We’ll need a context of course.
Well… this not “I” thing is interesting on several levels. Iambiguous uses dreams as an example.
But that’s not actually the best example. Spiritual possessions are the best example.
Life has a strange quirk though. We all have souls.
You see, I know what “non I” people mean:
“I am that”. That’s true. We are all everything. But it’s not the full story, we are also “I am this”. You are also yourself!
Sure… existence gets weird. But you are also always yourself, your “thisness” with all the “thatness”.
Again, another general description intellectual contraption. Slow what progress down in what context? And in particular contexts out in particular worlds historically, culturally and experientially, when flesh and blood human beings interact, behaviors deemed more or less enlightened engender actual consequences that reward and punish these flesh and blood human beings in real time here and now. And, again, religious denominations all have their “scriptures” that do connect the dots between moral/enlightened behaviors here and now and immortality there and then.
It’s just that with most “Western” religions this is all embodied in God, in Heaven and Hell, in Judgment Day. “I” continues on as a soul, making contact again with all one’s loved ones for all of eternity. What could possibly be more comforting and consoling?
For Buddhists though? I’m still unable to grasp how this all “works” with a No God religion. Somehow it just seems to become part of how the universe itself “works”? Or, rather, what Buddhists have thought themselves into believing “in their head” is how it all “works”.
Right. Two completely abstract intellect contraptions reconfigure into two completely abstract spiritual contraptions.
Isn’t that what these are?
How does the individual Buddhist reconfigure them as “worlds of words” into the life that they live, confronting the manner in which I construe human interactions here as the embodiment of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
Given actual sets of circumstances that meld here and now with there and then.
I’m sorry, but my reaction to your posts are of two kinds:
1]
[b]"I have told you repeatedly that I am of the opinion – and that is all it is, my own personal opinion – that you are afflicted with a “condition” that prompts you to post things here at ILP that make absolutely no sense at all. Surreal, bizarre things. You pummel us with all of these assumptions about everything under the sun but you fail to convince me that you are actually able to demonstrate that they are true much beyond you believing that they are.
Something is proven only in the fact of you having posted it."[/b]
2]
Fine by me iambiguous. You see, I have a past as well , where I never had exposure to the spirit world. I know what it’s like to not be exposed to it. I have those memories.
So… I can look at a guy like you and see no fault.
Then we’re still friends?
Here’s the thing. You don’t have exposure to the spirit world. Everyone who doesn’t (as much as you may hate this) is actually an innocent.
Now, when you know spiritual things and you say or do something … that’s some intense shit! It’s a different way of living.
I don’t hate people for not being spiritually awakened.
I wouldn’t wish my life on you.
You do say very interesting things!
I have no ill will towards you. I actually enjoy your posts.
What is friendship if not enjoyment of another?
Friends it is then! 
I’ve become exceptionally tolerant over the years.
I hate winking… it implies exclusive knowledge and is used to assert dominance.
I also hate peace signs… there’s no peace here! It’s another form (like winking) to assert taunting and provocation.
Knowing what sends people to hell has relaxed me substantially … I almost feel like smirking when someone does these things because I know everyone will eventually be spiritually awakened and I know they’re going to have to regret all those memories or be sent to hell to be forced to regret all those memories.
Sometimes I get furious at people because they don’t know their hells, I dig into them, they think I’m a jerk, what I did to you emotionally doesn’t remotely resemble hell. As I grow wiser,I realize nicer ways to try to explain things. It’s a process to be sure.
Don’t get attached to each other.
Not to worry. As a moral objectivist, he hates winking. As a moral ironist, it’s all but expected of me.
People get really cocky for their interludes of spiritual protection.
Cocky?
Just for the record, I’m the one here who has managed to think himself into believing that what he does think, feel, say and do is just another manifestation of “I” as an existential contraption rooted in dasein. “I” embedded in an essentially meaningless world edging closer and closer to the abyss that is oblivion.
I don’t even know for sure if I am not compelled by the immutable laws of nature to post this. Let alone the extent to which my understanding of all this is even remotely close to the knowledge it would take to understand my existence in the context of all there is. Going back to the explanation for existence itself.
On the other hand, Ecmandu strikes me as among the least “fractured and fragmented” posters here. Ever and always he is haranguing us with all that he claims to know is true about…everything?
I’m just ever curious about the extent to which he has come to embody a mental “condition” that propels what “I” construe to be these fierce flights of fancy in his brain. After all, there are so many of them. People come to believe all sorts of things. Some hear voices, some hallucinate, some think they are somebody else…some historical figure perhaps. There are so many different ways in which chemically, neurologically our brains propel us to think, feel, say and do things that, in many crucial respects, really are “beyond our control”. I’m certainly no exception.
What does “trudging away” consist of? I don’t really see any sincere effort on your part to really close the gap, more of an attempt to keep discussions like this within the parameters of your game. Hence, my question “What is that?” Hence, why none of the above answers it.
You certainly haven’t made any bones about it. I just think it’s all a bit disingenuous.
But that’s just the thing. My whole aim here is to try to align my interests squarely with yours. I’m trying to play your game. With anyone else on this board, I’ve never had any trouble staying on topic and making progress. Only with you have I repeatedly experienced minimal progress conforming to your own agenda before you bring the discussion back to vague generalities.
And are you saying you have a similar reaction to what I said about Buddhism and its take on the ‘I’?
Yes, this is generally how it ends with you. But this is precisely what I want to understand. Do you consider this a failed attempt at bridging the many gaps you aim to close (between one’s beliefs and moral behaviors, between what we do “here and now” and the fate of the ‘I’ “there and then”, between what we think we know and all there is to know, etc.)? Do you consider this closure on your inquiries (as in: ah, I finally understand what gib believes, though it’s still just another existential contraption)? Is it your way of saying “Not good enough; try again”–as if to insist that all responses from those with whom you engage must fit the mold you expect of such responses? Is it something you could persue further if you felt so inclined, or is there literally nothing you can do with this insofar as your agenda is concerned?
And what do you want people to do with this scenario? Are you trying to extract how they think they would handle such a situation? How they would resolve it once and for all? What they think is the “right” thing to do? What kind of a response would satisfy Biggy here?
As an aside, I must say that you make it out to seem like high stakes interactions like what you describe are not only inevitable and commonplace, but fatally irresolvable. But I think the scenario you describe is actually a rare occurence. Sure we live in a world where people disagree on all manner of important issues, and indeed the stakes do get high, enough to sometimes resort to violence and war, but I personally find this kind of experience extremely rare. Maybe if I were living in a different part of the world, and I felt my convictions were worth standing up for in the face of incredibly dangerous opposition, but to say that “all men and women who choose to interact with others are going to find themselves confronting conflicting goods…” seems a bit hyperbolic, at least for most people here.
This seems a bit more honest, but I think you left out the aspect wanting to challenge others.
So essentially, you’d move on.
Gib wrote:
The word ‘progress’ was used and that never goes over well with Biggus. You know ‘progress’ is in your head, it’s whatever you want to think it is. 
Well, if you say so. But there are still millions upon millions of actual flesh and blood human beings around the globe who see the behaviors they choose “here and now” and the fate of their soul “there and then” as anything but a game. And not just in the theocracies.
Now, my own aim on this thread is to explore the Buddhist rendition of it. Buddhists here will either go there or they won’t. Though, again, I’ll admit that my motivation here is, at least in part, embedded in my own murky understanding of this:
“He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest.”
Okay, whatever that means. Though what are the odds it will mean the same thing for both of us? For me, philosophy is as much about what we seem unable to understand as what we can and do. Mostly regarding “I” in the is/ought world. And “I” going back to a complete understanding of existence itself. Though for some here these seem to be trivial pursuits.
If I do say so myself.
What else could it mean given the gap between what any of us think we know about all of this and all that there is to be known? I mean, come on, please, what would a “sincere effort” consist of here? All I can do is to note the conclusions that I have come to “here and now” in my signature threads and then connect the dots between them, morality here and now and immortality there and then.
Given the fact that 1] we all have to confront conflicting goods on this side of the grave and 2] that the spiritual/religious among us connect the dots here to one or another ecclesiastical scripture anchored to one or another rendition of “I” on the other side, what would the least disingenuous approach to this be?
What is your own? Given a particular context.
Again, this is an intellectual contraption.
Choose a particular context that will be recognizable by most of us here. A set of circumstances in which mere mortals connect the dots between morality/enlightenment here and now and one’s fate there and then.
What in this discussion would constitute “progress”?
What are you and others saying about Buddhism in regard to the existential relationship between enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana — as this pertains to the lives that they live from day to day?
Again, let’s bring this “general description intellectual contraption” down to earth. You choose the context. Then with more specificity you can note all the instances in which the points you raise here about me become clearer.
The distinction I always come back to here is the manner in which “I” as a moral nihilist have come to understand human interactions when confronting conflicting goods as dasein out in a particular political economy, and the objectivists – God or No God – who insist that the manner in which they have come to understand it is in turn obligatory for all others who wish to think of themselves as rational and virtuous human beings. A further distinction here being those who insist that if one chooses to live one’s life in accordance with rational and ethical and enlightened truths, they will be rewarded on the other side given one or another religious dogma.
But, again, it’s straight back up into the clouds of abstraction:
What on earth are you talking about here? Note an example of what you construe to be behaviors in which moral and political value judgments come into conflict. Reconfigure your words into this discussion.
Just follow the news. You want conflicting goods? How about the coronavirus, the economic crisis, the social unrest? Hundreds and hundreds of issues in which both religious and nonreligious objectivists are hell bent on yanking everyone else onto their own “side”. And then the nihilists who own and operate the global economy. What of their “convictions”?
Hyperbolic? What planet are you living on?
Challenging others is all there is if I have any chance at all of being yanked up out of the brutally grim hole that I have thought myself down into. Only I suspect the more others become queasy about me yanking them down into it instead, the more they react by making me the issue instead.
Like, say, my “three stooges” here.
So, are you going to become the 4th? 
We’ll need a context of course.
On the contrary, if the discussion revolved around whether Communism or Capitalism best reflected “human nature”, my argument would suggest that any particular individual’s answer would be rooted in how I construe “I” here to be an existential contraption rooted in dasein; rather than in anything philosophers or ethicists or political scientists can conclude about it.
As for “progress”, that’s easy. For the moral and political objectivists among us – all up and down the ideological spectrum – progress would revolve solely around the extent to which you agreed with them.
So, let’s go back to the points we discussed about Communism on earlier threads.
Let’s see if one of us is now better able to pin down that which would encompass progress here.
‘Progress’ would be pursuing points of mutual interest, dropping points which are not interesting, agreeing on points, conceding points to the other person, reaching new conclusions based on the ideas that come out in the discussion, movement on to new points …