Cleric K wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 12:23 pm
lorenzop wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 4:27 am
Re a simple camera . . . 1) a pinhole camera has no headset, has no design, and, 2) it's extremely unlikely a pinhole camera image is really chaotic and our headset instantly\simultaneously evolved to properly read this camera image nearly the same as we read the actual landscape.
Are you suggesting the camera image on film is patterns of meaning, and requires a human headset to see the landscape - and if we could turn off the headset, and looked at the image, we'd see patterns of meaning?
Lorenzo, let me give another rendition of what Ashvin is pointing out. You walk with your friend along a seashore of very fine moist sand. You observe how your friend leaves footprints as she walks. Then you reason "These footprints look exactly like her feet (inverted of course)! In a way the sand 'sees' the shape of her feet and it is exactly the same as when I look directly at them. Thus I must be seeing her feet as they really are. If it was only a figment of my mind, the footprints would have to look differently. Nature wouldn't need to 'see' the same shape as me when I look at her feet."
Or we can make it even simpler: you look at your friend not directly but at her reflection in a mirror. Then you say "There! We perceive reality as it is because the mirror sees and reflects the same image as what I see when looking directly."
This is really the essence of the camera example. The fact that we're using camera and light makes it only a little bit more convoluted but in its essence there's no difference with what was described above (in a sense, the camera takes the 'footprint' of light as it impresses on the plaque/sensor and is then presented on paper/screen).
Now if DH would have to defend his desktop analogy, he might say something like this:
Reality is objectively real but is completely
unlike the contents of our consciousness. Let's denote the true and unknown reality as Z. Our conscious experience is W. Then if we assume that our conscious experience is produced by certain transformation of true reality, we can write W = f(Z) i.e. we take Z, pass it through the transformation denoted as function f and we get our desktop experience W. Now every function is a
mapping from one space to another (could also be the same space - then the function only morphs the input).
If the function is
continuous then elements of Z which are
close together will also be close together in W. For example W + Δ
1 = f(Z + Δ
2) where the deltas represent some very small variation. What does this mean? That the reality of the foot and the footprint in Z, which are very similar (close together in the plane), when transformed by f result into desktop experiences which are also similar (close together in the plane).
This is the explanation. In one case the light phenomenon is directly transformed by f (when we look directly). In the other, it takes a transformative detour. Light gets converted to electricity, then maybe to orientation of magnetic domains on the hard drive, then it is read out and displayed on a computer screen. Yet the whole process is devised in such a way that it produces light phenomenon Z + Δ, which is very close to Z when looking directly. When both are transformed they produce very similar icons W and W + Δ.
What I'm trying to show is that the fact that we see the photograph (or footprint) to be similar to the original doesn't in any way prove that this is how it looks in reality. As shown, what the real camera sees is also a process in the Z space, that is, the camera
does not see what we experience in our W space. But when we receive the light from both the real object Z and its transformed light Z + Δ, they both transform into similar icons W and W + Δ.
All this is mentioned just as a fun exercise. The whole thing is that DH and others, assume that there's
unbridgeable chasm between Z and W. We can
never have conscious experience of Z or at least not while we're in the Earthly headset. And this is what we must challenge because otherwise we reach nothing but dead ends. Simply stated, the investigation of the depth dimension of our being, explores the conscious states and the forms of spiritual activity all along the transformation f - if we imagine that it consists of vast number of intermediate transformations. Something like:
We can take Z and W to be as extremes. Z is the fountainhead of ideal potential, while W is the collapsed perception. The whole idea is that we can find the modes of consciousness along these blocks and experience the Cosmos at its various stages of concretization, so to speak. Of course, the blocks are not connected in a simple unidirectional way - they also have feedbacks.
Anyway, I got carried away with this example. Obviously all this is an oversimplification and shouldn't be taken as literal model of reality.
What we have gathered is:
1. No, the camera example doesn't show that we perceive reality as it is (explained above)
2. There's no reason to conclude that Z and W are completely separate realms, just because we don't have consciousness of Z bestowed on us without any effort on our side.
3. When the appropriate effort is exercised we can indeed find that consciousness lives also along the gradient of f.
lorenzop wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 4:27 am
Re 'patterns of meaning', I can't say for sure I know what you are talking about, or believe these exist . . . but let's say they do exist . . . if we could explore them, perhaps harvest a more splendid pattern of meaning, it's this just a higher class of enslavement, as I've referred to this in the past - an exalted pursuit of a Golden Calf.
I think you purposefully want to see 'patterns of meaning' as nothing but a leisure time amusement of seeing faces in the clouds. If that was the case - sure, finding random patterns and trying to convince others that they are something real, is indeed a disturbing endeavor.
But to this day I'm not sure what your position is. From the way you speak, I would say that you see reality as inherently random. Any lawfulness that we observe is just coincidental temporary swirling of otherwise uncorrelated ripples. In that case, it is understandable that any interest in higher order patterns (resulting from intuitive intents at higher scales) is just a cloud face in our personal mind. Does this capture your philosophical outlook?