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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 11, 2016 - 10:09pm PT
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Pretty much what I said. If there "was" a void, it would be an object or thing we could measure. It is not "there" in the sense you are speaking of. But neither are the objects.
People easily make absurd statements, or at least say things without much explanation of what they mean.
However, if we put a blindfold on someone, they are not likely to walk into a busy street. Your brain will come to your rescue when your mind has been playing with the truth, usually.
A good warning sign is when a person puts words in common use inside quote marks.
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Psilocyborg
climber
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Nov 11, 2016 - 11:41pm PT
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Absurd? Explanation? Seems clear as a bell to me
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 12, 2016 - 06:25am PT
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Jgill & MH2:
Perhaps there is nothing that is literal. Bracketing words or concepts might make a recognition of that stand. (It’s a typical postmodern move.) Maybe nothing can be explained (certainly not literally), and indeed that would seem to present absurdity, in a conventional sense—but not in an absolute sense. In an absolute sense, the current narrative of physical / material / objective reality is no less absurd as any spiritual narrative of reality. To call a spiritual narrative absurd would seem to present a single-minded, consensual view of reality.
In all events here, we seem to be talking in metaphors, in images, in narratives, with our own visions expressively. Every one the above expressions is very nice.
What kind of universe could entertain multiple and even conflicting narratives, images, and metaphors about itself?
Explanations are, well, . . . nice. So are other expressions. It portends a wonder-full world where each points to what this is.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 12, 2016 - 09:01am PT
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Psilocyborg
climber
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Nov 12, 2016 - 01:06pm PT
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The above quote reminds me if something, a story I have shared here more than once. One night when I was a silly teenager I took a very large dose of LSD. I don't even know the dose, it was a pile of shredded paper in tin foil I bought from a friend for 5$ who had just returned from dead tour(1993?) I went home right as it was kicking in as it started getting way out there. I spent the entire trip alone in bed, no sound,and no lights (was afraid of waking up my parents). What transpired that night was indescribable.
I lived lifetimes....even eternities in alien dimensions. As actual aliens with completely alien physics, everything top to bottom. I remember in a couple of these something would nag at me that I was actually something else. These trips went on for decades. I was popping in and out of my body. I have no idea how much real time was passing because the alarm clock was unreadable. The last one of these I was simply everything, or the underlying energy of everything. I spent an eternity in/as this. It was rife with energy, frequency, and vibration. Being everything it was unchanging and unchangeable. Change was not in its reality. Yet not static, or dynamic, but beyond that.
Only when I became human again did I have a frame of reference for this. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to be separate from everything and be still, quiet, calm....human. I could and still am able to remember some of the experience. It did sort of resemble in some way the spaceship in Flight of the Navigator. I can remember how it "felt" to be "it". I cannot say it was good or bad especially at the time it was just the way things were, but it was better to be human, and separate. To be it was just too much.
After that I layer down next to the record player and listened to the white album over and over without speakers. That was a whole other trip.
Was this a hallucination? Was it an experience? Does it matter?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 12, 2016 - 01:30pm PT
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. . . this from the website that MH2 points us to:
Figures of speech (or 'rhetorical tropes') are ways of using words that may seem unusual but have a specific and desired effect.
The following can also be found at the top of the same page:
“Changing Minds: How we change what others think, feel, believe and do.
1. Who are you or what is this website that takes it upon itself to change anyone’s mind?
2. I’d like to challenge the assertion that any word has “a specific and desired effect.” Show me the data.
EDIT: "Changing a mind" is also metaphorical. First is all one would have to find a "mind"--which is, what?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 12, 2016 - 03:11pm PT
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Was this a hallucination? Was it an experience? Does it matter?
The mind is truly amazing. So many mental states are possible, from the Art of Dreaming to non-differentiability of objects to conversations with Jesus to empty awareness to psychedelic lifetimes and more. Of these I consider normal, rational consciousness to be of greatest value. But that's just me.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 12, 2016 - 04:14pm PT
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It is good to have you along for the ride, Psilo.
Your ability to pass through solid walls unruffled by absurdity could be useful on our next bank job.
It is also good to know that your mind is made of swirling energy and travels the stars. My own is a kludge of neurons and dissected frog parts that keeps bumping its ass on the ground.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 12, 2016 - 04:17pm PT
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1. Who are you or what is this website that takes it upon itself to change anyone’s mind?
It doesn't matter. Every experience you have changes your mind.
2. I’d like to challenge the assertion that any word has “a specific and desired effect.” Show me the data.
See above.
EDIT: "Changing a mind" is also metaphorical. First is all one would have to find a "mind"--which is, what?
Simply put: neurons.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 12, 2016 - 04:18pm PT
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Your ability to pass through solid walls unruffled
After over forty years I still have a strong memory of doing just that while Lucid Dreaming, sans the LSD. It was like walking through thick fog and then coming out the other side. I know it wasn't real, but the memory is the same as if it had been. So much for relying on memory in a jury trial.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 12, 2016 - 04:21pm PT
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I know it wasn't real, but the memory is the same as if it had been.
This is a good commentary on what mind is.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 12, 2016 - 04:29pm PT
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I know it wasn't real ....
Were you dead then?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 12, 2016 - 07:16pm PT
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The mind is, in Native American parlance, a trickster, capable of the most bizarre effects, including soaring on astral planes and perceiving no-thing. Once one departs the conscious, rational state not a lot of confidence is warranted.
PSP's take, however, demonstrates a beneficial grace bestowed by meditation.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 13, 2016 - 08:09am PT
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Duck: Were you dead then?
Hilarious. Insightful.
MH2: Every experience you have changes your mind.
Jgill: Once one departs the conscious, rational state not a lot of confidence is warranted.
I assume you are both speaking for what you perceive as your minds. You have little basis (none, really) for saying what other people’s minds are or do. (It’s a scientific point of view I’m making here.) :-)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 13, 2016 - 10:17am PT
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It’s a scientific point of view I’m making here.
Studies of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system will show you how it changes during experiences. Some of the changes are short-lived and others are lasting.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 13, 2016 - 10:23am PT
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A journey into the mind of Homie, the part-existential dog
The rain fell.
The boughs of the fir trees sighed as the wind bent them.
It was an endless pointless futile meaningless walk to nowhere.
THEN WE SAW A SQUIRREL!!!
No, we did not.
But we could have.
Gavin passed us again, on his way back from somewhere.
“You have a very meditative pace,” he said.
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John Black
Social climber
Boulder, CO
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Nov 13, 2016 - 11:28am PT
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The problem with understanding the mind, is that we have no choice but to use one to study it.
Machine intelligence will almost certainly surpass our own in the next 10-50 years. Perhaps machines will explain our minds to us, if our meager apparatus can grasp the explanation.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 13, 2016 - 02:02pm PT
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The problem with understanding the mind, is that we have no choice but to use one to study it
I don't know how many times I've brought up on this thread the problems arising from self-referential studies.
Nice fog, Sycorax.
Duck: Were you dead then?
Hilarious. Insightful.
Insightful? Please explain.
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