It rings true, but I'd be interested if you could dig up a reference for that. — Wayfarer

It's the spheres of knowledge drawn around Amitabha.



I've heard then described by a number of monks, and there is a mention of it in 'Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism' by Lama Govinda which, despite its title, is the most detailed and profound book on the subject Ive ever found.

There’s a basic principle which I think defeats ‘brain-mind identity’ theory. This is that symbolic representation and abstraction literally cannot be understood as a physical process. They can be instantiated physically, which is how written symbols and codes are possible (not to mention computers and calculators). But the fundamental intellectual acts that form the basis of abstraction, logic and rational inference inhere wholly and solely in the relations of ideas. They are purely and only intellectual in nature, they are not physical. — Wayfarer

Sense data is processed as patterns. The patterns are processed to form invariant representations. An invariant representation or concept of an apple, for instance, is comprised of sense data from various senses, like color, shape, texture, smell, taste, etc., as well as the various kinds of apples and states (such as fresh or rotten) of apples. All of that just to form the simple concept of ‘apple’.

For there to be some kind of nonphysical apple concept, it would need to perfectly mirror the physical world, like a nonphysical world matching and perfectly aligned with the physical world. The ultimate redundancy.

All of that just to form the simple concept of ‘apple’.

For there to be some kind of nonphysical apple concept, it would need to perfectly mirror the physical world, like a nonphysical world matching and perfectly aligned with the physical world. The ultimate redundancy. — praxis

Not at all -- the opposite, in fact. What you recognise when you recognise an apple, is a type, which can then be generalised to all such types, and a superset of types.

Animals can recognise and respond to shapes, but I don't believe they can abstract from shapes to form a concept. A concept is derived from the ability to perceive likenesses and differences across a whole range of slightly different particulars and to see what is common to all of them. It is precisely that ability for which there is nothing corresponding in the physical domain.

And I suggest that if you try and explain that in terms of pattern recognition, then you need to already draw upon a stock of concepts to make the argument.

Not at all -- the opposite, in fact. What you recognise when you recognise an apple, is a type, which can then be generalised to all such types, and a superset of types. — Wayfarer

This is not clear. You’re saying there’s a nonphysical representation of ‘apple’ that is subdivided to match the physical world as need be? If so, it is still completely redundant, unless you’re saying that there is no matter and everything is mental, but that’s just the inverse of materialism, which would be materialism in all but name.

The consciousness conundrum has to be the most absurd twenty-first century problem in philosophy or sciences.
First define it…. From there we can talk about a problem.
Second imagine this 2 idiots arguing about a car
Tweedle Dee is only saying about the feeling, joy, experience, and act of driving a car, pointing out that one cannot just ram up the backside of a car, the space around the car is as much the experience of driving. A full diatribe of the horse and rider as one, Jinba Ittai.
Tweedle Dum, on the other hand, says without the schematic, of the car, the chemistry, physics, engineering and all the parts coming together to give you a machine one doesn’t have a car to drive. It is meaningless to talk about the fiction of a driver without the vehicle itself because there is nothing first to contain it. Pointing out that one learns to drive a car from exterior sources and the validation of being a legal driver is one of pure bureaucracy.
Both Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum understand each other implicitly but from a point of self-invested emphasis, talk right past one another. Imagine really sitting there listening to this conversation….
Would you be interested? Would you find it insightful?
Insofar as I am concerned
Tweedle Dee of consciousness can go get a lobotomy and let me know how that worked out for their conscious experience of the world.
Tweedle Dum of consciousness can go and catch a thought and show it to me.
The entire topic of consciousness is complicated enough without this being the frame of the debate.