see if I can figure out what you're saying. — Patterner

Let me try this analogy and then I'll leave you to it, sorry.

Assuming our "normal" human experience is Real, and unknown to you, you woke up wearing a Virtual Reality head set. That day (ignore the details and niceties, bumping into tables etc) you experience everything in VR. It all happens, it's there, the experience exists. But the next day would you say your experience was real or an illusion?

Richard Bach's Illusions. — Patterner

I don't know it. Looked it up. It looks interesting. If it turns out to share my heretofore narrative, it wouldn't surprise me at all. There's probably hundreds of thousands of "contributors" wittingly or not, to any given "idea " Mind is One structure manifesting as History, and as billions of contributing individual stories.

I get very annoyed when I make an analogy, and people immediately point out its flaws. Of course an analogy is flawed — Patterner

Me too. I too use analogies as "a finger pointing at the moon," not at all purported to be the moon itself.

I wasn't actually saying your analogy is flawed (though I can see why you'd think I was). I'm actually using your analogy. Coupled with mine, I'm making (trying. always read "trying" between my lines) the point that things can be constructed out of Matter, but as constructed "things" besides the matter they are made out of--to which their form is irrelevant; like a snowdrift wouldn't "think" itself anything apart from snow--they are empty of Reality, Being, what some want to call essence or substance. They are becoming, never present, never (contra Dasein) there. They are becoming, incessantly and only and necessarily being constructed, not Real Being, like a beavers dam apart from the trees and grasses, fictional.

I am also saying that, though Fictional, they serve a function. In fact all of our joy and suffering is constructed out of or, at the very least, sifted through the emptiness. It exists, alright. But it is not Real.

And I'm not as sure about what follows, as I am about what preceded, but I suspect that because it is functional--our joy and our suffering (empty signifiers coding unnamable feelings, really)--we have adapted this powerful real feeling which is triggered by the code, and which the Signifier world knows as "attachment," to the Signifier world, the beaver's dam! The Fiction. That's the "illusion" everyone here is getting almost mutually hostile over. A poetic dialectic to watch, but to have the privilege of being a part of! That too is the illusion! So what? We never try to deny the Fictional nature of the Mona Lisa (here's a gd analogy, see? They role off our tongues with nothing but the best of intentions towards our neighbors, then they complain.) and yet we glorify its effect upon our Real natures.

. I don't know how we can view the ideas that are transforming our world as not real. — Patterner

I truly agree that our ideas are impactful both upon our nature and in furthering "themselves" our ideas. History is constructed entirely out of our ideas. Not only does it function, but like our individual Narratives, It moves forward in time! And I get why we want to call that real. But it's not. You are correct, I think (remember. also trying) when you say "ideas". They are empty of Reality, though they bear upon Reality by affecting our bodies, and the earth (like when rock is made into Iron or steel manifesting as the Eiffel Tower etc.etc-- that kind of illusion.

an illusion needs a viewer. — Patterner

Right. That's the real "you" that organism with sensations, inner feelings, image-ing ability, storage ability. The Observer displaced by the illusion. Now note. That Body IS conscious. But whereas presumably for other organisms aware-ing takes place in and of nature, for us, that aware-ing has been ineluctably distracted by the illusions its image-ing and memory have constructed.

How can a consciousness be the viewer of its own illusory nature, fooled into thinking itself actually conscious? — Patterner

I know, right? And, yet

EDIT: I feel compelled to clarify. It requires a dark perspective to see "the 'self' is illusion," pessimistically.

It is not nihilistic. Remember there is still your real self, your body, your brain, and its aware-ing, which never goes anywhere, just gets its "attention" diverted.

Knowing it is constructed rather than emerging naturally, is "salvation," (I would imagine). All of life's karma, it's joy and suffering, it's this and that, need not define you. You are always (as theistic as this is about to sound) perfect in (your) Nature. If you are breathing, you are good. Remembering that might heal suffering in the illusion.

:up:

Would you choose to be uploaded if it became available tomorrow? — Truth Seeker

There is no "you" being uploaded. that's the point of the OP. Without the Body to sense, feel and act, it would be empty code uploaded into an even more Fictional machine; Fiction uploaded to fiction.

In fact, this is almost a thought experiment illustrating that the self is an illusion. What is it without the organism but empty code?

And the thing is, upload it into a fresh body, and its not you! You know this intuitively.

Take a scenario where a gunman threatens to shoot you. But he's compassionate and talented enough to say, I'll upload your self to this brain dead body. No thanks! You'd rush to say. There is no self to upload. I, grasping your chest, am me.

That it is the essence/substance of our bodies,
— ENOAH
I do not agree. — Patterner

You realize I too disagree, right? I'm not attacking. Just clarifying.

That it is "real" as nature is Real, or worse, more real than nature
— ENOAH
It came about naturally, through nature, through natural processes. It couldn't be otherwise. — Patterner

So did a beavers dam, but the beaver doesn't falsely identify it as a real extension of its body; but better, so did Mickey Mouse and Oliver Twist but we recognize they are Fictions.

That it is a thing worthy of deeper analysis than psychology
— ENOAH
My opinion is that human consciousness is the most extraordinary thing known to us, and is worthy of any amount of analysis.
4mReplyOptions — Patterner

Ok. I respect that. Simultaneously I admit how my communication is confusing. Of course it is the most extraordinary thing known to us, because we are in love with the illusion.

Note: I do not judge it as evil, wicked, immoral, a thing to be avoided, annihilated or abandoned. It is very functional. I just think it is also functional to be aware of its nature.

to restate what you quoted above with a “tree” thrown in for a “self,” I said roughly:

“You see a mirage of a tree.
The mirage exists because you are seeing it,
but the “tree” is not real because it’s a mirage of a tree, not a real tree.” — Fire Ologist

That might well be exactly what I'm saying, adding, the mirage yet serves a function. E.g., it drives me onward with the hope of its shade/it torments me with its seemingly unreachable distance...it's appearance and effect are there; i.e. they exist, but they are not Real. They are all the workings of ignorance.

There’s a nuanced distinction between “exists” and “real” — Fire Ologist

when you experience your “self” you really are experiencing a kind of “self” creation, where the creating is more an activity, and the “self” thereby created as an object, is not real, not the same way the creating, the act, in this this case simply experiencing, is real.. — Fire Ologist

Exactly what I think. Add, the "self" is not even the creator of the created Mind. The self too is a mechanism, the necessary Subject I/me, required to move a Narrative in linear progress as time. Also, and simultaneously, it stands in for the Body, for reference in the self created narrative, which necessarily triggers the body to feel, perceive, act. The illusion is that this mechanism within a constructed Narrative is the Body, and more! Is the Spirit or Soul that the body serves. When factually it is a convenient fiction

It exists, and serves a function, but is an illusion? What is the definition of "illusion" that it allows for that sentence? — Patterner

If "illusion" is even the best word*, the illusion isn't as to its existence nor its function. It is this intuition we all undeniably have about it, such as 1. That it is the essence/substance of our bodies, 2. That it is "real" as nature is Real, or worse, more real than nature, 3. That it is a thing worthy of deeper analysis than psychology** (not exhaustive list)

*I prefer "Fiction," but that raises similar problems.

**It is worthy of deeper analysis than psychology, but that is because we have not "awakened" to its "fact" that it is an illusion

Yes, and it would be obtuse to disagree with you. However, what you expressed may not be the only, or full, representation of the so called self.

But what I was getting at: (I don't know whose post that quote came from, I must’ve erred). To simplify, it was alluding to cognitivescience "defining" the self functionally, and, thereby "resolving" the illusion problem.

I was saying that the self can be functional and still an illusion. The "illusion" is not intending that the self isn't actually existent, serving a function.

The illusion is rather as to its nature and our identification with its fleeting and empty construction, as if it were not just real, but the most privileged among the real, maybe even immortal.

Cognitive scientists might argue that the self, while being a constructed narrative, is not necessarily an illusion but a functional entity.

I have not read every response here, so perhaps someone else has highlighted the following distinction:
Regarding the self, and, for that matter, Mind, being an "illusion." I do not think the point being made is that the self does not exist, as in, it is like a mirage. Rather, that, as to its nature being real, it is not. It is therefore, an entity, and a functional one at that, but it is not the being of this body; not its essence; not who or what we are. All of these, and many other "conclusions" we make both within and outside of philosophies, are illusions.

I have not worded this with enough diligence paid to precision, etc. However, should I be required to clarify further, I think I might.

cannot tell if your form of poetry is to make Voltaire's arrival at the NON ABSURD position of declaring certainty (as a pursuit) to be absurd, or to try to flip the script sarcastically and suggest that he arrived at the absurd (which is not the truest point). — Chet Hawkins

Hah. This stands as a good example of how I need to communicate more precisely. It's hard when you follow this technique. I read a sentence, it triggers a response, I text the response. What I meant was simply this, "OK, I should read Voltaire before I speak but, here I go anyway."

This is miswording and strikes me as perhaps intentional. How can one misunderstand? Seeking is not absurd, as seeking awareness is wise. — Chet Hawkins

Not intentional. I know what I mean. I'll work on it. Anyway, I should have specified, "seeking certainty, as if there is a final end

We all must care. To not care is immoral. The label is critical as it causes certain effects in its use. — Chet Hawkins

I recognize why you are right, as in if we were playing musical instruments. But to make a brief a point on this as possible, 1. I think morality is ultimately what is functional. Think big picture. And, 2. I think that insistence on certain precision in speech serves a limited function. Free speech, even in philosophy can be moral. Just as it can be moral to insist on strict precision of speech in philosophy. It is the usage and context together where morality should be measured.

In that sense, speaking and writing are less disciplined, free to explore the endless changes, unrestrained. But You watchful you, not chained by seeking certainty, not chained by seeking anything, you can settle where you believe, in your thinking, it is justified to settle.
— ENOAH
Again your backwards wording. It is I that does not settle, they that do. At least the they I am speaking of that use 'know' so flippantly and will not agree that 'knowledge is only belief'. — Chet Hawkins

We agree completely in principle. We're on 2 different pages. To you "settle" means think there is an end, you are always moving and aware that you are moving. To me settle is that same thing, temporarily adopting a position as it serves a function, yet aware that we are moving nonetheless.

I do not understand your use of the word 'third' — Chet Hawkins

Not as important as you thought. A thought I expressed earlier then corrected.

settle has its own negative connotation, that of satisfaction or death — Chet Hawkins

Ok, I read it more in the connotation of a traveller's temporarily settling, weather temporarily settling, and so on.

By the way, I answer posts AS I READ THEM. That means — Chet Hawkins

...
Ha. Me too. As we "speak."

The need for certainty is moral failure because certainty is absurd. — Chet Hawkins

First, thank you, in spite of your well deserved dig.

Second, Ok!

But still, now to satisfy entirely justifiable rules of methodology (dictated by this very specific form of poetry), I should have to read (or re-read, I don't remember) Voltaire on how he arrived at the absurd etc. But for the thrill of the expedition, and for whatever edifying artifacts we dig up, I'll proceed trusting either way, it's something to learn. And asking your indulgence.

It is NOT certainty we seek, properly, morally, but only ... more ... awareness ... endlessly. THAT is a subtle but required distinction to be moral. — Chet Hawkins

Wow! Yes, ok. Sorry. I should have read, and not so boldly entered. But though indefensible, in my indefense, I was looking for a shortcut answer to that specific question "why immoral?"

Voltaire, and you, are recognizing that there is never certainty, and only incessant movement, thus seeking is absurd; instead, be watchful of the incessant movement (?)

most probably unaware or unwilling even to consider it as a goal. Nevertheless, our entire society would be improved to an alarming degree if we all could develop the discipline to speak and write that way which would then point to us thinking more properly as well. — Chet Hawkins

Totally! But I'd say, "think," first, speech etc follows suit. But I sense you mean something akin to discipline, like when we insist upon reason or empirical process. I mean "think" first that all knowledge is a thing in constant Flux, and given dozens if not hundreds of factors, my mind will settle every now and again at belief. Who cares what it's called? I need to be endlessly vigilant, watchful of the changes, where I settle, and so on. In that sense, speaking and writing are less disciplined, free to explore the endless changes, unrestrained. But You watchful you, not chained by seeking certainty, not chained by seeking anything, you can settle where you believe, in your thinking, it is justified to settle.

point is that the word 'know' and its many derivatives like 'knowledge' and even the concept of 'certainty' itself all partake of perfection which is an unattainable state, in general. So, it is BETTER by far to avoid speaking and writing that way. It is better to say instead 'aware of' rather than 'know', in all cases. — Chet Hawkins

Oh, yah. Beautiful. I agree. Voltaire and you? If that's what you mean. I see how functional that is for thinking, and why you'd place it third.

Notice the word almost that diffuses the superlative case. That is discipline in writing. — Chet Hawkins

I truly respect that! Does it manifest as poetry? Sorry. Yes. But I respect the point. Sincerely.

You will notice that many responses to me call my confidence into question, rather than being supportive. — Chet Hawkins

I hear you, neighbor. A pathology in the Dialectic. Nothing's perfect.

It cannot beat anger on confidence as that is the purpose of anger (in balance). — Chet Hawkins

I hear you, brother! Anger. Mind. A beautiful thing, how it constructs Anger, as if out of the blue, just by mixing memory and desire.

That is why I demand or argue for such things as changing the word 'conclusion' to the phrase 'non-conclusion'. The former is a lazy and fear driven need for certainty expressed. It DOES, whether THEY admit it or not, imply that we are done, finished. — Chet Hawkins

Totally get you. Why not "settlement" "current point of settlement"? You know, it recognizes, not only what you're after, that the speaker hasn't provided Us with the end, that they, the speaker are "aware" (as per you and Voltaire), that they have not provided an end.

Cast aspersions on others that seem weak. Be seen doing so. Win! But even just the idea that 'Hey, fish or cut bait buddy! Do something (even if it sucks)! — Chet Hawkins

You're not talking to me anymore, are you?

Plainly, if certainty seeking was evolved, now built-in, it is not a failure, but a "necessity".
— ENOAH
No, that is the Pragmatic retreat, order-apology, and it is precisely the immorality of over-expressed fear. The need to be aware is fine until it goes too far, like any virtue. The need for certainty is NOT the same as being as aware as we can be in reasonable time. — Chet Hawkins

Yes. I get how I misunderstood/misplaced previously. And I now understand why you would reply to my comment directly above in that way. I agree! You and V! Certainty seeking is absurd. Of course! And awareness is Monarch.

Thank you

Remember that I consider 'knowing' a moral failure, more akin to certainty seeking, expression an imbalance between anger and fear by definition. — Chet Hawkins

First, and I happen to mean this admiringly, your words awaken already hovering suspicions that this forum is creating a very specific form of complex poetry (especially if you modify the comma placements). I'll stop. And yet...

Secondly, more, hopefully, to point. My current thoughts align with "certainty seeking," but why "moral failure?" Only because you find fear and anger to be the source/position of certainty seeking? If you could surrender that hypothesis, would certainty seeking still be moral failure?

Are you compelled because you find it illogical or unreasonable for Mind to "simply" have evolved such that "knowledge" is seeking "certainty " (and I say they are the "same" mechanism), emerged as a "necessary" "step" in an "autonomous" "mental" process? (the quomarks are necessary to delineate that when vague hypotheses are being worked out in a forum of many "scientists" and "technicians," then, notwithstanding their arguably poetic byproducts, it is best to be honest about the vagueness)


The intuition which we all share, which makes your hypothesis interesting (presumptious on my part) i.e., that it is "weak," for e.g., or "attached/desiring," and, thus fear/anger based (the intuited organic source of these constructed "movements" "dialectics" or "emotions"), to need to seek reassuring, I.e., to be driven to seek certainty, may have led you to construct such a hypothesis.

And, still, there is on a balance of probabilities, a much greater chance I have misunderstood and am misrepresenting your thoughts. If so, I apologize, but autonomously continue.

Plainly, if certainty seeking was evolved, now built-in, it is not a failure, but a "necessity". And from there, I would go on to suggest that "belief" too is an evolved mechanism incorporated into the holy trinity of knowing--seeking, certainty/settlement, belief. That no matter what a person thinks they have done to arrive at the mental state wherein they can claim, "I know," they have passed through that autonomous process and settled at belief. Temporarily! That's the thing! All the fuss about certainty, and most knowing gets modified, if not completely reconstructed by settlement at a "new" belief.

How about an afterlife, pretty much the same as this one, only without the crap, the this and that? Today Nature drives, feels, responds; why should she stop for you tomorrow?

No offence taken, and I did not mean for my response to sound offended.

I really dislike when people sentimentalize meditation. — Mikie

Fair enough, and I accept and respect that "sentiment."
In fact, I'll accept your inference, for what it is worth, that I was intending to describe "meditation."

I have never experienced the silent self. Have you? — Truth Seeker

No. At least not in the way you might be thinking.

I note:

1. The ("experience" of the so called) silent self which can be talked about, is not the silent self.
2. You, I, and every human is ("experiencing") the silent self incessantly (perhaps until death? But I literally cannot "say"). Every breath etc. etc.
3. The silent self is not "achieved" "attained" nor "experienced," it was already always there and needs only to be attuned to.
4. One technique is to attune to your breathing, not as in "I am breathing," "body is breathing," "counting breaths," or the like; not by "switching" from the chattering to the breathing, or from "becoming" the breathing; but rather, by being (breathing).

For instance, my awareness of being self-aware isn't actually mine? :chin:
2h — 180 Proof

Yes, in spite of the emoji designed to ward off yeses. That "awareness" is the illusion too. Not even awareness in the sense we wish it to mean. It is codes generated to trigger Feelings and action. Some of same have evolved to the complexity of Narrative experience.

Now you have to have meant "mine" as in the being you are, not those constructions. I know you did, because we share the same basic constructions, and that you did, lends more credence to our intuition (call it) that there is a being you are before/beyond/outside of the self generated. Well, that Being you are is not ultimately bothered with the awareness of self aware etc. Unknowable to our philosophies, we are only fanning the flames of the illusion (just as, paradoxically/hypocritically I am right now. Its inescapable). That being you are is always presently responding to the coding of the illusion. The latter, I has displaced it is natural aware-ings with illusions. Most of them in Narrative form, requiring a Subject.

What is the true nature of the self?
The self is an illusion generated by the brain. This illusion vanishes when the brain dies.The self is an immortal soul that is resurrected after death of the body.The self is an immortal soul that reincarnates into another body according to karma.The true nature of the self is unknown and unknowable. — Truth Seeker

I'd select 1 and 4.

1. The self with which "I" identify. The Subject, ego, the sum in Descartes, is an illusion.

4. I intuit a silent self, popularized by Vedanta/Buddhism, as the observer, but not necessarily. I'm exploring "the organic being," aware but of Nature, drives, feelings, sensations, movements, without the content generated by the brain happening to have generated the first self. It is unknowable to the first self, and that's the only self asking, and the only self which wants to know. It on the otherhand, is perfectly content with being itself. (Either/both interpretations)

Anyway, for what that was worth.

I'll read your link. Sounds interesting.

the mystic's communion with the divinity is internal. Consider Socrates and his "daimon" for example — Metaphysician Undercover

If that was intended to address Midgley's notion that consciousness is not isolated to each individual, I think you are highlighting her point in your reference to mysticism. The possibility of communion suggests to me, that notwithstanding the "internal" source of the mystical exercise, it's end result is that consciousness can "break free" from isolation and commune with "other" consciousness(es).

if sin is in fact some act (or thought) contrary to the will of God, then it’s impossible for me (and for most people, I’d argue) to KNOWINGLY sin. — Art48

I agree with you that we do not know the will of God, and that we construct it. But if I understand your argument, it is that the will of God has not been in any way revealed to us by said god, ergo, the not KNOWINGLY. So, on the same principle the existence of God has not been in any way revealed to us by said god, ergo, the discussion becomes moot.

Now, I didn't say that to critique the logic of your argument. Rather, to highlight that any knowledge we have about any of it: sin, god, God's will, God's existence, our will, our existence never comes to us from God or any such superior being (and I am neither accepting nor rejecting God's existence). Rather, knowledge always only comes to us after it had once been constructed by someone, and then, torn down, revised and reconstructed a trillion times, until it is reconstructed by one of us and settled upon as believed.

I believe it’s a good idea to try to be an upright, honest, and charitable person. I believe there are things we should generally do and things we should generally avoid. — Art48

And thank "god" you, and probably the vast majority of us do. Right? So if you arrived at that belief or settled at that construction, by poetry, Immanuel Kant, logical reflection, trial and error, a proper upbringing, or the so called Bible, Koran, or Confucian analects, why should we care?

When all knowledge is a settlement or a belief, always at a given locus in History, following an inevitable chain of construction destruction reconstruction, shouldn't we be less confident in the ways in which we privilege some forms of knowledge over others? The ways in which we fight about such privilege? Tease each other concerning our actions based upon such privilege?

I.e., revelation, for theists and the like (the most obviously misplaced by some in the meaningless hierarchy--the one causing you to implicitly accept its claim of a god, while rejecting its claim regarding Her Will);

but, then reason (as if it deserves to trump all others with its denial of being equally constructed, and its pretention of preceding construction, and its claim to uncover or disclose truths which precede construction);

and perception, (as if, like empiricists claim, perception is sensation, direct access to objects, rather than what it really is, sensation promptly displaced by construction);

and so on.

So sure, I agree, you're never knowingly "sinning." But I also agree with what I think was your more genuine position. Call it sin or not, your offending yourself, and the others sharing your greater locus of history, whenever you do anything you believe you ought not have, or whenever you fail to do anything you believe you ought to (at any given locus in History, since what you settle upon will be revised and reconstructed from locus to locus).

He is pure unfiltered consciousness with no hint of mental and physical attributes — Sirius

so much so, without attributes, Nirguna, that "He" is not even a He; not a she nor a they nor an It. Ultimately, as Existence Consciousness-Bliss, Brahman without attributes also has no will,

If l am Brahman, then my will is Brahman's will. But my so called "will" related to what doesn't happen is illusory, like my mind and body. — Sirius

And though the Upanasads have Brahman willing existence for "sport," Lila, that is Saguna Brahman. Brahman for discourse. But ultimately, discourse too is the illusory workings of Maya.

To "understand" Brahman within Maya, all of these discussions may be useful. But to access ultimate reality, Nirguna Brahman, this too is karma, clouding ultimate reality with Fiction. All of it, including this (i.e., my) pretentious depiction.

Only the living Body can access itself, that is, Brahman (as Atman, if one insists) and only by fully assimilating to the fact of the living being, being none other than Brahman, and to the fact of the Fictional nature of Maya, experienced by humans as the mind. To realize ultimate nondual reality, one must exert great pains at un-clouding mind and its experience, or, to use a more recent western term, becoming; and instead, by only being.

It does imply that the consciousness of creatures that don't grow up in that way becomes moot - even if they are sentient. In ethics, that might become problematic. — Ludwig V

You meant to say "doesnt". Of course, it doesn't. I don't think anyone intended bonding was the source of consciousness, only that it was a place Descartes overlooked when he was formulating his isolated "I am."

I do remember you from Epistemology and Ontology. I'm pretty sure I found both language and "Language," to cause barriers there too.

Doesn't it always? Unlike, say, organic bonding.

In a forum like this, pages of space and hours of time might be required for us to truly have mutual understanding--I might post "language is a barrier"; you might return with, oh really? Doesn't it bring us together? And so on and so on and so on.

What I say, you could endlessly critique; then, in turn what you say, if not I, I am certain someone. And so on and so on.

That was Descarte's "problem." (And Aquinas and Augustine and Aurelius and Aristotle all the way back with the exception of a certain Socrates we might be able to extract out of Plato). And we have inherited that problem. That is, that you cannot arrive at certainty with language processing in our minds. You cannot weave straw into gold.

But you can with bonding, for example, and so, ...here we go again

Are you suggesting another framework?
There's an interesting discussion to be had about translation between languages/cultures — Ludwig V

I wasn't. I was recognizing that we are within a framework, within a framework.

However your discussion above is also interesting.

If, on the other hand, I were suggesting another framework, I would respectfully say your discussion above is not what I would consider another framework. Rather, it too, is within this framework. Or, from your position, probably a framework within.

Anyway, the other framework I'm suggesting, is, in a manner of speaking, a framework without. That is, not in the way so called truth "works" itself out in language, which, afterall is a construction, perhaps the meta framework, but still, not the framework "without." The latter being before/beyond/outside of Language, which I would now identify as the constructed world, the world within a framework of becoming, to a world of organic presence, a world of (human) being. That's why the bonding Midgley referenced is uniquely significant--family, mates, offspring--that's where you find consciousness, and you find that we are one. Thats where Descartes neglected to look.

so truth within a restricted framework is not really truth?
Briefly -
For my money, "the sky is blue" is true because of the system of colours, — Ludwig V

Well said...within this framework.

I think Midgley makes a profound point. Below, from that "article" you referenced, I pasted a snippet. She may have been compelled by her locus in History, to cloak it in a domestic gown, but she was presenting a meaningful hypothesis.

"I am quite sure of is that for anybody living intimately with them as a genuine member of a family...their consciousness would be every bit as certain as his own...Philosophers have generally talked for instance as though it were obvious that one consciousness went to one body, as though each person were a closed system...I wonder whether they would have said the same if they had been frequently pregnant and suckling... if in a word they had got used to the idea that their bodies were by no means exclusively their own?" --M. Midgley

Her point, I take it, to be that we do not [contra Descartes] have to infer the existence of the same consciousness in others. She was beyond Descartes, the subject, "I", and phenomenal perception. She locates her proof in the organic being, human being, the animal; in its organic bonding with kin. There you don't have to meditate, reflect, analyze to know other is real, you are the other. And the "problem" with post Cartesian explorations of what can we know, is it limited itself to what can we know via an exercise of Language? As if that had a monopoly on truth. Why not bonding as a source for the truth that we are not utterly isolated in our consciousness? Or is philosophy not about truth, but about it within a restricted framework?

makes the point clearest, to leave the misalignment be. — Fire Ologist

Always!

I think I have a clearer lens on what you've been saying. I think if you develop your "middle" more (and who am I to say you haven't. Perhaps the Forum can only afford meager glimpses), I now understand that it is more akin to what Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre, inter alia, were constructing with their (simplified collectively as:) what is/how to exist authentically. Your middle is constructing something more like that.

Of course, that must "take place" in becoming (and yes, acknowledged, in this context, becoming to being and so on). You are talking about the middle as a "tool," the optimal place from which to "navigate" the, ideally, (or, inevitably) transformative movement from being to becoming to being.

...?

That's why my fixation on "being" had no place. (Although, you made room for it, carved out a place, more than once,

The becoming of the movement is a quantitative change, and the persistent being of the frisbee is a qualitative enduring as the same thing. — Joshs

the most recent courtesy.)


But from the beginning, you were getting at,

All, for human beings, is in the middle. — Fire Ologist

And

And as these fleeting attempted selves are becoming, we move other things, making changes back at the world of moving things (like me writing this and sending it aloft, redefining me as a mover of ideas like you who receives them). — Fire Ologist

And

There is no “this” meaning “this only”. There is always “this and that”, never this only. Every “this” brings with it it’s distinction from “that”, it’s position on the horizon, as it hangs there, flying, being, becoming. — Fire Ologist

,

you were saying in this human all too human world of becoming, of this and that, of endless transformation, the middle is the "place" where you can get the best view (to 1. Oversimplify, 2. Presume, 3. Try to encapsulate).

Anyway, here's my personal challenge as an eager disciple of wisdom: If I've understood you, I like it. If I haven't, humbly, I like it anyway.

So while I hope I have finally understood your intent, I cannot help but feel gratified either way. I look forward to reading more.

To hold something still in a nanosecond, there “is holding”, so there is still becoming in that nanosecond. We have to chop and measure a nanosecond, so instead, I see chopping and measuring. — Fire Ologist

I think we're in agreement, and I am stubbornly clinging--like George Costanza clinging to nothing--to my insistence on the "never the twain shall meet." Obviously if we are inevitably always becoming, that nanosecond can only "happen" as a "movement" to being, which as you say, from becoming, cannot be but a simultaneous negation (albeit brief) of becoming. And the middle is that "pause" (?) which (likely) alone* affords such negation (since becoming is otherwise an unstoppable train). *Because death, though it stops becoming, we must presume, at least in this context, also stops being. So yes, the middle. I think I see your point and you're right, the middle is not, as I was insisting, being.

In the middle is the “ing” personified as an object and therefore distorted into a “what”, a single what it is. — Fire Ologist

Yes, because we cannot but becoming, while the x-ing for be-ing is in the is-ing [of it (without subject/object)], for so called "us" in human existence, with the unavoidable subject/object, it can only be attuned to, as the "ing" and not as the subject, in the middle of becoming.

Feel free, if I'm still way off. I do feel like I'm narrowing closer to your narrative.

Being in the middle, draws out simply becoming. — Fire Ologist

For me, being/becoming: never the twain shall meet. (Except by illusion in becoming).

If “I am” links this becoming to the “I” and this is illusory, I say that I’ve tempered the illusion of identity by saying nothing of “I” and positing only “being in the middle is”. I’ve replaced the “I” with anything being in the middle, so nothing in particular, or everything — Fire Ologist

I kind of see what you mean...but, I ask, was "tempering" the illusion, not just a "trick," like all of this is? Like all of my thoughts and expressions in the fleeting of becoming. And, therefore, are we not truly in the unbridgeable "gap" between being and becoming, when we are truly in that nanosecond worth of being in the middle?

you say “inaccessible”, I would say this implies one here “accessing” (or failing to access), another one there. — Fire Ologist

Yes. I say becoming necessarily failing to access being; the latter, only accessible to/by be-ing.


So ultimately, I misunderstood. I now think "middle" in your query, intends a time/place within becoming.

If that is the case, where is its "magic" (referring to that which you so eloquently described in your original post)?

How do you define 'true' (and NOT 'truth')? — Bob Ross

The example below, from another post, helps to illustrate how seamlessly "true" couples with other concepts. Not so with "be".

"When someone says "I know that the distance to my local grocery store is 10 miles", they do not mean that they are absolutely certain nor that it is absolutely true that <...>; rather, they mean that they are (1) have a belief that , (2) are justified in, (3) and have high enough credence levels to claim that it is true that <...>."

Look, I realize that was possibly cheeky. The problem is, we have entered a region of the cave, immediately adjacent to the opening, where it is all too obvious we are just playing with shadows.

Yes, I see how "gap" is problematic.

But the definitions of the complex concepts are not themselves circular: they don't refer to themselves in their definitions. — Bob Ross

Right because only being is outside of the game. Every other concept, including, in my humble opinion, value, true, and false, has references in other signifiers, allowing for levels of analysis. These are the things we think we know. All of them nothing but webs of signifiers. Open to discourse because they are discourse.

Being cannot be defined by signifiers. It cannot be discussed. It can only be "known" by being.

this does not afford any real analysis into what ‘to be’ really is itself but, rather, is just a reiteration, in different words, of the same meaning. — Bob Ross

I'm not sure what other examples you have in mind, but isn't "being/to be," (and I wouldn't say existence too) special?

Without giving a complex analysis--because I can't; I'm just stepping lightly on an intuition--all other concepts, are signifiers, representations which can be traced to other signifiers, either backward to eventually a long lost source in reality, or forward to other ways of signifying the same (really, similar) thing(s). But being is what is, it cannot be represented, but remains necessarily present.

And so to know any other concept or representation is exactly a playing with signifiers. But to "know" be-ing--not even just human being--but what it is to be (a thing,) requires being (it)

Or am I missing your point entirely?

at home, here in the present, here in the middle, somewhere above the ground, like a frisbee — Fire Ologist

While generally I'm OK with interpreting a text outside of authorial intent, in this case it would be folly to ignore the opportunity.

Here's what I read. Am I overreaching?

The middle is not a place on the course (of becoming), but the gap, actually inaccessible to us, but it's where being resides, in the present.

If we never dip our toes in the same always moving river twice, there's no [at least, discernable] middle.

If we dip our toes in a river that is whole, with no beginning or end, then the significance of the movement (becoming), and a middle, is an illusion.

Are there other options? Either way, the middle is inaccessible to us trapped in becoming.

It is accessible "somewhere else" "above the ground like a frisbee." Is that not in the presence of being?

but the OP asks if knowledge is merely belief. Apparently, it's implying that the difference between knowing and believing is empirical verification or rational justification. And so, we argue about shades of truth. :smile: — Gnomon

Very true. I did take liberty in my read. And you are correct. Thank you

Once saying is, things are said. Once things are said, dichotomy blossoms. — Fire Ologist

Ok yes. That might be a subtlty I'm missing. That's where I'm going to direct my thinking!

I'll tell you, from this discussion, I can say you are intellectually very open and giving, a great quality in a forum like this. It's not universal!

You have to get an “ing” word in there, breathing life into the more stagnant sounding “direct awareness”. — Fire Ologist

Uncanny similarities and yet some differences. I always call my version, aware-ing. Which compliments my last point about the arm reaching. I think truth is in the present is-ing/do-ing.

It is likely I an too heretical. Maybe I have over romanticized the romanticizations of N et al. I'll have to think more.

Kant, he saw that knowledge was cut off from the objects it sought to know — Fire Ologist

Yes, arguably necessary for there to have been a Nietzsche, or at least, the N. being discussed.

first illusion, where our man-made conventions called “knowing” (which knows nothing of the thing in itself) is now called truth - an illusion built on a forgotten illusion, all because people like Aristotle — Fire Ologist

he admitted the “truth” was less valuable then the knowledge of it as illusion. — Fire Ologist

when we forget this first, we start to use words like “truth” where I think you put the capital T. — Fire Ologist

Nice

There is no dichotomy in reality? I disagree. I am the dichotomy in reality. When you say one thing, it immediately holds everything else in the balance, — Fire Ologist

This one, I stubbornly grapple with. I cannot let go of my admittedly radical view that "when you say," period, you are already in that which displaces reality, what we've loosely desginated as N. illusion. In reality, not only no dichotomy, but no say.

The act of throwing all truth away has truth in it! I — Fire Ologist

Yes, when you put it that way. I need to at least temporarily release my puritanical hold on Realty is only being (?)

But there was this,

But with the becoming, things come to be in the becoming. — Fire Ologist

And, I think that's our folly, or even fall. Maybe N. didn't go this far, and I accept that. But then, I would humbly assert he stopped short. I assure you I am not religious in any conventional sense, but I wonder if humans did "fall from grace," the grace of nature when we also "forgot" that nature "creates" being, and our becoming never arrives at being, but only at more becoming in its vacuous construction of vacuous time.

And yet,

Or else we wouldn’t know what we can’t know. — Fire Ologist

where I've settled is ultimately absurd, trapped by a paradox of its own creation.

...or is the absurdity just more support?

Are we all just reaching into a dark cave and by some crazy coincidence, one of us winds up holding truth? I don't think so. I rather think none of us are. I think the truth is in the arm reaching. I don't mean, as per Lessing, glorifying the pursuit. That's just philosophy justifying verbal masturbation. I mean the actual organism acting. That's the real truth, the one N. illusions have displaced, or caused itself to have forgotten.

the question of why people might rationally conclude that consciousness depends on more than physical (beyond just "wanting" that outcome) is the topic of the so-called "Meta-problem of Consciousness" — Malcolm Lett

It seems no more necessary than the "first level" I.e. the hard problem itself. It's a fundamental misunderstanding or misguided approach to Consciousness to begin with, viewing it as the primary of human existence. Probably rooted in those quasi psychological reasons you suggested. Even in broader philosophy the objects of the fears of loss are imagined 1) from a misunderstanding of the workings of the human mind, and 2) also, as "defense mechanisms" to shield us from the primary fear of loss, the loss of self.

But then that begs the meta meta question, why does consciousness cling to the self and all of those hypotheses which follows? Answering it might lead to another meta, and so on.

I think that strong identification with self, a mental model, is built (evolved) into the structure/function, because it promoted the efficient and prosperous system that said consciousness is today, and still evolving.

I might diverge from you (I cannot tell), in
"characterizing" or "imagining for the purpose of discussion" that evolution as taking place exclusively in/by the brain, notwithstanding our mutual rejection of dualism. But that's for another discussion.