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"I'm curious, from your own thoughts in everyday language, how would you describe the contrast between free will and determinism?"
Charles asked this in another thread and it seemed worthy of its own so I'll take a stab.
In my experience it is the "I" that cognizes and decides whether to follow, or not follow, the innermost yearnings of the heart/mind. This mind may freely determine, and both create causes, and choose among effects. Of course this presents a moral dilemma, because what if my heart/mind truly desired to kill? This is one way to see that evil does exist in the world - if I may use a simple dichotomy of good/evil - for there are many example of this in the news. Thankfully the vast majority of people exist in a grayness between the two extremes. I also think that this is where science breaks down, because it has not yet discovered and objectified the "I" that is free to choose, but only the chemical reactions that follow. Some traditions call it magic, or light, or spirit, and it does seem to exist, only in a way that we don't conventionally understand. It doesn't inherently exist, yet it arises moment to moment to moment as an endless continuum. My experience is that most people are far to distracted to maintain any awareness of this "I" and instead base their 'choices' upon habit and pleasure and are thus exist in a world that is largely predetermined and finite.
Charles asked this in another thread and it seemed worthy of its own so I'll take a stab.
In my experience it is the "I" that cognizes and decides whether to follow, or not follow, the innermost yearnings of the heart/mind. This mind may freely determine, and both create causes, and choose among effects. Of course this presents a moral dilemma, because what if my heart/mind truly desired to kill? This is one way to see that evil does exist in the world - if I may use a simple dichotomy of good/evil - for there are many example of this in the news. Thankfully the vast majority of people exist in a grayness between the two extremes. I also think that this is where science breaks down, because it has not yet discovered and objectified the "I" that is free to choose, but only the chemical reactions that follow. Some traditions call it magic, or light, or spirit, and it does seem to exist, only in a way that we don't conventionally understand. It doesn't inherently exist, yet it arises moment to moment to moment as an endless continuum. My experience is that most people are far to distracted to maintain any awareness of this "I" and instead base their 'choices' upon habit and pleasure and are thus exist in a world that is largely predetermined and finite.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 8, 2008 - 8:35 AMAll your thus are belong to us... -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 8, 2008 - 9:29 AMsometimes I am not very intelligible.
New Sunshine
+last thoughts, moments before dying
-focus on gravity pulling me apart
+lost in space, hull breach
-this will screw the project
+I’m expendable, obviously
-why has the sun stopped glowing?
“I’m killing the lights, not you.”
&the memory continues
#it’s incredible, so many lives
&the lies believe they are real
#eternal, neither created or destroyed
&the new light is only warm
#it touches me, and I’m reborn
“I’m giving you every chance of life, not death.”
@peace, nor hate conceives a cause
*new sun sees with thy eyes
@ease, nor anxious to feel any fear
*our very own moon brings us sleep
@dreams, at once as real as waking
*we’ve always known and believed
“I’m here and always been, not apart.”
When I think I'm in trouble, 'I' saves me every time, so far, so good, to be alive and in love.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 8, 2008 - 5:12 PMmichael wrote: ...My experience is that most people are far to distracted to maintain any awareness of this "I" and instead base their 'choices' upon habit and pleasure and are thus exist in a world that is largely predetermined and finite....
>
I've always found these folks to be extraordinarily frustrating and yet somehow intriguing, though often in an "allow me to bang my head against a brick wall a few thousand times" sort of way. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 8, 2008 - 6:48 PMSome fellow I once studied with said he saw a greater difference between some people than he saw between people and animals. Or was it the other way around? Don't know exactly where that came from.
So, michael and skooter, seems you're loosely making a distinction between two groups of people - not that I'm necessarily disagreeing with you. Though, some questions come to mind... It seems you're saying that many, if not most, out there are simply on autopilot. That they're more or less machines, reacting without thought, consideration, presence of being and mind. And then there's another group, the chosen ones, that are somehow able to get their fingernails in the crack just enough, to insert the tiniest of monkey-wrenches in the gears so there's the slightest fraction of a split second to make what would appear to be a choice, to somehow react in a way that would at least appear indicative of a higher right, a more humanish type of response. And maybe you are right. Seems like that's one of the things we're here to discuss.
Anyway, do you think what we're speaking about is illusory? Do you think this special sense is a way we deal with differences between one another. Have we done something to our selves, singed enough synapses so that the way we perceive and respond is as mechanical to us as how they appear to respond mechanical to them? Is what appears to be this infinitesimal gap inserted between our sensations and responses expandable? In other words - can we extend the time needed to evoke a more appropriate reaction? And what I see as the sixty-four thousand dollar question - do we actually have any real control over the process or are we looking at a phenomenon that's solely based upon our destiny? Is it out of our hands?
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 8, 2008 - 8:33 PM
Charles,
A Sufi master was once asked what's the difference between a Sufi and a regular person... his answer was "What's the difference between a slice of cheese and a tree?"
Sometimes it seems some humans can have conciousness lower than a rock, and whilst others can be beyond beyond.
Though Charles, I'm very curious... how have you come to see life through determinism... more accurately, so you also see life as pre-determined?
I would like to better understand the subtle parts of your understanding of determinism... I've dug deep within myself and the verdict isn't clear.
Sometimes I think what you mean by determinism is what I would label as "life happening"... here's an example...
"without desire the geese fly over the lake, without desire the lake reflects them"
I've also noticed that in different parts of my life, when I was in certain very present states, things were just happening... my body would get up, walk somewhere, say something to someone... I would be in this perfect "flow" and I had no idea what I would do next... to my best understanding I would categorize (that's what mind's are good at) this as the Vedantic phrase of "do nothing, get everything"
but Sir Charles... you are one living person who I know has had a long history of deep inner inquiry who stands by determinism... if you wouldn't mind sharing your thoughts for the rest of us... that would be much appreciated
:-)
with love,
ramiel -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 1:47 PMWell, you digging into yourself and me digging into myself are two very different things. And this is not to say that either of us finds answers more objectively correct because the answers we come up with are correct for us both given our circumstances at that moment in time. It seems more important to ask the questions rather than arrive at a place where you think you know the answer - because - at least in the way I look at it - there is no such thing that knows. That entity is always in the midst of transformation as is the vehicle which is observed, the laws of nature determining both - what you might term 'our consciousness' the undulating (and mechanical) intersection of the two - which are really one.
We can try to characterize for ourselves, make our best guess as to how we interpret our relationship to a concept such as determinism, but that's all it is - our best guess at that moment. As you've surmised, I've evolved a specific take on what I perceive to be my relationship with what I would consider the deterministic universe, and I'd say that that take for me is as deterministically mechanical as that which I'm attempting to characterize.
What you seem to be hinting at when you use the term 'pre-determinism' might be an infinity of waves (some close, some far away) that are spherically encroaching upon our point of focus of the universe. They are still in our futures though they are the pasts of others (living, dead and unborn), hurling toward us, coming in to focus possibly for a fleeting moment of presence, after which they fall into our pasts, into the futures of others at different locals of time and space.
"without desire the geese fly over the lake, without desire the lake reflects them"
This certainly works for me ;-) -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 11:43 PM
Charles,
You are right we both have different points of perspective in these realities.
I am perceiving that your focus point in a 3-Dimensional illustration would be near the tangent of the core of the Math Universe
while my perception is using two eye's (two mind states, that of heart mind and that of math/intellect mind) and in order to be able to maintain the knowledge of the limitation of both, I must look at them both through a vertical view... as the vertical view allows me to puncture beyond the circumference, while in your view of depth you are staring into an infinite void/vacuum of mathematical patterns... certainly you will have a very different and profound view that I would not have from this perspective, though your perspective is more detailed it has this at the cost/loss of not having the heart mind view.
perhaps I made no sense in what I wrote... I feel on each of these posts where I'm in this super-conscious state I need to say this as my disclaimer so that people don't think I'm a lunatic... I'm quite logical and rational once I'm back to my daily conciousness. It is just in this state I ask questions, and I begin seeings... what people call visions... and each visions comes with meanings... I just questions and answers keep appearing... I know now how every question has within it been already encapsulated with the answer... though I know this from this state, I can not understand this... I will understand this from my math mind state... but I will only know it without understanding it from the heart mind
perhaps what I just wrote better laid out the context.... foundation of the heart mind at the edges of math mind
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 11:57 PM
I got it...
Math Mind is that of this world, the mundane/physical/gross
The Heart Mind is an intermediary... hence being in the Heart Mind one is able to receive Essence knowledge and translate it through the Heart into the Math Mind...
Hence the Heart can be dominated by the Lord Below (Satan/Math Mind/Maya/Illusion) or the Lord Above (God/Absolute Self/Ultimate Self/The Truth)... though it is pre-destined that the Essence (i.e. God/Truth) will ultimately win over the Heart as Essence is the beginning of all these
This is not to say that Math Mind is bad... nor to say the Heart Mind which holds a Gate to the No-Mind/Truth is good
each of these Mind's Understands one of its realities... it is important that the Math Mind realize the Universal Clockwork of Pre-Determined Existence that it exists in... this allows for Gap's/Black-Holes to occur in the Math Universe allowing for the Heart Universe to penetrate and make shifts, one of those being the anomaly built as a theory known as "Evolution" through Charles Darwin (any pun here that Charles is also into Determinism? self-inquiry, no one here to answer). This is how one can come to be conscious of the Heart Mind
I'm shifting from one mind state to the other back and forth... the more I do this, it's like a new state of consciousness is being born from the two... as if the two states are merging into each other... and more and more this essence awareness builds from it
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 12:01 AM
Though I see it would be possible to maintain two full depth views of Heart Universe and Math Universe... though whenever viewed as depth, the infinite length is seen as infiniteness.... though from a vertical view, it is possible to go beyond both... a gate to no-mind
I have to say, from my logical perspective what I just wrote sounds like what an insane person I would expect would speak... though I can clearly switch back to my Heart Mind and what I wrote makes full sense... switching back to Math Mind... it makes no sense, I'm a lunatic... I am nuts... and it's not even full moon tonight -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 12:07 AM
I just realized even my example of the vertical and depth views of Heart and Mind Universes can make absolutely no sense once read from the Math Mind perspective.
It is self-evident to me at this time that there is no way to transmit the Truth Knowledge from the Heart Mind through Math Mind logic/intellect/theory into words... my words only are pointing towards finding the Truth once you are in the Heart Mind... though they will make no sense and I will only sound like someone who should be in an Asylum to the reader who is in the Math Mind/Intellect state
It's much like how we go to sleep and we dream... in the dreaming world, we have different experiences... and even within the dream world there are many variations... all kinds of dreams, lucid dreams (lucid dreams being those who are conscious of their awake mind while they are dreaming)
In the same way I am in a lucid state of Samadhi where my ego-consciousness is remaining in tact (somewhat!) while the Essence cognizant of Essence mind is there overlapping. Though as I shift my focus, at each time a different Mind is the dominate one... I guess this means I am able to shift consciousness from different [Ss]elfs's... though when I shift in mid-sentence... that's what I'm a full lunatic in both worlds
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 12:18 AM
I just heard a string of words.... as I began to listen to them, I realized they are the words of my consciousness... the words which I'm typing to you right now! I heard my own words like an audio tape being played on a audio system... it was as if this mind story just continues like a string... a mathematical unfolding string
I see there are pattern's even to my own consciousness... hence why the realization of Essence is pre-destined... a.k.a. Self-Realization is our "birth right"
So this again goes back to the point... I am again being illustrated by Essence that even my own consciousness is pre-destined which is the Heart Mind's version of "Pre-Determination" in the Math Mind.
The pre-destination of the Heart Mind appears to have more fluidity, hence it allows for myriad versions of the same Universe to happen at the same time... it appears to be a bit more chaotic... though over all... just as Nature has Season's to balance it self... it only keeps a certain number of Universe combinations in tact at a time... the most balanced (un-destroyed, un-plagued, un-dark-ages) Universes are the most dominate ones... hence that is how the Universe which Darwin is a parcel of is also going through Evolution... though it is not possible to put the Universe under a Microscope and compare it with other Universes... though evolution in this way is also happening... I believe I recall the Tibetan's had written about multiple Universes being active at the same time...
In this way, even the Heart Mind begins to look Mathematical to the Math Mind
Perhaps I'm just documenting the process of my own realization... who knows what the verdict will be on Self-Will and Determinism
I've hit the wall again... the wall that is Essence beyond all reason/rational
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 12:37 AM
at some point the Math is Solved... there may appear to be infinite-ness within the Math Mind, though those will just end up being loops going around the Math taking infinite paths... they are still within Math as infinite... they do not transcend the Math Universe
though at some point, the Painter has finished His Mathematical Illustration
at this point, His Heart is content (as God said it was good, so he rested on the 7th day).
He Rested because his work was done, and His Heart fulfilled its Destiny
And so the Heart also dissolves back to Essence
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 12:42 AM
Essence only is the knower of all Truths
as such, Essence transmits the "Gut Feeling" and the "Knowing within Samadhi" as a means to guide the Self Seeker back to itSelf
Hence as the Self Seeker (manifestation of all [mM]inds] seeks for Truth through all manners/dimensions/states-of-consciousness, it is the Essence itself which validates inwardly through a "Truth Meter" mechanism if this is True or not. If Truth according to Essence, then the Self Seeker is rewarded with transcending to a deeper layer of the Onion... keep peeling away!
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 1:21 AMRamiel, for one who is experienced at entering deep meditative states it becomes rather trivial to guide the mind into inexplicable places with respect to what one might term ordinary mind. Whether you want to call it samadhi, super-consciousness, emotional transcendence or whatever. When you attempt to contrast such states with the logical or mathematical or ordinary mind - you end up trying to compare experiences which can't be, nor do I think they were meant to be. The problem is that you can produce answers for yourself in geometrically designed Technicolor and to find an answer to a question you can travel to another universe with different life forms and those operating under different laws while your earthly from mixes and and turns to vapor.
Over time It actually can become easy to become totally blissed out. At that point one has to ask their self whether a predisposition with such states are becoming more a curse than a blessing. Before answering yourself remember that even the ordinary mind can be quite a trickster. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 9:47 AM>Over time It actually can become easy to become totally blissed out. At that point one has to ask their self whether a predisposition with such states are becoming more a curse than a blessing. Before answering yourself remember that even the ordinary mind can be quite a trickster.<
well said, charles.
the whole thing about our "aha"s that often goes unconsidered is that higher states - even the ultimate, enlightenment - is just the beginning. the messy world still exists, and it behooves us to remain engaged for the duration. otherwise you're just a blissed-out escapee. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 10:23 AM
I do not see how I'm an escapee when I'm able to maintain logical mind in full tact while in unison allowing different states to work. I do admit, sometimes I like to shut off the logical mind as much as possible to allow the different states have their space... it takes quite a bit of effort and energy to maintain both at the same time.
Having access to multiple dimensions beyond the logical/math mind just broadens my perspective, and it is still aspects of the mind. The logical mind is easily in tact.
Reading bliss... I've gone to extremes of both bliss and pain years ago, neither of two had any effect on me anymore, the "ananda kosha" was burned up. So even in these 'blissful' states I easily remain logical... that's the point... if I lost myself to the bliss I wouldn't be able to maintain the other mind states... yet I also don't take the math/logical mind state so serious which allows the other's to co-exist.
While being able to adjust my mental states, I can change perspectives dramatically. For example, in one session I could see light being slowed down to the point that I could hear it landing, saw it in such slow motion that I could see the patterns of it. These are perspectives we all can have, and I realize this may sound a little nuts sometimes, but so did the proposition that earth was round at some point.
The "brick and mortar world" (as that's what Charles often calls it) is always calling and demanding that we stay grounded in it... the bills keep coming, and the body keeps asking for food and rest... and umm... pleasure :-) It is certainly important to balance all of this, and I do very much... though it's not a good idea to isolate and state out of the additional perspectives we have.
The logical mind does reach its end, and it surrenders at some point... Essence cognizant of itself rises as a new stream within the consciousness... and all of a sudden the real gateway of the present moment's consciousness opens... and I realize that our logical mind states are all as echo's of the "real". the "real" is never heard by the mind, only the echo of it is heard... i.e. the mind is living in the past/present... all I'm doing is bringing the mind as close to the edge of the present moment before it dissolves and keeping it there... that allows for some deeper knowledge to tinkle down into it
And... since all these different perspectives are functioning at the same time... there's a natural tendency within my being of trying to bring them all together and create some sort of harmony... there seems to be a natural tendency that once the mind knows its place, it stops asking questions (not that it gets any real answers)
Hence, I'm currently perceiving as Math and the Logical Mind to both be limited... and in both determinism exists. The case of free-will can't be made until the other perspectives open up.
It's like this...
Math is the many rocks and pebbles that gather at the Ocean's shore
Heart is like that of the Ocean, of how it fits within the rocks easily without disagreeing with them... it allows the Mind to have its Truth
Essence is that very subtle stream of wind that gently touches the skin of the Ocean and making the waves....
It is Essence which gives the Heart the intelligence to bare the Mind
In this way, Essence has full patience for the ignorance... it's like watching kids in front of a beach throw rocks at seagulls with tolerance
However, the Mind continues to throw rocks at the Ocean.... the rocks barely touch the Ocean
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 7:24 PMhey ramiel, i wasn't speaking about you particularly when i responded to charles' post. tho your descriptions of all these states you play in is interesting.
logical mind is kind of a lovely construct, but it's just a function that comes and goes (for some of us more than others, clearly!) so i think the phrase its a bit misleading. in fact, the tricky thing about describing states is that we categorize them into neat little boxes that are a lot more fluid and overlapping than our concepts for them sometimes allow. awareness is going all over the place, IOW, as if that's what it's designed to do.
so these discreetly described states are fun, they're fascinating, but i'd be inclined to question whether any of its permutations reveal "truth". practical stuff, sure, but you can never stand at the end of the rainbow. same with the concept of "balance" - at what point do you think you've arrived? seems to me it's not just subjective but an always-moving target.
as was said, the mind is a trickster. all thought (imho) is a double-edged sword, in that it likely conceals as much as it reveals. this may even be its "purpose" in a manner of speaking.
good times. :-)
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 8:10 PM
Thanks sulevay for your post
regarding states, there is much to be said... I wish sometimes I could just quit my work and devote my entire life to meditation and consciousness exploration... I spent 3 years doing 7 hours daily meditation at one point... I dearly miss those days sometimes... though I realize the journey now is a little different... some day in the future I may return
I would like to categorize states more in terms of how they play in the journey... rather than discuss the myriad infinite spectrum's of consciousness
first there are States... we enter alternate States which allows us to have additional perceptions of our-selves/enviornment
ultimately, enough States may lead to a Realization
once a Realization occurs... one escalates to a new "Station" of being rather than a "state"
the "Station" is such that once I've realized something there is no way for me to ever go back to before... just like I can not convince myself I have one hand, when I can clearly perceive I have two hands.
the Substance of States and Stations is Esoteric Knowledge.. about the secrets of existence and consciousness
about the veils of Reality, Illusion, and the Beyond
The Ultimate One to "convince" really is each of our own Selves... it is not important for me to convince anyone of anything regarding any of these points... I'm just sharing my views/perspectives and by hearing about other's views and perspectives it shifts mine sometimes
in fact, I'm still unsure about determinism
if in fact there is such a thing as Total Determinism... then realizing this would be a very BIG surrender to "what is happening"
It would be like I'm a leaf on a great tree of free-will thinkers... the tree is standing at the height of a hill next to a giant water-fall
the wind blows and I detach from the "free-will" tree and glide through the air
the wind blows me towards the water
the water lifts me, and I swim "merrily, merrily, merrily, life's but a dream" ... or should I say "life's but a stream"
and here's my point about the "stream"
that "stream" of consciousness where Essence is cognizant of itself... this of course would not have made any sense to me no matter how many times I read and contemplated it 2 months ago. It is an experience which had to take place for me to know what I'm talking about; an experience that is in the process of really shifting my consciousness... already much shift has taken place. And I doubt unless anyone has this experience, they will know what I'm talking about; since I myself would have no idea what I'm saying.
It is now that I understand the Sufi poetry that stated "If the Whole is likened to the Ocean, and the part to a drop, the sufi says that witnessing the Ocean with the eye of a drop is impossible. However, when the drop becomes one with the Ocean, it sees the Ocean with the eye of the Ocean."
I finally realized what they meant that only the the eye of the Ocean can see the Ocean... otherwise impossible
Essence cognizant of itself... Essence remembers itself... Spirit recognizes itself as Spirit
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 11, 2008 - 11:12 PMRamiel, our perspectives differ somewhat with relation to states. From what it appears you’re saying, you see states as a clarification of perception that can be developed, enabling one to more vividly, more deeply appreciate experience. I think I see a state as more of a deterministic form of genetic expression as it mates with our environment. It seems to me that rather than actively choosing to be in a state, we naturally gravitate toward people, groups, ideas and locals that provide the opportunities for us to express the conditions of our inner worlds, conditions we find ourselves in rather than create. I see what you refer to as the rational mind as instantaneously configuring our thought processes ‘after-the-fact’, causing us believe we’ve made the decisions, when in actuality – any situation could not have unfolded other that it did. It seems that our minds stitch together stories so blindingly fast as to the 'whys' and ‘hows’ that they appear to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt – at least to us.
Some people are naturally inclined to meditate, and literally become experts from the time they are children, and they generally find themselves (without really a say) in situations that promote and foster these innate tendencies. Others simply can't effectively meditate regardless of their apparent desire or the amount of assistance they might receive from others. The cultivation of the art for some is just not part of their nature.
It would appear that our states, from the grossest to the most rarefied, are all superposed upon one another, and the perspective a person finds their self residing is but their life playing itself out at a given moment. Again, I don’t think this is something we have under our immediate control – as in, ‘could you have responded to that last sentence in any other way than you did at that moment’? And, you alone, experienced that now-fading moment as it then was in whatever state you happened to be immersed. So, of course, someone that does not share your experiences will not know exactly what you are talking about, nor will they understand what you are saying from your particular point of view. None of us share each others’ unique perceptions and the thoughts and feelings that they spawn, and in this sense, at least to some degree, we are all isolated. And all the same. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 12, 2008 - 3:39 PMi always thought it was impossible to fail at meditating. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 12:26 AMBecause someone doesn’t excel at figure drawing doesn’t make them a failure at it. Talents with which people are born combined with circumstance ultimately equate to their level of proficiency at most anything. Why should meditation be any different? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 12:41 AMwhat do you consider to be the goal of meditation? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 1:33 AMNo goal really - sort of like taking a shower.
But don't tell anyone ;-) -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 2:29 AM
there is power in neutrality
it rises from the depth of receptivity
it is that massive large cobra which rises from stillness
it is so, that it can have no mother/female nor father/male
it seems like it was just born
but I assure you, father and mother came from this nuder-gender
do Nothing like taking a shower... there's much more to it than this... but I won't tell anyone! -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 2:33 AM
I'm shooting blanks... why is everyone dying?
sheeze... even I stopped shooting, they are still dying!
it's not even a gun, it was just my finger...
look (pointing to my head with it it) it's not even a gun
I'm dead
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 10:48 AMi know someone who was recently telling me that they "could not meditate." and i answered, well, it's pretty much impossible to fail. he said, well, i can't get my thoughts to settle down, and i replied that that was normal and to keep doing it. it's part of the confusion that buddhism can create in people... you mean the goal is to have no goal? what i think happens gradually is a kind of parsing of awareness where the usual semantic inner dialogue of self-definition becomes just another phenomenon to witness. i am of course saying this to a room of people who already know this and much more! my latest gestalt is to view mental habits in terms of cognitive efficiency and bioenergetics, and i would surmise that meditation leads to greater efficiency of awareness. the multiple layers of perception, metaperception, metameta, metametameta... they come with a price. if you can sit somewhere and not keep piling on the narrative, it's more efficient. i try, for example, to go about my day without too much "i am such an idiot" or "i am so fucking cool" stuff because it's extra mental fat. kind of reminds me of drumming, where if you start to judge yourself too much, you mess up, and if you start to gloat to yourself.... you mess up. -
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Unsu...
Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 9:28 PMInterestingly, higher states are so healing. They feel so good on all levels. Still, I noticed that I suffered through certain emotional states, schemas, patterns on occasion which left me puzzled. Often I wondered, shouldn't I not be able to be more mindful, more in control? But now, higher states of bliss do not guarantee emotional maturity... that is my experience. For instance, even here on tribe, so many advanced meditators on occasion snap on each other, or are impatient, which shows that they too react not from a mindful space but from a place of impatience... the place were we create reactive momenta and karma.
I noticed that I need mind training to make sure I go into a deeper level of understanding and freeing myself from entanglement of emotions, and social conditioning. Heading into bliss can become another way to reject our experience and ourselves. When people use higher states of bliss to compensate for "low self-esteem" social alienation, or emotional problems" the nature of spiritual practice is sidetracked. Instead of loosing the manipulative ego we strengthen it.See since everything is always perfect on a larger cosmic play, grieving the loss of somebody could be seen as a sign of spiritual weakness. We know that death, for instance, is happening on the transhuman level, on the relative level we still may experience profound regret and a "sense of loss" about our friends death. Our day to day experiences seem at odds with the highest experience. We perhaps try to conform everything into this single order of adjusting relative truth to the highest experience but we live on different levels of experience and we can't reduce everything to a single dimension. See, if we try to live in pure emptiness, or absolute being, we have a hard time fully engaging in our humanity since on the highest level our Self is not real but on a relative level it must be respected.
For instance, we can use anger and turn it into compassion. But a person, who never felt the right of being angry, may not know how to deal with anger and stuffs it down, appearing compassionate but sitting on a time bomb, ready to explode. We see these spiritual time bombs sometimes exploding here o tribe, after which a person usually unsubscribes :-))) - Mind training would help that person to accept the anger, acknowledge the anger and realtiy to it more fully. As a spiritual practitioner, we learn to be mindful and know that anger is empty, a wave in the ocean of consciousness, without solidity and meaning. This understanding is useful in the absolute sense but may do little to help to dissolve anger. Instead, perhaps we learn to pay more attention to our anger, in order to move beyond suppression, do discover strength and power in it and relate more assertively and creative in society. See, compassion cannot be totally true of we reject our anger and other negative emotions. People have to feel, accept, and come somehow to terms with their thoughts and feelings before arriving to genuine forgiveness and compassion.
There can be a huge gap between spiritual sophistication and the level of personal development. I have known people who have developed refined practices without developing rudimentary forms of "self-love and interpersonal sensitivity when dealing with people. Some pursue high spiritual ideals but show little kindness towards others and themselves and hide behind "detachment" and spiritual ideologies rather than to face their real issues thus come across as very unkind and unpleasant.
When we do mind training we try to find our underlying motivations such as holding a position of power, or knowledge or why we avoid facing our own wounding, or self critical voices which measures our own spiritual progress keeping score with every little failure to keep up with the teachings, thus judgment is increased and emotions are cut off. Many spiritual seekers, inspite of their high bliss states, are spiritually cold and that coldness is not created by the teaching but was already there before. When we pursue spirituality, even with the lovingness of bliss involved, the gab between how we are and how we think we are, if we are addicted to the bondage o perfectionism, is often really wide.
There are many books on mind training out there and even advanced practitioners need them on occasion to get through the tough part of live... even the highest forms of bliss can not bypass the development of individuation and personal maturity.
www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_s...760-0750854
www.amazon.com/Toward-Psy.../ref=sr_1_1
See, higher states of bliss are giving us the feeling that we are loved by the universe unconditionally and it's easier for many to go there and dwell in that special state, develop a sense of "specialness" as a result. I sure have been there and done it. I ws only 15 years old when I got initiated into tantric diks'a. I felt so special when the "bliss " came and felt like a living angel on earth. Then my dog got poisoned by a neighbor and I cried my heart out for month after that, wanted to move, hated the neighbor. I knew right then that I have long ways to go. Bliss and higher states are sure healing, beautiful and wonderful, no doubt... but we are still part of this world and the way we relate too ourselves and others.... sometimes from a place of a "wounded ego", which is afraid, feels loss, anxiety. To me "enlightenment" may not replace what can be termed "maturity and true humanity." It's here that older brothers sisters and our family and community can be of help.
By the way, Tara Bennet Goldman also wrote a nice book on "Emotional Alchemy." She is the wife if Daniel Goldman the author of 'Emotional Intelligence." These books are excellent for beginnes and advanced people to deal with trying ti cut through schemas and patterns which bring nothing but suffering and pain to themselves and others, in-spite of the sublime healing bliss they can feel.
Without this healing states of highest bliss, many would have fallen sick when facing grief, alienation, depression, abandonment feelings, feelings of not being enough, not being a good provider and giver, notions of perfectionism, etc.
See, states of bliss, are good but they are better when the whole person is heroically facing challenges, which we sometimes don't even know we have till karma bites us in the ASS (sorry for that speech but it can be so fitting( :-) - let's face All of who we are and why not? it's actually fun!
Sorry this was so long! Thank you for listening and if a spelling is in there, I have no time to fix it right now.
Love and light to all of you!
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 10:35 PM
Dear Maya,
I'm just responding to a part of your post (I may respond to others parts later too).
Regarding the spiritual maturity and "high bliss states". I find the word "bliss" itself to be an indicator of immaturity. When bliss has any significance, even to be mentioned, it has not yet settled. At some point there was immense whirls of pain I called them my trauma processing days... and at some point there was this constant oceanic waves of orgasmic bliss moving through my body 24x7 for a few years.
Where I find myself in terms of emotions and triggers is that I have this constant state of wakeful-consciousness. Sleeping, awake, working/focused, relaxed, any state this part is always awake.
In terms of emotional maturity, there is a constant neutrality... it not detachment, nor is it sympathy/attachment... it is a state of compassion though there is a constant state of self-love (I love that you used this word). I'll make two examples:
1.) One of my two cats named Misha was found by my partner on a rail road behind our apartment complex. We do not know how, but the train had run over her neck, perfectly slicking her head from her body. I had her since she was 2 weeks old, she was now over 2 years old. I had her and her twin sister Sasha together. I went to bury her... at no point did I feel any sadness... rather I felt a great joy... this part of my that had so much love for her was now this empty space... and that empty space connected me even deeper with the truth that there is no death. This was in 2004.
2.) Yesterday my son who is 1 years old was crying through the whole night. My partner was laying next to him and very frustrated. I realized that whether my son just died in front of me, or was giggling in laughter my state would not change... it would remain the same stillness and presence... in this this neutral compassionate state... I laid next to him and placed my hand on his hand... in that moment in less than 2 seconds he took a long breath and fell asleep. Then I placed my hand on my partner, and she fell asleep. Then I walked back to my room and took my body to sleep state.
3.) In terms of folks on Tribe... the anger, people unsubscribed et all... there is just so much immaturity, such THICK EGO's lost in duality... and EVERYONE seems to think they are "enlightened", though not every individual consciousness has become aware that Essence is cognizant of itself and has built the "sacred space" for the Essence to emerge. I've tried and experimented and played with many different means to "thin" these EGO's... though it's no use most of the time... though on occasion I also get personal messages from people on different Tribe's telling me what I wrote really opened their hearts and they appreciated it.... though a lot of time I also realize this is because I just happened to have said something that justified to those people they are in fact also "enlightened"
I've gone through 3 years of intense psychological and meditation training with a Avadhut/Yogi (real one who spent many years living in south Indian jungles and Himalayas). Through that training I personally performed things which I had only read in books. Though all of that only got me to a certain stage which lead to Nirvikalpa Samadhi through classical means in 2004.
Later I began learning about the Awakening paths of Eckhart Tolle and Adya Shanti... they are both just the same. Not much needs to be said... they are very much about being Present, Here and Now. Very simple and very profound.
Following that I joined a closed Sufi path... one with an ancient lineage from Iran who do no advertising/marketing. A path with many secrets. I was initiated in that past for over two years, and during my training I was trained also intensely. After some point, I realized I must leave this path. I informed the Shaikh, and he said that if I leave this path he predicts I would become the master of another path. I have no such desires or pursuits.
I was trained in two ancient and classical paths. Along the way I also spent a year training with a Native American Shaman... out in the middle of no where! I was the only non-native american. I was trained, and a number of totems came through. Many many shamanic journeys, and meetings with different energetic beings that taught me many things.
Along the journey I met many other teachers and learned small things here and there, both in the physical and astral realms. After my Indian teacher went back to India, he continued teaching me through the Astral plane. One time, my cell phone began ringing while I was in the astral plane talking with him so I left the state. After the call, I picked up my phone and I called him in India... we continued the same astral plane conversation over the regular telephone. That is how clear these communications are.... absolutely CRYSTAL clear.
While doing all of this, I've been very much grounded in the ordinary life. I have two kids, a loving partner whom we are in an open-relationship, and I've been running my own business for last the 6 years which is doing quite well now. I've managed to keep all of these things balanced together which has been a very intense journey.
Presently I have a friend/teacher whom I would certainly give the title of being a Master of Masters when it comes to Energy Work and Awareness. He has helped me to dive much deeper in that I could have ever imagined. And it just keeps getting better.
I still do not feel I know much... I have much to learn... and I'm comfortable acting immature... I feel at ease to make a typo and spell something wrong and move on from it without having to go back and keep correcting it so I look "mature" in my posts... I'm just being real... we need not expect people who have woken up to always act "mature"
So I'm exploring things like "Stupidity" "Humor" and I found when Intelligence is born from Stupidity, it becomes "wit" So I'm just having fun and discovering things all the time as to how this new consciousness that has recently opened up plays with itself.
Things like "determinism" still don't make sense for example... even though in 2002 I saw every significant life transformation that would happen to me in 2004. Even though I've seen what will happen to me in 2008, in 2012, and most significantly in 2034... even though I continue to have dreams that show me what will happen the next week, next month... though I even write these dreams as emails and send them to close friends like my partner... then we watch them all come up true... I still do not see determinism to be true. Kind of strange don't you think? There's a lot more to this rabbit hole than meets the eye.
If in fact Charles' stance on determinism is out of true inner-knowledge, I am humbled by his realization. Of course there is also the strong possibility that he's just being very structured and unable to perceive beyond a certain matrix he has fixed within his mind. Though, it's not just Charles... I've read folks like Ramana Maharshi talk about determinism (in their own words of course). So there is enough credible folks having talked about this... so the question keeps burning... and I'm not satisfied with any "understandings". I must find it myself within.
Of course... by nature of duplicity, Essence will phase from wakefulness to sleep, back and forth it will go. The bridge in between is being constructed and improved.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 3:59 AMRamiel, in a very simplified way I see determinism as a concept by which everything is connected - the underlying fabric, the glue. On some level everything influences everything else. It is something that includes what we can see and beyond what we're capable of perceiving with our nervous systems. In a certain respect it might be seen as how one relates to the concept that we are a unique presence at a specific time at a specific location in the universe, affecting and being effected by on some level by everything else, variations in our presence shifting ever so slightly so that our frame of reference moves just enough to provide us with a different perspective. And this is why our perceptions and our states change. At those moments (and every moment for that matter) we are in a process of shifting and refocusing. It is not so much as being in an altered state, but a slight shift in space-time. Meditation is but one way to initiate such a shift.
We never come back to exactly the same place, traces remain to a lesser (short term memory) or greater degree (long term memory) but we are always arriving at a new place. No two moments are ever the same. Does this make any sense to you?
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 8:52 AM"I noticed that I need mind training to make sure I go into a deeper level of understanding and freeing myself from entanglement of emotions, and social conditioning"
are you aware of the experiences of people whose emotional capacities were basically removed via brain injury? instead of becoming hyperrational fantastically in control decision-makers, they became reckless and self-destructive. not only do we need emotions to make good decisions, we need the learned associations we attach to our experiences. true, some of these associations do more harm than good, and we all want to get over these. it seems a great goal in that case to start having the emotions and entanglements, but to try not letting them guide your behavior too much. monkeywrench the sequence. this is a much more achievable goal in my book. attempts to transcend emotion and social conditioning usually result in harmful partitioning of awareness and denial in my experience. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 8:58 AMinstead of higher states, try lower states for a change. try descending into emotion, embodiment, matter. spiritual abstraction and reaching up and out are so similar to dissociation and hiding from pain that they are indistinguishable much of the time in my experience. i too have explored many different states of consciousness and awareness, and i value my experiments, but in the end much of it amounts to a distraction from what's really going on inside. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 10:17 AM
blue-j, that's a beautiful way to put it.
I found recently in one of my meditations that there was a part of me which was very hesitant to be physical
I contemplated on it and found that my fear or disassociation of the physical was that I didn't want to loose my connection with the spiritual/energy (non-physical) planes.
So I did some work with connecting my spiritual/energy bodies better with my physical an then vice versa
the next day when I did this... I came home and found myself really wanting to work out!!!
in my living room I started doing push ups, jumping jacks, dancing, hip movements like making love, and a whole vast array of physical movements that my body was flowing in... I broke a sweat, heart-beat fast until I was out of breath and in chest pain and fully sore
then I did that again and again the following days... as I do the physical exercising I work on remaining connecting with the energy bodies and as such I take pleasure in this now... it is most amazing experience...
my whole life I never imagined really enjoying doing physical things... just another wonderful thing as a fruit of meditation
... through meditation I got into music, dancing, art, poetry, photography, a better lover, father... everything
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 12:48 PMi think things like electromagnetism and gravity and other features of the physical universe are absolutely bizarre and incredible; perhaps the electrochemical nature of our brains gives us a peculiar and wonderful sensation of immateriality. i reject the notion that physicalism amounts to banality. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 1:11 PM"i reject the notion that physicalism amounts to banality."
Blue, could you say a bit more about this? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 3:56 PMi don't like this specific energy: a phenomenon is explained in physical terms, and that somehow drains the magic and mystery from it. smug apes with their fancy words. all i can say right now...workin
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 1:40 PMblue-j: "i reject the notion that physicalism amounts to banality"
you are right... though through my own individual experience... hence I'm limited in that it's my personal experience and not a scientifically proven one... I realized that "body" is made from "mind" and mind is made from "soul" and "soul" is of Essence. Of course what each of these words means... other than the "body" which is unified knowledge is relative to my interpretation of it.
Coming out of that meditation (it was in 2003) I walked out and placed my hand flat in a frying pan that I had made a sauce in and it didn't burn. The months following I kept doing things that were physically considered not possible.
It is documented in many spiritual texts the beyond normal physical powers that people get after intense kundalini experiences... though mine was a very clear, fixed and re-producible experience.
Recipe for realizing body is made from mind
1.) I would sit and rise the Kundalini to the sixt chakra and open the mind's eye
2.) I would see the indigo bindu... and 5 pointed start in between
3.) I would begin focusing my entire body by use of a mantra that vibrated all aspects of body/being "Gayatri Mantra" while focusing moving into this bindu
4.) I would move through the outer layer which was gold colored... my entire body would turn gold, I felt this magnetism force very intense as if all my cells are both pushing and pulling in every direction possible... and I would feel this very focused stick figure like shaped body made of iron... my body would begin levitating slightly to some degree. I could take my body and fold it in strange ways... ways that are not possible for me and be totally comfortable.
5.) Moving through further deeper I would realize the mind is made of soul... and as I would go through the star, I would feel this infinite spaciousness and the mantra I practiced felt like it was a voice inhabiting all the inner-spaciousness.
I realized this practice without reading it anywhere... later years I read a very brief limited description of this in a book by Yogananda.... though very very brief and not talking about any of these realizations and aspects.
I have no clue how to relate this to science and its discoveries... all I know is that I did this and on numerous occasions where people were with me, I did things that were not technically possible for any ordinary body.
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but none of what I wrote has much to do with my previous post... all those practices I did were about moving away from the physical experience and taking it to a different place.
What I wrote recently is about keeping the body very much physical... eating food, having sex, working out, sweating... and meanwhile remaining fully aware of all the energetic bodies/subtle bodies. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 4:51 PMRamiel, you've bumped up against an interesting question - how does one fuse experiences of what you refer to as your realizations into a scientific or just non-metaphysical description?
When you use terms such as soul, essence, infinite spaciousness, energetic bodies and subtle bodies - I know what you mean and I wonder (other that what you see as your direct experience) can even at least theorize using standard scientific concepts, the language of physics, as to how such phenomena might be described. Is it possible that you could even guess, take a wild stab at a theory?
Personally, I don't believe we have any experiences other than those we're able to experience physically. And this in no way means I'm denying your personal experiences; it's just that I think there's another likely explanation. It seems to me that we can't be aware of any experience without there being physical traces left. What we term our awareness, contact with our inner and outer worlds, by the very nature of it having happened has caused changes within our physical bodies, maybe subtly, yet conclusively. In other words, we're not aware of anything unless it effects our nervous systems; likewise, no memory of anything is retained without modification of our physical structure. If a physical change hasn't take place - then as far as we're concerned - it never happened, and there will be no awareness of any such events having ever having happened. We are physically changed each moment and, of course, these changes in many cases transpire without our knowledge and awareness.
Again, I'm not denying your experiences; I'm saying there are likely answers other than how they can be approached from a mystical or esoteric perspective. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 6:09 PM
"physical traces left" and "and I wonder (other that what you see as your direct experience) can even at least theorize using standard scientific concepts, the language of physics, as to how such phenomena might be described. Is it possible that you could even guess, take a wild stab at a theory? "
Isn't science realizing that below molecular/atomic/sub-atomic is quark particles?
isn't it being perceived that at quark level particles can be in two places at once?
do particles not just simply appear out of nothing?
do they not sometimes just disappear back to nothing?
I would estimate that from metaphysics "thoughts" are what quantum physicists may call "quarks"
as I directly perceive thoughts arising out of nothing/stillness
as such, I perceive thoughts :: quarks and as that eventually will both agree at the gross level that it is body :: matter
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 6:14 PM
further sifting this to matter...
as quarks are thoughts rising from nothingness (physics and metaphysics both call it nothingness/formlessness... that's good)
as such, nothing is really physical... that is what I perceive
our body is working in the 3D realms... of course our perception is but an echo and interpretation of the REAL 3D... but overall we are living in the 3D body
the 4th dimension is that of the "mind"
I'm able to BE in _multiple_ places at once... i.e. astral travel to a 4D plane (astral plane) and converse with teachers while still maintaining awareness of my 3D body. The objects in the astral plane are constructed of thoughts... they can be changed and rebuilt based on thoughts.
I can create astral worlds... and they can be co-created by other astral beings/inhabitants and travelers (me).
It is the same as one particle at quark level being able to be in two places at once... I saw on discovery channel they said this has been proven now.
Are we "bridging" Charles? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 6:24 PM
further clarification on my previous statement that "nothing is really physical"
actually "nothingness" (a.k.a. formlessness, space without particles on any level) is Essence
and this is perhaps where I'm perceiving that in that "spaciousness" I describe as Samadhi, that plane beyond thoughts, beyond mind, that as being the Essence... and that Essence has a certain quality.
That quality of Essence through science can only be described as "nothingness"... we are talking where there are no particles
It is pre-space, pre-ether, pre-form, pre-time, pre-eternity and post-eternity
Through this "Essence cognizant of itself" meditation "session" I've perceived multiple episodes that are building on top of each other of how the anomaly within Essence began where "I AM" was created (first core-form of God) and how the first "engine" was built... i.e. the Cosmos/Universe et all. There's so much details to it... and it will probably take me a few month to get it all down on paper... it's upwards of 20+ pages already... though every time I go back into these "sessions" I'm getting more clarification and depth... it has gone down as far as the Essence of "power/energy" and how out of that the first particles came to be through the variations in the "infinite loop"... almost like those variations within the magnetism space (where power/energy is created) are creating almost like sparks these new "particles" probably those very same ones being perceived at the quark level. I have a feeling this will continue leading to eventually understanding all of this down to the atom and DNA strand... but who knows... this is why I'm so "obsessed" with the recent "states" and meditation of recently... it's like I finally found the "tap"... drops and drops... and the stream is getting stronger.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 7:01 PM
a "theory" that perhaps could be tested:
1.) Whatever contraption it is that is able to view at the quark level is setup monitoring a certain space.
2.) An advanced meditation and energy practitioner who has the ability to manifest matter from energy, or at least manifest intense fields of energy will sit next to this contraption and focus on that space and begin practicing noting down what he will attempt first, then doing it.
Perhaps something like this could be the bridge.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 15, 2008 - 6:29 PMRamiel, after reviewing your postings here I don’t see any real possibility for the construction of a bridge between the ways we perceive as to what makes life tick. My take upon what you’ve written is that you’ve laid down a framework of altered states and related powers you claim you possess, which is built atop a philosophy of fairy tales and religious dogma. Though I full understand that what you’ve written makes sense to you and that what you believe and have shared comes from your heart.
As I’ve stated earlier I see these states which you continually refer and the powers you claim they bring to be nothing more than a self-induced overload and its related effects. Predisposition with such states as you describe is no more than a way to escape whatever it is you’re being confronted with. The illusive powers that the states conjure up are ways the mind rationalizes the benefits of states. It is one thing to become aware of the possibility that the mind can be overloaded – one might even become curious this and do some exploration; it’s another thing to cling to such alterations and distortions, and begin to worship and promote them – and I’m well aware that this dynamic has prevailed in religious and occult teachings for thousands of years. I myself was mesmerized by these phenomena in my younger years – though I now see continued adherence to the type of path such as you are promoting as being a ‘stairway to heaven’ as just another way of becoming sidetracked, possessing the unfortunate possibility of undesirable crystallization.
Opportunity to merge with the simplicity of the moment transcends all else. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 15, 2008 - 10:38 PM
Dear Charles,
Thanks for your effort and response. And thanks for your courage to speak truthfully. I deeply appreciate that. Please continue to be as frank/blunt and truthful when you speak with me. There is no part in me that gets hurt... I do become silent when I read such a post as yours... it makes me go in and check in as Charles as reflected an aspect of myself to me. Your post surely is making me see a part of myself that I wouldn't see without your help at this moment.
Your words have triggered something; there is a challenge/pain/difficulty I face. That is in relating with others. I've been searching for bridges to really be able to connect/communicate with others in the matters which are of deepest importance to me.
I've progressed far in meditation and many realizations have occurred and continue to. I've been searching for 'words' to associate with these... trying to figure out what they are called. Most importantly, my mind itself is searching for ways to understand what the hell is going on... the shifts are sometimes so intense and rapid for me... that it has sometimes taken me years to catch up and realize what the present state of realization I'm in.
I have no doubts at all, and I would swear to my own life that the miracles I described and more have happened, and they have been perceived even directly by others I've known. For example, my friend Simon has seen me lift things normally too heavy for human to lift... or he's seen me place my flat hand into a frying pan and lift it and not burn. The Indian Yogi teacher I had has held conversations in the astral plane with me and we have continued those discussions from where we left off at on the cell phone. I've healed people remotely, my friend Misha himself being one... that's actually someone you know, so I can make two examples with him which you can personally call and ask him about:
Ex #1: It was around 2002 or 2003, I had last seen Misha a few months back. All of a sudden I was taken to a different state, and had traveled to Misha's apartment (I had never been to his home). I saw him sitting on a single sofa-chair... he had a total white/gray cloud aura around him. He stood up, walked over to me, and gave me a kiss on the cheek (as it happens in our culture). That was it. I saw him a week after that experience and I told him what I had seen. He told me that at that same day (which was a week back) he was telling his wife that next time he will see me, he is going to hug and kiss me on my cheek (it is customary in our culture... up to this point he had never been this affectionate with me).
Ex #2: This was in 2003. Misha had a major surgery. I believe they had put a pacemaker in him. His body he told me was super low in potassium. He was very sick and unable to go to work. I sat in meditation the next day. I went into that state where I merge my body into the golden part of the mind's eye (called the Spiritual Eye, and Universally known amongst Hindu/Yogic spiritual paths). From this state, I began directing healing energy to him. The next morning I called him on his cell phone. Up to this point he had been in bed and sick. He picked up the phone and said that all of a sudden he woke up in the morning and he felt really good.. he paused for a moment... then he asked, Ramiel did you do something? I said yes. He reminded me of that experience two weeks ago that I just met him (i.e. right now in March of 2008). He said even till today he remembers that experience, that his hairs on his arm stood up when he realized why he was feeling better that day all of sudden which was a very unexpected experience.
There are many other things... such as with my sister when I took her to the Mercado Movie theater's in Santa Clara in 2002. As we were walking I realized that she desired a hot chocolate. I took her to Starbucks there. There was two lines leading to two cash registers. I thought to myself I do not want to spend much money, but she is my sister and I have not seen her for such a long time. When our turn came up, I ordered the two drinks and pastries. The cashier entered our order and then he told me the cash register froze. He tried rebooting it and it still didn't work. I asked him if this had EVER happened before? He said no! Then once the other cash register was free, he tried our order there, and it also froze. He said we get our order free and yelled to everyone in line that drinks are free! Everyone cheered... then the next person came up and both machines were working. About 20 such things that night happened while I was with my sister, including telling her what her thoughts were as I would audibly hear them. I had even told her what movie she wanted to watch even though I had not heard the movie. Again, if you are curious enough... I could provide you with my sister's cell phone or email and you can check. Oh, another one with my sister is that she would visit me sometimes. At a set time I would go and sit in meditation before I ate, and she would wait for me while I would leave food cooking. She later confirmed that every time I would go into meditation (I saw in a closet) that the the power for the whole apartment would go out... and then come back a few minutes later... this happened consistently. She can probably share many more that I may not even be able to remember right now.
Even my friend Simon is reachable via email and phone and you can confirm the many many experiences with him. I also opened his mind's eye and woke up his Kundalini. He experiences many many things with me.
There are quite a few more, and much more powerful such miraculous things which have occurred just with myself.
These experiences are not things I'm able to just produce... they happen... and often out of some desire I may have... it's almost like the Universe is responding to my desires. It continues to be this way even today.
Though Charles... I'm presently in this moment in a confused place. The new openings and realization that are happening at this specific time in my life are making such major shifts for me, that I'm just confusing myself too. I need to wait for this process to unfold so that it can show up in a matured fashion.
Charles, I realize I am appearing to be very much in my own world. Though I feel energetically and am very connected with everything, this is a time of inwardness and contemplation for me, part of that process is typed out throughout Tribe in different Tribes/posts/blogs. I'm in a way conducting a number of social experiments to help me better understand how relating with people works... I mean really relating as who and what I am, authentically with people.
With Love,
Ramiel -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 15, 2008 - 11:58 PMyes, dear ramiel, but so what???
so what if you can do marvelous things. so what if you can verify them. so what if you're impressed with them, and yourself.
somehow i feel this is the next question for you..... -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 16, 2008 - 12:21 AM
Dear Sulevay,
I'm just acknowledging your post.
Are you really asking a question or just judging me?
If there is a question, please open your heart and ask with an open-ness for an answer you may not have expected. Only than it is possible for me to respond to you.
If you would like to just tell me that I'm an ignorant egoist, that's perfectly ok. Thank you very much for your comment.
Do you have any more comments? Please, see me as an open-target and shoot whatever you got at me.
From the Heart, with Love and Sincerity,
Ramiel
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 16, 2008 - 10:13 AMramiel - absolutely a sincere question.
if you feel deeply into what it is you're pursuing....you may find you are in a funhouse hall of mirrors that has no end except perhaps to entertain itself. the perception of realization, you may find, is actually a wheel.
and there's no judgment around that, except the "so what?" suggests what charles is pointing to: the simplicity of the moment.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 16, 2008 - 1:41 PM
Dear Suleway,
I see what you mean by the hall of mirrors. Though being open to accept to this, I do not see as this is the issue (and there is an issue).
It's more like I am sitting in this "so what?" place... and I'm looking around (fun house of mirrors) to find out "who am I now?" and how do I relate with people now?
I've hit a home with determination/destiny and free-will too... it's that I have no answer to it, and that I have no question about it anymore... both seem pointless. And this is coming from a deep lace within, it's not a "giving up", rather a "getting it"... at least 'getting it" at this depth for this moment.
It feels like I've gone through the monk journey, and it reached its end... I learned a lot which isn't really practical at all for living in the world... and now I feel like I'm starting from zero and having to learn how to live in the world...
this is not to say the monk life I lived was a delusional place... it's just a life very few people will relate with... though there is much depth to it. It is what underneath empowers me.
It seems like I've just realized what I need to do now... I'm going to drop this desire of meeting people who understand the meta-physical world... there are a few people I know in real life... and Tribe isn't just the media for it. Though most importantly I'm stopping trying to bridge that with mundane life as a tool to help me relate with people... that seems like I'm trying to bring the "anti matter" of meta-physics into the "matter" of the world... it's a futile effort. Instead, the more difficult realization is that I'm starting again from zero in a new journey in a new land.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 16, 2008 - 3:44 PM>the more difficult realization is that I'm starting again from zero in a new journey in a new land. <
i would say this is the case in every moment - not just for you, and not just this time. this is how vast reality is.
"starting from zero" (or square one) is one of my favorite phrases. it is the fool card in the tarot.....unwritten and full of possibility.
yes, the need to be understood goes deep.....but in my case, i found it connected with wanting to feel okay with myself. a need to be affirmed.
silly me; it turns out all of life is affirming, when i quit arguing with it. you'd be surprised how looooong it took me to get that simple message. turns out, i'm okay afterall. :-)
so, i say there is no need for people to understand you to meet you, and meet you truly. especially as this "you" is not a static thing, but a movement, a moving. so in a way, the people who don't understand you may just leave you the most free.
naturally; you are free.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 17, 2008 - 5:41 PM"I see what you mean by the hall of mirrors. Though being open to accept to this, I do not see as this is the issue"
the problem with being in a hall of mirrors lies in what's behind them. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 17, 2008 - 11:17 PMblue-j wrote: ...the problem with being in a hall of mirrors lies in what's behind them....
>
You mean a bit of dusty framing and collapsible walls?
=0)
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 16, 2008 - 4:10 PMThere’s an ever-shifting line between what we consider ordinary awareness and states. Actually, when you think about it, being susceptible to states and their manifestations might be the rule rather than the exception. For me, anyway, it seems more of a challenge of honing in on ordinary awareness, returning from rather than remaining in and accentuating a state.
Altered states produce altered perceptions. When people base reality on such perceptions they fall victim to erroneous belief structures. There’s a tendency for people to promote these misrepresentations as a way of convincing themselves. Finding believers or just those willing to listen provides comfort and acts as a catalyst for rationalizing one’s own beliefs – though in all likelihood, it only presents another layer to unravel.
Remaining in the moment’s simplicity is in itself a formidable challenge and we each approach what this means differently. When we fail again and again and again, complacency can set in, and the corner of the universe which we find ourselves can appear a destination that might really not be all that bad.
All this banter back and forth here appears to be an attempt to drag us into and accept your world so you can fulfill the need of rationalizing it to yourself.
What it might really all boil down to is that you can’t not be in a state. -
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Unsu...
Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 16, 2008 - 7:09 PMSpiritual experiences can become a way to rationalize old defenses. For instance, those who have a need to see themselves as special will emphasize the specialness of their experiences, practice, teacher, to shore up a sense of "self-importance." Sometimes spirituality is used for self-inflation such as delusions of grandiosity or uncritical acceptance of some ideology, all of that is being done to create a "new spiritual identity" based on avoidance of issues...thus ego is being repackaged in a new pretty dress.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying this is happening with anybody here in particular. But to clearly look at ourselves with honestly is not that easy either.
See, sometimes we are not strong enough to deal with the world and all the challenges out there and then we try to find way to get rid of what we don't like to deal with or feel via spiritual concepts, creating a new identity through it, instead if getting rid of it... I sure have done it and am ready to admit any time to this.
We also can, on the other hand, get so fascinated about our own feelings, archetypes, experiences, dreams, and relationships that we can get endlessly absorbed with our own mental stuff, which is also a dead end and a subtle trap. The path of growth and spiritual evolution ends in stagnation here for a while.
With our spiritual work we sure can go beyond form into the boundless but some basic psychological understanding of how our mind works helps us to deal with the manifested surroundings, beings and form in a more functional way. This has been at least my experience.
For me, meditation has become part of the routine, just as Charles said. Brushing the teeth is part of my routine. Same with practice, it is part of the routine... the outcome matters not, since I know that my mind is in flux... I let it unfold without measuring anything at all.
There are so many layers of experiencing our being. Openness to a larger beautiful space sure allows a fresh healing breeze of change to circulate through our being + existence and eases the burden of possible tensions and sufferings.
Feel loved!
:-)
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 17, 2008 - 5:39 PMeveryone needs to be careful about their use of entheogens, or whatever you'd like to call them. all kinds of neat-o things can happen that can be transformative, but after more than 30-50 or so experiences (or fewer for many), they clearly start taking more than they give. we're not talking about a funny matter here, we're talking about genuine uncomfortable psychosis and possibly permanent problems. you also need time in between experiences to integrate and recalibrate. i am getting the sense here that these plants and substances are at play here. please, everyone, be careful with your brain, it is delicate and you have no back-up! -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 17, 2008 - 6:56 PMBlue, some very good points. Also, after some period of time with some forms of meditation it's possible for a person to immerse their self in a state very similar to that experienced when using entheogens - without ingesting any foreign substance. Though, I'd say the concerns you laid down were equally applicable.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 10:17 AMi'd say the "30-50 or so experiences" is a completely arbitrary number. not to dismiss the warning about doing too much of anything (this category could include everything from sex to sour cream!) but speaking as one who has tripped literally hundreds and hundreds of times, under all kinds of sets and settings, with all kinds of intentions, mindful and less so, i think drugs are a very interesting and useful part of our reality. i would neither encourage nor discourage their use.....because imo no matter where you go in life, there you are.
people who can't deal with "reality" and use it as an escape are not escaping reality; they're just trying to escape the man-made mess we impose as consensus society. the funny thing about reality is, it's a lot more flexible than people generally assume. we get locked in to our ideas, we lock down our possibilities.
so changing the perceptive machinery has its place, and i think it's a valuable one.
my .02, YMMV
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 1:19 PMThough realize that anytime we do anything we're making actual physical changes in our brains - in a very small way we're shifting how we'll see the world in our futures, and there's no going back. So, pass that sour cream.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 1:46 PM"i'd say the "30-50 or so experiences" is a completely arbitrary number."
i presented it from my experience. if you disagree, that's cool, but it wasn't arbitrary. in my experience, it accords with many people's arcs.
"speaking as one who has tripped literally hundreds and hundreds of times, under all kinds of sets and settings, with all kinds of intentions, mindful and less so, i think drugs are a very interesting and useful part of our reality."
i never said they weren't. can you tell me, what does the experience give you anymore? what do you gain?
"i would neither encourage nor discourage their use...."
i encouraged carefulness and self-awareness, and being mindful of the cost-benefit of the experience. i also said it in a very specific context with a very specific audience; i wasn't making some grandstand statement about the danger of drugs in a high school auditorium or something. do you not recognize how one can get lost if one does these substances too often and doesn't integrate the experiences decently?
"people who can't deal with "reality" and use it as an escape are not escaping reality; they're just trying to escape the man-made mess we impose as consensus society"
at some point though, one must actually build a safe nest and connect with other birds of a feather, not just an imagined escape in one's mind. we gain insights on entheogens, but overassociating the insights with the substances that initiated them can be limiting. i feel the trick is to see how much you can bring into "ordinary" awareness without the use of an initiating substance. associating revolutionary impulses with a substance is very compartmentalizing and feeds into a huxleyan dynamic where that which frees us is actually being used to oppress us in a way. if we can't begin to free ourselves from consensus society without the use of drugs, we have been defeated. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 2:57 PM>can you tell me, what does the experience give you anymore? what do you gain? <
every experience is new, and valuable on its own terms. i take walks along the river too, and neither do these get old.
>we gain insights on entheogens, but overassociating the insights with the substances that initiated them can be limiting.<
not any moreso than decrying all drug use as valueless. pick your poison. :-)
>i feel the trick is to see how much you can bring into "ordinary" awareness without the use of an initiating substance. <
what is ordinary except what you're conditioned to accept? every where you go, awareness is there......so to believe that drugs *automatically* impose specific negative associations is just that - a belief. isn't the job of beliefs to compartmentalize what is actually an open field?
>if we can't begin to free ourselves from consensus society without the use of drugs, we have been defeated.<
oh, posh. consensus society is a construct; in seeing the construct, the cage dissolves. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 4:13 PM"every experience is new, and valuable on its own terms."
ok, come on over here and i'll poke yer eyes and give you a dutchie rub! arrrggghhh
"not any moreso than decrying all drug use as valueless. pick your poison. :-) "
i don't understand what you mean here. can you explain further? sorry i am dim.
"what is ordinary except what you're conditioned to accept?"
the table is set before you arrive at the party. your capacities are the result of a myriad of pressures, ancient and new, but you are not a blank slate. the ordinary is directly connected to being a member of our species, and not some awful social construct dropping from the sky. some of us are just smarter or have better ideas, like you!
"so to believe that drugs *automatically* impose specific negative associations is just that - a belief. "
i have no idea to whom you're responding, but it's not me. where did i say negative associations? i actually was talking about the danger of positive associations!
"oh, posh. consensus society is a construct; in seeing the construct, the cage dissolves"
the cage inside you might, but what about those around you? what about community? what about making dreams real?
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 5:07 PMyou're right; i didn't mean to imply every new experience is pleasant. (tho *most* of my chosen drug experiences actually are!)
>>"not any moreso than decrying all drug use as valueless. pick your poison. :-) "
>i don't understand what you mean here. can you explain further?<
i just meant that for every idea you hold about reality, no matter what it is, you've taken the vastness down a notch. you were talking about drugs being limiting, which as an absolute is just an opinion, not a fact. i'm asking, why limit your options?
>the ordinary is directly connected to being a member of our species, and not some awful social construct dropping from the sky.<
as a member of our species, i feel i have to mention that people have been doing drugs from the get-go. hence, "ordinary" by your definition.
granted, the social construct existed before we dropped into it. but it is still a construct, and we do not have to define ourselves by its values and conditions.
ergo, the most radical thing you can do to free others from the mass hypnosis of consensus thinking is to be yourself. and you have to bear only the definitions you lay on yourself.
imo, we're already creating the dream......from the very narrow possibilities we give ourselves. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 5:37 PMsulevay, we do not have different values, just perhaps different notions about cautioning people from using entheogens. you keep wanting to equate the two. you cannot accurately assume my relationship with consensus reality from my attitude of concern about extensive use of drugs, try as you might. i am not as predictable as that, thankfully.
i will say it again: people should be careful about how often they do entheogens, because they overstimulate your serotonin receptors over time and may very well result in a permanent trip if you don't give enough time after each experience for your brain to recalibrate, or if you do it too much. sulevay, you may have gotten away with it, but not everyone does.
"you were talking about drugs being limiting, which as an absolute is just an opinion, not a fact. i'm asking, why limit your options? "
you stopped listening somewhere along the way. i have never said they ARE anything, just that they could be, and that the likelihood of their becoming a TV-like wank or damaging goes up the more you do them. are you so sure you disagree with the actual me, or is it just the anti-drug stuffshirt you seem to be talking to in your mind? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 8:02 PMblue-j, yeah, okay, no biggie, just playing a bit of devil's advocate to your original post which did strike me as a bit overblown.
for the record i've done hundreds and hundreds of trips with recovery time figured in every time, with diet and nutrition figured in, with set and setting figured in, because i'm not a dumbass.
drugs only work b/c they mimic chemical reactions the brain is already wired for. nature does a nice job of offering alternative settings; the opportunity is built in. albert hoffman recently turned 102. www.wired.com/science/dis...006/01/70015
everything in moderation - including moderation! :-)
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 2:39 PMI've found our answer...
'Well you see, Norm, it's like this.. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.
In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.' -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 3:02 PM
this is hilarious Charles
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 6:18 PMhee!
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 4:26 PMsulevay wrote: ...not any moreso than decrying all drug use as valueless. pick your poison. :-) ...
>
On that note it's all about drug use, or more appropriately mind-altering substances. Just as most tend to support the popular erroneous notion that anything prescribed by the establishment is proper and anything not is lascivious and valueless as a vice, so goes discounting comparison with consumed mind-altering substances as opposed to self-produced mid-altering chemicals from moment to moment based upon our state of "being." The latter can be far more easily abused but because they are out of sight, out of mind, produced by the "establishment" of our constitution, they tend to be excused.
Actually, this brings to mind that the whole point of meditating and selecting states of beingness is more about selecting which chemicals to imbibe and which to suppress. Clearly adrenaline is largely considered the crack of mortality. Perhaps this is where science and philosophy can yet meet again, and concentrate on consciously directing the body to selectively produce one chemical over another or others. 5-10-15,000 years ago, or whenever mediating, acupuncture, table of elementals and relation to body characteristics, etc., were developed, although they didn't exactly know about these chemicals and how they were produced, it's clear to me they knew how they affected our state of being and how to control them.
Ok, stream of consciousness there...not sure if all that makes any sense. I'll read again later and touch up. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 5:11 PMskooter: what in existence *isn't* mind-altering?
every single thing that we make contact with alters the mix......
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 5:49 PMskooter, what you're saying is pretty clear to me. I wish my written stream made as much sense.
"...self-produced mid-altering chemicals from moment to moment based upon our state of "being." The latter can be far more easily abused but because they are out of sight, out of mind, produced by the "establishment" of our constitution, they tend to be excused. "
These words particularly struck me as being right on. And to take it one step further, the mind altering chemicals are only one perspective what is going on. The chemical / physical configurations of our mind-brains are being transformed, changed each moment as the never-ending neuroplastic process goes on. Our perceptual processes are continually altered. Maybe we never really see the same thing twice in the same way. In some small way we're always spiraling somewhere. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 6:33 PM"The latter can be far more easily abused but because they are out of sight, out of mind, produced by the "establishment" of our constitution, they tend to be excused. "
or perhaps it's because they have evolved over millennia to serve functions that largely coordinate with other functions and structures in the brain adaptively?
still, i agree. for example, just thinking about the serotonin and testosterone projections into the amygdala and how people indulge in abusiveness without invoking frontal cortical control of their harmful behavior because these substances are naturally present...
and as plastic as our brains are, there are strong circuits that have been selected for, and many we cannot function without. we are not everchanging shapeshifters with no nature. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 19, 2008 - 12:37 AMblue-j wrote: ...we are not everchanging shapeshifters with no nature....
>
They sure seem to be. There may be a basic/inherent nature but I say it's a very, very thin line of order/chaos. Especially considering our thought processes are only a harmony of the different regions of our brains rather than a centrally controlled structure. Anything and everything conspires to unhinge it at any given moment. Hence the ever-growing length of the DSM. And it is forever changing, adapting, continually learning. I may be exposing my ignorance but that seems like "shapeshifting" to me. No? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 19, 2008 - 12:08 PMwe are clearly the most behaviorally flexible creature on earth. that being said, there are things that are true i every single known culture!!! that is, there is a human nature. now, i would argue with pinker et al though about this, because our capacity to represent and metarepresent and fashion propositional premises of behavior as a result really undermines a rigid notion of human nature. we look around, and we can find someone somewhere doing just about anything imaginable. however, there are still strong trends. i suppose we could account for this by looking at how less flexible structures and more flexible structures interact in the brain in addition to the power of representation and ideas.
i always find donald brown's work on human universals fascinating:
condor.depaul.edu/~mfiddler...nivers.htm
this list is purportedly only comprised of phenomena found in every single known culture, with no exceptions. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 19, 2008 - 4:21 PMWell, as I said, I'm not in any way discounting there is a human nature, or trends in behavior. That would be a losing proposition so you're forking onto a well worn path. Just like saying that dolphins cannot stand erect on dry land - one could, given the right means - and so there's a trend. When, rather, I stated in response to your comment "we are not everchanging shapeshifters" that in large portion it appears that's exactly how our brains are intended to function for maximum adaptability - especially physically, in the case of injury. A thirty second stock video showing how neurons make physical connections is evidence enough of that.
At any rate, this is an aside. My original point, that you quoted, is chemical inputs, internally manufactured or externally selected, are functionally identical; see self-medicating. That is why made the observation of abuse of internally produced chemicals is often discounted as a vector. One is not more right or wrong, as you previously suggested; physical or systemic adaptations and functions or otherwise. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 19, 2008 - 4:28 PM"I stated in response to your comment "we are not everchanging shapeshifters" that in large portion it appears that's exactly how our brains are intended to function"
neurons, maybe, but they don't get to go rogue without causing effects on their neighbors (1000-10,000 in each direction!). that's why it becomes a game of jenga a little, and why change - though yes we are fairly plastic - is so hard. neural networks don't just flip and flop and shapeshift. also, if some network is deeply adaptive for you, or you think it is, that will resist change, even if that change is a secondary effect of a more desired shift.
"our brains are intended to function for maximum adaptability"
watch out for adaptationism. there are a large number of constraints on perfect adaptation. the best summary is in dawkins' "the extended phenotype" in the chapter called "constraints on perfection." the field of evolutionary psychology itself is based in part on a recognition that our brains are adapted for conditions we no longer experience! -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 1:20 AMblue-j wrote: ...perfect adaptation...
>
I've not mentioned or suggested anything of the sort. Again you seem to be discussing a different conversation than this one.
I'd really like to have a worthwhile discussion on this and, whether or not intentional, getting endlessly sidetracked isn't at all useful. If we're unable to accomplish that then I must step away. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 6:36 PM"our brains are intended to function for maximum adaptability"
this is a statement of perfect adaptation, isn't it?
shove your threat to disengage up your self-serious ass and skoot the fuck away into the bushes for all i care. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 7:14 PMYes, thank god tomorrow's Friday ;-)
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 11:43 PMblue-j wrote: ...this is a statement of perfect adaptation, isn't it?...
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No. It says "maximum adaptability." Meaning optimal ability to adapt to a wide range of conditions, and as I referenced, both mental and physical; the latter in the case of injury. Some of the things I've recently read about brain adaptation is pretty astounding and challenging long-standing establishment belief systems. I listened to a spot on NPR yesterday about folks with deafness developing the ability to hear a cacophony of sounds because the brain is trying to exercise itself for lack of input, and scientists using this phenomenon to, at least partially, restore some folks' hearing.
>
shove your threat to disengage up your self-serious ass
>
What the hell are you talking about, dude? A threat? LOL Like that's useful in this environment. You might want to reconsider my post after you've chilled. You 've way overreacted to misinterpretation.
Happy Full Moon Friday! -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 10:35 AMmaybe i'm misreading this, but i thought maximum adaptability is perfect in the sense it is maximum adaptability. i mean, if it's maximum, what more do you need?
isn't that what you're both saying?
i saw the nearly-full moon last night, and it was perty.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 1:41 PMsulevay wrote: ...isn't that what you're both saying? ...
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I'm definitely not. At the risk of being further misinterpreted, I'll attempt a finer explanation.
I very clearly agreed with the idea that we are adaptable within the confines of being human, because that's unavoidable and observed that it would be an odd and difficult proposition to ever suggest otherwise. In that context of [maximum, optimal, most favorable, or best, etc.] adaptability simply means adaptability to the extent that our biology allows. Even if that wasn't clear, my words suggest no state of perfection and I expected both of my explanations put that in context. Especially in this crowd, which I expect is comfortable with the concept that nothing could ever be perfect. Hell, I don't even have any idea what "perfect adaptability" might mean or entail, unless we're talking science fiction ALIENS here.
We aren't, are we? ;-) -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 3:19 PM"I don't even have any idea what "perfect adaptability" might mean or entail"
it's a common misconception in early students of evolution, including myself. it's the notion that all traits have been shaped by natural and sexual selection and suit circumstances very well due to that. adaptationism is the notion that all traits are indeed adaptations. the truth of the matter is that the timelag of the feedback loop of selection sometimes shapes traits that are out of sync with the present circumstances; that traits are often developmentally constrained by what's available, not by adaptive processes; that some traits are a result of the constraints of chemistry and physics, not adaptation, etc.
"In that context of [maximum, optimal, most favorable, or best, etc.] adaptability simply means adaptability to the extent that our biology allows"
well, no. traits sometimes are maladaptive. biology certainly allows plenty of inefficient ideas or hangers-on or ill mutations, etc.
we agree: nobody's perfect, including when any of us misspeaks and then acts like other people got them wrong. i've done it, too. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 6:19 PMblue-j wrote: ...it's a common misconception in early students of evolution, including myself. it's the notion that all traits have been shaped by natural and sexual selection and suit circumstances very well due to that. adaptationism is the notion that all traits are indeed adaptations....
>
Then, like I've said repeatedly, you're off on your own tangent and ascribing arguments and positions that I neither hold nor have voiced. You know a lot of things, but not so much you can't ask a clarifying question once in awhile instead of just interpreting everything and when someone points out you're heading in the wrong direction, you demand that your misinterpretation is precisely what they must have meant. Rather, it's what you brought to the conversation and, for the sake of good sense and conversation, would do well to, acknowledge, own and move past. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 12:17 PMokay skooter, next time you're not clear and say things that are very likely to be misinterpreted (i wasn't the only one, you might note), i'll be sure to take responsibility for it. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 1:29 PMblue-j wrote: ...okay skooter, next time you're not clear and say things that are very likely to be misinterpreted (i wasn't the only one, you might note), i'll be sure to take responsibility for it....
>
All passive aggressive sarcasm aside, if it will shorten up your excruciatingly obvious process of trying to win something at any expense, while absolving yourself of any responsibility, allowing us to quickly get back to productive conversation, then by all means please do. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 5:53 PMyes, let's move on. i want to reiterate that i in fact like you and value your contributions here. i am a peace-loving kitty and would like to return to the warm fire of yore!
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 5:30 PMyou were not misinterpreted, skoot master flex. you misspoke. "optimal" and "maximum adaptability" are synonymous with perfection. who cares? relax. i'm cool if you're cool. i appreciate your kind wishes and smiley faces.
: ) ( :
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 11:24 AM"Meaning optimal ability to adapt to a wide range of conditions"
optimal *means* perfect, as does "maximum adaptability." we agree that the brain is very flexible and amazingly adaptive, but (i'll say again) the interdependence of neural networks makes it a difficult game to change, so it is constrained in that way. also, as i wrote already, the brain has been shaped for millions of years by different conditions, and some of our systems are clearly obsolete in terms of their fitness with the modern world. we're obviously prone to "outsourcing" our adaptation to a degree with the brain extensions of technology and pharmacology, and this is shifting the playing field and moving to a different organizational level, but the mismatch and common maladaptiveness remains evident.
i wouldn't be so testy if you weren't claiming not being listened to, when in fact you are the one not listening! so, big deal, you have a little characterological twitch about not being heard or understood. i still like you and think you're very bright and know we can get around this bump in the road. but yes, you "threatened" to stop talking with me about these matters after complaining about not being listened to and all those pesky associational tangents you desired to control, and it pissed me off, since you had clearly not been listening yourself. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 1:19 PMblue-j wrote: ..optimal *means* perfect...
>
Actually, it doesn't. Especially in context of two explanations on the point. Perhaps I used the one word wrong, I thought better of it later, but the twice description makes obvious my intent. In any case I'm not interested in hashing semantics and getting upset and arguing about it, the very reason I was trying to politely be up front with that fact instead of being passive aggressively rude by just ceasing to respond. But thanks for the condescending critical psychoanalysis just the same, which is often observed as a projection of personal critique - this instance is no exception. There's really no excuse for it and I'm not willing to own it for you.
You have great things to say, I like engaging and being challenged by you, I've learned a lot. But when you get into your usual misinterpreting tangents, three times just here, and then get pissy and aggressive about it when someone points it out, well then it becomes not fun. I'll leave you to it. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 3:13 PMyour nom de tribe is well-fitted, skooter.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 6:47 PM"Again you seem to be discussing a different conversation"
ii really have no idea what you're talking about at this point. i find no thread you have begun that has been ignored.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 19, 2008 - 4:41 PM"My original point, that you quoted, is chemical inputs, internally manufactured or externally selected, are functionally identical; see self-medicating. That is why made the observation of abuse of internally produced chemicals is often discounted as a vector. One is not more right or wrong, as you previously suggested"
well, jeez, i'm not a big moralist guy, so i never meant any right or wrong kind of statement. however, it's oversimplified to say that chemicals are chemicals whether they are external or internal. again, internal neurotransmitters and enzymes and the like have millenia of evolutionary feedback loops behind them, and external ones don't have as much, though they do often coevolve with humans in interesting ways.
i'm told that michael pollan did some neat work on coevolution of pot and humans in "the botany of desire," and i do find it interesting to think about the relationship between endogenous DMT and the active form in psychoactive plants like ayahuasca. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 9:53 AM"it's oversimplified to say that chemicals are chemicals whether they are external or internal."
Blue, evolution aside, what is the difference if one meditates to arrive at a specific state or if one ingests a drug to arrive at essentially the same state? Or if a external circumstances cause one to become angry or if one's thoughts generate the same anger?
Internal or external - what difference does it make if one feels approximately to be in the same state of mind? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 1:20 PM
Charles, the one who has "realized" may take drugs, may have sex and reach extremes of elongated orgasms lasting days or weeks... but his state i.e. the "natural state" of his remains the same whether he is on drugs, sex, or doing cross word puzzles.
In Sufism they have a nice way of describing this...
Sama is the state of spiritual ecstasy, it is reached through certain practices of devotion, zekr (mantra), etc. I.E. instead of drugs, actual practices are used
Fana is when the person has realized this height of consciousness that was being reached through Sama as his "natural ordinary state" as such, he never leaves this. This person can still participate in Sama... act out the spiritual ecstasy... but there is no shift of his underlying state
...
Samadhi and Fana are pretty much one and the same... there is minor differences in the methods used and how it looks like based on the practices performed, but they are one and the same...
In short, Meditation is when you can focus your mind on one idea/thought/object and leave it there unwavering... this is a Mastery over Mind!
When such Mastery becomes effortless, all of a sudden the individual practioner's falls out of his own identity and becomes That which he is concentrated on...
Here's an example of a Samadhi experience... Samadhi begins where I say "He is He" that is "Ocean is the He, and Ramiel is the other"
Ramiel wrote this while he was surfing the Ocean of Fana while also
maintaining his grounded individual-self-truth (the beginning of Fana)
then He was He, and Ramiel was only a board on the Ocean without a
Surfer.... it was the Ocean who was Surfing Board (the Board is who
you thought was Ramiel!)
Samadhi is the great Key
I found there is no point really talking about what I realized through Samadhi... it won't even make sense to anyone unless they too are in Samadhi... the importance is only showing the way to it.
From that Key everything else can be discovered gradually.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 7:07 PMRamiel, our perspectives differ greatly, as does our language and how we interpret what reality is. This isn't a one-ups-manship thing, it's just we hold radically different concepts in our own personal approaches as why we see things as we think we do. And as I've mentioned in the past - I see any preoccupation with remaining in such states you continue to refer as a mechanical and instantaneous catapulting of the mind into a domain which buffers the glare of the moment - that which is sitting right in front of us.
For instance, I don't believe that there's such thing as one 'who has realized'. Nor do I believe in what you refer to as samadhi, nor do I see any reality to the concept of the of 'mastery over mind'. Nor do I believe it's possible to attain a state for any significant period of time in that one may think they are seeing an underlying state from some super-conscious plateau.
This isn't to say there's not substantial latitude in what we experience, because I think there is and when I think about it, it's really incredible - though personally I don't see it as having anything to do with anything being spiritual (at least for myself), and to take it one step further - with relation to this tribe, I don't think an individual has any control whatsoever over their present state. I see our state (whenever we happen to be fortunate to get what we think is a glimpse of it) as deterministically amounting to the 'then' state of that little galaxy that exists between our ears - nothing more really. Now, we can after-the-fact come to all sorts of conclusions, and by the time we figure this out - our personal galaxy has already reconfigured itself.
This little galaxy at any given moment in time is always a superposition of states, waves, electrons, photons, fireflies - however you want to characterize it. And of course, like all good galaxies, there are individual star systems which affect one another. They share light and other forms of electromagnetic energy not instantly, but on the scale of our minds, close enough for government work. So, we can be given the impression we're residing in one world and looking upon another. Yet, it's an integrated matrix, and the awareness of the configuration it holds itself in is always frozen and always in motion depending upon the relative phase and position of our active interconnected regions of mini-galactic awareness at any given moment.
If it's our fortune to glimpse certain configurations within our little galaxy, then great. If not, that's great too. Whatever configurations we do find ourselves in and for what lengths of time - well, this is beyond our control, and for anyone to claim they have control over the process or more control than any other being, then (in my opinion) this person sleeps deeper than the next.
People find themselves in states because that's where they are supposed to be at that given moment - not because they’ve mastered anything or were able to affect control over their minds, or had ascended to some illusory spiritual plateau.
If one remains in a state of being aware of experiencing awareness, then they are missing or ignoring what is immediately in front of them. If one is overly concerned about experiencing awareness then they have entered a further state of delusion. Other than for recreation, attenuated awareness is overrated. As I see it - there is nothing higher than merging with the moment selflessly (without so much as a hint of the awareness of self). -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 8:58 PM
Charles,
I have just two ways of understanding you so far...
1.) Through your journey, you have come to build an (my opinion) unhealthy resistance through perhaps a psychological-intellectual mechanism of rationalizing your avoidance of spirit. It seems to me that you have built a structure around and within yourself isolating you from experiencing anything beyond your self. Hence your meditation and experiences all seem limited within your own physical rational being. Hence there is a lot of truth in what you say, though in my perspective only applies to a very small finite dimension of what I call the Great Reality. However, you still make some sense to me with regards to Truth as you have learned to remain present and began to experience within the closet around yourself with a lot of clarity.
2.) You've found another path to reach the same "natural state" which I'm speaking of... and in that sense, we would agree at what the destination looks like, except in my experience it seems obvious to me that you would be missing knowledge about many dimensions which you isolated yourself from.
At the end you said "there is nothing higher than merging with the moment selflessly (without so much as a hint of the awareness of self"
That statement right there which you made is what I would call the very first beginning of Samadhi... and that which you called there is "nothing higher" is only the beginning of Samadhi... the great opening to Infinite Knowledge and eventually leading to Realization for a few. It's perhaps like this Charles, a tree will have many leaves and fruits, perhaps one of them may roll and end up in a situation allowing it to be fertile and grow to another tree.... hence, seekers of truth will be many. This in a sense is the evolutionary process.... the one you mentioned of the heard. Though to perceive how the Evolution of Consciousness is truly happening, in my experience requires the view-point of Samadhi.
I would like to let you know that you can be the greatest mind, highest IQ, having studied every science known to man and practiced every form of meditation, met every Saint/Guru/Monk/Lama/Alien/Whatever and you still may not know the meaning of spirituality. It is just a different dimension... and I realize to a structured in a box mind-set, you just may not be able to see it.
It is all your choice what you see... i would be careful though about saying that you know this is how it is... this appears vividly to me as dogma of your own which you are creating. I accept that you are doing what works for you, what you feel safe and secure with, what you feel is healthy way of being; and no doubt you are a kind hearted, loving, intelligent, and healthy human being.
You have chosen your path, and now you will just continue with it as deep as you can go. For you, there is no other way to see things... that's what I get when I ask within about you.
Charles, we're just not going to agree, and let's agree at that.... since I know for myself, and you for yourself.
You've got your own truth, and it has given you a healthy way to live... what's really the need for you at this point to learn about all this other 'non-sense' stuff I'm talking about... I don't really see any need for you for this... at least not at the stage and place you are in this life.
I've learned greatly many things through your perspective... you have developed a very limited scope view, and then you have spent a lot of time greatly discovering it... there is much to your knowledge that I may never realize, and I'm honored to know you.
Regarding Samadhi... very few people will ever know this experience... and the few that do, very few even will know that they really had this experience or not. And many that do have this expereinced, get washed away and lost in it, one of my previous-teachers being one of those.
Charles, it could be said from your perspective, and in this I would somewhat agree that only certain people have the genetic make-up for Samadhi consciousness to emerge, and different people to different degrees. There is an interesting book I read which made references to the genetic make up limitations for people to realize the full Kundalini awakening... the book is by Pandit Gopi Krishna en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopi_Krishna Gopi Krishna's book might be of some assistance to you if there is any opening for you to perhaps see something new.
Respectfully,
Ramiel
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 9:18 PMwell, personally....and i'm just blabbing an opinion here with whatever perspective i'm capable of, but.....
"you have learned to remain present" is about all there is, while
"what the destination looks like" makes a huge assumption that a destination of some kind exists outside remaining present.....which strikes me as absurd.
samadhi , nirvana, enlightenment, et al, is the ultimate carrot-on-a-stick being dangled in front of the ever-hungry ego to compel it to keep the hampster wheel turning. "not this- but that!" - and it's always just beyond whatever state we've decided is not quite IT. and on and on and on....
in this sense, the race toward enlightenment is the narrow cage, while being present to the moment, as is, is infinite, beyond definition.
drop all beliefs and reality is what's left. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 9:35 PM
sulevay,
I know exactly what you are trying to say regarding "destination"
"destination" isn't to mean it will reach an end... it's just the beginning...
for example, one destination is the state of Bodhisattva i.e. having returned from Samadhi into ego-consciousness (means individual consciousness) and remaining in a "Natural State" you may call this "living as presence with a purpose"
From Illusion we go to Reality
Then from Reality we find there is a veil holding both Illusion and Reality inside what we can only call as "Presence" the "Here Now"
In the "Here Now" we come to know a "Power"
as I contemplated on the quality of that "Power" I found there is a Self beyond Presence
it just keeps getting clearer and deeper
though yes, being Present is the way to "Being"
yet "Being" is an "art"
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 10:33 AM>In the "Here Now" we come to know a "Power" <
yeah, ramiel, i think one key difference between our perspectives might be that i'm not interested in power.
in myself, the need for power comes from fear.....of everything "else".
since this "else" is created by my limited perceptual mechanisms, even tho i'm already utterly connected to the whole energetic matrix, whatever that may be - because where else can i be? - there's no need to be afraid. hence power to transcend, overcome, escape, control - isn't really needed. there's no place to go that isn't it. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 6:44 PM
sulevay,
I think again you misunderstood what I'm saying about power.
I mentioned that beyond the realm of "Reality" and "Illusion" is Presence
"Presence" by nature has a power... it's power is the ability to be "natural" "calm" "alive" "able to let things be"
It is a very specific power...I think you may need to understand that "power" in different realms of consciousness means different things, yet there is no place where there is no power.
Next time you are working on being present, notice the power behind presence... it is not a "personal" power... it has nothing to do with you... you can call it the power of existence, the power of moment, the power of God... whatever you call it ... the power that is keeping your heart beating and you breathing...
if you focus on the quality coming through (in this example being power)... then shift your focus to where the power is coming from (i.e. you'd have to be fully able to let go of power to know what I"m referring to you)... then I found that this power is coming from a Self
had I had inclination to hold on to the power, I would not have been able to make reference to the Self
It seems for someone to even understand what I'm talking about, I'd have to write quite a bit to first understand the context.
It's just too much effort, and it seems I'm just going to be resigning, as each person will read what I wrote and they will understand it through their own universe/view-point and will have no idea where my point of reference is... and hence my view point appears to be dramatically different, and I will certainly be misunderstood with great contrast -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 7:21 PM>Next time you are working on being present, notice the power behind presence... <
ah-ha-ha! darlin', i don't *work* on being present. 'tis a silly notion, imo.
presence is present all the time. it doesn't need "me" to do anything - and vice -versa!
i think i understand you pretty well, actually. if "presence, by nature", has the power "to let things be", then who is wanting to mess with it? not me..... -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 7:48 PM
sulevay, I suppose you are right, it is very rare that a particle will swim upstream against the stream and back into the fountain it came from. As such, it is very rare when we can know the depth behind the veils.
If you had understood what I was trying to write, beyond the realm of "reality" and "illusion" there is no individual consciousness... actually it becomes a no-body-consciousness. Yet, still beyond that veil too, there exists the Self of which I know and wrote to you about. This is deep stuff, not things that can merely be "understood".
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 9:01 PMRamiel, in a very subtle way you are inferring that everyone here is an idiot, either that or they're asleep or they don't understand you or are incapable of understanding you or they don't have the desire or drive or capabilities to put it all together for themselves.
"It's just too much effort, and it seems I'm just going to be resigning, as each person will read what I wrote and they will understand it through their own universe/view-point and will have no idea where my point of reference is... and hence my view point appears to be dramatically different, and I will certainly be misunderstood with great contrast"
And here you're really sounding like a cry-baby - like you're so misunderstood it's really not worth you wasting your time. Yet, look how you are spending it.
It's like you're throwing up your hands and crying, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". And even *if* you were right - unless you fathom where another person is coming from and move yourself to and communicate at precisely that level of those you are interacting with - you'll just never know.
Give it up - you're just another person with an angle, that's all. Join the friggin' club. Water's great. Honest. Jump on in. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 9:20 PM
Response to Charles as he wrote "unless you fathom where another person is coming from and move yourself to and communicate at precisely that level of those you are interacting with - you'll just never know. Give it up - you're just another person with an angle, that's all. Join the friggin' club. Water's great. Honest. Jump on in."
#1: When I focus my mind on addressing the specific person, then another person will mis-interpret. There's just now way for me to individualize my posts... it doesn't work.
#2: When I write directly from my experience, the words I use etc are getting mis-interpreted... they are being compared and identified with other things like religions, fairly tales, etc.
Charles, what I'm saying is not that others are idiots... rather, that when I say one thing, and the angel I'm speaking from, it is clearly (from my perception) being perceived as having come from a different perspective (a perspective that is more compatible by the reader, for example it would fit better to categorize me as coming from an egotistical confused perspective than actually noticing that this guy (me) may have some points that might be saying something I may just not know about yet...)
...
It seems, the surface and shallow wisdom is widely accepted
as it does not challenge your views
in order to "Join the friggin' club"...
There's no "joining" a club for me Charles... that's what you can't seem to get.
There is no "club" in my perspective
here's how it works
we each have "circles" we have "circles" of friends, "circles" of culture, "circles" of popular views
each individual generally belongs to many circles
and those individuals also do not fit in many circles
I will appear to be in a circle... since wherever I may be, surely there will be some "circles" who believe they have claimed this space
just like countries are split up, states, cities, streets, etc... so is the Ocean of One-ness being claimed into "Circles" and eventually "egos"
In order to communicate, I have to use words, I have to make references... that doesn't mean that is view of which I'm writing about
in each circle, for example folks in this thread, a person seems to only hear my words as if they are coming from a "circle" that person accepts
I'm writing from a non-circle view...
though my ability to put what that view into words is hardly effective
hence "it's really not worth you wasting your time. Yet, look how you are spending it. "... by writing here I'm learning
perhaps this is what I need to do in order to adjust and make sense
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 10:34 PMRamiel, a couple of things...
"When I focus my mind on addressing the specific person, then another person will mis-interpret."
If this happens regularly, you might be the one that's misinterpreting. Have you considered this?
"...the words I use etc are getting mis-interpreted..."
I can only tell you how I see it, and that is you're coming off as some sort of spiritual guru. Like you're sharing with us all these experiences of these super-conscious states (which probably many don't have a clue what you are talking about) and backing them up with a bunch of religious/spiritual sources and jargon, and preaching to us that this is where it is at, and that because others haven't achieved your 'states' and your depth, and can't understanding the absolute and irrefutable reasons as to why you have them, that they reside in some sort of underworld and dwell in ignorance. C'mon, really - you can't see this at all?
Your perspective is no more rational or correct than anyone else's. What makes you think it is so special? Or that others' wisdom and understanding is so shallow?
I don't know. Maybe it's time to expand your circles - ones you don't normally fit into. Maybe it's time for some acting classes or working out in a gym in the wrong part of town. Or putting on some dark glasses and walking around with a tin cup in a place where you'd never find yourself - so your ocean of one-ness can begin to encompass more.
"...and the angel I'm speaking from..." Do you think this might be a Freudian slip ;-) -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 11:33 PM
Ahh Charles... in circles we run playing the mirror game... again that's how I've been perceived...
yes Charles, I do see from your perspective that's how everything looks... and I do accept this is truth in that circle you are speaking from.
ethics and truth are defined by the circle you are in
though if you put me in your circle, you will loose all sense of your truth, as you would find no circumference to this circle I'm in...
as such, you will only perceive me mad or dumb... you will perceive me as illusioned... this is how pie looks too! there must be no reason to randomness! I am the reason beneath madness... there is reason within the depth of madness (pie 3.14...) there is truth beneath this, there is truth regarding the end of pie... that there is no end as there is no-Self and that is
honor is to protect and serve the secrets of men
even the Self-One has honor, and as such, honor is the veil
only in humiliation can the no-self be distinguished from the Self-One
under neath our veils of names and identities,
within some of us is alive this Soul
it is the One Soul
the Soul of Life itself
it is only alive within some of us, not alive within all of us
because some of us are not more than dead echo's of the Soul
it is sad to know what I'm saying
know that even a drop having no veil, still holds form
when the drop stops holding form
he will have seen that what is within him, is the same as what is outside of him
hence it is neither an explosion, nor an implosion when the drop realizes it is the Ocean
here is where the drop became the remnants of the dead echo's of Soul...
(visualize drops of the ocean at the beach front...
as each of these drops appears to loose form, it makes a sound...
the sounds of all of these drops loosing form is the UnTruth Splashes!
and this where all this Mis-Interpretation Talk begins! I'm speaking of the Ocean!)
the drop was the form, the Surf Board
substance of the Surfer is the same substance of One Ocean
drop this veil, drop this form, live here in humiliation... butt naked as me
yes, I can't be humiliated because I am butt naked beneath even humiliation
I searched for myself so deep, that I become compulsively more humiliated/naked
I have been searching for any sense of honor within myself since long ago (even before this birth)
I know that if there is any honor, I have reached the only True Honor, the Only True Self
this True Self is the no-self.... that is the Truth! To know that there is No Self!
The Self can only speak UnTruth in order to guide you back to Truth
If Self spoke Truth, it could Not Speak!
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 22, 2008 - 12:02 AMRamiel, you're just some dude with a God complex. What's more - you can't control it. You're stuck there and can't get out. When life situations and people try to point this out to you, you just recede deeper into your 'states' and associated spiritual lingo - your safe place. Seems pretty obvious. What more can I say? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 22, 2008 - 12:24 AM
Charles,
While you are trying to "reason" (finding a way to label me as mad or dumb just as I said before)... and might I add you are quite pleased with your reasons, so much as you would say "What more can I say?"
Rather than "reasoning" how or why Ramiel (as that just leads you to reason him being mad or dumb) consider that point irrelevant for a moment of thought
And Ask, could it be, beyond everything I (Charles) know, beneath all my assumptions, mind structures, and far above, and far beyond, and extending all limits to bound-less-ness.... there beyond where I can hold any sense of relevance.... could there be Truth in such infinite?
Charles when the "top of your head blew off" for a short moment in your life.... in that far beyond you... in that insane madness which there appears to be no reason... there a part of your consciousness faded... and once you returned from that state, only your physical sensation remained... that is why you now continued the search in such a limited dimensional way.... you lost your ability to ground your individual consciousness beyond your body/mind... or perhaps you have not yet realized this could be built... and if so, you are far bigger than you thought you are
ahh yes... Ramiel must have run away in his corner hiding again? I'm standing right in front of you, all around you, inside of you, and outside of you... I do not see any corners, nor circumference of my own... though there are many circumferences around
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 22, 2008 - 12:58 AM
as such, my object of meditation was Consciousness itself
a consciousness of consciousness with no other object
all mental functions pause, and there is only consciousness
sometimes, even all physical functions pause... breathing, heart, brain
Mind must be very strong to be able to remain while not being concentrated on anything
selflessness, no mind, no duality, no subject-object relationships -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 22, 2008 - 1:05 AM
as circumstances require, I am able to move from consciousness of my own consciousness (Savikalpa Samadhi) to total absorption (Nirvikalpa Samadhi) back and forth... that's how I write.... it seems as soon as I go to Nirvikalpa, at some point later I return then I am able to write about it... though even in Nirvi Kalpa consciousness is conscious of consciousness... or awareness is aware of awareness... how else can I put this? who will know how significant this is? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 22, 2008 - 1:12 AM
I guess one way that Charles and I could understand each other... is if Charles saw me this way...
Ramiel is one who comes, and goes
when he comes, he seems to be the most normal clear person
and when he goes, he seems to be the most mad insane person
when Ramiel comes... that is the "natural state" where it is easy to relate to anyone
when Ramiel goes... that is where the is no object-subject-relationships, no mind, no duality, just consciousness conscious of consciousness, essence cognizant of essence, awareness aware of awareness
back and forth... yin and yang through the little circles of opposite colors.... this is my dance for now
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 22, 2008 - 2:55 AM"...just consciousness conscious of consciousness, essence cognizant of essence, awareness aware of awareness... little circles of opposite colors... this is my dance for now"
Ramiel, your states and descriptions and your rationale behind them don't interest me; hearing about them again and again is sort of like listening to a broken record. I'd actually prefer speaking with the young woman behind the counter at Starbucks.
There's no reason really to continue to argue the issue - you can read back through this thread - I've shared my ideas on this subject with you.
Keep on dancing - I have no problem with that. I just don't want to be your partner. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 22, 2008 - 9:39 AM
It's addressing whomever,
had I written with the intention to make or keep friends
we would be not in here reading this post
...
alone, unwelcome, and cornered in this circle I am
...
neither tainted myself, nor I complied in mis-representing the view I spoke of
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 22, 2008 - 1:08 PMi never quite understand how seeking special states, and dissection of reality into hierarchies can be claimed as non-dualistic thinking.
ramiel, i don't think you're misunderstood because you're so out there, i think you're misunderstood because you're contradicting your own testimony.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 1:04 PMSuleway,
It takes no effort for the state (lack of better word) of consciousness I speak of... when effort ceases, and all that remains is consciousness, this is what I'm speaking about. If anything can be called a no-state this is it.
However for this, one would need to drop all concepts, mental structures, limiting beliefs, logic, etc. It's a full letting go, and allowing what is.
When this happens, all sorts of knowledge may flow in. For me personally, it began by realizing that we're not alone, there are many beings, entitities. By realizing that everything is alive, the trees, flowers, and learning that I can communicate with them. By realizing that even celestial beings like planets are alive, and further and further it goes.
It's like this... imagine you sit in a time machine. If you push the time machine to go 100, 200, even 500 years in the future, it won't be too much out of imagination. What if you could let go for it to go millions of years, infinitely going. To allow for that, there is a really big letting go, and letting be.
If surrender doesn't lead to greater knowledge, knowledge which is transcended/beyond... I would say than you (anyone) have no surrender.
This of course reminds me of the Buddha's teaching about Gone Gone, Gone Beyond, Gone Beyond Being Gone, There! Mind Enlightened... i.e. Gate Gate, Para Gate, Para Sim Gate, Bodhi Swaha!
And yes... we can begin to come out of the "Illusion" (altered states) and "reality" (perception of the conventionally accepted state of consciousness, the everyday simple one) then we lead beyond into the space of "Presence" what folks like Eckhart Tolle called the "Now". In this "NOW" our senses of self are meaningless, and slowly a new consciousness (new to the mass) begins emerging. But this is only the beginning of baby steps for collective consciousness. Eventually, the goal is for the collective consciousness to be aware of the NOW... this is why so many people think they are "awake", since they began experiencing the now and realized their whole life sobbing story was a fiction.
Beyond this NOW is the realization of the nature of NOW, and how NOW is emerging... that is going into the depth and source of NOW. Of this, the first thing which is noticed is the "Power of Now" again, something Eckhart Tolle wrote a book about so this is all super common knowledge.
Slowly, as the "Power" of Now and the nature of this "Power" is known slowly we go to realizing the Self which this Now is empowered from... this continues to ever deepen.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 6:31 PM>If surrender doesn't lead to greater knowledge, knowledge which is transcended/beyond... I would say than you (anyone) have no surrender. <
who sez? just because you say it, and believe it, doesn't make it so. you're simply putting words to your subjective experience, and then claiming you know more than other people do.
you can believe your subjective experience, that's fine. but i don't believe your subjective experience, and i'm not impressed with the knowledge you supposedly find. in fact, my subjective experience is that you're talking out of your hat. i could be wrong about that.....but i'm not here to gain "knowledge" anyway. knowledge is just the brain colonizing reality to suit its own purposes.
which is THE great cosmic joke on all of us, from what i can tell.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 12:19 PM"in myself, the need for power comes from fear"
so, do you think this analysis of power works for other species? are male elephant seals clashing with each other in a hierarchy in order to mate merely driven by psychological personal fear that should be overcome by meditation? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 6:22 PM>so, do you think this analysis of power works for other species? are male elephant seals clashing with each other in a hierarchy in order to mate merely driven by psychological personal fear that should be overcome by meditation?<
i don't think we can compare it to an animal's emotions, because, so far as we can tell, they do not self-reflect. in the case mentioned, the drive to mate is more pure, as fear of rejection or of not passing on one's gene's isn't consciously present.
humans, being self-reflective, are also more prone to self-generated fears, pretensions, and excessive scheming. :-) -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 12:05 AMsulevay wrote: ...so far as we can tell, they do not self-reflect....
>
As an aside, I believe there's sufficient evidence showing that a few do: elephants, orangutans, chimps and gorillas.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 1:10 PM"i don't think we can compare it to an animal's emotions, because, so far as we can tell, they do not self-reflect"
you're very right that we have capacities that other animals don't have, and we're different, but the burden of your position would have to be to explain why the nature of power, dominance, and social hierarchy should be expected to change utterly between, say, chimps and humans, creatures with many, many features in common.
i am not excusing assholes or oppression here -- power in the form of resistance like feminism and anti-racism are as valid as their opposites biologically speaking (and more so morally speaking) -- but i do think that a post-hierarchic idealism is unrealistic. power accrues necessarily, at least until we can find a regulatory political system that is so craftily architected that it is incorruptible. i'm willing to try, but it's a very very very hard problem to solve.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 12:05 PM"Then from Reality we find there is a veil holding both Illusion and Reality inside what we can only call as "Presence" the "Here Now" "
perception involves mediation, so we can never perceive pure reality except as an inference or in the act of participation. i shy away from the term "illusion" because it usually is used to discount an experience. experiences are always phenomenologically valid, it's out interpretations of them that get into the realm of illusion and delusion.
"I found there is a Self beyond Presence"
since all matter is continuous, notions of discrete entities such as a "self" are practically useful but not essentially true. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 1:58 PMblue-j: "perception involves mediation, so we can never perceive pure reality except as an inference or in the act of participation."
Perception involves awareness or cognition. Meditation involves mindfulness, focus, recognition, inference, and feeling among other phenomena.
All things and phenomena arise from emptiness in dependence upon appearance to mind, naming, and imputation. The things we normally see do not exist... -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 3:20 PM"The things we normally see do not exist..."
don't go there.
they exist of course. you sound weird or like you're being tricky when you say this. the proper way to articulate this concept is that our observations are mediated by mentation, perceptual mechanisms and limitations, and the like, and we can only get a slice of the pie. we do think OF things, perceive STIMULI, etc. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 6:35 PMblue-j: "don't go there. "
I go there all the time and I'd like very much to abide there.
"you sound weird or like you're being tricky when you say this."
Of course things exist, but the mind of delusion is weird and tricky, it convinces us that things inherently exist in a way that they actually do not. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 10:46 AM"Of course things exist, but the mind of delusion is weird and tricky, it convinces us that things inherently exist in a way that they actually do not."
okay then, stop saying things don't exist and start saying they don't exist only as we perceive and think about them. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 11:00 AMI think if you read carefully, that is what I have been saying all along. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 12:12 PM"The things we normally see do not exist..."
i quote.
i'm just suggesting a different rhetorical style, not trying to correct your insight, which i agree is right on. i bother because this rhetorical line can lead people to a kind of disregard for the physical immediacy of experience, their bodies, and the like. saying something doesn't exist, or is an illusion, is different from saying it is mediated and partial. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 1:54 PMYes, and I agree. Without a correct understanding of emptiness one might fall into the extreme view of nihilism. Interpretation of hat quote hinges on the word 'normally'... -
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Unsu...
Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 2:26 PMI like the way we share here - all of it -
there comes some vulnerability with sharing -
It does not matter if we are understood
What matters is that parts are taken
according to capacity
Thank you ALL
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 5:56 PMaye, ma'ya, tis time for a group hug and maybe some watermelon and live music, says i! (pirate voice)
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 5:55 PMit's tricky stuff, michael, this saying things that can't be said. you are a sweetie and i meant no offense by my correction. we are very much birds of a feather, flying in emptiness.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 24, 2008 - 6:36 PM"All things and phenomena arise from emptiness in dependence upon appearance to mind, naming, and imputation. The things we normally see do not exist..."
Michael, a couple posts back you wrote the above. By going off in this direction it appears you're saying things don't exist, at least things we see do not. Maybe this is what led blue off track.
First, I really don't know if there is such a thing as emptiness. Yeah, I know it sounds good and everything, but the cast and crew that populate our mind never all take coffee breaks at the same time. There's always someone on set. This doesn't mean that Freddie, whose job it is to let everyone else know that the camera is running, doesn't take breaks. In fact, he's probably the laziest of the bunch - ever since he got that new girl friend of his. Yet, when I think about it, it seems like he always has a new girl friend.
I think I know where you're going with this 'emptiness' thing; it's a classic explanation, yet I don't know if it's really accurate or correct. Maybe there's a strong analogy with respect to certain types of sensory phenomena diminishing, for a time even disappearing - though at the expense of what? There's always someone manning the ship.
Regardless of what we're seeing - the seeing in itself is a type of existence. It seems irrelevant whether or not our internal representations are deemed accurate to ourselves or others. In the moment they occur - they are what is, and that is our reality for that instant, and that reality is the only reality there will ever be for us at that moment - until, of course, another member of the cast tells us we're full of it ;-)
And we'll probably forget it anyway. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 11:03 AMSometimes folks confuse emptiness with nothingness. Would it help if I said that all things and phenomena are devoid of inherent meaning? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 1:03 PMthis is a great question. i find the term emptiness to be off-putting usually in conversation. it's also not really that accurate in a sense. i often get physical with it and talk about gamuts of vision as a pathway. the bee cannot see red, yet it can see ultraviolet. we can see red, but only up to violet. which of our experiences is real? both. the manner in which i experience red differs from the bee, but our experiences are both valid. it seems very likely this means the essential pre-perceived signals cannot be entirely experienced, that all perceptual mechanisms have a limited detection range. well, if that's the case -- and you know, come to think of it, only one "thing" is limitless, so it must be the case -- then all living beings' experience must not be the entire picture. there must be "more than this."
the only questionable premise in this sequence is the idea of how much we can safely infer. there is probably NOT an infinite range of stimuli external to us; again, perhaps infinity is a meaningless concept (except in reference to one "thing"). certainly living beings' capacities to perceive evolve as reflections of their environment; otherwise, they would not survive. so, perhaps the notion of not being able to infer that which we cannot directly perceive can be overstated. even consider the pathway by which we can speak of the bee's vision. we infer that EM radiation comes in a range of forms from various modalities and measurements. these inferences seem fairly reasonable, to the point that we can speak of what we believe to be the case for the bee. however, perhaps there are creatures or stimuli that are so outside of the range of our perception and measuring abilities, that we cannot even imagine them. if so, they would have to have negligible effects on our survival, i should think, or else evolutionary epistemology would dictate a likeliness of mechanisms evolved to sense them. that's certainly doesn't have to be true though. perhaps there are completely undetectable creatures permeating our lives as we speak, effecting us in as yet unknown ways.
emptiness consists not only in understanding beyond perceptual limits, but limits imposed on experience via mentation, representation, as well, not to mention the meaning of time. maybe "preter-conceived reality" is a good term? doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. ideas?
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 3:25 PMMichael, yeah, that definitely changes things - but I have to be honest with you - the consideration of the new idea sent my mind to a place where I couldn't attach to an immediate answer - feels good actually. So, maybe that in itself is part of the answer, hmmm. I'll let it stew for a while and get back.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 26, 2008 - 1:17 AMMichael, they may be devoid of inherent meaning to us prior to experiencing them, but even if we haven't developed a relationship with a thing or a phenomenon, it's possible we have either a genetic predisposition to react in a specified way or it's likely we'll automatically react on a best-guess basis from previous experiences.
Anything that touches our senses leaves a trace; actual physical pieces get welded into place, and this either begins to form or embellishes everything we'll experience in the future. While it may be possible to disassociate from or to redirect sensory information, this is in itself a type of trade-off, though I guess in a sense to some degree it is possible to rewire ourselves, maybe alter our meaning and significance and transform the way we react. So, it may be possible to change our relationship, yet there is still meaning - we've just programmed ourself to react differently. And even such re-programming has limitations when it butts up against high-priority type reactions required for survival.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 1:11 PM"First, I really don't know if there is such a thing as emptiness. Yeah, I know it sounds good and everything, but the cast and crew that populate our mind never all take coffee breaks at the same time. There's always someone on set. "
you misunderstand emptiness. it's actually not empty. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 3:08 PMThat's what I was trying to convey.
'There's always someone manning the ship.' -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 3:13 PMwhy is there someone always manning the ship? are we counting rocks as "someones"? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 3:58 PMSeems like we're hooked-up with this really neat contraption that sails right along. You crack it over the head, and it will do the best it can to get back on course - without a hint of what we might term conscious intervention. It has a hellofa crew, most of who are nameless. The ones with names add a new dimension as to the efficiency of the journey, yet they at times seem to get in the way.
I guess a rock in your kidney would be a someone in the sense it would stir the winds and change the course of the ship. Any rock that impinged upon our senses or the physical constitution of our being, whether or not we were aware, would in a sense be counted at some level - maybe not so much as a someone, but a something. It boils down to what rocks have an effect upon the sea we sail - it's a matter of degree. I guess in a sense it's all one big ocean - it's whatever rocks our boat. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 4:33 PMyou aren't seeing things from the rock's (lack of ) vantage point. that's what i was asking about. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 5:20 PMHow could we see things from a rock's vantage point other than by conjuring up an image from within our own? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 5:42 PMyou're right, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist... not as experienced by someone, but as real in and of itself. what qualities could a rock be said to have without an observer? well, i think we can infer some things. for example size is relative, but perhaps dimensions are not in the same way. permeability may also be relative, but density is not. color is relative, but molecular relations with light are not. there is something out there we can't see or touch directly... experience snaps into shape, our bubble of perception again and again meeting the stimuli out there in the middle to provide a particular experience of it. i think it's possible to have a kind of experience of this pre-experienced being, because we are in it, too. we are made of it. people often use mammalian-centered metaphors like warmth or a light, but it contains that and more. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 6:45 PMLike your new pic... though it appears a few days in Baja might be in order.
It depends how you want to frame existence. Course from one point of view - the rock zipping at my head exists, but only as a concept. It's a bunch of moving swirly things clumped together, none of which are really ever in the same relationship to us or one another. It's size changes as its distance from us does. It's force changes as resistance to the atmosphere and gravity alter its trajectory, and as it spins - how it appears changes, though that's probably not even on our radar. So, it depends on your relationship to an object as to how you'll frame it. What we refer to as its existence is modified on a 'need to know' basis - though our relationship with respect to what its existence means to us is never the same from one moment to the next - not to mention that each bit of information about it that's harvested by our memory changes how we'll interpret its future existence and perceptions thereof.
Actually its size is changed slightly if we move or it moves, as does its color - ever so slightly. The instrument called our mind might not be sensitive enough to register these changes - nevertheless, they occur.
Course I'd agree that there's the thing called experience that zips right by in infinitesimally small increments, something we can never really get a good handle on - yet it does without a doubt get us by - along the sometimes rockier-than-other-times road.
I'm not certain what are referring to as 'pre-experience'. If it is what I think you mean, I'd say the mind can conjure up almost anything on the fly to validate a concept, and it has a nasty habit of substituting the concept for the validation.
I'd say there's nothing more we can experience other than what we're ultimately capable of perceiving with our senses.
But I need a bit more from you to comment.
Speak to me more about this 'pre-experience'. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 10:02 PMyou're being too anthropocentric, though you're wise to rely on experience itself. consider the meaning of natural selection and the meaning of our evolved perceptual capacities. they must reflect what is actually "out there" for an organism to be successful. we are also rather apparently made from the same stuff we perceive, at least the same sort of stuff. we regularly take large bits and put them in holes in our face, and then release other bits out. it seems there is a serious continuity going on, and the kind of hypersubjectivity you seem to be supporting is a bit unwarranted.
"Actually its size is changed slightly if we move or it moves, as does its color - ever so slightly"
its size may change, but do its dimensions? the color may change, but does its molecular make-up and relationship to specific wavelengths of light? there is something "out there." it's not all in our heads, it doesn't all rely on our perceptions to exist, and it doesn't all depend on how you frame it.
"Speak to me more about this 'pre-experience'. "
i'm talking about participating in the flowering of existence simultaneously with all things. this is not the same as experiencing in the normal sense, it is more like "being." "pre-experience" is a way of talking about such an "awareness" though it semantically fails. it's also a way of talking about metaperceptions about the totality, or viewing the totality THROUGH the experience. as i've said before, it's like the superset of all things -- something that is both not possible to experience but is also experienced through the forms of everyday lifem like an eternal horizon.
and thanks for the compliment on the pic. that's my little buddy emo, who died of stomach cancer last year. he was a dear friend!
days in baja for sure. sorry for my stress level, i am trying to manage the radiation! ; ) -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 26, 2008 - 12:32 AMI'm not so sure I'm being hypersubjective, and I think your post proves my point. I mentioned 'days in Baja'. It appears that you took that as me commenting on your stress level. When I looked at the picture of you and your cat, the fist thing I noticed was those pale shoulders contrasted with your tanned arms. I thought the sun would do you some good. So, those symbols which were the same for us both appear to have meant two completely different things. And this conflicting response to the experience of more or less the same thing was determined by our inner world and the state it happened to be in at a given moment. And I'd say the character of your mind when you read it determined your response, and that given the conditions that was the response you had to have.
Agreed we are all made of the same stuff, protons and electrons and an undisclosed number of nephews and nieces. Yet each one of the
many occupies a different location in the big game and this location means everything on a certain level. And when you overlay location
upon any of the members of the family - each is unique. And it's not only location with respect to the big game; it's location with respect to one another.
Yes, both size and dimension and wavelength subtly change when anything moves with relation to something else, as do subtle changes in the atoms themselves that compose the molecules. If you want to really get technical about it nothing is ever standing still. We're all always spinning at different speeds on the sphere we're on, and we're zipping round the sun, and the sun around the center of the galaxy and so on. As I said, it works on a need to know basis on what appears to be a grand scale. Apparently our senses evolved to minimize pretty much everything they didn't need for survival, which from one perspective could be seen as a very mechanical process - a cold blooded deterministic one devoid of choice - yet I realize such a POV is really pushing it, yet it just might embody a seed of truth.
I'm all for a flowering of existence, yet I seem to be having a difficult time connecting to the concept of pre-existence. It's like it's coming upon us from all directions but it's not quite here - just a tad off in the future. I tend more to think it's almost the opposite, that it's more of a question of eliminating the pre and the post. The closer we can get to approaching that peak as the frames speed through the projector - the more things seem to fall into place.
The blood is always being hosed upon one fire or another; it just has to get done, or at least we think it does. Endless little fires erupting, one after another, the smoke blocking that eternal horizon. Thank god it clears for a bit every once in a while - gives us a reason to keep on chuggin'.
And after all that - seems like we might both be pointing our finger at the same thing.
I lost my dog, Josh, at 15 last year. Still smartin' over that one.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 26, 2008 - 10:06 AM"I seem to be having a difficult time connecting to the concept of pre-existence"
i never said "pre-existence," but "pre-experience" and yes, it is a cumbersome term for it. i don't know how much i can add to what i've already said. it's a kind of metaperceptual inference maybe? maybe you'll like that better. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 26, 2008 - 11:03 AMWell, "pre-existence," and "pre-experience". Course, my error but there's a certain similarity about the ring - don't you think?
I get what you're saying. I think we're getting back to the issue of contrasting our subjective and limited perceptions and inability to fully understand our feelings against the backdrop of an underlying deterministic universe. When we get into that realm where we begin to compare our experiences with abstract ideas only capable of being conceptualized through our intellects, we come up with the pre-experiences and metaperceptuals and far outs and the like - sort of a throwing our hands up in the air and screaming about the joy of living on the planet Earth. It's about all we can do.
It's far friggin' out!
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 26, 2008 - 4:03 PMPre-experience/experience - I like to call it cognition and recognition - there is a moment after you are aware and before your brain begins naming. Then there is pre-cognition but that is a whole 'nother can of worms... -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 27, 2008 - 12:53 AMcognition - knowing or perceiving
recognition - to know or perceive again
When I look around the room as I'm thinking about how I'll respond to you - my eyes pass over hundreds, thousands of objects. They're not connected with my mission of putting together a response; they appear as a clumpy backdrop. I can isolate an object and just experience it without naming it. Like - do you name the toilet seat cover when you raise it. I don't, or at least I don't think I do. I'm probably more concerned about what I have to do when I get done in the bathroom.
The relentless chatter pervades my moment to moment life in varying degrees. Yes, I've learned how to curtail the chatter for periods of time but as the day chips away at me it begins to start up again, wavering in intensity as the day passes. I'll pull out of it for a time here and there, but I'm frequently working so many levels of interrupts deep by the middle of the day, that when one task is completed a thought of the next higher level will magically appear, until (if I'm lucky) at the end of the work day I'll be close to where I started out - though of course the remnants of many of the tasks of the different interrupt levels are still echoing. Sometimes during the day I'll be in the middle of a task and I'll have no idea of what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'll actually yell out loud, "Think, Think". Not that this really works, but it jostles me enough that generally what I'm supposed to be working on will surface and I'll be able to get back on track.
I don't think I name much during the course of the day, unless I have to communicate with others, which I try to keep to a minimum - which probably means about thirty per cent of the time. Writing, like right now, I'm listening to my own words and trying to get them down on the page, but this is just another form of communication; it's the process of consolidation of my thoughts, and an attempt to communicate with you. But when I look away from the screen and my eyes begin to flit about, I seem to be minimally processing visual information about what's around me, though I guess the thoughts are still churning without my awareness, because when I look back at the screen, more stuff comes out of my fingertips and I hear the words as I peck away.
So, back to cognition and precognition. Well, clearly there's an audio track that lumbers along which appears to be guided to some degree by stimuli I encounter in my immediate environment. And at times it jabbers away even when I'm in the midst of completing fairly complex tasks. I can displace it sometimes by injecting presence into what I'm doing, but as I said, the degree to which I'm able to affect this wavers dramatically at different times.
Again, back to cognition and precognition. Aside from the radio show that fades in and out, it appears that I don't name things unless I need to communicate. My mind is too preoccupied with the radio show much of the time to be concerned about naming things - except when I get focused. I get so focused on what I'm doing much of the time that the focus will drown out the show, along with others around me. I know they're waiting to speak with me or talking to me but I don't respond until that point when I'm at a certain interval in a task.
I'd say that cognition and recognition is an ongoing process of sorting out stimuli, bouncing everything back and forth between our immediate sensations and our memory. I see it as a seamless and transitory process that we have little (if any) control over. The pre and the post are arbitrary markers of our awareness that provide us with a rather clumsy way of framing the present and speaking about it, an experience we may or may not have any remembrance of. It depends upon how loud the radio was. When it does quiet down, our memories are altered and the moment gets entered as part of the record. But I really think this is out of our hands. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, April 2, 2008 - 3:29 PM
today's movie quote @ IMDB.com:
JOHN:
Free will.
It's like butterfly wings: once touched, they never get off the ground.
No, I only set the stage.
You pull your own strings.
(Al Pacino's character in The Devil's Advocate)
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 12:16 AMRamiel, when you ask me something, as best I can I will tell you what I think - that's all I can do. And though I may see things differently, I have no desire to change you or your path, nor do I feel the need for you to want to walk mine. It is what it is as is yours. With relation to concept and reason we seem to approach life differently. I tend to think we both play it out as we must, and I'm quite satisfied knowing you exactly the way you are - every single thought - every single hair.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 12:09 PM"nor do I see any reality to the concept of the of 'mastery over mind'"
yes, consider the infinite regress to the notion of control. it's analogous to cops. who polices the cops? internal affairs. who polices them? other cops? well, this gets circular quick. it's seems the notion of "regulatory loop" is more appropriate than something like mastery.
also, a peek in the brain reveals the same truth. the frontal lobe, the "president" of the brain, can't do shit without the rest, and in fact is subject to impeachment if it tries to close its grip too hard. and that ends up being no fun at all.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 6:37 PM"Blue, evolution aside, what is the difference if one meditates to arrive at a specific state or if one ingests a drug to arrive at essentially the same state?"
usually it's that when the drugs wears off, you can't initiate the state again without it, so you're more dependent on something external. also, the chemicals involved are usually different and have different effects, though perhaps overlapping quite a bit. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 21, 2008 - 12:06 AM> usually it's that when the drugs wears off, you can't initiate the state again without it
I've heard this proposition before. In the main, I haven't experienced it that way. But if most people do, it explains the conversations at cross purposes I've had with my junkie friend...
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Tue, March 18, 2008 - 1:50 PMalso, i have to say, knowing more and more about the brain, particularly the dopamine neurocircuit / reward system and the mechanics of addiction, has really spoiled some of the attraction for me. i know, entheogens aren't generally dopamine-activating, but still, it takes some of the allure out of it knowing they are serotonin-mimicking and the brain is simply being juked into thinking activations are upstream. it's kind of similar to knowing that dreams are the way they are because the frontal cortex goes offline during REM. it's all still cool but something is missing for me now. maybe i'm just getting older. drugs feel like noise to me. i'm already a fucking wild animal and don't really need them much anymore.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 15, 2008 - 1:29 AMRamiel, well, I don't know if we're bridging, but I'm getting a better understanding of the underlying impetus for your thoughts. I appreciate the effort you've put into your thoughts. Maybe some others could give some feedback as well. I'll do some thinking and get back. -
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Unsu...
Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 15, 2008 - 11:34 AMListen to the following for free till March 27th, 2008
"Manjir Samanta-Laughton, M.D., trained as an energy medical consultant as well as a medical doctor. She has worked as a general practitioner at the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, a complementary cancer care center in the United Kingdom, and in her own holistic healing practice. Her quest for the scientific basis of healing led her to study theoretical physics, the science of consciousness, and cosmology. She is sought after worldwide as a lecturer, and is the author of Punk Science: Inside the Mind of God (O Books 2006).
The big questions of science remain unanswered. Her work lies at the cutting edge of physics, at the nexus of science and spirituality."
www.newdimensions.org/program.php
It sure her work fits at least part of the discussion here. I need to listen to it again. It was in the radio yesterday when I was driving through town. The way consciousness matter and anti-matter relates to each other, within the research of the laboratory of our own minds and of course the various sciences, is simply fascinating.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 2:01 AMMany have difficulties getting started with meditation. Even more are turned off altogether; the concept, the idea doesn't resonate with them, and frequently they're afraid, though they probably won't admit it. The mind will churn out a continual stream of reasons why it's not a good idea. This is what the mind does. Why would it want to have its turf mucked with?
Of the ones that do for whatever reason give it a try many consider the shifting psycho-dynamic patterns frustrating and difficult to bear. The most frequent excuse is not being able to set aside time. It's a common and seemingly acceptable way of saying, "This is not going to happen". There's can be some physical discomfort as muscles generally not stressed are. When people begin to direct blood to different parts of their brains, frequently there are sensations, perceptions, even sounds that are out of the ordinary. Sometimes these phenomena can be disconcerting. This is one of the reasons why group gatherings can initially be helpful.
Also, there are benefits - otherwise, why would anyone even want to meditate in the first place? A sense of well being, evening out of temperament to name a few. My personal feeling at this stage in my practice is that states as have been talked about in this thread are just the overloading of receptors - nothing more - just as a muscle becomes swollen when overused. Instead of muscle pain (well, maybe that too at first), one experiences a state, which basically amounts to an overload. People frequently produce states for pretty much the same reason as they would take a drug. Granted they're alluring, can by totally psychedelic, and can at least temporarily isolate people from circumstances in their lives they find unacceptable, ultimately the process goes nowhere - though I have to admit - this is a minority opinion. Anyone who has meditated for any significant period of time has experienced their share of states; some schools have even turned it into a science. Personally, I think they have no more value than getting stoned, but at least you can get stoned without breaking the law. I guess that's a plus. And this is why Eastern mysticism and certain segments of the drug culture are so closely intertwined. In certain respects they're one in the same.
I'm unclear as to your comment on Buddhism. Maybe you could clarify this.
Goals. I have to confess, when I initially began meditating there was some vision of experiencing some new type of consciousness, of transforming my being. And, certainly I got myself a dose and went so far as searching for a number of years to seek our teachers here and in Africa and Central Asia who might help lead me to those closely guarded secrets. And that search went on for a very long time. It was one of those things where you had to go there to realize you never had to go in the first place, and when you realized that you see it was sitting right in front of you all the time. Things are different for me now, and when I said meditation was no more of goal that taking a shower I was serious. It's now just part of my morning routine. Brush and floss my teeth, take a shower, do some stretching and meditation and get my ass into gear; I do the short form of the same thing before I go to bed. It's just part of my routine - don't even think about not doing it; It just happens. Though, I guess sometimes there are some thoughts that will try and sidetrack me, but by now I know them pretty well and can ignore them. But, there's no goal anymore whatsoever. Though it did take a while to take the goal out of meditation. I can't remember exactly when that disappeared - just one of those things.
I don't know if there is a witness. Maybe just a continually fading trace. But, it's better than nothing.
Don't think the 'messing up' part ever fully disappears, though it fades. Recovery time shortens.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 3:04 AM"Ramiel, our perspectives differ somewhat with relation to states. From what it appears you’re saying, you see states as a clarification of perception that can be developed, enabling one to more vividly, more deeply appreciate experience."
Beautifully put, this is certainly half of it, but only half. The other half is where glimpses from beyond are happening. Information which I have no knowledge of is coming. In a moment I saw my sister got sick (in mind's eye), I called her and told her, you just got sick. She said on the phone, how did you know? she said she just started feeling depressed then got stomache aches... three days later I called and she didn't answer... I knew she was better, and I knew she was kissing her boyfriend and that's why she didn't pick up the phone. She called back 30 mins after my call... I told her I know you stopped being sick the moment I called you. She said, how did you know? she said "I just all of a sudden made the decision to not worry so much about money and live relaxed and I felt better since that moment." I asked what else were you doing? she said watching tv... I said weren't you watching tv with your boyfriend? she said yes... how did you know? I said weren't you kissing him the moment you had that thought, the moment your phone was ringing when I called? she said yes, how did you know? I said, the same consciousness that allowed Jesus to know that Samarathan woman had gone and slept with a man who wasn't her husband when she ran into him by the water well. That's what I call the Essence is cognizant of itself... through it I come to know exactly what I need to know the moment I need to know it, and nothing more. And all sorts of new information is given to me... I ask questions and answers come... I feel, if I truly wanted to know another language, even that would come through.... though I have to release myself much more for that level.... it's an element of surrender... though it's not a "channeling"... I know clearly this is my real Self... it is a full shift..... in terms that Essence becomes the dominate stream of consciousness and the individual ramiel consciousness becomes a quiet student with some questions... each question leads the student to more stillness
I also just had a dream which verbatim a few days after the dream everything I saw in the dream came true... the funny part was that I wrote out the dream in an email to my partner... then 3 days later all of it happened and she was still in shock... part of it being that I got calls from my grandmother in Iran (which she has never ever called me before)... the other part about seeing kids by the ocean throw rocks at birds... even down to the part of seeing my daughter bring me a little pink flower... even down to the part a customer of mind keeping a secret that he was trying to higher one of my engineers away from me... engineer called me and told me... verbatim days before... of course you may call this as part of determinism... though the consciousness that is delivering this... the state which is becomes a station is what I'm talking about... it is something that goes far beyond this realm of determinism...
I am begining to see determinism... though it is limited in time/space.... it's like a FIFO (First In First Out) I'm sure you know what this is given your technical background... so the size of the FIFO is what determinism is about... however there is a step beyond determinism which is called the Unknown... that Unknown will enter the radar of the mathematical probabilities of determinism and it becomes known as watcher/experience come closer to it... however... there is also the Unknowable which out of it come little packets of Unknown that lead into the vast realm of determinism... this whole journey is about coming as close as possible to living from the Unknown
and as such, you will not know what you will do... you will just get up and life will happen
you will NOT know because it is being lived from the Unknown
that doesn't make it pre-determined though... as Unknown is the same as Unmanifest
anything can manifest... and I see that when one individual becomes cognizant and begins becoming familiar with the nature of Manifestation... slowly the free-will to begin manifesting begins
"I think I see a state as more of a deterministic form of genetic expression as it mates with our environment. It seems to me that rather than actively choosing to be in a state, we naturally gravitate toward people, groups, ideas and locals that provide the opportunities for us to express the conditions of our inner worlds, conditions we find ourselves in rather than create."
Well yes, for the vast majority that's how we are... in one of these Essence "sessions" I call them now... I was inquring about the states of different teachers and Masters I've met over the years... each of their states and realizations were being shown to me... and I realized all of a sudden that I had just reached a state two of my teachers were in some years back... then all of a sudden I saw that a part of "Ramiel"'s consciousness wanted to go and meet an old teacher named Misha... I couldn't understand why... there was nothing for Misha to teach anymore as I'm getting direct teaching from Essence... and I inquired why is there this sincere interest? The answer was that Misha was a very close person in being able to understand my state... and just being near him felt pleasant... there is a feeling of recognition...
The Self wishes to see itself through creation... just as we stand over the water and see our own reflection
though as one individual begins sifting through the subtitles of one's own Self... the reflections in other Human being become less and less scarce.. sure animals, plants, nature, and the myriad of entities within different realms of consciousness can reflect... as humans we like someone on the same 'wavelength' to see ourself in...
"I see what you refer to as the rational mind as instantaneously configuring our thought processes ‘after-the-fact’, causing us believe we’ve made the decisions, when in actuality – any situation could not have unfolded other that it did. It seems that our minds stitch together stories so blindingly fast as to the 'whys' and ‘hows’ that they appear to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt – at least to us."
Amazing perception you have Charles... yes this was the part of your post that allowed me to perceive the FIFO realm which "determinism" inhabits... I will of course continue the contemplation...
but Charles... what happens when the stream of thoughts stop? I mean... in meditation I'm sitting in stillness... I see these subtle thoughts of essence rising... and I see these sub-thoughts emerging from my body/mind ego... and in this stillness the subtle thoughts rising from Essence counter-act mid-air the thoughts emerging from body/mind ego... the white-noise in the background... and even then slowly shuts off into black nothing stillness nothing nothing nothing nothing not even empty... no words could describe
then from stillness this new intelligence emerges... this total feeling of free-will, free expression, total aliveness, spaciousness
the spaciousness that feels "I have nothing to do, and no where to go... and I can do anything I want... or just run on auto pilot" so I begin creating and making decisions what to do...
there was a time I could "only" do things (this is significant point!) which were somehow making my "heart" feel better... at some point when the totally association of myself dropped from thoughts I no longer had this need... I could simply decide this is what I will do... the most mundane thing like editing a 14 page legal document when I'm not an attorney or anything else... and I could take as much joy and heart into it... there was no judgment and preference... so I simple sat and decided what I will do
... it's getting late 3AM... I will think about the rest and respond later... need some sleep... I didn't get home from work till almost midnight today.... -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 8:39 PMStates are something you are preoccupied with, and I guess, for whatever reason, that is what you have to be doing right now. You want to delve into the unknown, hone your visionary powers, and cultivate your powers of consciousness – and somehow this is intertwined with a concept of projection into your states.
I tend to think such a predisposition with entering states is an attempt to escape something, and promoting, rationalizing and embellishing the value of such an approach is simply the mind compensating. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 13, 2008 - 9:53 PM
It is not states which I'm pre-occupied with, it is the exploration and discovery of who I am, how I got here, what's going on, etc.
Now... some folks are doing this through math, mind thoughts, research, philosophy, theology, etc.
A very significant shift has recently taken place, it was towards the end of February that it happend. My body stood up while I was in meditation, it walked to the living room. My eyes were closed, though I could see the essence of awareness, I could feel it... I realized that what is in me and outside of me... there is no difference... I could literally feel how there is no different from the outside of my skin to the inside of my skin. All of a sudden my mouth opened, and a voice began speaking out of me... it said "Essence has become cognizant of itself".
From the view of Essence, or Essence-mind I saw my Self as the Essence. I also saw, as if I was looking down from a total-frequency down to the small spectrum's... that there was a stream as body/mind. I saw that the body had it's own stream, desires, intelligence, and mind was the other... the part of me called Ramiel. I also realized at that moment what is meant by "transcendental knowledge/consciousness". I saw how this totality of consciousness is happening... how everyone I knew was just part of this... I began peaking into the consciousness of people and teachers I knew. The whole session must have been maybe 10+ hours, I was up through the night.
The next day when I went into meditation, similar things happened though it went even deeper. I began being able to switch fully from the Ramiel (sleep, identified as individual consciousness) to Wakeful-Essence (unified consciousness, BIG-mind). Every time I would switch from one to the other, it was like I would loose total touch of the other... and then at some point I would shift back. I kept shifting back and forth for hours... I kept trying to create a "bridge" between the two states because what Essence was showing me couldn't be brought down to my individual consciousness easily. It was here the symbol of yin/yang where within the black there is a where circle and vice versa made total sense... about keeping part of Essence always awake within individual-consciousness, and part of individual-consciousness to remain awake within the Essence-consciousness.... this has now stayed with me... even now as I write I keep switching back and forth.
What this has lead to now is that a transformation has taken place. I'm begining to perceive easily, just like I can distinguish black from white where Essence is aware of itself in others... I'm seeing how Essence is peaking out here and there in people and they don't even notice it.... it's an amazing experience...
in the process, more and more of my individuality is adjusting and working on figuring out how to get in a good harmony with this new consciousness while I am a lover, father, entrepreneur, et all.
And I have to say Charles a couple of things about you... you have a brilliant mind... it is so finely sharp... I've been impressed with your ability to focus energy since I first saw you on Tribe. And I see your mind's prowess in many of the threads here. I hold much regard and respect for it. Though, I also perceive there is a lot of strictness within your consciousness somehow... very firm structure... so firm that it maybe preventing you to stretch yourself beyond... then again I think perhaps this has something to do with age? you'd know better than me about that. I'm told by my partner who is 17 years old than me... at it's just you settle at some point and stops asking so many questions about life... that you just realize to a certain extent than you just stop... you just don't make any big leaps anymore... rather you just keep fine-tunning it. What do you think?
I just realized something... the whole time I wrote this... not even for the most subtle place did I feel any identity with my words... it's like I'm writing... it's just a stream... it's like a voice on the radio in that I know this is how I'm expressing myself but this is clearly not me.... there is no identification with my words... at no point do I have a feeling like I know something, or that I don't know something... there is just this overbearing state of mind-stillness... no ripples... and I should probably wonder how this all sounds from the individual-identified consciousness... it is almost feeling remote to me.
Sending you my love -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 2:35 AMRamiel, you might be interpreting 'strictness' as appreciating what's in front of me. To leave is easy, yet for me it's no longer a priority.
You say you are not pre-occupied with states, but they are all you talk about and their effects are all you really seem concerned with. Just read back through this thread. One state after another after another. They are becoming your norm. I'm not judging you - yet I am concerned.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 2:59 AM
Dear Charles,
Thanks for your post of concern. Please do not be concerned. I've only been experimenting... many times while in different stages of samadhi I write on tribe. It's even difficult to move my fingers and type keys in those states... so generally I don't even look at the screen, eyes remain closed and my hands just type (hence there will be many typo's).
In my daily state, my consciousness is not much different, it's just focused differently.
3AM... I need to go home and sleep (in office)... meeting tomorrow at 8AM
... you know, if it wasn't for meditation, I probably couldn't go with such little sleep... neither could you! haha
g'nite
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 12, 2008 - 10:09 AM>ultimately, enough States may lead to a Realization <
how does this use of the word "realization" differ from the description of a perspective? aren't perspectives continually being updated? - isn't this what learning is?
>if in fact there is such a thing as Total Determinism... then realizing this would be a very BIG surrender to "what is happening" <
well, regardless of determinism or not, we could say "surrender" is the only honest action - that is, action that arises *without* the interference of a "self" (and here "self" is the description of a moment-in-time, again, a thing which is not inherently stable but is continually updating....hence, descriptions of it are continually misleading.) IOW, when the idea of self goes quiet, then genuine action spontaneously arises in response to whatever is going on, without thinking about it. hungry? eat. tired? rest, etc.
>Essence is cognizant of itself<
as soon as essence becomes a concept for the mind, the mind seizes on that concept and tells itself it is aware of "that". ding!ding!ding! we have our "prize".
is this such an improvement over an animal's innate grace, eating when hungry and resting when tired? it looks to me that sort of essential awareness is a given.
humans may be unique in being the only animal that hunts for itself, which is right under its nose all the time. in this, we "colonize" reality with our ideas, and then live inside the ideas we've imposed.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sat, March 8, 2008 - 11:26 PMCharles wrote: ...That they're more or less machines, reacting without thought, consideration, presence of being and mind. ...
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That's a bit of a stretch. Though it occurs to me we are machines, just organic ones, so there ya go. But anywhowho....
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And then there's another group, the chosen ones...
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That's also a bit of a stretch. You're mistranslating with an adjunct superiority which neither did my comments contain nor was such an underlying message intended. Most importantly, for whatever perception I may or may not have, I'm quite sure there's several other someones that think it's habitual auto-pilot nonsense devoid of conscious reasoning.
My point is, many folks simply don't possess the notion that they have the capacity to think about thinking. They don't have to think about it, they just do it. Like breathing. That's the vast majority of people, within the 80/20 spectrum. It's the other 20 that I find most interesting. They not only realize they can think about thinking, a smaller group contained realize their thinking affects how others think; a smaller group still revels in thinking about how others think as an individual and as a group; a smaller group still can predict individual and group thinking; and the smallest group are those that, with limited capacities and outcomes, can manipulate how others think - physically, consciously and subconsciously. And I expect there's all shades of grey in between and beyond that I'm either too lazy to type or have no inkling enough to articulate. But I expect my point is clearer.
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do you think what we're speaking about is illusory?
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Because I essentially have the same receptors as yourself, I rightly cannot approach the question in any meaningful way that would otherwise provide any more useful information. So I'll simply answer, "go fish."
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do we actually have any real control over the process or are we looking at a phenomenon that's solely based upon our destiny? Is it out of our hands?
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That's another boggler that requires we define real. Too much work and a waste of time, really. I believe a more appropriate question is, do we have any control over our own thought processes, and therefore the resultant chemistry, into a cascade of change that is measurable by whatever arbitrary criteria? Well, simply, yes. We must at some level because how else are we communicating? A rock sure can't do this, insofar as we're aware. That's the only thing I'm able to truly connect to as "real." Give me all the theories and formulas in the world but unless I can perceive it, it holds no practical consequence; providing the same entertainment value as reading fiction. Fun all the same.
And this brings us to a theory I've been knocking around for quite a long while now. It's the thing we're only now starting to discover through conventional scientific techniques; that Darwin only got it partially right. Darwin's thinking was that of a conservative system just clumsily trying one thing at a time until something works and then passing the baton to start the process again, generation after generation. He describes a system purely of chance on a massive scale. What he didn't consider was the possibility that thought, for even a rudimentary nervous system, will irrevocably alter the process so it's no longer just chance. It is still a system of chance but with a distinct advantage of being able to direct the evolutionary process by reacting to external stimuli. What one thinks truly dictates what one becomes. And not just by having showy outerwear, some fancy dance or clever ritual. We're finding that thought changes the evolutionary process at a molecular level. A twist that would have made Darwin pee himself.
Having said all that, now I wonder which group of organisms is better suited to survival; the one that can think about thinking or the one that just does it. Hmmmm I'd say the odds are for the former because the latter creates the directed system supporting their survival. And now I just made the case for the survival of the corporate machine. Oh well. It's what got us out of the dark ages but it's still playing out, so who knows. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 10:18 AMi'm not convinced that meta-thinking is all that big a deal. thinking about thinking about thinking just strikes me as a house-of-mirrors......that does nothing to pop anyone out of the delusion of thinking itself.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 5:55 PMskooter, when michael stated, "...most people are far to distracted to maintain any awareness of this "I" and instead base their 'choices' upon habit and pleasure..." and you chimed in with, "I've always found these folks to be extraordinarily frustrating and yet somehow intriguing...", well I thought you were making somewhat of a distinction between 'us' and 'them'. Again, not that I necessarily disagree with that distinction, but thought it worthy of looking at.
I was not stating there was a superiority-inferiority thing going on, but I can see why you might have been misled when I used the phrase 'the chosen ones', but that was apparently a misguided attempt on my part at expressing humor.
Everybody thinks to one degree or another, yet from my perspective it's not something we have control over. It seems to be a mechanism primarily to rationalize what just went down, a kind of a mechanical equalization process that we at times get a glimpse of. Learning how to think as you're saying might just be a modification, redirection of the process of which some appear more adept than others. Seems to add a greater element of feedback, which ultimately fuses itself back into the mechanical process, organic if you like.
Fishing, hmmm... had such a problem knocking them over the head after I got them into the boat. Had more of a desire to adopt them.
I don't think we have the same receptors, maybe a rough facsimile at best. I'd say we each not only experience differently, but we interpret sensations differently and have our own unique ways of responding. Genetically and experientially we've both developed strengths and weaknesses.
We're responding to inputs (as far as communication goes), but I wouldn't say we have any real control over the process, other than rationalized after the fact that we do. Though, it seems to work most of the time.
I'll think more on the Darwin part - have to drive across the bay over to your neck of the woods for some vittles.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 6:47 PMsome people conserve cognitive energy by taking things for granted and spending their limited brain budget on solving real-world problems in their lives without questioning too much. not surprisingly, they are often called "conservatives." -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 7:39 PM
:-) hahaha made me laugh... thanks
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 9:45 PMWe can have a very clear knowledge of where the moon will be three years from right now, but have no way to know which way the wind will be blowing at that very exact time in one exact place. Some things can be determined well while others can not be determined no matter what. It is the nature of this universe. And so with us, most of what we do is to follow a path that is mostly determined, but not all determined. There are things outside of us and within us (free will) that can alter some of our determined path. Free will is always there, though not oftened used. It is much eaiser to keep doing what we are doing.
Just some thoughts. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 9:55 PM
Curry,
You see, when the Universe is a clock, we know where the moon will be in 2 years. Now if you think about it correctly you will see that just because we can't calculate the formula of which way the wind blows doesn't mean it is not within the same clockwork. Just imagine that the reason we can predict the moon is that there is a determined pattern, and that big pattern we recognize will be moving every particle of matter in this universe in a very beyond our measurement capacity. And blowing the wind is within the particle patterns of the determined Universe.
In a way Curry... I believe you may have just given my mind another point for the determination folks... I'm becoming a stranger to myself again!
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 10:02 PMThe problem really lies in that determination requires discreetly measurable things and phenomena, like billiard balls that where we can know all the possible inputs into a system. The universe does not in fact exist of inherently discreet things. If it does, show me where one thing ends and another begins - at any scale... -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 10:03 PMAnd, it is only a 'problem' in that we tend to make it so.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 10:34 PM
Though Quantum Physics had yet to realize how where one thing ends the other starts... they haven't found out how this is... hence they summize nothing is connected
This is because they have not yet been able to perceive that there is a echo vibration moving through the multiple dimensions, these echo's are what allows for two things to be placed next to each other and be unable to move apart or come closer... this is the essence of power and is the law of magnetism which neither pulls or pushes... again... I'm still in super-conscious state while I write this and I'm perceiving as I write... hopefully I'll make sense when I'm out of meditation too
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 10:31 PM
Hence Universe is in clock work, so the wind blow can be determined
The body/mind are also created in prediction too, they are part of the clock work.
If a person has "free will" within this determined clockwork of a Universe, that has the potential of throwing the whole Universe out of balance
Except, perhaps for a person to have "free will" their consciousness must be beyond that of Creation/Existence and hence can act with such intelligence that his actions are perfect in improving the clock work of the Universe.
Hence... this world is indeed a virtual reality created by a higher being... and now and then this higher being likes to play one of the roles in this Grand' Theater.... down here, currently in this phase of the game/time, we call this being who throws off the Universe (whether he is noticed or not) is called the "Eternal Self" the goal of the Spiritual Truth search... the Buddha/Christ/God stuff
How is this not to say, that actually he is playing all the 'roles' except some are old characters from the first version of the Universe and the new one's are always the free-will'ed one's who are creating the next revision for Her which is the new Him... it is why I say that I realized that Darwin's Evolution is proof of the Free-Will... there can be no Evolution without Free-Will.... Darwin is our greatest connection to God so far Mathematically speaking.
That's the thing... Math is actually one route of seeing ... how ever there are other routes which math has no access to... for example my sentence of there must be a higher being with a personality... all of this emotional societal et all non-math intelligence has a route of its own which naturally can see different depth than that of what math can see. There is a connector from the math to the heart universes which are overlapping and creating the One's Expression ... an expression of these connectors is one thin strand named Evolution... there are infinitely many more of these threads which allow the Heart Universe to make shifts to the Math Universe
even if Math Universe had access to the Heart Universe, the Math Universe had no way of predicting hence shifting the Heart... the Math Universe can only "Break the Heart" it can never improve it!
So very few people can have a non-math brain, the heart brain I call it... it calculates very differently... I can never get the logic brain to understand the heart brain, heart brain though easily understands the logic brain... which do you think is the Higher one? the one who knows both right? but how strange it seems if the math brain realizes that the heart brain is beyond him and there is nothing he can do about it...it's better if he hid in his math... other wise the heart is the end of the mind!
This non-math path, is that of the Heart... it is that of Ramakrishna Paramhansa who even with the highest realization still saw Kali as his Mother... that realization being at the highest the same as that of Krishnamurti... though Krishnamurti reached through his intellect i.e. Math Path...while Ramakrishna through the Heart
That is why some people can reach realization through Bhakti (devotion) vs. those through Vivek (wisdom paths)
There truly are different path to the same core... and all these very different paths/realms are all existing at the same time in unison... they overlap.... so not all that we know is mathematical... I'm perceiving this within meditation while I'm writing this
To see part of existence is mathematical is correct... but so much of on top is beyond mathematical... hence in Truth there is free-will
math is the foundation of the building, math is the rocks surrounding and holding the Ocean
hence, Math is the Container, and Heart is the Essence being contained as "Substance" within the Container
The one thing which is Contained at this level is the Eternal Self within Existence
mind you I'm writing while in meditation state right now... once I'm out of meditation.... perhaps with logical brain I myself may not be able to understand what I'm clearly perceiving right now.
another point, though Essence is like Ocean, it is just as any matter, Ocean is just one particle example... hence Essence can reshape the Mathematical Clock of a Universe in any minute detail... hence Christ tried to explain this when he said every hair on your head God has counted!
I'm writing these while I'm in Samadhi... these through are from the super-conscious mind being trailed down to my conscious through the use of time lapse on brain memory cells... hopefully there are no bugs or bumps in the transmission of this message... cellular signal... how many bars we got ?
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 12, 2008 - 6:26 PMRamiel wrote: ...There truly are different path to the same core... and all these very different paths/realms are all existing at the same time in unison... they overlap.... so not all that we know is mathematical....
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To paraphrase in the form of a question from a recently referenced book, I'm left to wonder if it's possible that what you're referring to as the "heart brain", consciousness, free will etc., is actually an emergent property of all the math. Calling it a "heart brain" seems insufficient and fraught with dogma.
Everything, matter, at least to the extent we are aware, is constructed mathematically. Fundamental chemistry. But just as you can study, dissect and microscopically examine a bee, you will never find the hive. It is an emergent properties of beeness. Life, consciousness, free will...isn't it all just an emergent property of mathiness? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Wed, March 12, 2008 - 7:00 PM
I swear man.. I love this WI tribe! You guys make me go back in and re-think re-evaluate and all make such good new perspectives...
Skooter... I will need to contemplate tonight and get back to you later. I certainly don't have a response yet... other than your response demands better clarification from me... and I have to go into myself for that.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 11:07 PMRamiel,
I would not at all agree that the pattern of the moon is like the pattern of the wind. Weather is not a system that can be determined, no matter how much information you have. The very small fluctuations of vacuum and uncertainties of our universe can have significant affects on systems like the weather but not on systems like the movement of the moon. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 11:14 PM
the fluctuations in vacuums (voids) which can not be calculated are the "echo's" from the free-will Heart mind/plane
hence you are right, there is a place where Math Mind ends... and that is when Math Mind realizes, it doesn't know, and it shall never know
at this time, is when mystics say the ego resigns and the Spirit's Awakening begins (many more Awakenings to come)
but those Awakenings beyond the the Math Mind awakening can only be begin to be explained in the Heart Mind language... and this is not the forum for such... perhaps this is why St. Francis of Assisi preached to the Pigeons... there were no Human's of Heart Realization... but he knew the Pigeon's would understand! even though they couldn't retain it as they didn't have much of a math mind.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 10:04 PMCurry wrote: ....We can have a very clear knowledge of where the moon will be three years from right now,...
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Correction: We can mathematically calculate the location where the moon should be in three years from right now...
We could also do the same with the wind, but there's a high probability that it will be wrong because there are far more variables to the equation than that of predicting the moon's probable location. Given sufficient knowledge of their averages, both can be accurately calculated within a margin of error - but both could still, very easily, be wrong due to innumerable, unpredictable phenomenon. There's no absolutes here and can't always be accurately determined. There's also a small matter of local and universal time-scales to consider that further skew the outcome, rendering any determination altogether irrelevant.
No matter how you slice it, it's all chance, baby. Embrace the chaos.
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It is much eaiser to keep doing what we are doing.
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Question is, what are we doing? If doing something is what we're doing, then isn't that a conscious choice? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 10:48 PM
Skooter, you started right that we can calculate where it 'should' be in 3 years
however, you miscalculated something else... you must still go deeper than "it's all chance, baby. Embrace the chaos"
just because you can't calculate beyond in perfection doesn't mean such calculation doesn't already exist
though you got 50% more ahead than Curry... I believe my last post about the Heart Mind went 50% deeper towards free-will
now who knows in the next post I may just totally tear apart my own last post too ... just flowing here... is this Chaos? or is this Ordered? -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 10:55 PM
I got it... that is why those that realized Essence in the past did Miracles like split the ocean, walk on water, raise the dead etc... they reached through the Heart and hence had access to modify the pre-determined clockwork of a Universe!
While today's mystics in the media like Eckhart Tolle, Adya Shanti, Osho, Ken Wilber, Krishnamurti and such mind-awakened ones who reached through the Mind Plane/Intellect Path/Vivek are perhaps not having the same power over the manifestation? that's why we don't see them living in perfect health and not getting diseases or dying... Osho already dead physically... though psychological/mentally he said he was never born and never died... but his body did die... then again so did Ramakrishna physically die... but there have been those that transformed their bodies and live eternally such as Babaji who has an eternally youthful body and shall live till the end of creation... a being totally living beyond the math... if Babaji's existence could be proven then Math would fall apart... though he can not be calculated... since he isn't changing in matter of a fact.... he remains the same unchanging... so there is nothing to calculate ... other than the 'echo's of his actions upon the math world
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Sun, March 9, 2008 - 11:01 PMp.s. those "echo's" of action from the Heart world upon the Math world are what we call "free will"
only the Heart mind can realize free-will
only the Math mind can realize determination
only One who is beyond both Heart and Math can understand both truly
hence the Heart has a Master... that is what the Heart mind calls God and the realized Math mind calls it the Source/The Absolute/The Truth (so mathematical)
This Master is Essence itself.... this Master is Essence being cognizant of Essence
as Essence grows in cognizance of itself, it begins realizing that it's true identify is Essence
and hence slowly, Ramiel shall fade away and pre-destined only Essence shall remain
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 8:09 AMSkooter,
While you may be correct to say "where the moon should be" I feel that you have missed the point. There are different types of systems.
I would not agree that it is all chance. Even "Chaos Theory" would would clearly put the motion of the moon and the weather into very different systems. If it was all chance, the table top might not be here when I put my coffee cup down. I am not talking about any natural disaster, but rather about any random chance that my cup would pass through the table. It will not. Much of our universe is very predictable; some of it is not. It is not irrelevant to count on the systems that are predictable. We do it all the time every day. It works quite well. I would not say that it is irrelevant. I would not want to test the floor with each step to see if it was still there. With the "butterfly effect" in chaos theory we know that very small things can make very significant changes to the weather. It is not a system where the details are predictable over any length of time. For me, I see that our lives are very much like this. Much is predictable, some is not. -
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Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Mon, March 10, 2008 - 5:40 PMcurry wrote: ...Even "Chaos Theory" would would clearly put the motion of the moon and the weather into very different systems.
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Perhaps. Though I think that's unfortunate.
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We do it all the time every day. It works quite well.
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Yes, it does. But this is why I mentioned universal time scales. The time scale our perception works on, and that of the rest of the universe are vastly different. Your cup may never fall through the table in your lifetime. But it still could at any time. It's just our sense of time is a bit wonky because we tend to place relevance to that which best suits our perception. I'm not convinced that's truth of any sort.
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Unsu...
Re: Free Will and Determinism walk into a bar...
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 1:30 AMSo Free Will says, "There's always TOMORROW", and Determinism says, "Yes, but there's ALWAYS tomorrow!"
-K
