SELF

So what's really going on?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: SELF

Post by RCSaunders »

Last Word wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 11:30 pm Fundamentally, what is there but Self?

Remove Self from the world (reality) and what is left?
Since every individual is a self, if you (yourself) were removed from the world, there would still be all the other selves, wouldn't there.
User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: SELF

Post by RCSaunders »

Advocate wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 3:46 pm Self can Only experience it's own presence, and by logical extension, absence.
You might want to reconsider that. How can that which does not exist (is absent) experience its own absence? If it's absent, it doesn't experience anything.
User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: SELF

Post by RCSaunders »

mickthinks wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:18 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:41 pmThe knowledge that there is an 'I' that experiences itself is an illusion.
An illusion for whom? Who's having the illusion? I don't see how anyone other than me is under the illusion that they are me.
Right question, and you beat me to it, but don't expect a rational answer from Dontaskme.
Advocate
Posts: 3470
Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2017 9:27 am
Contact:

Re: SELF

Post by Advocate »

All experiences are real whether or not they are Of something real.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: SELF

Post by Dontaskme »

mickthinks wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:18 pm
An illusion for whom? Who's having the illusion? I don't see how anyone other than me is under the illusion that they are me.
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 1:33 amRight question, and you beat me to it, but don't expect a rational answer from Dontaskme.

The knowledge of SELF is born of a reflective self-conscious awareness, it's a second-order cognition, a conceptual phantom overlay. There is no ''Self'' in reality. The 'Self' is artificially triggered by secondary reflexes informing the brain that there has been a subjective awareness of an objective reality which are in reality one and the same unitary movement, or action.
The concept known as 'Self' is conceptual knowledge overlaid upon what is generally this immediate unknowing unknowable reality.
Therefore, the concept of ''Self'' is, and is-not. 'Self' is one of many trickless tricks that is sentient neural brain functioning.

Dogs bark in response, and humans speak languages in response, this reactive phenomena is a normal part of the brains re-cognition process. It's how the sentient brain makes sense of what is actually unknowable reality.

In essence, knowledge can never point to absolute knowing aka ( Itself)
Knowledge can only point to the illusory nature of reality, which appears as the relative absolute.
There's no such reality available that can be known as an absolute all knowing reality.

The illusion of knowing is real in the sense of conceptual knowledge, in the sense of a knowledge known that cannot be known.
The obvious oxymoron that is not-knowing knowing, is the mother of all confusion for the mind, as nondual reality appears to itself as a duality.

The reality of a known SELF is not meant to make sense, if it did make sense, then there would never ever arise the need to ask questions, in the same context animals never question their reality. If reality made rational sense, we'd already know all the answers to every question we ask ourselfs and others. In reality, no human being knows anything, and that's why they make everything up, and generally cannot stop talking.



.
mickthinks
Posts: 1501
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2007 1:10 am
Location: Augsburg

Re: SELF

Post by mickthinks »

That's more words than I think you should have needed, Don, and I can find no recognisable truth in any of them.

I suspect you may be misusing* the words "knowledge" and "cognition". If self-conscious awareness (I think "reflective" is tautology here) is second-order cognition, then what would the first-order cognition be?


* I grant that you are free to use words however you like, but if your usage is too idiosyncratic, it defeats the purpose of communication. I am assuming that you are trying to communicate your ideas with us, for which you need to use words as conventionally as you can.
Advocate
Posts: 3470
Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2017 9:27 am
Contact:

Re: SELF

Post by Advocate »

"There is no self in reality" is a misunderstanding of what reality is and what self is. Our experience is reality, to us. Reality is consensus experience in general, not an illusion. Self IS that moment of experience, and the continuity of our experience over time.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: SELF

Post by Dontaskme »

Knowledge of any-thing, including the thing known as SELF - is a descriptive of what is essentially this ultimate, immediate, mysterious ineffable unknowable.

Fill your boots, story tellers, you are nothing without your story.

The SELF cannot know itself. How could it, it would have to split into two - as KNOWER and KNOWN
Advocate
Posts: 3470
Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2017 9:27 am
Contact:

Re: SELF

Post by Advocate »

[quote=Dontaskme post_id=509390 time=1619849664 user_id=12017]
Knowledge of any-thing, including the thing known as SELF - is a descriptive of what is essentially this ultimate, immediate, mysterious ineffable unknowable.

Fill your boots, story tellers, you are nothing without your story.

The SELF cannot know itself. How could it, it would have to split into two - as KNOWER and KNOWN
[/quote]

The self cannot not know itself because it experiences itself constantly.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: SELF

Post by Dontaskme »

Advocate wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 7:19 am

The self cannot not know itself because it experiences itself constantly.
The self is an experience known by the only knowing there is - IT is the knowing that cannot be known. In essence you are that Knowing.
mickthinks
Posts: 1501
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2007 1:10 am
Location: Augsburg

Re: SELF

Post by mickthinks »

Mick: what would the first-order cognition be?
Don: ... essentially this ultimate, immediate, mysterious ineffable unknowable.

Do I have that right? You are saying that first-order cognition is non-cognition? That would bump second-order up into first place on the order-of-cognition ladder, I think.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: SELF

Post by Dontaskme »

mickthinks wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 3:59 pm Mick: what would the first-order cognition be?
Don: ... essentially this ultimate, immediate, mysterious ineffable unknowable.

Do I have that right? You are saying that first-order cognition is non-cognition? That would bump second-order up into first place on the order-of-cognition ladder, I think.
Secondary-order Cognition is a reflexive experience of consciousness ONLY....One without a second.

This secondary-order cognition is pointing to the unborn awareness ( SELF) which is the observer observing the observed...when awareness knows sensation...consciousness is born, albeit illusory...since there is only consciousness one without a second.

Many words can be used as a pointing to the same idea. In this pointing, we are pointing to the nondual self.


As for the idea of Non-or first-order cognition ...these ideas are meaningless within the nondual pointing, and have no place in this understanding ..it was never mentioned, except by you unnecessarily. 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

The point is, if the message here is not being recognised, then there’s simply no experience of what this secondary-order cognition means.

Nondual communications are difficult ...but it doesn’t matter in the slightest...it’s either recognised or it isn’t...most nondual realisations are from direct experience only, they are experiences of consciousness which are known, or not- known according to whether the cognition has happened or not from the experience of the particular consciousness the cognition is known to.



I mean, the subject topic is about the SELF ...that is being discussed here.

.
mickthinks
Posts: 1501
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2007 1:10 am
Location: Augsburg

Re: SELF

Post by mickthinks »

Okay, Don, I am having trouble understanding anything you say and I'm increasingly of the opinion that that is because you don't really know what you are talking about.

You seem to be trying to elaborate and extemporise on the all-too-simple theme that reality is unknowable, and that all my perception and in particular my perception of a universe of multitple individual diverse entities, including myself as one such, is an illusion.

Is that close?

It leaves my original question unanswered: whose consciousness is under this illusion?
Last edited by mickthinks on Mon May 03, 2021 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: SELF

Post by Dontaskme »

mickthinks wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 1:10 pm Okay, Don, I am having trouble understanding anything you say and I'm increasingly of the opinion that that is because you don't really know what you are talking about.
Nah, I know what I am talking about, I feel what I am talking about to be my direct experience, that may or may not be another persons experience.
mickthinks wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 1:10 pmYou seem to be trying to elaborate and extemporise on the all-to-simple theme that reality is unknowable, and that all my perception and in particular my perception of a universe of multitple individual diverse entities, including myself as one such, is an illusion.

Is that close?
Separation is the illusion, not reality itself which is a verb. Reality is unknowable in the sense it doesn't need to be known, it is without doubt or error this knowing...it's a (verb)
We don't really know or come in contact with an object, called a mind, a body, or a world. All we know is the knowing of our experience.

mickthinks wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 1:10 pmIt leaves my original question unanswered: whose consciousness is under this illusion?
The illusion that consciousness is an object called ''me''
Advocate
Posts: 3470
Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2017 9:27 am
Contact:

Re: SELF

Post by Advocate »

Self is experience which has a physical boundary within our brain and a temporal boundary to the immediate moment. Because our immediate perception includes access to neuronal potentials, aka memory, we feel connected to the past and therefore to us we are the continuous of that momentary experience. Wanting things other than what your subconscious wants is more about that brain area within which your conscious mind travels.
Post Reply