Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Sep 07, 2017 8:05 am
....Everything is seeing the same world. Images are appearances in seeing, therefore, edges are illusory ...
This statement has the logical structure of a non-sequitor.
In order to show that I must show that there exists at least one possible case where if "everything is seeing the same world" and "Images are appearances in seeing" then not "edges are illusory"
The problem has to do with "what something is" and "that something is". Sensory experience has boundaries. Consider viewing the Japanese flag which is white with a red dot. Now one can see the red dot as one thing and the white as another or one can see the flag as a single item.
Look at the vase profile illusion:
https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcaf ... %3Bllusion
What changes is how being is assigned to objects and the boundaries of the objects are assigned. For example I can say there is a red dot and see the white as nothing, or I can see the red dot as a hole in the white something , or I can see both the red dot and the white as different things, the red dot being in a hole in the white thing, or I can do what you do and see the whole flag with dot as part of seeing.
All of these cases are modes that humans can cause their brains to think. Is it thinking? Well consider a line drawing of a cube where either of two faces may seem to be brought forward. Something changes when one face appears to be forward and then one tries to think of the other face as forward and then suddenly one sees the other face forward. That change is not how we think in a sense, for we usually think that there are just lines. But our imaginations can be placed in two distinct states and by an act of will where we try to see it first one way then the other then back it will usually switch. It is not the same thing to try and to have it happen. Once commences trying and after a while it suddenly changes. So we may include changes like this under the term "thinking" or use a separate term like "interpretation" or "imagine" but once we see the fact that this happens it is just semantics as how we describe it.
Now here is the thing. The edge is there in all cases of the red and white. In fact all of these are modes our minds can be in based on the same experiencing. And this experiencing is very different than a blue square experiencing. If I look at a blue square and try to imagine it as a red circle I cannot.
So if I use the mode you are describing "everything is seeing the same world" and "images are appearances in seeing" and conceive or interpret experiencing only as having being assigned just to the seeing, not to composite things, and interpret all being as assigned only to the what of seeing, then there still exists the boundary in that experience of experiencing for it is different than blue square seeing. That boundary does not divide the seeing up into this and that, nor does it even in its deepest form objectify seeing into a seer seeing a seen but that has nothing to do with whether the content of the seeing contains a boundary. That is just how being (and nothing) is assigned in our ...again I will use "thinking" but use whatever word you want. The mathematics of topology can make this very clear. Boundaries have precise definitions. It is beyond the scope of this response but mathematical topology has the notion of a topological manifold and of which manifolds have boundaries and can form the basis of a very clear and precise description of what a boundary means.
The boundary however is not dependent on that assignment. Mathematically it is the property of the manifold and not to a particular subset of the set of sets in the manifold. Rather the assignment is dependent on the boundary in some cases where there is a boundary in the assignment that is based on how it looks and where no assignment is so made the presence of the difference in color is still there and therefore a real property of what you can "the seeing".
So saying that the boundaries we place between objects is not real is very different from saying that the boundary is an illusion. In fact it is not. It is a real property of the nature of seeing at the time it is seeing as I hypothesized.
And that seeing and seeing which is of a blue square is inherently different. Not only is the boundary different but the color is.
I have an idea that works somewhat well. Instead of saying I see a red dot on a white background or something like that we distinguish two ways. First if we assign being as we usually do to the flag and we make a distinction between the part of the flag that is red and the part that is white by color assignment to place, and if we believe that assignment will hold up through many experiencings as I change perspective or show you the flag and hand it to you, then I say I am seeing a white flag with a red colored dot on it or something like that (ok if there is an dot applied to one side this works. We might change the description slightly if the dot is colored all the way through the fabric etc.)
However, if I am not describing that but rather I am describing the seeing that is done then I say something like "I am red dot on a white background seeing". In other words I move the description to before the verbal to describe the seeing and indicating that I am not positing objective existence. This works good in English because adverbs are placed before the verbal. In the case that I say I am red dot on a white background seeing, there is no object necessarily posited outside of my seeing (there may in fact be one but I am not commenting on it) and if my brain were stimulated by electrodes artificially and I knew it I could even say "I am red dot on a white background seeing but I am not seeing a red dot on a white background (because I believe there isn't one).
HOWEVER only if I am somehow confused and actually believe that there is or is not a Japanese flag there, does an ILLUSION take place.
For example, if I believe I am seeing a red dot on a white background but there is no sensory pathway but rather an hallucination is occurring and I am only red dot on a white background seeing then there is an ILLUSION present.
Likewise if I believe I am only red dot on a white background seeing because I am in an experiment in which various images were being caused in my experiencing but unbeknownst to me the scientists have caused the image to correspond to what is in fact there in the room and which under they right circumstances I could turn to and point my head and show my friend etc then again there is an ILLUSION there also present because I am being tricked that the flag is just my red dot on a white background seeing and not my seeing a red dot on a white background.
In each case of illusion there are two cases that are being confused. The real and the illusion.
In this sense I can say (and see) that whether I red dot on a white background see or see a red dot on a white background the edge is still there in a sense appropriate to the conception (or visualization, or thinking or whatever) and is therefore trans-interpretation and real. The edge is real and is there and in one sense the same in all cases no matter what state of hypostatizing your brain is in.
There is more detail to this than I present because the distinction of the sense experiencing, the red dot on a white background seeing, has several possibilities as I described and I can only distinguish with the trick of placing the description in the adverb slot or after the verbal two situations. More ways are needed and can perhaps be found in rigorously defining the notion of "background" and whether the various backgrounds have being or are nothing. Still it illustrates how these ways of being can be distinguished and allows one to more precisely define "illusory".
If by "illusory" I mean some kind of trick and also that there does not exist any aspect of similarity in the shape and color between various cases then there is no illusion as you describe because I cannot suddenly find out about it and now know the truth and it goes away. Instead, in your case I just discover another way of experiencing. One that few people have and one that practically defines the term "mystical".
Nor can one say that it is "illusory" if I interpret the existence of a Japanese flag in the usual case of being able no just to have one experience of it but in addition to know what will happen if I fold it and put it in a drawer and then take it out and look again. The fact that I will red dot with a white flag see every time I turn my head to see the flag is a real aspect of the nature of reality and this is the whole point:
THAT ASPECT IS INDEPENDENT OF HOW I ASSIGN BEING TO THE EXPERIENCING.
So if I perceive as you say everything as of experiencing there is still a difference between red ball seeing and blue square seeing and there is also a boundary in each case that is trans-interpretation.
Even if I have complete mystical awareness in the presence of that flag and am God experiencing there is still the fact that I am God experiencing in a different way that if I had a flag with a blue square and was square blue flag seeing.
So there is no illusion. Our senses are "real" and it is perfectly true that one might be under and illusion about whether there is a red ball flag or a blue square flag in some closed box. There can be illusion because there is reality and an illusion would be the case where what I imagine to be true does not correspond to that reality. What is meant by those mystics who say otherwise and who characterize Maya as illusion is true as far as what they mean - namely that certain ontological assignments are not the only possible ones - or even that some are less valid than others (a much harder but perhaps possible point to make). But still there exists in our experiencing the facts that allow either its objective or mystical interpretation and these facts are very real and transcend in some sense the interpretation.
They are so real that facts like those described, only now about say a revolver and my head, have existential consequences for my experiencing itself for I believe that if I were to point a revolver at your head and pull the trigger while you were either just red dot on a white flag seeing or seeing a red dot on a white flag then no matter which is the case that seeing would cease and in only the case of seeing a white flag and not in the case of just white flag seeing would any white flag remain perhaps now stained by my brain blown all over it. If I were hallucinating the bullet would cause it to cease, but that would not damage a flag supposing it was far enough away.
That temporality is related to death was described best by Heidegger.
So the real truth is that BOTH these natural descriptions and the mystical ones are true. One has to be careful whenever one uses the term "illusion" especially.
All of this can be resolved by an honest and profound examination of ontology that results in both objective and mystical experiencing.
No linguistic system that I am aware of has a standard way of parsing these differences and its not surprising since natural language has developed to support the actions required for survival.
Still language has developed some rare features. For example I can write I was "seeing" but also that I was "Seeing". Capitalization is a standard way of invoking divine experiencing.
We all can look back to Copernicus and see how the "revolution" was made. Few of us can look forward to the upcoming revolution where the mysteries inherent in profound ontological experience find their precise expression in language and these expressions become adopted and used by most of us. We will have to do that soon as soon the neurologists and computer scientists will require the terminology to distinguish the experiencing that they are correlating with various natural or synthetic neurological systems and thereby providing what they currently call explanation but which we both know will no longer be seen that way.
In fact the scientists should also soon find the neurological correlates of the mistake that there is explanation in science of facts and not just correlation and positing to describe what is.
Still, in the future era beyond current modernism, the reality of the boundary will not be in question.
Happy Hunting.