You're right. I did fail to explain my thoughts properly. That was justifiably upsetting. Not to mention its a frustrating hypothesis to have to consider. Sorry.

In the end, it would be "funny" if, after all of this, the truth were the thing that cannot be spoken.

I don't know the first thing about early humans or the birth and evolution of language. I'm just throwing ideas out there. — Patterner

Warning. Either do I. And as for throwing things out there. That's all I do. Sometimes I get things in return. Thank you

don't you think every human without language associated the moon with things? One might look at the moon and think of a wolf that attacked one night. — Patterner

Yes. And I wnt get into a prolonged explanation but you're describing the real and organic roots of the so called illusion. Before Language the thinking you're describing would have to be like, eyes see moon, stored image of wolf autonomously surfaces in memory. It's organic function, to trigger a response, hide at night.

For humans this process of images autonomously arising to the surface triggering Body to respond evolved to a complexity with difference, grammar, the Subject vs the object, eventually the incessant surfacing of the Subject I to serve the Narrative form triggering autonomous feelings ultimately leading to the identity of that picture "I" with the always real organic being. The body. A complex dynamic of autonomously surfacing images we take to be real, illusion.

You said both that “ideas exist” and that they have a “functional effect” but then you say they are “empty”. Makes no sense to me. You have used “empty structures” to signify something of “ideas” and this has brought the effect in me the question, why the hell are you saying that, especially when this is just your idea. — Fire Ologist

You are right to be frustrated here. I need to be more careful with my language. I have already addressed the "paradox" of my speaking of truth, or even speaking at all. As to the use of"structures" and "empty" recklessly, I will rethink and I have no doubt that it will come up again.

Ok, so no distinction whatsoever between Abe Lincoln and Mary Poppins and “me” and “you.”
I’ll go with it for now. — Fire Ologist

Again, mega-distinctions within the Narratives of history. But just as you might like at two unfamiliar dogs quickly and note no distinctions, ultimately no distinctions which we can speak of.

My response is simply a question, where did you come up with the distinction between “for all I know” and “real constituent of reality”? — Fire Ologist

It rolled off the tongue because of countless prior combinations of related structures of these empty codes and their mechanics or dynamics having arrived at that manifestation as fit for the surface.

Your point happens to be that there may not be distinctions. But you distinguished whatever the hell people do for “an actual” and “reality”. Oh, and you said “constituent.” A constituent implies multiple parts, multiple distinct parts. — Fire Ologist

The dysfunction--futility--of the hypothesis being explored here is that in so hypothesizing and so exploring, it is already "part of the 'illusion'" All of your critiques directly above are perfectly reasonable and legitimate--if I was purporting to be "being" while speaking. But while speaking, I have already ignored being and displaced it with becoming.

The whole Truth is you cannot escape tge "illusion" in becoming, each effort is the illusion. You can only do so by ignoring becoming and attuning to being; that is, your organic aware-ing and not your ego-self. But this applies to everyone of us, even the most reasonable or profound utterance is made using fiction, and ultimately is
Fiction.

You are contradicting your point by speaking about it. — Fire Ologist

See above. Yes but if what you say is only true because "my" point is true then that contradiction is the closest to the truth that our constructions can take us. All others efforts at truth are even further movements away from the truth (I fully accept you may not get what I mean from tgat previous koan-sounding convulsion. Sorry. Not your fault. Mine.)

Why would you assert that. You can distinguish shit from food. You need to. That is because there are real distinctions. But you can distinguish shit from food with ideas just as well. — Fire Ologist

Yes to the first part, the "you need to". That's why I asserted that. The distinctions "apparent" in nature are only apparent as such. Maybe science can bring us closer to how I naturally avoid eating shit, and other apparent "differences."

And double yes to part two, distinguish with ideas. I'm saying that part is--going far deeper and way back--a constructed evolved process of dancing code.

“Self” isn’t the same fiction as “shit” or “dragon” - distinction is real regardless of minds. — Fire Ologist

Ok, look. Yes maybe dragon shit and self are distinct in reality. What I'm saying is, 1. We don't "know" Reality because "know" is also constructed. (Just read a long thread on is knowing belief etc.). 2. The way they are distinct for us is not necessarily how they really are, if they are. So the way they are distinct for us is an "illusion"

ENOAH

Analogies are great. But — Fire Ologist

Acknowledged

but honestly, I am not giving any status to ideas whatsoever. Chimps make poop. Birds make eggs. — Fire Ologist

Fair point! You're asking why aren't ideas natural byproducts of the organism, for e.g.? Why give ideas special status?

Your points are excellent. If I wasn't tiring, naturally impatient and lazy; if I wasn't already ashamed (not self deprecating, justifiably) for occupying too much of your time and space in this thread. . . I'll say, recognizing fully it merits more explanation, the "Signifiers" or code are empty. They aren't organic secretions even (yes secretions may be involved). They are representations, vague and fleeting "pictures" stored in memory (yes those are real) functioning in such a way tgat experiences are written out of them. Those are illusions. Sorry. Tired.

It is there in the flesh of the words being themselves now constructed by our bodies for physical travel and in we who use those words to affect the physical world — Fire Ologist

Ok, and I'm not being flippant, then David Copperfield is there. Anyone who enjoys reading Dickens can relay how Copperfield has affected them. But I say, Copperfield exists, has a functional effect on nature, but it is an illusion, a re-presentation at best. But not present. Not there. And same for the self and all of human Mind and History.

Are you saying there are no real distinctions? There were no real distinctions before we humans invented “difference”? — Fire Ologist

I am saying, first and foremost, I don't know. No one knows. For all I know something related to "difference" is an actual and real constituent of Nature and Reality. I'm also not saying I know what Nature/Reality is. No one does. Why? Note the word "know". Like difference, it too is an evolved mechanism of Mind.

I'm saying, I currently believe prehistoric humans and other intelligent animals use drives, memory, conditioning, etc. to "distinguish" shit from food. But "difference," the necessity of a this and that, a not this but that, a this and a not this; these are functional within the churning out of experience in Narrative form. The Fiction Mind writes. Like too is the Subject, I, the Self. "Illusion".

It is a qualified monism. The Body (all of Nature, geological, biological, astronomical) is real. Mind exists, functions and effects. But it is not Real. Hence qualified. If it must be labeled.

So if there are real distinctions, why assume our constructed ideas drawing out such distinctions are ONLY illusion? — Fire Ologist

I understand your struggle. And I feel badly. I may very well be completely wrong. In fact, by these very hypotheses I'm playing with, I am wrong. But to answer you. The distinctions you draw, the meaning they construct, the very requirement for meaning, for distinctions, is the Great Fiction within which you (we) are struggling. So, of course you wonder how the hell difference is not Real.

Does it help to reiterate, within the "illusion" (I don't like that word--trying sheepishly to stay true to the OP), difference is "real," it is "perceivable" it is functional as neither language nor mind would have evolved tge way they did had mechanisms of "grammar" like difference not evolved.

I don’t place priority on where something came from. — Fire Ologist

Fair. And I am not meaning to "deride" mind/self because they are not Real. But they are not. Forgive the analogy, but the tree which made the paper is real. The paper is an artifact. The reality of the tree still exists in the paper, and it's not going anywhere. But the "paper" idea is special to our Fictional world. Now all the more so for the plot of the novel written on the paper.

The human is real and every species sees us for what we are, the tree, in the book analogy. No creature, not even a dog or chimp, thinks Fire is a well dressed man. Just sees an organism.

Now you'll say, we naturally developed the tools to go further than a Chimp. And I say yes, and those tools and everything they construct is a Fictional

The “apple” or “self” in my mind, I call an idea.
You call these illusion. But some thing exists here, so I don’t see the need to call it illusion. — Fire Ologist

The apple is real and it exists. The human construction "apple" and every form of that construction which instantly bubbles up to the surface when you speak that word--fruit, edible, red, green, apple a day, America, Steve Jobs--Exit, but they are empty nothings, passersby; only their effect upon you as an organism, places you under the illusion that for F's sake, they must be real.

Could this be because you think ideas must refer to a real thing in the world or else these ideas are mere illusions — Fire Ologist

No

The Self, is becoming, The Body is being.
— ENOAH

This seems to be the heart (the essence?) — Fire Ologist

Yes

I still think we are standing next to each other looking at the same thing, but I would say the opposite about it. — Fire Ologist

I sense the same. I sense that in a loose interpretation we agree that we are perceiving "the world" uniquely as humans. But whereas you respect how becoming is that special way Being comes to be for humans--therefore it is part and parcel of one reality; I am insisting on relegating becoming to emptiness, and designating being alone as the domain of truth. ... (?)

And yet, in spite of our differences, I feel a comraderie of interest.

So you should be arguing not that ideas exist as illusions, but that ideas don’t exist at all. — Fire Ologist

Hmm. Interesting. If this is a point of logic, or a necessity in word meaning, I would immediately defer to you. However, let me reiterate that for me, ideas exist, evident inter alia in their functional effect, but they are fleeting empty structures of signifiers. Not Real "in and of themselves(?)"

Our dreams — Patterner

Sorry, forgot "dreams." That seems trickier on the surface because dreams are already illusions. Yes you are correct that they exist, take place, have effect, but even convention readily accepts, "that wasn't real; just a dream." But that's not addressing your query. But dreams can be treated in the same way as the moon. Whatever dreams were before we emerged Mind, that's what they really are. Like the moon, they are still what they have always been, whatever that us, but we cannot be perceive them through our constructions. Hence the illusion.

Finally, back to the self. The prehistoric human animal was what it was individually, I can suggest a bonding, mating, animal with sophisticated image-ing, memory, etc. and aware-ing those always. But the self we idolize, with a history, in Narrative form, goals, interests, intentions, and a free and selfish will tobcarry those out, is functional as hell, but is a construction. An "illusion," as such.

Not sure how you mean this. The moon exists outside of our heads. But our experience of it is a construction of it inside of our heads.

If that's what you mean, then I don't see how the same can be said about dreams. Our dreams may contain reconstructions of images of things we saw when we were awake. Even things we never saw may be conglomerates of things we did see. And we may construct things based on things we hear in the waking world as we are sleeping. But the dream is not displaced. It is unique (recurring dreams aside), and some people and places are, afaicat, also unique. In what way is it displaced? — Patterner

Think of a human animal on a hypothetical date before language took off (sorry, I won't be specific about those details. Bear with me, if my attempt falls apart for lack of details so be it). And since Language had yet to evolve to a certain point, so too Mind--that uniquely human "form" which consciousness took--had yet to develop.

When that hypothetical human animal looks at the moon, they see it with their organic senses untainted. The real moon exists, and they see that. Whatever it is. And moreover Whatever it is is irrelevant because there is no Language with which to construct what it is. So it remains the moon, Whatever it is.

Once Mind and its constructions evolved/emerged, for Humans you cannot look with your sense of vision and see what it is. Whatever it is. Instead you look at the moon and see what that Signifier triggers as signified. For e.g. you see astronauts, gravity, tides, werewolves, cheese, etc. Not specifically, but I am hoping I've painted the picture.

For one animal looking at the moon, they cannot see the moon as it really is--Whatever that is--they see the Signifiers which have displaced the moon. That is the "illusion." It's not that our life, our actions, drives, feelings, and tge world around is which we are fully equipped for sensing, is not real; rather, our experiences of those things are constructed displacements to which we are (almost) ineluctably attuned/attached.

Okay, so then what is "consciousness"?
— 180 Proof The capacity to feel. — bert1

Yes! And to sense, image-make, and act; And the always present [aware-ing of said feeling, image-ing and acting.

I’m saying you don’t get the moon in the first place for you to construct “moon” without essence becoming. — Fire Ologist

Dreams are real experiences. — Patterner

Yes there is a Real moon and Dreams are real experiences. But both are, for Humans, displaced by our construction (about?) of them.

Watching a movie is real. Believing the movie is real is the illusion.

Anyway, clearly there are items in my thinking about the self being an illusion which need to be worked out. And who knows, I may come out on the other side much closer to where you are.

This is a deep corner of the cave where only the slightest hint of light is all you need to make a point. — Fire Ologist

In fact, the less the better; just enough so as to not form shadow paintings.

I see both becoming and things becoming the same and only find illusion where one or the other is missing or overly reified. — Fire Ologist

I've come to know that about you, my fiery friend. And I can respect that.

We always need both to speak at all. Speaking is real, so no the becoming and essence is real. — Fire Ologist

I say speaking is construction, becoming. It travels lightly through Time and vanishes instantly. Where is it "there"? When is it ever being?
... But I recognize you place reality in becoming too, so, for you it's not so significant that speech is fleeting, since that too, somehow*, is Real. *meant with sincere uncertainty, not rhetorical sarcasm

If all essence was not real, how is it we never say even “becoming” without fixing a distinct essence that makes becoming different from “not real being”? We need a distinction to hold in order to reflect the becoming of it — Fire Ologist

Because--and I sincerely hope this isn't depressing--difference, distinction, and your admirable desperation to square things off against it, are also (to stick to the Language of the OP and pay, at least a token apologetic homage) "illusions" based only in the evolved mechanism "difference", necessary for speech to flourish, a this and a that. The Self illusion is a branch of that in the evolution of Mind: a Me and a You.

Anyway, note that all that I say and write too, is Fiction: constructed out of the tools containing the this and that mechanism. It's ineluctable because the world in which our--and all--discourse takes place is Fiction. Dialectic, like the self, is a branch off of the this and that evolution. It is not Real and natural, but every movement of Human Mind from history to my decision to respond, and my response, is a dialectical movement of made up words and images. So called choice and so called knowledge are just temporary settlements in that autonomous dialectic.

Ah but I speak too much.

See this is why I think we are in the exact same place looking in the exact same direction. You say “emptiness” and balance “suffering” against “joy”.
And you say “It exists alright.” I would say these things about becoming. — Fire Ologist

Wait. Buddy. I am saying it about becoming. I'm saying these functions exist and affect even reality via the Body, but they are sourced in fleeting chains of nothingness, never there, never ever being, always becoming, not Real.

This is a broader view - not just “self” but all mental fabrications. — Fire Ologist

Completely.

The idea part is where the essence is found. But the idea now exists just like wherever it came from exists. — Fire Ologist

Ok. This is exactly where we diverge. I'm not saying either of us is right. We are both necessarily wrong (ironically, if I'm right, haha). But I say you just believe the idea came from somewhere. That exactly is the illusion. It came from your mind! Yes the idea exists. But it is not Real. It was a fleeting manifestation of a construction out of Signifiers, pointers at the moon, not the moon.

dwelling place”. This is an idea. Like the burrow, and the flower, “dwelling place” is just what the man produces, and once produced it exists and is as real as the burrow, or the house or the flower. — Fire Ologist

Yes what the moon produced, even the materials, are all real. But neither the tulip nor the squirrel take that leap which places them upon a new layer with an unbridgeable gap from what they produced and the material they produced it with. None of them calls it a dwelling place and believes that that name is real, that the Signifier is the phenomenon or the experience. See? That's how subtle is the illusion. Not saying these aren't real. But human mind and its system of filtration, displaces their reality with name calling.

We can’t see becoming unless we simultaneously see essences, or beings, that come to be, that become. — Fire Ologist

That statement directly above, and your excellent four apples example: again, that the essence precedes the becoming is the "illusion." Mind is one, permeable between embodiments. That's how History moves and that's how local histories move. The following is oversimplified.

At some point in your minds development, Apple, 4, store, go, son, buy, me, etc. we're input, and over time processed, reprocessed, used to construct, reconstruct, and so on, thousands of times. So too for your son. This reminds me of Platos dialogue (Meno?) where Socrates marvels tgat an illiterate slave can draw a triangle. Of course he can, it was input into the Slaves mind in thousands of ways other than a geometry lesson. So when you crave apples, that real feeling, triggers to the surface, the construction--through a speedy and often imperceptible dialectic of battling code--out of sognifiers, son go get me 4 apples from tge store. You think you have manifested in words the essence, a marvelous idea. But the manifestation is the essence, both empty constructions which evolved to function. Now because your son shares Mind with you, and thr code had tge same effect on him, your body, the Real you, gets to eat apples. But Mind wrote a whole experience out of that. Displacing human organism pleasure food with hey son how about you go... That's the illusion.

You have to keep positing worlds to draw any distinctions between illusory worlds and real worlds. — Fire Ologist

You are absolutely right. For discourse to work, and why else do we do this but that we are built that way--it's not because we are pursuing truth; for gods sake, we don't have to pursue truth, we are truth, in our being--so yes, for discourse to work, I have and am constructing so much shit.

At the end of the day every philosophy, like every thing, will be judged on its function within the very specific locus in which it manifests. Because there is no way to judge upon truth, there is no truth in becoming; only in Being. The Self, is becoming, The Body is being.

still sense something real that I call a “squirrel; none of this makes those ideas and impressions not exist, not real, not something in-itself too. — Fire Ologist

That which you call a squirrel is real, so are you and your senses. But yes, while those ideas,(that it is a squirrel, that it is "real", that you sense it,) exist, they are not Real, not thing in itself; they are outside Fictions superimposed as if from above upon the thing in itself. They are representations placed, like labels atop of Reality, and we no longer see tge essence, we see only the label. That too is the self, a label, fictional, like Enoah, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Nice!

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.