From: oldernow@dev.null
On 2024-04-24, Richmond wrote:
>> For instance, we could see a teapot on a table in front of us and be
>> conscious of the fact that there is a teapot on the table. We can't
>> reduce this exclusively to brain activity, because we have to take
>> into account that there actually is a teapot on the table for us to
>> draw a valid conclusion regarding our state of awareness of this. We
>> might be hallucinating that we see a teapot on a table that isn't
>> really there and then it would be silly to proclaim that we are
>> conscious of an imaginary teapot that only exists in our mind.
>>
> Why is it silly to proclaim consciousness of an imaginary
> teapot? We could for example say we are imagining a teapot
> and then say we are conscious of the image, and that we
> are imagining, and describe it.
It can seem silly when we omit/ignore the role of the
"imagining" part, which amounts to pretending the image
in mind is an object apart from our imagining it.
We can call imagining "knowing" to facilitate positing a
reality of objects apart from ourselves, which we then
declare we can "know" in mind. But "knowing" an object
isn't some kind of direct access to the alleged reality
of an object. It's re-presentation, modeling, *image*ining.
Doing that in concert by acting amongst each other as
though said theory of reality *is* reality doesn't make
it so. "Knowing" is never more than entertaining models/
representations/images in mind. Whether there's actually
"something there" apart from that can't be "known".
*BUT*, paradoxically (although the sense of paradox
is generated from the context of being a separate
individual..), we can *be* that reality because we already
*are*. Ignoring that in favor of positing being separate
from it in order to "know" it, and pretending the knowing
it is on par with being is, well... silly. :-)
The "fall" of man is nothing but having traded in *being*
the reality for separating ("sin" essentially means
"separate") from it to then, instead, "know" it. The
emphasis on "good and evil" in the Bible story speaking to
that initial separation is likely because "good and evil"
are a primary dualist discrimination in a re-presentational
mind context in which separate individuals/persons are
the main players.
> If you ask me to imagine a teapot, and then ask me what
> colour it is, I could tell you, and I suppose you could
> do the same with your own imaginary teapot.
Yep. Re-presentation/modeling/imagining can do that.
> Some theorize that the purpose of consciousness is to allow
> us to do psychology, i.e. to have some insight into what
> it is like to be someone else. So in order to describe
> my own thoughts, imaginations, even hallucinations to
> someone else, I need to be conscious of them. I need to
> look at them objectively and imagine them as they could
> be someone else's.
But what is all that conceptuality - i.e. hammering so
much greater a reality into gobs of tiny little notions
- accomplishing? I swear that "peace of mind" is an
oxymoron, that 'peace' and 'mind' are antithetical notions,
that peace is the absence of mind, i.e. of exhaustively
identifying/naming objects - an activity as futile as it
is endless.
Mind: the first and foremost pox!
I don't buy the "But we couldn't have survived without
it!" argument, because guess what posits/champions
that? *Mind*! Could there be greater bias?
And if it's so gosh-danged necessary, what of
other animals not exhibiting proof of being
conceptuality-grade-mind-centric?
And what's kind of hilarious is most - if not all - proof
of conceptuality-grade-mind-centric behavior is arguably
mental illness, most notably the for-shit ways humans treat
each other, especially when they think "no one is looking".
As discussed in this newsgroup recently, attempting to
discuss this tends to be hampered by "mixing levels". There
are likely better terms/labels, but the mind-less and
mind-centric points of view couldn't be more different.
From a mind-less point of view, the mind-centric appears
at best a dream of being a self/possessor of an individual
dreaming mind ("one dream level down", as it were..) that
"blesses" the contents of said dream with "reality-hood",
so to speak. That "blessing with 'reality-hood'" is
usually referred to as "faith", which "makes things (seem
(except the seeming part is forgotten/ignored)) real"
to the believer.
The mind-full point of view, on the other hand, implies
being completely convinced the dream is no mere dream,
but "reality", "normal", "business (of a separate
individual/self) as usual".
So-called "awakening" doesn't do anything. It's merely
seeing sans an individual seer, which is
tantamount to *being* . "" is
always present, always only what we are, but seeing it as
though from the point of view of a free-willed individual
*seemingly* obscures such(ness), and is often referred to
as ignorance - which might seem clearer to some spelled
ignore-ance.
Of course, all of post is from the mind-full point of
view. From the mind-less point of view, even doing this
as though it mattered seems unnecessary if not silly if
not ridiculous.
So... the goal here isn't to convince anyone of anything,
because that all this seems as though lots of separate
individuals "knowing" things and each other via word
mediation simply no longer seems to be when the self-less
point of view seemingly magically happens, leaving no
"self" for there possess so much as memory of a former
way of seeing ....
:-)
It can't be said, being a de facto container of the dream,
which includes the words to describe the dream and its
contains, and the words would have to "jump outside the
container", so to speak, for the container to be put *IN*
words.
--
oldernow
xyz001 at nym.hush.com
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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