Affectivity isn’t some ineffable quality before or outside of language. It IS language. — Joshs
So, for you, there is no per-linguistic affectivity? If so, this would seem to contradict some of your arguments in your 'Private Language' thread. — Janus
Personally, I could use and improve my reading of certain terminology,but for what purpose and benefits? Even in my own academic studies, I was encouraged to go beyond that. — Jack Cummins
In the past, many philosophers and other thinkers were accustomed to writing in jargon, in closed circles of their own fields,but I think that the future of philosophy will not be able to go in that direction if it is going to survive as a discipline of creditablility, rather than be thrown into the recycling bin as a lost relic. Of course, the past texts are important but, surely, we need to go beyond them, rather than replicate them, in order to face the perils and the challenges of the Twentieth First century. — Jack Cummins
On the other hand, it can be used as a form of mystification. I am not suggesting that you are using it in the way that I am about to speak of but I am speaking of a danger. That is when people use jargon to sound really clever and taken to its extreme is when people think that if their writing is so not comprehensible to others it is sign that they are so clever that others cannot understand them — Jack Cummins
you seem to be downplaying the role of the things we experience in constraining our sensory "constructs", — Janus
Explanations are constructed by relating the analyzed elements of experience; so they are truly constructs; things deliberately constructed. — Janus
A sensory construct is the way that the things we experience meet with our extant construct system. — Joshs
A construct is not deliberately constructed, it is as much passive as it is active. Perception is always interpretive, but that doesn’t make it ‘deliberate’. We don’t will ourselves to see a visual shape as that shape, but it is still a construction. — Joshs
Is our "extant construct system" itself not just another construct according to you? To know that all we experience is a construct, you would need to know reality itself and be able to compare it with our constructs to see the difference. By your own argument you cannot do that, which makes your claim seem groundless. — Janus
I agree with you that Varela and Thompson have misconstrued the implications of the present moment. If there is a feeling present, and there is in their conclusions, then it is phenomenal - similar to ordinary consciousness. But I would not dismiss the present moment and mindfulness on that basis alone. — Pop
If the feeling present in mindfulness is one of all-encompassing interconnectedness then it is not "similar to ordinary consciousness". — Janus
The present moment is very deep - the plank length of time is 10^−44 seconds, so it is not something many, if anybody, can reach. But in the attempt to do so one dives into the moment. — Pop
Out of at least two possible sources: a deeply internalized humanism (the beliefs "people are basically good", "life is worth living", "the universe is a welcoming place for me and everyone else"), or/and a selective internalization of Buddhism.How do such normative affectivities as 'unconditionally intrinsic goodness', 'spontaneous compassion', 'luminosity', 'blissfulness', ' a calm and peaceful life guided by the fundamental value of nonviolence' emerge as ultimate outcomes of a mindfulness philosophy of groundlessness? — Joshs
And possibly Buddhism, too. At least in some Buddhist circles, "bare attention", "nonjudgmental awareness" and so on are heavily criticized. See, for example, the work of Thanissaro Bhikkhu or N. Nyanamoli Bhikkhu.Varela and Thompson's claim that Buddhist-originating practices of mindful awareness reorientate experiencing from a phenomenological ‘after the fact' theoretical stance to the immediate here and now centers on its techniques of attentive meditation.
I’ m arguing that they misunderstand phenomenology. — Joshs
Buddhist meditation also begins with intentional and reflective acts. There is no such thing as "immediate neutral pre-objectifying awareness" in early Buddhism.Varela and Thompson's dissatisfaction with the phenomenologies of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger stems from their belief that phenomenology begins from intentional and reflective acts as derived and secondary constructions built on top of the immediate neutral pre-objectifying awareness performed by the act of mindful attention.
The mindfulness tradition can go further than phenomenology only because it has smuggled along things from Buddhism, without admitting to them.I’m not trying to discredit mindfulness , only to refute
Varela and Thompson’ s claim that the mindfulness tradition has the resources to go further
than phenomenology in accessing the immediacy of the here and now.
And many Buddhists agree.My disagreement centers on the assumption that there is such a thing as neutral attention.
Meditation is not simply a matter of bare attention. It is more a matter of appropriate attention, seeing experience in terms of the four noble truths and responding in line with the tasks appropriate to those truths: stress is to be comprehended, its cause abandoned, its cessation realized, and the path to its cessation developed.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/recollections.html
Heidegger does a much better job than I do of explaining this view of time as temporality. I highly recommend you read his section on time in Being and Time. You can get the pdf of the entire book online free. — Joshs
Why can't experience be phenomenal even if the "normal mechanism of thought" (whatever that is meant to be) is not occurring? — Janus
The normal mechanism of thought is occurring. The way I understand the phenomenologists argument is, If the normal mechanism of thought is occurring then the experience of mindfulness can be accounted for in normal ways - as a deeply subjective state. — Pop
I'm still not really clear on what is meant by "normal mechanism of thought". In the altered states of consciousness I have experienced, through music, painting and writing practice, meditation and psychedelics, the everyday ways and tracks of thought (which themselves are obviously not always the same but could be thought to occur within a kind of 'range') are altered in different ways and degrees such that they may no longer seem to be in that 'range'. — Janus
So it could produce feelings of love and compassion or equally murderous rage according to that claim; I think this is obviously false. The feelings and ideas of interconnectedness lead to an expansion of the feeling and idea of self, and the affections naturally associated with this expansion are love and compassion. — Janus
What he apparently didn’t realize from this was that it is not the mere realization of interconnectedness that leads to bliss or love. It is the IMPROVEMENT in one’s experiencing of that interconnectedness. — Joshs
Pleasure isn’t passive but instead innovative, which is tough to sustain. Most of the effort, and reward, on the part of the meditator takes place when they initially put themselves in the meditative state. From that point on , they have to continually discover something new in the experience in order to keep it from slipping into meaninglessness. — Joshs
What concept of "enlightenment" are you talking about?That is, those kinds of feelings of pleasure that result from enlightenment take continual effort. — Joshs
How do such normative affectivities as 'unconditionally intrinsic goodness', 'spontaneous compassion', 'luminosity', 'blissfulness', ' a calm and peaceful life guided by the fundamental value of nonviolence' emerge as ultimate outcomes of a mindfulness philosophy of groundlessness? — Joshs
Words/ideas are extremely important tools, but they have serious limitations. — synthesis
When truly with your lover, do you look deeply into their eyes so they can realize the magnitude of your caring or would you present them with a dissertation on the theory of language and meaning as it applies to love? — synthesis
In order to continue to feel that sense of expansion and love, one has to up the ante, to go beyond that prior realization. Once the particular ( and it is always particular) concept or feeling of interconnectedness ceases to be the novelty that it initially represented, once it is no long the improvement but instead the new normal, then the mood of achievement shifts, and with it the affects of love and bliss, to the predictability of boredom or restlessness or complacency. — Joshs
You may have noticed that the first experience with a hallucinogen may have been the most profound and intense. One may then spend years trying and failing to recapture the intensity of that initial experience of mind expansion. The problem isn’t with the drug , it’s that once one’s mind has learned from the initial sense of discovery and enlightenment, it will never be as impressed with the same ‘trip’ again. Enlightenment always has to be a NEW enlightenment. It has to build on what came before, not just duplicate it. — Joshs
My understanding of the normal mechanism of thought is roughly outlined in the previous post. I would say what you are describing is a making of unexpected connections, but I would assume you are cognizing and integrating them in a similar way to what you normally would - so your normal consciousness is at play, but is being altered in some way. — Pop
That something can be said about the state suggests normal consciousness was present. — Pop
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