The Mystic....

[Dennis Mahar]

Are you saying,
I can be a star in my own chick flick?

[Pye]

jesus h. christ, Dennis . . . . :(

[Dennis Mahar]

the indescribable lightness and joy of being.
don't need a Story.

[Kunga]

Kinda like a chick flick ?
Or a dick [lick]flick ?
ick.

[Talking Ass]

You essentially invited all this yourself Pye-Becoming. You really should have picked up where we left off. Though I do comprehend, and appreciate, and value, charity.

;-)

[Pye]

Dennis writes:
the indescribable lightness and joy of being.
don't need a Story.

. . . but that's a lovely one . . . . :)

Existence doesn't need "corrected"; nothing about phenomenal appearance is "deluded." The individual does not need annihilated. Existence does not need corrected.

Go there, and you're there.

[Dennis Mahar]

That the separate self exists is not denied.
How it exists is the question.
Its ultimate status.
We'll have to go through the reasoning to show it out.

You don't have to believe it.
You could try it on for size.
Perhaps you're not interested and that's OK.

[Pye]

Dennis writes:
That the separate self exists is not denied.

selves. And we certainly took the long way round getting here.

How it exists is the question.
Its ultimate status.
We'll have to go through the reasoning to show it out.

Is this a "how" that is really asking "why?" Just wondering if this is another recasting of that one philosophical question found so obsessively piquant by so many - Why is there something instead of nothing? If so, we'd benefit from a hiedeggerian notice of what the question is already pointing to, and that would be a reason for existence. To ask why there is something is to assume there's a reason. To assume there's a reason is to nestle very closely to an original intention. And once we get into intention, we're all covered over with a sticky coating of meaning that precedes existence.

If this is instead a matter of "how" selves exist in the concrete sense, we've a whole world of processes and causes and effects to look upon.

As for "ultimate status," I don't quite know what you mean, so you can take it from there.

Again, a short rubric to re-illustrate from whence my point of view comes: everything is consequent to existence. That individual selves phenomenally appear in the world is a consequence of existence. Any notion of "Self" or "self" or "self-hood," etc. is an expression of qualities possessed as a consequence of being in existence; not as a source/origin/gathering of them.

In other words, selves - by virtue of, by consequence of their existence - are defining any notion of "Self" or "self" or "self-hood," etc. Selves are not conforming to a prior-to-existence model; they are the very model of what they are; they are made in the making . . . . and this, indeed can be talked about, at least in this way . . . .

[Pye]

Here's what I'm thinking: to speak of self is to posit a human nature which we all share, or come-from.

Yet if it is in 'human nature' to, say, be social, I will show you a fair few people who do much to avoid it.

If it is in human nature to speak, I will show you feral children who instead growled; and captured, never came to grasp speech or syntax; gained smaller vocabularies than Koko the ape.

If it is in human nature to walk upright, I will show you these same people in different conditions who crawled.

If it is in human nature to boast, want attention, inflate one's ego, I can show you people different to that.

If it is in human nature to be loving, I can show you the genius forum :)

If it is in human nature to survive, thrive, I can show you a whole history of human suicide.

All of the above and everything else we assume to belong to human-being as a thing-in-itself is not a matter of fulfilling any program belonging ahead of our living - in our inborn nature. These phenomena rather come about in direct, immediate response and exchange to our living conditions, through which we are made in the making. The thing we all share in is conditions (i.e. causes, effects), those molten variant, and ever-becoming manifestations, and all is manifestation - matter and energy. The thing we all share in is existence, not a thing, per se, at all, but rather process - creation - itself.

Being there, or rather being here for it - in the most acutely attentive way . . . . well I think perhaps Dennis, we simply have different stories for the what-ness or how-ness of this here-ness . . . .

The individual self can, rather than suppress its sense-of-itself, expand it . . . ever and ever into fluid awareness - consciousness - of its conditions, of existence and all in it and how it moves, in doing so go past the fetid air of their own local atmosphere and pick up other scents, more being. One can only expand to do this, take seriously, so to speak, their phenomenal instrumentation which requires tuning, caring-for, not dissolution and nullity. There's no other point from which you be anything else.

[Pye]

Those exquisitely highest, and lightest of moments of being Dennis that you experience - even 4 or 5 times a day - well, these can meet in constancy with all your movements, yes, they may need tugged back down a little into the forms of our actions and thought with ourselves and with others, but we can stream forth in and because of them always; we can see and feel the spirit/energy as equally as the matter . . . . but I will not be having any st. theresian-ecstasies here for anyone's inspection or interrogation, their very incommunicability for every one of us to every one of us is evidence enough of our private circumstances. Here we can only speak to each other in the common language of reason, and the more commonly understood we make ourselves, the more reasonable we are :)

[Talking Ass]

"Why" things are, and why it is particularly fleshy & bloody, and what it is that drives us in all this as potentially distinct from other possibilities we envision or intuit, seems one of the very GOOD questions if it is conducted carefully. Even science fiction is a restatement in other possible terms of our reality and can illuminate the reality we live though as speculation it is of the 'unreal'. Curious how science fiction corresponds to metaphyisical propositions.

I was actually a feral donkey who was adopted by human parents and trained up in your human ways. I love and appreciate Koko yet feel she could have gone farther with better association.

[Dennis Mahar]

We definitely are 'in a situation' Pye.
We are definitely exposed to countless 'readings' of the situation.

Human Beings are locked into a conversation about the situation.

in the constant stream of sensory/mental events,
attributes are conceptually designated,
meaning is put about.
the meaning can be attached to or put aside.
if a meaning is attached to then a human being 'falls' into a set of practices, abides by a set of rules, and conforms to an ideological reading of the situation.
The human being has got a story or what appears to be a winning formula.
There's a trillion winning formulas getting about, clashing violently, that renders the situation completely insane.

Can we distinguish 'mind' from the 'readings of the situation' mind comes up with?

[Dennis Mahar]

Pye,
as Heidegger pointed out, Dasein is constituted in care, it has a mood and understanding.

The only worthwhile aspect of existence worth caring about for you and me Pye is our mood.
to get our mood right, we have to get our understanding right.

Buddha didn't give a shit about 'god'.

Buddha concerned himself with mood and an understanding that delivered an ecstatic response.

that understanding is,
the situation is caused and lacks intrinsic meaning.

its empty and meaningless that its empty and meaningless.

that gets us to primordial essence,
unconditioned mind.

[Dennis Mahar]

Pye,

As for "ultimate status," I don't quite know what you mean, so you can take it from there.

what is needed is parts/whole analysis.

Time.
any instance of time has duration.
We may speak of the age of the universe or the time it takes for light to traverse the diameter of a proton.
each segment of time has a duration such that its beginning is not simultaneously with its end.
such a period therefore has a beginning and an end.
it is not identical with its beginning otherwise it would not exist at its end and vice versa.
it could be hypothesised that it is the same as the complete set of its beginning, middle and end, in that case it would not exist at its beginning, middle or end for that complete set is not present at any of those times.
It has a beginning, middle and end but it does not exist independently of them, otherwise it could not exist in their absence.

ultimately,
any period of time is conceptually designated (mind) upon something that it is not, it is unfindable under analysis.
therefore we conclude that its existence is purely conventional.

thus time does not exist absolutely with respect to physical or mental events.
time as it is conceived by human mind does not exist in some independent, objective world,
it exists only in relation to the mind that conceives it.

That's Nagajuna's reasoning.

mind defines the objects and events of the world it experiences.
those things do not exist intrinsically or absolutely as we define them or conceive of them.
not saying they don't exist,
saying they exist in relation to us.
we give them meaning

each conceptual designation (language) performs this artificial chopping up of the continuous soread and flow of existence in a different way.

nothing exists in its own nature, independent of conceptual designation.
everything is empty of such an intrinsic identity and that emptiness may be regarded as its ultimate nature.

May it not be universally true that the concepts produced by the human mind, when formulated in a slightly vague form are roughly valid for Reality, but when extreme precision is aimed at they become ideological forms whose real content tends to vanish?

[Pye]

Dennis:
thus time does not exist absolutely with respect to physical or mental events.
time as it is conceived by human mind does not exist in some independent, objective world,
it exists only in relation to the mind that conceives it.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
May it not be universally true that the concepts produced by the human mind, when formulated in a slightly vague form are roughly valid for Reality, but when extreme precision is aimed at they become ideological forms whose real content tends to vanish?

All of which bespeaks in every way of the impossibility of occupying any position in the universe but our own/mind, empty or otherwise. If one were to become suspicious of the vague formalisms they've held about reality having nothing to them, how does this nothing then escape further suspicion (become certain) it now stands in flawless understanding (i.e. the emptiness) of everything?

It's like we're pouting!: well, if I can't know anything for certain (god-consciousness), then there must not be anything certain to know at all, so there - spiritual nihilism. We're in the thing, using the same 'flawed' mind at every turn - occupying a singular point of consciousness-of everything, omniscient only to ourselves. We cannot become the point of view for everything - omniscient - by condition, by truth, by cause/effect proven by the private phenomena of our births and deaths. Unless, of course, we think we can . . . . and round and round the private loop we go, too often, too desperate in trying to escape the close proximity of our own living stink . . . . yet . . . . this does not need corrected; we don't have to pout about it; override it; transcend it. Existence does not need corrected.

What might a darwinian reading of the presence and function of consciousness tell us, assuming we all agree that things don't appear for no reason? Is this organ of matter and energy to serve the body/life as any other organ? And what sort of service does it provide? Assuming it's there to aid the continuity of the life it's developed in (including its cessation if unable to assume the stresses of existing), then will what it concludes necessarily match a reality any other than it's own when it can only do for-itself?

Is there something to look at? - of course! Can one look-at whilst in-it? The philosophic buck has never been able to pass itself along from here . . . . neither has human reality. Truth one thing, what we call knowledge is another. What we call knowledge functions to preserve us/our lives/ourselves/our species, true or not. The persistency of form and adaptation of life is its own reason to, persist. When it finds whole chunks of itself settling into configurations conducive to temporary long-term survival, it doesn't need to move, doesn't need to ask anymore. This, too, is part of becoming, "knowledge" serving its goal. So, too, when this lump begins to atrophy will new knowledge come along to serve human life to new adaptations, so perhaps a deeper foundational truth belongs in the place of emptiness.

From this singular seat of consciousness there is something else to look at, but only under these ambiguous conditions. Doesn't mean the emptiness of that self anymore than it means the emptiness of the world it looks at. I want to make it clear that I've understood the very-much something you mean by 'emptiness.' Nevertheless, there is still existence and there is still a phenomenal self to look at it. Better-looking - the bringing into being more of this being - being here with it - becoming more conscious-of it (which includes our selves in-it), well, what else then?




p.s. the physicists are often trailing in the footsteps of the intuitive leaps of the philosophers, :) so Julian Barbour says as much about the non-existence of time in The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics (2000) wherein he claims that the discrepancies between quantum and mechanical physics can be eliminate if one also eliminates the equations of time. Everything that has ever been still is; everything is here. For Barbour the only really interesting question becomes why we see things in sequence, for that doesn't change . . . . knowledge and truth. pesky bedfellows.

[Dennis Mahar]

From this singular seat of consciousness there is something else to look at, but only under these ambiguous conditions. Doesn't mean the emptiness of that self anymore than it means the emptiness of the world it looks at. I want to make it clear that I've understood the very-much something you mean by 'emptiness.' Nevertheless, there is still existence and there is still a phenomenal self to look at it. Better-looking - the bringing into being more of this being - being here with it - becoming more conscious-of it (which includes our selves in-it), well, what else then?

well, what else then?
how about bringing about the perfection of the human form.
that seems to be the 'go-to' that wisdom opens up.

what qualities are there available in human being that can be designated as perfection?

triumph over adversity is always the really, great story.

if its causes/conditions,
we've got a handle on it.
we're free enough to make a stand against the wind.

don't expect an ovation.

p.s. the physicists are often trailing in the footsteps of the intuitive leaps of the philosophers, :) so Julian Barbour says as much about the non-existence of time in The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics (2000) wherein he claims that the discrepancies between quantum and mechanical physics can be eliminate if one also eliminates the equations of time. Everything that has ever been still is; everything is here. For Barbour the only really interesting question becomes why we see things in sequence, for that doesn't change . . . . knowledge and truth. pesky bedfellows.

If anything can be said about the Buddha, what can be said is he 'remembered the future'.
or conceptually designated a possible future for human being resplendent in it's greatest qualities.

what has to be understood is the art of conceptually designating on a base that allows for meaning making.
one can then have a 'for the ultimate sake of which',
and then you die. stiff.

[Pye]

Dennis:
what has to be understood is the art of conceptually designating on a base that allows for meaning making.
one can then have a 'for the ultimate sake of which',
and then you die. stiff.

Is the latter sufficient reason for bagging the former . . . ? :)

[Dennis Mahar]

how can you get life without getting death.
dependently related events.

situational.

what do you make it mean?

[guest_of_logic]

Hello Pye,

A belated "Welcome back", even though I'm going to be a little oppositional in this post. Before that, though, I want to suggest that based on your expressed opinions in this thread and in a previous one in which we've exchanged posts, you would probably enjoy the (free, online) book by Professor Norman Swartz, The Concept of Physical Law. I haven't read it in full, but from what I have read, it's compatible with your views in several ways.

In any case, I'll get to the point by responding to this:

No predicates; as in things-before existence (that direct, or formulate, or pre-determine, or intend for this or that something to be) are logically, linguistically or reasonably possible. It is incoherent to speak of things pre--existent to existence; for if indeed something is, then it exists, linguistically at the very least.

If "existence" refers to an unqualified "everything", then your reasoning stands, but (speaking only for myself) when I suggest a "direction", "formulation", "pre-determination" or "intention" behind existence, I do not use the word in that sense; instead I use it in the sense of material existence, as contrasted with an immaterial, spiritual and/or transcendent existence.

I suggest that on that definition, you (can) have no purely logical argument against "predicates to existence", and, in fact, you would have a hard time mounting an empirical argument against such a thing given the many and varied spiritual experiences of countless men and women over the ages.

But you seem to understand this scheme, because in a later post you wrote this, which makes me wonder how you could have made the above argument:

It's probably unfortunate, in my estimation, that the word "meta-physical" means for many not-physical, but rather "spiritual," as though such a thing transcends, exceeds, or stands outside of 'physical' existence. It has embedded in it the invitation to separate oneself into body (material/matter) and mind (spiritual/energy), so its word-hood is already fraught with assumptive complications. Like I mentioned, there's no separating these things, matter and energy (material and spiritual), and so I take any opportunity I can to wrestle with the assumptive hangovers from that word.

Isn't the notion that "there's no separating these things" itself an assumption? How do you discount the possibility of a purely immaterial, spiritual and/or transcendent existence that in some way or sense precedes the existence that we currently experience?

As for human nature and your noting of exceptions to sociability, speaking, walking upright, boasting, attention-seeking, ego-inflating, loving, surviving and thriving, I would suggest in response that deviations from a template do not negate the existence of that template. My intuition, based partly on the words of certain authors, is that there is a human template in the sense of a (designed) way to live and be optimally. This is not restrictive of our freedom for two reasons: firstly, because we are free to deviate from that template even though it harms us, and, secondly, because there is infinite scope for variation within that template, just as there is infinite scope for variation within a work of fiction, which likewise functions according to a template - very roughly, a plot with beginning, middle and end, and at least one character within that plot.

I'll understand if you prefer not to respond to this as I know that it is a pretty oppositional post, but I just wanted to get my two cents in. Be well.

[Pye]

Hi Laird. Why be so tentative about philosophical disagreements? Years of intellectual acquaintanceship might account for something, you know . . . . :)

Laird writes: If "existence" refers to an unqualified "everything", then your reasoning stands, but (speaking only for myself) when I suggest a "direction", "formulation", "pre-determination" or "intention" behind existence, I do not use the word in that sense; instead I use it in the sense of material existence, as contrasted with an immaterial, spiritual and/or transcendent existence.

There is no need for the contrast at all. Both exist, are existence. Neither are "behind."

Laird: I suggest that on that definition, you (can) have no purely logical argument against "predicates to existence", and, in fact, you would have a hard time mounting an empirical argument against such a thing given the many and varied spiritual experiences of countless men and women over the ages.

. . . but this is grounded in existence, Laird - these are things people have experienced in existence, perhaps even as existence. The presence of many and varied spiritual experiences does not presuppose they are connected to something that precedes all that exists. That would be nothing. If you want to speak of this as something, then it is in existence. It cannot pre-exist its own being, or being en totale.

Go ahead and give it its special qualities. Think it a center of intention or meaning or of everything, but it is an it; it only exists. It cannot do otherwise.

Laird: Isn't the notion that "there's no separating these things" itself an assumption?

There is no separating anything on the level of being, so if one wishes to aim for the what-is, one has to start there.

Laird: How do you discount the possibility of a purely immaterial, spiritual and/or transcendent existence that in some way or sense precedes the existence that we currently experience?

I would account for such a thing by it existing (and you make this problematic with the addition of the word "current" experience). You don't have to go outside of existence to speak of these things you want to, Laird. They don't have any greater authority coming from such a false position. They have and are nothing at all outside of being. So speak of them, do . . . . :)

[Dennis Mahar]

Getting back to practical matters,
or the situation.

let's look at a chair.
If the chair had inherent existence, then that existence could be found when we pulled the chair apart. However, when we pull the chair apart we find that the chair is just made from pieces of wood, that were assembled together to make what we call a chair.

'chairness' exists there for us conventionally as a form of agreement and appears to be it's own entity.

do we not impute or conceptually designate or project entityness on a gathering of parts?

what do we have?
1. causes/conditions
chair requires a web of interactivity as wide as the universe, soil, climate etc.
2. specific parts.
3. a thinker with a thought
'chairness' requires that.
a projector.

this isn't rocket science.

chairs and human beings go together.
never seen an alligator doing 'chairs'.
the crocs are doin' the crocodile rock.
the eagles are doin' the eagle rock.
the humans are gonna rock around the clock tonight, gonna rock until the broad daylight.

I got rhythm, who could ask for anything more.
the joy of being.
astonishing, wondrous.

its empty (causes/conditions)
meaningless (humans project the meaning relative to human)

perhaps the analysis can be rightfully turned to 'self' and 'other'.
as a revealing of the situation.

[guest_of_logic]

Hi Laird. Why be so tentative about philosophical disagreements?

Well, because something was telling me that I was being very rude and approaching you in the wrong way, and that the way you really felt about me was [etc]. I wasn't sure how much to believe it, so I took an each way bet and posted anyway, but with a qualification.

Years of intellectual acquaintanceship might account for something, you know . . . . :)

:-) Next time I won't believe my something, still trying not to be rude though.

To your post: you emphasise that the spiritual is part of existence, which I don't deny, but parts of your response seem simply like bald assertions, e.g. 'Neither [the material nor the immaterial/spiritual/transcendent] are "behind."' and 'There is no separating anything on the level of being'. I wonder why you believe these to be true.

Your answer to this question might have cleared things up, but I suspect I need to tighten up the question's phrasing:

Laird: How do you discount the possibility of a purely immaterial, spiritual and/or transcendent existence that in some way or sense precedes the existence that we currently experience?

Pye: I would account for such a thing by it existing (and you make this problematic with the addition of the word "current" experience).

I used the phrase "the existence that we currently experience", as opposed to "material existence", in acknowledgement of your valid point that the existence we currently experience is both material and spiritual, but what I was trying to get at is that there could be a temporal or some other causal sense in which the material aspect to existence is a consequence of the spiritual aspect, so that in some sense "pure spirit" is "behind" the existence that we currently experience (as a blend of material and spiritual). That's a lot of words for a pretty basic idea, and I'm sure you understand it because it's a common religious predicate. I'm curious to know whether and if so why you reject it. Does that change your answer?

[Pye]

Laird writes: To your post: you emphasise that the spiritual is part of existence, which I don't deny, but parts of your response seem simply like bald assertions, e.g. 'Neither [the material nor the immaterial/spiritual/transcendent] are "behind."' and 'There is no separating anything on the level of being'. I wonder why you believe these to be true.

Matter and energy appear to have risen together (or better yet, have always been present as long as there has been presence [being]), so I am disinclined to imagine one to come before the other, as much as I am disinclined to separate them but for the most conventional of sakes. Particle or wave; thing or motion; so long as our local understanding of physics indicates that neither can be (re)created or destroyed, we are looking at eternity, we are looking at everything even if we cannot see it all at once or from any other point of view.

but what I was trying to get at is that there could be a temporal or some other causal sense in which the material aspect to existence is a consequence of the spiritual aspect, so that in some sense "pure spirit" is "behind" the existence that we currently experience . . .

You can have it that way if you want, Laird, if you want there should be something “unreasonable” about the world . . . . but I‘d be inclined in return to ask why matter must be preceded rather than included in the wonders of being . . . . What would make existence more “valuable” to you in believing spirit – a spirit, energy, what-have-you – does the initial creating out of nothing?

[Pye]

Laird writes: As for human nature and your noting of exceptions to sociability, speaking, walking upright, boasting, attention-seeking, ego-inflating, loving, surviving and thriving, I would suggest in response that deviations from a template do not negate the existence of that template.

It could be said, Laird, that things have properties to them, but only if these phenomena are played out in existence, are manifest as properties. It could be said that it takes certain circumstances (causes/conditions) for properties to display themselves, but this only happens in tandem with those causes/conditions. If this "property" of something never makes an appearance, how can we assume such a "property" exists in the phenomena?

It's like this: here's a very very heavy object. Just this object itself, all by itself. You might say of such a thing it has the property of gravity to it (inside" it? "hidden"? etc?). But if there is no space for the weight of this object to bend, or no other objects to slide toward it, then where exactly does this "property" reside?

[Pye]

Dennis posits:
how about bringing about the perfection of the human form.
that seems to be the 'go-to' that wisdom opens up.

What would that look like to you, Dennis? It's a good question; I would be quite interested to know, not just from you, but from anyone . . . . human perfection.