Back to Infinity

So what's really going on?

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Serendipper
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by Serendipper »

AlexW wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 2:23 am
Serendipper wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:46 pm Well, nothing could be known unless there was something unknown.
No, things are never known and therefore there is also nothing unknown - there is only knowing (maybe replacing the term knowing with consciousness works better to understand what I am referring to?)
Well, again, there is no such thing as consciousness if there is nothing to be conscious of.
Serendipper wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:46 pm this desire to have a nondual solution of all-god and no not-god is just another manifestation of splitting duality in half
There is no good or bad in the non-dual. If one is looking for only the good then he will automatically also create the bad. They come hand in hand - just like everything in duality.
Yes, it's codependent origination. If there is a heads side to a coin, there must be a tails side. We can't have one without the other and together they make a coin. But we also cannot have a coin unless there is something that is not the coin, so in the same way a coin depends on everything that it is not.

So it doesn't make any sense to think about only god existing because there would have to be something that is not god in order for god to exist. In order for god to be conscious, there would have to be something that is not god for god to be conscious of. God would have to express himself in something that is not himself and in that way he could observe aspects of himself that are manifested in that expression.
Serendipper wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:46 pm Existence is not abstract, but relational. If god exists, then he exists in relation to something and not in abstraction.
Agree, but "God" does not exist as a thing - "he" is beyond existence and non-existence as these are still concepts that work only in duality - you need some thing to exist or not exist, but as I said "God" is not a thing and thus he doesn't exist in relation to anything nor is he an abstraction. He is not an idea, but always the knowing presence itself.
If god is "knowing", then he'd need something to know in order to be "knowing". If god, as you say, can only know himself, then he is already known and now god will require something new to know in order to be "knowing".

I don't understand being above and beyond existence. However, I do consider "being" and "non-being" to be part of existence. A light can be on (potential to be off), a light can be off (potential to be on), or a light can be non-existent (no potential for anything). So, god could be above and beyond "being", but not existence.
Serendipper wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:46 pm Ideas have borders or else we couldn't know what the idea is not.
Yes, but the border is again an idea. Is an idea real?
Yes because I define reality as the interaction between subject and object. Rainbows are real because I observe them, but they are not real in an objective sense. Objective reality cannot have an observer and therefore cannot be real-ized. If there is no observer, then there is no real.
Serendipper wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:46 pm Something has to produce those thoughts, but the thing that produces the thoughts also produces the ego and therefore one cannot find the other because they are produced by the same thing.
Yes, in a way... What if this thing also produces everything else... what if there is nothing besides it and everything it produces is not just like it, but IS it?
It might seem that this no-thing, as a logical consequence of producing all things, also produces the ego, but while thoughts are real the stories/beliefs they contain are not. Thoughts are required for the idea/structure of the ego to arise, but ego itself, including all of its judgements, is only an acquired, every-changing story based on past and current learning and conditioning - a process that produces an abstraction of reality (including a separate self) that can as such never be real. It will always only be a map of reality, which is initially not a bad thing - it can be very helpful - but when this map is out of sync with base-reality it will not be able to guide you on your path through life. Only if the map is true, and as such in tune with reality is it of any value - and to know if it is true, you first have to know what truth/reality is.
There is no base-reality if there is no one there to observe it. Subjects and objects cannot exist without each other and the interaction between the two causes reality.
Serendipper wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:46 pm If that were true, then you wouldn't have to try because I would already know what you know, but clearly there is a wall separating what is you from what is me and neither of us could exist if it weren't so.
The wall exists only in the wrong map that I have been referring to before. Correct the map and you find that neither of us exists in separation (simply because there is no us, but only I).
We don't exist in separation, but we share a wall which is part of the continuum. If there weren't that wall, there would be no you or me. A coin is a coin and there are no separate parts, but there is a heads and tails side. You and I are not separate things, but codependent things.
AlexW
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by AlexW »

I think we have run into a dead end because we are approaching the problem from two completely different angles.
You argue based on dualistic logic, which will only take you to the shore - whereas I am talking to you from the other side of the river.
There is no way to cross the river while simultaneously believing that the concepts you apply to make sense of reality ARE reality.
The first step into the river can only be made once a certain willingness to question and even abandon dualistic logic arises - as long as you believe without doubt that thought is right in its definition of reality there is no way to even get a single toe into the water.
There has to be a drive to question everything we have learned in the most honest way before progress can be made. The hardest thing about seeing reality as it is, is not the seeing, it is the willingness to investigate what has been added to it (and to accept the result of the investigation even if it is against all logic). It is about recognising what logical thinking adds to reality, essentially veiling it to such an extent that it becomes the opposite of what it is.
If you dive deep into your direct experience of the moment - now - you will always find that there are no two sides of a coin, that there is "consciousness" (or rather knowing/being) but no thing that it is conscious of. Direct experience can take you to the river-bank any time, but crossing the river requires perfect honesty when interpreting the experience. Look for all the things you believe do exist - look for them in seeing or hearing or touch - and if you are really honest, if you stick to the direct experience, peeling away more and more layers of thought based qualities and attributes, then you will eventually find only one thing. You will find *this* that is no thing, but that all (apparent) things are made of.
If you are interested I can write more about this kind of investigation - if not, also fine :-)
Belinda
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by Belinda »

AlexW wrote:
The first step into the river can only be made once a certain willingness to question and even abandon dualistic logic arises - as long as you believe without doubt that thought is right in its definition of reality there is no way to even get a single toe into the water.
Thought and the content of thought are as real as the instinct of a hound to chase a rabbit, and as real as the anatomy of the hound that is built for speediness. It's not the case that the content of thought is unreal; the content of thought happened and necessarily happened like the instinct and anatomy of the hound necessarily happened.
---peeling away more and more layers of thought based qualities and attributes, then you will eventually find only one thing. You will find *this* that is no thing, but that all (apparent) things are made of.
If you are interested I can write more about this kind of investigation - if not, also fine
Thus physical manifestations and mental manifestations are both real. True, reality is not a thing; it's the sum of all things and it's also existence conceived as itself.
AlexW
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by AlexW »

Hi Belinda,
Belinda wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:31 am Thought and the content of thought are as real as the instinct of a hound to chase a rabbit
...
It's not the case that the content of thought is unreal
I am not exactly sure what you mean with content of thought - is there a thought without content?
As I see it there are thoughts, which are not the problem, and then there are stories and beliefs that emerge from connected/logical thinking. If the dots/thoughts are connected the wrong way then the picture cannot be true.
What I am trying to say is that we have connected the wrong dots and that we as such have to rewire our connections so our thinking is based on truth/reality.
Belinda
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by Belinda »

Alex, I think that the concept of thought is real ( a concept which is abstracted from actual thoughts with contents) and also actual thought contents are real. My basic assumption is : if it happens it's real. However I do prefer Plato and Spinoza in that some thoughts are better than other thoughts according to the criterion of what is rational. So we might say that day dreaming and fantasising is to a degree unreal, and hallucinating is to a degree unreal.

I have faith that there be absolute and total reality but that we cannot access it.

Infinity is adressed by Spinoza when he says that God-or-Nature has infinite attributes but that we can access only two of those: the temporal and the eternal.
Serendipper
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by Serendipper »

AlexW wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:29 am I think we have run into a dead end because we are approaching the problem from two completely different angles.
You argue based on dualistic logic, which will only take you to the shore - whereas I am talking to you from the other side of the river.
The problem is you're asking me to abandon the only means of verification I have in order to accept what you're putting forth. You're essentially saying, "Rational thought will not get you there; you must simply believe."

I'm ok with nonconceptual knowledge, but you're not chipping away at stone to reveal anything, but rather you're starting with the finished product and insisting it exists and insisting there is no way to arrive at the finished product other than to simply believe it exists.

Hebrews 11 King James Version (KJV)
11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.


The only way to see God is to already believe he exists and that's the same proposition you're laying on my doorstep: the only way to see "nondual" is to believe it exists because logic and reason cannot take me there.
There is no way to cross the river while simultaneously believing that the concepts you apply to make sense of reality ARE reality.
The first step into the river can only be made once a certain willingness to question and even abandon dualistic logic arises - as long as you believe without doubt that thought is right in its definition of reality there is no way to even get a single toe into the water.
If I abandon logic, then how will I know what to believe? If 2+2 is not 4, then it could be 5 or 6 or 7 or any one of infinite numbers. There are many ways to be wrong, but only one way to be right.
There has to be a drive to question everything we have learned in the most honest way before progress can be made. The hardest thing about seeing reality as it is, is not the seeing, it is the willingness to investigate what has been added to it (and to accept the result of the investigation even if it is against all logic). It is about recognising what logical thinking adds to reality, essentially veiling it to such an extent that it becomes the opposite of what it is.
I'll start my investigation by investigating your claim that objective reality can exist. How's that? :D

The problem is when I show that existence must be relational and "reality" only makes sense in terms of a subject and object, then you simply say logic must be abandoned and then assert that I should investigate my tools of investigation by using the very tools in question. Teeth cannot bite themselves, eyes cannot look at themselves, knives cannot cut themselves, I can't pull myself up by my own bootstraps and I can't logically investigate logic because I have no tool with which to do so other than logic.
If you dive deep into your direct experience of the moment - now - you will always find that there are no two sides of a coin, that there is "consciousness" (or rather knowing/being) but no thing that it is conscious of.
If there is nothing to be conscious of, then how do you know consciousness exists? How could it exist? Why would it exist? I have a spaghetti monster detector that alerts me when spaghetti monsters are in the vicinity and even though there are no such things as spaghetti monsters, the device is still quite useful at detecting things that do not exist.
Direct experience can take you to the river-bank any time, but crossing the river requires perfect honesty when interpreting the experience. Look for all the things you believe do exist - look for them in seeing or hearing or touch - and if you are really honest, if you stick to the direct experience, peeling away more and more layers of thought based qualities and attributes, then you will eventually find only one thing. You will find *this* that is no thing, but that all (apparent) things are made of.
If you are interested I can write more about this kind of investigation - if not, also fine :-)
I agree that everything is part of a continuum, but that continuum can't just end at God because, by the same logic, God himself must be part of a larger continuum and either the continuum must go on infinitely or it's circular and "seemingly infinite" (self-causal). You can't say there are no separate things and then say God is a separate thing.

Everything under the category of "existence" must be a duality because existent things are relational and existence itself is relational to nonexistence. As soon as you use the word "existence", you've implied duality because that's what existence means. We can't have nonexistence unless something exists and we can't have existence unless something does not exist. Order cannot manifest without randomness to give the order context and meaning. We can't have the voluntary without the involuntary. We can't have the free without the determined. These things have no meaning without their partner because one is merely lack of the other and God is lack of not-God... and if there is nothing that is not-God, then God doesn't exist.
Serendipper
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by Serendipper »

Belinda wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:31 am AlexW wrote:
The first step into the river can only be made once a certain willingness to question and even abandon dualistic logic arises - as long as you believe without doubt that thought is right in its definition of reality there is no way to even get a single toe into the water.
Thought and the content of thought are as real as the instinct of a hound to chase a rabbit, and as real as the anatomy of the hound that is built for speediness. It's not the case that the content of thought is unreal; the content of thought happened and necessarily happened like the instinct and anatomy of the hound necessarily happened.
---peeling away more and more layers of thought based qualities and attributes, then you will eventually find only one thing. You will find *this* that is no thing, but that all (apparent) things are made of.
If you are interested I can write more about this kind of investigation - if not, also fine
Thus physical manifestations and mental manifestations are both real. True, reality is not a thing; it's the sum of all things and it's also existence conceived as itself.
Yep. "Thinking is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." Goethe
Serendipper
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by Serendipper »

AlexW wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:29 am Hi Belinda,
Belinda wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:31 am Thought and the content of thought are as real as the instinct of a hound to chase a rabbit
...
It's not the case that the content of thought is unreal
I am not exactly sure what you mean with content of thought - is there a thought without content?
As I see it there are thoughts, which are not the problem, and then there are stories and beliefs that emerge from connected/logical thinking. If the dots/thoughts are connected the wrong way then the picture cannot be true.
What I am trying to say is that we have connected the wrong dots and that we as such have to rewire our connections so our thinking is based on truth/reality.
But what is "true"?

How can there be "truth" in the abstract? Truth is relational and is a property of a relation: Is it hot? Well, what do you consider hot? Is it tall? Is it heavy?

Is 1+1=2? Yes, when related to mathematics, but when related to reproduction, perhaps 1+1=1 or maybe it's 3.

Your word is the only thing you can give away and still keep, but the meanings of the words "give" and "keep" are relational to different senses. Truth is always relational; not abstract. Abstract concepts make no sense like having a front with no back.

True/false is another duality that has been split, the falsity discarded, and the remaining bit called "truth" left standing in abstractness. It's just as silly as splitting a coin in half and claiming you've dispensed with the obverse side; it just makes no sense.
Serendipper
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by Serendipper »

Belinda wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:40 am Alex, I think that the concept of thought is real ( a concept which is abstracted from actual thoughts with contents) and also actual thought contents are real. My basic assumption is : if it happens it's real. However I do prefer Plato and Spinoza in that some thoughts are better than other thoughts according to the criterion of what is rational. So we might say that day dreaming and fantasising is to a degree unreal, and hallucinating is to a degree unreal.
Are rainbows real?
I have faith that there be absolute and total reality but that we cannot access it.
I know what you mean because on one hand it would seem there must be, but on the other someone would have to have access to it in order for it to be real. For example duality must be inherently better than triality or singularity and it must be regarded as an absolute truth because it doesn't seem to be relative to anything that can be changed in such a way that duality would not be best. Randomness is absolute because there is no way to become more random-er and randomness is essential to order. Some things do indeed seem fundamental and absolute, but it could be that I have a limited understanding.
Infinity is adressed by Spinoza when he says that God-or-Nature has infinite attributes but that we can access only two of those: the temporal and the eternal.
Eternal as in timeless or infinite time?
Belinda
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by Belinda »

Serendipper wrote:
Are rainbows real?
Percepts of rainbows are real, concepts of rainbows are real, raindrops and light that materially constitute rainbows are real, eyes and primary visual cortex are real.

Reports of rainbows are real, pictures of rainbows are real, songs about rainbows are real, Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow was real, recordings of that song are real, stories about rainbows are real, Serendipper asking a question involving rainbows is real, this message about rainbows on my keyboard is real.

The issues from rainbows become infinite.
AlexW
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by AlexW »

Serendipper wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:04 pm I'm ok with nonconceptual knowledge, but you're not chipping away at stone to reveal anything, but rather you're starting with the finished product and insisting it exists and insisting there is no way to arrive at the finished product other than to simply believe it exists.
...
I'll start my investigation by investigating your claim that objective reality can exist. How's that?
I am not asking you to believe but to investigate - so yes, why don't we investigate if objective reality exists, and if so, in which way?

I propose the following mode of investigation:
To figure out if objective reality exists (or rather in which way it exists) we have to go back to ground zero. We have to go back to a state before objective reality was known to you - we have to figure out what you knew at the time and then explore how objective reality happened to you.
I guess you agree that when you were born you knew nothing about objective reality - you had no idea about objects, all you knew was direct experience - seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting and thought - you actually didn't even know that these are separate senses - there was simply a continues unnamed flow - I call this undivided no-thing base-reality (or simply reality - or also direct experience).
Over the years you have learned about objects and soon also about yourself, the subject. This objective knowledge has been put into you - you haven't been born with it, you learned about it. Agree so far?
This acquired knowledge generates something you call objective reality - a reality made up of things that only came into existence via learning/conditioning. I am not questioning this "objective reality" - what I am questioning though is how truthfully base-reality has been mapped into objective reality.
I state that base-reality and objective reality are mutually exclusive - that we have actually managed to turn reality upside down and create an overlay that is not just a little bit off but infinitely far away from the underlying truth.
This can be proven: Simply look, hear, feel, smell, taste... (I guess you agree your five senses are your only means of investigating really anything, besides conceptual thought of course) - and while doing so, strip away layers and layers of objective reality until you end up at the border - the last layer that, when stripped away, leaves nothing else to say - all concepts gone... only direct experience left. Now you are looking at truth/reality while still being able to compare your ideas of reality with its actuality. I am curious what you find...
Thats also why I once asked you to look at an object - e.g. a cup on your desk - and see what it is made of... The whole investigation is maybe a bit long to be posted right here, but please have a look at an article I recently put on my blog, it explains the process in some detail:
https://alexwinzer.wordpress.com/2018/0 ... true-self/
After you have had a look - what do you think about the existence of objective reality now - in what form does it exist? Is it true?
AlexW
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by AlexW »

Belinda,
Belinda wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:40 am I think that the concept of thought is real
...
I have faith that there be absolute and total reality but that we cannot access it.
It depends how you define reality. You say that "if it happens it's real" - but how do you know something happens? Again via thought, right?
The reality you are referring to is purely thought based (=objective reality - similar to what Serendipper is referring to), whereas I am talking about base- reality, the source of all apparent things.
I see no reality in conceptual thought - only story and stories are not real. They might have a conceptual meaning and as such hold a certain value in objective reality, but in base-reality they are absolutely meaningless.
You actually can access absolute reality - you are it - but by covering up the fact with objective reality and all its stories you simply don't see it.
Maybe have a look at the text I just posted to Serendipper - it explains what I am referring to in some more detail.
Atla
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by Atla »

In my experience, part of the process is a shift in how we look at logic. In our normal everyday dualistic thinking, we verify or discard our dualistic views using dualistic logic. But from a higher point of view, this is understood as inherently circular.

Using nondual logic to verify/discard nondual views is also inherently circular.

So then the question becomes, which circular thinking best describes, matches existence, and our scientific understanding? People who understand the nondual, usually never go back to duality, because they see the nondual to be the best and simplest match by far.

(I wasn't using logic in the strict sense of binary or many-value logic here. More like logic as in how our thoughts, our sentences, our ideas are structured in a general.)
AlexW
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by AlexW »

Atla,
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 6:41 am Using nondual logic to verify/discard nondual views is also inherently circular.
Not sure I understand - can you please provide an example.
Atla
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Re: Back to Infinity

Post by Atla »

AlexW wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:04 am Atla,
Atla wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 6:41 am Using nondual logic to verify/discard nondual views is also inherently circular.
Not sure I understand - can you please provide an example.
For example when we start from the human self.

A duality example would be that I'm a mind carrying around a body. And then I may map the rest of the world like that too, dividing it into two natures, two categories. And what doesn't correspond to that, is illogical.

A triality example would be that I'm a universal spirit, expressed through a mind, carrying around a body. And then I may may divide the rest of the world into three categories too. And what doesn't correspond to that, is illogical.

And when it comes to the nondual self, no fundamental divisions are made. So I may map the rest of the world like that too. And what is said to contain a fundamental division, is illogical.
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