Mind might not have any corresponding Being, or Reality, "driving", "grounding" or "behind" it, and that it might just be structured by empty signifiers. Comparing that to eastern philosophies, I find the principle of Sunyata (emptiness of Reality). While I believe that the Mahayanists might have gone too far, and that Sunyata applies only to the constructed reality of human experience, yet still, there is a workable parallel. — ENOAH

Interesting discussion. I find that Eastern thought on mind or self instructive. Western traditions make too much of fixed, reduced constructs which give them little tools to really enumerate the being of a mind. Eastern thinkers are more adept at recognizing nothingness as if it was like a western substance, but they avoid substance talk by leaving things more mystical and less defined (as nothingness would have to be less defined).

I end up falling prey to thinking of nothingness as though it was a thing - the substance of spirit.

However, I've recently been thinking that the mind spins up when it spins up an idea. Kind of like an instance of "consciousness is consciousness of" from Satre. But the mechanism is a paradox, or more mystical. There is no mind in between moments of minding something. So the mind becomes a container for ideas at the same moment the ideas become experienced in the mind. The structure of the mind is the shape of the idea, and the idea is all the mind is while that idea is minded.

Applying that to seeing what a mind is in-itself, or, applying that to me asking myself what I am doing when I ask myself what am I doing, my mind is recognizing it has being only while it is recognizing. My mind is the activity, and not some fixed thing. My mind is becoming a mind as long as some mental construct is being constructed.

thinking of nothingness as though it was a thing - — Fire Ologist

We are trapped by the ghosts of philosophy past. Per Hegel, nothingness is indistinguishable from indeterminate being,
And
As both nothing and everything are that to which no thing can be added or taken away, they too are indistinguishable.
Sounds a bit "mystical," eh? Thus, is it that the East is too mystical? (As some might surmise) Or is it that while metaphysics might be accessed through reason, where principles like Logic can be applied ( "x" can br either/or; not both, etc) the pith and substance of Truth and any ontology of Reality (as opposed to/beyond Mind) cannot be accessed through Reason?

My mind is the activity, and not some fixed thing. My mind is becoming a mind as long as some mental construct is being constructed — Fire Ologist

Agreed, and further, Mind is, and only is, those constructions operating..., etc. And, thus, Mind is ultimately a fleeting, empty, Fiction accessible by its own means and tools, like reason. The "fixed thing," we are actually after, Real Being, is only accessible beyond Mind. And who knows? Maybe there is some light to be extracted from the east.

Either way, spirit or brain function, this function of wondering what my mind is, can only result in the embarrassment of looking for my glasses while wearing them; nowhere in sight can I possibly appear, because in everything I look at, in the looking itself, I am already there, and still I wonder "what is there?" — Fire Ologist

:up:

And, ironically, the "what" of the "what is there [wondering]" is the Language of the wondering.
But
The what of the True Being, that which we are truly after but ignore, even malign (see Plato; see everyone thereafter in search of Spirit or Soul; and their treatment of fles/body) does not wonder, is the "language-less" "wonder-less" organic Being, not in any transcendent substance, or substance grounding, or behind; not, like Mind, in the becoming, the always constructing itself, regulated by Time and the linear Narrative, but simply in that Organic Being's be-ing, in its is-ing; in its aware-ing; in any and every present participle verb it "partakes" in. Take one step beyond is-ing, and you have left that and "entered" the make-believe world of Mind, Time, and becoming etc etc

There's a passage in the Upaniṣads - the philosophical texts of the Vedas - about the exact issue of 'the eye that cannot see itself'. The online text is here https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/brhad_00.html . I can't vouch for the quality of the translation although the website is published by a mainstream Hindu organisation and I'm sure it's legitimate.

The passage in question is reproduced below. The context is a dialogue between the sage and a questioner, who is seeking instruction on the nature of the Self, ātman, which is often translated as 'soul', although it's worth noting that the literal meaning of the term is 'I am'. Here the questioner is pressing Yājñavalkya, the guru, for an exact definition. He says:

"You have only told me, this is your inner Self in the same way as people would say, 'this is a cow, this is a horse', etc. That is not a real definition. Merely saying, 'this is that' is not a definition. I want an actual description of what this internal Self is. Please give that description and do not simply say, 'this is that' –

Yājñavalkya says: "You tell me that I have to point out the Self as if it is a cow or a horse. Not possible! It is not an object like a horse or a cow. I cannot say, 'here is the ātman; here is the Self'. It is not possible because you cannot see the seer of seeing. The seer can see that which is other than the Seer, or the act of seeing. An object outside the seer can be beheld by the seer. How can the seer see himself? How is it possible? You cannot hear the hearer of hearing. You cannot think the Thinker of thinking. You cannot understand the Understander of understanding. That is the ātman."

Nobody can know the ātman inasmuch as the ātman is the Knower of all things. So, no question regarding the ātman can be put, such as "What is the ātman?' 'Show it to me', etc. You cannot show the ātman because the Shower is the ātman; the Experiencer is the ātman; the Seer is the ātman; the Functioner in every respect through the senses or the mind or the intellect is the ātman. As the basic Residue of Reality in every individual is the ātman, how can we go behind It and say, 'This is the ātman?' Therefore, the question is impertinent and inadmissible. The reason is clear. It is the Self. It is not an object-na vijñāter vijñātāraṁ vijānīyāḥ, eṣa ta ātmā sarvāntaraḥ.

"Everything other than the ātman is stupid; it is useless; it is good for nothing; it has no value; it is lifeless. Everything assumes a meaning because of the operation of this ātman in everything. Minus that, nothing has any sense".

Then Uṣasta Cākrāyana, the questioner kept quiet. He understood the point and did not speak further. — Source

I personally have always found the analogy of 'the eye that cannot see itself' very persuasive and even self-evidently true, although having discussed here and also on the dharmawheel (Buddhist) forum, I know that many others don't see it that way. But a point to note is that it has also been adopted by at least some phenomenologists. There's a marvellously erudite French philosopher of science, namely Michel Bitbol, who has a paper in which he explicitly quotes this passage, It Is never known but it is the Knower (.pdf, on academia.edu.) This is related to the 'blind spot of science' argument, the 'blind spot' being the exclusion of the subject from the reckonings of science, but then taking the resulting objectively-defined knowledge as being comprehensive.

A great deal of further material on Vedanta can be found on the website of the Vedanta Society of New York https://www.vedantany.org/ . The head teacher, Swami Sarvapriyananda, is an erudite fellow and frequently engages in debates and dialogues with philosophers and scientists. You can find many of his lectures and talks on youtube here

the Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esoterica — Count Timothy von Icarus

:clap: Thanks for the recommendation, those Cambridge Handbooks are usually :100:

//ps// a goldmine, that book.//

Thankyou Wayfarer, you really are a font of knowledge these days.

Eastern thinkers are more adept at recognizing nothingness as if it was like a western substance, but they avoid substance talk by leaving things more mystical and less defined (as nothingness would have to be less defined)

I have found that in a study of eastern philosophies one does end up at the point of nothingness, a nothing that is also everything. An everything that is no thing, but all things and no one thing, but less than one, while being ever present.

They do also say that there are beings who go beyond this two dimensional thinking, this human thought process. Also that there are deities in more exalted states of being. This would lead me to the conclusion that the problem we are discussing is something to do with the human condition. It is a peculiarity of what it is to be human. Perhaps a human is at that point where a mind is birthed in a corporeal being. We look around ourselves and see countless other beings who don’t have this faculty of mind. Animals and plants. I find that through being with, communing with animals enables me to be mindless too. They teach mindlessness by example, yet we are one of them. We can be mindless like them, in fact we probably are most of the time, but just don’t realise it.

This brings me to mystical practice. I struggled with the conundrum you describe, amongst others and at some point began to realise that there is another way around the problem. This process was helped by being involved in the New Age movement back in the 1990’s. There were all kinds of crazy ideas and practices going around, it was a time of breaking boundaries, conventions, breaking out of oneself. I realised that these conundrums could be solved, bypassed understood through a practice, a process, a life process, or journey. Like the communion with plants and animals I describe. It’s like you put the mind to one side for a moment and move forward through life. When you bring the mind back in you have changed, something has moved. This gives the possibility for a comparison between the two states, a quadratic equation as a metaphor.

There are numerous other techniques for moving forward like this. One which adds another dimension to this is the idea of the higher self. Basically you consider, or imagine, that there is a higher self in you which is wise, or has a direct connection to a god, or higher being. You imagine entering into a conversation with this higher self. Once acquainted you develop a communion, or close connection, an understanding. At this point, it is nothing more than a thought experiment, an idea. However if adopted as a practice, it opens up the opportunity for it to become more than this. Just like the process of developing a communion with the plants and animals I described, you can also enter into communion with your higher self (if there is one) and with a higher being (if there is one).

This gives one the opportunity to move forward in a number of directions.