Karl

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

 

How's life in bedsit land?

I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been.

17 hours ago, bax44 said:

 

How you enjoying the Marxist takeover, Karl?

Sadly, inevitable. That battle was lost a long time ago.  

On 17/07/2018 at 1:44 PM, Kar3n said:

Do NOT summon Karl!

 

It’s said that he never really went away.

@CT

 

Eh ?

 

Reality is our current internal understanding of the existent universe as it is. A is A but our internal reality can be in error. Even logic may not be sufficient. For instance; if we think we are Napoleon then it is logical to wonder where Josephine is. When we are very young our internal map of reality is a long way from allowing is the possibility of survival, but as we all know, over time we accrue experience and build a more accurate map which we use to navigate independent from the necessity of having parents.

 

 

It looks to me, by your second point that you are of the school which believes that we have intrinsic knowledge that we are somehow ignoring, that we only need to 'get the mind out of the way' and we will have access to this knowledge.

 

 

Clearly your ideology is an attack on reason and the mind itself, if I understand you correctly. I would describe that as a kind of psychosis.

 

I'm about done on this forum-which will likely come as a relief to many ;-) It was a worthwhile transition.

 

Toodle pip.

Are you aware that some folks are simply unaware ?

Only the unconscious or dead ones. :-)

There is no need for faith when one is established in the Self. What we seek to do with questions, answers and rationalization are all efforts of the mind. What do you have when there is no mind? That is where Pure Consciousness - The Self resides. The only role that "mind" plays in Self-inquiry and Self-realization is that it needs to be shut off.

Describe the experience of pure consciousness ;-)

 

If you haven't discovered the need for pure faith then I doubt you have gone very far down the road. Go steady. There be monsters.

That is true, yet awareness can also become one with the wider awareness . Basically when awareness becomes quiet and still it stops pinging around the mind bouncing from concept to concept its real nature can be revealed, like a wave realising that its real nature is water of the entire sea.

Awareness doesn't become quiet, awareness can be focused, moved, expanded. It can embrace a thought, feeling, sense. Having no awareness needs no description. Awareness must be aware of something.

Yet you respond to such questions... so if you posit an answer to a question, then the question should have an answer...

You answer it then ;-)

Well a lot of the day there is a localisation of awareness, which you could call an immediate self, and there are all sorts of things existing outside of that ie the rest of the world. Yet that immediate self in one sense is a functional illusion because you can't actually find anything you can put a flag on and say it is this Self, plus during certain times of the day such as meditation the sense of it isn't always there and a self can't be found distinct from the world, plus the localised awareness can go beyond the bodymind. So it is like the analogy of the wave and the ocean, you could say each wave is unique, yet it doesn't exist separate from the ocean and ultimately it's all water. Similarly even though your expression is unique a self can't be found as seperate from the wider universe and it's ultimate substance can't be discovered as distinct from anything else.

So Karl when you do your favourite enquiry "where am I?" what do you find? Do you find a self in your body? If so do you lose part of it if you lose a limb? Do you find a self in the thoughts, which can change at any moment and are influenced by all sorts of things outside of the mind.

Firstly, you do know self from 'out there' and have confirmed it. Whether you call that localised awareness or something else, you are aware that there is this self and you can direct your awareness to introspection, or extrospection.

 

I was a very diligent self inquirer Jetsun. You are asking questions for which there are no answers and for which there is no basis for answers. I talked about faith, but no one seems to grasp why faith is different to belief. I had faith. Tumbling out of the mirror it really doesn't make any sense, it's like being asked what it's like to be unconscious.

"Reality is the internal conceptual model" sounds remarkably similar to "reality is created by consciousness." Now reality evolves in response to an individual's perceptions and integrations? Is A no longer A, Karl? Now A is whatever one's perceptions and integrations lead them to believe A is??? What happened to statements along the lines of "Reality is an absolute and what you think about it is irrelevant; A is A & anyone who believes otherwise is a reality-denying mystic who has abandoned reason and therefore is disqualified from further discussion"? (That last quote is my paraphrasing but I'll go back and find direct quotes if you wish...)

Your reality and my reality differ. Consciousness does not 'create' our reality, consciousness is the faculty of grasping existence.

 

Reality is not an absolute. I may have referred to it in that way, but if so then I'm not using the correct term. The universe is an absolute. A is A.

 

You seem to miss the point of that whole "quoted for posterity" thing...

There is no point. I'm just helping out with your thread padding OCD.

This one, too.

I rephrased that one, so you may wish to change the quote for posterity?

Well I have to use convention language or there is no communication, but yeah the I won't realise anything yet there is still realisation it just isn't done by you. Without the experience it is pretty much impossible to get or understand this because the ego can't comprehend anything exists beyond its own domain.

I find it extremely easy to comprehend things exist beyond my immediate self. Isnt it you that denies it ?

 

Edit: rephrase as a question.

It's impossible to say what or who that one is.

 

If you follow this out far enough you are doing self enquiry in the line of Ramana Maharshi, who says that I is just a thought which when tracked goes back to the heart, the primary I-identity thought which then breaks down leading to realisation. If you are prepared to go beyond where you are stuck Karl you could realise it

What could 'I' realise ? ;-)

 

Self Inquiry, as the description suggests, is purely about the self. That's your journey, not mine. I can't be a passenger on your train, neither can you give me a ticket to board it.

 

I could tell you things, but then, that was another time. If you decide to board the train, then you do so alone. You are stuck on the platform. I know that because I once stood there myself.

Exactly, it still can't be found in the body or mind content

LOL who is the one doing the finding ? Find that one.

Nothing. It's another of those 'wars on terror' and is the way of censoring the Internet. It is not up to the Government to regulate what we read, it is up to us to use our brains to pick out the trash by critical thinking.

 

If you look at the words 'fake news' it is pretty obvious that it means nothing. Is exaggeration fake news, or underestimation, or error of fact ?

Maybe the error lies in the ill-conceived notion that reality is something other than what it is, and because of habitual tendencies, maybe the 'what is' seems too ordinary to be special, and that is why, in looking for something other than what is, the potential and subsequent force or energy which propels from that potential creates a distorted reality, and it becomes like a merry go round which never stops. The distortion i mean.

 

Just like some people say meditation of the breath means to observe the breath.

What does observation of the breath entail? Certainly self-criticism is not necessary in the observation of how the breath flows in and out, and in and out.

 

So we want to know what is involved in the simple process above.

If we can do this, then we will have understood at least some of the fundamentals of error-free observation.

Reality is the internal conceptual model. Our sense of the universe at any one point in time. It evolves as we receive new perceptions and make new integrations.

 

Are you suggesting we should deprive ourselves of ALL sense information and thus, whatever reality remains must therefore be true ?

 

Careful with that one, it quickly becomes a loaded pistol. There is only one way to deprive ourselves of all sense information. It's a great way to test the theory of the primacy of consciousness though rather permanent.

If you are honest and go deep enough with your enquiry of where am I? The answer always has to be "I dont know", because when you examine what you take yourself to be a center of I can never be found, there is nothing you can specifically pin a flag on and say it is I.

:-)

 

Your inquiry isn't deep enough Jetsun. For who is the 'I' that doesn't know it ? Ask who that one is.

The conceptual mind, constrained by conditioned frames of conventional or common reference,

can only ever see a self-selected version of reality.

Which means we believe what we believe. However our view of reality maybe in error, so how do we know if it is in error ?

 

Where am I ? How do I know it ? What should I do ?

 

How do we obtain the reference ? From what source ? Where do we find proof that what we believe is reality is in actual fact correct ?

Thank you for confirming that, Karl. Your conscious decision to ignore fact-based observation which would challenge your faith in your beliefs is duly noted.

 

:yawn:

Familiar with the term "tunnel vision", Karl?

That could mean anything in your world view. Maybe you said doughnuts:shrug:

Socks apparently transmute into lids for plastic containers.

 

BTW, did you happen to notice the link I injected into the latest Karl-o-Rama thread about quantum effects on the atomic scale? (He apparently didn't, either.)

 

 

Not quite sock-weight but since I still have the PDF open...

 

Nobel Lecture: Superposition, entanglement, and raising Schrodinger’s cat

I wasn't interested. When you have perfected teleportation, time travel, or something useful then I might buy it, until then it's less interesting than golf.

No, "selfless" doesn't mean "selfish" but both terms begin to dissolve when the illusion of dichotomy starts to disappear, much the same as the way distinctions between species become increasingly muddled as one digs into the details. As you said, though, that kind of reality isn't for you; you prefer the binary sort but don't understand that is duality all over again.

 

Which boils down to:-

No it doesn't, but yes it does. :shakes head:

^^^Precisely! Now if only you understood what you said in that last sentence.

 

FWIW, there's no "A is also not A" in my post, nor any lack of clarity or precision in my choice of words. That you imagine otherwise is a reflection on you rather than me but you probably won't recognize that.

You have done the same thing in your reply above. Selfish means selfless now does it ?

 

I totally understood what I wrote in my last sentence. My advice to myself is to turn around and hurry away.

I think you create false dichotomies, Karl. That's the issue.

 

I am NOT agreeing with your grammar. I am bluntly stating that your grammar is disingenuous.

 

You said this (I added the bolding to call attention to the meat of your post):

 

I took your challenge and plainly stated a counterpoint (including a link to a dictionary definition of the language in question:

 

Had you asked me to expound, I would have said something along the lines of:

 

"Faith is a subcategory of belief. Faith is a firmly held belief which isn't necessarily predicated on empirical evidence. Faith is often, but not necessarily, a recognized belief; i.e., a case in which one is intellectually aware that the belief is not fully substantiated but one's conviction is undiminished nonetheless. The faithful, therefore, are those believers whose beliefs are not necessarily fact-based and who may hold those beliefs resolutely despite knowing this."

 

I would probably then ask you to explain how the belief that "true knowledge" is when you firmly convince yourself that what you believe is true differs from faith. If the answer is along the lines of "well, each individual has to establish what is reality for them" then we have relativism and awareness generating reality. If the response is along the lines of "well, that belief is self-evident" then we have axiomatic circularism, if you follow me. In either case (and in any variation I've considered so far), the belief is NOT fact-based and is therefore an example of faith.

 

We have a family joke about one of my grandmother's sisters who, in a moment of frustration, haughtily proclaimed, "It is so because I know it!" No one remembers what the issue at hand was but the expression was priceless.

 

 

EDIT: Added the word "resolutely" for emphasis. While I'm at it, though, I'll also add this -- you specifically didn't ask for clarification AND you pointedly refused to answer my question about how you react to becoming aware of factual evidence contrary to your belief system. Instead, you insinuated that I am a "dumb idiot" incapable of changing my perspective, and then you pivoted yet again.

Now you are going down the path of A is also not A, I could see this coming a mile away, that's why we can't argue with each other.

 

Where has faith gone in your vocabulary ? it's been subsumed by 'belief' which is now used interchangeably. Therefore everything is faith and nothing is faith. Everything is belief and nothing is belief.

 

An atom is here and the exact same atom is over there. The cat is both dead and alive.

 

You might be able to live with that kind of reality, but I'm afraid it's not for me.