The nature of consciousness

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Russell Parr
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Re: The nature of consciousness

Post by Russell Parr »

Interesting and helpful input. Thank you.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: The nature of consciousness

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

What 'spirituality' is and should be, is a philosophical question, but also an ethical and a moral one. Since everything a man does has reprecussions (affects the whole cosmos as well as society) everything about it would need to be thought through. I know pretty well Ramakrishna's writings, and I have a decent insight into Indian metaphysics, and then the latter stages of those religious and civilization-contruction choices and decisions, and of course Vedanta. Buddhist ethics and praxis has its root in Indian metaphysics and my read of you-all is that you are mostly drawn to a Buddhistic interpretation because your personalities have features in common that draw you to 'renunciation' as you have chosen to define it.

I would use Ramakrishna as an example of a spiritual and religious tradition which arises in a complex social and civilization-structure to support the points that I have generally desired to make, rather than to support the radical choices which *you* make. The old civilization-model of Indian culture defines different social levels, with different levels of commitment and responsibility, which cannot (should not) be disrupted or violated. I think it would be a mistake to imply and to understand that the spiritual tradition of India encourages emotionless detachment (or perhaps 'spiritless detachment') as a general ethic. It seems to have a lot to say about dispassionate attitude or seeing things from something like cosmic distance, but what *you* talk about is a sort of spiritual deadness, a coldness, a lack of commitment and a relinquishing of responsibility which you support with elaborated declarations of your 'spirituality' and quotes from (generally) Buddhist sources.

But really, from a philosophical perspective one would have to examine your choices within a Western context for it to make sense and to make sense of it. I would suggest that whatever 'spirituality' you practice is a questionable one because, based on what you say of it, it does not connect you with anything at all, neither other people, neither spouse nor child, nor in fact anything at all. You would have no way to value anything at all. Your ideal is to simply stare out at the world with half-closed eyes and a frozen face and sever your connection with all of it. Therefor, it would truly be best not to have children! They require a 'living investment' and their life demands responding with life. Based on what you say, the better course would be to have separated from society at the earliest age and live in a hut on one bowl of rice a day. But really, what even bother to stay alive? What motivates you to keep breathing? I could develop arguments for you that would indicate it best that you drown yourself in the nearest river or sink yourself in the ocean so the fish-life could at least benefit from your body's death. What use are you to anyone?

In my view, though I understand at least in some small degree Ramakrishna's path and experiences - and you seem to venerate them and desire something like that for yourself - I would suggest that such an attitude toward spirituality and such a set of definitions is unethical. Principally because you-as-individual with such an attitude cannot and will not serve the processes of civilization at any point. There is no connection-point and all that you seem to talk about is the dissolution of connection-points. In this sense that is your passion.

I could not, now, define 'spirituality' through the terms you have chosen. To be 'spiritual' is to function and to operate at a higher level, or to have higher awareness, or to be among those who conceive of society and higher value and dedicate themselves to the service of it, and this means service, ultimately, to tangible, materialized form, to society and its institutions, and in perhaps a Hegelian sense to the State.

In numerous ways I begin to see you as deviants (although I do not think of you as 'bad' people and it is certainly in no case my issue to judge). The QRS-inspired school of spiritual deviancy. I say this because I discern that you are in reaction to things. As you describe it you are in reaction to the mutability of the cosmos and the ever-changingness of things. Just like the Indian schools who have developed their vision (their metaphysics) of this view of Reality. It is weird and terrifying that we live in such an unstable world, this I admit.

But I'd suggest that the ethical choices you make, insofar as I understand them, are based not in heroic strength but in weakness and cowardice. It would be harder in many ways to remain at your post, so to speak, and perform your tasks and duties and to serve higher processes for your people (such is service to society) than to team up with each other in deliberately destroying tangible links with the things and people around you.

No one can tell you not to do that, but one can, if reason and philosophpy and value are privileged as important tools of analysis, offer critiques and insights about what you do and say.
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jupiviv
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:
Russell wrote:All attachments, including towards a woman or children, are delusional, period. Again, if it is your fate to marry and reproduce, that's fine and natural. It will make full enlightenment virtually impossible, though, and you shouldn't pretend otherwise.
In my view such a statement indicates how profoundly one has become infected by rigid, reductionist views that literally dominate mind, intellect, and understanding. It is a radical inversion into and an investment in a closed loop of 'reasoning'. It can't be reasoned with since by its absoluteness it defines what is true and right. This is where the QRStian error leads, inevitably. Radical stupidity dressed up as genius.

A Spider-Child is born!
An interesting situation: Alex is more or less correct about Russell's mentality in this post. Russell in the reply to me that Alex quoted was more or less correct about the mentality of attachments.

Yet they are both incorrect, because their correctness does not suffuse them. They (and others here like Diebert, movingalways and people in general) use it like a weapon or a shield against what they consider to be "falseness". For example, Russell adamantly refuses to admit that he wants to discredit my personality, even though the proof is in the wedding. On the other hand, Alex refuses to admit that Russell in his last few responses to me reenacted on a much smaller scale the relation between Alex and "QRS" (and that Alex described in the quoted post).

I intentionally introduced language that would annoy anyone who did not understand the meaning behind the accepted language. I intentionally did not explicitly state my views about marriage when Russell - to my surprise and amusement - accused me of either being a married man or aspiring to be one. Russell saw these as excuses to discredit my personality even further (to my further surprise and amusement), while denying that he was in fact doing so. He hates the falseness of others because he loves his own falseness. Likewise for Alex.

But falseness is nothing; ergo to the extent one is false one is nothing.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Alex, deviancy is impossible for God, therefore impossible for me. Which makes your position of relativism meaningless to me.
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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How do you conceive of ethics, Jupi? Do ethics and morality have a place in your scheme?
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Marvellous, irrefutable argument Pam! Not even an angel could unseal that seal!
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: The nature of consciousness

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

For contrast see Sittlichkeit.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Jupiviv: "and others here like Diebert, movingalways and people in general".

That's a rather broad and meaningless stroke! In any case, I'm proud to voice the thought of "people in general" as I aim to represent the universal.

But people, if this is now the level of discussion and argumentation, some kind of snipe and snarkfest, without any apparent will visible any more to examine anything, this thread is just becoming pointless. We could rename it "the nature of unconsciousness"! Increasingly this is turning again in near meaningless discussion of posts or posters instead of discussing, examining or just rejecting, arguments, sources, logic or assertions contained therein.
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Russell Parr
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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jupiviv wrote:An interesting situation: Alex is more or less correct about Russell's mentality in this post. Russell in the reply to me that Alex quoted was more or less correct about the mentality of attachments.

Yet they are both incorrect, because their correctness does not suffuse them. They (and others here like Diebert, movingalways and people in general) use it like a weapon or a shield against what they consider to be "falseness". For example, Russell adamantly refuses to admit that he wants to discredit my personality, even though the proof is in the wedding. On the other hand, Alex refuses to admit that Russell in his last few responses to me reenacted on a much smaller scale the relation between Alex and "QRS" (and that Alex described in the quoted post).

I intentionally introduced language that would annoy anyone who did not understand the meaning behind the accepted language. I intentionally did not explicitly state my views about marriage when Russell - to my surprise and amusement - accused me of either being a married man or aspiring to be one. Russell saw these as excuses to discredit my personality even further (to my further surprise and amusement), while denying that he was in fact doing so. He hates the falseness of others because he loves his own falseness. Likewise for Alex.

But falseness is nothing; ergo to the extent one is false one is nothing.
Well, as I saw it, you weren't about to understand or open yourself up to the reasoning being portrayed to you anytime soon so I instead began to question your overall motivations and values, as we're often left to do with Alex (of course this is nearly all he does with us). But I certainly understand how you see that the direction I took it wasn't "fair game." I'll stay focused on the topic at hand next time.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Jupiviv: "and others here like Diebert, movingalways and people in general".

That's a rather broad and meaningless stroke! In any case, I'm proud to voice the thought of "people in general" as I aim to represent the universal.

But people, if this is now the level of discussion and argumentation, some kind of snipe and snarkfest, without any apparent will visible any more to examine anything, this thread is just becoming pointless. We could rename it "the nature of unconsciousness"! Increasingly this is turning again in near meaningless discussion of posts or posters instead of discussing, examining or just rejecting, arguments, sources, logic or assertions contained therein.
You just painted all the posters in the forum with a broad stroke! But a broad stroke is not necessarily meaningless. There is a marked similarity between Alex's behaviour and that of you and the others I mentioned in that post.

The difference is that you're not usually put under focused and consistent dialectical pressure. Alex basically faces the same pressure - and often justifiedly so - from most of the other members, and behaves in exactly the same way as you towards me in recent discussions. If you're honestly concerned about the degradation of the level of discussion then you should start by not claiming to know the minds of people based on a single word.
Russell Parr wrote:Well, as I saw it, you weren't about to understand or open yourself up to the reasoning being portrayed to you
Because it was incorrect and I tried to explain why, but you either ignored or tried to disqualify the explanations. If our discussions were moderated, you certainly wouldn't have much to say.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:How do you conceive of ethics, Jupi? Do ethics and morality have a place in your scheme?
This is my first and *only* commandment - you shall not deceive yourself.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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jupiviv wrote:and behaves in exactly the same way as you towards me in recent discussions. If you're honestly concerned about the degradation of the level of discussion then you should start by not claiming to know the minds of people based on a single word.
Indeed, based on words like "others here like Diebert, movingalways and people in general" and now even "Alex ...behaves in exactly the same way as you towards me in recent discussions", you do reveal a whole mindset with only little doubt left. But is it possible it's just you? Would that not be a more reasonable explanation for why everyone ends up prosecuting you the same? My discussions are all totally different with all people.

In any case, your issue is distinct as I do think you are a masculine thinker who is erring in his interpretation of the subjective and possibly also does not understand yet the relation between desire, object and attachment. While for example Alex is a feminine encyclopedic sentimentalist but who at least understands how the thing and interpretation will always be subjective to self. If you could collide at high speed with him, we'd have a whole thinker!
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Gustav Bjornstrand
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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But Jupi I think you need to talk more of what the implications are if this ethical edict. I am suggesting that 'enlightenment' as defined by Pam and Russell is unethical and immoral in numerous senses, given what they say it requires. I am asking you to fill out more your sense of an ethic. Not deceive oneself? It is too vague. Can I get an example in some tangible situation?
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Spider-Mother wrote:While for example Alex is a feminine encyclopedic sentimentalist but who at least understands how the thing and interpretation will always be subjective to self. If you could collide at high speed with him, we'd have a whole thinker!
Really, that's quite far off-base. I define masculinity more robustly in many ways. The fay and effete 'enlightened teenager' pose I see as boyish, thus 'girlish'.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Diebert van Rhijn wrote:But is it possible it's just you? Would that not be a more reasonable explanation for why everyone ends up prosecuting you the same? My discussions are all totally different with all people.
It *is* me to the extent I tend to be overly aggressive, but I never substitute logic with dialectic (in the original sense of the word - the art of controversy). Can you say the same?
Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:I am suggesting that 'enlightenment' as defined by Pam and Russell is unethical and immoral in numerous senses, given what they say it requires.
I would say it is non-moral, especially in Pam's case. I agree with them about its requirements, but my issue is with the way they (and Diebert as well) *arrive* at them. It's not possible to transcend desire by transforming things into empty husks. These empty husks are themselves products of an imagination warped by the same desires that should be transcended. It's like quenching thirst by imagining that water doesn't exist.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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jupiviv wrote:
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:But is it possible it's just you? Would that not be a more reasonable explanation for why everyone ends up prosecuting you the same? My discussions are all totally different with all people.
It *is* me to the extent I tend to be overly aggressive, but I never substitute logic with dialectic (in the original sense of the word - the art of controversy). Can you say the same?
My beef is that your logic is not adding up. And the moment we try to zoom into the issue, you appear to turn what you just said around or interpret something as you seem fit. I think that's because the logic you have, when it comes to fundamentals, only serves to hide that you haven't anything sufficiently developed. Then plain desire and attachment will dictate all the answers.

However, this is not uncommon. For sure I'd have found the same when examining myself twenty years ago. At this stage I might not be able to be more precise and will limit myself here to explain what I witness or how I think about your posts as they stand. After of course having tried to make with the logical case first with quite some effort. But in the future, when I see an opening for reason, I might try again.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:
Spider-Mother wrote:While for example Alex is a feminine encyclopedic sentimentalist but who at least understands how the thing and interpretation will always be subjective to self. If you could collide at high speed with him, we'd have a whole thinker!
Really, that's quite far off-base. I define masculinity more robustly in many ways. The fay and effete 'enlightened teenager' pose I see as boyish, thus 'girlish'.
You sound confused, Gusty. There are light years already between boyish and girlish predicaments, old p̶a̶r̶a̶p̶h̶i̶l̶e̶ ephebophile.

You wrote some more promising stuff on masculinity here and continued here. Why not start a focus on that in a new thread? There's a lot to improve there still although I remember being more impressed back in 2008. Now I believe you start with half a thought and never finish it. Like you're fatally attracted to truth but then don't want to follow it, even turning against it in the process. And this is not about the the incapacity of analysis to get to any "explicit truth" or "final conclusions". This is more about the process of discovery which appears to be continuously aborted as if you're addicted to discovery of openings and entrances but do not want anything to do with any deeper journey or processing.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

Post by Gustav Bjornstrand »

Thanks for the advice, Spidey, but better mileage, for you, will be gained by focus on your own morass. Let what impresses you motivate you in your own progess ... out of the camouflaged postmodern web.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:... better mileage, for you, will be gained by focus on your own morass. Let what impresses you motivate you in your own progess ... out of the camouflaged postmodern web.
Read any good postmodern thought lately then? What's for you a "swamp"might be some aquarium full of tropical fish for another. It all depends on the scope and depth of ones own development I suppose. And of course, all I do here is focussing on "own morass" and addressing the camouflage webs so many postmodern authors have detailed (it would really help if I you actually knew anything about the terms you employ).
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Diebert van Rhijn wrote:And the moment we try to zoom into the issue, you appear to turn what you just said around or interpret something as you seem fit.
Well how about some specific examples? Of course, interpretation as one sees fit is expected when one is presented with the writings of *third parties* who aren't involved in the discussion, as corroboration for arguments within the discussion.

But you do this whenever you don't have any logical responses left. E.g.:

D: I argued against containers since you were referencing them. Containers arise only when a property is assigned. In other words: the moment an attribute is assigned, the object appears. But there's no "object" without attributes. Only in your wildest dreams.

J: Why are you lying? You just lost a great deal of respect in my eyes. BTW here is the post in question:

D - Although there are more definitions, it most of all means that "thing" is almost by definition uncategorised and unspecific. But a category is nearly the opposite of that in terms of the function of the word. Your first need things before you can organize those into composite things.

J - The category is distinct from the category of known things. Nor is it a "composite" thing formed of unknown things, if that's your implication.

D - What I mean is that "thing" is not a category simply because there's no other category of non-things. Because then this new category would still be a thing, falling under the other category again: regression! A category is simple a thing-as-container. Which all identifications are. The object as container for assigned properties. Assigning properties to anything implies creating a container for it. In that sense a thing is nothing but a categorization.

Is a categorization not another thing? No, since such a thing does not exist without just being the categorization. And that would be a meaningless tautology. You still seem to believe "things" exist and are busy justifying "physical things" as some absolute reality, as if the finite would in any way represent the infinite or equal it. But only in some extremely illusionary way it does. It needs to be addressed considering the purpose of the forum.


D: Look, I just argued that "things do not exist" and then continue with "a thing is nothing but a categorization". Then does that mean I argue for the existence of categories? No, I argue against them as such just the same, like with any existence of things beyond what we do by creating the mental division, which is an illusion: we're not even really creating such division, we just desire that we're doing that, to give us what we need.

Like we splash water on the floor, causing a wet spot. We wipe up the water and gone is the spot. We cannot talk about splashing water on a dry spot so now it contains water. It's not defined, it does not pre-exists or post-exists like that in any way. Only after the water is on the floor, we can imply "spots" or a "pool" to refer to that collection of water. We can speak about it all we like but in reality there's only the water, which is only a thing because we have put properties like "wet" or "fluid" on it. There's no such thing as "the water" somewhere sitting existing as some Platonic shape. They reveal themselves inside the exchange or dialogue on it, how our mind conceives of it. That's all we really know about the material existence of the thing.


J: Mental divisions are illusions compared to *what*? Nothing, by definition, if we believe that the only divisions are mental. But then, compared to what are the divisions mental rather than external to mind? Again nothing, because of the aforesaid reason.

D: Compared to what is not mental, not illusionary and non-divisional. The mind allows to make that leap, although it comes up "empty" obviously.

J: *Your* mind may allow you to make that leap, but not mine. Which if it comes up "empty" as you say is logically impossible. If Emptiness *excludes* finite things, then we should be in perfect agreement about everything.

D: What would emptiness *include* then, according to you? In the end my disagreement was only with what and how you were asserting things.

So you are simultaneously holding two contradictory views - things are mental containers assigned properties, and things can't be accurately identified. If accurate identification is impossible, then assigning properties to mental containers is impossible. Indeed, an inaccurate identification is a contradictio in adjecto. When challenged on the one you fall back on the other, and when challenged on that falling back you interpret the falling back as you see fit, and when challenged on the interpretation you go back to the first one again or accuse me of doing it.

After seeing that last post by you I gave up on the discussion because you're right back where you started, which is taking issue with the inclusion of physical things within your grand scheme because you know well enough that it will implode unless it specifically excludes them or anything that can't be interpreted away as a non-existent vague Yoda fart. That's the only reason - as far as I can see - why you suddenly wanted to enter that discussion and agree with Seeker, a man whose philosophy is a miscellanea of Buddhist texts and terms selected for bullshit.

As you said yourself - is it possible it's just *you*?
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Re: The nature of consciousness

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Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:... better mileage, for you, will be gained by focus on your own morass. Let what impresses you motivate you in your own progess ... out of the camouflaged postmodern web.
Read any good postmodern thought lately then? What's for you a "swamp"might be some aquarium full of tropical fish for another. It all depends on the scope and depth of ones own development I suppose. And of course, all I do here is focussing on "own morass" and addressing the camouflage webs so many postmodern authors have detailed (it would really help if I you actually knew anything about the terms you employ).
Why read when one can *see*? The institutions of power in Western nations are all postmodernist. I guess it's not that bad as long as the rivers of free shit don't run dry and dead Gods aren't resurrected to challenge living ones.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

Post by Russell Parr »

Jupiviv,

The very being of sentience is defined by the act of division, a drawing the lines of separations by way of sensations and conceptions. Causality, being infinite, includes all the senses and thoughts, the objects and products thereof, and all that is not sensed and absence of thought, and thus separation is not real for It. Nothing can "exist" for Reality as a whole, in its infinite magnitude, because the whole cannot be defined by what occurs in relative instances.

To put it another way, sentience is inherently dualistic, or rather inherently embedded in dualism. So by this it is natural to perceive separation as also inherent, or permanent, for we have no choice but to operate in duality, with dualities. Infinite nature, in its infinite creation, designed consciousness with the precise and fine tuned purpose of perceiving divisions. But does the Infinite itself perceive these divisions? It cannot, or rather, perception is inapplicable to the Infinite because the act of perception is limited to the perceiver.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

Post by jupiviv »

Russell Parr wrote:Causality, being infinite, includes all the senses and thoughts, the objects and products thereof, and all that is not sensed and absence of thought, and thus separation is not real for It.
This can mean one of two things:

1>> A thing that is separated from causality is unreal, which is true but I haven't said this.

2>> Things that are separate from each other are unreal because their separation is included in causality. But why? This isn't a reason, it is an assertion.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

Post by Russell Parr »

You are either neglecting or failing to recognize that separation lies specifically where it appears to be, as determined by relative perception. Causality is infinite, and finites and separations are appearances.

For example, if a sheet of paper with multiple colors are shown to two individuals, one who is more colorblind than the other, then one will see, say, 5 different colors and the other will see, say, 3. Who sees the correct amount? The answer is entirely relative. The Infinite, the All, includes all instances of relativity and so cannot be defined by the appearance(s) of a one or multiple instances of relative perception.
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Re: The nature of consciousness

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

jupiviv wrote:
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:... better mileage, for you, will be gained by focus on your own morass. Let what impresses you motivate you in your own progess ... out of the camouflaged postmodern web.
Read any good postmodern thought lately then? What's for you a "swamp"might be some aquarium full of tropical fish for another. It all depends on the scope and depth of ones own development I suppose. And of course, all I do here is focussing on "own morass" and addressing the camouflage webs so many postmodern authors have detailed (it would really help if I you actually knew anything about the terms you employ).
Why read when one can *see*? The institutions of power in Western nations are all postmodernist. I guess it's not that bad as long as the rivers of free shit don't run dry and dead Gods aren't resurrected to challenge living ones.
So you after lumping me with "people in general", I'm now in the same category as "institutions of power in Western nations"? The postmodern notions I've inserted occasionally in discussions come from various post-structuralist social theorists. Gustav doesn't want to touch that type of thinking with a ten feet pool, he prefers his own blend, reactionary and out-dated analysis of culture to apply to this forum. Charming as that might be, if he wants to become all intellectual on us, he better show he has the actual balls, the actual fire power to deliver. Not because such intellectual endeavour would bring anyone closer to enlightenment, but because in his case it might help him to get rid of some silly attachments and prejudices. That's all really.
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