Guest guest Posted October 24, 2005 Report Share Posted October 24, 2005 On Oct 23, 2005, at 12:32 PM, Wim Borsboom wrote: > W: Good Pete good, LOL, Obviously not that good, since you misunderstood, or understood, but chose to hoist your psychological baggage on my petard, anyway. > > W: This can be dealt with very well with 'a w a r e n e s s'. > (I will at some point give the etymology of 'awareness' to show its > original meaning. It is quite distinct from the meaning and etymology > of consciousness. No time right now to type it all out, but it is very > striking.) P: I see you are ready to play the synonymies shell game. Werner, at the Nis list, often reminds people that in German there is only one word for consciousness. That must avoid a lot of confusion. The Germans are a practical people with what seems a practical language. Although Spaniards are not that practical, in Spanish also, there is only one word for it. How about Dutch? There are certain subtle differences, faint nuances between those words, but in common use they are the same. Yet, it's interesting to observe that the archaic use of the word 'conscious' is to share another's knowledge of a mental state, or outward fact. This seems to indicate the coiners of the word were pointing to their intuition that consciousness is (as Werner, also often writes, a communal thing) maybe not just a social tool, but of the greater community of objects at large. The word , in English, anyway, is not that old, it was coined in 1592. Awareness, on the other hand, was already in use as English laboriously assembled from Saxon, Latin, French, and other sundry foreign and local tongues back in the 12th century. It's archaic meaning, is also full of wisdom: to be watchful or wary. As if the coiner of the word wanted to point to awareness main primal function as 'Lord Protector' of life. > > W: A few points: > . Awareness is aware of consciousness, but consciousness is not aware > of awareness. That is a neat thing and it is that what will enable us > to deal with this in a neutral and non-prejudiced manner. P: Ha,ha! The above is just your personal belief, and you boldly put it forward, and take for granted we are going to accept it. No way, Jose! You should paraphrase the last sentence thus: " That is a neat unfounded conclusion that will enable me to weave around it more unfounded conclusions in a partial, and biased way. " > W: One can actually only deal with this investigation on a person by > person basis, as the functioning of consciousness varies from person > to person. In many individuals consciousness may be functioning > properly and in many it may not be so. Thus, consciousness in general > is not suspect. But as the dysfunction of consciousness appears to be > spread across quite a number of individuals, we can come up with some > generalities... conditional generalities though that only apply to > dysfunctioning individual consciousnesses. P: Now here, you have recklessly departed from consciousness simple role as mirror, to give it the role of mind. A mind can be warped by trauma, and defense mechanisms could go hyperactive and perverted, but consciousness itself simply reflects whatever goes on. From this unfortunate switching in that psychological shell game you play, you go on to weave your net of conclusions, which I have snipped. They may be true, or not, but they apply to mind only. They have nothing to do with the interrogation of consciousness, and its alleged crime. Crime by the way, is a metaphor, and you know better than to take it literally. The interrogation of consciousness I referred to is a sadhana a la Nisargadatta, and has nothing to do with all that heavy verbiage of psychology. It is a simple, nonverbal interrogation: How does it feel to be conscious? Is there a different between feeling conscious, and the feeling of being? Can unconsciousness be felt? If not, why the fear of death? Could being equal consciousness? Could death be simply unconsciousness? Nevertheless thank you for the stimulating input. Its always nice to hear from you, Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 On Oct 25, 2005, at 5:12 AM, Wim Borsboom wrote: >>> W: Good Pete good, > >> P: LOL, Obviously not that good, since you misunderstood, >> or understood, but chose to hoist your psychological >> baggage on my petard, anyway. > > I tell you this because I see it as worthwhile > to take a good look at this. Some of your questions to Joyce were > quite oblique and some were just plain obtuse. Under the guise of > inviting her to tell you about herself and what she felt about death, > it was clear that no matter what, you wanted to push your own ideas > instead of seriously considering her answers or at least recognizing > them. Unconditional or even partial validation I did not expect, that > is hard anyway. During that exchange with her you appear to think that > holding your views strongly and relentlessly shows certitude and > conviction. Instead, your ways of defence and attack actually show > positions of weakness. It seems to me that you are holding to a view > that does not allow any change not because of rightness or wrongness > but because of: > 1. stubbornness, > 2. uninformedness and unwillingness to be informed, > 3. lack or shortness of data, > 4. prejudging the validity of certain kind of data, > 5. the conviction that you are the only one who has the right or the > know-how or the authority to decide the parameters around data > collection, deciding which data are in your view legitimately gathered > and which at not. > In the meantime you were secretively and > somewhat-but-not-really-unbeknownst to yourself gleaning her > answers to find out what you are actually most insecure about, showing > it off though as though you are actually in strong disagreement with > her answers. Luckily there is awareness AND you have it. You may want > to take a look at your awareness and be guided by it. > Hey Wim! My arrow found the target. Of course in archery, practiced as a sport, the archer never means to hurt the target, but aims to help it fulfill its mission for the delight and instruction of the spectators. You are, of course, an allied of Joyce, joined at the hip by common beliefs and hopes that some ineffable something which is still you, would survive death. I accept the criticism that my ways often are blunt and unskilled. It baffles me, why someone as crude as me was chosen to speak on behalf of such delicate matters. But there it is, and I give it my all to the best of my inabilities. If the means are unworthy, the end is still pure. Only in forsaking all hope both material and spiritual in a projected future does the now become the all, the whole, the One. Any wisp of hope left, and that pack of hounds of me, I, and myself, will follow its trail hunting the impossible prey of eternal survival. So there you have it! I try to wrestle the ineffable golden teddy bear of an afterlife, so the self- sufficiency of " now " is realized in all its glory. Nothing personal with you, Joyce, or Randy who are very dear (souls) to me. Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 P: Excellent, Joyce. One of your best. Thanks On Oct 25, 2005, at 7:46 AM, Insight wrote: > Hi All, > > One could think of consciousness as > a moment of awareness in which case a > good question for those interested > in non-dual philosophy is whether > or not there is an unchanging, separate, > independent awareness/consciousness thats > just going on as the basis of all our experience > and it is this awareness that is 'I', > 'the doer'. > > If one believes that yes, there is > this ongoing, unchanging awareness underlying experience, > how would you prove or demonstrate this? > > > In order for something to be called > an 'experience' there would have to be > something to experience and something > to experience it. There would always > be something knowing something or being > aware of it. If either of these two > are missing, would there be 'experience'? > > > In a way, consciousness can be seen > as a partial or divided knowing. > If one accepts notions of time and > space, then the nature of consciousness > must be something divisible - things known > and a self/knower that knows them. > Furthermore, since each moment of > consciousness has a different object each moment > of consciousness is separate and distinct. > It might be a consciousness of sight, sound, > taste, touch, a mental image etc. but whatever > it is, it is quite distinct from any other > moment of consciousness that has gone before > and the moment to come does not yet exist. > > > So consciousness can only ever be momentary > and such momentary phenomena can't qualify > for the label 'self'. Thus the mind or awareness > that seems to be behind all experience cannot > be the self/Self either. > > All of which would be interesting > to apply to such notions as 'life', > 'death' etc. > > Take a candle flame, for example. > One can say in a general way, " That candle > has been burning all day. " But in absolute > terms, no flame has been burning all day. > The flame was never the same flame from one minute > to the next. There was no single, lasting > flame there at all. The was no flame as such, > but it is still meaningful to > talk about flames. > > Ditto for 'persons'. > > > Joyce > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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