Consciousness is all there is

[Eugene I]

Ideations emerge in the MAL, I agree. However, I don't see any evidence for Awareness being necessary for Ideations to emerge. The only necessity of Awareness is for the generation of Experience.

How do I prove the absence of Awareness ? I think that the question should be how do you prove the presence of the MAL's Awareness during dreamless sleep ? The most logical conclusion is that MAL doesn't need Consciousness to generate Ideations and that Consciousness is necessary only for the generation of Experience.

If we assume the idealist position that MAL really exists, then it is natural to assume that he must be aware if its ideations (meaning, he is consciously experiencing them). How would ideations in the MAL emerge in the absence of his awareness? For that to happen we need to assume that somehow MAL can put itself into a sate of the absence of awareness while ideations in MAL would still being produced. In such view, the MAL becomes a "non-aware mind". Bernardo's position is that MAL is aware, but not meta-cognitive. Now you go even further and reduce it to a "non-aware mind", which is really not essentially different from materialism.

Anyway, we are in metaphysics where nothing can be proved or disproved.

The most logical conclusion is that MAL doesn't need Consciousness to generate Ideations

I don't see such view as "the most logical" at all, but this view has right to exist, and in philosophy it is called "Platonism" - the assumption of the existence of ideas in the absence of any conscious experiencing of them. Needless to say, as any other metaphysics, it is non-provable as well as non-disprovable. You can choose to believe in it you you like.

[Cleric K]

This simply means that there are such aspects of consciousness - ideas - that can not be directly and fully experienced by consciousness as they are. In a way, it is just another Kantian divide, because now the "ideas" become "things in itself".

It's not a Kantian divide at all because we do experience the idea in its reality - it is the actual meaningful content of our consciousness. It becomes a Kantian divide only if we fantasize some inaccessible world that causes our experience of ideas from outside. That we experience parts of perceptions and ideas is a simple fact. It doesn't violate anything. This doesn't mean that other parts are forever inaccessible of that they can't be experienced together in a higher unity. Kant was not wrong about that fact that we don't experience the full picture of reality. He was simply unjustified in declaring that we can never find the missing part within the same our consciousness.

If we go to Paris, the Eiffel tower enters and leaves consciousness quite consistently. In a way you shift the burden of keeping track of the relations of the bolts of the tower to Consciousness at large which I don't see how is different from the Platonic structure that you try to evade.

[Soul_of_Shu]

... and the original "Phena Sutta" taught by Buddha himself is much better and clearer one.

A river not dancing, ain't no river ~ The Shu Sutra

[Eugene I]

That we experience parts of perceptions and ideas is a simple fact.

I do not see it as a fact. How can you possibly know if there are any other "parts" or "aspects" of ideas that you do not experience in your thought? If later you experience the same idea in a more comprehensive way including some facets of it that you previously did not experience, that does not mean that the idea itself had that facet as part of itself even when you did not experience it. It may mean that the idea simply developed further through your thinking adding more facets to it. Or it could be that other individual minds (MAL included) experienced that idea with all those facets, but you first experienced only a "reduced" version of it and only later got access to an "enhanced" version.

Anyway, as I just responded to Ratatoskr, such views definitely has right to exist, Plato was a smart guy, so I'm not going to try to refute them. But personally I do not subscribe to them.

[Eugene I]

A river not dancing, ain't no river ~ The Shu Sutra

It is a river resting, and is as beautiful and real as the river flowing. Both excluding the river from flowing and excluding the river from dancing are artificial limitations on its innate freedom to express itself in any form possible (which necessarily includes a state of no form). But here is the key: the river knowing itself in a state of non-dancing opens to it the experience of the freedom from dancing-only, and the experience that the river is not reduced to dancing only. It discovers that it is not bound and forever compelled to be dancing only, that it exists prior to any dancing, and that it can rest whenever it chooses to and then return to dancing whenever it chooses to. This brings an extra level of realization and direct knowledge of itself that frees the river from compulsive dancing activity, making it optional, yet not denying the fun and benefits of dancing in any way. It can then fully return to dancing while knowing that in its essence it is not dancing, but THAT which dances and experiences dancing.

[Soul_of_Shu]

It can then fully return to dancing while knowing that in its essence it is not dancing, but THAT which dances and experiences dancing.

Once again, trace the origin of this, other than forever now.

[Cleric K]

I do not see it as a fact. How can you possibly know if there are any other "parts" or "aspects" of ideas that you do not experience in your thought? If later you experience the same idea in a more comprehensive way including some facets of it that you previously did not experience, that does not mean that the idea itself had that facet as part of itself even when you did not experience it. It may mean that the idea simply developed further through your thinking adding more facets to it. Or it could be that other individual minds (MAL included) experienced that idea with all those facets, but you first experienced only a "reduced" version of it and only later got access to an "enhanced" version.

These speculations are irrelevant. If I see a cube, visually I always experience 2D image of it. There are infinite images (and corresponding 2D ideas) that I can experience from all sides. Yet they all relate to the one idea of the 3D cube. We simply lose ourselves in abstractions when we speculate about what lies behind the individual ideas (Platonic world, MAL, etc.). What counts is that these ideas exist in certain relations which we can explore. This is the only real fact about it.

Anyway, as I just responded to Ratatoskr, such views definitely has right to exist, Plato was a smart guy, so I'm not going to try to refute them. But personally I do not subscribe to them.

I don't know why this Platonism thing keeps coming up
Maybe you should first explain from your view what accounts for the permanence of phenomena that leave and enter consciousness (like the Eiffel tower).

[Eugene I]

These speculations are irrelevant. If I see a cube, visually I always experience 2D image of it. There are infinite images (and corresponding 2D ideas) that I can experience from all sides. Yet they all relate to the one idea of the 3D cube. We simply lose ourselves in abstractions when we speculate about what lies behind the individual ideas (Platonic world, MAL, etc.). What counts is that these ideas exist in certain relations which we can explore. This is the only real fact about it.

Yes, there is an idea of a 3D cube, but (in a non-Platonic paradigm) it only exists as a meaning of your thought at the moment you think about it. You stop thinking about it and the idea is gone. You can recall the same thought again, and the idea will come into being again. Now, when you do not experience the idea of 3D cube, it may still be experienced by other alter minds (whether incarnate or discarnate beings, or the MAL itself), or it may not. But either way, there is no proof or evidence that the 3D cube idea still somehow "exists" when there is no mind thinking about it. We can still make an inference that it exists, but that is exactly Platonism.

Maybe you should first explain from your view what accounts for the permanence of phenomena that leave and enter consciousness (like the Eiffel tower).

That is because MAL (of whoever is the creator-mind who keeps the ideation of the world running in its mind) keeps the ideation of the Eiffel tower in his mind even when nobody is looking at it, and while this is happening, the idea of the Eiffel tower is still being experienced by the MAL (or a creator-mind). But when MAL (or a creator-mind) drops that idea, it is truly gone and exists nowhere. That's a non-Platonic view. The Platonic view would say that this idea still actually exists as a reality in Consciousness in a mysterious "pool of all possible ideas", but just not experienced by any mind.

[Cleric K]

Yes, there is an idea of a 3D cube, but (in a non-Platonic paradigm) it only exists as a meaning of your thought at the moment you think about it. You stop thinking about it and the idea is gone. You can recall the same thought again, and the idea will come into being again. Now, when you do not experience the idea of 3D cube, it may still be experienced by other alter minds (whether incarnate or discarnate beings, or the MAL itself), or it may not. But either way, there is no proof or evidence that the 3D cube idea still somehow "exists" when there is no mind thinking about it. We can still make an inference that it exists, but that is exactly Platonism.

Alright, I have nothing against the above. As I've said many times, nothing is changed for the experience of my perspective if the ideas do or do not exist in some special container while I'm not experiencing them.

That is because MAL (of whoever is the creator-mind who keeps the ideation of the world running in its mind) keeps the ideation of the Eiffel tower in his mind even when nobody is looking at it, and while this is happening, the idea of the Eiffel tower is still being experienced by the MAL (or a creator-mind). But when MAL (or a creator-mind) drops that idea, it is truly gone and exists nowhere. That's a non-Platonic view. The Platonic view would say that this idea still actually exists as a reality in Consciousness in a mysterious "pool of all possible ideas", but just not experienced by any mind.

I agree about the pool too. But I would point out that we don't need even the idea of some MAL-container that keeps the manifested ideas in place. This is also something not experienced by any mind, just as the pool.

What is experienced, though, is that ideas exist in specific relations. You already gave a good example with Bach. I would go as far as to say that my current state of being wouldn't be what it is the Eiffel tower doesn't exist. Not only that, but even if I meditate on the emptiness, and two bolts on tower somehow switch places, my empty state would be slightly different. Of course, immeasurably slightly different but still different. Every state of my being is a unique idea and the totality of perceptions are the symbol, the hieroglyph resonating with that idea.

Does the above require that my idea-state exists in relation to a pool of ideas, including those of the two bolts in the tower? No it, doesn't require anything. It only states what is obvious. Of course, the example with the bolts may sound farfetched but we inevitably reach the conclusion that this must be the case when we begin to trace the relations of our idea-state to other ideas, because ideas ripple in one another and sooner or later we'll arrive also at the bolts.

I'll try to give an analogy (I assume it is clear how the Mandelbrot fractal is generated).

Does the right object push the strip on the left? Or the left strip makes way for the right and allows it to grow towards it? Every mathematician will say that such questions don't make sense because there's no causal relation between these areas. Nevertheless these areas exist in the specific relation we see. Even if we are to render only the strip on the left it would still curve in the same way. It doesn't 'know' that its shape may be influenced by areas that haven't even been revealed.

My point is that it's irrelevant whether we assume that these relations exist in some Platonic world-in-itself or exist only when we probe the complex plane. One thing is clear - they are interrelated. I repeat that this is only an analogy, I'm not building a model of reality. Yet it hints that whether we believe in a Platonic pool or not, ideas exist in specific relations and strangely enough, not a single idea could be what it is, if the whole infinity of other ideas were not imprinted in it. The idea doesn't care about our intellectual speculations about its 'anatomy'.

In the above sense we should reconsider the idea of 'consciousness creates ideas'. It would be more appropriate to say 'consciousness explores ideas and their relations'. This doesn't mean that ideas exist independently of consciousness but only what was presented above as analogy - that if I begin to investigate the structure of my idea-state I would be led to very specific ideas without which my idea-state would never be what it is. We can speculate as much as we want about the 'before' the first Idea but once there's experience of an Idea then immediately there's a whole infinity of other ideas that exist in relation to it - whether we imagine that this infinity exists in precomputed pool or the ideas exist only when we probe them, is completely irrelevant to practical experience. What has practical significance is that these ideas can be explored. If we understand the relational 'pushes' and 'pulls' between our idea-state and other ideas we gain a kind of higher-order knowledge. From that perspective we can guide the temporal metamorphosis of our state in accordance to that knowledge.

[ScottRoberts]

This is the actual experience ... there is only ever emptiness dancing ... a poetic metaphor for the 'activity' of consciousness ... aka 'ideation.'

Yes, there is such experience, no question about that. But what do we do then with an actual experience of "emptiness at rest and not dancing"? It disproves the claim that "there is only ever emptiness dancing". Not to say that "emptiness not dancing" is any "better" then "emptiness dancing" in any way, but just as a matter of fact... Emptiness can exist without dancing, but dancing can not exist without emptiness. Emptiness loves to dance and to experience it, and this is great! Yet, if emptiness forgets its empty nature and starts thinking that it is only dancing that ever exists, then it gets into a distorted perception of itself. The actual experience of emptiness with no dancing is a way for emptiness to re-discover its emptiness and prove to itself that it is not reducible to dancing only. Then it can happily return to dancing, but now without the distorted perspective of missing it's empty aspect.

Eugene, yours is a two-miracle ontology, while Dana's (and mine) only requires one miracle. Your first miracle is empty awareness. The second is the ability of empty awareness to produce ideas. There is no way to reduce ideation to emptiness, so two miracles are needed. If, instead, one's only miracle is conscious activity (i.e., ideation) no second miracle is needed.

Your claim that your first miracle (empty awareness) is fundamental is based on having an experience of empty awareness. But why should this be taken as indicating that empty awareness is ontologically prior to awareness of form? As discussed in other threads, it could simply mean that while awareness of form hides the ever-present formlessness, awareness of formlessness is just hiding awareness of form, while prior to both is awareness of the polarity formlessness/form.