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WBraun
climber
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Oct 26, 2016 - 06:48pm PT
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Neurons can't taste.
It requires the living entity itself .......
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 26, 2016 - 07:17pm PT
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Jgill: I sense you are saying there are no innate distinctions between objects until we apply our minds.
No, I think he might be saying there are no objects.
The brain clearly generates the mind,
You’re out of your league here. Remember what you wrote about expertise? This is not your bailiwick. There *is* that theory, but there are others that do not confine cognition to the brain. And then there is the question of whether mind is more or different than simply cognition. And while you’re solving those problems, perhaps you could tell us what cognition *is.* Is it data processing? Is the brain merely a very complex computer? (This is a trick question.)
MH2: I said that the labelling itself is an experience . . . .
Indeed it is. Say what the experience is. (It’s not the content.) Say what experience is. You are not understanding the request. Say . . . what . . . the . . . experience . . . is. What is it?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 26, 2016 - 07:32pm PT
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DMT: Its no surprise that philosophers and wooists in general get all hung up on symbolism.
I feel compelled to say something about this.
Perhaps you don’t have a very keen sense of what symbols are (most people don’t), but it would be extremely difficult for you to be in society with not only others but yourself without symbols.
You’d better be throwing psychologists out onto the trash heap with those philosophers and spiritualists. And you’d need to include most every other scholarly discipline as well. So much of what moves us, our conceptions of the world around us, what’s important to us, and even how we see ourselves individually are tied-up in symbolism. Some have said that symbols are placeholders for things we can’t articulate. Others have said that any explicit descriptions and definitions of the universe finds its source in symbols. Symbols are communications with the numinous, sacred, and mysterious, which arise out of our souls.
Got a soul? Got heart? Got passion? Got anything wondrous or mysterious or something that you consider sacred in your life? Symbols reference and present those things to you. All those things are those things that you can’t describe at all, perhaps only stupidly and clumsily.
No, I suppose you have nothing of that in your life. You are an economic, self-interested, materialistic man full of reason, calculation, and logic. Nothing else matters to you.
(Now there’s a myth for you.)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 26, 2016 - 07:55pm PT
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Say what the experience is. (It’s not the content.)
Why not? Couldn't they be the same thing? Or at least overlap?
Algebra and geometry seem different but the same theorems can be expressed in both.
If you remove the content of the experience of the taste of sugar, what is left?
Do you think that experience depends on brain activity? Could you have experience without your neurons in working order?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 26, 2016 - 08:10pm PT
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No, I think he might be saying there are no objects
And of course he would be entirely wrong. Plenty of objects out there, but if no one is around they are not labelled. Here we go again on that voyage to the moon, an object that is not there should we not be looking at it.
. . . but there are others that do not confine cognition to the brain . . . perhaps you could tell us what cognition *is.*
You brought it up. You tell me. To present a statement based upon a certain word, then afterwards asking what that word is, seems a little weird.
Is it data processing? Is the brain merely a very complex computer? (This is a trick question.)
I would have fallen headlong into this trap were it not for the helpful clue. Thank you.
You are not understanding the request. Say . . . what . . . the . . . experience . . . is. What is it?
I can't help chuckling when I see this. JL goes down the rabbit hole of no-thingness frequently, expecting us to obediently acknowledge the power of Zen-ness, reinforced by his knowledge of quantum mechanics, and MikeL constantly throws koans at us hoping for us to break through to the other side of logic and roam the halls of epiphany.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 26, 2016 - 08:23pm PT
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Could you have experience without your neurons in working order?
Yes, 100%
You don't even need a gross physical material body to have experience.
The gross materialists are clueless ......
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 26, 2016 - 08:38pm PT
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Werner does not equivocate. He doesn't rely on differences between experience and content or objective and subjective.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 26, 2016 - 10:10pm PT
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And a duck shall lead us . . .
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 27, 2016 - 06:47am PT
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I believe Werner is right:
The gross materialists are clueless
when it comes to knowing why he says what he does.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 27, 2016 - 07:21am PT
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"Sweet" is an indirect, after the fact and secondary appraisal of an experience.
I have sugar on my tongue and am saying, "sweet," so that should remove that objection.
The moment you go to verbalize the experience of sweet, you have translated the experience into a symbolic representation that is not, itself, the experience.
A symbolic representation? That seems a fancy way to say, "word," and I remind you that Mike did ask me to say what the experience is. If you need the experience itself, just put the sugar on your own tongue.
It's basically a trick question found in all the esoteric traditions.
Did the developers of these traditions know how the nervous system works?
What would you say about a synesthete who experiences the taste of sugar whenever they hear the word, "sweet?" Also whenever they see a certain shade of blue? However, when they put sugar on their tongue, they smell daisies and hear French horns?
Some synonyms for esoteric:
abstruse, arcane, mystical, cryptic, hidden, inner, inscrutable, occult, private
That's a lot of weight to place on the taste of sugar.
Here is another way to look at the tasks Mike set me.
What you think of as your mind is a magician performing tricks for an audience. Some in the audience enjoy the show, realizing that there is sleight-of-hand and other deception involved, but not caring how it is done. Others in the audience want to know how the tricks are done. Yet others are convinced that the magic is real. And others are bored or asleep.
The word esoteric derives from a Greek word for inner circle.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Oct 27, 2016 - 10:57am PT
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Itsy Bitsy Spider = Nursery rhyme
Are there more?
We are eager for knowledge.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 27, 2016 - 11:46am PT
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Me: Say what the experience is. (It’s not the content.)
MH2: Why not? Couldn't they be the same thing? Or at least overlap? . . . . If you remove the content of the experience of the taste of sugar, what is left?
Excellent questions. They can’t really be answered, but I’ll try to point to presentations I see.
In the morning I sit facing outside at the edge of my garage with the door wide open. It’s between 5am and 6am when I begin. Just to the west of my place there is a road that links our various HOA developments. Now and then every couple of minutes, a vehicle travels up or down the road, and what I hear could be labelled as tires spinning meeting the roadway. It’s kind of a whooshing sound, . . . sort of. It’s too early for the birds, so I just hear somewhat random sounds from life, wind, and perhaps some kind of technology (the ticking of a clock in the garage, a door opening or closing nearby, animals rousting each other into awareness).
What I think my hearing presents to me when those tires spin and meet the roadway depends upon my mindstream. If I haven’t sunk yet into serenity, I hear tires on the road, and may even see lights from the vehicles now and then peeking through the trees. The sound of the tires break the beginning of my contemplation, and it can be irksome to me.
If I’ve begun or actually sunk into serenity, I don’t hear the tires or see the lights. Instead, what I hear and see might best be described as pure qualities or textures, and they are all unique. I find them indescribable, maybe even mysterious. Each and every sound, each and every sense of light appears to be unique when there are no labels applied.
You can try it. Listen to any sound and just hear the sound without interpretations. What *is* it? Drop the content, and it seems that one can’t say what experience actually is. Every “bit” of it seems wondrous, remarkable, sensuous, unique, infinite. They are textures, qualities, qualia.
It seems we don’t often experience experience like that except in the most extreme instances. Orgasms, near-death close calls, a total shock or surprise, the captivation that comes from seeing a very attractive person, particular pieces of art, the touch of that special other intimately in a public place, a remarkable food or meal or dish as it hits and caresses your taste buds (e.g, a Chateau D’Yquem or a Lafitte, or the mixed tastes from an Indonesian rice table), or . . . . just sitting still and sensing life. Those indescribable experiences reference raw experience itself. They are not things nor the things that arise out of interpretations. It is pristine awareness.
Experience *as* experience, just unelaborated awareness, is happening all the time but for labelling, categorizations, modeling, defining, abstractions, and words. You’ve experienced the dilemma many times that you can remember: how often has it been that you’ve simply thought that the more that people talk or say about something of experience, the less rich and remarkable it becomes? Somehow talking, labelling, categorizing, modeling, abstracting, verbalizing kills the life right out of experience. Those labels, categories, model, abstractions are overlays.
(Just like this post, huh?)
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 27, 2016 - 11:59am PT
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In the morning I sit facing outside at the edge of my garage with the door wide open.
Huh ????
The garage is where one keeps tools n sh!t to fix sh!t and invent Sh!t.
Now git to work doing sh!t instead ah sitting around not doing sh!t !!!
:-)
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 27, 2016 - 02:46pm PT
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Nice Proustian essay, MikeL.
Don't mind Duck. He is reeling from inhaling the noxious fumes at CatTail Crossing.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Oct 27, 2016 - 03:58pm PT
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I am a garage sitter also! I have to leave the door slightly open for the cat to get in to see what the hell I am doing.
RE Dual and non dual experience;IMO dual experience is largely just being attached/dependent to name and from.
(I.E.) A bike is a bike and I don't see/experience it any other way.
To instigate the non-dual experience a trick is to ask what is the bike without using/depending on speech name/concepts. Same as the sweet question. When is sugar sweet? answer --- put it in your mouth. What is a bike before name and form? answer--- ride it.
So BFD ! sounds like simple minded word game stuff that everyone knows.
Now do the same trick with the concepts of my, me and I and you and them. If you really do it ,it drives you into experience not dependent on concepts; a mind before thinking. A very raw awareness moment to moment from this raw awareness can come powerful insights on the concepts of us and them.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Oct 27, 2016 - 04:26pm PT
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In the morning I sit facing outside at the edge of my garage with the door wide open.
At 5:30am I stand facing the east with the sky over me. I am grounded by standing in bare feet either in the grass or on concrete. I am actively engaged in hydrating myself in order to re-establish a better exclusion zone in my cells (ramping up my redox potential) in preparation for exposure to the sun which photoelectrically begins to recharge my mammalian battery through my eyes and on my skin.
That's a more or less sloppy description but it'll have to do for now.
Annnnnd
Off to JT . Separate trips planned for Sat and Mon.......maybe....anywho
Yeeeeeahhhhhhhh
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 27, 2016 - 04:36pm PT
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"I am actively engaged in hydrating myself in order to re-establish a better exclusion zone in my cells (ramping up my redox potential) in preparation for exposure to the sun which photoelectrically begins to recharge my mammalian battery through my eyes and on my skin." -Ward
Sounds like you and the Great Mark Force ought to hook up.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Oct 27, 2016 - 04:45pm PT
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Yeah I talked with Mark several months ago on this thread ( or one of these threads). If memory serves I think our discussion touched primarily on glycolysis and Warburg metabolism. I forget the exact context.
HFCS: make it down to Joshua Tree and I'll drag you up something.
Just kidding.
Here's a study published in 2013 linking artificial light exposure ( blue light) to Parkinson's epidemiology.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23462874
Wear BlueBlocker glasses after the sun goes down folks!
This is not from that study but is a separate riff on circadian biology:
Circadian clocks are tightly coupled to cellular metabolism and respond to lighting and feeding schedules and thermoregualtion of heat flow in cells. Patients with fast running clocks are at a disadvantage if the peripheral organ clocks are advanced compared to the SCN. On Earth this causes massive increases % heteroplasmy rate in that tissue on a realtive basis. Many people need to begin to understand mitochondrial dynamics with respect to circadian timing. Circadian cycles are a proxy for the movements of electrons, protons, and photons in mitochondria. Light is the main photo-electric coupling stimulus for our tissues to synch across our body. At the same time, different cells, with different mitochondrial efficiency, must communicate properly with each other to make sense of the environment. This results in a synchronized output for energy flow coupled to photo-electrical signaling.
Those last few sentences are the crux of that riff. Basically, the mitochondria in each tissue type has differing bio-energetic demands. It is up to full spectrum sunlight to provide a common signal so that all of these mitochondria are synced. Otherwise the communication goes awry--resulting in an increase in percentage of mutations in mitochondria (heteroplasmy). If this condition keeps up then the mutation rate increases in one or more tissues eventually leading to disease and consequently shortening your time on the planet.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 27, 2016 - 05:43pm PT
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Yes, Mike. It is much better when you talk about the questions you have than when I do.
Somewhere back in the thread I posted a short version of your richer account above, but JL didn't believe me.
It is an important balance to the lives most of us must lead to spend time just existing (while awake, that is), without words or other analyses.
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