For pure consciousness is said to remain, even in the absence of the "I" and its objects — J

What would this consciousness be conscious of, if not the "I" or object of thought?

Later in the same essay, Ricoeur puts it even more clearly:

The cogito is at once the indubitable certainty that I am and an open question as to what I am. — 244 — J

The more mysticalish parts of me then associates this very issue with the well known dictum from the Oracle at Delphi: "know thyself". Or at least endeavor to best understand? :grin:

without the meditater's active awareness of this transient ego-death . . . the person would have no way of experiencing, much less recalling, the occurrence — javra

Yeah, that's the challenge. We'd really need a different way of talking about how experience and memory work at the "below-ego" level.

I believe it's this non-dualistic ego of active awareness that remains at such junctures of transient ego-death which then gets addressed as "pure consciousness". Without it, one might just as well be entering and then emerging from out of a state of coma. — javra

And this is also spot on. Even assuming the meditator could recall "leaving" and "returning" to the "I", why is it bliss instead of coma? I have a whole hobby-horse I could get on about how little we understand about what consciousness really is, but I'll stay off it. Suffice it to say that deep meditation experiences may turn out to be crucial for a better theory.

What would this consciousness be conscious of, if not the "I" or object of thought? — RussellA

Yes, exactly. What's left? Would you reject out of hand the possibility that "God-realization" is a term, however fuzzy and encrusted with doctrines, that tries to answer this question?

Heck yeah. What else is self-reflection but self-knowledge?

What would this consciousness be conscious of, if not the "I" or object of thought? — RussellA

The "I" here ceases to be entwined with thought, emotion, or perception - but instead is said to become, or else transcend into, pure awareness devoid of any duality. Here accepting that one is not any thought one thinks of - these thoughts and emotions and possible percepts instead being likened to ripples on a pond which should be fully calmed till no disturbance of awareness occurs. This, at least, as I've heard the experience of such meditation described.

Heck yeah. What else is self-reflection but self-knowledge? — J

:grin: :up:

Would you reject out of hand the possibility that "God-realization" is a term, however fuzzy and encrusted with doctrines, that tries to answer this question? — J

The "I" here ceases to be entwined with thought, emotion, or perception - but instead is said to become, or else transcend into, pure awareness devoid of any duality. — javra

Pure consciousness. I'll have to mediate on that.

Why are our thoughts different from our senses in that the content of thoughts cannot be doubted? — Kranky

The way they are different is not essentially about comparable states of doubt. Doubt is the product of thought. The activity of thinking is different from the activity of perception. There is no second doubter who needs to be satisfied if the first one is okay.

A distinction is needed between the problems of input and those of thinking as what is happening. Aristotle noted that the two modes cannot be reduced into one because they are active and/or passive in different ways. It is obvious that the two modes must have something to do with each other. Aristotle pretty much left it there.

There is no second doubter who needs to be satisfied if the first one is okay — Paine

Bang on. The content of your thoughts is brute. Whether its veridical, we can discuss.

The content of your thoughts is brute. Whether it's veridical, we can discuss. — AmadeusD

Yes, and this pertains as well to the "content of you" -- of the "I" who is doing the thinking. As Ricoeur notes, above, the experience of the "I" is brute, while its nature is open to a great deal of interpretation and discussion.

Yes. I think of the cogito as what I can never get away from. Gangster stuff.

It's interesting that serious meditation practice, especially in Hinduism and Buddhism, makes this point vivid. My understanding is that an experienced meditator would agree that there is indeed no "I" remaining -- but this does not show that consciousness requires an object. For pure consciousness is said to remain, even in the absence of the "I" and its objects. Of course we're free to raise an eyebrow at that, but there's a lot of testimony to the validity of this experience. — J

There's an interesting character, rather obscure, called Franklin Merrell Wolff. He was a Harvard and Yale-educated maths prodigy who underwent a profound realisation, along the lines of Advaita Vedanta, and thereafter wrote on esoteric philosophy.

In his book Pathways Through to Space, Wolff describes having a profound spiritual realization in 1936, which provided the basis for his transcendental philosophy. It was induced "in a context of sustained reflective observation and deep thought," rather than by the usual practice of meditation. He called this experience the "Fundamental Realization". In its aftermath, Wolff found himself being in a state of euphoric consciousness he called the "Current of Ambrosia", which he described as being "above time, space and causality". It also led Wolff to a state of "High Indifference", or consciousness without an object. At the center of these experiences was the realization of "Primordial consciousness", which, according to Wolff, is beyond and prior to the subject or the object and is unaffected by their presence or absence. — Wikipedia

Something similar can be found in the early Buddhist texts (and notwithstanding the doctrinal differences between Vedanta and Buddhism.) The meditator is said to ascend through the various 'stages of jhana' which include 'states of neither perception nor non-perception. Of course, such states of pure consciousness are exceedingly difficult to realise in practice, but in Eastern lore, they are amply documented. The difficulty being, from a philosophical perspective, that they're all well outside the bounds of discursive reason.

There's an interesting character, rather obscure, called Franklin Merrell Wolff. — Wayfarer

I'll have to check him out, thanks.

Of course, such states of pure consciousness are exceedingly difficult to realise in practice, but in Eastern lore, they are amply documented. The difficulty being, from a philosophical perspective, that they're all well outside the bounds of discursive reason. — Wayfarer

I started to write "Yes" but then I asked myself, "Well, why exactly?" What's so exceptional about such a claim that puts it outside anything we can reason about? Is the experience itself seen as so esoteric as to defy description, and perhaps credulity? This may be a Western bias.

I started to write "Yes" but then I asked myself, "Well, why exactly?" What's so exceptional about such a claim that puts it outside anything we can reason about? Is the experience itself seen as so esoteric as to defy description, and perhaps credulity? This may be a Western bias. — J

We can barely have a reasonable discussions about the kind of consciousness we all live with every day. How much more difficult to discuss kinds of consciousness we have only heard about from the writings of a tiny percentage of people, who claim it cannot be described?

Maybe it's our thoughts which cloud our senses with ideas, making them susceptible to doubt. And as for the contents of our thoughts, they're made up of signifying images, operating as a system with belief as a built in mechanism.

So we doubt our senses except when belief is triggered. Philosophy as a machine in that system, necessarily suspends belief while it examines the structures of the thoughts.

We can barely have a reasonable discussions about the kind of consciousness we all live with every day. How much more difficult to discuss kinds of consciousness we have only heard about from the writings of a tiny percentage of people, who claim it cannot be described? — Patterner

That's a pithy and reasonable observation and I've often had similar reactions.

Of course, such states of pure consciousness are exceedingly difficult to realise in practice, but in Eastern lore, they are amply documented. The difficulty being, from a philosophical perspective, that they're all well outside the bounds of discursive reason.
— Wayfarer

I started to write "Yes" but then I asked myself, "Well, why exactly?" What's so exceptional about such a claim that puts it outside anything we can reason about? Is the experience itself seen as so esoteric as to defy description, and perhaps credulity? This may be a Western bias. — J

I was responding to:

My understanding is that an experienced meditator would agree that there is indeed no "I" remaining -- but this does not show that consciousness requires an object. For pure consciousness is said to remain, even in the absence of the "I" and its objects — J

That’s what caused me to mention Franklin Merrell-Wolff, as he has written on the theme of ‘consciousness without an object’. I can’t really recommend his books, they're not particularly good reads, but I do recognize in him a re-statement of the fundamental theme of Advaita Vedanta:

Wolff found himself being in a state of euphoric consciousness he called the "Current of Ambrosia", which he described as being "above time, space and causality". — Wikipedia

I think it's well understood that meditative states may induce or lead to radically different cognitive modes in which things appear in a very different light. That is now being explored through the scientific study of meditation and mindfulness practises (I've acquired a copy of the Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Meditation although I've barely dipped into it yet. )

So to try and tackle your question as to why these insights elude discursive analysis, I think it's because such states require a deep kind of concentration and inner tranquility which is removed from the normal human state. Hence the emphasis on askesis and self-training in the contemplative traditions. Part of this, as noted by others, is the attenuation or dimunition of the sense of self or 'me and mine', which is the typical but implicit background of so much of our mental lives.

Any doubt about having a thought comes after the thought, and so one is, in effect, doubting the memory of that thought. And the question of how much we can trust our memories is a complicated one. But if we start off with that not all memories are unreliable, then the memory of a thought one had a moment ago would be high up on the list of reliable memories.

They can be doubted too. But without a goal in mind, you're just left with skepticism, and you get stuck.

It's tricky.

Yes, these are reasonable doubts. But I think @Wayfarer makes the right response:

So to try and tackle your question as to why these insights elude discursive analysis, I think it's because such states require a deep kind of concentration and inner tranquility which is removed from the normal human state. Hence the emphasis on askesis and self-training in the contemplative traditions. — Wayfarer

It isn't quite accurate to say that it's "a tiny percentage of people, who claim it cannot be described." Again, the Western bias -- for us, it's a tiny percentage, but in cultures that take this kind of experience for granted, it's seen as remarkable but not at all unusual, and it's been going on for millennia. Not many people get to have these experiences (according to this view) because the self-training is so rigorous and time-consuming. Compare being in the top 1% of tensor algebraicists. That's what, maybe 100 people? But we don't doubt they really have the experiences they have, because in theory anyone else can have them too, if they have a natural gift and are willing to put in the many, many, many hours of practice.

As for claiming it can't be described, I would say, Yes and no. Such experiences put us at the limit of what words can say. But make the comparison with esoteric math again: If you asked such a mathematician to "describe the experience" of having a mathematical insight, I wonder what you'd get. Similarly, reports about ego-loss or enlightenment states are hard to understand, but we can say something about them -- for instance, that the experience is usually described as blissful and beneficial, as opposed to painful and destructive. Notice here that language has moved from discursive rationality to descriptions of emotion and value -- that may be a clue.

Of course, such states of pure consciousness are exceedingly difficult to realise in practice, but in Eastern lore, they are amply documented. The difficulty being, from a philosophical perspective, that they're all well outside the bounds of discursive reason. — Wayfarer

I started to write "Yes" but then I asked myself, "Well, why exactly?" What's so exceptional about such a claim that puts it outside anything we can reason about? Is the experience itself seen as so esoteric as to defy description, and perhaps credulity? This may be a Western bias. — J

Nirvana can readily be described via discursive reason, and can well align in most such interpretations to "a completely nondualistic awareness* ". And, although it might not be airtight, and although it utilizes discursive reasons / reasoning atypical of most Western thought, the learned Buddhist can discursively justify via reasoning the ontic reality of Nirvana just fine. This such as via discursive reasoning regarding the underpinnings of the Noble Eightfold Path.

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* as one referenced example of this:

In archaic Buddhism, Nirvana may have been a kind of transformed and transcendent consciousness or discernment (viññana) that has "stopped" (nirodhena).[136][137][138] According to Harvey this nirvanic consciousness is said to be "objectless", "infinite" (anantam), "unsupported" (appatiṭṭhita) and "non-manifestive" (anidassana) as well as "beyond time and spatial location".[136][137] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism#Buddhism

The understanding of all this being contingent on discursive reasoning.

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Similarly, reports about ego-loss or enlightenment states are hard to understand, but we can say something about them -- for instance, that the experience is usually described as blissful and beneficial, as opposed to painful and destructive. Notice here that language has moved from discursive rationality to descriptions of emotion and value -- that may be a clue. — J

:up:

And then, what evidence is there that emotion and value cannot themselves possibly be subject to some measure of the discursive rationality which we consciously engage in? But it is a different playing field, so to speak, to that of formal western logics all the same.

You can even doubt whether your thoughts are yours or a Demon put them in your mind. What you cannot doubt is that you are an agent with the capacity to experience.

Belief is thought. Belief is an expression of self.

And then, what evidence is there that emotion and value cannot themselves possibly be subject to some measure of the discursive rationality which we consciously engage in? — javra

Freud's depiction of 'the mystical' was as 'a feeling of oceanic bliss', which he characteristically described as an unconscious memory of existence in the womb (that comprising the full extent of his epistemological repertoire). There is an element of truth in that, but I think there is rather more to it! Certainly the sense of union seems fundamental, so too the dissolving of the sense of otherness which pervades normal existence. After all that is one of the meanings of 'non-dual'.

But it's something far more than emotion, no matter how exalted. Emotion is a visceral reaction. It is rather an intellectual (or noetic or gnostic) insight, an insight into 'the way things truly are'. Recall Parmenides prose poem, in which he 'travels beyond the gates of day and night', symbolising duality. The Greek, Indian, Persian and Chinese traditions all have these kinds of elements at their origin, but due to our

Western bias — J

They are seen as outside the scope of 'rational discourse' due to their association with religious revelation rather than empirical science. Of course, the times are changing, and there are many ways in which this is no longer true. I think they're regaining a place at the table, finally.

But it's something far more than emotion, no matter how exalted. Emotion is a visceral reaction. It is rather an intellectual (or noetic or gnostic) insight, an insight into 'the way things truly are'. Recall Parmenides prose poem, in which he 'travels beyond the gates of day and night', symbolising duality. The Greek, Indian, Persian and Chinese traditions all have these kinds of elements at their origin, but due to our — Wayfarer

I can’t argue with that. It most certainly won’t be any form of emotion by which one is in any way affected – for then there would be a necessarily occurring duality between that which affects and that affected.

I however do tend to think that this intellectual (noetic or gnostic) insight you mention is – to here lean heavily on Buddhist tradition – an aspect of, or else resulting from, the Noble Eightfold Path … which as path of itself leads toward Nirvana, maybe as it was previously quoted via reference in my previous post: to at least in part entail an infinite (limitless or unbounded) non-dual awareness that is of itself neither subject or awareness nor object of awareness but both in a utterly nondual manner. As that toward which the path then leads, I can so far only presume that it’s so termed “bliss” will neither be either purely intellectual nor purely emotive but, here again, something that embodies both in however completely nondual manners. (Maybe a potential future moment in which we come to truly know /understand / make-intelligible what we are as being (no longer plural at that juncture since it by definition can only be perfectly nondualistic in all ways).)

Happiness and suffering, after all, pertain to the intellect itself, the intellect in essence being the understanding which understands anything it stands in dualistic relation to: concepts, ideas, beauties, truths, etc. (to include an understanding of ordinary physical objects). And the first-person experience of happiness and suffering is in many a way emotive – this rather than intellectual in the sense of something which the intellect contemplates.

To be clear, however, though most typically unified, I here understand suffering to be other than pain and happiness to be other than pleasure. The first is far easier to blatantly evidence via example: A marathon runner will be in pain but will not experience suffering unless they can’t finish the race despite their wishes, being both in pain and utterly happy shortly after so finishing the race. (Sorry for this next extreme example but it’s the most poignant example I can currently think of to drive the point home:) It’s well enough documented that a women being raped (which ought to be understood as a non-consensual act of violence by definition – hence, utterly different from, say, S&M which is fully consensual) can experience horrific suffering while she can – as happens for certain women – simultaneously experience pleasure on account of her vagina’s reaction to the event, this typically bringing the woman into even more horrific suffering on account of her now additional experience of shame and guilt in so feeling pleasure from the event (and event which, again, is an act of violence unconsensually imposed upon her, to say the least).

So, while I’m not claiming that the intellect, the understanding (which is of itself one with awareness), experiences pleasures and pains, it is - or at least I so maintain - nevertheless that which experiences happiness and suffering. And the latter are not so much intellectual as they are emotive states of being of the intellect – emotive states of being of the intellect via which the intellect then intellectualizes anything whatsoever (this dualistically between the intellect and that which it intellectualizes, like a concpet) . Bliss, then, by definition being “perfect or else perfected happiness” (and not perfect pleasure).

They are seen as outside the scope of 'rational discourse' due to their association with religious revelation rather than empirical science. — Wayfarer

My suspicion is that it has a lot more to do with physicalism as incongruous obstacle to this realm of the real than it does with the lack of rational discourse regarding it - with empirical science of itself playing no role either way in the issue. Buddhist, for example, are typically not adverse to science itself or to what it has to say. Time will tell though.

BTW, putting my perennial philosophy hat on, can you think of any good reason why the Buddhist notion of Nirvana (at least it was addressed in my previous post) is not an epistemic understanding of the very same non-physical ontic reality which in Platonism and Neoplatonism gets termed “the Good” – this as interpreted via the lenses of two otherwise very distinct cultures, and as reasoned via their respective ways of prioritizing premises and their derived conclusions?

One side says things along the lines of it being non-dualistic bliss; the other says things along the line of it being perfected eudemonia; this being no difference whatsoever. Both say things along the lines of it being beyond time and space, of it being completely limitless and unbounded, of it being transcendent of both existence and nonexistence, and both prescribe virtue as means of better approaching it, etc.

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I’ll only add that, as can be found at least implied in some interpretations of Buddhism, “it”, Nirvana (/ the Good), is sometimes taken to be something that is obtainable on a person-by-person basis. As though a person can actualize Nirvana-without-remainder despite all other people in the world not so actualizing. In many another Buddhist interpretation, however, I find reason to interpret the actualization of Nirvana-without-remainder being something global and thereby globally awaiting (not mere awareness of it, but its very actualization) – this, for example, such as can be found in many instantiations of the Bodhisattva vow *. That being said, to here make a potentially far longer perspective short: as per what can be found expressed in the movie A Fish Called Wanda, I however take it that “the central message of Buddhism is not ‘Every man for himself.’" :wink:

* for example:

My own self I will place in Suchness, and, so that all the world might be helped, I will place all beings into Suchness, and I will lead to Nirvana the whole immeasurable world of beings. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva_vow#In_Mah%C4%81y%C4%81na_sutras

can you think of any good reason why the Buddhist notion of Nirvana (at least it was addressed in my previous post) is not an epistemic understanding of the very same non-physical ontic reality which in Platonism and Neoplatonism gets termed “the Good” – this as interpreted via the lenses of two otherwise very distinct cultures, and as reasoned via their respective ways of prioritizing premises and their derived conclusions? — javra

‘The same as’ is problematical. They may appear the same to us, but (for example) Buddhists and Brahmins have spent millenia debating their differences. (It was instructive to observe the attitudes of traditionally-trained Buddhist scholastics towards Vedanta on Dharmawheel forum, which was generally dismissive.) The theosophical, ‘many paths but one mountain’ attitude has its advocates, but Buddhists and indeed adherents of the other schools often take great pains to differentiate themselves. But it can take quite a bit of study to appreciate the distinctions (not to mention familiarity with Sanskrit in the case of Indian religions.)

Obviously there are many convergences and resonances, but there are also distinctions. Case in point - like a lot of my generation, I once had the popular Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, trs W Y Evans-Wentz, which featured extensive comparisons of Tibetan Buddhism and Plotinus. But later translators point out that Evans-Wentz, a Theosophist, never left California during his work on that translation, and relied entirely on a single translator. A much later edition of the same text is vastly different to the Evans-Wentz version even though nobody casts doubt on his noble intentions. Myself, I don’t think it hurts to see the common threads in these traditions, but only up to a point. It might validly be argued that ‘what unites them is more important than what divides them’ but the distinctions ought to be born in mind.

But then, this whole topic is very much the subject of ‘silk road spirituality’, where all these great traditions mingled and debated. Fascinating topic in its own right.

So you find in your post "good reasons" for why the two are in fact not one and the same ontic reality - differently interpreted, of course. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how your post so far read's to me. So then you take it that those who gain "insights" via religious ecstasy within different cultures will in fact attain understanding of utterly different non-physical ultimate realities, or at least find the possibility for this being the case? I must admit, such a plurality of ultimate realities with each of these being in itself universally applicable makes little sense to me - rationally that is. Unless they were all to be BS, in which case I'd personally find the stance intelligible. But fair enough. Thanks for your answer.

Perhaps you might elaborate on what ‘ontic reality’ means?

Perhaps you might elaborate on what ‘ontic reality’ means? — Wayfarer

By "ontic" I intended: Pertaining to being, as opposed to pertaining to a theory of it (which would be ontological).. Otherwise I would have said, "ontological".

By "reality" I intended: that which is actual, this in contrast to fictional (i.e., fantasy).