Several years ago...

[bert]

Excuse me, bert. Why is it necessary to believe in self when self exists by definition?

.

you can run,but you can't hide.

Self is the negation of completeness as reality.

[Jamesh]

Here is a very long thread on another forum (with Kevin Solway)

http://forum.commonascent.org/showthread.php?t=325

A=A makes me go round in circles - and from the length of the thread it is clear it does the same to many others. I think it should be treated as a koan, not so much as a statement of truth, as it is too liable to misinterpretation, as are all things at their most basic.

[Leyla Shen]

James,

Someone on the CA thread wrote:

If everything has the same property (e.g. of “appearing to exist”), then there can be no properties left over for there to be different properties. (If you see that properties don’t “double up”, then this idea is fairly self-evident.)

James, the Tall King Head (heh), replied:

Essentially my confusion surrounding A=A in the end comes down to the above.

A=A is therefore actually logically meaningless, and in the past I have been right to reject it as same (not that I did in a couple of my latter posts on this thread). Back to square 1. Fuck A=A, I'll just go back to another meaningless statement, WYSIWYG, which just means what you observe is ALL that exists for you.

Philosophically speaking, I would make one change. Rather than “everything has the property of appearing to exist” (which I consider to be a ridiculous statement: who here has seen “everything” all at once?), I would say “every thing has the property of appearing to exist.”

Of course, stating “everything” has property X can be taken to mean there are no other properties to “everything”; there can be no properties “left over” (?!) for there to be different properties. This is not about making every thing into one big blob called “everything.” Quite the contrary.

Only the materialist thinks “everything” is a thing without nothing which isn’t anything, let alone part of something!

(I just love it when people talk about "self-evidentness.")

.

[Leyla Shen]

bert,

Self is the negation of completeness as reality.

Rubbish.

Do you not understand you are talking to a Phallic Woman?

I have no need to believe in self. I am self.

.

[suergaz]

That you say you are you means belief irrespective of the knowledge that made it possible, or your need for it now. Believe in belief at least!

:D

[bert]

bert,

Self is the negation of completeness as reality.

Rubbish.

Do you not understand you are talking to a Phallic Woman?

I have no need to believe in self. I am self.

.

you still believe IN Self

I sense self-reproach.


___________

we call certain events 'Acts of God',or 'Fate',whereas they are the workings of equity from our past Karma.

[R. Steven Coyle]

It is also the equity of our past that produces the impact of karmic restituition.

[Leyla Shen]

zag,

That you say you are you means belief irrespective of the knowledge that made it possible, or your need for it now.

Not so. If I know something but “can’t believe” it, then I am in a state of disbelieving what I know. What sort of knowing is that?

If I know something, I have no need to believe or disbelieve it since it is what I know.

Believe in belief at least!

I do not need to believe in belief. There is, of course, such a thing as belief. It makes for the awe and mystery of life. It’s like the “supernatural.” The only thing that makes it “super” natural is the false idea that what one knew before it was the extent of nature.

For instance, if I see something on the order of a “miracle,” I have seen it: experienced it. If I cannot reason out what I have seen, then I will either believe or disbelieve what I have seen/experienced. If I can reason it out, I have no need for belief or disbelief.

Likewise, by inference, I know I exist. Surely, then, the argument becomes about a matter of form. What form does “I” take? What form does “unconsciousness” take? What form do “enlightenment, delusion, truth, hate, love” take?

What is the outcome of such a notion as belief/disbelief?

(More later -- have to pick up a tennis racquet, which might be considered a form of love, duty or simply a waste of time and money.)

bert,

you still believe IN Self

No, I don’t. Like I said, I am is self. If not for self, I could not make an appearance at all. But, with such emphasis, you are obviously trying to say something I’m not getting. Care to give it another shot?

I sense self-reproach.

Heavens, no. For the self I might wish to reproach is already dead and any self that lives to reproach it is a self in purgatory.

I cannot reproach "myself," as if there were two of me at the same time.

This is why it's always a surprise for one who considers himself a lover to find himself hated.

.

[suergaz]

Leyla: I have no need to believe in self. I am self.

zag:That you say you are you means belief irrespective of the knowledge that made it possible, or your need for it now.

Leyla: Not so. If I know something but “can’t believe” it, then I am in a state of disbelieving what I know. What sort of knowing is that? If I know something, I have no need to believe or disbelieve it since it is what I know.

There is nothing you know that you cannot believe.
Certainly you do not need to believe what you know.

zag: Believe in belief at least!

Leyla: I do not need to believe in belief. There is, of course, such a thing as belief. It makes for the awe and mystery of life. It’s like the “supernatural.” The only thing that makes it “super” natural is the false idea that what one knew before it was the extent of nature.

The need for belief is not what is in question here. When one knows, one can't help but believe, as opposed to believing something from want of knowledge.

For instance, if I see something on the order of a “miracle,” I have seen it: experienced it. If I cannot reason out what I have seen, then I will either believe or disbelieve what I have seen/experienced. If I can reason it out, I have no need for belief or disbelief.

Sure, but where you reason something out, which is to say your reasoning remains within reason, you can only believe it, no matter that it is of no consequence. This is what is meant by belief in belief.

Likewise, by inference, I know I exist. Surely, then, the argument becomes about a matter of form. What form does “I” take? What form does “unconsciousness” take? What form do “enlightenment, delusion, truth, hate, love” take?

Everything takes its own form. This is the 'creative' take on formlessness. ;D

What is the outcome of such a notion as belief/disbelief?

Knowledge. All our notions arise from knowledge, however flawed, however incomplete. That we are not knowers does not then make us believers. Thinkers are lovers

[MKFaizi]

My earliest memories of A=A goes back to Genius-l.

A=A is the same as asshole=asshole.

You can argue about it and argue about it and say this thing about it and that thing about it but it will always be the same -- A=A. No greater truth.

You can offer scientific and mathematical and religious solutions and A will still equal A. No matter how you contort it or twist it, A=A.

You can pick a yellow squash from the field and hold it to the sun. You can mutate this chromozome and that chromozome. You can prove e=mc2 and A will still equal A. You can paint every emotion and visual fantasy imaginable. You can compose intricate and pleasing music.

But truth is immutable and immovable.

No matter the convolutions of the world, truth remains.

Faizi

[suergaz]

A becomes A is greater than A =A, as it includes it, but also allows us to descry the immutabilty of movement to infinity

Stick that up your equity.

[Leyla Shen]

zag wrote:

Thinkers are lovers

That explains everything...

[Jamesh]

Philosophically speaking, I would make one change. Rather than “everything has the property of appearing to exist” (which I consider to be a ridiculous statement: who here has seen “everything” all at once?), I would say “every thing has the property of appearing to exist.”

I have no objection to this.

Of course, stating “everything” has property X can be taken to mean there are no other properties to “everything”; there can be no properties “left over” (?!) for there to be different properties. This is not about making every thing into one big blob called “everything.” Quite the contrary.

Only the materialist thinks “everything” is a thing without nothing which isn’t anything, let alone part of something!

(I just love it when people talk about "self-evidentness.")

I have no idea what you are talking about. I don't intend to revisit the thread. However should I have said that any thing only has property X then obviously that is a mistaken comment.

I do of course factually state that if one was to separate a thing down to its absolute basic level then two "non-things" with only one property each would be the outcome of such a separation.

You might argue that a thing is anything we can conceive of, so my "non-thing" above is still a thing. Well that is not correct - a thing is actually any form of existence that can be segmented into parts. The totality is thus a thing.

The only non-things that exist is that which provides the power to the totality. Such things are not things but forces. Only forces can produce changes in things, and the only way forces can change a thing is for that thing to ultimately consist entirely of those forces, which by the way is what "emptiness" really means. Things react to other things not because of cause and effect, but because things ARE cause and effect. There is no separation between a force and the materialism of a thing, they are the same thing - but separation must still exist in some form (otherwise if there were things by some dent of magic, they would automatically be the same) and it must be divisible down to something utterly basic.

Utterly basic = infinity. Infinity = that which changes relatively to some other infinity but does not change objectively to its own infinity.

And, just for the record.

I have decided that I have a superior insight into reality than anyone I've read. This does not make me a genius or wise in any way, I'm not a productive person like say poor old Weininger or Neitsche. In terms of ultimate reality, there is nothing I could be taught from any other being, human or otherwise.

There is much I could learn about emotional behaviour and matters of knowledge such as science, but that is simply a matter of habit and detail, not of the underlying reality of the totality. In cutting reality down to the two self-contractionary and self-expansionary forces (for which the property of one automatically creates the property and thus the reality or the "action" of the other) rather than the baggage ridden mystical-like mysteries like Yin and Yang, there is no leeway left to go any further. When these two exist at the same time, as they do in all things at all times, then there is no logical reason to conceptually seek a prior cause to their existence, no prior or first cause could "be" prior to them. Things such as time and space come from them, are caused by their action RELATIVE to each other. One cannot say the same for anything else, even a creationary god such as most religious folk believe in, would could not come into existence PRIOR to time and space.

Expansion and contraction do not require any thing to precede them, and thus in a way they could be thought of as being "one". For material things, if something expands then something else automatically contracts, but it is in a zero sum fashion, as the thing that contracts in turn causes something else to expand and so on ad infinitum. This process is always ALL that is occurring. All one needs to do to have an absolute knowledge of reality, is to take the preceding statement and to conceptually deduct the thingness from things (the key to any enlightenment) - mentally take away all observable properties to just leave the "action

[suergaz]

Leyla wrote:

zag wrote:

Quote:
Thinkers are lovers


That explains everything...

You lost the tennis match?

[Leyla Shen]

Ha! Very funny, zag.

.

James, you wrote:

I have no idea what you are talking about. I don't intend to revisit the thread. However should I have said that any thing only has property X then obviously that is a mistaken comment.

You did say that your confusion with A=A was essentially represented by what the original poster wrote. That was all I was going on. So,…

My comment was inspired mostly by the fact that the original poster above qualified this particular “self-evidentness” with the word “fairly.” How self-evident is that? It seems like there’s some confusion in general between the ideas of “appearance” and “self-evidentness.” Yet, the distinction between “everything” and every thing was the first thing to hit me in the face. That’s where the idea of “everything” having a single property X came into question.

How are an apple, the law of identity and the non-thingness of forces, for example, self-evident to, say, a mouse -- and what‘s behind this “doubling up” idea?

Regarding your “thing/non-thing” reasoning, would you mind if I attempt to simplify?

1. “Things” necessarily have multiple properties that give rise to their form
2. Only a “non-thing” can have a single property X
3. “Non-things” are inferences from forms and not forms in and of themselves
4. Therefore, “non-things” cannot be experienced but cause experience between forms

I probably can (and will consider) adding more based on what you have written. In the meantime, if these are correct so far, I am missing something. I am missing how you, given 1 and 3, arrive at the conclusion that the Totality is a thing and not a non-thing.

…[snip] Expansion and contraction do not require any thing to precede them, and thus in a way they could be thought of as being "one". For material things, if something expands then something else automatically contracts, but it is in a zero sum fashion, as the thing that contracts in turn causes something else to expand and so on ad infinitum. This process is always ALL that is occurring. All one needs to do to have an absolute knowledge of reality, is to take the preceding statement and to conceptually deduct the thingness from things (the key to any enlightenment) - mentally take away all observable properties to just leave the "action”

I don’t know what you mean by putting the word “action” into quotation marks; especially since action requires time and space. Perhaps, James, here you really mean: The Totality is not a thing.

.

[Sonata]

Just like any form of life perception is controlled by human logic. Perception is incapable of ever changing. All forms of humanity perceive the world exactly the same. The ultimate feat however would be knowing what to look for.

Everything has a reason and a purpose just to give you a clue.

Weather it be human enteraction, experiences, envirnemental, factors, and some others you could predict exactly how someone would preceive anything. You could also learn what said persons wants and diseres were even if they didnt know it. Id call it the truth behind everything but anyone can call it anything really.

[Jamesh]

Leyla - sorry for the delay, but at least I got around to responding. These days I really don't want to respond to people responding to me (it too time consuming for too little gain) - I just want to post.

If everything has the same property (e.g. of “appearing to exist”), then there can be no properties left over for there to be different properties. (If you see that properties don’t “double up”, then this idea is fairly self-evident.)

-- and what‘s behind this “doubling up” idea?

I guess it is the layering of something fundamental. One instance of a physical thing with a single observed property will give a different appearance to two such units, therefore it could be said that doubling up produces different properties. The only things we humans have directly observed to date are things that are already quite complex, they are made up of a large number of parts. Even an atom is a complex entity. The parts group together where each individual parts expansionary/contracting force ratio can “interlace” with another that has the opposite ratio. Interlace means to form a balance of a negative part with a positive part, just like male and female cable connectors. The closer the sum of the two ratios is to zero the tighter the connection – which is why it is so difficult to split an atom – the multi-dimensional sum of its parts is close to zero.

Once two basic parts have joined, then it can interlace with other opposite or like parts, opposite parts can merge based on the equalising ratio effect, and like parts can merge based on the relative positions of the two parts (for instance, you can merge cups of the same type into a stack of cups by slotting one inside another but you cant merge them if you turn the cup to be inserted around – same thing but a different result based on relative position).

Parts can merge in a linear fashion and form a plane, or they can form in a non-linear fashion and form an approximate circular object with a centre (the more “opposite-force-balanced” the object is the closer it will be to a perfect circle, and the less so, then the more oval it will be. At higher levels things will be combinations of planes and circles. A crystal is a layered plane where some of the “opposite-force-balanced” connections are locked in at right angles – nothing is perfect though so all sorts of approximate cube shapes will form. All solids are principally crystalline structures, whereas liquids are likely to consist of less tightly bound groupings, though they’d have some planes otherwise things like water tension would not exist, and gases would lack any such planes/crystals and consist entirely of non-linearly connected circular parts – gases can still group together though as they may be held together by being relative to what surrounds them – the forces that surround them will have markedly different expansion/contraction ratios to the gas atoms.

Regarding your “thing/non-thing” reasoning, would you mind if I attempt to simplify?

1. “Things” necessarily have multiple properties that give rise to their form
2. Only a “non-thing” can have a single property X
3. “Non-things” are inferences from forms and not forms in and of themselves
4. Therefore, “non-things” cannot be experienced but cause experience between forms

1 and 2 are fine

3. Yes, but anything that is describable in any way has some sort of form, so I would rather say that the form of non-things or forces are those properties that apply to absolutely all things - they are the primary forms. In a sense they are the true and only forms, as all things are multi layered instances of the interaction between these two basic forms.

4. Non-things are continually experienced in how things affect us, that is ALL we experience, not the thing itself - we experience changes in relative forces. We experience the thing itself mentally only at the multilayer level, immediately post the experience of the forces. What we experience is relative to how those forces cause changes our own physical balance and imbalance patterns of our bodies.

Yes they also do cause experience between forms, but only in the sense that non-things are the only causes, all things consist entirely of these non-things and thus all things are entirely utterly casual. Also all effects like space and time are observations of these same causes, but at levels above that of the most fundamental –

1. Space is at the level of two non-dualistic entities combined into one
2. Space + the continual effect of the two forces = Gravity
3 Space + gravity + the continual effect of the two forces = Thingness
4. Space + gravity + thingness = Time as we know it (Real time exists at the non-thing level, but it is permanently infinite and thus unmeasurable. Time at the non-thing level is not a separate or additional property of either of the two forces, but an inherent action of the force itself, I mean Expansion does not have the properties of Expansion AND Time (or degrees of Power for that matter), the single property it has IS these physical attributes as observed in things, but at the infinite level they are only the one property as they never be separated).

I am missing how you, given 1 and 3, arrive at the conclusion that the Totality is a thing and not a non-thing.

The totality is a thing to me because I mentally separate the effects from the underlying reality. As one cannot total the infinite forces then why should we call something a total, all we can total is what these forces produce. When thinking of the totality I cannot conceptualise it in other than a physical way. To me the physical totality is an effect, it is not of its own making, and in fact doesn’t exist as it is just the boundary where the two forces merge, while the word “totality” cannot logically be used something for which there can never be a total. I call the physical totality a thing because I have given it form. Any thing with a name is a thing.

Quote:
Me…[snip] Expansion and contraction do not require any thing to precede them, and thus in a way they could be thought of as being "one". For material things, if something expands then something else automatically contracts, but it is in a zero sum fashion, as the thing that contracts in turn causes something else to expand and so on ad infinitum. This process is always ALL that is occurring. All one needs to do to have an absolute knowledge of reality, is to take the preceding statement and to conceptually deduct the thingness from things (the key to any enlightenment) - mentally take away all observable properties to just leave the "action”

Leyla I don’t know what you mean by putting the word “action” into quotation marks; especially since action requires time and space. Perhaps, James, here you really mean: The Totality is not a thing.

Fair point. The only way I can describe the action of the fundamental forces is to use terms they relate to what I have observed in physical things, which are just effects. The quotation marks signified that I am unable to conceptualise the non-physical infinite – all I can do is use terms like action and expansion and contraction.

[Leyla Shen]

James,

Leyla - sorry for the delay, but at least I got around to responding. These days I really don't want to respond to people responding to me (it too time consuming for too little gain) - I just want to post.

No worries. I know what you mean. But, one has to ask oneself (figuratively speaking), why post then? I mean, we could just open blank word documents and type...

:)

I will reply, later.

.

[Jamesh]

No worries. I know what you mean. But, one has to ask oneself (figuratively speaking), why post then? I mean, we could just open blank word documents and type...

Three reasons.. firstly ego realting to one's faith in their perspective, secondly because it fills in time at work when I'm not busy or lazy, and thirdly because it does help to get one's thoughts in order. I only post about 1/2 the replies I draft - couldn't be bothered rewording the rest.

I'm an arrogant little fuck arn't I :)

[sue hindmarsh]

Sonata wrote:

Just like any form of life perception is controlled by human logic.

Most people’s lives are completely “controlled” by their attachment to things like happiness, love and comfort. They may use logic every now and then, but they definitely do not live according to it. If they did, they would use their logic to free themselves from their attachments, and thereby live more truthfully.

Which only goes to show that most people are barely human: since they rarely use “human logic”.

Perception is incapable of ever changing.

In one way that is correct, as our perception of the world is a wholly mental one. But what we perceive is always changing, due to the innumerable causes that bring things into existence.

All forms of humanity perceive the world exactly the same.

It appears that we sometimes share similar perceptions, but rarely is it “exactly the same”. An example of this is when police take eyewitness reports from people at a bank robbery. There will be some over-lapping of information, but if there are ten witnesses, there will be ten different accounts. This is inevitable due to each person’s biases, prejudices, and emotions at that time colouring their experience of the robbery. But the over-lap is often sufficient for the police to find the robbers.

The ultimate feat however would be knowing what to look for.

We do all perceive the world in exactly the same way, and that is mentally. Even what we describe as the physical world, is always only experienced as part of our mental world. This mental world is also totally subjective. Therefore, I can’t be certain that other people exist, but it does seem plausible. That is to say: since I have been causally brought into existence, so too could others.

Everything has a reason and a purpose just to give you a clue.

It isn’t clear what you’re trying to get at here. More “clues” please.

Weather it be human enteraction, experiences, envirnemental, factors, and some others you could predict exactly how someone would preceive anything. You could also learn what said persons wants and diseres were even if they didnt know it.

There is obviously enough over-lapping of perception to allow us to predict to some degree how people will react in certain situations. But we also know from experience that people can be extremely unpredictable. For example: when placed in extreme danger, some people who appear shy and restrained have been known to become fearless and resolute. Other people who were thought of as strong and calm, become hysterical and terrified.

The bit about knowing what people want and desire before they even know it, isn’t really any great feat when you know that most people live through their emotions, and therefore want and desire egotistical happiness. And most people do know this, but just won’t admit it. They also don’t care how they come by this happiness, using love, marriage, children, drugs, jobs, status, friends, money, sex, entertainment, religions, shopping, politics, pets, electronic-gadgets, fashion, etc – to get their fix.

Now, you may think that predicting what someone would want out of all those things listed would still be difficult, but if you look closely you’ll see that they all fall into just a few categories: people (family and friends), things (cars, clothes, toys, houses), and occupying your time (work, sex, TV, reading, religions, shopping). No wonder advertises are able to do the job they do so efficiently and effectively – most people are very easy to read. For example: if you meet someone who is sad, they either have lost someone, or something they valued. If you meet someone who is happy, they have either gained someone, or something they value. It all boils down to lost and gain.

Id call it the truth behind everything but anyone can call it anything really.

What is "it"?

-
Sue

Ps: If I can call “it” anything, I think I’ll call it Dougal – as I’ve always liked that name. ;)

[Sapius]

After much thought I believe I grasp the thing. As far as explaining it goes, there is a wrong way to do that and a right way to do that, and though one is wrong and one right it is often as helpful (in my experience) to know what isn’t as what is.

The right way (as far as I can tell , from where I stand):

A=A is what it is.

*explanation*-(in this way the reasoning of A=A is implimented in it's description-descriptive but confusing)

The wrong way:

A=A is like something else which it isn’t and can never be because it’s only what is, and IS NOT a *similie*or a metaphor.
(less confusing but also less descriptive)

And now an elaboration on some of my thoughts ( which include a metaphor)which is only an elaboration on some of my thoughts (including a metaphor) and not A=A.

Through the lens of the nature of any given idea that idea colors all other ideas in such a manner that the universe becomes an explanation of the nature of the thing through which the universe is being viewed. We are such things and cannot truly escape the essential nature of what we are ever, though this does not exclude the possibility of growth or change into something more or different it does exclude the possibility of being something other than what we are at any given moment, and we remain at all of those moments simply what we are; Hence it would be erroneous to view any given thing as something other than what it is because it would be denying the essential dilemma of being, which is to be a thing (in specific).


Certainly one could BE change, or growth, but this would require change or growth and one would still be whatever one was, insomuch as one was, so again the essential dilemma of being.


I hope it’s clear.

Parasapien

Quite right and quite clear, however, A=A goes far deeper than recognizing being what one is at any give moment irrelevant of each and every change in every moment.

A=A is the most fundamental requisition of consciousness itself, where one can consider even an atom or quark to be ‘conscious’, because A=A is essentially nothing more than a necessarily criteria of ‘conscious’ recognition - differentiation, that results in reaction.

A=A in other words is the faculty of recognition of A (any thing) from all that is not-A (all things else), differentiation, without which even causality can’t move a step since a thing cannot react if it cannot recognize and differentiate between other things first. Imagine a world where this criterion does not exist, there would be nothing ‘happening’, in other words, no existence.

Now, the realization of this very simple representational formula - A=A, which encompasses and is the foundation of any and every action and reaction seen in causality, is akin to understanding E=mc2. Simple as that, and profound if realized for what it actually means.

[Leyla Shen]

James,

I'm an arrogant little fuck arn't I :)

Yes, which is fine -- even desirable -- when what you think and say is dictated by reason and not mindless prejudice and ego. Otherwise, you're just a right fucking cunt like every other mindless piece of shit.

:)