Causation

[Dennis Mahar]

Quantum mechanics confirms precisely what Nargajuna postulated.

extrapolating from the double slit experiment,
Nick Herbert, physcicist, says,

the world behind our back,
where we are not looking and cannot observe,
is always ' a radically ambiguous and ceaselessly flowing quantum soup'.
Whenever we turn around and try to see the soup, he says, our glance instantly freezes it and turns it back into reality.
We can never really know the true nature of the quantum universe because every time we try to observe it, it turns into matter.
Its a magicians trick.

Nargajuna postulated the very same magician's trick.
He said,
causes/conditions,
pieces/parts,
a thinker with a thought.

nothing exists independent of an observer.
both agree.

existence is projected.

we are meaning makers.

I think what you're getting at Pam is you're studiously withdrawing your projections.

[Pye]

No, I am not a student of any buddha, movingalways. I see one, I run like hell . . . .

Dennis, et al: nothing exists independent of an observer.

After one's tree-falling-and-making-no-sound-without-an-observer-ah-ha-moment, there's the tree, the sound, the world, etc. It's disingenuous to posit an observer if there's nothing to observe. It's meaningless to name an "observer" at all, in this nifty little scheme to dissolve the problems of subjectivity.

*sigh* yeah, I know. Anything but this . . . .

[Cathy Preston]

No, I am not a student of any buddha, movingalways. I see one, I run like hell . . . .

Dennis, et al: nothing exists independent of an observer.

After one's tree-falling-and-making-no-sound-without-an-observer-ah-ha-moment, there's the tree, the sound, the world, etc. It's disingenuous to posit an observer if there's nothing to observe. It's meaningless to name an "observer" at all, in this nifty little scheme to dissolve the problems of subjectivity.

*sigh* yeah, I know. Anything but this . . . .

I relate to this, but also wonder why you choose to call the flux of causality love? It makes the impersonal personal, a natural disaster has survivors and victims how does love fit in? Is love and hate intertwined, would you be willing to give up love if it meant all hate is eliminated too? Is it just a word, or is it a specific feeling, and if it's a specific feeling what causes it? If the Universe is love then do you feel it constantly and if you feel it constantly how does one distinguish it?

[Dennis Mahar]

After one's tree-falling-and-making-no-sound-without-an-observer-ah-ha-moment, there's the tree, the sound, the world, etc. It's disingenuous to posit an observer if there's nothing to observe. It's meaningless to name an "observer" at all, in this nifty little scheme to dissolve the problems of subjectivity.

*sigh* yeah, I know. Anything but this . . . .

Nagarjuna is not denying existence exists. not nihilism and not essentialism.
how it exists he sought to answer.
very subtle.

as to the why,
he found ineffable silence the safest refuge.

form is empty.
where there is form there is empty.
empty is empty.

stop there.

Sherlock's not particularly interested in the 'why' of the murder.
that's guesswork, inference, the realm for the drama queens.
Sherlock's interested in the 'how' of the murder (deduction)

[Russell Parr]

After one's tree-falling-and-making-no-sound-without-an-observer-ah-ha-moment, there's the tree, the sound, the world, etc. It's disingenuous to posit an observer if there's nothing to observe. It's meaningless to name an "observer" at all,

The falling tree and the sound it makes has to come from a perspective, or it cannot be defined. The perspective may be your imagination, or in being in the presence of the event, it is the perspective of your eyes and ears. Think about the many ways you can define an environment by various perspectives. A person with normal eyesight perceives a room consisting of lights and colors, while a blind person primarily hears and feels the room.

Whose perspective is more real? Neither, of course. They are both valid perspectives of subjective reality, precisely because perspectives must be subjective.

Outside of perspective, reality is infinitely beyond definitions, and as definitions cease to exist, existence itself must go as well.

in this nifty little scheme to dissolve the problems of subjectivity.

What are the problems of subjectivity?

[Cathy Preston]

After one's tree-falling-and-making-no-sound-without-an-observer-ah-ha-moment, there's the tree, the sound, the world, etc. It's disingenuous to posit an observer if there's nothing to observe. It's meaningless to name an "observer" at all,

The falling tree and the sound it makes has to come from a perspective, or it cannot be defined. The perspective may be your imagination, or in being in the presence of the event, it is the perspective of your eyes and ears. Think about the many ways you can define an environment by various perspectives. A person with normal eyesight perceives a room consisting of lights and colors, while a blind person primarily hears and feels the room.

Who's perspective is more real? Neither, of course. They are both valid perspectives of subjective reality, precisely because perspectives must be subjective.

Outside of perspective, reality is infinitely beyond definitions, and as definitions cease to exist, existence itself must go as well.

in this nifty little scheme to dissolve the problems of subjectivity.

What are the problems of subjectivity?

There is no Objective view of Reality, so saying it ceases outside of perspective is pointless. Reality is subjective because observer and observed are one, once we understand this we can begin to paint a picture of reality conceptually or we can just assume that it's all happening in our individual heads, in effect 7 billion separate universes rather than 1 Universe experienced subjectively.

Just to add:

Alternatively since there is no way to step outside of Reality to view it objectively, the whole concept of subjective / objective perspective becomes moot.

[Dennis Mahar]

7 billion human observers,
each utterly alone in their respective causes/conditions.
not the same.

all produced out of causes/conditions.
none different.

charades anyone?

[Pye]

Cathy writes: There is no Objective view of Reality, so saying it ceases outside of perspective is pointless. Reality is subjective because observer and observed are one, once we understand this we can begin to paint a picture of reality conceptually or we can just assume that it's all happening in our individual heads, in effect 7 billion separate universes rather than 1 Universe experienced subjectively.

This is very well expressed, phenomenological to its core.

This, though:

Alternatively since there is no way to step outside of Reality to view it objectively, the whole concept of subjective / objective perspective becomes moot.

. . . is in my estimation another way to sweep away the problem of a subjective being embedded in an objective world. And lest I get into trouble for positing an objective world at all, let's just call it a world of objects - things that are not-us, even though said things can only be apprehended by us subjectively. We can never be thinking about nothing. Consciousness is intentional in the sense it is always taking something for its substance, its very appearance.

As bluerap's primer on perspective reminds, said perspectives are all we have. But to suggest no one individual could have a more accurate perspective on the phenomenal world is to deny the existence of a phenomenal world at all, and that is something, to the very last fiber of my phenomenal experience, I am disinclined to do, for I'm not conscious unless I'm conscious of something (included one's abstraction of oneself [i.e. self-consciousness, where we make an object of ourselves]). For instance, I haven't the slightest idea how to manipulate the phenomenal world to get a rover to land on Mars. Others paying attention to these workings, aspects of the phenomenal world, have.

I'm aware, Dennis, of the innumerable and "subtle" ways the buddhist tradition seeks to address suffering by every clever reminded that it's "all in your head." Indeed, it is, but there IS an it, or this self-same rubric falls to the same meaninglessness of only-an-observer and nothing observed. Just as Cathy aptly puts it in the paragraph above, subject and the world of objects rise together. In my estimation, this does not solve the problem we will never solve: being a subject in a world of objects; and an object in that world itself. All we can apply to this situation is the most acute observation of the phenomenal world (i.e. causality) we can muster, if so inclined. No understanding, communication etc. among subjectivities would be the least possible at all if there were not a world of objects, phenomena to which we are all subjected, in which we are all embedded.

And Cathy, just to address in general your questions regarding the assumption of a tao-like relationship between love and hate (in other words, that disclosing one in the world necessitates the appearance of the other), I have just, for myself, simply never found this to be true. Emotions, per se, don't trouble me; they are not a form of trouble, unless I cling to a feeling itself. It's embedded in the word "e-motion" - one gives them plenty of room to move through. They always do. Feeling only becomes pathological when we refuse it its motion and attempt to wrangle it into a 'state.'

No, I rather see a feeling/emotion risen as the seed casing that falls away in delivering me knowledge about my values. I've never seen an enlightened stance as one that does not feel at all, nor have I seen this as a logical goal. Everything is felt-first. An enlightened stance is to close the gap between the feeling and the cognition it carries at its core. I see enlightened beings as those who know instantly why they are feeling what they feel, and as soon as that happens, what seemed indiscriminate perturbation becomes a matter for rational response. Eventually, the two blend together (feeling and reason) in a most heightened and self-alert way. In this sense, I refute more of the platonic hangover that feeling and reason are separate "parts" of us. No phenomenon makes any sense isolated from the whole of the causal world in which it rises.

(a big dump, pardon, when I could be going slower, but I've a couple days of elsewhere coming up.)

[Cathy Preston]

And Cathy, just to address in general your questions regarding the assumption of a tao-like relationship between love and hate (in other words, that disclosing one in the world necessitates the appearance of the other), I have just, for myself, simply never found this to be true. Emotions, per se, don't trouble me; they are not a form of trouble, unless I cling to a feeling itself. It's embedded in the word "e-motion" - one gives them plenty of room to move through. They always do. Feeling only becomes pathological when we refuse it its motion and attempt to wrangle it into a 'state.'

But reality itself is like this, day relies on night, night relies on day, both exist conditionally and are a condition only of the earth in relation to the sun, love relies on hate, hate relies on love, both exist conditionally and are a condition of the self in relation to everything it imagines its not, so once we realize there is no separate self the condition ceases and that which relies on those conditions ceases too. Feeling itself doesn't rely on reality, so it isn't necessarily a representation of truth.

[Dennis Mahar]

We are inside maya,
totally immersed in an illusory-like condition.

it can't be said it doesn't exist. (nihilism)
it can't be said it exists from its own side (essentialism)

reality is not solid even tho' it looks and feels real to us.

reality is effectively a conjuring trick.

ultimately,
its empty and meaningless that its empty and meaningless.
what a relief.

all is empty,
merely display.

walk in the park,
trip to a theme park,
ride the rollercoaster.

[Pye]

Pye wrote: Everything is felt-first.

Cathy replies: Feeling itself doesn't rely on reality, so it isn't necessarily a representation of truth.

The world is sensed before it's thought about; thinking is making sense. Until we are something other then sentient beings, I'm sticking by this reductionism. :)

okay, Dennis, have a script about scripts. Perhaps the wiseman does nothing with the phenomenal world, but the vital one acts upon it.

To borrow another good one from Diebert,

Lack of meaning does not imply lack of spirit. Where is your spirit these days, running on empty?

[Russell Parr]

The world is sensed before it's thought about; thinking is making sense. Until we are something other then sentient beings, I'm sticking by this reductionism. :)

Senses and thoughts are the same thing. In consciousness, your eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and body are merely extensions of your brain, whose primary function is to continually gather information. A thought is an abstract concept which describes the overall sensation we experience in our "sensory database," our brains.

Thinking that thoughts and senses are separate is suggesting that there is inherent quality to our thoughts, when ultimately there is none.

Are you sure it isn't you that adopts tricks to deal with subjective reality?

[Dennis Mahar]

okay, Dennis, have a script about scripts. Perhaps the wiseman does nothing with the phenomenal world, but the vital one acts upon it.

To borrow another good one from Diebert,

what is this fierceness Pye.
what are you setting out to protect.

what could be lost.

do you wish for the phenomenal world to exist in and of itself.
independent of mind.
independent of projection.

do you want it to mean something.
is it scary to behold it as ultimately meaningless.

put it this way,

can people own land?
yes they can
and
no they can't.

how do they own it?
they own it conceptually.
by way of consensual agreement.
ultimately they can't own it.

can you own activity or does activity own you?
are we not driven in our causes/conditions?

[Pye]

bluerap writes: Senses and thoughts are the same thing.

I'm fine with this. But I'd go even further in the direction you point that the thought itself is a feeling, i.e. making sense. That way we really don't have to run the risk of giving to the one (thinking) an essentialism that would not also be there in our feeling, or conversely, assuming one (feeling) to be regularly untrustworthy and the other (thinking) to be free of this. Instead of saying everything is felt-first (in an attempt to suggest sequencing), I should have said more simply, everything is felt. period.

Dennis, no fierceness, just haste. Look, it's this way: if humans are these meaning-making "machines" as you say, then they would have no choice but to perform this same function everytime the button is pushed, each and every one. I've been trying to point out to you in a dozen different paraphrases that this means "no meaning" belongs to the same mechanical operation. Meaninglessness is also a script about meaning. Look, it's you that's built the no-exit; I don't know why or how you would in turn think that you can step outside of it . . . .

We can never be talking about nothing.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Sherlock's not particularly interested in the 'why' of the murder.
that's guesswork, inference, the realm for the drama queens.
Sherlock's interested in the 'how' of the murder (deduction)

Wrong on almost every account and goes the heart of the blind spot revealed.

It's abduction Sherlock used: inference. And motive (the why) is crucial in solving any crime story: the how cannot be deduced without the leaps made possible by grasping the why. Simply because one would otherwise end up looking in all the wrong places, running out of time and money. The why is just a major part of the how. The qualitative, indicative and steering part of it: the genius leap.

[Kunga]

phenomenal

do you want it to mean something.
is it scary to behold it as ultimately meaningless.

May i suggest replacing the (word/
concept)
"meaningless" with the word/concept " incomprehensible" ?
As Pye pointed out,
you give meaning to meaningless,
and spit in your face




'Liberation', synonymous with happiness, is thus the purpose of life.

http://www.keithdowman.net/dzogchen/old ... xcerpts%29

[Dennis Mahar]

Sherlock knew motive was key.
to arrive at the who.
he wanted the who.
he didn't dwell on the psychology of the who that generated the motive.
who gives a damn.
Sherlock used inference or constructed models for possible suspects and these models didn't find the who, they only narrowed the field of possibilities.
He looked for opportunity, who was where and when.
deduction.



Meaningless is a fine word.
When 'ownership' is found to only exist conventionally and doesn't ultimately exist,
it is meaningless.
What is incomprehensible about that?
it is empty (conditional) and meaningless.
it is a meaningful concept for human being and yet has no substantial existence, hence is meaningless.
blind freddy 'gets' it.

human being attached to the meaningless concept of ownership is accountable for untold misery.
making misery meaningful.

We can never be talking about nothing.

who is here now and what does it mean.
no phenomena exists from its own side.
its empty and has no intrinsic meaning.
the meaning is your thingy,
what you make.
that's your activity,
you don't own it and you don't own you.

causality owns it.

What does a goldfish in a goldfish bowl own?

[Kunga]

We are inside maya,
totally immersed in an illusory-like condition.

it can't be said it doesn't exist. (nihilism)
it can't be said it exists from its own side (essentialism)

reality is not solid even tho' it looks and feels real to us.

reality is effectively a conjuring trick.

ultimately,
its empty and meaningless that its empty and meaningless.
what a relief.

all is empty,
merely display.

walk in the park,
trip to a theme park,
ride the rollercoaster.

When you speak of "Ultimate Reality" as being empty and meaningless,
is when incomprehensible is more like it,
as meaningless sounds nilhistic ?
Logically Ultimate Reality cannot be meaningless or meaningful because those are dualistic concepts. Better yet would silence be ,
when describing the indescribable. That's why the monks get uncomfortable when you try to discuss emptiness with them,
it is respected and sacred,
to talk or teach about it is not proper unless you are qualified or asked to teach about it.

[Tomas]

walk in the park,
trip to a theme park,
ride the rollercoaster.

When you speak of "Ultimate Reality" as being empty and meaningless,
is when incomprehensible is more like it,
as meaningless sounds nilhistic ?
Logically Ultimate Reality cannot be meaningless or meaningful because those are dualistic concepts. Better yet would silence be, when describing the indescribable. That's why the monks get uncomfortable when you try to discuss emptiness with them, it is respected and sacred, to talk or teach about it is not proper unless you are qualified or asked to teach about it.

Monks, mullahs, priests, rabbis, pastors = bullshit artists

[Kunga]

Monks, mullahs, priests, rabbis, pastors = bullshit artists

Add politicians, doctors, lawyers, etc.,etc...

[Dennis Mahar]

I was talking about the ultimate reality of phenomena.
what are you talkin' about.

[Kunga]

I was talking about the ultimate reality of phenomena.
what are you talkin' about.

Ok, (sorry) So,
you DON"T think of Emptiness (Ultimate Reality), as meaningless ?

[Dennis Mahar]

it can't be seen, heard, touched, smelt, photographed, measured, conceptualised.

No thing exists logically.
end of story.

[Kunga]

it can't be seen, heard, touched, smelt, photographed, measured, conceptualised.

No thing exists logically.
end of story.

Then what is this ? (Illusion)
And why is this ? (Illusion)

[Dennis Mahar]

take electricity.
can't see it, can't touch it, can't smell it, can't hear it etc.., there's a conceptual theory about it that is inference.
can only 'know' it by effects.

Then what is this ? (Illusion)
And why is this ? (Illusion)

I'm sure we can make something up.