bradley

can I change my name to "bradley". I think mr krebbs has over stayed his welcome, notwithstanding his noble, but somewhat lack luster, quest against nihilism. Thanks.

Defining experiential things in words is impossible. For example, define what the color blue looks like. Not just "it is the color of the sky," or " its a certain wave length of electromagnetic energy, but try to define in words what it looks like in the abstract. The best you can do to convey a definition of an experience is by someone experiencing the thing and then giving it name. Metaphors can also convey some meaning of experiential things--blue is calm, serene, ethereal, peaceful, cold--but then again those are only useful if the other person has experienced it. most of the irrational argument on this site is from narcissists (they are easy to spot), claiming that an something someone experienced was turquoise, and not the cerulean blue that only they have the ability to see.

thanks for the insight. your words have given me much to contemplate, and then again not to contemplate.

I dont quite grasp this. so ego is an object of the mind. perhaps any such object is false, but not necessarily unusefull. but, how does the changing and limited nature of it impact its falseness. maybe another question is whether the concept of self or ego is unusefull? i have concepts of walls around me. i can understand that my conception of walls is just phenomenonal, but i dont disregard those conceptions completely, and start running into things. just like i should not walk into walls, i need to take care of my self, to make sure i have food, etc. and to try to live a fulfilling life. in this regard, is the ego maybe something to be observed and understood, and not necessarily outright disregarded, just like any other phenomenon? maybe the distinction is its changing and limited nature, as you say?

So did you find any fresh water? I am on the edge of my seat.

Sorry, I could not resist

Empathy. I like that. So when I communicate thoughts to you, and you to me, there is a connection created between us, an empathy that goes deeper than the words themselves. so maybe its not the words that matter, but the connection (says me sitting in my office staring at a lighted screen). How pleasant and rewarding is it to just shoot the breeze with someone over a cup of coffee.

Not everyone can be such skilled, understanding and kind written communicators as yourself, stirling : ). I am not exactly sure what I meant in my post, though on the wind thing, I was at my cabin last week alone, and as I rode my bike to the well down a hill, it occurred to me that that my movement through the air was the only thing that mattered. I then sat in the wind on a rock on the beach, and felt that the wind (the currents in the air and those subtly felt) was the only real and meaningful phenomenon connecting me to the universe. Hard to put into words, but now I have this weird obsession about the wind : )

Isn't it strange how I can convey that feeling to you. My experience -> verbal utterances in my mind -> written words ->... - > ...->undersea cables->... -> -> your computer screen - > your eyes -> you verbally uttering the words in your mind -> you abstracting the feeling. We can take out a lot of steps if we just discuss in person. But ultimately its me conveying my experience to you though verbal utterances. But your abstraction of the experience is not the experience. You have to go out and do it to have the experience. and as much as you read about it or watch videos of it on youtube, that does not substitute for the experience itself (yet I see everyone glued to their phones everywhere I go, even at the beach.)

When the Buddha explains these things using such concepts and ideas, people should remember the unreality of all such concepts and ideas. They should recall that in teaching spiritual truths the Buddha always uses these concepts and ideas in the way that a raft is used to cross a river. Once the river has been crossed over, the raft is of no more use, and should be discarded. These arbitrary concepts and ideas about spiritual things need to be explained to us as we seek to attain Enlightenment. However, ultimately these arbitrary conceptions can be discarded. Think Subhuti, isn't it even more obvious that we should also give up our conceptions of non-existent things? I dont know if this is a good translation or not, but this notion has stuck in my head for a long time. This is what the diamond sutra says about words (or at least the concepts and ideas they portray). Maybe I used too strong a word : ), thought words are not truth. The truth is in the wind.

One problem with quoting and attribution is that English is very imprecise. The same word can mean dozens or even hundreds of subtly different things, and some words are so abstract that their meaning seems to float off into infinity. In English, it is quite easy to equivocate on someone's meaning, or perhaps just misunderstand. I am personally of the opinion, however, that words are meaningless (and the fact that they can be coherently generated through AI seems to confirm my understanding), that they carry no more significance than the song of a garden bird, the harmonic relationship of one utterance to one-another being their only meaning in logic and understanding. We can build computer tools to better understand and simulate that harmony, but it cant scratch the surface of the feeling of gliding seamlessly on rollerskis across a newly asphalted biking path (or tai chi, or whatever). The wind against my body seems to be the only true reality.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

boat seeks safe passage through the tempest sails hoisted laughing at its wrath

Turn off your computer and phone, go outside, and enjoy the sunshine.

chasing cosmic dust watching captain kangaroo got nothing to do