I meant both sincerely. Thanks for the interesting take. Sorry if I was frustratingly unclear. But for me, all good. How could I really know? So obviously I've grown a little from this. I'm ready to move on.

I don't think I've left you hanging, right? — ENOAH

Oh, it was just unclear. I normally just care about philosophy that helps me live well mostly, call it pragmatism. Stuff like "how do we know anything" is noise to me.

just care about philosophy that helps me live well mostly, call it pragmatism. Stuff like "how do we know anything" is noise to me. — Darkneos

If you understand that "what is irony" is a construction, as is everything which flows out of it, constructions of meaning; and that, the real "you" lies somewhere outside of that cave of shadows, in the feelings, sensations and drives of the body; while you will never escape pleasure and pain, you might escape attachment and suffering.

I don't like using up space with long unsolicited explanations, and the statement just made requires long explanations, so I guess I'm unclear. On the upside, I hope my unclear statements might trigger pursuit by others into tunnels they may not have considered, and I learn a lot about tunnels from their responses.

If you understand that "what is irony" is a construction, as is everything which flows out of it, constructions of meaning; and that, the real "you" lies somewhere outside of that cave of shadows, in the feelings, sensations and drives of the body; while you will never escape pleasure and pain, you might escape attachment and suffering. — ENOAH

Not really, again for reasons I said. There is nothing that flows out of it, it’s just one part. The feelings and sensations and drives of you (because you are the body) are also the result of meaning making. I’m also figuring you don’t understand attachment and suffering based on that remark. Pleasure and pain aren’t something to escape and neither is attachment or suffering.

I don't like using up space with long unsolicited explanations, and the statement just made requires long explanations, so I guess I'm unclear. On the upside, I hope my unclear statements might trigger pursuit by others into tunnels they may not have considered, and I learn a lot about tunnels from their responses. — ENOAH

What you said so far wasn’t true so there isn’t anything to learn from it. It’s just ignorance of how things work.

From what learned the real you lies in both, not outside or inside either one. The trap is thinking there is something to escape or transcend. Meaning making is who humans are, there is no getting outside of it.

It doesn’t matter how long your explanation is if the fundamental understanding is wrong.

Like...what you don't understand is that "construction" and the meaning we make is the real you as well as the feelings, sensations, and drives of the body. There is no real distinction between the two, there is no cave of shadows. Making meaning is as much a part of being human as everything else, and everything else also flows from that meaning making.

Even your description of a "real you" is meaning making. You seem to take constructed as "not real" and that's simply false, even Buddhism acknowledges that.