How to exit the religious mess!

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Belinda
Posts: 8034
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Belinda »

Dontaskme wrote:
No one has seen an emotion, whether it's appearing in this one here or that one over there.

Emotions are known and felt by the only knowing there is which is awareness which cannot be seen or felt for it is what's seeing and feeling.
But what people usually and especially in clinical context mean by 'emotion' can be seen.

My dog can see my emotions. A scientist can see a human's or other animal's innards and view emotions happening.

You yourself claim to be able to 'read' people and therefore you would be sensitive to visible signs in them of emotion.

Subjectively we cannot feel what another is feeling except via sympathy .However feeling is not the same as seeing.
thedoc
Posts: 6473
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2012 4:18 pm

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by thedoc »

Arising_uk wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2017 11:26 pm
Dontaskme wrote:You know a thought, but you cannot see a thought.
I disagree but I'd like to know what a thought is to you?

Although I do agree that what thoughts actually are is different from how I understand them as at base thoughts are, in the main, activation patterns in a neuronal net.
Some thoughts are images and those a person can definitely see. Other thoughts do not have an image and a person can't see them. You can't paint all thoughts with the same brush.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Dontaskme »

Belinda wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 7:16 pm Dontaskme wrote:
No one has seen an emotion, whether it's appearing in this one here or that one over there.

Emotions are known and felt by the only knowing there is which is awareness which cannot be seen or felt for it is what's seeing and feeling.
But what people usually and especially in clinical context mean by 'emotion' can be seen.

My dog can see my emotions. A scientist can see a human's or other animal's innards and view emotions happening.

You yourself claim to be able to 'read' people and therefore you would be sensitive to visible signs in them of emotion.

Subjectively we cannot feel what another is feeling except via sympathy .However feeling is not the same as seeing.
There is nothing outside of seeing that can see. Anything seen is inseparable from the seer.

.
thedoc
Posts: 6473
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2012 4:18 pm

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by thedoc »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:52 pm There is nothing outside of seeing that can see. Anything seen is inseparable from the seer..
So you deny reality in order to make your point? There are certain Eastern Mystics that believe that if they can focus their mental energies everything physical will disperse into nothing and only they will be left in a non-corporeal state. When you achieve that, let me know and I'll see if there is someone who can pull you back to reality.
User avatar
Arising_uk
Posts: 12314
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Arising_uk »

Dontaskme wrote:...
You asked for it! ...
And I obviously asked wrongly. I was not asking what you think about thoughts but what happens to you when you have a thought. Try it this way, have a thought and then could you describe to me what is happening to you internally, that is how are you representing your thoughts?
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Arising_uk wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 10:36 pm
Dontaskme wrote:...
You asked for it! ...
And I obviously asked wrongly. I was not asking what you think about thoughts but what happens to you when you have a thought. Try it this way, have a thought and then could you describe to me what is happening to you internally, that is how are you representing your thoughts?
Are you trying to get to the moment when you internally vocalise? Obviously that is the end of the process by which we arrive at a thought. And it is only those that we are immediately conscious of WHEN someone asks that question. The word 'thought' kind of determines that the answer will be word based, and having to type an answer will also make thoughts form verbally.
`It seems to me thought that verbal thoughts are only a tiny part of what we do with out consciousness. ~When working on art or driving, playing a musical instrument - these activities are steeped in thinking, but rarely would a vocalisation take place or be useful. When you drive you take the bend tight, you do not say to yourself I'm going to find the racing line across the roundabout - you just take it.
When making a sculpture I might form an image of the way I want the tool to press into the clay. I can do this for hours thinking about how I want the clay to appear, without a single word entering my head.

But we can never really access the depths of thinking. The brain is the very tool needed to think. the screw does not turn the screw driver. A book does not read . So what exactly is happening here has to be utterly opaque.
Belinda
Posts: 8034
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Belinda »

Dontaskme wrote:
There is nothing outside of seeing that can see. Anything seen is inseparable from the seer.
If I understand you , I agree. If I understand you, you are saying that what is happening , for example seeing, exists.

And also that what you see (and do other than seeing) is what you are. And what I see(and do other than seeing) is what I am.

By "doing" I include planning ahead, indulging in day dreams, doing stupid things, and doing wise things, and so on.

What you say also means for me that my thoughts of Dontaskme are mine and are not you.

Would you also say that you and I are responsible for our seeing, and thoughts? Is it possible to control our seeing, and thoughts?
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Dontaskme »

thedoc wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 10:31 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:52 pm There is nothing outside of seeing that can see. Anything seen is inseparable from the seer..
So you deny reality in order to make your point? There are certain Eastern Mystics that believe that if they can focus their mental energies everything physical will disperse into nothing and only they will be left in a non-corporeal state. When you achieve that, let me know and I'll see if there is someone who can pull you back to reality.
There is no one to deny reality. Reality is this ever immediate boundless presence right here and now in which every apparent thing arises and falls self- evident. This presence is alone with itself. There is nothing inside or outside of it bar it self. It's not a thing, it's not a person, it's not anything at all... all things arise and fall in IT as mental constructions made of intangible abstract thoughts, concepts, feelings, ideas, beliefs, emotions, etc...

What the mystic means by this is what we normally believe to be a separate person living in a world that appears to be outside of us, does not actually exist except as an idea in presence that is already here right now, there is nothing outside or inside of this immediate presence, there is no ''us'' ''me'' or ''them'' separate from PRESENCE. The apparent separate identified things are ''appearances'' within presence, much like an ice-cube is to an entire body of liquid water, the ice-cube appears to stand out separately from the liquid water, but once the ice-cube dissolves it instantly merges with the liquid water, it is the water, it only appeared to be an ice-cube...the human mind is like that, it can appear to divide the whole into two parts, it can be liquid or solid, apparently appearing as two, but never two.

The mystic is like the ice-cube merging back into it's original state, from the mis-identified state of separation back to the wholeness of this boundless presence which is it's true identity, which is no identity, and to realise there never was a mystic, man or woman or person except the idea appearing in this obvious presence that is no thing, and everything.

.

.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Dontaskme »

Belinda wrote: Fri Sep 29, 2017 7:51 am Dontaskme wrote:
There is nothing outside of seeing that can see. Anything seen is inseparable from the seer.
If I understand you , I agree. If I understand you, you are saying that what is happening , for example seeing, exists.
There is only seeing, no other one is seeing , the one that looks out from my eyes, it the same one that looks out from your eyes. And from the perspective of the one looking out of your eyes, that's the only reality that is being experienced, and no other reality is being experienced, because you cannot experience or know anything outside of your own consciousness. What you think is another consciousness out-there, is your own projection of it which can only ever be itself projecting another outside of itself. The concept of ''other'' is only a projection of the one seer projecting it's unique perspectives as and through each apparent mind/body mechanism as it's own one self appearing as the many..since all perspective realities are happening simultaneously, and is why nothing is actually happening to a single mind/body mechanism, it only appear as if it is.
Belinda wrote: Fri Sep 29, 2017 7:51 amAnd also that what you see (and do other than seeing) is what you are. And what I see(and do other than seeing) is what I am.

By "doing" I include planning ahead, indulging in day dreams, doing stupid things, and doing wise things, and so on.

What you say also means for me that my thoughts of Dontaskme are mine and are not you.


Belinda wrote: Fri Sep 29, 2017 7:51 amWould you also say that you and I are responsible for our seeing, and thoughts? Is it possible to control our seeing, and thoughts?
Since thoughts are spontaneously self-arising, I don't know what you mean by being responsible for controlling them? ..As far as I can see, no thing is controlling our thoughts because they are not our thoughts..there is the awareness and knowing of each thought as and when a thought arises in your present awareness which is in itself not a thought.

I understand that seeing the world or perceiving the world to be a certain way is what thought seems to think about it which must be illusory since thoughts are not what actual reality is. Actual reality is this silent presence in which all thoughts appear and disappear... when mind attaches itself and identifies with thought.. reality becomes a different place to what it actually is, otherwise it's perfectly silent and nothing is happening...the only thing mind can do is to not attach itself to the thought and just watch the thoughts allowing them to be without rejecting or reacting to them in the moment, and then to reflect on whether they have been useful or not....I'm thinking thought is how humans make sense of the world, but the presence of reality doesn't need to make sense of the world, for there is no world in the presence, the presence is just this self shining boundless space that is watching itself appearing as a world of things and thought... and so every time there is an attachment to thought by the mind and the mind say this is bad and that is not good...this is when the mind has to take a step back into the immediate neutral presence and realise that nothing is either for or against anything other than being this already here perfect neutral presence...if that's what you mean? I'm not really sure what you mean here.

.

.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Dontaskme »

Arising_uk wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 10:36 pm
Dontaskme wrote:...
You asked for it! ...
And I obviously asked wrongly. I was not asking what you think about thoughts but what happens to you when you have a thought. Try it this way, have a thought and then could you describe to me what is happening to you internally, that is how are you representing your thoughts?
There is only here a boundless presence and that presence is what you are, it doesn't need to think about being present to be present. Nothing happens to presence when a thought arises, but there can be an energy that attaches itself to the thought where the thought becomes something other than the presence in which it is arising in...the thought 'I am a person' is just a thought arising in what you already are, which is presence ..the thought 'I am a person' is a phantom superimposition upon what already is. So it's not real, only presence is presenting itself real...not the represention of what thoughts think is real.

.
User avatar
Arising_uk
Posts: 12314
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Arising_uk »

Dontaskme wrote:...
So yes of course we are only ever talking with ourselves. ...
I disagree, why? Because Language is not something that a 'one' can produce. So at the very least the existence of language means there is an other other than oneself.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Dontaskme »

Arising_uk wrote: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:26 am
Dontaskme wrote:...
So yes of course we are only ever talking with ourselves. ...
I disagree, why? Because Language is not something that a 'one' can produce. So at the very least the existence of language means there is an other other than oneself.
You are the language. There is nothing outside of language.

Beyond the you of language is the silent mute witness ever-present looking on in detachment. It's no coincidence that mans best friend cannot talk...you're other half of you... :roll:

.

I'll believe your belief in ''other'' when you can successfully step outside of your consciousness and step into the consciousness of someone else. ...until you can do that, I'll not believe a word of it.



.
User avatar
Arising_uk
Posts: 12314
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Arising_uk »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Are you trying to get to the moment when you internally vocalise? Obviously that is the end of the process by which we arrive at a thought. And it is only those that we are immediately conscious of WHEN someone asks that question. The word 'thought' kind of determines that the answer will be word based, and having to type an answer will also make thoughts form verbally.
`It seems to me thought that verbal thoughts are only a tiny part of what we do with out consciousness. ~When working on art or driving, playing a musical instrument - these activities are steeped in thinking, but rarely would a vocalisation take place or be useful. When you drive you take the bend tight, you do not say to yourself I'm going to find the racing line across the roundabout - you just take it.
When making a sculpture I might form an image of the way I want the tool to press into the clay. I can do this for hours thinking about how I want the clay to appear, without a single word entering my head. ...
I think we're pretty much on the same page in this matter.

I'm not trying to get to the moment you describe I was just trying to understand how DAM thinks or even if she knows how she does, although as you point out with your sculpting example I don't think the internal vocalization is the necessary end of a thought process. For myself I make a slight distinction between 'thinking' and what I call 'thoughting'(it's not necessarily a hard and fast one nor even real I just find it a useful tool at present to describe something that I do think leads to confusion in many). Thinking is when one uses the internal voice to 'think' or 'thought' if you like and I think it the thing that most would call thinking or a thought when done. Thoughting is when one uses the other representations to 'think' without the internal voice and is, for me, the base of 'thinking', as all words whether consciously or subconsciously convert back to thoughting in the end in my opinion. This is why, in my opinion, there is sometimes(or even often) a lot of misunderstanding in communication as it's not necessarily the case that the thoughts or representations that one attaches to ones words are exactly the same as the ones the hearer has when they hear the words. Now personally I think thinking one of the major leaps in animal reasoning and has given us a major advantage over the other animals but there are problems that arise, philosophically at least, and one is that people think that thinking is 'themselves' when actually it is an other or some such. :)
But we can never really access the depths of thinking. The brain is the very tool needed to think. the screw does not turn the screw driver. A book does not read . So what exactly is happening here has to be utterly opaque.
Well I agree at the base because for me at base thought and thinking are activation patterns in the CNS(although I accept it's more complicated than this as there are the other two subsystems(maybe more?) in the mix, i.e. the endocrine and skeletal/muscular systems, so we are never going to access those in any other sense than the way we already do, i.e. the representations that are already given. However I do think it possible to develop techniques to improve both one's thoughting and thinking :)

Hope this makes some sense to you.
User avatar
Arising_uk
Posts: 12314
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Arising_uk »

thedoc wrote:Some thoughts are images and those a person can definitely see. Other thoughts do not have an image and a person can't see them. You can't paint all thoughts with the same brush.
Can I take it you are talking about your 'God'? Maybe not, so I agree with what you say a thought could just be a feeling for example but I think one can always add the other representations to a thought, an image for example, and I think such a process can enlighten or enhance a thought.
User avatar
Arising_uk
Posts: 12314
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am

Re: How to exit the religious mess!

Post by Arising_uk »

Dontaskme wrote:There is only here a boundless presence and that presence is what you are, it doesn't need to think about being present to be present. Nothing happens to presence when a thought arises, but there can be an energy that attaches itself to the thought where the thought becomes something other than the presence in which it is arising in...the thought 'I am a person' is just a thought arising in what you already are, which is presence ..the thought 'I am a person' is a phantom superimposition upon what already is. So it's not real, only presence is presenting itself real...not the represention of what thoughts think is real.
Not what I asked you really, what I asked you was when you have a thought what is happening in your mind to you? Is it just that you hear an internal voice? If so I think you are confusing thinking in language with thoughting with the representations of the senses.
Post Reply