I was thinking about the possible structure/mechanism of “awareness” and its properties like “positive bias” and “sticky nature” because these are the root cause for our mentality as well as the appearance of stability/solidity of physical realm and the basic foundation/certainty of most of entities, in my opinion.
For Rene DesCartes, it was the doubting mind (rejecting mind, or thought itself), so to say.
He threw away everything he could doubt and he thought that (existence/certainty of) doubting mind can’t be questioned because he can’t doubt and throw away things without it. (It’s a rough interpretation of mine)
Question #1:
Now, in the context of your own thinking, what is the most important/basic foundation (certainty, starting point) of your mind, your thought, your opinion?
Question #2:
Also, if you know, what was the basic certainty/presumption of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, etc (according to you)?
I’m asking this because I do observe relation between how we think and how the basic awareness behaves, and gathering data in this regard may help me to further guess and verify the nature of the awareness, most probably.
“If I keep my doubting mind going in order to doubt as much as possible, what am I left with? Oh, my doubting mind”. Zut alors!
Quel suprise.
He’s the epitome of the same cyclical reasoning you can see in any search for “truth”. The question is always the improperly framed answer, c’est à dire: the answer always turns out to be the properly phrased version of the improperly framed question.
So you aren’t going to reach any different conclusion to Descartes here. Your question “What is the most basic foundation (certainty)?” obviously assumes there is one, that it is at the foundation (reject everything built on top), and that this requires a process of doubting inquiry. So you doubt everything except your method of doubting, and you are left with your method of doubting…
But since the 17th century, we’ve manoeuvred around such self-fulfilling prophecies and transitioned to postmodernism. We don’t search for objective truth anymore - that is no longer the question. We search for different interpretations of things, historically, geographically and sociologically - much like observing “truths” like the works of art that they are, observing them from all angles and getting something from each of the infinite different ways of looking at them.
Your closing statement touches on this, with an appreciation of various relations between thought and awareness.
In answer to your second question: Plato, Socrates and Aristotle were all about “truth” underlying appearance weren’t they?
I asked the question because I think we do have basic presumptions upon which we construct our thought, consciously or subconsciously, if we are thinking in more or less organized manner.
For religious type, “god” and related matter with the definitions/properties might be the foundation.
For some philosopher type people, it might be “Truth” of some sort, either approached like Descartes did or observed (or whatever) like others did.
For many, they don’t have much “foundation” other than mixed bunch of presumptions/beliefs, most probably, because there are many people don’t think in very organized manner.
In the case of Descartes, I think his problem was not doubting more.
He didn’t doubt the questioning process, nor the nature of “existing”, and so on.
So, he concluded (wrongly) that the questioning/rejecting activity is enough for proving (permanent) existence (of self, universe, whatever).
I’d say that questioning process shows there is the process going on IF one can be aware of own questioning process, or it can show that there is the memory of questioning process, for example, and it doesn’t show that there is “self” or “permanent/persistent existence”, etc.
In my case, when I think, I usually use “awareness” as the foundation because we cannot be aware of subject matters unless we are aware (at least in some way) and cannot think well without it.
However, I have lots of question about the “awareness” itself and I do think there is something odd about it.
As I do think that the nature of “awareness” is somewhat preserved/reflected in our thought, I asked the question about YOUR foundation of YOUR thought, and that of philosophers.
And I asked these because I think many philosophers had probably bad foundation (like Descartes).
Now, the foundation I was asking isn’t exactly the same thing as “Truth (objective truth)” and this is why I put “(certainty)” there.
To me, even those who “went around” was still “around” the (ghost) of objective truth, so to say.
Maybe they did deny/negated “objective truth” but it’s as if they could not get away with it and kept it subconsciously, I’d say.
And I don’t think it’s a better method of inquiry IF we wanted to be satisfied with our thinking.
It’s because I do think we have the desire for absolute/perfect/infinite at different level and it manifests as the desire for the absolute certainty in our thinking, but superficially denying the “truth” is like denying other simple desires and it would complicate the situation, in addition to not obtaining the absolute certainty.
So, I do reject the “focusing” on “objective truth”, but I think it’s better to be aware of what we want and stay focused on it.
And I repeat that I do think what our thinking mind want is related to the nature of awareness.
For the basic foundation (certainty) of different philosophers, I wanted to hear the opinion/perception of others because different people may bring slightly different views and thus subtle but interesting points.
I was expecting/hoping to hear a bit more specific than “it’s all about truth”, but it was an interesting view.
However, I tend to think that Socrates was a bit different from most other philosophers.
He wasn’t an academic type person, unlike Plato, Aristotle, etc. He was just an odd guy, to me.
Also, probably more importantly, his basic certainty was general uncertainty, although we only guess how he was from what Plato has written about him and attribute to him, whereas most other philosophy guys appears to be pretty certain about lots of things.
In other words, the foundation of Socrates was possibly very different from many others.
In this regard, I’m not sure if there are many other philosopher/thinker like him.
I mean, most people/philosophers appear to be so sure of so many things, to me.
And it probably indicates that one of the basic foundation for these people is the presumption of “knowledge”/“knowing for sure”/“absolute certainty”/etc, even among those who rejected “objective truth”/“god”/etc.
I think this foundation can be fooling many philosophers since long long time.
Possibly, it was the fault of Plato + Aristotle who set the tone in the west (and Arabs), but similar tendencies can be seen among some of Chinese philosophers (or others who didn’t have contact with Plato/Aristotle line), I think.
So, I’m interested in the manifestation of this as the different foundation of thought/opinion.
The Law of Identity;
“What is, is whatever it is.”
“A≡A”
For Aristotle, reference above.
I’m not certain about what the others proclaimed, but no doubt they actually inside believed that same one.
The nature of awareness is to be cognizant of consistencies and changes.
Knowledge begins as those properties are category identified. Thinking begins as the law of identity (logic) compares and contrasts those categories. Emotion and action begin when those thoughts reveal hope and/or threat.
In my experiences of different awakening, I do remember some sort of slightly but definitively negative sensation prior to shifting into different (and somewhat clearer) state of awareness.
Although positive and negative are inverted and interlaced seen from different perspective of different level, I think the strong positive bias (in our thought and elsewhere) we seem to have may come from the underlying mechanism of awareness.
And I guess we can think of blip of cognition (of match), at first level, contrasted by no blip (or no-match). You may think as the first and primordial A=A, if you prefer.
Then, series of blips, followed by more or less consistent blips.
At the next level, it’s the cognition of consistency of the first level.
The continuous blips at the first level would cause the positive match at the second level, for example.
And there can be another layer detecting second level, or even combination/differences of preceding two levels, and so on.
But I’m still thinking about the basic and more detailed structure of the awareness.
I have the feeling since I was kid that there are at least 2 or more stages of feed back loops going on.
And I think detection of change and no-change plays role, as you said.
But cognition of consistency and change isn’t that easy.
It requires signal comparator and/or memory of some sort and it’s a complicated thing (compared to void), especially if we need to have multiple stage feed back loops.
I see emotion and action as the base, making up what we consider as knowledge, which is a fixation to me, and then thinking happens based on the fixation.
Emotion is much quicker and more omnipresent than thought, as far as I observe.
However, thanks to very plastic nature of thinking, we can think out of fixations to cut down fixations and then sink new perspectives and priority chain into emotion, if our emotional desire to think well is strong enough and if we are very honest about our desires.
I think the most basic would be something like an in reaction ‘stuff!!!’
(as in ‘things’ though without the multiple nature of a plural either asserted or denied)
One could put this in assertion form - though I think this is getting beyond basic - and say
‘there is stuff’
but as I said grammar brings in a heap of (more) conceptual stuff.
I’d like to hear the reasoning (or the thinking/feeling process) for taking this as the most basic element, if you have examined and if you don’t mind.
Frankly it was a gut reaction. An abstract way of saying it would be something like ‘Phenomenon’ I can try to justify this, but I am not sure I can. Another way to put it is ‘Something is happening’. Though this implies things I am not sure are so basic. Experiencing seems to be the primary ‘thing’ we are given. Though really I have just repeated my a priori.
Once said however I think the truth is we wake up in the middle, well past the basic levels, with all sorts of advanced non-basic assumptions in the way our eyes work, our bodies move, our reactions. And certainly once we begin to start looking for basic foundations and certainty we have language and a mass of preconceptions conscious and otherwise. From there what we think is basic may have hidden foundations or be invisible to us.
What I like about my answer is that I am not (clearly) making a claim about reality vs. appearance, or ontological claims or even deciding if there is one or many or oneness of a subject and object. I can’t imagine how to get more basic, I can see how one might build outward, drawing conclusions or mapping
STUFF!
compartmentalizing it, deciding there is a me and this part is me and so on.
Though all this might make me an empiricist, or a phenomenalist, and I am not sure I am that. I have rationalist tendencies - I mean rationalist in the formal philosophical sense that we have innate knowledge. I think this latter position is clear about us as individuals, since we carry knowledge via evolution and do not start from scratch.
I have to mull.
Pardon the sloppiness of the above, but getting some kind of articulate grip on the most basic thing - which would be apriori or? isn’t easy. Or maybe it is and I am off topic. Let me know.
I don’t think it’s easy to walk in the dense forest of our memories and conditioning, on top of many instinctive/natural tendencies which might have influenced the formation of the forest and and the inquiry into it.
Although questioning and thinking are also somewhat natural for us, how we question/think is molded too much in the way to preserve and to add up more conditioning, I’d say.
So, pealing off and/or inquiring the layers of beliefs and conditioning isn’t easy, even if we have strong desire and determination.
However, I don’t think it’s totally impossible to see the foundation of different layers.
It’s nearly practically impossible, though.
I guess we need to be pretty much single minded or somehow very talented in this specific area, or even both, just like achieving any other difficult thing.
Not all of us has got determination/talent to be an athlete of international level, top level scientist, artist, etc.
Casual inquiry would be likely to result in casual result/conclusion.
I think the honesty toward one’s own need/desire and toward own level of understanding is important for well balanced and satisfactory living.
I mean, conflating and pretending a lot would put oneself into protective/defensive attitude, in which we get tense up and less open for learning, in addition to the emotional instability and other effects.
And I feel your base seems to fit your desire and it’s probably serving you well (at least for now).
I’m more or less radical about certain matters, like awareness related things, and I don’t get satisfied unless I dig up to the basic awareness layer (and even below).
And I’m not satisfied unless I have both direct or intuitive understanding and logical (in broader sense) explanations/perspectives.
So, that’s what I’ve been doing since I was a kid.
Fortunately for me, I found that there is pretty good relation/analogy between how we tend to think and how awareness tend to operate.
It may mean that learning about the foundation of our thought would reveal more about the foundation of awareness, in some ways.
By gathering information/perspectives like you’ve provided, I’m hoping to extract something or I may get enough data that would destroy any hope.
But in my case, I’m not really sure about awareness, either.
I’m still studying/observing it (with critical attitude because I think there is something odd/strange about it).
And I do feel more “reality” with void/emptiness, but it isn’t really usable as foundation because it lacks any possibility/potential.
To have (hypothetical) system, model, we need to have “affirmative”/“positive” element. And emptiness/void has nothing to do with affirming, to me. So, I use “awareness” as the temporary/hypothetical foundation when I think about things, and forget about it when it’s no longer needed.
In other words, I don’t have any foundation (of organized thought) of permanent or absolute nature.
It’s similar to (or the same thing as) having no absolute/permanent certainty.
That’s a part of stuff, for me. Even in refined meditation states where one is aware of awareness, that’s the stuff.
Or one could say that stuff and awareness are different words for the same X.
Awareness hinting more at the subject (later made, sometimes it is argued, after the split) and stuff hinting more at the object (later…etc.)
I am not sure what I would do with one. Experience, another word for ‘it’ seems primary to me. But I don’t do much with that idea, EXCEPT when empiricists, especially scientific ones, end up saying that consciousness is an illusion. Then I gently remind them what empiricism means and how without a foundation of consciousness/experience/awareness, none of their claims have any merit since they are all dependent on it.
I tend to think in the perspective that pretty much everything is “information”.
And in this sense, there is no split for me.
All information is more or less hypothetical and temporary, too.
I can probably understand your way of feeling to some degree if I fix my perspective toward information seemingly coming from “outside”, and if I consider the split as if it’s permanent/absolute.
Anything can be seen as “illusion” if we take a perspective that yields such view.
To me, even the awareness is fishy enough and I tend to think it as an “illusion”, although it’s a lot more basic than highly hypothetical scientific perspectives.
Well, some people are believers of material religion that material world is more reliable/fundamental than their own conscious/awareness.
I think it’s their way of having something absolute, and it’s just a matter of preference and having the sense of reality with different things (depending on the center of gravity/density of the awareness and its focus).
I tend to feel more reality with silence/emptiness while they feel very strong reality with physical material.
Different way of seeing and feeling.
And from there, we get different way of thinking, too.
As long as the sense of absolute reality is perceived/taken as the personal sense, any perspective of reality would not cause conflict.
But there are many people who believe that their personal sense of reality isn’t just personal one, for some reason. They may get mad/scared if we don’t actively support and affirm their perspective. Maybe their perspective is fragile and they need external support to maintain it.
You seem to be taking my ‘stuff!’ as meaning it is outside. But that is not the fundamental experience. Stuff can be experienced as inside or in the primary as simply present. Stuff! does not imply any split. Just as 'awareness does not necessarily imply a subject or a split.
Then why the need to come up with some abstract fundamental certainty?
But this is now true for you, since you are universalizing, claiming to know their choices, what their real underlying reality is - that it is personal - with implications about what the universe is really like. You have an us them stance, with you as the one who really knows.
What is the dynamic that leads to this analysis from one who primarily experiences void and silence? Are you experiencing void and silence when you view and discuss them like this?
Which one of “certainty” are you talking, here?
If it’s about the certainty about awareness, it’s because I do have the desire (of mind) to understand and to explain, at certain layer, and I usually use the awareness as the foundation WHEN I think.
If you are talking about the sense of reality I may feel with silence/emptiness, It’s not “abstract” to me. Maybe it sounds like so to you as I have to describe it in words.
It’s like feeling physical sensation.
Do you think that the sense of reality isn’t personal matter?
Although I do think there can be common part, I’d say it’s pretty personal when we take all sort of aspect into consideration.
I don’t think I can find someone who has identical sense of reality compared to mine.
And yours would be unique, too.
Now, if you think differently, I don’t have any problem because it’s just a matter of personal preference/perspective, to me.
And I don’t think I pretended to know “what the universe is really like”.
You are free to have any impression, but I didn’t say/imply.
Similarly, you can explain how you can say “You have an us them stance, with you as the one who really knows”, if its’ important for you.
“I” don’t experience silence/void. Silence/void doesn’t belong to me.
Even “awareness” without pretty much any sense of “self” doesn’t silence/void, so to say.
So, there is a bit of seemingly wrong presumption included in your question.
Silence/void itself is the total lack of possibility/potential that it does nothing, it has no relation what so ever with anything.
Although I use the term “I”, there isn’t the sense of “self” associated with “awareness” when it’s not directed toward something.
And there isn’t sense of self in “silence”, so to say.
The sense of “self” seems to come in when there is awareness and when it’s focused, and especially when its focus is on sensory/emotional/mental information.
It also seems the receptor or the receiving end of the mechanism in the awareness is the silence, so to say.
It’s probably more precise to say that it’s the pieces of information (or perspective, or distortion of awareness) that makes/leave the last cry when they go in and vanish into the silence, in a way.
If we use an analogy taken from the theory/perspective of material universe, it might be similar to the light (or energy) beam coming out of the black hole as matters get absorbed and destructed.
Once things passes certain limit, it’s gone. But at the border, things may make a bit of noise. And it may give away a bit of information.
By gathering the information, we can guess about the nature things that have been thus destructively investigated.
Another way of getting perspective seems to be the result of big chunk dropping and disappearing. When this happens, new layers, new cut out of perspective is shown.
This seems to happen in the emotional/mental layers.
But this is far more complex compared to what happens near the border of awareness.
So, either way, the perspectives I write is usually oriented from the silence/void toward awareness/existence. And I wouldn’t say that “I’m experiencing void and silence when I view and discuss them like this”.
Depending on the situation/timing/etc, there might be the sense of reality of silence (of different level) when I think/discuss, though.
Although I’m not sure if you are interested, I think you can follow what I wrote about the “fragile perspective”, IF you think in terms of how we maintain/hold our perspectives.
Although it’s our human tendency to presume the permanence/persistence of many things, I do think our perspectives are not really permanent/persistent.
Unless some sort of effort/energy is there to hold/stick it, the focus of awareness would change. And unless there is something captivating our attention (thus giving the sense of “reality” to certain degree), the focus of awareness may not revisit the perspective, very often.
And as far as I’ve observed, some people seem to have the desire to hold certain perspective, such as religious beliefs (but it can be anything). But they don’t always succeed in achieving.
When they can’t keep/hold the perspective they wanted, they may use various methods like auto-suggestion, in group enforcing, whatever.
One way is to seek agreement/support from others.
And some of them can get upset when others don’t offer them what they wanted.
In general, people who has no problem in having perspective they want seem to have less tendency to get upset/mad when others don’t agree with them.
They are more or less self sufficient in handling their perspectives that the lack of support/agreement doesn’t bother them much.
It can be seen as a matter of energy needed for handling preferred perspectives, I guess.
The above makes sense but I was asking in the context of this assertion:
Won’t this process of trying to work out the most basic assertion move you away from void silence and thus further from reality?
Whether I agree or not, the problem I pointed out seems to remain.
You universalized, which means it is true for everyone. That really their perspectives are personal, though some are confused that they are not simply personal, a belief that leads them into conflict. Since you are asserting that all perspectives are really personal, you are making claims about the state of all subjects (people) and this also implies that certain things must be true then in all cases for these different people, you are implying common features to everyone and their relationship to reality. I am not saying you are wrong. I am saying that asserting it creates a contradiction. You are now putting forward something that is universal and absolute.
I found this sentence strange. Did you have an interest in me explaining it or did you merely think I needed to know I had the capability, opportunity? It was important enough for you to make the statement, I suppose.
In any case, my explanation: You say above the way things are - perspectives are personal - and then what many people seem to think - unlike you - indicating that this belief they have leads to conflict. You have a belief that does not lead to conflict. They - the many people - have a belief that does.
And follow this with…
You have a belief that does not lead to conflict, they have beliefs that do, ‘for some reason’. Perhaps ‘I/them’ would have been more accurate.
The sense of reality, like awareness, is something temporary to me.
It shifts and changes.
So, although I tend to feel more reality (and more often) with silence/emptiness, things seemingly “away” from silence/void may capture the attention (focus of attention) , time to time and in various degree.
When this happens, I am fully interested in the matter that pulled (so to say) my attention and I’m somewhat away from void/silence.
However, I can’t stay in the captured state, even if I tried.
I once tried to stay away from silence/void (and thus awareness as well) when I was in high school as being aware is more painful (we have lots of subconscious suffering). But the longest I could stay submerged in different interests/desires was about a few months.
After that, I abandoned the idea of staying interested in something in (more or less) consistent manner.
So, to me, any foundation is temporary, and short lived, so to say.
Although I do have preferred perspectives, but they do change, as well.
And I’m never really “away” from void/silence because it seems/feels that the awareness works with the silence/void sucking information and thus there is the sense of silence always nearby (or in the background, so to say) even when the awareness is focused (and even in thinking).
Any thought, perspective, model, hypothesis is temporary and limited to me, as I’ve already explained.
I don’t presume permanence/persistence/universality much.
So, I may “generalize” to the degree you may feel that I’m universalizing, but it’s pretty limited in applicability and time span.
Maybe your perception/interpretation of me “asserting” is the key.
When I write about some perspectives, I might say in more or less definitive way, for the sake of simplicity or simply because I was in hurry or I get lazy/sloppy.
And you or other people may mistake that I’m “now putting forward something that is universal and absolute”, and so on.
If you quote my words (and not how you perceived), you may notice that I’m putting conditions/limitations/nuances/etc, most of time.
Now, I do think pretty much anything is unique and changing all the time.
This is one of my preferred perspective, although it may change anytime.
IN this perspective, people are all unique. (Note that it’s in the particular perspective)
And so their perspective is unique and personal. (always staying within the same limit/condition)
And that’s my personal view, for now.
Do you still perceive/interpret/call this as “putting forward something that is universal and absolute” ?
I don’t need/want something universal/absolute when I’m making just a “model”/“theory”.
And I’ll be totally forgetting about it, very soon, when my interest shifts or when the focus of awareness is pulled back.
I wanted you to feel free about explaining or forgetting, depending on the relative importance of the matter to you. That’s all.
You may need to understand that I’m a very lazy person.
So, conflicts can be annoying to me because I may have to spend time and energy.
This makes me to prefer to have less conflict, usually.
From the perspective of my preference, and also that of some other people who manifest their desire to have less conflict, I do think having the perspective of personal nature of any thought, theory can be helpful.
And again, it’s how I see for the time being, and I don’t think of this (or other) perspective to be “true”, “knowledge”, etc.
It’s just an opinion, among other possible opinions.
So, I don’t think what you said — “You have an us them stance, with you as the one who really knows” — is really applicable.
I sometime present comparison to make things easier to understand.
And I may use different examples, including my own cases, in it.
As I’m selfishly speaking for my own desire from my own desire and preference, my own case may tend to fall in the favorable side of example.
I do what I like, and I like what I do. If not, I change the way I do.
So, it’s pretty normal for some readers to get the impression that I like the example of my own case and I don’t like the case thee contrasting example.
However, it’s just a matter of preference and you are making a mistake if you take it as if it’s something like truth/wisdom/knowledge/etc that I’m talking about.
I’m usually talking about temporary/conditional/limited perspectives I happened to have based on my preferences/desires.
And I don’t mind if someone prefers to have lots of conflict and having strong absolute beliefs to be absolutely superior, and so on, as long as the person isn’t too close to me.