Dontaskme wrote: ↑Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:35 am
Trajk Logik wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:15 pm
Then how do I know what you wrote and when you submitted your post by looking at my computer screen, which is part of the "outside" world?
The paradox here is that the 'I' that wants to know is a temporal object in Awareness. This I/dream-object cannot comprehend/know the subject, much like an object in space cannot grasp space.
You want to 'know' the non-dual IT while this requires the dualistic position of knower/known. Say that this would be possible; that you would know IT, then what would know the 'knower' while the knower is 'doing' the knowing?
All use of metaphor requires thought. In other words it is nothing but mind AKA the thinking process. What is pointed at here with words/mind, extends outside the mind. The mind is here in the same position as the object in space; it cannot 'grasp' THAT in which it appears.
This is the horizon that the mind cannot look beyond and here an intuitive leap confirms that if thoughts appear, they appear to something that cannot be brought into focus as it is THAT what does/is the focusing.
This Awareness is Self-Shining, no outside knower can know IT
IT is not some-thing to be known by some-one. IT is the knowing that cannot be known. In essence you are that Knowing.
Contradiction. If the knowing cannot be known then how do you know that you are that knowing?
Word salad is unnecessary when we already have words that do a better job at explaining what knowing is.
It appears to me that you are actually advocating solipsism. If there are no objects/processes outside of the mind and the knowledge it possesses, then the mind is all there is and you only exist as words on this screen, not another mind, only when I read them.
How can I know anything about you except by the consequences of your actions in the world (ie you typing and submitting a post on the internet)? Using the terms "subject" and "object" cause problems. If you are a subject, then why do you appear as an object within my subject? You claim to be a subject, but prove it to me. Going by what you are saying, I am the only subject and you are just words (objects) on the screen.
As a realist, I understand that I might not always be able to observe, or know the causes of what I am presently observing. I understand that things are happening even when I'm not there to observe it. I understand that you are not words on the screen but the cause of the words that I read on the screen, and can then go about communicating with you by creating my own words on the screen for you to read.
As a realist, I understand that I am more than just my mind/awareness, and that there are aspects of me that are not just mental, but physical. But, as a monist, I don't think of mental and physical to be different substances that interact, but merely types of the fundamental constituent of reality - information. Thinking of the fundamental constituent of reality as information, processes, or relationships resolves the mind/body problem, as what we are are not physical objects or mental subjects. We are a relationship of many processes, or information.
Knowing is the process of using stored sensory information for some purpose, even it's just (re)calling the information into working memory. Knowledge is that stored information that is (re)called. Knowledge can also be attained by integrating the stored information like we do in philosophical and scientific endeavors, taking two or more things we know and integrating them to acquire a greater understanding of a larger part of reality. Good philosophy is that which attempts to integrate all knowledge and discard those parts that do not integrate nicely with the whole or are not substantiated by observations.
Knowledge of the self is an integration of various observations and prior knowledge. If the self is thought about as only the subject, or the mind, then an infinite regress is created like the one created when a camera that is connected to the monitor turns back to look at the monitor and creates a visual feedback loop, or the infinite tunnel, on the screen. The thinking process loops back on itself, thinking about thinking. What we are really doing is talking about thinking - talking to ourselves about our own thinking. With language we can use symbols to refer to our own awareness and mental processes, but that does not mean that we are only our awareness or mental processes, so thinking that your mental processes are your only processes is what creates the problem.
What are the boundaries of me and you? If everything is a relationship, then where does the me stop and the you begin? Our boundaries become blurred when we interact with each other. That blur/interaction is another relationship. The boundaries can be arbitrary as it appears to be dependent upon what we are talking about at any given moment (our bodies vs our conversation). I would say that our agreed upon boundary is the spatial-temporal limits of our tactile sensations, or the surface of our skin. By integrating sensory information (like visual and tactile) we can see further than we can touch. All senses, except maybe taste, have an extended spatial dimension. We use the information one sense is providing us to confirm what another sense is informing us of (integrating sensory information (ie consciousness). Subjectivity comes from the way the information is "displayed" with the spatial dimensions from all the senses overlaid and the world being located relative to the location of the body. Subjectivity is the way the sensory information is arranged as a relationship between body and world. It's not useful to me to know how the world looks from your position. To navigate the world, I need to know how it looks from my perspective. The world is not located relative to my eyes, but that is how it appears because that is what is useful. A view from nowhere is not useful when navigating the world, finding food and mates and avoiding predators. Imagining views from nowhere (science and philosophy) are only useful if they help us navigate the world from a view from somewhere.