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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 15, 2011 - 04:53pm PT
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Marlow asked, "What do I mean by a stand-alone phenomenon?"
This come from em asking:
I take it you are referring to the evolved meat brain being a physical system. We've gone over many times that experience and objective functioning (physical systems) are not the same thing. What do you see the differences being between a physical system like the brain, and 1st person subjective experience - not as an extension or product, but as stand-alone phenomenon.
In response to this question, Ed said: "All of it."
By stand-alone I am referencing the standard discursive practice of isolating a "thing" out from antecedents and relations to other things and considering that "thing" in and of itself. For instance, many can rightfully say that the Big Bang "created" the earth, or that the earth is a fragment that broke off from a much bigger planet some time ago. Regardless of these causal links to antecedent factors, we can nevertheless take up earth as a stand-alone phenomenon as it exists right now, in present and real-time. Zen cosmology insists that there is nothing with independent existence, cut off and not a part of everything else, so granted, this isolating out is a convenience for matters of discussion and practical affairs, since we deal with parts of the whole in our daily lives, both subjectively and objectively.
Another example is you or me. We can investigate ourselves by way of the parents who "created" us but we nonetheless have our own lives and we can discuss these lives meaningfully and we don't have to claim that we "are" our parents, though we tend to ape patters we were taught.
Likewise, a TV set can be said to at least partially "create" the program on the screen but said program and the TV are not exactly the same things. The challenge is to get past a causal model insisting that subjective experience works like a TV program on a TV. The program is a physical thing that we can know by way of sense data. Subjectivity is the 1st person experiencing of that sense data plus imaginings and memories and projections and shite dredged up or evoked from the symbolic sea of the unconscious.
In any even, most of us don't have problem differentiating between our 1st person subjective experience and mechanical workings of a TV.
My question is simple - When contrasting your 1st person subjective experience itself with the physical operations of your body and the universe, what differences do you see and how might you describe them?
Put differently, we can put words to our experience itself, and often do ("How you feeling?" is a common invitation to do so), and we can, for instance, posit reasons and give evaluations about what we believe are the origins of subjective experience. How do you see and experience the difference between the two?
JL
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MH2
climber
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Nov 16, 2011 - 01:23pm PT
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Largo on subjectivity:
"Subjectivity is the 1st person experiencing of that sense data plus imaginings and memories and projections and shite dredged up or evoked from the symbolic sea of the unconscious."
Are you willing to remove the homunculus?
Subjectivity is sense data plus imaginings and memories and projections and shite dredged up or evoked from the symbolic sea of the unconscious.
Or do you insist on a "1st person" to do the experiencing?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 16, 2011 - 02:29pm PT
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MH1 wrote: Are you willing to remove the homunculus?
Answering a question with a question can only lead to a circle jerk. And of course I never posited a homunculus in the question, or any “little man” who did the experiencing. What’s more, my question is an inquiry about how YOU contrast the differences between 1st and 3rd person. Do you imagine a little man in there having experiences, and if not, how does subjective experience unfold for you, so far as you can tell, and how is that experience different than the physical whirring of that fan in the corner.
Again: My question is simple - When contrasting your 1st person subjective experience itself with objective physical functioning, what differences do you see and how would you describe them?
JL
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Dos XX
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Nov 16, 2011 - 07:56pm PT
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I freely admit I've had difficulty wrapping my..... umm...mind... around this thread it since its first appearance. Today, first thing I had to do is look up "homunculus" in the dictionary...
I will stay tuned, however, in the hope that the dim bulb in the extra-physicality part of my brain will one day brighten, if even just a little. More power to you, Largo, for setting out to 'wrestle this one down'.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 16, 2011 - 08:40pm PT
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Bump for the night mind blower crew, Ho mannnnn .....
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 16, 2011 - 10:55pm PT
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I want to go back several pages to the questions regarding a Zen master's authority. I had hoped Largo would address this since he follows that tradition. Since he didn't however, I will attempt it based on my experience with Zen, Vajranyana, Shingon, and Vedanta masters.
Although they use very different techniques, what they are all masters of is the unconscious mind, including the autonomic nervous system. They may or may not use religious terminology when discussing aspects of the unconscious. It certainly isn't necessary as everyone who has experience of the unconscious and the electrical and chemical activity evidenced by it, will recognize a description of certain phenomenon regardless of the cultural or religious overlay.
Since all humans have more or less the same meat brains, we experience similar electrical and chemical reactions under similar stimuli. Once experienced, one will begin to recognize that symbols of these experiences are present in all the world's great religious art and architecture.
People build domes on temples, mosques, and cathedrals because visionaries saw them inside their head for example, during certain experiences, and then got together with engineers to see if they could be duplicated in material life. Certain colors are used on these domes which correspond exactly to the colors experienced at the time of these dramatic internal happenings.
Science is based on the premise that every experiment can be duplicated as well. Meditation masters say that with enough effort, almost everyone can duplicate these internal experiences. My guess is that one result of these methods being introduced to the West is that their results, which are internal subjective states, will be described objectively and scientifically in the future, at least in terms of what is happening to the meat brain.
There will always be tension between the meditation and scientific worlds however, since these electrical and biochemical experiences are accompanied by even more subjective changes in character and behavior.
It is the sum total of the experiences which are certified by lineage holders in a process as rigorous as getting a Ph.D., and the character and behavior of the meditation master on public display that gives one confidence in their authority. Replicability by individual students then serves to enhance their authority.
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Nov 17, 2011 - 10:55am PT
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Nice, Jan. (I note for readers that each of those schools / disciplines that Jan mentioned have different approaches: different strokes for different folks. Some are loquacious and philosophically analytical, others are taciturn, and others are essentially alchemists. Pick your poison.)
Largo is asking people what their face was before their parents were born. Largo is teasing readers into looking for themselves, which is a great idea by which to generate experiences, but seeing anything takes a little perserverance and discipline (months). Assimilating / realizing anything experienced will take longer (years). There needs to be real motivation. People have to be driven to practice by life experiences.
Like science, all it takes are careful observations of subjectivity, and letting go. Everyone can perform the injunction for themselves.
Long live impermanence.
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MH2
climber
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Nov 17, 2011 - 12:27pm PT
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My question is simple - When contrasting your 1st person subjective experience itself with objective physical functioning, what differences do you see and how would you describe them?
I thought my question was simple, too. If you or someone else is able to enter a "no mind" state, why not a "no 1st person state?" I thought Ed had done a good job of asking you to consider more fully whether this "1st person" is what you think it is. Raw experience is raw experience. Why dress it up in fancy clothes?
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 17, 2011 - 12:31pm PT
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There' no such thing as "no mind state".
The soul is by it's very nature always active thus the mind is always active.
It's where you engage your mind is what makes it peaceful or not.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 17, 2011 - 01:05pm PT
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I wrote:
"My question is simple - When contrasting your 1st person subjective experience itself with objective physical functioning, what differences do you see and how would you describe them?"
"I thought my question was simple, too. If you or someone else is able to enter a "no mind" state, why not a "no 1st person state?" I thought Ed had done a good job of asking you to consider more fully whether this "1st person" is what you think it is. Raw experience is raw experience. Why dress it up in fancy clothes?"
Once more, I would note how MH2 (and all others) are sidestepping the question by asking another question, referring to other inferences that might disqualify the question as irrelevant or to reframe the question into quantifiable ways, call it an "it" even after I have repeatedly said "it" wasn't - but the one thing which we will likely never see is an honest effort to ANSWER the question with any effort ("Raw experience is raw experience" is as shorthand and silly as saying, "The big bang is the big bang.")
I knew that when asking the question. For a true physicalist will never try and describe the differences between subjective experience and physical functioning and will never entertain the notion that raw experience and a physical description of that fan whirring in the corner are qualatatively different things.
This is the homoginization of our lives I was speaking about earlier.
I haven't broke out any Zen stuff but yes, to jump into raw experience without trying to change it is one way "to see your face before you were ever born." Clue: That face is not a "little man," aka a humonculous. That's a construct, but a handy one because it make's this conversation possible.
JL
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Nov 17, 2011 - 01:48pm PT
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Largo,
You have had many chances. I have asked you again and again after you repeatedly asked us to describe our 1st person subjective experience. Take your mentalistic terms into the concrete - Exemplify by describing your own 1st person subjective experience.
And then go on and make your best to describe for us your raw experience.
At present I see you as a chaotic oracle of theoretical mentalistic abstraction supported by the two choirboys WBraun and MikeL.
But you still have the chance to start making sense.
What you have to do to start making sense:
1. Describe for us your 1st person subjective experience.
2. Do your best to describe for us your raw experience.
Edited: ref Largo - concret should be concrete
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Nov 17, 2011 - 02:12pm PT
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MH2: "Raw experience is raw experience."
Not exactly. Excuse Largo; he's a little perverse. With all due respect, you probably have no idea how difficult it is to "get to" unelaborated raw experience.
To experience base awareness, you'd need to get before any cognitive function acts or interprets or translates sense data--no thoughts, no cognitive elaborations, no assessments, no categorizations, no instincts, no feelings, no emotions, no dualities, no concepts, no "this" or "that," no attachments and no aversions, and no observer--just equanimious observation. Try it at anytime. It's way hard to even get a glimpse of raw experience--not cognitively but experiencially.
Ok, so forget that.
Just relax and try to watch thoughts go by *without getting hooked by them or following them.* It's like watching a long freight train in front of a RR crossing: cars come into view and then they go out of view. This is a place to start.
But raw experience? HA! I'd guess no one here is there.
DMT:
The reviews of that show are off the charts. Thx for the head's up.
P.S. I think once one sees oneself clearly for what one truly is, then everthing else can be seen for what it is, too. Some paths are easier and more direct than others.
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Nov 17, 2011 - 02:15pm PT
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start making sense
And therein lies the dilemma and paradox.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 17, 2011 - 02:28pm PT
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Not exactly. Excuse Largo; he's a little perverse. With all due respect, you probably have no idea how difficult it is to "get to" unelaborated raw experience.
----
Hey, Mike L, you're ruining the fun here. You've also told them the plain truth, even as Marlow begs me to answer my own question for fear of trying to answer it himself.
Such comments are the dead giveaway: "Take your mentalistic terms into the concret." I trust you mean "concrete."
Anyhow, a physicalist brokers not on fundamentals but on derivatives. The mistaken idea that getting down to basics, to raw experience, requires 3rd person cognates, or any mental qualifying, is what precludes people from ever getting there. The astonishing thing is that raw, 1st person subjective experience is our fundamental reality, for anyone ever born. It's what we all fall into when we tumble from the womb. And here we are
dancing around the brute fact of it all.
That much said, I should add that I get up every morning and go to a -place nearby and drop back into that rawness. It's always a challenge to really drop, even after all these years.
JL
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Nov 17, 2011 - 03:11pm PT
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Your last post about 1st person subjective experience is a third person "cognate" Largo - didn't you notice? So is your "cognate" raw experience.
Every single word you have uttered in this thread and there are loads of them, every single word is your third person experience.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 17, 2011 - 04:29pm PT
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Every single word you have uttered in this thread and there are loads of them, every single word is your third person experience.
You're still attempting to toss it back on me, Marlow. When the question is for YOU. Contrast your first person subjective experience with the objective functioning of your car.
Granted, language posits 1st person experience into the third person, and any report will not be experience itself, but that's the challenge here. Likewise a 3rd person numberical or linguistic handling of, say, a computer, will not be the computer itself because as we already know, the map is never the territory.
This is just another thought experiment. No need to be afraid of it, or to keep pitching the question back to me. Chalk up and go for it, and don't be afraid to fall off and most of all, leave off the justification why you cannot make a single move in that direction. Give yourself a chance.
JL
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MH2
climber
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Nov 17, 2011 - 09:59pm PT
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Once more, I would note how MH2 (and all others) are sidestepping the question by asking another question, referring to other inferences that might disqualify the question as irrelevant or to reframe the question into quantifiable ways
I believe you are being overly defensive. You misinterpret my intention. We all have blinkers of one kind or another, you and me both.
What I try to do is help you in your own thinking on the subject. You are the one who made the original post.
It can also help other people to understand you if you are able to put your case several different ways. For me, it is a great improvement if you can drop the phrase "1st person subjective" and just say you are talking about raw experience.
I think most of us can understand that some part of our brain always tries to jump in and interpret or react to what is going on. This part of the brain can be quieted. We can experience things which we can't fully describe.
While watching the Jill Bolte Taylor TED talk about her stroke I heard her say, "How many brain scientists get to study their own brain?" Pretty much all of them, I would say. And any non brain scientist who chooses to do so, too.
Have fun while you're in there.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 17, 2011 - 11:09pm PT
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Once more, I would note how MH2 (and all others) are sidestepping the question by asking another question, referring to other inferences that might disqualify the question as irrelevant or to reframe the question into quantifiable ways
I believe you are being overly defensive. You misinterpret my intention.
--
Don't be silly, MH2. Any response to a questing starting with, "I believe you . . . " makes your intention crystal clear; Avoid answering the question, which you did once again, and once again called me out on yet another character defect. I have plenty to go around. If you want to help us understand, tackle the question honestly and directly.
Said Chalmers:
I take it for granted that there are first-person data. It's a manifest fact about our minds that there is something it is like to be us - that we have subjective experiences - and that these subjective experiences are quite different at different times. Our direct knowledge of subjective experiences stems from our first-person access to them. And subjective experiences are arguably the central data that we want a science of consciousness to explain.
So get to explaining experience itself (NOT the mechanism behind it or the cognates ABOUT it) and help us out as you promised there MH2 buddy!
JL
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MH2
climber
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Nov 18, 2011 - 01:11am PT
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So get to explaining experience itself (NOT the mechanism behind it or the cognates ABOUT it) and help us out as you promised there MH2 buddy!
As I said, I am trying to help you ask your question. I am not trying to answer it for you.
When asked for an explanation of experience, the mechanism behind it would be good enough for me.
I'm happy for those who are happy to just experience experience, too.
"I think, therefore I arf ."
Jake
You arf, therefore I think.
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Nov 18, 2011 - 01:21am PT
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Maybe I can help, MH2.
To begin with, you don't have to explain how subjectivity works. That job is just too big. (With that in mind, you'd avoid trouble by not claiming that it can be explained. One step at a time.)
What you can do, instead, is describe subjectivity. To some extent, that provides a good beginning.
There are many notions categorically available: feelings, emotions, mental operations, instincts, self, ego, psyche, consciousness, unconsciousness, soul, etc. However, that doesn't go all that very far, and the definitions of those are occasionally in dispute. But hey, you're on a roll.
What you need is someone who's really studied the mind for a long time in a systematic way. You know . . . sets of multiple experiments, by many different researchers, over an extended period of time, with best practices noted, and with different perspectives of approach to communicate to folks of varying needs and learning preferences.
Fortunately for you, there are many groups of those people [insert Eastern religious group, here]. Unfortunately, you might find them a little hard to live with initially, especially if you don't cotton to anything that looks or feels "spiritual." Besides, they have all those weird ceremonies or rituals in other languages--I mean, WTF? Who actually participates in ceremonies or rituals anymore? All that stuff IS pretty bizarre. (Well, there are some books, though.)
In all seriousness, by yourself in our Western culture, I don't think you can draw on too much that will allow you to answer Largo's question. Some of those weirdos, though, have more answers than Largo has ascents: e.g., HHDL, Thich Nhat Hanh, others.
"Yeah, but then there's all that weirdo stuff again." (Yup, I understand, brother. I struggle with it, myself.)
;-D
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