:
Therefore the state can be questioned simply because its relativity will make that possible. Or in other words: change the context and any claimed reality or truth is up in the air.
Changing the context of an assertion is not the same as questioning its truth or falsity. The moment you change the context, you have a different assertion.
This was about states, not assertions. But perhaps it doesn't matter for the distinction. The context remains never constant and always will keep changing, no matter how subtle. This is how questions and space for questioning --doubts, challenges-- will keep arising, indeed because the assertions keep changing. Doubly so the internal state of any man!
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:
"upset of peace" or conflicted state. This might be described as "dukha", friction, stress of existence, of happenings, of ourselves being caught up"
The suffering of attachment and clinging described, is attachment to meaning, ideas, beliefs. All of which are in a sense, fantasy. The giving up of all belief, "drama"/happenings, is very peaceful.
If everything is fantasy and/or meaningless, you are just ending the meaning of "fantasy" or "meaningless". Nothing more. There's no logical statement.

Giving up all struggle and coasting along is surely peaceful. But is it always wise?
Perhaps as to be more specific we could even say most are simply over attached or over-involved in meaning making.
It's what we do, like breathing. But it's also unhealthy to be overconsumed with breathing or eating. Sure. But no need to give it up, even if one could :)
The difference between knowing these meanings are not inherently existing is obvious and plain.
Nothing does exist "inherently" but that doesn't help you much with determining a truth value or simply finding out if your roof will collapse or not.
For example, in those who have faith, in those who promote information which is only hearsay, in those who are emotional or depressed. It can be seen plain as the sky. Attachment and clinging, meaning-making.
It's one thing to make a meaning or engage in some reality ("make it") and another thing to get caught up and mistaken. Although examining meanings and meaning-making is important in this context, so is breathing and awareness of breath, or feelings and the disturbances of emotion.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

GreatandWise wrote:
Diebert wrote:That is the same as saying "all is change" and therefore whatever we do, changes are being made. And yet we can speak of an active principle (the masculine aspect).
Masculine aspect? That's a bit of an antiquated term...Truth is absolute, why are you basing terms on a corrupt species? Human masculine behaviors are varied, and differ from other species. Some species have inverted masculine behaviors compared to humans. So there's no truth or constancy using a term like that.
Antiquated? Perhaps so but the same could be said for a term as "enlightenment" when you think about it (Buddhism etc). Philosophical systems from all ages have used similar dualisms: reality as product of various opposing forces or principles. If it's still usable to describe human gender role or sexual roles that way these days, well, I doubt it. It depends where one lives? But in human psychology, imagery and the animal world it's still quite alive and rather universal applicable in my experience.

And with "truth" we're normally just saying "truth value" which can be true or false. Or indeterminate. But the absolute is not such truth value since it cannot be false. It's not a value. More like something underpinning valuation, causing logic, etc.
I wish there was a multiquote button.
The fastest multiquote method is by selecting any portion of text in the list of older posts below the reply and hit its "quote" button at the right. Then you can quickly add more quotes from various posts from there. Not sure if that's what you meant.
Bobo
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by Bobo »

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:I know it's hearsay, but so is the theory of the atom. I mean, have you actually ever SEEN an atom in an electron microscope? Same with string theory and the speed of light time dilation. Have you ever actually experienced time dilation first hand? Can we be sure it's not just a hearsay hoax?
You saw things that according to the theory are made up of atoms. The theory explain a lot of these things.

If I am not mistaken, if you ever drove around in a car you've 'experienced' time dilation, yes.

We who? Can we make it so easy that a 6 years old would understand the theory? Probably not. Can we use the theory to make a toy for the 6 years old to play with, probably yes.
Pam Seeback
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by Pam Seeback »

Hi Trixie:
As for meditating, never really a big fan of it, found it boring. What you say seems different though. When peopel taught me to meditate, they told me it was about having no thoughts at all. Though I found it hard to mute my subconscious, I could mute my conscious mind for short periods till it became so boring and pointless I decided not to.
The value of being silent is to become aware that reality or the causality is not thought dependent as is your human mind. For example, you are free to think about water however you desire, but none of your thoughts reflect the truth of water. For a moment you filled that void of "wanting to know", but ultimately it resolved nothing and got you nowhere.

What is the benefit of realizing that human thoughts are meaningless to reality? Spiritual rest. And by rest, I don't mean apathy, I mean being awake, being aware, allowing thoughts to come and go in the absence of the delusion/illusion that you can find their cause.
SeekerOfWisdom
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by SeekerOfWisdom »

^ Moving's got it.
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GreatandWiseTrixie
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by GreatandWiseTrixie »

SeekerOfWisdom wrote: Meaning-making.

Meditation is definitely not about ceasing to think. Or activating.chakras, or any such fantasy. It's about attentiveness, awareness, observation, experience without unconsciousness or distraction, and thus understanding.

I'll add that I don't meditate, I did and it was helpful probably, but simply spending time in solitude can.be just as 'eye -opening'.
Never said it was. I only told you the words of someone else who told me what it was.

By giving such a rigid definition to an ambiguous word, aren't you meaning-making?
movingalways wrote:Hi Trixie:
As for meditating, never really a big fan of it, found it boring. What you say seems different though. When peopel taught me to meditate, they told me it was about having no thoughts at all. Though I found it hard to mute my subconscious, I could mute my conscious mind for short periods till it became so boring and pointless I decided not to.
The value of being silent is to become aware that reality or the causality is not thought dependent as is your human mind. For example, you are free to think about water however you desire, but none of your thoughts reflect the truth of water. For a moment you filled that void of "wanting to know", but ultimately it resolved nothing and got you nowhere.

What is the benefit of realizing that human thoughts are meaningless to reality? Spiritual rest. And by rest, I don't mean apathy, I mean being awake, being aware, allowing thoughts to come and go in the absence of the delusion/illusion that you can find their cause.
It is as I have always felt. Water is a feeling, just like Little Baby's Icecream. It's not just a liquid, it's a feeling.
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jupiviv
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by jupiviv »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:The context remains never constant and always will keep changing, no matter how subtle.
One context changes into another. But the truth or falsity of individual contexts doesn't.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

jupiviv wrote:
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:The context remains never constant and always will keep changing, no matter how subtle.
One context changes into another. But the truth or falsity of individual contexts doesn't.
The only truth here is then the one of change. The opposing falsehood is that of inherent existence and samehood. And yet in some contexts the constant is the eternal truth and change the illusive slide.
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jupiviv
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Re: Enlightenment and such

Post by jupiviv »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:The only truth here is then the one of change. The opposing falsehood is that of inherent existence and samehood. And yet in some contexts the constant is the eternal truth and change the illusive slide.
Yes, it's a matter of how one conceives things to exist. From the perspective of the All, there isn't change or constancy, since time itself is a part of it.
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