Contradiction and the Absolute

[Diebert van Rhijn]

it only means that these things come without the burden of self-consciousness, what Buddhists call 'monkey mind.'

A term with is highly ironic as the one major thing that sets a human apart from a monkey is the relative lack of self-consciousness in monkeys. And this small but meaningful contradiction is indeed evidenced by the error of much of modern Buddhism and Zen as its practitioners retreat in a more animal or cow like consciousness for their peace. Satisfied with a life of chewing and regurgitation. The conflict sidelined as the house of cards became too tall, too wobbly, to allow for any.

The original meaning appears more like the unruly nature of the animals. Like the heart or will being ruled by "wild horses" or the mind being dominated by sudden impulses or direct needs governed by instincts, social conflict and status. The monk tried to elevate his position by abandoning the herd, to disconnect from the instinctual ladder game (screaming monkeys competing for status, mates and food). Now taming the horse became the object and it's true, civilization so far is build on controlled urges, delayed gratification and suppressed wildness -- sublimation in all its glory.

Then the philosopher enters and speaks: a civilization will be brought to its knees by the very powers that enabled it. The tame horse became the impotent unicorn, the tied up monkey became mindless naivety. This is also the story of modern spirituality.

[Serendipper]

Serendipper: I'm not really sure what the buddhist thinks regarding who is "reborn" and who is "suffering" as they are still unanswered questions for me. Can you help?

This is how I experience enlightenment now in relation to 'who' and 'rebirth' and suffering:

I am sitting on my bed typing on my computer as if the subject, me and the object, the computer are indivisible. There is no desire for an outcome present, there is 'just' the story of me being told. Absence of desire = absence of rebirth of desire = absence of suffering. It could be argued that I desire the outcome that you see what I am saying so your suffering will be reduced and hopefully one day, be no more, but as I see it, compassion includes desire, compassion includes an awareness of suffering, but it is not the active experience of desire and suffering (I hope that makes sense).

I totally understand the fear that if one drops desire and suffering that life will cease to exist or that life will be boring. About five years ago, I had this fear myself to the point of paralysis, not a pleasant time! But what I have since discovered is that dropping desire (the natural outcome of the subject-object split philosophy) does not mean that emotions are dropped or reasoning is dropped, it only means that these things come without the burden of self-consciousness, what Buddhists call 'monkey mind.'

I am still seduced by self consciousness, by dualism, it is a hard habit to break. But at least now I am aware when it is happening and I can consciously 'nip it in the bud.'

Yes, they call the Zen school the "sudden school" because one doesn't think, but just acts. I suppose that's what the Monkey Mind is. I've noticed that people who can't introspect are generally happier, being like little machines that do whatever comes natural, they have no trouble eating or sleeping or letting other opinions rolls off their backs, but people who look inward tend not to like what they see. I've hitherto just assumed it was a function of intelligence since Hemingway said, "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.", but I suppose it could be ego. I'll have to think it over.

Here's how Alan puts it:

Now, be careful how you formulate this philosophically. This could correspond to the sort of person who feels unafraid and he feels very free because he is a complete fatalist. A lot of people are and are very happy in their fatalism. They feel they don't do anything and it just happens to them. They won't die until it's time to die so why worry? That's too passive. That is, he has felt that there is still some kind of little differentiation between himself as the experiencer on the one hand and the force or set of forces called fate on the other. He is pushed around, but he witnesses being pushed around. In this state he still has a little impurity left... and that is the sensation of being pushed around. There is still a fundamental division between the knower and the known. In this case, the fatalist case, the knower seems to be the passive thing and everything known, the objective world, appears to be the active end.

The important thing to find out is this: That the sensation of being the knower and the experiencer of all this, is not, as it were, aside from everything else that's going on, but it's part of it. Although you experience your existence subjectively, you are nevertheless part of the external world. You are in my external world just as I am in your external world. So in this way, the final barrier between the knower and the known is broken down. There is nobody being carried along by fate; there is just the process... and all that you are is part of the process.

So that's the oceanic feeling. That's being "spread out" and "assimilated" into the process which is a total loss of identity and cessation of existence, isn't it? If there is no more subject and object, then there is no more reality.

Let's take my strawberries for example. If the plants blossom, well that's great! I'm now happy because I got my wish. But if not, then I suffer and we say that is because I desired strawberries. So the way to end suffering is not to desire strawberries. But what kind of life is that? If I am the universe, why do I care if weeds or berries grow? If humans blow up the planet, that is fine. If I die, that is fine; if I don't, that is fine. Whatever happens, I have no opinion on it because I'm just a mechanistic process doing whatever. How is that an existence? Do you see the problem I'm having? If I cut out my tongue to stop tasting bitter, I will also not be able to taste sweet and will have no perception of anything.

I don't see how we can have our cake and eat it too. How can we eliminate suffering without also eliminating pleasure and life in general? How can we have a situation that is all good and no bad?

[Serendipper]

The point could be made that addiction to high drama might underlie a lot of action here, for therapists and sociopaths alike.

Yeah probably.

This would include, rather obviously, in deluded, safer doses, the audience of the show. :-)

Yes, I'm sure you're right ;)

I'm not sure of the connection between what people say and what they do. If I say "do not jump off this bridge" and then I jump, would you presume my advice was bad because I jumped and therefore you do the opposite of my advice and jump too?

But it would signify a serious disconnect and therefore the words as well as the actions would need some further scrutiny, to understand if anything meaningful was there. The disconnect itself might be an indicator of why the jump was initiated in the first place. Being alienated in an alien world drives people to further divorce, ironically. It's like a trajectory with only one track.

Scrutiny, yes, but not dismissal on the basis of who authors an idea. Many times people cannot follow their own advice: look at sport coaches. They're usually old with a spare tire, but manage to produce accomplished athletes.

Alan Watts was married thrice and drank himself to death by 58, so are we to discount everything he said? On the other hand, Jacque Fresco lived to 101, so shall we embrace the Venus Project? Jesse Livermore is regarded as the guru of stock trading, but shot himself at 63.

Certainly one should allow for some serious questions. Like Weininger --highly valued on this forum for good reason, shot himself in the heart inside Beethoven's house. Depression? High drama? A message? But if it would be like a mood disorder amplified by cultural obsession with dramatic acts (Vienna at the time) one should certainly read his words with a bit of healthy suspicion.

Yes, wasn't he only 21? Intelligent people do sometimes tend to have mental problems, probably because they don't assimilate with the herd very well.

Ben Franklin lived a good while, but was a philanderer and womanizer. Jefferson owned slaves. I suppose there's always a way of talking about someone or something in maleficence for discreditation. A violinist is just scraping horse hair against cat's entrails to make a bunch of complicated noises :)

The brightest flames burn quickest.

There's wisdom in warning signs, since the story of Icarus. Ambition to push boundaries beyond ones natural limits often involve death or large amounts of suffering. Therefore a deep self-knowledge is key to endurance. And it better be worth it!

Grandpa is 94. He chose the stable, predictable, safe route in life and said that is his only regret. He wonders what would have happened if he had moved to California to pursue dancing instead of working a factory job until retirement.

Maybe it's consciousness that is eternal due to being "uncreatable".

Do you mean that consciousness might be uncaused? That means no matter how hard you hit your head against that wall, your ability to observe and be aware will remain unchanged? It needs a lot of faith to put that to a test.

I suppose eternal existence is the same as "uncaused" and since I can't theorize how consciousness could arise from the unconscious, I guess that's where I am with it.

Where did the initial spark come from? When the fuel runs out, where will further sparks come from?

We could talk about the causality of the spark. But it doesn't matter, the petrol engine was simply shown not to be some mysterious perpetuum mobile. And the spark wouldn't be either, once the principles of change and motion are being allowed for. Of course this implies that causality is itself something unchanging and eternal. Or at least impossible to challenge?

If causality is eternal, then Neitzsche's "eternal reoccurrence" problem resurfaces which means we've already been discussing this infinitely many times and are destined to continue infinitely more. I have a lot of trouble with that line of thought for which I'm poorly equipped to articulate in relatable ways. I just can't see myself existing between two eternities. A flash of consciousness between two eternal darknesses doesn't seem plausible because something that only happens once in eternal causation never happens; it either happens infinite times or not at all.

On the other hand, there could never have been a time when there was nothing because there is nothing within nothing to cause something, so something must be eternal, but it cannot be a dumb mechanical process, whatever it is. The thing that exists eternally would have to be careful never to repeat itself and that requires consciousness and since I can't imagine how consciousness came from the unconscious, it must be consciousness itself that has always existed.

Is no-time the same as eternity?

In some cases time plays simply no role because it's nor part of the equation or mathematical model. But timelessness would only be meaningful if it would include all of time or any other measure. It's simply limitlessness. Near impossible to conceive of but somehow there's a possibility to approach it through higher reason, close enough to step into, a movement which simple defies, or goes beyond any notion of will, faith or fate.

Well, t=d/v, but what is d and v? If there were nothing in the universe except you, could you say you were moving? So time is relational within a construct of the universe. The distance between A and B is d and the time taken to travel the distance depends on v, but if all distances were zero or if all v were instant, then t=0. The question is what it would be like to be in that state forever.

From the point of view of light, there is no time or space and from that perspective, the universe from the big bang until now has taken no time. All emissions and receptions of photons have been instantaneous events, so even if there were infinite amounts of them, infinity x zero still = zero because an infinite amount of nothing is still nothing. So in reality, which is to say from an objective perspective outside the universe looking in, there never was any time and 13 billion years happened instantly. And that means all of this is just an illusion.. an artifact of the construct in which we exist. We may as well apply the video game analogy.

So what would it be like if a video game character could walk off the screen? It doesn't make sense because there is no energy field to give the character form and existence. Likewise there is a field of energy vibrating in densities that pixelate us into existence and there is no way to "walk off screen" to see what it looks like outside.

[Pam Seeback]

Diebert, re "monkey-mind": A term with is highly ironic as the one major thing that sets a human apart from a monkey is the relative lack of self-consciousness in monkeys. And this small but meaningful contradiction is indeed evidenced by the error of much of modern Buddhism and Zen as its practitioners retreat in a more animal or cow like consciousness for their peace. Satisfied with a life of chewing and regurgitation. The conflict sidelined as the house of cards became too tall, too wobbly, to allow for any.

Obviously you have not experienced your life without suffering or you would not compare it to a cow chewing its cud. Some concepts that come to my mind to describe a suffering free life are: spirited, engaged, joyful, conscience-directed.

There is peace of mind that suffering is gone, but this peace of mind is nothing like the peace you describe of being satisfied with a life of chewing and regurgitation. I don't even know if such a life is possible, perhaps if all one did was quote and parrot others, then one could call them a cow, but who do you know that lives entirely as a parrot? If you are going under the arrogant assumption that only those who have expansive worldly knowledge and can reason it 'intelligently' are liberated/wise souls, then I say its time to kick that assumption to the curb.

[Pam Seeback]

Serendipper: I don't see how we can have our cake and eat it too. How can we eliminate suffering without also eliminating pleasure and life in general? How can we have a situation that is all good and no bad?

Why do you believe that eliminating suffering results in the elimination of pleasure? My post was addressing the suffering caused by self-consciousness, not consciousness. To be conscious of a thing is to be conscious of a thing. Pleasure is a thing.

[Pam Seeback]

it only means that these things come without the burden of self-consciousness, what Buddhists call 'monkey mind.'

A term with is highly ironic as the one major thing that sets a human apart from a monkey is the relative lack of self-consciousness in monkeys. And this small but meaningful contradiction is indeed evidenced by the error of much of modern Buddhism and Zen as its practitioners retreat in a more animal or cow like consciousness for their peace. Satisfied with a life of chewing and regurgitation. The conflict sidelined as the house of cards became too tall, too wobbly, to allow for any.

The original meaning appears more like the unruly nature of the animals. Like the heart or will being ruled by "wild horses" or the mind being dominated by sudden impulses or direct needs governed by instincts, social conflict and status. The monk tried to elevate his position by abandoning the herd, to disconnect from the instinctual ladder game (screaming monkeys competing for status, mates and food). Now taming the horse became the object and it's true, civilization so far is build on controlled urges, delayed gratification and suppressed wildness -- sublimation in all its glory.

Then the philosopher enters and speaks: a civilization will be brought to its knees by the very powers that enabled it. The tame horse became the impotent unicorn, the tied up monkey became mindless naivety. This is also the story of modern spirituality.

My answer yesterday was a knee jerk reaction, I'd like to try again. :-)

So here we find ourselves, longing to (once again) experience our wild nature but not at the cost of returning to animal consciousness...

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Scrutiny, yes, but not dismissal on the basis of who authors an idea.

Well as for Bruce Lee, mind you I don't know enough about him perhaps. But the few things I did read sound very boring and sedated. But his high status could have energized the words and influenced people, who then started to take interest. This is how this works and I'm not complaining. But I don't believe Bruce had much to say for himself. He acts too much like the formless water, diluting everything, reflecting everything. A true star, the artist way, but not the philosopher way.

Grandpa is 94. He chose the stable, predictable, safe route in life and said that is his only regret. He wonders what would have happened if he had moved to California to pursue dancing instead of working a factory job until retirement.

He would have still regrets, about one or the other path. Regrets simply follow belief in personal will and our limited self-knowledge. Hence it happens to us after any possible path, if the reasons for regrets (particular beliefs) are in place.

I suppose eternal existence is the same as "uncaused" and since I can't theorize how consciousness could arise from the unconscious, I guess that's where I am with it

It's not a complex theory with causality: things birth other things. It's a logical necessity, not only something scientifically.

...doesn't seem plausible because something that only happens once in eternal causation never happens; it either happens infinite times or not at all.

It's unclear where your concern lies here. So what if everything is happening "infinite times", exact, or in all variations or didn't even really happen? What would change for you in your evaluation? I suppose it depends in how strongly it is believed as well.

since I can't imagine how consciousness came from the unconscious, it must be consciousness itself that has always existed.

But it doesn't stop there. How do you imagine life came from matter? Or how weather arises from the atmosphere. Or culture arises between people? Do we say it "always existed" because some limits in imagination all of the sudden?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Some concepts that come to my mind to describe a suffering free life are: spirited, engaged, joyful, conscience-directed. There is peace of mind that suffering is gone, but this peace of mind is nothing like the peace you describe of being satisfied with a life of chewing and regurgitation.

And what if I'm describing your cherished peace as one of chewing and regurgitation, no matter how one feels spirited, joyful or directed? But this is about serious and deep inquiry. Nothing more.

So here we find ourselves, longing to (once again) experience our wild nature but not at the cost of returning to animal consciousness...

Perhaps it starts with seeing how little we left. Mind you, humans are the greatest pretenders, to hide what we are from ourselves is the very fuel to further our beliefs. Here we find ourselves: with our dreams and we imagine to be like that dream.

[jupiviv]

If we define "statements" = "meaningful series", then all statements are concepts that convey meaning. The meaning isn't inherent to the statement, but is endowed by the issuer of the statement. The statement itself only has meaning because of the prior agreed upon system of communication.

I disagree. The creator of a statement, i.e., a series of words, does not somehow transform them into concepts and/or containers of meaning. Rather, the meaning of that statement necessarily occurs in the mind of its issuer. If it is interpreted by someone else in the intended way, then the same meaning occurs in their mind as well. To the extent they can't discern *any* meaning in the statement, it is gibberish to them.

If truth is a property of observation, then what observation contains the truth of this same observation?

The truthfulness of an observation is self-evident and subjective.

If a truth is self-evident then it is so for all observers. Hence it cannot be subjective.

No statement is inherently true or false, but truthfulness is determined by the subject observing the object.

I agree with that, but only in the sense that statements themselves do not literally contain any truth or falsity. If it means that truths are by themselves not inherently true, I would say they are true for the things they apply to. Whether or not that makes them inherent to themselves is a semantical issue.

Like I said, me in the future and past is "other things and people", as is someone else in the present, future or past. So basically at any given moment there is just me and other things and people. There is no third entity, viz. "me experiencing or not being able to experience myself".

Well if you take that view, then you must realize that you (as you think you are) exist in the past while the you that exists in the present is not something you can be aware of because it takes time for information to travel along nerves and time for reasoning to happen. If you look at yourself in the mirror, you are looking into the past and it's impossible to live in the present. And the farther away you look, the farther into the past you see. So to look increasingly inward is to be nearer the present, but you can never achieve it in actuality.

My point was that a conscious mind, by definition, cannot experience its own experience, and it is irrelevant whether the experience it cannot experience is of itself or anything else. For the same reason, it is irrelevant whether or not all square circles are green or orange - the entity "square circle" cannot exist to begin with.

It certainly isn't wise to tempt fate by denying its existence and then insulting it by calling it "the process".

He is saying there is no fate because you are part of what determines what would otherwise be fate.

It's not a question of whether you are a part of something or not, but whether that something is merely finite or the All. If it is the All, then the quality of "being part of it", or indeed any other quality, means nothing in relation to you or any other finite thing. It only means something in relation to the All, and since it's supposed to apply to you and not to the All, it might as well mean nothing. One might say, "we are totally distinct from the All", and mean the same thing.

Let us now turn from Watts to Kierkegaard:

If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or if you do not marry, you will regret both; whether you marry or you do not marry, you will regret both. Laugh at the world’s follies, you will regret it; weep over them, you will also regret it; if you laugh at the world’s follies or if you weep over them, you will regret both; whether you laugh at the world’s follies or you weep over them, you will regret both. Believe a girl, you will regret it; if you do not believe her, you will also regret it; if you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both; whether you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both. If you hang yourself, you will regret it; if you do not hang yourself, you will regret it; if you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both; whether you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the sum of all practical wisdom. It isn’t just in single moments that I view everything aeterno modo, as Spinoza says; I am constantly aeterno modo. Many people think that’s what they are too when, having done the one or the other, they combine or mediate these opposites. But this is a misunderstanding, for the true eternity lies not behind either/or but ahead of it. - Either/Or

So if I regret it, I will regret it; and if I don't regret it, I will regret it. All this says to me is that regretfulness is absolute and I don't understand the significance of that claim. That is, of course, unless he is saying what Watts is saying in that there is no way to beat the game because by trying to beat the game you're a hamster on a wheel trying to get off the wheel. The only way off the wheel is not trying to get off the wheel. The only way not to have regrets is to not try to do anything, and that includes doing nothing as a way to do something.

Let us now turn from Kierkegaard to Hakuin:

Most people only think they have the real thing, like the fellow who confused a saddle-remnant for his father's jawbone. Those who study the Way are unaware of its reality -- simply because from the outset they have accepted all their discriminations as being true. Those have been the very source of birth-and-death since the beginning of time, yet the fools take them to be the fundamental, essential Self.

It's clearly ungettable within the Three Worlds
An empty sky swept clean away. Not a particle left.
On the zazen seat, in the dead of night, cold as steel;
Moonlight through a window, bright with shadows of plum!

Kierkegaard is saying that we truly live in eternity only when we choose to relate to it directly and on its own terms. We can't live in eternity by realising or understanding what our relation to it is. That would be the eternity "behind either/or", i.e., deciding whether to live, or how to live in eternity, after having satisfied ourselves about what it is and what we are to it. Such efforts are doomed to fail and eventually lead to "regret", one way or another. Why? Because they try to transform a bad understanding of one's relation to finite things into a good understanding of one's relation to eternity, or vice versa as the case may be. If we truly see things just as they appear, instead of pretending or deluding ourselves - however subtly - that we are doing so, what more is there to see? What more can appear before us?

No, *we* must appear before eternity, driven by nothing more than the belief that we must be something good to the world because before the All we are as nothing; that God is the Father and yet the Son of Man has no place to rest. This eternity is the one "ahead of either/or" as Kierkegaard calls it in that quote, or "spontaneity after reflection" as he calls it elsewhere. It does no one any good to reflect upon spontaneity in the expectation that spontaneity will be the reward upon success. Work without any thought of reward, and you will certainly be rewarded with more work.

Having fun yet?

[Serendipper]

Serendipper: I don't see how we can have our cake and eat it too. How can we eliminate suffering without also eliminating pleasure and life in general? How can we have a situation that is all good and no bad?

Why do you believe that eliminating suffering results in the elimination of pleasure?

Because I can tell I'm warm unless I come in from the cold. I can't relax unless I've been stressed. I can't enjoy food without being hungry. I can't scratch an itch without an irritant. I can't have a reward without a gamble risking pain. So to eliminate all pains also eliminates all pleasures and relegates life to a state of unfeeling, unperceiving and essentially nonexistence.

My post was addressing the suffering caused by self-consciousness, not consciousness.

Oh, so this is about mental pains rather than physiological?

To be conscious of a thing is to be conscious of a thing. Pleasure is a thing.

What is not a thing?

[Serendipper]

Scrutiny, yes, but not dismissal on the basis of who authors an idea.

Well as for Bruce Lee, mind you I don't know enough about him perhaps. But the few things I did read sound very boring and sedated. But his high status could have energized the words and influenced people, who then started to take interest. This is how this works and I'm not complaining. But I don't believe Bruce had much to say for himself. He acts too much like the formless water, diluting everything, reflecting everything. A true star, the artist way, but not the philosopher way.

He considered himself a philosopher probably moreso than a martial artist.

Lee is best known as a martial artist, but he also studied drama and Asian and Western philosophy while a student at the University of Washington and throughout his life. He was well-read and had an extensive library dominated by martial arts subjects and philosophical texts.[78] His own books on martial arts and fighting philosophy are known for their philosophical assertions, both inside and outside of martial arts circles. His eclectic philosophy often mirrored his fighting beliefs, though he was quick to claim that his martial arts were solely a metaphor for such teachings. He believed that any knowledge ultimately led to self-knowledge, and said that his chosen method of self-expression was martial arts.[79] His influences include Taoism, Jiddu Krishnamurti, and Buddhism.[80] Lee's philosophy was very much in opposition to the conservative worldview advocated by Confucianism.[81] John Little states that Lee was an atheist. When asked in 1972 about his religious affiliation, he replied, "none whatsoever",[82] and when asked if he believed in God, he said, "To be perfectly frank, I really do not."[79] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee#Philosophy

Within the introduction it says:

The Tao of Jeet Kune Do actually began before Bruce was born. The classical wing
chun style that started him on his way was developed 400 years before his time. The
2,000 or so books he owned and the countless books he read, described the individual
‘'discoveries” of thousands of men before him. There's nothing new within this book;
there are no secrets. “It’s nothing special,” Bruce used to say. And so it wasn't.

Bruce's special key was knowing himself and his Own capabilities to correctly
choose things that worked for him and to convey those things in movement and in
language. He found in the philosophies of Confucius, Spinoza, Krishnamurti and
others, an organization for his concepts and, with that organization, he began the book
of his tao.

The book when he died was only partially completed. Though it spanned seven vol-
umes, it filled only one. Between major blocks of copy were unnumbered pages of
unused paper, each headed by simple titles. Sometimes he wrote introspectively, asking
questions of himself. More often he wrote to his invisible student, the reader. When he
wrote quickly, he sacrificed his practiced grammar and when he took his time, he was
eloquent.

https://archive.org/stream/TaoOfJeetKun ... e_djvu.txt

Grandpa is 94. He chose the stable, predictable, safe route in life and said that is his only regret. He wonders what would have happened if he had moved to California to pursue dancing instead of working a factory job until retirement.

He would have still regrets, about one or the other path. Regrets simply follow belief in personal will and our limited self-knowledge. Hence it happens to us after any possible path, if the reasons for regrets (particular beliefs) are in place.

Yes, the grass is always greener on the other side.

I suppose eternal existence is the same as "uncaused" and since I can't theorize how consciousness could arise from the unconscious, I guess that's where I am with it

It's not a complex theory with causality: things birth other things. It's a logical necessity, not only something scientifically.

Yep, so either we conceive a way for the unconscious to birth the conscious or we concede consciousness is eternal.

...doesn't seem plausible because something that only happens once in eternal causation never happens; it either happens infinite times or not at all.

It's unclear where your concern lies here. So what if everything is happening "infinite times", exact, or in all variations or didn't even really happen? What would change for you in your evaluation? I suppose it depends in how strongly it is believed as well.

I think it was Aquinas who argued against eternal return with Christ needing to be sacrificed eternally; it's just an absurdity. My concern is: what would be the point of replaying the same movie eternally? If my philosophy is either fun or increasing degrees of conscious to have better games (for fun), then it doesn't seem that going in circles would fulfill either of those.

Of course the objection to that is the presumption of a god, ground of being, or some conscious entity desiring fun in the first place, but then my objection to that is how do we get life from nonlife, consciousness from the unconscious, wisdom from the stupid, and so forth.

Occam's razor says it's easier to believe in an eternal conscious entity rather than try to explain all the consequences of not believing it (how to get life from nonlife, eternal return, etc).

since I can't imagine how consciousness came from the unconscious, it must be consciousness itself that has always existed.

But it doesn't stop there. How do you imagine life came from matter?

Matter is conscious, of course. Mineral is a simple form of consciousness.

Or how weather arises from the atmosphere. Or culture arises between people? Do we say it "always existed" because some limits in imagination all of the sudden?

I'm starting WAY back, even before duality came about. When the very first thing "that worked" came about, how was it determined that it worked? How does order know it is order? How does one thing affect another thing? How does causality work? Why can two things not occupy the same space? It's as if one particle says to another "No I am standing here, you cannot be here. I have boundaries. I exist." That is the fundamental consciousness I'm referring to and it gets more complex, honed, refined the higher up the evolutionary ladder we climb.

Now, I think, if you want to claim that all the fundamental forces that came about were just dumb processes or similar, but then it means that so are we a result of that dumb process and cannot be considered intelligent or alive. My main objection is the line differentiating life from nonlife and if someone would prefer all life to be dumb machines, then I'm fine with that to a point as definitions are based on preferences.

[Serendipper]

If we define "statements" = "meaningful series", then all statements are concepts that convey meaning. The meaning isn't inherent to the statement, but is endowed by the issuer of the statement. The statement itself only has meaning because of the prior agreed upon system of communication.

The creator of a statement, i.e., a series of words, does not somehow transform them into concepts and/or containers of meaning. Rather, the meaning of that statement necessarily occurs in the mind of its issuer.

Well I conceded there is no objective, inherent, innate meaning which relegates meaning being endowed by the subjective issuer.

If it is interpreted by someone else in the intended way, then the same meaning occurs in their mind as well. To the extent they can't discern *any* meaning in the statement, it is gibberish to them.

Yes exactly, but that doesn't mean the meaning wasn't contained therein; not objectively, but subjectively.

If truth is a property of observation, then what observation contains the truth of this same observation?

The truthfulness of an observation is self-evident and subjective.

If a truth is self-evident then it is so for all observers. Hence it cannot be subjective.

Self-evidence is relative to the self doing the observing. If all selves have the same interpretation, then it's seemingly objective, but not really since it's still a collection of opinions. If the selves are different, then truth will be different depending who you ask. Either way, no objective statement can be made and it's up to you to determine whether that is true or not.

Is money objectively or subjectively valued? One interlocutor argued that money is objectively valued because the value is determined by a market and isn't influenced much by a person's subjective opinions of value. I argued that money is a collection of subjective valuations and objective value could only be set by an authority, such as a government dictating the value of money. In that case, subjective opinions are inconsequential and the value of money would be set regardless if all trade ceased, since the value isn't dependent upon trade or subjectivity, but solely on authority and no one needs to subjectively observe the value for it to be so.

I maintain that objectivity can have no observer. In the case of money being set by the gov, observation is defined as valuing and therefore since no valuing by non-gov entities can take place, then observation cannot take place. In the case of the All, no one can step outside the All to make an observation.

No statement is inherently true or false, but truthfulness is determined by the subject observing the object.

I agree with that, but only in the sense that statements themselves do not literally contain any truth or falsity. If it means that truths are by themselves not inherently true, I would say they are true for the things they apply to. Whether or not that makes them inherent to themselves is a semantical issue.

I agree except for "but only in the sense that statements themselves do not literally contain any [objective] truth or falsity" since they can contain subjective truth or falsity.

Like I said, me in the future and past is "other things and people", as is someone else in the present, future or past. So basically at any given moment there is just me and other things and people. There is no third entity, viz. "me experiencing or not being able to experience myself".

Well if you take that view, then you must realize that you (as you think you are) exist in the past while the you that exists in the present is not something you can be aware of because it takes time for information to travel along nerves and time for reasoning to happen. If you look at yourself in the mirror, you are looking into the past and it's impossible to live in the present. And the farther away you look, the farther into the past you see. So to look increasingly inward is to be nearer the present, but you can never achieve it in actuality.

My point was that a conscious mind, by definition, cannot experience its own experience, and it is irrelevant whether the experience it cannot experience is of itself or anything else. For the same reason, it is irrelevant whether or not all square circles are green or orange - the entity "square circle" cannot exist to begin with.

If there are only 4 pixels, then all circles are squares ;)

It certainly isn't wise to tempt fate by denying its existence and then insulting it by calling it "the process".

He is saying there is no fate because you are part of what determines what would otherwise be fate.

It's not a question of whether you are a part of something or not, but whether that something is merely finite or the All. If it is the All, then the quality of "being part of it", or indeed any other quality, means nothing in relation to you or any other finite thing. It only means something in relation to the All, and since it's supposed to apply to you and not to the All, it might as well mean nothing. One might say, "we are totally distinct from the All", and mean the same thing.

The All can occupy all available places to occupy and still be finite. If we are continuous with the All, then there is no us, but just the All. There is no fate because there is no one to be fated.

Let us now turn from Watts to Kierkegaard:

If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or if you do not marry, you will regret both; whether you marry or you do not marry, you will regret both. Laugh at the world’s follies, you will regret it; weep over them, you will also regret it; if you laugh at the world’s follies or if you weep over them, you will regret both; whether you laugh at the world’s follies or you weep over them, you will regret both. Believe a girl, you will regret it; if you do not believe her, you will also regret it; if you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both; whether you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both. If you hang yourself, you will regret it; if you do not hang yourself, you will regret it; if you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both; whether you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the sum of all practical wisdom. It isn’t just in single moments that I view everything aeterno modo, as Spinoza says; I am constantly aeterno modo. Many people think that’s what they are too when, having done the one or the other, they combine or mediate these opposites. But this is a misunderstanding, for the true eternity lies not behind either/or but ahead of it. - Either/Or

So if I regret it, I will regret it; and if I don't regret it, I will regret it. All this says to me is that regretfulness is absolute and I don't understand the significance of that claim. That is, of course, unless he is saying what Watts is saying in that there is no way to beat the game because by trying to beat the game you're a hamster on a wheel trying to get off the wheel. The only way off the wheel is not trying to get off the wheel. The only way not to have regrets is to not try to do anything, and that includes doing nothing as a way to do something.

Let us now turn from Kierkegaard to Hakuin:

Most people only think they have the real thing, like the fellow who confused a saddle-remnant for his father's jawbone. Those who study the Way are unaware of its reality -- simply because from the outset they have accepted all their discriminations as being true. Those have been the very source of birth-and-death since the beginning of time, yet the fools take them to be the fundamental, essential Self.

It's clearly ungettable within the Three Worlds
An empty sky swept clean away. Not a particle left.
On the zazen seat, in the dead of night, cold as steel;
Moonlight through a window, bright with shadows of plum!

Kierkegaard is saying that we truly live in eternity only when we choose to relate to it directly and on its own terms. We can't live in eternity by realising or understanding what our relation to it is. That would be the eternity "behind either/or", i.e., deciding whether to live, or how to live in eternity, after having satisfied ourselves about what it is and what we are to it. Such efforts are doomed to fail and eventually lead to "regret", one way or another. Why? Because they try to transform a bad understanding of one's relation to finite things into a good understanding of one's relation to eternity, or vice versa as the case may be. If we truly see things just as they appear, instead of pretending or deluding ourselves - however subtly - that we are doing so, what more is there to see? What more can appear before us?

No, *we* must appear before eternity, driven by nothing more than the belief that we must be something good to the world because before the All we are as nothing; that God is the Father and yet the Son of Man has no place to rest. This eternity is the one "ahead of either/or" as Kierkegaard calls it in that quote, or "spontaneity after reflection" as he calls it elsewhere. It does no one any good to reflect upon spontaneity in the expectation that spontaneity will be the reward upon success. Work without any thought of reward, and you will certainly be rewarded with more work.

I don't know about all this eternity talk. Have we determined if absence of time is equivalent to eternity? So it would seem that Kierkegaard is relating his own relation to itself by using the concept of eternity in reasoning, which is where the infinite ultimately originates: circularity. Outside of the circular, linear infinity is absurd. So I'm not sure the conclusion of the relation of the finite to the infinite leading to regrets is anything more than relation of the finite to a delusion or phantom of the mind.

Work without any thought of reward, and you will certainly be rewarded with more work.

If we work without thought of reward, then work is fun and the work is its own reward.

Having fun yet?

Yup! Good stuff! Keep it coming! :D

[Pam Seeback]

Diebert: Here we find ourselves: with our dreams and we imagine to be like that dream.

I don't deny I am trying to live a dream of me, but in the same breath, I want this dream to end. I want to be me, the authentic me -- not the good me, not the bad me, not the ideal me, not the loving me, not the hating me, but ME -- but what I am discovering, both to my horror and delight, is that no such BEING ME exists, so what happens is that I find myself back living the dream of me. Which ironically is the dream of escaping me, of transcending me, even though I know deep in my heart that no such me exists.

For a while, back when I was so sickened of the spiritual dream of me, I delved into the philosophies of the existentialists and at the time, they seemed a good fit for what I was feeling/thinking, but clearly, I wasn't sickened enough. If I am starkly honest, what holds me back from being completely sickened of the dream is that I enjoy the fruits of companionship and there is no buzz-kill greater than diving deep into the truth that 'no one knows jackshit', that we're all just dreaming and are afraid to wake up. Where does one go from here? Is the requirement of living the truth "no one knows" that of living the solitary life of subjectivity? These are questions I must answer for myself, of course, but I am curious as to how others who find themselves between this same rock and a hard place have worked through this most (to me) challenging question.

Currently I am trying to sustain the philosophy of The Great Cosmic Joke to keep me from falling into the spiritual dream of me - anyone relate?

[Pam Seeback]

Serendipper: I don't see how we can have our cake and eat it too. How can we eliminate suffering without also eliminating pleasure and life in general? How can we have a situation that is all good and no bad?

Why do you believe that eliminating suffering results in the elimination of pleasure?

Because I can tell I'm warm unless I come in from the cold. I can't relax unless I've been stressed. I can't enjoy food without being hungry. I can't scratch an itch without an irritant. I can't have a reward without a gamble risking pain. So to eliminate all pains also eliminates all pleasures and relegates life to a state of unfeeling, unperceiving and essentially nonexistence.

My post was addressing the suffering caused by self-consciousness, not consciousness.

Oh, so this is about mental pains rather than physiological?

To be conscious of a thing is to be conscious of a thing. Pleasure is a thing.

What is not a thing?

My answer to you is my most recent answer to Diebert. :-)

[Serendipper]

Diebert: Here we find ourselves: with our dreams and we imagine to be like that dream.

I don't deny I am trying to live a dream of me, but in the same breath, I want this dream to end. I want to be me, the authentic me -- not the good me, not the bad me, not the ideal me, not the loving me, not the hating me, but ME -- but what I am discovering, both to my horror and delight, is that no such BEING ME exists, so what happens is that I find myself back living the dream of me. Which ironically is the dream of escaping me, of transcending me, even though I know deep in my heart that no such me exists.

Yeah, that's what I've been saying all along and Alan said that most practitioners return to their normal lives but with a different perspective. He said there is nothing to realize, nowhere to go, no religion to practice, nothing to attain.

He says:

But actually the middle way is a little more subtle than that and it's beautifully discussed in professor Bahm's book "The Philosophy of Buddha". A fascinating analysis in the form of a dialog:

The student brings a problem to the teacher and he says "I suffer and it's a problem to me."
The teacher says, "You suffer because you desire. If you didn't desire, you wouldn't suffer. So try not to desire."
And the student returns and says "I am not very successful in this. I can't stop desiring; it's terribly difficult. Furthermore I find that in trying to stop desiring I'm desiring to stop desiring, now what am I to do about that?"
The teacher replies "Do not desire to stop desiring anymore than you can."
The student says, "I still find myself desiring excessively to stop desiring and it doesn't work."
The teacher replies "Do not desire too much not to desire to stop desiring."

Do you see what's happening? Step by step the student is being brought together with himself to the point that he catches up with his own inner being and can accept it completely. And that is the most difficult thing to do.. to accept ones self completely. Because the moment you can do that you have in effect done psychologically the equivalent of saying in philosophical terms that you are the buddha. Because we are always trying to get away from ourselves in one way or another. And it's only stopping doing that through a series of experiments as we try resolutely to get away from ourselves as we are. That's the middle way.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise ;) It is only through the realization of futility can we stop trying to get away from ourselves.

For a while, back when I was so sickened of the spiritual dream of me, I delved into the philosophies of the existentialists and at the time, they seemed a good fit for what I was feeling/thinking, but clearly, I wasn't sickened enough. If I am starkly honest, what holds me back from being completely sickened of the dream is that I enjoy the fruits of companionship and there is no buzz-kill greater than diving deep into the truth that 'no one knows jackshit', that we're all just dreaming and are afraid to wake up.

There is no "up" to wake to. The reason all this exists is because there isn't jackshit outside.

Currently I am trying to sustain the philosophy of The Great Cosmic Joke to keep me from falling into the spiritual dream of me - anyone relate?

I think the dream you're dreaming is that there is something or someone to wake up to and that's the cosmic joke ;)

The only experience you can have when you wake up is the same experience you had when you were born.

[Pam Seeback]

Serendipper: Yeah, that's what I've been saying all along and Alan said that most practitioners return to their normal lives but with a different perspective. He said there is nothing to realize, nowhere to go, no religion to practice, nothing to attain.

I do believe this is what is happening to me, but as I see it, there is something to realize upon 'the return' and that is that there is nothing to realize. Knowing that there's nothing to realize seems of the utmost importance as it encompasses the entire meaning of the journey.

"Do you see what's happening? Step by step the student is being brought together with himself to the point that he catches up with his own inner being and can accept it completely. And that is the most difficult thing to do.. to accept ones self completely. Because the moment you can do that you have in effect done psychologically the equivalent of saying in philosophical terms that you are the buddha. Because we are always trying to get away from ourselves in one way or another. And it's only stopping doing that through a series of experiments as we try resolutely to get away from ourselves as we are. That's the middle way." - Alan Watts

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise ;) It is only through the realization of futility can we stop trying to get away from ourselves.

What is funny/ironic to me is that during the journey to 'leave myself' I would write posts declaring that one can never leave themselves. I would even speak of the futility of attempting such a foolish thing! Talk about contradicting myself!

The only experience you can have when you wake up is the same experience you had when you were born.

Well, not quite. I won't be drinking from a baby bottle or pooping in a diaper. :-) I assume you're referring to the spiritual metaphor of 'being reborn?'

A delightful and helpful exchange, thank you.

[Serendipper]

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise ;) It is only through the realization of futility can we stop trying to get away from ourselves.

What is funny/ironic to me is that during the journey to 'leave myself' I would write posts declaring that one can never leave themselves. I would even speak of the futility of attempting such a foolish thing! Talk about contradicting myself!

Do as you say, not as you do :D

The only experience you can have when you wake up is the same experience you had when you were born.

Well, not quite. I won't be drinking from a baby bottle or pooping in a diaper. :-) I assume you're referring to the spiritual metaphor of 'being reborn?'

It's the same thing I think. There's the biblical reference in Corinthians: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became an adult, I put away childish things." And " I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able."

Spiritual children must be fed milk until they're able to handle meat.

A delightful and helpful exchange, thank you.

You were supposed to be helping me! LOL!

[Pam Seeback]

Meat is hard to chew, it is no wonder we return again and again to drinking milk. It seems as of coming to terms with the inherent dual nature of consciousness is a lifelong process!

You said Alan Watts said that there is nothing to realize, but that's not really true, is it? Before we realize the subjective-temporal-phenomenal nature of consciousness we are under the spell of belief in consciousness as an objective or absolute reality, therefore, it is a logical to conclude that realization is a critical aspect to the acceptance of truth of consciousness as an individual experience (the meat of One versus the milk of Oneness). Can we ever unrealize what we've realized? I don't see how.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee#Philosophy

What I meant with boring is that after going through various articles attempting to highlight the best of Lee's thinking in terms of philosophy, it's still a bit dumb and carton. Which brings me to a better theory. The only reason people sound so impressed with his attempt to connect martial arts to Eastern thought is the star power brought to underline whatever he cited. There's really not much else there. And I think one will be all the wiser to realize it.

It's not a complex theory with causality: things birth other things. It's a logical necessity, not only something scientifically.

Yep, so either we conceive a way for the unconscious to birth the conscious or we concede consciousness is eternal.

A false dilemma! You are treating consciousness as a whole other kind of miracle than an eye, a jellyfish, the complex atmosphere of Earth or the Sun, all of the intriguing movements of the cosmos itself. When someone says "but it needs consciousness to have any miracle", it forgets it needs brain, life, matter and everything else too. Just picking one property and declare that eternal is simply in error.

how do we get life from nonlife, consciousness from the unconscious, wisdom from the stupid, and so forth.

Causality, like getting from any process to another. And from the complex connection, various goals and meaning arise, which will direct our will, our reasons and our actions. What more do you need? A cosmic sense of ultimate motive to have it going? The irony is that the larger context would need very likely larger beings, with for example more complex, inter-dimensional connections to even conceive of larger meanings. So we're still in the same situation even if we'd allow for this idea.

Occam's razor says it's easier to believe in an eternal conscious entity rather than try to explain all the consequences of not believing it (how to get life from nonlife, eternal return, etc).

That fact that it's for you easier to believe in an explanation which required less thought and invoked more positive emotion does not justify invoking Occam. Because Occam's razor would show you that explaining the how and why of any "eternal conscious entity" is extremely complex and messy, even more so than any other approach. If you'd think a bit more about it.

Matter is conscious, of course. Mineral is a simple form of consciousness.

Again, calling everything conscious removes the meaning of consciousness as property of anything. And yet you are introducing now "simple" to contrast with "advanced". That's just relocating the problem of consciousness to "advanced forms of consciousness". What you are doing it just performing a magic show to protect the beliefs you are already having!

How does causality work? Why can two things not occupy the same space? It's as if one particle says to another "No I am standing here, you cannot be here. I have boundaries. I exist." That is the fundamental consciousness I'm referring to and it gets more complex, honed, refined the higher up the evolutionary ladder we climb.

This all goes way beyond particles, time or any defined states.

then it means that so are we a result of that dumb process and cannot be considered intelligent or alive.

Why calling the process dumb? Your choice. Just calling the process majestic, unbelievable and dumbfounding would already create a different framing. But framing a question is not how reasoning works.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I don't deny I am trying to live a dream of me, but in the same breath, I want this dream to end. I want to be me, the authentic me -- not the good me, not the bad me, not the ideal me, not the loving me, not the hating me, but ME -- but what I am discovering, both to my horror and delight, is that no such BEING ME exists, so what happens is that I find myself back living the dream of me. Which ironically is the dream of escaping me, of transcending me, even though I know deep in my heart that no such me exists.

Nevertheless you are reacting in particular ways, behaving, appearing, showing up in situations as... what? A dream like mirage perhaps and others imagine their own identity to match. But it's true the deeper one digs into this, the less coherent the picture becomes, as you name it " buzz-killer". As if it's not meant for such close inspection, to have the identity game still work.

Currently I am trying to sustain the philosophy of The Great Cosmic Joke to keep me from falling into the spiritual dream of me - anyone relate?

Others have used the sense of tragedy which would encapsulate both catharsis and pleasure. You don't need to fall into that dream just by understanding there's an image somehow caused to arise, which only makes sense by the grace of not paying too close attention to it. Think about a video screen, standing too close or too far both would eradicate the sense.

[Serendipper]

Meat is hard to chew, it is no wonder we return again and again to drinking milk. It seems as of coming to terms with the inherent dual nature of consciousness is a lifelong process!

You said Alan Watts said that there is nothing to realize, but that's not really true, is it? Before we realize the subjective-temporal-phenomenal nature of consciousness we are under the spell of belief in consciousness as an objective or absolute reality, therefore, it is a logical to conclude that realization is a critical aspect to the acceptance of truth of consciousness as an individual experience (the meat of One versus the milk of Oneness). Can we ever unrealize what we've realized? I don't see how.

I think he is saying that although there are things to realize, they are trivial/novelty. You can't get anywhere because there is nowhere to go; you can't attain because there is nothing to attain and the only thing you can really realize is that there is nothing to realize.

The realization of the self fundamentally depends on 'coming off it'. You know the sort of, when we say to people who put on some kind of an act and we say, 'Oh, come off it'. And some people can 'come off it'. They laugh and say they suddenly realize that they’re making fools of themselves and they laugh at themselves and they, 'come off it'. So, in exactly the same way the Guru, (the teacher) is trying to make you 'come off it'. Now if he finds that he can’t make you 'come off it' he’s gonna put you through all these exercises. So that you for the last time, when you’ve got enough discipline, enough suffering and enough frustration, you’ll give it all up. And realize you were there from the beginning and there was nothing to realize. ~Alan Watts http://www.organism.earth/library/document/25

My friends there is no diversification. In other words, what you call diversification is your game in the same way as you chop the thing and then you say it is made of pieces. Or did you forget that you cut it? So when you see the world is complicated and that there are life problems and that you might one day succeed.... There are hundreds and hundreds of people are running like mad after something that they thought was success and they have no idea what it is. So in exactly the same way the Guru is keeping you running and running after spiritual attainment. You don't know what you want.

That's where Krishnamurti is so clever because he says "If you ask me for enlightenment, how can you ask me for enlightenment? If you don't know what it is, how do you know you want it? Any concept you have of it will be simply a way of trying to perpetuate the situation you're already in. If you think you know what you're going out for, all you're doing is you're seeking the past, what you already know, what you've already experienced; therefore that's not it, is it? Because you say you're looking for something quite new, but what do you mean new? What's your conception of something new?" Well, I figure I can only think about it in terms of something old, something I once had, so he doesn't say anything; he doesn't indicate anything positive. Everybody says "why are you so negative? Why don't you give us something to hang on to?" Well the simple answer is it would be spurious; you don't need anything to hang on to; you're it; you don't need a religion.

But then you say "well, what is all this religious stuff about then? Why don't we just forget it?" You can try. By all means, go away. Don't go to gurus, don't go to church, don't enter philosophical discussions, just forget it. But then you'll realize that by having consented to forget it, you're still seeking! What a trap! What can you do? You see, if you stay here and listen to me or to anyone else who comes around here, you're fooling yourself, but if you go away, you're fooling yourself too because you still think that's going to improve your situation, it won't, and therefore when you discover that it doesn't, you'll think "well maybe it was a mistake to go away" and you come back to the guru and he looks at you and says "you are very undisciplined, very very inferior student and you need to apply yourself."

Well, as I explained, I expect what he's doing, but it comes down in a way to a sort of contest with a guru, you see, well will you call his bluff? You're afraid to because you might discover that if you do call his bluff, he's no better than you are and that's what you're supposed to find out, but without being cynical about it. He's as divine as you are, but you've got to call the bluff, there's going to be a showdown and it's it's a double-bind, the whole situation is a double-bind because it doesn't do any good to stay here and it doesn't do any good to go away; either to do something about it or to do nothing about it. Now then, there's something else: when you understand that and when you realize that there's nothing to realize and it's all here, then what are you gonna do? http://www.yousubtitles.com/Alan-Watts- ... id-1623818

[Serendipper]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee#Philosophy

What I meant with boring is that after going through various articles attempting to highlight the best of Lee's thinking in terms of philosophy, it's still a bit dumb and carton. Which brings me to a better theory. The only reason people sound so impressed with his attempt to connect martial arts to Eastern thought is the star power brought to underline whatever he cited. There's really not much else there. And I think one will be all the wiser to realize it.

One day I hope to feel that way about Alan Watts ;) But then who will be the next giant whose shoulders I stand upon to make everyone look small? Bruce was a starter-step on what seems to be a finite ladder.

It's not a complex theory with causality: things birth other things. It's a logical necessity, not only something scientifically.

Yep, so either we conceive a way for the unconscious to birth the conscious or we concede consciousness is eternal.

A false dilemma! You are treating consciousness as a whole other kind of miracle than an eye, a jellyfish, the complex atmosphere of Earth or the Sun, all of the intriguing movements of the cosmos itself. When someone says "but it needs consciousness to have any miracle", it forgets it needs brain, life, matter and everything else too. Just picking one property and declare that eternal is simply in error.

Hmm... well if it is true that consciousness needs an underpinning and an object to be conscious of, then all this is eternal. But that contradicts the assumption (or was it a deduction?) that consciousness cannot be manufactured, so what underpinning could it have?

The mind is not the foundation of consciousness, but the genesis of higher-consciousness by virtue of complexity of the fundamentally conscious. How can the conscious come from the unconscious?

how do we get life from nonlife, consciousness from the unconscious, wisdom from the stupid, and so forth.

Causality, like getting from any process to another.

Causality assumes there are separate things and events, but there aren't.

And from the complex connection, various goals and meaning arise, which will direct our will, our reasons and our actions. What more do you need?

I need a way to get color from shape.

You say we get energy from fuel, but the energy was put there by the sun. How do we get energy from the exhausted? How do we get energy from nothing? How does consciousness come from that which is exhausted/void of consciousness?

A cosmic sense of ultimate motive to have it going? The irony is that the larger context would need very likely larger beings, with for example more complex, inter-dimensional connections to even conceive of larger meanings. So we're still in the same situation even if we'd allow for this idea.

Not necessarily. Fundamental consciousness wouldn't need to be complex.

Occam's razor says it's easier to believe in an eternal conscious entity rather than try to explain all the consequences of not believing it (how to get life from nonlife, eternal return, etc).

That fact that it's for you easier to believe in an explanation which required less thought and invoked more positive emotion does not justify invoking Occam. Because Occam's razor would show you that explaining the how and why of any "eternal conscious entity" is extremely complex and messy, even more so than any other approach. If you'd think a bit more about it.

Perhaps it would be easier if you could tell me how there are less assumptions with the "consciousness genesis model" vs the "eternal consciousness model". ;)

The way I see it:
Theory 1) Consciousness is eternal.
Theory 2) Consciousness is a product of the unconscious and the unconscious is eternal.

1 assumption vs 2. Plus you have the added problem of where to draw the line: viruses? bacteria? molecules? atoms? fish? plants? rocks?

Matter is conscious, of course. Mineral is a simple form of consciousness.

Again, calling everything conscious removes the meaning of consciousness as property of anything. And yet you are introducing now "simple" to contrast with "advanced". That's just relocating the problem of consciousness to "advanced forms of consciousness". What you are doing it just performing a magic show to protect the beliefs you are already having!

You're doing the same thing: protecting beliefs you already have. I'm trying to simplify the problem, not relocate it. Is one atom not conscious of the fact that another atom is in the vicinity?

How does causality work? Why can two things not occupy the same space? It's as if one particle says to another "No I am standing here, you cannot be here. I have boundaries. I exist." That is the fundamental consciousness I'm referring to and it gets more complex, honed, refined the higher up the evolutionary ladder we climb.

This all goes way beyond particles, time or any defined states.

What do you mean by that?

then it means that so are we a result of that dumb process and cannot be considered intelligent or alive.

Why calling the process dumb? Your choice.

Because it's defined to be. If we defined the process as smart, alive, then it makes no sense to say a living process created life. It makes no sense to say a smart process created intelligence. Therefore the process would have to be dumb and dead in order to create life and intelligence, but that's just as absurd.

There are 3 choices:
1) life came from nonlife
2) life is eternal
3) life does not exist.

I'm fine with 2 or 3, but 1 gives me problems. You're drawing a line, somewhere on the slippery slope, and proclaiming one side is life and the other is not, which is introducing a new problem of how one becomes the other and is without substantiation, except that it "feels right". I mean, look around... doesn't it seem like rocks are dead? I think it is you who is imposing his feelings and suspicions on his reasoning.

It is reasoning that suggests what is obviously understood to be dead is indeed erroneous, and the life within the rocks was transferred into the plants because plants are a product of rocks, gas, and sunlight. If plants contain the property of life, they could only have gotten it from one or more of those 3 sources. Otherwise it would be magical endowment of a brand new property bestowed by virtue of complexity and you may as well claim pixie dust did it. Complexity doesn't introduce anything new, but amplifies what already exists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtqtKnWriCM

I'd start around 8:00, but the pertinent part comes around 16:50, which is:

"Now all this is perfectly idiotic. If you would think that the idea of the universe as being the creation of a benevolent old gentleman, although he's not so benevolent he takes a sort of "this hurts me more than it hurts you" sort of attitude... uh, you can have that on the one hand and if that becomes uncomfortable, you can exchange it for its opposite: the idea that the ultimate reality doesn't have any intelligence at all. At least that gets rid of the ole bogie in the sky, but in exchange for a picture of the world that is completely stupid. Now these ideas don't make any sense... especially the last one.... because you cannot get an intelligent organism, such as a human being, out of an unintelligent universe."

The irony is that the atheists are relying on just as much, if not more magic than the theists.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

One day I hope to feel that way about Alan Watts ;) But then who will be the next giant whose shoulders I stand upon to make everyone look small?

Hah! Everyone including ourselves. Hard gained wisdom which is your own process where at some point "shoulders" will fall away as the caricatures they are. Not saying the shoulders involved did not have their own journey. It's simply not yours any more!

Hmm... well if it is true that consciousness needs an underpinning and an object to be conscious of, then all this is eternal. But that contradicts the assumption (or was it a deduction?) that consciousness cannot be manufactured, so what underpinning could it have?

Causality at its most bare bone (and abstract I suppose) would make it abundantly clear that the very least one can say about anything in particular is that it's caused by what it is not. It's not a big deal to see "underpinnings" as causes and "experiencing objects" as effects of consciousness. But that in itself does not make consciousness into some eternal thing. There's simply no reason to assume that even while we can easily imagine larger instances of consciousness in super-organisms consisting of many connections invisible to our current understanding. But logically that does not change anything. In other words, the philosopher moves even beyond the gods!

Causality assumes there are separate things and events, but there aren't.

Causality assumes only causes, each of which must be also caused and that means nothing is by definition really separated!

You say we get energy from fuel, but the energy was put there by the sun. How do we get energy from the exhausted? How do we get energy from nothing? How does consciousness come from that which is exhausted/void of consciousness?

Are you asking how do we get from a sun exhausted/void of petrol or automobiles to having batteries and spark plugs?

Perhaps it would be easier if you could tell me how there are less assumptions with the "consciousness genesis model" vs the "eternal consciousness model". ;)

If you really don't see yet how your suggested "eternal conscious entity" is creating immense complexities then you simply need to learn more about essentials of logic, deduction and reason. You mention Occams' razor, which is all about the "fewest assumptions" and then you continue almost oblivious to this with an immense assumption, purely faith based, in the context of navigating speculation and theoretical models with reason.

In other words, you are abandoning a reason based model. Or just leaving the conversation and turn it into pushing your beliefs and feelings. Which you can do but don't expect others to go along or participate much. It's going nowhere good usually. This in case you might wonder why at some point people might stop engaging.

Is one atom not conscious of the fact that another atom is in the vicinity?

If you define action-reaction as being equal to consciousness then for sure, that statement could be made. But I think you are not doing your own ideas any favor by simplifying consciousness to simple causal processes, feedback loops or physical interactions. As that would make it finite and certainly a property like anything else. Or a catch all word for anything moving or existing. But why not then just use "existence". Or god. Or Tao. Or the ineffable.

Therefore the process would have to be dumb and dead in order to create life and intelligence, but that's just as absurd.

Stupid and smart are simply your own personal categories here projected on various processes. Hardly anyone would call the multitude of life on this planet as intrinsically intelligent and neither does hardly anyone call for example the shadow of a rock "dumb" just for being there.

As for life coming from non-life, you are confusing the various definitions of life used in biology with philosophical questions. Molecules consist of atoms but it's absurd to say you have therefore problems with atoms not also being called molecules.

From a more philosophical angle we could very well question the arbitrarily demarcation of life and death. We could even see both as non-existing in terms of states, as things or areas. These boundaries are only relevant to being, to any particular self-state. In other words "self-preservation" in an environment where everything changes, everything connects, nothing remains what it was only through some abstract process of memory, which is also fleeting.

because you cannot get an intelligent organism, such as a human being, out of an unintelligent universe."

The universe is simply the universe. It's you, and many believers who are projecting arbitrary qualities on it first and then employ it inside some "reasoning". But that's simply not yet philosophy. Perhaps because philosophy would destroy that particular self-deceit which keeps such belief going, a faith which has to subvert all reasoning to its own end, towards its own survival. So it's understandable as well and not "evil" as such.

In any case, we've come to the roots of the discussion: you are arguing mostly from faith and end up defending some quasi-certain articles of faith. It's not the discussion I'm interested in as I don't think either of us will get much out of it. So unless you are willing to enter a more philosophical area, I can only bid you good luck in all your future endeavors!

[Serendipper]

So unless you are willing to enter a more philosophical area, I can only bid you good luck in all your future endeavors!

Well, this turn of events is indeed unfortunate as I can only interpret your ultimatum as a concession of defeat by your admission of arrogance in the presumption of the validity of your position via the possession of foreknowledge of how I may respond, and if that is the high-horse upon which you wish to establish yourself, as you did also with Bruce Lee, which in hindsight was hint of hubris, then surely you cannot expect me to view your threats of ignore-ance as punishment, but rather kindness in sparing me a battle for which you've decreed I cannot win. I mean, what the hell?!?

We had a good thing going, but evidently I've threatened your worldview which prompted the "flight, not fight" emotional response of issuing threats of receiving the cold-shoulder rather than your eagerly anticipating the cerebral confrontation of what is seeming more like a cognitive dissonance that you invariably must be struggling with in order to be capable of such declarations of determinant dereliction. I suppose it's good to know going into a debate whether an interlocutor is dogmatically unable to change his mind lest we waste time, so I appreciate your consideration in informing me that you already know everything.

When I get bored, I'll return to reply as I've certainly nothing to fear and derive enjoyment from engaging in the deep thought required, but since you've recused yourself, I won't put the rush on it nor will I expect a reply. Thanks for the heads-up and good luck in whatever it is that you're planning to do in lieu of talking to me. If at some point you decide you're not omniscient, feel free to jump back in.

[Pam Seeback]

Pam: You said Alan Watts said that there is nothing to realize, but that's not really true, is it? Before we realize the subjective-temporal-phenomenal nature of consciousness we are under the spell of belief in consciousness as an objective or absolute reality, therefore, it is a logical to conclude that realization is a critical aspect to the acceptance of truth of consciousness as an individual experience (the meat of One versus the milk of Oneness). Can we ever unrealize what we've realized? I don't see how.

Serendipper: I think he is saying that although there are things to realize, they are trivial/novelty. You can't get anywhere because there is nowhere to go; you can't attain because there is nothing to attain and the only thing you can really realize is that there is nothing to realize.

"You can't get anywhere because there is nowhere to go" is THE realization! The realization of existence = experience = you (subjectivity) is not a trivial or novel realization because it requires that one fully accept the ultimate aloneness/absolute responsibility of the I. In analyzing the world, how many would you say are swallowing the red pill of subjectivity versus the blue pill of dreaming-of-an-exit-Object? :-)