The observer cannot be observed

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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AlexW
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by AlexW »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:11 am "There is a thought," you say. But who is doing the knowing of this fact? What kind of entity is detecting that "there is a thought"?
The thought IS the knowing itself. Knowing and experience are not separate - they are one whole.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:11 am But the doubter cannot ever rationally doubt his own existence, because the mere existence of the doubt proves beyond all possible refutation that the doubter is there
That's not exactly true.
In one way, the "doubter" can not doubt itself, as the "doubter" is only a thought - and thought can not really do anything (they simply arise).
On the other hand, there can be a thought "I doubt that there is a separate entity, a doubter, doing the doubting" (what a funny thought :-) )
Whereas this thought is seen to simply arise from nowhere (and not from a source labelled "the big doubter")
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:11 am It's unavoidable, actually. It doesn't at all depend on language.
As I see it, it does.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:11 am The thought has a thinker. The action recognized as doubting has a doer. If it doesn't, then neither was there any action...there was no doubt either.
Yet... if a thought of doubt arises (or really any other thought), there is no thinker to be found...
What a conundrum...
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Dontaskme
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by Dontaskme »

AlexW wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:36 am
The thought IS the knowing itself. Knowing and experience are not separate - they are one whole.
Very good Alex.



ALEX:

Yet... if a thought of doubt arises (or really any other thought), there is no thinker to be found...
What a conundrum...
Thanks Alex for the clarification...

That’s correct Alex..No thinker or thought to be found. This is the conundrum that baffles the mind. The thought that is a conceptual known, for example the concept TREE ...is an idea, in reality there simply is no literal tree, just the idea of a tree. In a nutshell no tree is ever seen, tree is only known conceptually.

————

What does J Krishnamurti have to say ...” Thinker and the thought “

“In all our experiences, there is always the experiencer, the observer, who is gathering to himself more and more or denying himself. Is that not a wrong process? We can wipe it out completely and put it aside only when I experience, not as a thinker experiences, but when I am aware of the false process and see the state in which the thinker is the thought.
So long as I am experiencing, becoming, there must be this dualistic action, the thinker and the thought, two separate processes at work; there is no integration, there is always a centre that is operating through the will of action to be or not to be — collectively, individually, nationally and so on.

So long as effort is divided into the experiencer and the experience, there must be deterioration. Integration is when the thinker is no longer the observer and there are no two different states. Our effort is to bridge the two.
The will of action is always dualistic. How to go beyond this will that is separative and discover a state in which dualistic action is not? That can only be found when we directly experience when the thinker is the thought. The effort of the thinker is to become more or become less; and therefore, in that struggle, in that action of the will, in ‘becoming’, there is always the deteriorating factor; we are pursuing a false process and not a true process.…
If I realise that I am greedy, that there is not the observer who is greedy but I am myself greed, our whole response to it is entirely different; then our effort is not destructive.…”
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Dontaskme
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by Dontaskme »

Belinda wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:28 am
Dontaskme wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:20 am
Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 6:22 pm
I expect you mean deep dreamless sleep. Some dreams contain self awareness, some don't.
There is no self in a dream.

The self arises as a conceptual idea, which is emptiness appearing full.

.
I understand Dimebag's description of the self without ego self. Once, briefly, I lost my ego self and found that sort of liberation as Dimebag describes. I know my ego self well as it is usually synonymous with what I think and feel. When I wrote "some dreams contain self awareness I meant "some dreams contain awareness of ego self, some don't".
Ok thanks for the clarification..I get it, I also agree with Dimebag as well.
Dimebag
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by Dimebag »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:02 am
Dimebag wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:01 pm I can see language is very important to you,
Well, only here, because it's the only way you and I can share ideas at the moment. It's really all we have.
...but you seem to think that the logic of language defines the reality of the brain and human existence.
No, I don't think that.

But I do think people need to say precisely what they mean; and if the words they use do not make sense, then chances are that either they've misspoken and need to reword, or they are trying to express an idea that just doesn't make sense.

So being careful with language avoids misunderstanding each other. And since my goal is to understand what you want to say, either I must ask you to clarify your words when they are less than precise, or when they contain what seems a contradiction, or I have no hope of fairly understanding you at all.

And I assume that's a goal you and I share in this conversation...mutual understanding...no?
You could say the shared goal is understanding, but, due to the subjective nature of the conversation, analogies are necessary, which, are not the thing in itself, but like a finger pointing to the thing. They merely help you to see what is already here in your experience. It is more direct that trying to explain such an esoteric thing, which defies explanation. Easier to just see it in yourself, after all, it’s all you.

Why do we presume the mind is completely transparent and logically consistent? Would it not want to hide secrets, such as it’s inner workings which keep you motivated and ensure the mind itself continues to persist? Imagine if an organism had no motivation to survive, it just wouldn’t do. So, the mind creates reasons for us, for instance reproduction. It doesn’t tell you to go have a baby, it tells you to go procreate with a suitable member of the opposite sex. It gives you the motivations not the reasons. If you knew all the pain that would follow from a few moments of pleasure, you would never engage in the act, so it keeps it secret.

Now imagine an organism wasn’t afraid of fear, didn’t react to its own anger, and was in a state of contentment which meant it did not seek riches or horde things for survival purposes. It’s not the best survival plan. Thus, the mind has imbued us with these survival drives to ensure we keep our organism functioning. But when the organism realises that it’s probably not in any immediate danger, it has to ask itself why it still feels such a drive to seek material things, and live in perpetual stress or anxiety, or with a general layer of malaise hanging over it. The lower survival functions are in such a state that they don’t know they are mostly safe, the environment doesn’t feel safe. You have to run just to stop yourself from going backwards in this world it seems, and the body and lower mind knows this intuitively.

So what is one to do? Live with it? Or step outside the illusion?

When you are in pain, you suffer it twice. First is the initial physical sensation of pain, but the second is the reaction to the feeling of pain. It’s like getting shot with two arrows, but, only the first arrow is actually necessary, you create the second one with your reaction. If instead of suffering the pain, you observe it for what it is, physical sensation, you avoid the second arrow.

This is how the higher function of the organism learns to overcome or step outside the program of its lower programming. All physical sensation is like this. It is all appearing in you. You take it all to be the thing which it proclaims to be, that pain is real, that anger is real, that light and objects are real. They are all inside you, created by your perception. They do symbolise something “out there” but out there is not anything you have ever had any direct contact with, or ever could. It’s like a veil between you and whatever is out there. This is of course plato’s Cave, and the senses are the veil of ignorance. They are ignorance because we take them to be real, but they are an illusion of the mind.

So the mind deals in illusions. The world it seems are illusion. The senses are illusion. That just leaves you, the self, in the middle of this illusion. Is one more illusion such a strange thing to imagine in this illusory domain of the mind?

You are probably aware of theseus’ ship. I shouldn’t have to explain it, but for others not sure, imagine a ship which has had all the parts slowly replaced over time. The mast, the deck, the hull, the sails, even the wheel, all the ropes. It’s all been replaced. So is it still the same ship? Is theseus’ ship just the pattern, the structure? It’s not the same identical ship, it’s all been replaced. So it must be. Well, the same could be said of you. Over time, all your parts have been replaced, all the cells have died and been replaced. The pattern of cells is what the identity is, an empty structure, full of beliefs, preferences, habits, thoughts, memories etc. This is you. There is no inner essence. But, you feel like you have persisted over time.

You remember events which happened in your childhood. Yet you are no longer that child. You are now (presumably) a man, you probably don’t even have the same likes as when you were a child, your personality has probably changed quite a bit. The way you think has no doubt changed.

But because every day, your mind was recording the events happening to you, there exists an autobiographical memory bank to which your self model accesses and writes to. This is little like your “world line” the series of events which define your path through time, and essentially tie all those selves which you have been together, because there were in fact many different ones. Yet you feel like you have been the same one. Every night you go to sleep and your self ceases to exist for a time. But, due to these clever tricks the brain pulls, you feel like the same one as yesterday. Changes are so slow that you don’t feel different to yesterday, yet your mood was different, and likely many other things.

Now you are getting very small inside your brain. You used to be your emotions, your thoughts, your preferences, but they all change. Like Theseus’ ship, they are replaced, yet, unlike that ship they get replaced with slightly different parts. Definitely not the same ship, even though it still has the same sign saying “Immanuel Can” (I know that’s probably not your real name), this is who you refer to as yourself, but you could easily have been named something completely different.

All these are changing characteristics and appearances. “You” is not a fixed thing.

“You” or the conceptual structure which comprises the idea of you, of course does not want to be found out as a fraud, so it protects itself at all costs, distracting you with worldly things, pleasures, goals, etc. anything to avoid being discovered. It will keep you in a constant state of motion, seeking, consuming. This is the western way, look where it has got us, but that’s another discussion. The ego defends itself, protects itself.

But you feel like the one who has all these characteristics. “I am” witty, or “I am” logical, etc. All you can really say is, “I am”.

Now we are getting somewhere. What is this I? This is the core of the sense of being a “who”. Can we interrogate this “I” further?

What is it made of? What are it’s characteristics?

Well. It feels like a point of view. When there are no emotions, no thoughts playing in the background, no intentions to do anything. That is what it feels like. It is a locus of all the senses and all these human aspects. The body appears in this as sensation. What is it’s location? The world appears within it, and thus it’s location lies outside the world which it perceives, all that could be said is it’s always here. Does it have a shape? No, shapes appear within it, any shape would be an appearance in it, therefore anything which appears in the senses is not it. The senses appear IN it. Is it a person? Personal characteristics appear in it, so it can’t be personal. Does it feel time? The past is a memory, appearing in the now, the future is a thought. All there is to it is this infinite unfolding moment. It’s always now.

Is it the ghost in the machine or a soul? Maybe it has soul like characteristics, formlessness, timelessness. Yet, as it has no qualities, there can be no difference between this “I” or any other “I”. Any difference would be an appearance. It seems there must be many “I”’s but they are all the same. Within them, the world is reflected differently, due to their different perspectives and physical “wrappers” so to speak. They all think they are unique due to their unique autobiography, but underneath all the layers they are the same.

To call this a self seems wrong, it’s s very nondescript self if so. More like a not self. Usually when we think of a self we think of persistent personality characteristics, or inherent qualities. But this is not like that.

It (not who, it’s not a person, it has no gender) is awareness. There is no male awareness or female awareness, there is just awareness. Maybe there is also animal awareness. It certainly seems like it for many animals.

But this awareness is special, because it can learn to know itself. Not through any qualities, no observable characteristics. But only as a sense of presence, and by interrogating that which appears within it, it assumes itself to exist.

Attention can look out at the world, but it can also look back in. Somehow, it can look in upon awareness, and the only thing it sees is formlessness, but not nothing. When it looks in at itself like this, it has the sense “I am”. But when it looks for itself and finds nothing, this idea of what it is, the structure of identity has nothing to attach to. Like two mirrors facing each other, nothing is reflected. Yet, all these forms appear within nothing. All that can be found of it, is whatever plays upon its surface.

The distinction between subject and object collapses.

The whole world “you” perceive is actually all that there is of you. That makes you both everything, and nothing.


Sorry for the long winded response. Thankfully it seems here that is almost accepted.
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by SteveKlinko »

Dimebag wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:15 pm
Everything is not all in our Heads.
Our Brain/Mind creates the reality that we Experience out of Surrogate materials of Mind Stuff, so we can Detect the External World.
Maybe I missed something, but do you deny the existence of an external Physical World?
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

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SteveKlinko wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:12 pm
Dimebag wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:15 pm
Everything is not all in our Heads.
Our Brain/Mind creates the reality that we Experience out of Surrogate materials of Mind Stuff, so we can Detect the External World.
Maybe I missed something, but do you deny the existence of an external Physical World?
Dimebag wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:15 pmThis is how the higher function of the organism learns to overcome or step outside the program of its lower programming. All physical sensation is like this. It is all appearing in you. You take it all to be the thing which it proclaims to be, that pain is real, that anger is real, that light and objects are real. They are all inside you, created by your perception. They do symbolise something “out there” but out there is not anything you have ever had any direct contact with, or ever could. It’s like a veil between you and whatever is out there. This is of course plato’s Cave, and the senses are the veil of ignorance. They are ignorance because we take them to be real, but they are an illusion of the mind.
As you have mentioned before, all we ever experience is our surrogate sensations, which are not the things “out there”, but stand ins. This is the illusion I speak of, breaking the illusion of naive realism.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by Immanuel Can »

AlexW wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:36 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:11 am "There is a thought," you say. But who is doing the knowing of this fact? What kind of entity is detecting that "there is a thought"?
The thought IS the knowing itself. Knowing and experience are not separate - they are one whole.
Hmmm...so you're supposing, "There is no transmitter or receiver, but there is a radio signal." But who is uttering that? And on what basis do they utter it, since they didn't "receive" the signal?
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:11 am But the doubter cannot ever rationally doubt his own existence, because the mere existence of the doubt proves beyond all possible refutation that the doubter is there
That's not exactly true.
I think it is...so did Descartes. If a person has any doubts about his self-existence, it can only be because he hasn't thought it through. And that's possible: what's not possible is for a thinker not to think at all. For then, he's no thinker.
(they simply arise).
Now, THAT is not what we call an "explanation."

Imagine that someone asked, "Where did the Earth come from?" and someone else said, "It just arose." Would that be an explanation of anything? Would anyone...anyone at all...accept such a response AS an account of where the Earth came from?
:shock:
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:11 am It's unavoidable, actually. It doesn't at all depend on language.
As I see it, it does.
We can disagree on that. Like doubt, language does not "just arise." It always comes from a conscious entity, or it isn't language at all.

And I mean that as a fact, not as a word-game. It is precisely because they have no sense, no grammar, no meaning, that rocks banging together in ocean currents do not constitute a "language." If there is language, there has to be meaning in it; and if there's meaning in it, there has to be a "meaner."
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:11 am The thought has a thinker. The action recognized as doubting has a doer. If it doesn't, then neither was there any action...there was no doubt either.
Yet... if a thought of doubt arises (or really any other thought), there is no thinker to be found...
What a conundrum...
I would say it's no conundrum at all. It's actually (and I mean this non-pejoratively) non-sense. There is no sense in such an utterance, such a purported explanation.

So have we reached ground zero of our differences? Perhaps. I suppose there it must stand.
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by SteveKlinko »

Dimebag wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:42 pm
SteveKlinko wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:12 pm
Dimebag wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:15 pm
Everything is not all in our Heads.
Our Brain/Mind creates the reality that we Experience out of Surrogate materials of Mind Stuff, so we can Detect the External World.
Maybe I missed something, but do you deny the existence of an external Physical World?
Dimebag wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:15 pmThis is how the higher function of the organism learns to overcome or step outside the program of its lower programming. All physical sensation is like this. It is all appearing in you. You take it all to be the thing which it proclaims to be, that pain is real, that anger is real, that light and objects are real. They are all inside you, created by your perception. They do symbolise something “out there” but out there is not anything you have ever had any direct contact with, or ever could. It’s like a veil between you and whatever is out there. This is of course plato’s Cave, and the senses are the veil of ignorance. They are ignorance because we take them to be real, but they are an illusion of the mind.
As you have mentioned before, all we ever experience is our surrogate sensations, which are not the things “out there”, but stand ins. This is the illusion I speak of, breaking the illusion of naive realism.
Ahhh yes, I see you did say there is an "out there".
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henry quirk
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by henry quirk »

when I doubt, I never say to myself (in my head) I doubt that, I just doubt...if I speak with someone about my doubt, or if I write about my doubt, I'll, of course, say I doubt that, or somesuch, but the initial doubting is a feeling

Its the same with many thought processes - they are often preluded by some physical sensation.

you misunderstand...when I say feeling, in context, I'm talkin' about an intuitive conclusion; when I doubt, I feel a lack of certainty, not a twist of the gut

sure, there are physical sensations but these come after, not before



the problem with conversations like this -- on the fly & piecemeal -- is our (over)simplifying of sumthin' complex and a little mysterious

Well.. yes and no. If we analyse, in a time based manner, which combinations of sensations and thoughts lead to which feelings etc etc... then this becomes complicated very fast. If one only looks at one experience at a time - what happens now? And again: what happens now? - without linking these happenings into a chain of events (which is of course a thought based exercise) then its pretty simple... This simplicity is where reality lives, not in chains of linked up impressions (that later on are boxed into conceptual structures).

what you suggest is akin to isolatin' an organ, the heart, for example, and then provin' the heart is useless because it's alone

thinkin', reasonin', intuitin', etc. is complex and seamless...it's analog, not digital



my self, my position, the cool air on my skin, the cigarette I hold, the coffee I just had, the sound of the 14 year old jabbering with his playstation buddies just inside the house, the nightsounds swellin' up around me, the porch swing under my kester, and a thousand other sensations, noticings, awarenesses, thoughts, etc.

Yes, that's what I mean... And in all this, which is happening all the time, in this experience, how much of it is "you"? And why is one "part" of experience "I" and some other part "not I"? As I see it, the line is drawn purely on the idea of "me" - and thus on conceptual thought - the experience itself is perfectly free from such limitations.

it's fairly simple: there's me, there's the world; I apprehend the world, experience it, have intuitions about it, move through it as I choose



it seems to me, sittin' on top of this shftin' mountain of (and I'm just gonna call it) experiencing, both internal & external, is me, an on-going consistency that, if not in control of the experiencing itself, certainly seems in control of what it pays attention to, both internally & externally (my referrin' to myself in the 3rd ought not to be taken literally...I'm just usin' a convention of the language)...I'm certain this consistency, that I, exist...I'm the doubter, the thinker, the exclaimer, the reasoner, the emoter, and on and on

As I see it, attention, is nothing but focussed awareness. One pays attention to sounds, thoughts, tactile sensations... but where is the controller of this attention. I agree, it seems like one is in control, but if you actually really investigate how attention moves then you will find that it simply moves wherever "it wants". There is no way you can control attention not moving to certain "parts" of experience - eg you will notice a loud knock on the door, no matter how much you try to control your attention on, lets say the taste of coffee.

no, that's not my experience...largely, I control my focus, what I attend to...sure, a loud sound behind me startles me, not cuz I lack control but becuz something new happens...and: as I say, or imply, attention too is complex, there are layers to it, a periphery, a middling, what's directly on my mind, so to speak



And, yes, there is consistency in all of that. There is no moment where attention/awareness is not "present". But it is not present as a separate "I", it is present AS this very experience itself.

again: not my experience...I experience, I intuit, I am aware, I am not the experience



The belief that "I'm the doubter, the thinker, the exclaimer, the reasoner" is nothing but attention/awareness placed on thought which, when linked into long chains create the idea (some call it: illusion) of a certain entity existing on top of this "shftin' mountain" - while in reality... there is simply this mountain.

no, the mountain is not me



I'm not an illusion or a figment or a trick of neurons & synapses....I'm not some psychological phantom...call me mind or soul or spirit or just self-organizing information: I'm embodied, I'm real, I'm here, I'm a person[/b]

Sure, you (as awareness) are real - awareness is just another name for reality or experience.
The person, on the other hand, is only conceptually real.


no, I exist, not as some flimsy tissue that I can be enlightened out of, but as a composite of flesh & spirit, a person

-----

this makes the fourth time we ride this merry go 'round, Alex...it's become an annual event!
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by AlexW »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 2:48 pm Hmmm...so you're supposing, "There is no transmitter or receiver, but there is a radio signal." But who is uttering that? And on what basis do they utter it, since they didn't "receive" the signal?
No, I am not supposing there is something like a "radio signal" :-)
I am proposing that all there is, is pure knowing/awareness. Full stop. No separate thing being transferred from A to B. No one sending or receiving anything.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 2:48 pm Now, THAT is not what we call an "explanation."

Imagine that someone asked, "Where did the Earth come from?" and someone else said, "It just arose." Would that be an explanation of anything?
Sure, it would be an explanation, but – for a modern, scientifically minded person – maybe not a satisfactory one.

See, the problem with explanations is that they are always at least "one step" removed from direct experience.
Even "thought arises from nowhere" - and if you are honest with yourself, this is as close a description of your direct experience of thinking, as you can formulate - we insist that thought doesn't "just arise", turn away from the direct experience and go out looking for a place of origin.

Where does thought come from??? ... asks thought...
From a brain! From synaptic, biochemical activity!
The answers will be many and, as knowledge grows, there will be no end to them.

But all conceptual answers can not change the fact that in our direct experience "thoughts simply arise from nowhere".
You don't experience thoughts emerging from a brain (like a child from a womb), you don't experience thoughts materialising from a process of synaptic interaction.
No... you simply experience "thoughts arising from nowhere" (and, yes, also this statement is just an interpretation, but its at least an interpretation thats closer to reality than "Thoughts arising from a synaptic, biochemical activity.")

We can keep on discussing all sorts of scientific answers to questions that are actually not even present in the simplicity of direct experience, we can invent massive structures of conceptual knowledge that apparently explain the simplest of experiences, or we can try to do the opposite, we can attempt to simplify our interpretations of "whats actually happening" and see where this takes us...
The benefit of the latter option is that the inquiry actually leads to an end, to the "foundation" of experience/reality, whereas option one only takes us deeper and deeper into the maze of knowledge (a maze that has no exit, just an increasing number of pathways that grow hand in hand with the amount of knowledge we compile)
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by AlexW »

henry quirk wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:10 am this makes the fourth time we ride this merry go 'round, Alex...it's become an annual event!
Haha... yeah, seems like it.
Lets jump off the carousel and go to the pub ;-)
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by Immanuel Can »

AlexW wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:42 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 2:48 pm Hmmm...so you're supposing, "There is no transmitter or receiver, but there is a radio signal." But who is uttering that? And on what basis do they utter it, since they didn't "receive" the signal?
No, I am not supposing there is something like a "radio signal" :-)
No, but you get the analogy, right?
I am proposing that all there is, is pure knowing/awareness. Full stop.
Good heavens. You're not one of those guys who think everything is just a fragment of the Universal Spirit or something, are you?
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 2:48 pm Now, THAT is not what we call an "explanation."

Imagine that someone asked, "Where did the Earth come from?" and someone else said, "It just arose." Would that be an explanation of anything?
Sure, it would be an explanation, but – for a modern, scientifically minded person – maybe not a satisfactory one.
I don't think it even reaches the low bar of non-scientific explanation. It's just a wish or an idea, since it lacks any kind of evidence, or even a cause-effect proposal.
Even "thought arises from nowhere" - and if you are honest with yourself, this is as close a description of your direct experience of thinking, as you can formulate
Actually, I think it's bizarrely unlike my experience. Sorry.

For me, I had a world around me before I really sensed what my thoughts even were. That's how we all come into this world. Experience comes first, and thought about experience comes after, as a result of the experience. It's never the other way around, I suspect.
Where does thought come from??? ... asks thought...
From a brain! From synaptic, biochemical activity!
No, no...that's no good. That's a contradictory explanation.

You've already denied that such things can exist. All is thought, remember? So there's no real "brain," just "the thought of there being a brain," which means that the brain can't literally be the cause of anything.

So what's the real explanation?
No... you simply experience "thoughts arising from nowhere"
I really don't. Sorry. I can't imagine how you do. But if you say so... :?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by Immanuel Can »

AlexW wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:49 am
henry quirk wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:10 am this makes the fourth time we ride this merry go 'round, Alex...it's become an annual event!
Haha... yeah, seems like it.
Lets jump off the carousel and go to the pub ;-)
First round on me.
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Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by AlexW »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:52 am Good heavens. You're not one of those guys who think everything is just a fragment of the Universal Spirit or something, are you?
No, I don't think this is the case.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:52 am Actually, I think it's bizarrely unlike my experience. Sorry.

For me, I had a world around me before I really sensed what my thoughts even were. That's how we all come into this world. Experience comes first, and thought about experience comes after, as a result of the experience. It's never the other way around, I suspect.
Interesting... so when you sit still, when you don't do anything but simply "observe your experience" (including thought).
Where do these thoughts that arise come from?

Sure, some thoughts might arise after an external event - you hear a sound - thought states "Not that barking dog again!"
But.. Did the sound generate or produce the thought? Not really... It might have been a trigger, but not a producer of thought, right?

Other thoughts simply happen because you randomly think of unicorns and then a chain of thought arises thats all about unicorns... was there an external trigger... maybe, maybe not...

But, besides the content of thought, the question was, where do they come from? Now, where do they come from according to your experience?
Can you observe thought as if you were observing a movie (or listening to a radio)? It helps if you find some distance between the "witness" and the witnessed.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:52 am You've already denied that such things can exist. All is thought, remember?
No, not "all is thought" - all "things" are thought.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:52 am So there's no real "brain," just "the thought of there being a brain," which means that the brain can't literally be the cause of anything.

So what's the real explanation?
Agree, regarding the brain.
Whats the "real explanation"? Where do thoughts come from...
Look at your direct experience - the answer is there.
AlexW
Posts: 852
Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2018 1:53 am

Re: The observer cannot be observed

Post by AlexW »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:52 am
AlexW wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:49 am
henry quirk wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:10 am this makes the fourth time we ride this merry go 'round, Alex...it's become an annual event!
Haha... yeah, seems like it.
Lets jump off the carousel and go to the pub ;-)
First round on me.
Now you're talking :D
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