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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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As far as I know space is detected and measured relative to the matter in it. As for measurements, tell me where are the boundaries of space?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 8, 2015 - 06:11pm PT
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One thing to say, here: the word 'thing' is just a token. It does not necessarily imply objectification.
I am not using "thing" as a token, but to denote a physical object, some thing with physical extent.
And Jan said: As far as I know space is detected and measured relative to the matter in it. As for measurements, tell me where are the boundaries of space?
I say, not only the mater in it, but also the fields, the quantum bubble bath and so forth. What Dingus calls "measuring" is really just a number implying a distance between objects. The "boundaries" of space can only be considered objectively by way of an imaginary thing or object venturing "out there" to the edge of the universe, said "edge" known only by the effect it has on said object.
The discursive mind cannot compute no-thing. That's the limit of discursive reasoning, tghe "gateless gate" in the Zen tradition.
JL
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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I am not using "thing" as a token, but to denote a physical object, some thing with physical extent.
Okay. Perhaps better to say, "a physical object, some thing with physical extent," rather than 'thing.'
The discursive mind cannot compute no-thing.
The discursive mind cannot even compute taxes, demurs on music, and has no ambition to compute no-thing. Unless the IRS might be drawn into the vortex.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Physicists seem to think space is expanding.
doesn't "expanding" presume/predict an edge? so what's beyond the edge, something or nothing? The expanding balloon idea just never worked for me
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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. . . getting clear on the objective perceptual aspects of awareness . . . (JL)
I wonder sometimes at your use of mathematics and physics to analogize awareness. For example, to speculate that awareness is some sort of field seems inappropriate since classical fields apply some sort of force or movement upon objects placed within them, thus allowing them to be quantified. Typical vector fields, such as in fluid dynamics, describe motions of particles at each point or forces applied to objects at each point.
Do you suggest awareness has some sort of active effect upon any "object" in its environment? What is the transitory state when open awareness becomes focused awareness? Is awareness somehow operating on a focused object? If so it cannot be characterized as being entirely empty since it has a kind of potential.
Maybe you can navigate around this shoal and arrive at a more precise definition of awareness.
Just some ramblings.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Throughout history, humans have been interacting with the quantum soup via vibrations. Reality has always been overflowing with storytellers whose brains are opened by inspiration. Humankind has nothing to lose.
Hey it's another new-age woo generator...
http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/
For MikeL, with deepest affections...
"The goal of morphic resonance is to plant the seeds of ecstasy rather than stagnation. To engage with the quest is to become one with it."
.....
Still my all-time favorite however...
http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Now if you switched to the mental field, if you will, and allowed the stuff to fall away, WHAT is left?
"the mental field"? I presume you don't mean "a thing..." but whatever, but your are either stating your case poorly or just a persistent troll as evidenced by the phrase: "...and allowed the stuff to fall away, WHAT is left? " The answer to that question is totally subjective, and as such, not something that I could express (according to your voluminous writings above).
(What do you see when you turn out the light?)
I can't tell you, but I know it's mine
to quote pop-philosophers.
How you interpret what happens when you "allow that stuff to fall away" is up to you, and as you have stated many times, that actual "mental state, if you will" does not, in and of itself, represent any objective reality, even though the state itself is immediately recognizable to most people reading this, the state itself is an objective "thing" and being such can be subject to all the techniques and tools we have for characterizing things and their actions, how they are created and destroyed, etc...
It is either an extreme belief in solipsism, or an immense narcissism on your part that you focus on the primacy of your own experience/being.
As a writer, what brought you to the point where you felt that your own interpretation of what was going on, translated to a written narrative, was something of value? So much so that you spent a lot of time developing your undeniable talent as a writer? At what point does the line blur in your mind between a story told well and a good story (even if not so well crafted)? Where does the writer become irrelevant? And what could possibly be the legacy of the stories you told? How did the prospect of telling them alter the stories themselves and having done so how did your recollection of the experiences that the stories were based on change thereafter?
Will the moon still hang in the sky when I die,
When I die, when I'm high, when I die?
more pop-philosophers...
as for space-time, it is altered by dynamical processes, that according to our best understanding of the universe... the post-Newtonian view of space-time is that it is a physical thing affected by physical things.
While our "common sense" has us perceive it as the stage on which all that we experience takes place... something in the background "unnoticed." It is hard to imagine it as a thing... but once you do, you start to ask all those interesting questions.
Question: If you were a two dimensional being living on the surface of an expanding balloon, where would you find "the edge"?
Answer: You wouldn't find "the edge" as there is no edge in your "space."
Reference: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions Edwin Abbott Abbott
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 9, 2015 - 09:39am PT
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Sez Ed:
"the mental field"? I presume you don't mean "a thing..." but whatever, but your are either stating your case poorly or just a persistent troll as evidenced by the phrase: "...and allowed the stuff to fall away, WHAT is left? " The answer to that question is totally subjective, and as such, not something that I could express (according to your voluminous writings above).
JL: My use of the word "field" is actually a convenient borrowing of a term commonly used in the experiential adventures. I am often flattered that you attribute all of these insights to me, Ed, though at the bottom we both know you are driven by the belief that most everything that comes out of the experiential camp is simply subjective, and in that case, all ideas and all data is equal, person to person, that the whole shebang is mostly a matter of beliefs and personal subjective opinions that don't really "mean" anything beyond the individual.
And none of this is remotely true.
Ed sez; How you interpret what happens when you "allow that stuff to fall away" is up to you, and as you have stated many times, that actual "mental state, if you will" does not, in and of itself, represent any objective reality, even though the state itself is immediately recognizable to most people reading this, the state itself is an objective "thing" and being such can be subject to all the techniques and tools we have for characterizing things and their actions, how they are created and destroyed, etc...
That's some pretty dense rambling there Ed and it would take me a while to tease that apart. I would first ask yo uto explore the difference between a direct experience and an interpretation. You will find that there are objective and absolutely true take-aways from the experience of having the content of mind drop away (your attachments are what actually drop away, or dissolve), and these take-aways are not simply "up to me," or you, or Cocoa Joe, but have to do with the true nature of mind. Our brain is an object, but mind/experience itself is not an object, so qualitatively it does not exist as a "thing" because your sense of being Ed is not selfsame with the physical properties of a goose egg - we can easily see why. This is not to say our discursive minds cannot objectify the manifold phenomenon of mind, and to offer up objective rules of thumb. The challenge is to avoide defaulting out of the subjective and into objective functioning - I would call this the "hard problem" of investigating mind.
JL
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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we both know you are driven by the belief that most everything that comes out of the experiential camp is simply subjective, and in that case, all ideas and all data is equal, person to person, that the whole shebang is mostly a matter of beliefs and personal subjective opinions that don't really "mean" anything beyond the individual.
And none of this is remotely true.
There seems to be disagreement on what is meant by the word 'true.' In what sense is JL using the word 'true?' In what sense is "what comes out of the experiential camp" not subjective?
You can have a dream or other mental adventure which is real to you, but how closely can you compare your dream with another person's?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 9, 2015 - 11:58am PT
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MH2 said:
There seems to be disagreement on what is meant by the word 'true.' In what sense is JL using the word 'true?' In what sense is "what comes out of the experiential camp" not subjective?
You can have a dream or other mental adventure which is real to you, but how closely can you compare your dream with another person's?
--
This comment is at the heart of the running misunderstanding at the core of this thread.
A dream is what I called content, the "what" that appears in your awareness, THAT which you are aware of and "which appears real to you."
I am NOT suggesting that we compare content, which is all over the place, person to person. What I am referring to - and which we can definately make categorical objective statements about, concerns the topics and phenomenon that John G. just mentioned, having to do with the perceptual process itself, NOT what is perceived.
Is that clear?
JL
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allapah
climber
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"For example, to speculate that awareness is some sort of field seems inappropriate since classical fields apply some sort of force or movement upon objects placed within them, thus allowing them to be quantified. Typical vector fields, such as in fluid dynamics, describe motions of particles at each point or forces applied to objects at each point."
Time is a motion. Mind is a collateral motion of THINGS, thus combining THINGness and PROCESS in a stochastic system. A random element in combination with an organizing element creates a field related by pattern similarity. Awareness perhaps is the point force of Mind.
man, you guys are awesome, thank you, this is great! now go climbing....
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allapah
climber
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I still think some woo-master stoner whack-job academic should do a large quantified study on "syncronicity and climber intuition" to support the hypothesis that: 1. events organize in space-time due to a force field we call Mind. 2. A brain has a very slight sensitivity to future events due to resonance from this field. Pick up any piece of climbing literature and there will be ample anecdotal data, most importantly, all the examples of climbers who DID NOT CLIMB and thereby skirted the event horizon of the death attractor.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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What I am referring to - and which we can definately make categorical objective statements about, concerns the topics and phenomenon that John G. just mentioned, having to do with the perceptual process itself, NOT what is perceived.
Is that clear?
I think so. You seem to be saying there is a process to meditation. Or are you saying there is a process of perception more generally?
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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"we can easily see why."
This is a lovely little rhetorical device. Just drop it into any conversation and one instantly gains an invisible army of allies, along with the freedom to move right along with one's agenda. In most cases it's accompanied by some factual predicate that invites the reader to partake of the revealed mystery, but JL uses it more obfuscatorily - mostly when he finds himself backed into a corner. Kinda like his own personal get-out-of-jail-free card.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 9, 2015 - 05:29pm PT
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Poor Cintune tortures the language with what we call "clutter," but I do the same owing to taking no time to hack out posts. And the bit about "backed into a corner" is a howler as well.
Obfuscate is a word but actual writers don't use it - we can easily see why. Or some of us can, anyway.
JL
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Ya, I think it's a word. There might be a better one, but what I meant was that the phrase is usually paired with some kind of fact that, by its revelation, leads us to "easily see why":
Starting with this, we can easily see why Boush street runs as it does....
When we understand the terms God inspired to describe sin, we can easily see why sin is so universal....
As it's used by Largo, over and over again, though, there is no such pairing. It implies that he and his invisible cohorts can easily see why, but teases the rest of us with an implication of smug superiority. We can easily see what you discursive sheep cannot, and so on we can go, not skipping a beat, with our merry contentless proselytizing.
[And yep, JL, "backed into a corner" pretty much describes where Ed puts you again and again. Not that it seems to bother you much, and hey, why should it?]
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WBraun
climber
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The stupid gross materialist are the ones in the corner.
They never have clue WTF is really going on.
They spend all their time guessing
And then pose those guesses as knowledge.
And then rubber stamp themselves as PhDs because all the rest of their peers are guessing too.
Thus it's the blind leading the blind.
Ship of fools in the ocean of nescience floating without a rudder.
It's proved.
These stupid gross materialists have fuked up the planet to the max ......
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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My use of the word "field" is actually a convenient borrowing of a term commonly used in the experiential adventures. I am often flattered that you attribute all of these insights to me, Ed, though at the bottom we both know you are driven by the belief that most everything that comes out of the experiential camp is simply subjective, and in that case, all ideas and all data is equal, person to person, that the whole shebang is mostly a matter of beliefs and personal subjective opinions that don't really "mean" anything beyond the individual.
And none of this is remotely true.
well it is true that "none of this is remotely true" because you have once again twisted what I said to become a strawman for your basic arguments, which are still largely unsupported conjecture on your part. And that includes the part about flattering you...
we both know you are driven by the belief that most everything that comes out of the experiential camp is simply subjective
that isn't a belief that drives me... experience is an important part of any objective understanding. I can't quite understand why you have so much trouble with the objective/subjective split and interpret any of my comments about it as a negative criticism of your ideas. MikeL's rebuttal is that everything is subjective... but that's a bit of a stretch in meanings.
The "subjective" part is, by definition, a personal part not necessarily shared by other people...
For instance, I've thought a long time about "out of body" experiences, and reading and discussing it with other people I've found that many features of the experience are common. Now I could have concluded that I was the only one having such an experience... and I could have just gone with that.. but it's not the way I roll.
But what I became more interested in was not my out of body experiences, but about why I have an "in body" experience. What generates that? If you understood the answer to that question, then you might understand what the origin of the "out of body" experience is... at least to my way of thinking. And so on... we have a little puzzle, we tease it apart to see if we can figure out how it works. That's how I play...
You do something different... good for you. You might not find what I do very interesting, or deny that there is anything to understand... or that it could be understood even in principle... or that it is obviously a fool's errand to attempt it...
and maybe you are right, but you don't have a very convincing argument, and anyway , it is basically your opinion (and opinion only).
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