Eternity and a moment [is the simplest Occamic explanation?]
If we assume mind is something then the simplest explanation of our existence is;
0 > I < 0
There is mind as an eternal [0], it is a dimensionless stateless space [because there’s nothing in it to define dimensionality]. It becomes expressed as consciousness when information can communicate with other informations e.g. neuronal activity [I]. when this stops happening then the experiencing mind is returned to its native eternal state [0].
There is no need for anything else like a creator god, because {I} expression is also an eternal ~ a moment forever existent within eternity as infinite, like a nucleus to its atom. One cannot create what is already there, at most there can only be that which makes change to the moment. However change itself exists in the moment [all p’s are P where p = p] due to the fact that absolutely nothing exists outside of the moment I.e. in eternity.
I’d say that peace is the default position ~ eternity, so why make a quest to achieve it. That the self is thrust into existence as a rider on the storm, something of a passenger to it all. Because eternity is divine [lets imagine that as some manner of supreme intellect, though intellect is not what it is [its not a processor]], when expressed and thrust into the world it tries to make sense of it, to find reason and purpose to something which is essentially endless and thus cannot have purpose.
I do think that you and me are in one in eternity but only because we don’t exist there. As such we are constantly reborn but the self is not, the spirit is reborn with all that’s been learned but as a new expression. This is why spirit does not distinguish between being born a rabbit or human, its why a baby looks at its hands in awe, every expression is new though the spirit ancient.
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Perhaps there is a constant re-evaluating of informations learned from existence, and it is this which finds such pleasure in overcoming obstacles? It gives all life the desire to succeed.
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well your mind as expressed as self will last as long as the body does, your mind as unexpressed will be eternal as it always has been. But then that’s not your mind as the self is not present in it.
Besides we know there is thought ~ and I consider that apart from the current disparate understanding where thought is like particles.
We know there is information.
We know there is a medium.
We know there is state and statelessness.
How would you describe reality as the mind talking?
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You are using (the knowledge contained in) mind to maintain self. Like you say, it’s the knowledge that gives you (self) a sense of permanence, an identity.
Without the knowledge of Reality there is no reality. Actually, there’s just the movement of the knowledge acquired from what’s been invented as a means to know things. The knowledge has been put into you for the purpose of arbitrarily creating the self, information, medium, etc.
How does the phrase ‘to sense’ differ from the phrase ‘to know’?
We impose on a child right from its birth a series of systems and frameworks of knowledge and language which, along with other kinds of conditionings, can be described as the superstructure. Thus the developing child is subjected to a series of conditioned responses that finally form part of his thought system called knowledge. Such knowledge is stored in us as memory, thus fixing the frame of the mind.
Indeed, there is always a reality there, even if we consider the mind as apart from the body its reality does not require knowledge of itself, it simply is.
The thought is not the reality, that which is experiencing it is.
At every moment you have to know what is going on. You have to know; otherwise the identity of you is not there. When knowledge is not there – when thought is not there – you are not there. Nothing is there.
You can’t say you can experience something when thought or knowledge isn’t there. That is what tells you what it is. The senses don’t tell you a thing. Thought has to come in and tell you this is the stimulus and that is the response. Memory cells containing information (knowledge) have to be activated.
If there’s nothing in memory, there’s nothing to tell you what a thing is.
It depends, if you think as I do that the mind [not thought itself] is the knower, then it is knowing itself as that which knows, it is the act of. So I suppose in that I contradict my earlier statement, but what I am trying to distinguish between is thought holding items of information, and that which understands what the info is [the book and the reader one could say].
Btw this is not on topic, perhaps we can bring this into the idea of the op’s reality map and the nature of mind. Is eternity a decentralised state of mind? And the self centralised state of mind? Does mind match the reality or is it the reality?
[b]Yes. Back to topic, it seems to me that the most logical course of action is to seek the nature of reality by starting with the case evidence of the nature of yourself. Why? Because you obviously exist (if not, you should be in a state of dreamless sleep), and one subjectively experiences: indeed, objects exist, empirically, as experiences.
Your notion of decentralized mind is a logical possibility derived from extrapolation of what is already there: conscious experience. The semantics of the philosophy of mind deals with what is known to exist, such that the term “mind” means either: (i) thought, memory, or any non-sensory conscious experience save emotion or: (ii) conscious experience itself or the basic ‘substance’ of experience. Anything else…well…is inconceivable (which exists, to us, only in the form of language in alphabetical structures that ‘describe’ the unimaginable).
Thus, an experiencer (‘self’) and what it currently experiences is centralized (structured, constructed, circumscribed) mind: decentralized mind, by contrast, is one’s imagination of what centralized mind is, or becomes, when it comes apart. It’s non-empirically derived conjecture,sure, but one can find no fault with it (save Q’s belief that neurons have something to do with the process) because it extrapolates from what’s “already there” rather than postulate an irrational relationship between experience and non-experience.
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Well my most logical course of action is to say reality exists, and that mind does also means that I should create a reality map of both, but beginning with ‘what reality is’.
My reasoning is that we cant say for sure what our existence is, I’ll cut corners and state that others exist as well as me, and also that all which comes into my mind is not me. From that I can deduce that there is a me-ness out there and it has many locations [there are many people], indeed if we attach the brain to external devices [as with OOB experiments], we can transmigrate me-ness to different locations. Not to mention that if we took away all input the said me-ness would have no way to cognate etc, so it relies on non-self and non-mind aspects of reality in order to be what it is.
All this tells us is that there is some kind of shared mindfulness our there, we still have to denote what that mind is ‘in’, what is its space, dimension, thingness etc.
I considered the collection of minds as ‘decentralised’ because it does not appear that there is only one mind [unless it’s a time traveller]. There are many experiencers, and we can at best only assume there is a single overall experiencer, but even if there is, then the plurality of experiencers remains within that.
To piece it all together we need to make reality maps and mind must fit to them, our experiences and that which is the experiencer cannot work outside of whatever reality itself is.
Having said that, the mind can do that in terms of the imagination ~ which is probably why imagination is not a shared reality [though is an is-ness]. Which brings something of a conundrum; how can you hide a reality from reality? …what stops the reality of the imagination from mixing with the universal reality? …or worse, is there reality!?
It seams there is reality until you define it then it moves away from us.
When we are speaking about reality, we can only speak of our knowledge about it and call this knowledge reality. But for what? Then it becomes a classroom discussion or a discussion in a debating society, each one trying to show that he knows more, a lot more, than the other. What do you get out of it? Each one is trying to prove that he knows more than you, to bring you over to his point of view.
If you are lucky enough (it’s only luck), to get out of this trap of knowledge, the question of reality is not there anymore. The question arises from this knowledge, which is still interested in finding out the reality of things, and to experience directly what that reality is all about. When this is not there, the question is also not there. Then there is no need for finding any answer. This question being posed is born out of the assumption that there is a reality, and that assumption is born out of this knowledge you have of and about the reality. … The knowledge is the answer you already have. That is why you are asking the question. The question automatically arises.
What is necessary is not to find out the answer to the question, but to understand that the question which you are asking, posing to yourself, and putting to somebody else, is born out of the answer you already have, which is the knowledge. So, the question and answer format, if we indulge in it for long, becomes a meaningless ritual. … If you are really interested in finding reality, what has to dawn on you is that your very questioning mechanism is born out of the answers that you already have. Otherwise there can’t be any question.
Why are you concerned as to what will happen after what you call “you” is gone? If there is no reality for you then where does that put you?
[b]Hello Q. Interesting premise and conclusion. For my part, I choose to only look at things through the lens of “experience and experience relative v.s. non-experience”.
Thus ‘information’ equals:
(i) Experience qua experience (experience as a thing or process unto itself, irrespective of the existence of the experiencer)
(ii) An experiencer and what it experiences throughout the history of its existence (if that existence ends)
(iii) Something from which experience logically derives without ex nihilo creation or origination. [/b]
True. By stating that ‘reality exists’ one could mean that reality is whatever exists regardless of whether or not it is believed to exist. It is the set of all existent things, like it or not, believe in it or not. This is a holistic way of looking at reality, and one would be wrong to disagree with such a holistic definition. But reality, unfortunately, limits itself epistemically to humans. Here, reality becomes only what we can know exists. Everything else is in the “twilight zone”, so to speak. They’re things that, because they cannot be known, are related to the human mind only through belief and faith.
Sure, when you look into things, we don’t know what ‘this’ is, or even ‘why’ this is (existence). We have no choice but to agree with Faith No More when they ask: “What Is It?” and answer: “It’s It.” But I think we should be clear on the dichotomy: the notion that experience is derived from non-experience requires the most absurd magic, as the existence of experience does not follow from or does not exist in that which experience is not (of course, because that which experience is not is not experience). So ‘non-mind aspects of reality’, in order to logically support mind or ‘me-ness’, must be ‘non-mind’ only in the sense that it is not any experiencer or the specific experiences of that experiencer but a substance made up of the same stuff that makes up experience but in non-person form.
Indeed.
[b]Are you referring to non-intersubjectivity, in which some aspects of reality (the minds of other people as they privately and invisibly experience them) are hidden from other aspect (one’s own mind and its inability or momentary failure to perceive the mind of another person, which exists, seemingly, in its own separate pocket dimension)?
^^ indeed volchok, I’d hasten to go all the way and say it is fundamentally indescribable, physically absurd even ~ in a manner of speaking.
Our knowledge cant possibly be from anything other than reality. Try saying something that isn’t a description of reality in some manner. You could say something like; reality is a talking banana, and that idea is true about that concept about reality that you just thought in order to compose the idea ~ the idea is true always.
On another front, we can use all encompassing meanings which leave no room for manoeuvre such as infinity [to the aleph omega], Omni-x, eternal etc, this way our reality map extends as far as reality possibly can.
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Its thesis is yes, however that has changed massively just over the last few years of being on-line. I have answers but they are constantly being thrown into the mill with other ingredients, such to make a new grain of truth ready to be destroyed again. But it is not hopeless, things are learned in the process. we couldnt have begun with all the answers could we!
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I agree [with i,ii,iii], but you have already then spoken of something in reality which the experiencer learns of; information. Info may be said to be part of the experiencer (i) and yet we know it is exchangeable and can be ascribed to inanimate or otherwise non-experiential things (ii), not to mention between experiencers (iii).
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as above + My description of the experiencer needs to be no different from my description of any other ‘object’ - let us say, in the reality map!
If I consider the experiencer [or collection of all such, even as one] to be reality and I have nothing other than it, then its description concerns the infinite and omnipresent etc, just the same as if I put anything other than the experiencer in that ‘box’ [the reality map]. No twilight zone required as I end up with the exact same thing, just the names and denominations changed.
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Good points. If experience was a box could no experience exist within it, such that it can contain it and so understand it? This is something like how I see the mind understanding information, it is brought into our sphere of experience. The experience of experiencer ‘a’ of experiencer ‘b’ is to ‘a’ an experience of that which is not part of itself ~ not part of its experience directly. Thus I assume just as we experiencers may perceive one another, a given other external entity may be experienced?
Btw; it = either, neither and both. …or all in any given set. Thus ‘it’ does not = ‘it’! it always transmigrates its entity spatial location and meaning in any attempt at confining ‘it’ ~ its description is always on a tangent to what it ‘is’.
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Yes indeed, I can always rely on you for proper philosophical terminology!
Are such things really hidden, or is it that no information is being exchanged concerning the hidden and non-hidden? Hmm I think I just answered my own question, but no doubt you have more answers as to why that is.
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If we “know” that information is exchangeable and ascribed to inanimate or otherwise non-experiential things, then as long as the inanimate or non-experiential is not non-experience (that which experience is not), it remains that our ‘knowledge’ of such things is only Russelian inference:
Matter is to be understood as that which physics is about. So, matter must be such that the physicist can know its existence. In other words, what physical science is concerned with and makes discoveries about must be a function of the physicist’s sense-data. What could that function be? There are only two ways in which we can know the existence of something. “(1) immediate acquaintance, which assures us of the existence of our thoughts, feelings, and sense-data, (2) general principles according to which the existence of one thing can be inferred from that of another.” (Russell 1912a, p. 80)
Steen, Irem Kurstal Russell On Matter And Our Knowledge Of The External World and Russell, Bertrand Our Knowledge Of The External World, 1912
[b]In an old OP: The Faith Of The Atheist And The Cult Of Mother Nature I mistakenly assumed that Russell automatically implied that non-experience is the substance making up the external world, until I learned that Russell may be a phenomenalist (a godless phenomenalist, but one nonetheless). Given this, the type of inference Russell may have alluded to may be empirical inference, or inference that starts from, and that is based on, what is actually experienced. Empirical inference leads to a logical and rational imaginary connection to what may lie ‘outside’. Surely Russell was logical enough to see the ontological abyss between experience and non-experience and deduce that the existence of experience can only infer just more of itself rather than something that it is not to explain the existence of person-experience. Thus Russell, in his notion of inference, may have pointed toward inference of an outer, external mentality rather than non-mentality.
The notion of the non-mental is an imaginary inference, as there is no logical or rational basis for a connection or reference between the mental and non-mental.[/b]
[b]But when I (or someone else) state that reality is only that which is known, I suppose we’re talking about empirical reality: the reality that is experienced or that has been experienced. Everything else within the ‘map’, if it has not been experienced, is imaginary (despite the fact that it may have actual existence in the non-experiential [that which is not experienced because it is in the external world as opposed to non-experience, that which experience is not.
Our reality maps, if based only upon actual experience, will exhaust to the empirical, with everything else being merely speculative and supported only by religious or quasi-religious faith. If we expand ‘reality’ beyond what we actually experience, all logically possible objects, persons, and states of affairs can fit within the ‘box’.[/b]
In my theology, God is a box, so to speak, that contains other-experience. And I agree with your description of external information and how it connects to a particular person’s experience, except I remove the role of the brain (holding the function of the brain is ultimately a reality/God contrived reductio ad absurdum and a symbol of how Psykismet works)and hold that information, while being non-experiential, is not non-experiential (pun intended ). So aside from the stipulations (mine, which you can ignore if you choose), I agree that there is an external world holding information that can play a role in Russell’s “logical construction of sense-data” (our personal experience as a logical “building” or construct of specific types of experience), but hold that these logical constructions are purely phenomenal.
[b]I suppose ‘hidden’ is in the poetic sense, and it follows that other minds are invisible and intangible because no information is exchanged that would yield isomorphic experiences between individuals.
Once again, it’s good to see philosophy at its most honest in action.[/b]
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What if they indeed are non-experience until brought into the sphere of experience? Our knowledge of them may occur when something external to the current field of experience enters that field of experience.
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That would be true if the experiencer didn’t have the ability to experience something external to it. If we consider information to be external then I’d suggest the experiencer does have that ability, indeed that is its primary function [to know]. Otherwise there is no requirement for processing [the knowledge of the info would already be known].
I know my mind exists as a container [that’s my experience of it anyway], and within that thought/s exists as a container within which is contained information {and holisms parhaps}. that’s what the act of experiencing does, it brings info and other mental objects into its field so as to perceive/know it.
That info arrives and leaves the container or the field of our experience, hence is external. There is no abyss between the contained and that which contains it, but there does exist a direct relationship between the two ~ indeed one is defined by the other!
…if that relationship can be made clear or absolute, there would then be the capacity for absolute knowledge of a thing! I am thinking ‘hand-in-glove’ kind of property to the experiencer, the only problem is that there are many thoughts occurring and so many gloves [containing experiences] trying to form to many hands [info and maybe holisms].
I’d suggest that the entire intellectual experience is exactly the process of making all such relationships clear. The more we can single out specific informations, the greater the accuracy. The only thing that can stop absolute clarity is the subjective divide between info the experiencer receives, and info as it derives from the world. But if we didn’t get that right sometimes you couldn’t be reading this, or what you are reading right now would be something different to what I am, but the words are the same even if our interpretations different.
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Our known world can never be the whole of reality as there will always be things we don’t know ~ even if that’s just the time interval between knowing and not.
I’d suggest that if we remove the known/experienced world from the equation, the experience/r would be entirely empty! …but we don’t have an empty reality map, it already contains at least the experiencer and info.
I don’t know that god is a container in which my mind exists, I only know that my mind is a container [I think divinity is uncontained/eternity].
I would add that the property of ‘containing experience’ only exists due to the act of forming a relationship between info and mind ~ hand and glove. I extrapolate that from the universals and transience [e.g. death and transmigration, OOB experience etc, as discussed earlier]. …our first thoughts in this body would be an act of containing info, prior to that…!
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I am looking forwards to what you make of all that.
Interesting premise and conclusion. For my part, I choose to only look at things through the lens of “experience and experience relative v.s. non-experience”.