Yes, I've currently got my mind in two places at once, so to speak. And need to take off soon enough. Misread the quote to read something along the lines of "would you have chosen differently than you did in the past given the same exact contexts". My bad, obviously, for having misread, but it is to that misreading that I replied.

And why is that fact - that the choice could be different if everything were the same - relevant? Would you still have made a free choice even if, in that moment, you were guaranteed by the facts of the circumstance to make that choice, no matter how many times we replay that scenario? — flannel jesus

As to the second question: Some previously made choices in my life, most certainly not - not due to what I know of their outcomes but due to changes in character with which the choice was made to begin with. Other choices, most likely yes.

As to significance, because that's what librarian agential free will signifies.

And how does one know what is mine and yours, except through memory? — unenlightened

Not an easy question to answer. I've worked with Alzheimer's patients, some in rather extreme conditions. One such I presume mistook packaging styrofoam for popcorn and began eating it, such that I had to struggle taking it out of the patient's mouth. There was still an understood notion of things like "my mouth" "my food" "my will", etc.

I'll just point to the fact that ameba have a sense of self in the sense of being able to distinguish self from other, not to mention other as predator or prey. And they do not have anything resembling what we term memory.

But the problem that the article points out is, if you drill in to any individual indeterministic choice - which is to say, a choice that has a non 0 percent chance of happening differently under the exact same conditions, and an ontologically real chance, not just a chance based on ignorance - then if we do watch it play out differently, that different result can't be attributed to the agent. — flannel jesus

In short, if the outcome is random no libertarian free will' if the outcome is causally determined again no libertarian free will. The article (and I grant I haven't taken my time in reading it) completely forsakes teleological reasoning and teleological determinacy (actions determined not by efficient causes but by the telos intended).

Indeterminacy comes in many different varieties, basically solely signifying not-causally-deterministic-in-full.

Furthermore, in lived experience (and not inferential guesswork) we only make choices in times of psychological uncertainty and never when we hold full psychological certainty as to what is to be done. In certain ontologies, this very psychological uncertainty as to which one of two or more alternatives are best can then overlap with ontological uncertainty in regard to future possible realities.

To make this somewhat more concrete, suppose you intend to go to the store to get some food. You thereby get into your car and start driving on the most direct streets toward the store - getting there with minimal waste of time being the telos which determines that you so drive (rather than taking a leisurely walk, for example). At the first stop-sign, though, there's an unexpected car accident that prevents you from following your initially planed course. At this juncture only, you will then have alternatives to choose between: say, going back home and purchasing supplies later, going left toward the store rather than straight ahead, or going right toward the same destination. Now suppose you take time to conceiously deliberate (weigh the pros and cons of each alternative). You don't have full psychological certainty of which alternative best satisfies your more distant telos: that of not being hungry. In this deliberation, you figure that because going right will lead you the fastest to the store on the available streets despite likely heavier traffic, and so you turn right. This decision, choice, is then that of a libertarian free will, for as far as you know going left, despite taking longer to drive on streets, might have been the fastest path on account of far lesser traffic. The choice was ultimately (under libertarian free will) yours as an agent. It was neither random nor fully determined by efficient causes. And you could have chosen differently under the same exact circumstances (both external and internal: beliefs, thoughts, etc. in a time of psychological uncertainty as to which alternative best satisfies one's telos). Responsibility for what happens then is yours as an agent.

This isn't meant as any kind of logical proof for libertarian free will, but it is intended to at least illustrate its possibility.

What connects the child to the adult to the old man is memory, a narrative that can be recited, — unenlightened

I've heard this trope expressed often enough. I think it was Lock (?) who first articulated this as being pivotal to the sense of self.

But consider that many out there do not have memories of their early childhood. Or else those with amnesia, or maybe even more extreme, advanced Alzheimer's. The sense of self yet persists even in Alzheimer's (via, for one example, listening to certain music). And even when not related to past events, certainly the sense of self persists in terms of "mine" and "yours".

I've tended to instead ground the core aspect of a sense of self on one's affinities and aversions. This, as one example, being a plausible reason why identical twins separated at birth or during early childhood can be found brushing their teeth when in their 60s with the same toothpaste, etc.



This makes full-blown sense to me. Consider that in all of humanity's history there probabilistically is one former human whose intrinsic, genome-inherited predispositions and whose first 7 or so years of life (a very formative time period for humans) are more alike to your own than any other. In terms of affinities and aversions to environmental factors and thereby core attitudes toward existence, their life would be as identical to your own as - via analogy - one's life one day is identical to one's own life on another day (separated by periods of sleep). And this same general outlook can then be further abstracted to a multitude of former lives.

The same roles (personas) playing out the same general interactions on the stage of life but at different times and in different contexts. And hence the same core self that ever evolves into different realities.

The tricky issue in so contemplating is when considering things not historically but in terms of the present moment. Same could be claimed of another human on the planet (who might look utterly different) that lives while you live. Here, the notion of reincarnation would be off. Nevertheless, there then would yet remain the notion of kindred spirits: someone you might see things eye to eye with to an extreme extent.

What occurs to me, is that you have effectively divided the mind into two distinct sources of agency, the conscious I and the unconscious I. I take this as two distinct I's. — Metaphysician Undercover

I take from having read your post that by "I"s you intend to specify selfhoods of agential awareness. As I previously mentioned, what i myself intended as reference to the term "I" was simply a "first-person point of view". An individual plant is certainly a selfhood of agential awareness (plants are known to be minimally aware of sunlight and gravity, and will grow their leaves toward the light and their roots toward gravity, thereby exhibiting agency; this in conjunction with an ability to act and react to otherness as a selfhood), but I find it highly non-credible that a plant will have a first-person point of view, aka an "I", as vertebrates, at minimum humans, are known to have: i.e., that which we term conscious awareness.

Thus interpreted, for various reasons (some of which I'll try to specify), I don't interpret the unconscious mind as having its own non-manifold unity of a first-person point of view; in other words, its own "I". For starters, in dreams wherein one interacts with multiple others, each other can very well be inferred to have its own, transiently occurring, dream-state first-person point of view, its own "I" - and these in some dreams more than others can conflict not only with oneself but with themselves as others relative to one's somnio-conscious self. Each with its own perspectives and volition.

Notice that I'm not claiming it metaphysically impossible for certain aspects of one's unconscious to unify in what could be inferred as a secondary agency-endowed conscious awareness. I take it that in certain mental disorders, such as that of alien hand syndrome, this in fact occurs to some extent. But I don't find reason to uphold that the unconscious mind is in and of itself a unified conscious awareness, an "I", of which we are unconscious of.

I assume that what you call "agencies of mind" is analogous with Plato's medium, the "passions". These are the emotive forces which produce what the mind creates. Notice that in Plato's description these so-called agencies are the same agencies operating in two different directions. This is the commonly made distinction between top-down and bottom-up. — Metaphysician Undercover

Though I approach the subject matter differently and make use of different terminology, I can very much relate to this, yes. What we experience as pangs of emotion - say pangs of envy which we denounce as improper, or else pangs of attraction toward another which we want to not occur, etc. - are certainly not of themselves the conscious "I" which is antagonistic in its views and volition to these "passions". Yet each such emotion shall be aware of the contextual realities we are consciouslly aware of; they will each try to pushwardly drive us toward certain actions via their own volitions; and they typically can only be dispelled via the passions of the conscious "I" per se to so dispel them. All this unless one willfully converges with the pang of envy to then, and only then, become oneself envious. Or else with the pang of attraction; etc. At such junctures, I take it that the conscious "I" converges into a novel non-manifold unity with what formerly was the pang of emotion.

It gets to be a very complex topic though.

This implies that the conscious I is not the real I. It dissolves, and disappears for extended periods of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting. I take it that here and what follows you found what is real based on that which is permanent rather than transient. But then I don't find reason to presume that the agencies of awareness of the unconscious mind are themselves in any way permanent either. Although its one of multiple possible perspectives, this is where I find the Buddhist notion of no-self can quite validly fit it: there is no permanent self anywhere at any time, eternally so or otherwise.

Having stated that, I find that the ontic reality of the first-person point of view is as real as anything real can get. That "I as a first-person point of view am (occur) when in any way aware" - although maybe not technically impossible to be wrong - is certainly incontrovertible.

That presents a further, very perplexing problem. What is the purpose of the conscious I? — Metaphysician Undercover

There's different ways of addressing this question. When one strictly focuses on physicality and maybe ponders why consciousness evolved (say among animals, with living sponges being amongst the simplest lifeforms in the animal kingdom / domain - and certainly lacking a conscious mind), I can't find any discernible reason whatsoever. There can be, however, metaphysical explanations for this - which, obviously, will be contingent on the metaphysics in question. I'll use Platinus as an example. If the One ontically is a fixed and unmovalbe end of being, and tf the grand telos to being is therefore to eventually become one with the One, then the evolution of consciousness will be derived from this premise to be a stepping stone toward this very finale. Of course things could get far more complex, but, in short, consciousness can be viewed as a manifestation of a cosmic will toward unity of being. And it's only in this latter type of perspective that I can find any meaningful explanation for consciousness's occurrence and purpose.

Why has the true (unconscious) I created an elaborate consciousness which understands itself as "I", and actually deceives itself into believing itself to be the real I, thereby suppressing the true (unconscious) I and only allowing it to reign at night? — Metaphysician Undercover

So, again, as previously expressed, I don't view things in this way. But in terms of consciousness's functioning and interactions with the unconscious mind given that consciousness currently is: most of what we intentionally, voluntarily do will be done without any deliberation on our part between possible alternatives. In all such instances we are consciously in fully accord with our unconscious processes of mind - we in essence become fully unified volitionally with the whole of our unconscious mind. In the best of times, we term it being in the zone, or else having flow. There are times, however, when our unconscious presents to us two or more alternative courses of action or of thought. Sometimes we choose not to choose between them (thereby allowing our unconscious to make the decision for us) and sometimes the choices we are aware of are peripheral to that we give primary attention to (here can can sense ourselves to make the choice while it remains quite conceivable that the determination was in fact made by aspects of our unconscious mind into which we willfully inhere volitionally). Still, there can be distinct moments in life were we find ourselves at a crossroad of alternatives between which we pupusfully deliberate, and the choice we consciously made is then pursued by the totality of our mind (and body). Only in the latter can we possibly deem ourselves to have metaphysically viable free will in that which is chosen as conscious beings.

OK, that all briefly outlined, we as consciousnesses do not create the alternatives which we as consciousnesses are aware of. These competing alternatives for what will be are all (at least typically) brought about by our unconscious portions of mind. My further interpretation is that our unconscious mind comes to an uncertainty as to how to travel onward and, so, presents to us as a conscious awareness these alternative courses. In essence, our unconscious volition is no longer unified but fragments into different volitions regarding what should be done - each alternative being in effect what a fragment of the unconscious believes to be the optimal path. We as conscious awareness then vote on which path to take, and our unconscious (typically) then accepts our vote as a determination of which alternative is to be pursued at expense of all others which then become denied. This is (or at least nicely conforms with) the terminology of Romanian Christian Orthodoxy wherein free will is termed "liber arbitru", the free arbiter - such that we as conscious awareness, as the "I", are the free arbiter.

At any rate, whenever we choose between alternatives, this with or without free will, we necessarily interact with the disparate volitions of our unconscious mind so as to resolved disagreements therein. (Yes, sometimes ultimatums and the like are presented to us from without, but even then we only become aware of, ultimately, what our own unconscious mind makes available to us.)

So this is certainly one reason for there to be a consciousness embedded within a total mind.

Now we have to question directly, the rationality of the awakened self. — Metaphysician Undercover

:smile: Getting into the metaphysics of rationality can be a very complicated issue. And I've already written my fair share for one post. But I'll say that - to here lean on Nietzsche's terminology for a bit - though in sometimes utterly different ways, the coherent and thereby orderly reasoning of Apollonian thought is of equally value for us as is the creative trial and error approaches of the Dionysian mindset.

I believe, that once we break down the entire conscious experience as an exercise in self-deception, we have almost nothing to start on as a solid, concrete foundation for rationality. This allows for virtually any possibility as the true reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

To my mind it could be rationally enough explainable in an Apollonian sense, but it requires a metaphysics drastically different from that of materialism. Contrast, for example, the Jungian notion of a cosmically collective unconscious with the ancient Stoic notion of an anima mundi. Terms (and their detailed implications) aside, it's pretty much the same thing to me.

So this would constitute a big difference between "seeing" in your sleep, and "seeing" when you are awake. How do you think that the house is caused to appear to the person in a dream, without the photons being picked up by the retina?

Suppose that this creation of "the house" in a dream, is an aspect of "procedural memory". How is this any sort of real memory, when the brain seems to be just creating random things rather than consciously remembering things? Rather than a type of memory, which is what the conscious awake mind is doing all the time, remembering things, dreaming seems to be a completely different sort of activity, where the brain is just exploring all sorts of weird things, maybe like a trial and error activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

To conjoin this with what I was previously mentioning, my own interpretation is that dreaming is a form of sheer imagining, only that in dreams the unconscious mind agentially determines most of what is being imagined, this rather than the conscious mind's volition as is typically the case when we are awake and willfully imagine things (things which in common speech are said to be seen by us with the mind's eye). When we willfully imagine a house while awake, we do it with a conscious intention. I personally believe that in dreams the somio-conscious "I" is constituted of a lesser quantity of yet unconscious awareness-endowed agencies, a sleeping "I" which then interacts with fully unconscious agencies via imaginary phenomena that are mostly intended by these unconscious agencies of mind. In contrast, a typical awake "I" would then be a non-manifold unity of agential awareness which is itself constituted from far more otherwise unconscious agencies of mind. It gets difficult in succinctly explain but it does coherently tie in with the view I presented to Patterner here - this regarding how the conscious mind is a convergence of certain aspects of the otherwise unconscious mind.

Maybe tangential, but to me it also accounts for the how and why of the waking "I" dissolving into non-occurrence when falling asleep and then re-manifesting as a somnio-consciousness when we dream: Basically, the waking "I" dissolves, or if one prefers fragments, into its constituent unconscious agencies which are otherwise unified, and thereby transiently vanishes; then, in dreams, the sleeping "I" reemerges but in what most often is a qualitatively lesser form; upon awakening, the waking "I" then is reunited from its constituent unconscious aspects. Because of this the waking "I" can sometimes remember what the sleeping "I" experienced during dreams, but the sleeping "I" most always doesn't have memories of waking "I"'s experiences.

Hoping some of this makes sense, even if disagreed with. At any rate, it's my best interpretation so far.

But the self is doing things which appear to be irrational, and the things which are happening to the self are equally impossible to make sense of. — Metaphysician Undercover

Want to draw attention to this typically being so only upon our awakening. When we are experiencing the dream first hand, we don't typically at that juncture hold an awareness of the dream being irrational. It merely is; and we find ourselves doing what we do in it.

It could be the case that the reasoning of most dreams is fully metaphorical with meanings understood by at least certain aspects of our unconscious mind but not by our awakened state of rationality. This, for one example, as the surrealists of a century past more or less maintained.

These instances, when sensations influence the dream, would be cases of the brain receiving, and dealing with sense information, in a way which is totally inconsistent with the awake (what I called "rational" way). This implies that the brain actually has different ways of processing sense input. — Metaphysician Undercover

Most definitely. The visual appearance of an imagined or daydreamed house, for example. Imaginings and daydreams are typically under the full sway of conscious volition, but in cases of hallucination, for a different example, a person can see a hallucinated house - difference from the former being that here the unconscious mind controls the imagining without any sway from consciousness's volition. Such that in more extreme mental disorders the consciousness will presume the hallucination to in fact be an integral aspect of the external world. And everthing just stated can readily apply to sensory experiences other than that of vision (smell, taste, touch, or sounds (such as that of hearing voices)).

We can ask, then, what is creating these imaginary scenarios. It is a sort of "self", which knows little if any bounds of rational thought. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm thinking that what I've so far stated by in large addresses this question. Its not a self so much as a commonwealth of sometimes disperse agencies of one's unconscious mind conveying information to one as a somnio-consciousness via imaginary - and I take it most likely metaphorical - means.

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To add to this muddle of views and information - and as much as materialists will snide and scoff at this - there also are notions such as that of Jung's collective unconscious. When entertaining such notions, not only can one obtain things such as meaningful synchronicities, but it can also allow for the possibility that at least some dreams in at least some people are influenced by the collective unconscious.

Anecdotal but true: one of my grandmas repeatedly had premonitions via her vivid dreams. Hard to explain even one of them in succinct manners, but the point is she would inform us of what will be, and it would then occur as she predicted from her interpretation of here dreams. One can question or deny the verity of this, but for me, who grew up with her, to claim that all her dreams and predictions were mere coincidence would verge on absurdity.

Maybe this is too far off topic. But I did want to draw attention to the possibility that some dreams might be more than merely the 'irrational activities of one's own physical and fully autonomous brain,' or some such.

I’m only taking by best shots in the dark with this. So, some thoughts. As a species we are highly visual animals. Just looked this up for accuracy's sake and found this:

More than 50% of the sensory receptors in the human body are located in the eyes, and a significant portion of the cerebral cortex is devoted to interpreting visual information. — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29494035/

This is not the case for many a different eye-endowed animal species.

But then all other mammals and birds (that I know of) close their eyes to sleep - and also to undergo REM sleep (which I infer to indicate dreaming) - so this might not be as important a it might at first seem.

Then there's the reality that opened eyes can get permanently injured when having the cornea scratched. So the eyes ought to be protected (in humans and other species by eyelids) when asleep. Closing one's eyes voluntarily might then be a preparation for going to sleep, and could well serve as a indicator or sign that one is wanting to so do to certain aspects of the unconscious mind. (I infer both mammals and birds to have a both conscious and unconscious mind due what i so far know of the structure and functioning of their CNS; an educated guess basically).

The other external sensory receptors and mechanisms (we do also have internal sensory receptors; e.g. this for proprioception, hunger, etc.) all tend to not risk getting harmed when asleep.

And, again, I'll maintain that the very process of falling asleep is regulated and brought about by the unconscious aspects of our mind. With insomnia as an example of when we consciously will to fall asleep but, because our unconscious mind is unwilling, are unable to. So in normal circumstances, if we are tired (something that our unconscious mind in part informs us of, imo; thereby informing us that it, or we as a total self, are in need of recharging our batteries, so to speak) and if we voluntarily want to fall asleep in a room with many conversations or with music playing, we'll often be able to do so just fine.

Anecdotally, I know of people that benefit in their ease of falling asleep by having the TV on.

My last few days have been crazy busy. i've only read your latest response to me once, which isn't enough for me to have absorbed much. hopefully soon! — Patterner

No worries. Please take your time.

As for the conversation the two of you are having, why not substitute hearing or smelling for vision? — Patterner

Ah. On one hand, MU was focusing in on the visual aspects of dreams, to which I replied as best I could. On the other hand, hearing and smelling (as well as touching and maybe even tasting) get far, far more complicated. :grin: We all experience our dreams uniquely in many a way, but I've certainly heard of cases wherein the dreams of a sleeping person were affected by that which surrounded them in the external world, including sounds and smells, even though they were not at the time in any way conscious of what was taking place in the external world. Then, also, there's the alarm clock, which at first unconsciously wakes you up into consciousness from sleep and the dreams therein had. (A good shove can also due :grin: )

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I don't think I agree with assigning agential power to the somnio-consciousness. — Metaphysician Undercover

Didn't have as much time and neglected this part in my last post. I have no qualms about what you say, especially in regard to your own experiences of dreams.

That said, we do all experience dreams differently. It is not utterly uncommon for some humans to have dreams in which they fly through air at will. I too have had such dreams growing up. I remember them being rather serene and euphoric for the most part. And I distinctly remember being therein endowed with a supra-human capacity of will, hence volition, to travel through the air as I wanted simply by so willing it. In dreams such as these, there is certainly found a free will (or at least a sense of free will for the free will deniers) in which one chooses as one pleases between alternatives. In this case, alternative paths of motion and different destinations.

On the other hand I too have had my fair share of nightmares. In some of these, the main terror was in an inability to do what I wanted (often to run) when surrounded by extreme dangers. And, hence, via such dreams, I can relate to the experience of not having somnio-conscious volition in dreams. But, maybe, it might be the very same, felt terrifying experience of not having that ability to do what one wants which directly points to a lack of what one during the very same dream in some way had expected to be there: one's functional somnio-conscious volition.

With that said, I again have no problem in the view which you yourself currently uphold. But due to my own experiences of dreams, I will choose to yet uphold that which I previously presented: namely, that (at least at times and in some people) some degree of volition will be present to the somnio-conscious dreamer.

I've so far done my best to politely and patiently engage in debate with you, as as debates should be, but you so far don't seem to understand what I find to be rather simple propositions and inferences. And I will not start entering into endless debates on what is is, or the like. This can very well be a failure on my part. Acknowledged. But to be blunt, I've got better things to do. I'm done.

You think you see a pink elephant. — Janus

A thought you based on what experience? Other than that of in fact visually experiencing a pink elephant, an experience which one knows one has had.

You have whatever you are experiencing, and you have whatever judgements you are making about it. — Janus

Again: how is that personally experienced not known to be personally experienced.

Nothing in what you quoted form Wikipedia contradicts anything I've said. — Janus

Sure it does: fallibility is not contingent on being falsifiable. Read the quote again. Again: example: M-theory could be wrong and is thereby fallible, but it is not falsifiable. This is in direct logical contradiction with:

and it is not fallible because it cannot be falsified. — Janus

It is verifiable beyond reasonable doubt that others are conscious, — Janus

Yes, but neither via observation nor by being a logically necessary truth, as per the material and logical evidence you've claimed to be the only type of evident to be had. As a reminder, this here;

This is nonsense as I see it. All evidence is material, meaning something we can observe, or logical, meaning something which can be shown to be necessarily true. — Janus

You don't think that there is input from the retina in dreams? What do you think the so-called rapid eye movement is all about? — Metaphysician Undercover

Here is something that is less than opinion;

These eye movements follow the ponto-geniculo-occipital waves originating in the brain stem.[17][18] The eye movements themselves may relate to the sense of vision experienced in the dream,[32] but a direct relationship remains to be clearly established. Congenitally blind people, who do not typically have visual imagery in their dreams, still move their eyes in REM sleep.[16] An alternative explanation suggests that the functional purpose of REM sleep is for procedural memory processing, and the rapid eye movement is only a side effect of the brain processing the eye-related procedural memory.[33][34] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep#Eye_movements

Emphasis mine.

Also something less than opinion: When one sees a house in a dream, one does not see the house due to photons being picked up by the retina and thereby due to retinal input.

As far as opinions go, I personally tentatively uphold the explanation given in the last sentence mentioned in the quote above. I have no way to prove this opinion, but I find it likely in part on grounds that people who do not sleep for long periods of time don't only become extremely exhausted but also tend to have psychotic breaks, i.e. go insane, which seems plausible if procedural memory is not properly processed. I also don't personally know of a more plausible evolutionary explanation for why REM dreaming evolved to begin with given that mammals at large as well as birds exhibit REM sleep.

A superb comment!

Some partial lyrics (in part pertaining to the term's usage):

If God is dead and an actor plays his part
His words of fear will find a place in your heart
Without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse
Without freedom from the past things can only get worse

[…]

Convince an enemy, convince him that he's wrong
Is to win a bloodless battle where victory is long
A simple act of faith
In reason over might
To blow up his children will only prove him right — History Will Teach Us Nothing (song by the musician Sting)

Don't be angry with me, but unfortunately my explanation has to end here. — Wolfgang

OK. I'm in no way angry, btw.

Do you know anything other than matter? Why are we always looking for something we have never seen before? Maybe because we want to solve problems that we have created for ourselves through category errors. — Wolfgang

Not quite. I'll be more specific. How is the paradigm of biological evolution via natural selection of itself material / physical? I for example certainly can't see, smell, touch, etc. this paradigm empirically, not to mention that is has no material or physical solidity or mass. Yet I know that it occurs.

Rather than taking my best attempts to answer for you, I'd like to hear your own explanations of how this paradigm of evolution is physical or materiel.

ps. Your answer in no way addresses any metaphysical grounding for your conviction in materialism. But that aside ...

OK, thanks for your views.

On what metaphysical grounds do you then hold such a strong conviction in "everything is matter", aka materialism?

If there were an ontological relationship, body and mind would have to be ontologies. That would mean that we are dealing with two substances or entities, a body and a mind. Descartes could not find a mind anywhere. His conclusion was that it must be immaterial. My conclusion is that they are descriptions of one and the same thing. Let's call it an individual, an organism, a brain, whatever you like. — Wolfgang

I think I get what you're saying and, if I do, then I agree. But this in and of itself to me still begs a question of ontology:

Is it all then a kind of mind-stuff, such as the objective idealism of C.S. Peirce would maintain? Is it then all a kind of physical-stuff, as the nowadays common enough stance of materialism or physicalism maintains? Or else - my own preferred outlook on the subject - is all stuff in the cosmos then of a neutral monism ontology: such that mind and body are in ultimate analysis just two forms of the same stuff which of itself is neither mental nor physical?

Your general thesis so far seems to me to possibly apply to any of the three ontologies just specified with equal force or plausibility. Yet, because these ontologies contradict each other, they can't all be correct at the same time and in the same way.

:pray:

This is the point then. If keeping one's eyes open is "generally" a matter of conscious volition, why would we conclude that the sense perception of seeing is unconscious? It would seem like "seeing" is something controlled by the voluntary act of keeping one's eyes open. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ah. I can now understand what you meant. But this is a misattribution of what I claimed. My claim, again, was that consciousness (in at least humans) is dependent on processes of the unconscious mind.

So in terms of seeing things, my position is as follows: our consciously seeing via the use of our eyes whose eyelids are under our conscious control will all be in some ways dependent on processes of mind of which we are not conscious of, thereby being dependent on the workings of our unconscious mind. If these processes of the unconscious mind did not occur, we would then not be able to consciously see - with blindsight as one example of this. But because they do occur, we do in fact consciously see things.

Do you think that it would be the case that the neurological system is "seeing" all the time, unconsciously, regardless of whether the eyes are open or not? — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think this is the case, not when one regards seeing as necessarily consisting of input from the retina. I think the way we see things in dreams is often a more vivid form of the way we see things when daydreaming or imagining. Only that when dreaming the unconscious mind assumes far greater agential control over what is in thus manner seen.

This might provide an explanation of dreaming as the unconscious continuing in its activity of seeing, after conscious volition has shut down, and the eyes are closed. — Metaphysician Undercover

It gets tricky here, in part due to often numerous ways in which terms can get understood. But, in principle, though we are not of a waking state consciousness while dreaming, we as a first-person point of view (as consciousness in this sense) are yet present in our dreams. Not only that but, as a somnio-consciousness (a term which I coined that I think nicely enough expresses our dreaming consciousness), we almost always yet have some degree of agential power (i.e., ability to accomplish) - hence, some degree of voluntary, rather than involuntary, volition. With one possible extreme of this degree of dreaming volition being that of lucidly dreaming.

Where do you think that the images which are "seen" in the act of dreaming derive from? Do they come from the eyes? — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, though I haven't looked into it, I don't think they in any way derive from the eyes, the retinas to be more specific. But that they instead likely at least in part derive from those aspects of the sensory cortex which are active when we are willfully imagining or daydreaming things.

Depends on how reliable you think memory is. Seeing a house in a waking state is easy enough to verify. Having seen one not so much. Although that said, since memory is not often proven wrong, we might have good reason to trust it. — Janus

It's maybe subtle, but you missed the point I was making. Suppose you see a pink elephant and it in fact is an illusion. So there was no pink elephant in the external world you thought you saw. All fine and dandy. Now, is your experience of seeing a pink elephant which in fact was not there, in and of itself, just a belief ... or do you know that you had an experience of seeing a pink elephant.

As to verifiability in the walking state, it is quite impossible to fully verify every single thing ever seen. Indeed, quite impossible to fully verify every thing one sees at any one given juncture. Most things seen we accept on trust. And not due to empirical verification. It would be exceedingly bizarre otherwise.

But the point remains. When is one's personal experiences ever not knowledge of what one is personally experiencing? To be clear, not of the significance of what one is experiencing, but of the experience itself.

Fallible means possible to be false or else wrong. It does not mean possible to be falsified. So your affirmation is an utter mistake of interpretation in regard to what fallibility and fallibilism entails. — javra


That might be your apparently dogmatic understanding of the term; it's not mine. To be fallible in my lexicon means 'could turn out to be wrong'. If there is no possible way to determine if something is wrong, then it simply cannot turn out to be wrong, and I don't count it as either fallible or infallible. — Janus

Uhm. In short,

Originally, fallibilism (from Medieval Latin: fallibilis, "liable to error") is the philosophical principle that propositions can be accepted even though they cannot be conclusively proven or justified,[1][2] or that neither knowledge nor belief is certain.[3] The term was coined in the late nineteenth century by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, as a response to foundationalism. Theorists, following Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper, may also refer to fallibilism as the notion that knowledge might turn out to be false.[4] Furthermore, fallibilism is said to imply corrigibilism, the principle that propositions are open to revision.[5] Fallibilism is often juxtaposed with infallibilism. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism

Of course one is free to idiosyncratically define terms as one pleases and then declare that thier quite commonplace usage is a "dogmatic understanding". I'm myself not one to do so.

This is nonsense as I see it. All evidence is material, meaning something we can observe, or logical, meaning something which can be shown to be necessarily true. If you disagree then present an example of immaterial evidence for anything. — Janus

OK: Consciousness, when strictly defined as a first-person point of view, occurs in others out there.

As far as I know, this proposition is neither verifiable via observation nor something which can be shown via logic to be necessarily true. But go ahead and either show me a consciousness out there or else logically evidence why the just expressed proposition is necessarily true logically.

I find this difficult to believe, but perhaps it's just that I love existing more than you do, and so cannot relate — Janus

No way to verify this, but perhaps you're quite wrong in this appraisal, despite the sincerity of what I previously expressed.

I would call it belief, not knowledge, and it is not fallible because it cannot be falsified. — Janus

Is one's experience of having seen a house in an REM dream a mere belief of one having seen a house in the REM dream ... or does one know what one has oneself experienced? How about one's seeing a house during waking states?

Fallible means possible to be false or else wrong. It does not mean possible to be falsified. So your affirmation is an utter mistake of interpretation in regard to what fallibility and fallibilism entails. M-theory, for one example is fallible (not infallible), but it certainly is not falsifiable ... despite being fallible.

If you would really rather be annihilated and all the evidence, we can have points to the likelihood that you will get your wish (although you won't be there to enjoy getting it), then what possible incentive can there be for you to bother with the vague possibility of an afterlife? — Janus

Your presumption that "all the evidence points to ..." is founded upon materialistic premises. These are not the premises upon which my metaphysical, and hence ultimately physical, understandings are founded. There's no way to adequately address my own premises in this forum's soundbite form. If you are sincerely curious, though, you can always check out my profile wherein I've placed a link to my personal philosophy. What I've got uploaded so far amply explains why I don't believe in what you call annihilation upon death. Otherwise, the topic is beyond the scope of this discussion.

So back to the issue at hand ...

—who knows why they occur? — Janus

Precisely! But that they have and do occur is about as undeniable as is, say, the claim that REM dreams occur.

But many do believe that and believe it on the basis of some religious experience. Which I think just goes to show how deep confirmation bias can run, — Janus

Hey, I fully agree. The difference between experience as data and inferences regarding it, which is not data. Be this in the spheres of science itself or else in the sphere of comparative religions.

One could ask for a cogent reason to believe in an afterlife. I've never seen such a thing. I can't prove there is no afterlife, I've just never seen a good reason to believe in one. Also, it's easy to see that people would like to believe in an afterlife—the idea, hell aside, being more palatable than annihilation. So, it's reasonable to infer the role of wishful thinking. — Janus

This isn't about your beliefs and likes nor about my beliefs and I'll again reiterate that my own personal likes are by in large that of instant "annihilation' of all awareness upon my corporeal death: to me, instant "salvation" form all forms of suffering. It just that I don't believe this to be the case, on rational grounds. All this is, your views or mine, is utterly irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Other than via emotive biases toward the comfort of instant "annihilation" via any metaphysical paradigm that supports this ultimate end of being, how can one rationally disprove the metaphysical possibility of an afterlife?

Notice, I'm not claiming that an afterlife can be proven. I'm only claiming that the fallible knowledge of an afterlife can be as valid as fallible knowledge gets for those who've had near-death experiences.

OK, but in all this your are maybe unintentionally forsaking a rather important, if not essential, aspect of all possible experiences: the intellect's intrinsic understanding of that experienced. A person who honestly experiences a near death experience will be entitled to claim, and quite validly so, fallible knowledge of an afterlife. This can be in principle replicated by bringing (all?) people into near-death -- barring the grave ethical considerations of so doing -- or else not replicated thereby taking credence away from the claim to fallible knowledge. Furthermore, it hasn't been just one person in history who's claimed this, but numerous, over the span of both time and cultures.

To be clear, I'm not one to then believe in a Christian concept of Heaven as a place that's eternally divided from a likewise Christian concept of an endless Hell.

That personal observation made, what further validation can one ask for short of the category error wherein one insists that the afterlife must in and of itself be physical/material and thereby empirically verifiable by all in the here and now?

Else asked, given the surplus of near-death experience accounts, on what grounds can one maintain that none of these folk can validly claim fallible knowledge of an afterlife?

Your own personal believes aside, can you provide evidence that Witt was one to deny the metaphysical reality of the Good via his own writings? The quote which you again post sorta provides evidence that he in fact did support the metaphysical reality of the Good, and of the Beautiful to boot. And again, if so far know of no metaphysical reality greater or of more import that that of the Good.

You seem to be conflating knowledge with truth. I say that any claim to propositional knowledge from religious experience is unsupported. Say someone has a religious experience and on the basis of that claims to know that there is an afterlife in heaven. Say for the sake of argument it turns out there is a heaven. Did the person know that based on their experience? No, because they would have to actually die and go to heaven to know there is a heaven. — Janus

To chime in a bit, experiences such as those of religious ecstasy are in no way inferential, but, rather, experiences. One would determinately know what one experiences just as much as one determinately knows what one sees, hears, etc. in the everyday world. That what one knows oneself to in fact see (a pink elephant for example) is not an illusion, mirage, hallucination, delusion, etc. would, and can only properly be, inference of one type or another. But what one in fact experiences is determinate knowledge by familiarity.

No personal experience, personal knowledge though it is, is verifiable in an empirical sense by any other. What is verifiable is that all others will act in react in like manners to that which one personally experiences of the physical world - and that one's current experiences coherently conform to all of one's former now remembered experiences. But one has no way of verifying what any other's personal experiences are - save via inferences regarding their actions and reactions and trust in what they claim to be true.

As to "knowledge of heaven", suppose a person has a near death experience wherein they experience themselves to float over their momentarily perished body toward some white light (this being a fairly common report historically). This person upon reviving claims knowing that their is a heaven. Their knowledge will certainly not be infallible. But then, neither is any other type of knowledge out there. Can their experience-derived inference of a possible heaven in the afterlife be empirically or else logically disproven on grounds of inconsistencies? It cannot unless one holds an infallible knowledge of physicalism/materialism whereby such afterlife would be metaphysical impossibility.

So, were there to in fact be a heave in the afterlife, then this one person has valid claims to fallible knowledge of it. About just as much as you or I have valid claims to fallible knowledge of anything in the empirical world.

You would think that visual sensing could continue along, just fine, when the person is a sleep, if it is a feature of the subconscious mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

The significance of this again eludes me. And again, this readily happens when people sleepwalk. So it can and does, in fact, happen: Sleepwalkers can visually see the external world while fully asleep and thus not consciously aware.

Why then don't we all sleepwalk all the time when asleep? One relatively short answer is that natural selection tends to rule this out due to the perils of so doing all the time.

Or, does keeping the eyes open, in general, anytime, require conscious effort? — Metaphysician Undercover

Keeping one's eyes open is, generally speaking, fully voluntary - meaning that it is subject to our conscious volition. This unlike, for example, keeping our heart beating, or pangs of hunger/thirst, or the experience of physical pain, etc. To that extent, yes, of course.

Edit: I should add that, generally speaking aside, there are of course exceptions when keeping the eyes open occurs unconsciously: see for example sleepwalking with eyes open.

I see that just answered my last question before I posted it. Thanks, btw. :smile:

I'll submit my post anyway.

(They are of the same kind as the question whether the Good
is more or less identical than the Beautiful.) — Janus

Interesting. Which is of course on par to asking if the Good is as darkly green as is the Beautiful. In short, a blatant category error, which, outside of some possibly rather refined or specialized poetic meaning, makes no sense whatsoever.

Notwithstanding, implicit in this very assertion of, to paraphrase, “the Good’s quality of identity when looked at in comparison to that of the Beautiful’s,” is the rather blatant affirmation that both the Good and the Beautiful are to be considered metaphysical realities.

I personally do not know of any more a metaphysical concept than that of the Good per se, such that it supersedes all others. Which, despite being instantiated in all instances of goodness such that it is what gives goodness its meaning, is none of these instances individually. The Good by very definition cannot have any empirical identity, yet it is that which grounds all senses of goodness within the empirical world. Does one thereby take “goodness” to be a metaphysical claim devoid of any referent as term on grounds that the Good cannot be pointed to with a finger?

Is there any evidence that Wittgenstein did?

If not, he might have well been quite metaphysical in his personal beliefs.

-------

Again, something which 's latest post illustrates to me to have indeed been the case. :up:

However, I don't understand your use of "unconscious". I'm sure partly due to my ignorance of the topic. But also possibly because different people mean things in different ways. I'm wondering which, if any, of these you mean. And I'm seriously winging all this. [...] — Patterner

Fair enough. I’ll try to better explain.

To first reiterate, I take CNS processes to be that via which mind is in vertebrates. To use Aristotelian terminology, this via material causation and not via efficient causation. And, thus, that the immaterial mind supervenes upon material CNS processes. And, for a fuller disclosure, I then likewise take mind to be capable of changing material CNS processes (such as by eventually changing via neural plasticity the strength or else very occurrence of certain synapses) via formal causation or one type or another, but, again, not via efficient causation.

So the immaterial mind is what the material CNS does – this in the strict sense just outlined. And this in those lifeforms endowed with a CNS. But, again for fuller disclosure, myself subscribing to the idea of all lifeforms having some form of mind, this as per views such as those found in Mind in Life, I don’t take mind to be necessarily dependent on the occurrence of a CNS – such that, for example, an ameba or a bacterium will have its own lifeform-specific mind, which is materially caused by the organizations and behaviors of the organic molecules which constitute the physical cell. A bacterium then has a vastly, almost unimaginably simpler mind than any lifeform endowed with a CNS. But back to the issues of the human mind:

Thus understood, the immaterial mind can then be generally divided into two parts: a) the conscious mind, i.e. that which is consciously aware of anything, and b) the unconscious mind, i.e. all those aspects of mind in total as previously addressed of which the conscious mind is not in any way aware of.

This basic rudimentary dichotomy can become quickly complicated in any number of ways: e.g. a visually recalled memory is consciousness’s (the conscious mind’s) conscious awareness of that which the unconscious mind presents to it (here stated rather laconically).

In a bacterium, there will quite likely be no such dichotomy between conscious and unconscious mind whatsoever.

But in a highly complex mind such as that of a human’s, this dichotomy will always hold. Such that the conscious mind can never fully equate to the total mind that supervenes upon the CNS. As you’ve somewhat pointed out, we are unconscious of the active, CNS-dependent volition via which our heart beats, etc. Likewise are we unconscious of the active, CNS-dependent volition via which that which we consciously will to say ends up being oppressed and nullified via a statement we did not consciously intend, thereby resulting in a slip of the tongue.

We have no way of mapping the unconscious mind vs. the conscious mind onto the CNS because we have no way of mapping consciousness onto the CNS to begin with; see for the example the binding problem of consciousness.

Because of this, I can not cogently answer what the unconscious is by mapping it onto certain portions of the CNS at expense of others. Nor can I cogently uphold that the unconscious equates to CNS activity at large - for consciousness too is to be found in at least certain aspects of this same CNS activity at large. So I cannot then equate the unconscious mind in humans to any of the three possibilities provided.

Rather, again, I take consciousness to be a convergence of certain unconscious agencies and loci of awareness into an ever-changing non-manifold unity. Thereby, again, making the conscious mind dependent on the workings of the unconscious mind, this in any organism complex enough to hold any form of dichotomy between the two.

To use a common enough metaphor, consciousness is like the visible tip of a glacier whose remaining mass is submerged beneath water, the latter being the unconscious mind. The two are not divided masses, they are not separate, but are rather intertwined as parts of the same mass. This total mass then being equated to the immaterial mind in whole.

If the activity of the eye is part of the unconscious, why, in your opinion, do we need to close our eyes when we sleep? — Metaphysician Undercover

Barring exceptions such as those of sleep paralysis and sleepwalking wherein the individual can be asleep in part or in whole with eyes wide open, such that they actively take in visual information of the external world, I’m at a loss as to the significance of the question.

Usually, when our eyes are not closed, we persist in being consciously alert to the outside world and so do not fall into sleep, wherein our conscious awareness of the outside world momentarily ceases. Hence, we will willfully close our eyes when we intend to fall asleep to assist in so doing. This doesn’t always work thought, with insomnia as a common enough example.

Or maybe you're thinking that retinal input is necessarily and instantly consciousness? To keep things simple, it generally needs to travel through the occipital lobe and then into other lobes in order to become conscious. And, so, the activities of brain which occur in the retina alone are in no way consciously experiences and are therefore aspects of the unconscious mind. Somewhat more complexly, blindsight directly speaks to how some visual information originating in the retina is, or at least can be fully unconscious. Related to this, from what I remember being taught, is that we will sometimes reflexively turn our gaze to something moving in our extreme periphery of vision prior to being consciously aware of it.

Maybe my answer to Patterner will help out.

As far as the details of this go, it depends on how one goes about conceptualizing what “an eye” is.
Light detection is found in prokaryotes (like bacteria), single-celled eukaryotic organisms (such as ameba), and, of course, in plants. It would be odd in many a way to then claim that any of these then have eyes; e.g. that plants see light via their eyesight. On the other hand, animals such as flatworms are stated to have eyespots on their heads, this rather than eyes.

If an eye is taken to in any way consist of a lens and thereby be camara-like, common consensus is that eyes have evolved analogously, and not homologously, numerous times via convergent evolution. In other words, that not all (lens-endowed) eyes in nature have evolved from a single common ancestor.

As one example, although its difficult toward impossible to conclusively establish strictly via fossils and DNA, common consensus has it that cephalopods (like octopi and squid) and vertebrates have evolved their eyes independently via convergent evolution. A reference for this.

The human retina of itself has five different types of neurons. (Reference.) So the retina is not strictly composed of dendrites that extend from out of neuron bodies that are themselves located within the CNS, which again is the brain + spinal cord (in contrast to the fingers or toes, for example, which do only contain dendrites (and axons) in the absence of any neuron bodies). Instead, the retina is a part of the neuron-constituted CNS itself, not only due to development, but also due to of itself being constituted of neuron bodies. So the retina is a portion of brain that sends information to other portions of brain. This, in some limited ways, in parallel to the way the occipital lobe sends visual information to the temporal lobe and the parietal lobe.

These details aside, (maybe as you yourself imply (?)) I so far don’t find all this much mattering though when it comes to basic appraisals of the unconscious mind and consciousness’s dependence on it.

are the signals generated by the toes when something brushes against them an event of the unconscious mind, just as signals generated by the retina when struck by photons are? — Patterner

Nearly forgot:

Once the signals from the dendrites reach the CNS, I uphold that they then, and only then, become the first constituent aspects of one's unconscious mind. This, naturally, together with all other most basic, constituent portions of one's unconscious mind (other sensory inputs, sense of balance, etc.) which, I'd again uphold, converge into greater levels of agency and awareness till some such portions become our lived consciousness. All this very succinctly expressed.

EDIT: As an example, as far as feeling something brush against one's toe(s), dendrites in one's toes are always active; but one is not always consciously aware of what one's toes feel in tactile manners (it seems that never is one consciously aware of what all portions of one's skin feels in tactile manners at any given time: from the toes to the scalp) . That one becomes conscious of something brushing up against one's toes is then inferred by me to be determined by one's unconscious mind.

This explains it more succinctly that I could in my own words:

In vertebrate embryonic development, the retina and the optic nerve originate as outgrowths of the developing brain, specifically the embryonic diencephalon; thus, the retina is considered part of the central nervous system (CNS) and is actually brain tissue.[2][3] It is the only part of the CNS that can be visualized noninvasively. [my input: and that occurs outside the cranium] Like most of the brain, the retina is isolated from the vascular system by the blood–brain barrier. The retina is the part of the body with the greatest continuous energy demand.[4] — the last paragraph in the wikipedia introduction on the retina

Whereas the retina is a part of the central nervous system (CNS), more specifically the brain and not the spinal cord, dendritic outreaches into one's toes, for example, are part of the nervous system at large, but not of the CNS proper - which strictly consists of brain and spinal cord in at least vertebrates.

Thank you for your response. I'm understanding it a little more with each reading. But I'm not understanding this:.
Just as its your unconscious mind which produces that which you are conscious of during waking states.
I am conscious of the temperature, various sounds, my hunger, things that I see, itches and pains, symptoms of illness... How is my unconsciousness mind producing all of that? I would have thought it's role is in different areas. — Patterner

To take visual perception as one relatively well studied example, the retina of the eye is technically a portion of one’s brain. Most retinal Information crisscrosses from the eyes into the occipital lobes, and from there into other lobes of the brain.At the very least, retinal brain processes and occipital lobe brain processes occur before conscious sight takes place of that which the eye takes in.

I take it that the brain itself, be it the retina, or the occipital lobes, or other regions, is not an inanimate object that causes mind as its effect - such that first there is inanimate brain, or portion of it, as efficient cause and then at a subsequent period of time there is a corresponding state of mind as effect. Instead, I take it that the mind is the top portion of a largely bottom-up non-causal process, one which could be termed supervenience. Save for the mind’s top-down non-causal process which I then associate with what is commonly considered free will (e.g. repeating the conscious decision to cease smoking can alter one's physical brain into one that eventually no longer craves nicotine).

In so understanding, there is then nothing that I visually see of the external world which is possible in the absence of unconscious mind processes. In terms of my visual perception, these basically being those aspects of mind which emerge via superveneience on physical brain processes regarding visual sight, specifically brain process that occur prior to the moment of me consciously seeing X: these, again, being retinal brain processes, occipital brain processes, etc.

Of course, the brain isn't just one specialized mode of perception. It does many things simultaneously. Most of which is done unconsciously, i.e. without conscious awareness. And, in my view, many of these unconscious processes of mind end up converging into one's conscious mind, aka consciousness.

BTW, if its of interest, the lapse between retinal input and conscious sight is measured in milliseconds. Here is one article addressing certain aspects of the general concept as regards both conscious and unconscious vision.

I’m glad that the general view I presented makes some sense to you. The part you quoted, written in haste, is in truth a generalized hypothesis I make given my best understanding and interpretations of the current data. When I wrote it I forgot that some might find it a controversial notion.

OK. Thanks for the answer.

But I'm also sure the orientation to the Good, or the 'will to truth', is not a matter of preference, of like or dislike. — Wayfarer

Ah. OK. I see things differently here. There's the "good" of not suffering, which I take all to consciously or unconsciously be oriented toward without exception (this as you here say, and as typical Buddhism upholds), but then there is also the Good as ultimate, existentially fixed telos. Skipping the rational to this, which is not readily expressible in soundbite form, I then find that many are, consciously or not, quite adverse to the Good: holding fear for it rather than love/affinity toward it. When a person indulges in the tyrannical pleasures of raping another, this, as one example, is not done with a "will to truth".

But I'll for my part leave this disagreement of opinion as is.

Agapē, commonly understood as "selfless brotherly love", that is not oriented any any person(s)? — javra


Matt. 5:45 'He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good'. Doesn't that underwrite the Christian attitude of brotherly love, charity to the dispossessed and despised? — Wayfarer

The passage could be interpreted in various ways. I still don't understand by it what you interpret as an agape that pays no regard to persons.

Since what was addressed were aspects of the Abrahamic ethos, loving thy enemy (holding agape / compassion for one's enemy) is yet, to me, relative to person(s).

Whereas the Buddhist 'karuna' or 'mudita' is perhaps closer to the Christian agapē, which 'pays no regard to persons'. — Wayfarer

I neglected this part, Can you unpack what an agape that pays no regard to persons signifies to you?

Agape, commonly understood as "selfless brotherly love", that is not oriented at any person(s)?

Then I don't know if that is seeing the point! This is something often grappled with by Zen Buddhist aspirants - on the one hand, they are constantly urged to make a supreme effort, and the effort demanded of Zen students is arduous in the extreme. But at the same time, they're told that any effort arising from wanting some result or getting somewhere is mere egotism! The theory is that renunciation includes complete detachment from oneself, from trying to be or to get. That is the 'gordian knot' of life in a nutshell, and the reason that Zen Buddhism in particular is well-known for being a highly-focussed discipline. Krishnamurti would often say 'It is the truth that liberates you, not the effort to be free'. — Wayfarer

My honest hunch is that Zen Buddhism is somehow often misconstrued, even among certain self proclaimed Zen Buddhism teachers/masters/experts which further the misconstrued. I've of course no facts to this effect, but it's certainly not beyond the realm of possibilities.

"It is the truth that liberates you, not the effort to be free" could be interpreted in myriad ways, some of which might be on track. But embedded right into this is the implicit and quite stringent affirmation that "liberation is good". Hence, the attachment/bias/favoring of that which is good - here, namely liberation from illusion - by any Zen Buddhist, and this irrespective of what is said, and the disfavoring of remaining "un-liberated" from, or enslaved to, illusion.

It's important to distinguish what is beyond reason from the merely irrational, which is not an easy distinction to grasp — Wayfarer

Of course. The very occurrence of being (else Being with a capital "B") is arational. Just about the only exception to the law of sufficient reason. And the occurrence of being is experienced, of itself experience, not something rationally derived or alternatively inferred.

Isn't he saying here that 'attachment' is what introduces 'bias'? — Wayfarer

"Attachment" is not expressed in the passage, but "biased toward" is. To reiterate what I previously expressed, I'm all for the ideal of a mindful (as in "mindfulness"), compassion-infused detachment (aka lack of bias toward). Yet, again, when one loves, one is necessarily attached - and compassion devoid of all forms of love is ... not compassion.

Yes, under the philosophical microscope, love too is a bias. One that can be quite egotistically limited to specific others (my child, or parent, or lover only, and fu*k the rest) or else which can extent to humanity, the world in this sense, at large. And, often enough, one can hold varying extents of both forms simultaneously. But I gravely doubt that the Dalai Lama is claiming that such love-resulting favoring of those which one loves is a vice.

It is a complex topic. Charles Manson, given as an example of extreme vice, did undergo far more childhood abuse than many of us want to comprehend. There can then be compassion for him as an adult in this. But, notwithstanding, though this would preclude any feeling of glee in his suffering while incarcerated, it would not equate to either a) not wanting him incarcerated or else b) feeling compassion for him in the vice filled deeds, murdering, which he orchestrated. Here there is attachment, bias, to the ideal of equitable justice for all, for example. Something which all religions I can currently think of uphold in their theorizing (though not in uniform practice, lets say). An "attachment/bias" which I likewise gravely doubt the Dalai Lama would in any way denounce.

What being unbiased signifies is not being devoid of favoring equitable justice for all, but in keeping true to this by not favoring one individual other others when the same deed is done. For example, not excusing the billionaire when they double park on account of his status when holding average joe shmoe accountable for the same deed.

On a less mundane level, I'll uphold that the Dalai Lama, as with the original Buddha, is extremely attached/biased toward what some in the West term the Good. And that, in so being, he then becomes detached from / unbaiased in relation to all direct and inderect forms of nepotism, etc.

Again, its what "detachment" / "attachment" is being proposed to ideally be that I'm currently questioning - and not the favorably of detachment/attachment in general when understood to necessarily entail compassion (something that we so far seem to see eye to eye on).

That passage from the Dalai Lama makes the same point! — Wayfarer

Same point as?