The Central Topic

[Jim Cross]

Yea right. "My intuition is true intuition, your intuition is false intuition". The end of philosophy.

Yes. The problem with experience is that my experience is different from your experience. There is now no objective truth just each self-experience imagining self-truths. The argument for experience as primary leads to the end of philosophy. Perhaps this is for the better. I can have a world where pigs don't fly and you can have one where they do. It's all good.

[Soul_of_Shu]

IMO this as a confusion arising out of multiple meanings assigned to the word ‘know’.

What exactly do we mean by a statement such as ‘consciousness is all there is?’
Is this assertion based on us ‘knowing’ or ‘experiencing’ consciousness?
Is experiencing consciousness same as knowing it?

This is once again the question that has been gone through so many times.

These questions keep repeating because no one is able to answer with clarity.

You said “Experiencing and knowing have the same essential nature. At our stage of evolution they differ in their state of aggregation, so to speak”.

I take it to mean ‘experiencing’ and ‘knowing’ are different/mutually exclusive at our stage of evolution. Please correct me if I am misinterpreting your statement.

You go on to say we could evolve towards a “fluid aggregation phase and live there fully consciously and knowingly”. Assuming that is possible, how would you then communicate unambiguously to those who are stuck at the current stage of evolution? Because you would have moved beyond the knowing-experiencing polarity and whatever you say would appear metaphorical to the less evolved.

More and more what this discussion evokes is like observing some here offering an explication of what is involved in creating meaningful music—i.e. what a musical key is; what a chord is, along with what a major vs minor vs diminished 7th vs suspended 4th vs dominant 9th vs augmented 5th chord is; what a chord progression is; what constitutes harmonics; how to read music, etc, etc—all this falling upon the ears of some others who, while they may appreciate simply listening to music, and the effect that chords, melodies, harmonics, et al, have on that appreciation, they can only sing along karaoke-like, if somewhat off-key. And thus, until they actually take up an instrument, with the inspired, impassioned intent to create a novel piece of music, no amount of the aforementioned explication is going to make much sense, or make much difference in what they get out of simply listening to music created by others. Often what I'm finding here is the former explicators debating what constitutes meaningful music, in contrast to the latter listeners of music not caring less what makes it meaningful, but caring only that it is meaningful to them, the majority of whom might tune in to this topic for about about 1 page max, before quickly tuning it all out and moving on elsewhere. So is it any surprise that with almost 300 members, there are about 12 who actually hang in and contribute on a regular basis, the rest likely content to be enjoying their preferred playlist. But hey, either way, carry on to your heart's content.

[Martin_]

Yea right. "My intuition is true intuition, your intuition is false intuition". The end of philosophy.

Yes. The problem with experience is that my experience is different from your experience. There is now no objective truth just each self-experience imagining self-truths. The argument for experience as primary leads to the end of philosophy. Perhaps this is for the better. I can have a world where pigs don't fly and you can have one where they do. It's all good.

Some experiences are valid in wider contexts than others.

[Jim Cross]

Yea right. "My intuition is true intuition, your intuition is false intuition". The end of philosophy.

Yes. The problem with experience is that my experience is different from your experience. There is now no objective truth just each self-experience imagining self-truths. The argument for experience as primary leads to the end of philosophy. Perhaps this is for the better. I can have a world where pigs don't fly and you can have one where they do. It's all good.

Some experiences are valid in wider contexts than others.

Maybe true for my experience but I can't say anything about yours or anybody else's. Everyone out there are just appearances in my experience.

My experience is as wide a context as I get.

[Eugene I.]

Yes. The problem with experience is that my experience is different from your experience. There is now no objective truth just each self-experience imagining self-truths. The argument for experience as primary leads to the end of philosophy. Perhaps this is for the better. I can have a world where pigs don't fly and you can have one where they do. It's all good.

Right, at the very least we need to adopt an assumption that we are all having the same kind of experiencing, thinking and willing, even though the content may be different. If we don't, no philosophy is possible, or we end up in single-mind solipsism. The next assumption is about the content of experiencing: whether there is something shared/common and objective in the content of our experiencing (perceptions, meanings or ideas), and that is more far-reaching assumption that can lead either to objective idealism or to other types of objective metaphysics (materialism etc). But these two basic assumptions are already metaphysical and non-verifiable in principle. We can not prove them based on our 1-st person subjective experience.

[Jim Cross]

Yes. The problem with experience is that my experience is different from your experience. There is now no objective truth just each self-experience imagining self-truths. The argument for experience as primary leads to the end of philosophy. Perhaps this is for the better. I can have a world where pigs don't fly and you can have one where they do. It's all good.

Right, at the very least we need to adopt an assumption that we are all having the same kind of experiencing, thinking and willing, even though the content may be different. If we don't, no philosophy is possible, or we end up in single-mind solipsism. The next assumption is about the content of experiencing: whether there is something shared/common and objective in the content of our experiencing (perceptions, meanings or ideas), and that is more far-reaching assumption that can lead either to objective idealism or to other types of objective metaphysics (materialism etc). But these two basic assumptions are already metaphysical and non-verifiable in principle. We can not prove them based on our 1-st person subjective experience.

Too many assumptions. I'll just stick with my experience. That's all I know.

[AshvinP]

This is once again the question that has been gone through so many times.

These questions keep repeating because no one is able to answer with clarity.

You said “Experiencing and knowing have the same essential nature. At our stage of evolution they differ in their state of aggregation, so to speak”.

I take it to mean ‘experiencing’ and ‘knowing’ are different/mutually exclusive at our stage of evolution. Please correct me if I am misinterpreting your statement.

You go on to say we could evolve towards a “fluid aggregation phase and live there fully consciously and knowingly”. Assuming that is possible, how would you then communicate unambiguously to those who are stuck at the current stage of evolution? Because you would have moved beyond the knowing-experiencing polarity and whatever you say would appear metaphorical to the less evolved.

More and more what this discussion evokes is like observing some here offering an explication of what is involved in creating meaningful music—i.e. what a musical key is; what a chord is, along with what a major vs minor vs diminished 7th vs suspended 4th vs dominant 9th vs augmented 5th chord is; what a chord progression is; what constitutes harmonics; how to read music, etc, etc—all this falling upon the ears of some others who, while they may appreciate simply listening to music, and the effect that chords, melodies, harmonics, et al, have on that appreciation, they can only sing along karaoke-like, if somewhat off-key. And thus, until they actually take up an instrument, with the inspired, impassioned intent to create a novel piece of music, no amount of the aforementioned explication is going to make much sense, or make much difference in what they get out of simply listening to music created by others. Often what I'm finding here is the former explicators debating what constitutes meaningful music, in contrast to the latter listeners of music not caring less what makes it meaningful, but caring only that it is meaningful to them, the majority of whom might tune in to this topic for about about 1 page max, before quickly tuning it all out and moving on elsewhere. So is it any surprise that with almost 300 members, there are about 12 who actually hang in and contribute on a regular basis, the rest likely content to be enjoying their preferred playlist. But hey, either way, carry on to your heart's content.

Great analogy. As Cleric mentioned before, music is a reflection of a higher order logic; a richly meaningful language within the spritual realms which we dimly perceive as music (which just goes to show how much unexplored richness still awaits our Thinking experience IF we pursue its threads). It is simple failure to perceive any of these connections, or to perceive the utility of logical reasoning even on our physical plane, which leads to Eugene and Jim saying things like, "all I know is my current experience, and who knows if anyone is experiencing anything similar to me". I mean, just reflect on that assertion for a few moments. Like Cleric said, just take one moment to logically consider the experience of any phenomena in relation to others you communicate with, or to reason just a tiny bit through the fact we are able to do science and appreciate aesthetics, and that assertion is revealed in its full absurdity. It is why Eugene feels like he must cling to an "assumption" to root the structure and similarity of perception and conception, rather than his own careful thinking. We have lost all trust in the activity most immanent and integral to our experience.

[Eugene I.]

Too many assumptions. I'll just stick with my experience. That's all I know.

That's great. This is Zen. But note that you would also need to drop the assumption of the existence of any non-conscious "world stuff" existing beyond your experience, because all you know and can ever know is only your conscious experience.

My personal take: I'm ok with taking assumptions as long as I understand what they are. I'm a "possibilian" and don't want to block myself from exploring different possibilities of how the world could be, and block myself from the spiritual development that those possibilities may offer. If science would not make any assumptions and models of reality (and those are also only hypotheses), no science would be possible either. But science dares to make assumptions, and that is how it progresses.

[Jim Cross]

Too many assumptions. I'll just stick with my experience. That's all I know.

That's great. This is Zen. But note that you would also need to drop the assumption of the existence of any non-conscious "world stuff" existing beyond your experience, because all you know and can ever know is only your conscious experience.

My personal take: I'm ok with taking assumptions as long as I understand what they are. I'm a "possibilian" and don't want to block myself from exploring different possibilities of how the world could be, and block myself from the spiritual development that those possibilities may offer. If science would not make any assumptions and models of reality (and those are also only hypotheses), no science would be possible either. But science dares to make assumptions, and that is how it progresses.

The world-stuff exists in my experience. Prove it doesn't.

The Steinerites can have their hierarchies and astral planes too if they want.

Explore away. No need to convince me of anything.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Great analogy. As Cleric mentioned before, music is a reflection of a higher order logic; a richly meaningful language within the spritual realms which we dimly perceive as music (which just goes to show how much unexplored richness still awaits our Thinking experience IF we pursue its threads).

Well, in keeping with the analogy, in the case of soul-beings who seem to arrive on the corporeal stage apparently tone-deaf, who can't carry a tune even as far do-re-mi , I'm not sure how far they can pursue such threads, other than the best they can do under the circumstances.