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Post by maat on Jul 17, 2008 0:17:40 GMT
I am not sure that reasserting the objectivist view really answers the question of what a subjectivist would say. I was not merely reasserting the objectivist view, I was raising the scenario of subjectivist drivers sharing the road!? Wonder what Will Rogers would have to say about this argument Re the drivers, I'm going to sit on the kerb and clap as they drive by. www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Will_RogersMaat
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Tamrin
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 17, 2008 0:43:30 GMT
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Tamrin
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 17, 2008 2:37:54 GMT
At the the back of my mind, there is an aspect of the debate which has been troubling me. In the works of Alexandra David-Néel, one reads of an exercise whereby the student is made thoroughly familiar with the attributes of a fictitious, Yeti like creature.
Once David-Néel achieved this degree of familiarity, she found she could easily visualise the creature and was indeed surprised to see increasingly frequent glimpses of it, until her thought-form had become nearly a constant presence, which was even seen by visitors to her hermitage (she needed to be present for them to observe it—there is an exercise which assists in shifting the locus of one’s consciousness, which may tie in with this).
At first David-Néel appeared to exercise some control over the creature but it soon began exercising its ‘own’ will (perhaps some other consciousness had taken occupancy) and, although originally a creature of her own imagination, it became somewhat threatening. Eventually, the thought-form was banished by a monk of a higher grade (it was, after all, 'only' an illusion).
Perhaps this experience ties in with ideas about the Kabalistic Gollum and the familiars of witches (and indeed of Yeties). In this sense it may be that Russell indeed experiences unicorns, which appear all too real to himself and others.
My point is that, while it may be profitable to explore, so as to deconstruct, common social illusions, which give rise to the sense of separateness, I suggest it is not wholesome to explore, so as to construct, new illusions (indeed whole new worlds), further separating us from awareness of our participation in the one life. This appeared to be the lesson David-Néel's exercise was intended to teach, which was conducted under the guidance of one familiar with the risks and well able to protect her.
Release from our entrapment in illusion is one of the lessons communicated in the Kalachakra initiations, where candidates become lost in and attached to the 'reality' of the increasing complexity of the 'precious' mandala being constructed—only to find the Master casually destroys it, releasing them in an instant from their delusion.
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Post by hollandr on Jul 17, 2008 2:48:25 GMT
So how do we test what is reality:
- have a vote? - guess? - believe what our parents believed?
How would a metaphysicist test for reality?
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Tamrin
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 17, 2008 4:00:53 GMT
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Post by hollandr on Jul 17, 2008 4:18:47 GMT
Do I recall Blavatsky explaining that the mind is the great slayer of the real?
I think I might go for a vote on reality but only amongst those who took the blue pill
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Tamrin
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 17, 2008 4:29:03 GMT
Do I recall Blavatsky explaining that the mind is the great slayer of the real? Is this your REASON for not opting for REASON? I think I might go for a vote on reality but only amongst those who took the blue pill The blue pill: Meaning that you remain with your illusions!? So, you are back to:
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Post by maat on Jul 17, 2008 5:57:14 GMT
So far as I can see reality is relative. The energy needed to move the couch is equal to the mass (which in this case is only a relatively stable conglomeration of atoms/molecules) multiplied by the speed of light, squared. That's what science states anyway. Now if their minds could generate a specific amount of energy, by one means or another... they just might do it. Reckon Jesus might be up to the challenge (and a few others here and there over the centuries). What is the reality of the couch? Is it solid, is it static, is it visible, is it invisible? The real couch I am talking about, not just the part of it that is moving at the same rate as our eyeballs. Maat
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Post by hollandr on Jul 17, 2008 7:47:32 GMT
>not just the part of it that is moving at the same rate as our eyeballs.
So how do we determine reality - take a vote?
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Tamrin
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 17, 2008 8:48:56 GMT
Would you hire Zorac and Zen to move your furniture (I hear they are in the running for Randi's million dollar prize)
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Tamrin
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 17, 2008 8:56:09 GMT
So how do we determine reality - take a vote?
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Post by lauderdale on Jul 17, 2008 10:33:31 GMT
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Tamrin
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 17, 2008 10:37:22 GMT
REASON is not the right answer?! Please give your REASON why not!?
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Post by hollandr on Jul 17, 2008 13:06:00 GMT
>Please give your REASON why not!?
I think Blavatsky was correct in stating that the mind is the slayer of the real
The problem is that logic only works on known data and there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than dreamed of in your philosophy.
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Post by lauderdale on Jul 17, 2008 13:24:30 GMT
"The problem is that logic only works on known data and there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than dreamed of in your philosophy."
Very true Bro Russell. It amuses me how some intellectual scientific types are so trammelled by what they have been taught at the time that they have to invent fictitious ideas to make things fit.
When for example Current Electricity started to become available they had to invent the "Electric Fluid" to fit into their science of the time, likewise with Radio Transmission, they invented the "Aether" as the medium through which they travel. These ideas have now been ditched, an electric current now being considered as a flow of electrons and we know that radio waves will flow through a vacuum e.g. transmissions for spacecraft etc.
Other ideas such as Continental Drift were mocked by the scientists of the day but are now understood and accepted.
Whenever some scientific type tells me that something is proven or disproven I say, "as far as you are currently aware". As an example radio waves existed from natural sources long before we could detect them, but had you tried to put the case for same to the Court of Queen Elizabeth I you might well have been accused of Sorcery and executed as a witch.
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Post by hollandr on Jul 17, 2008 13:48:16 GMT
Lauderdale
I agree with your basic premise
but I suspect that some of your scientific examples are getting a little dated in their turn
For example I was reading a couple of years ago about work that suggested that the gaps between the electrons were the electricity
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Tamrin
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 17, 2008 14:22:03 GMT
"The problem is that logic only works on known data and there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than dreamed of in your philosophy."
Very true Bro Russell. It amuses me how some intellectual scientific types are so trammelled by what they have been taught at the time that they have to invent fictitious ideas to make things fit. When for example Current Electricity started to become available they had to invent the "Electric Fluid" to fit into their science of the time, likewise with Radio Transmission, they invented the "Aether" as the medium through which they travel. These ideas have now been ditched, an electric current now being considered as a flow of electrons and we know that radio waves will flow through a vacuum e.g. transmissions for spacecraft etc. Other ideas such as Continental Drift were mocked by the scientists of the day but are now understood and accepted. Whenever some scientific type tells me that something is proven or disproven I say, "as far as you are currently aware". As an example radio waves existed from natural sources long before we could detect them, but had you tried to put the case for same to the Court of Queen Elizabeth I you might well have been accused of Sorcery and executed as a witch. You have both missed and demonstrated my point by giving REASONs, albeit flawed, for not opting for REASON
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Tamrin
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Post by Tamrin on Jul 17, 2008 14:24:07 GMT
The map cannot ever be the territory. Words are maps. People using them to make effort to symbolically explain their experience of phenomena. They, the words, pictures, etc., are not the phenomena. They are put forth to explain the phenomena "symbolically." Being symbolic, they can only convey what the conveyor perceives to be occurring. If it is understood and "make sense" to the person receiving and decoding what is shared, there can only be agreement that the symbols "make sense" to the person or don't "make sense" to the person. The confusion that most people incur is that that "agreement" does not mean that what is agreed to "is actually real." It only means that both parties agree that this is a symbolic representation that best explains what they experience - for now. That is, until another paradigm-symbolic representation is put forth that appears to make better sense to all involved. ;D P Well said, Bro. Prometheus
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Post by hollandr on Jul 17, 2008 22:47:35 GMT
Straw men?
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Post by maat on Jul 17, 2008 23:12:38 GMT
A few words on the nature of reality from the acknowledged Master - Jesus. These are the sayings 'that the living Jesus spoke' an that Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.
From the "Scholar's Translation" of the Gospel of Thomas.
1... Jesus said, "The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so."
2... Jesus said, "Damn the Pharisees! They are like a dog sleeping in the cattle manger: The dog neither eats nor lets the cattle eat."
3... Jesus said, "Whoever has come to know the world has discovered a carcass, and whoever has discovered a carcass, of that person the world is not worthy."
4... Jesus said, "I disclose my mysteries to those who are worthy of my mysteries. Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing."
5... Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, that is a marvel, but if spirit came into being because of the body, that is a marvel of marvels."
6... Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. (And after they have reigned they will rest.)"
Maat
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