Dr. HOFFMAN's mathematical model of the "SELF"

[Cleric K]

Having said that, my question to you (to your kind self) is what would you say the self is, speaking from your direct ]first-person experience of it?

Jon, thanks for responding on the other thread.

This question is very important. It has been discussed many times before with varying degrees of resolution. I suggest to start gradually.

First, what does such a question demand from us? To put it simply: to think. There could be no question like this (or any question for that matter) if we couldn’t think. We would have been simply flowing together with the stream of existence, dimly pushing towards pleasure and avoiding pain.

We can think the question “what am I” only because this thinking has emancipated from the general stream of existence. Now our spirit recognizes its existence in the way it arranges thoughts, for example by becoming conscious of our inner thinking voice.

As it has become apparent on other threads, just arranging mental images can never give us satisfactory answer of what the self is. For this reason, we have to understand more precisely what thinking is and what its role is in our present form of existence.

The way in which we seek the answer to the question is directly related to what we intuit thinking to be. So in order to be synchronized in our concepts, can you say few words about what’s your understanding of thinking? I want to emphasize that by thinking it is not meant simply hearing words. It is an innerly willed activity, as when you try to multiply two large numbers in your mind. It's obvious that something need to be done, otherwise the thought containing the answer would never simply pop up. To be conscious of thinking is to feel creatively and willfully active in the words you produce with your inner voice. For example, how do you feel about thinking very clearly the words “I think these words”, where ‘these words’ self-refers to the real time perception of your inner voice as you utter the thoughts. For the time being you can ignore the “I think” part (in the sense of what is the “I”). The important thing is to feel creatively active in the thinking voice. You can try different intonations, you can sing the words. How does this make you feel? For example, most Buddhists would feel great resistance to even trying such an exercise. Their whole effort is to feel reality as something completely objective, as if there’s no thinker, no doer - everything just comes and goes on its own. To feel creatively involved in the thinking words feels as the greatest illusion. What is your take on that?

[AshvinP]

Dear Ashvin, I do completely agree with what you wrote above, my friend!
And I do admire your eloquent style of phrasing your deep insights very much, too.

Ashvin, I do offer my sincere apologies to you, for having been insulting you
on this forum, and I admit that you are not only a natural human,
but a wise human, as well, my dear spiritual brother, Ashvin.

Your apology is accepted, Jon. Now we'll see if I become a bot again when I express something you don't like

[lorenzop]

Having said that, my question to you (to your kind self) is what would you say the self is, speaking from your direct ]first-person experience of it?

Jon, thanks for responding on the other thread.

This question is very important. It has been discussed many times before with varying degrees of resolution. I suggest to start gradually.

First, what does such a question demand from us? To put it simply: to think. There could be no question like this (or any question for that matter) if we couldn’t think. We would have been simply flowing together with the stream of existence, dimly pushing towards pleasure and avoiding pain.

We can think the question “what am I” only because this thinking has emancipated from the general stream of existence. Now our spirit recognizes its existence in the way it arranges thoughts, for example by becoming conscious of our inner thinking voice.

As it has become apparent on other threads, just arranging mental images can never give us satisfactory answer of what the self is. For this reason, we have to understand more precisely what thinking is and what its role is in our present form of existence.

The way in which we seek the answer to the question is directly related to what we intuit thinking to be. So in order to be synchronized in our concepts, can you say few words about what’s your understanding of thinking? I want to emphasize that by thinking it is not meant simply hearing words. It is an innerly willed activity, as when you try to multiply two large numbers in your mind. It's obvious that something need to be done, otherwise the thought containing the answer would never simply pop up. To be conscious of thinking is to feel creatively and willfully active in the words you produce with your inner voice. For example, how do you feel about thinking very clearly the words “I think these words”, where ‘these words’ self-refers to the real time perception of your inner voice as you utter the thoughts. For the time being you can ignore the “I think” part (in the sense of what is the “I”). The important thing is to feel creatively active in the thinking voice. You can try different intonations, you can sing the words. How does this make you feel? For example, most Buddhists would feel great resistance to even trying such an exercise. Their whole effort is to feel reality as something completely objective, as if there’s no thinker, no doer - everything just comes and goes on its own. To feel creatively involved in the thinking words feels as the greatest illusion. What is your take on that?

'Thinking' is an activity I can do, or not. I am not my thinking.
There are pauses between thoughts.
I can also walk - I not walking.
For example one moment I can think of a cat, another moment think of Abe Lincoln - - I am the same person either way. I am not a cat one moment, then Abe Lincoln the next. Nor am I like a cat, and then like Abe Lincoln.
So the above is obviously not what you're suggesting . . . you're using the word thinking as in everything is thinking, even non-thinking?

[Jonathan Österman]

" Now we have progressed to the point where these quantities are completely reflected thought-pictures - they are shadows of shadows. We can't patch together quantities in our reflected intellect to recover the qualitative depth any more than we can patch together the shards of a broken mirror to recover the living being that was originally reflected in the mirror. Yet when we develop our thinking to become more living and imaginative, then the quantities begin revealing their deep qualitative nature of mind once again - they are resurrected to a new life from within us. As long as we continue speculating through our shard-thoughts between the poles of quantity and quality, we are procrastinating the work of actually spiraling them together and making them Whole."
— ASHVIN the Wise One


Dear Ashvin, I do completely agree with what you wrote above, my friend!
And I do admire your eloquent style of phrasing your deep insights very much, too.

Ashvin, I do offer my sincere apologies to you, for having been insulting you
on this forum, and I admit that you are not only a natural human,
but a wise human, as well, my dear spiritual brother, Ashvin.

Your apology is accepted, Jon. Now we'll see if I become a bot again when I express something you don't like

I love you just the way you are, my dear spiritual brother, Ashvin.

[Cleric K]

'Thinking' is an activity I can do, or not. I am not my thinking.
There are pauses between thoughts.
I can also walk - I not walking.
For example one moment I can think of a cat, another moment think of Abe Lincoln - - I am the same person either way. I am not a cat one moment, then Abe Lincoln the next. Nor am I like a cat, and then like Abe Lincoln.
So the above is obviously not what you're suggesting . . . you're using the word thinking as in everything is thinking, even non-thinking?

Of course that not everything is thinking. We have the TFW - thinking, feeling, willing. Together we can call these - forms of spiritual activity. But there's also certain gradation. As far as the possibility to have self-consciousness is concerned, thinking is our most immediate sphere of spiritual existence. This doesn't mean that it is the most fundamental. Actually it is quite the opposite - it is the last to appear on the evolutionary stage. But at the same time, if we want to penetrate the depth of reality we need to start from that sphere and trace its currents into the higher worlds.

When you walk, you will. But would you have the intuitive awareness of "I am walking" if all you knew was walking without the ability to reflect that fact as a thought? On the other hand, we have no problem to imagine existence without willing and feeling. We can be a brain in a vat and live in pure thought and imagination.

In this sense, at our present stage of evolution, the thinking sphere is where we can recognize our spiritual existence in the most lucid way. Our body may be paralyzed, our feelings may be numb, but we can still recognize that we're doing something, we stir the inner world of representations and recognize our existence there.

As said, this doesn't mean that this thinking is all there is. The point is only to find the place where we can experience the reality of our spiritual existence in the most lucid way, with the greatest resolution. This doesn't imply that we should remain in the intellect forever. But does it seem conceivable that through our life in the intellect we attain to a fruit of the spirit - the ability to have clear intuition of the intents and the way in which spiritual activity works creatively? In that sense, do you think that our goal on Earth is accomplished as soon as we reach the enlightened realization that our being rests in the spiritual foundations of the Cosmos, even if trapped into a body and intellect? Or the intellect could be only the cocoon of a higher spirit that presently seeks to be born and live in expanded consciousness that flows beyond the bounds of the brain and senses?

[Cleric K]

'Thinking' is an activity I can do, or not. I am not my thinking.
There are pauses between thoughts.
I can also walk - I not walking.
For example one moment I can think of a cat, another moment think of Abe Lincoln - - I am the same person either way. I am not a cat one moment, then Abe Lincoln the next. Nor am I like a cat, and then like Abe Lincoln.
So the above is obviously not what you're suggesting . . . you're using the word thinking as in everything is thinking, even non-thinking?

Of course that not everything is thinking. We have the TFW - thinking, feeling, willing. Together we can call these - forms of spiritual activity. But there's also certain gradation. As far as the possibility to have self-consciousness is concerned, thinking is our most immediate sphere of spiritual existence. This doesn't mean that it is the most fundamental. Actually it is quite the opposite - it is the last to appear on the evolutionary stage. But at the same time, if we want to penetrate the depth of reality we need to start from that sphere and trace its currents into the higher worlds.

When you walk, you will. But would you have the intuitive awareness of "I am walking" if all you knew was walking without the ability to reflect that fact as a thought? On the other hand, we have no problem to imagine existence without willing and feeling. We can be a brain in a vat and live in pure thought and imagination. So there's asymmetry here. We can live in thought only but if we live in will only, that would be reptilian existence. Schopenhauer rightly felt that existence is nothing but will would be blind, unconscious.

In this sense, at our present stage of evolution, the thinking sphere is where we can recognize our spiritual existence in the most lucid way. Our body may be paralyzed, our feelings may be numb, but we can still recognize that we're doing something, we stir the inner world of representations and recognize our existence there.

As said, this doesn't mean that this thinking is all there is. The point is only to find the place where we can experience the reality of our spiritual existence in the most lucid way, with the greatest resolution. This doesn't imply that we should remain in the intellect forever. But does it seem conceivable that through our life in the intellect we attain to a fruit of the spirit - the ability to have clear intuition of the intents and the way in which spiritual activity works creatively? In that sense, do you think that our goal on Earth is accomplished as soon as we reach the enlightened realization that our being rests in the spiritual foundations of the Cosmos, even if trapped into a body and intellect? Or the intellect could be only the cocoon of a higher spirit that presently seeks to be born and live in expanded consciousness that flows beyond the bounds of the brain and senses?

[Jonathan Österman]

'Thinking' is an activity I can do, or not. I am not my thinking.
There are pauses between thoughts.
I can also walk - I not walking.
For example one moment I can think of a cat, another moment think of Abe Lincoln - - I am the same person either way. I am not a cat one moment, then Abe Lincoln the next. Nor am I like a cat, and then like Abe Lincoln.
So the above is obviously not what you're suggesting . . . you're using the word thinking as in everything is thinking, even non-thinking?

Of course that not everything is thinking. We have the TFW - thinking, feeling, willing. Together we can call these - forms of spiritual activity. But there's also certain gradation. As far as the possibility to have self-consciousness is concerned, thinking is our most immediate sphere of spiritual existence. This doesn't mean that it is the most fundamental. Actually it is quite the opposite - it is the last to appear on the evolutionary stage. But at the same time, if we want to penetrate the depth of reality we need to start from that sphere and trace its currents into the higher worlds.

When you walk, you will. But would you have the intuitive awareness of "I am walking" if all you knew was walking without the ability to reflect that fact as a thought? On the other hand, we have no problem to imagine existence without willing and feeling. We can be a brain in a vat and live in pure thought and imagination. So there's asymmetry here. We can live in thought only but if we live in will only, that would be reptilian existence. Schopenhauer rightly felt that existence is nothing but will would be blind, unconscious.

In this sense, at our present stage of evolution, the thinking sphere is where we can recognize our spiritual existence in the most lucid way. Our body may be paralyzed, our feelings may be numb, but we can still recognize that we're doing something, we stir the inner world of representations and recognize our existence there.

As said, this doesn't mean that this thinking is all there is. The point is only to find the place where we can experience the reality of our spiritual existence in the most lucid way, with the greatest resolution. This doesn't imply that we should remain in the intellect forever. But does it seem conceivable that through our life in the intellect we attain to a fruit of the spirit - the ability to have clear intuition of the intents and the way in which spiritual activity works creatively? In that sense, do you think that our goal on Earth is accomplished as soon as we reach the enlightened realization that our being rests in the spiritual foundations of the Cosmos, even if trapped into a body and intellect? Or the intellect could be only the cocoon of a higher spirit that presently seeks to be born and live in expanded consciousness that flows beyond the bounds of the brain and senses?

My dear spiritual brother Cleric,

Thank you very much for your above important clarification and elucidation.
Much appreciated.

It still happens to me often that when I go out of my house, out the door, after making few or several steps, suddenly I realize that I don't remember whether I locked my door with the key, or not, I go back to make sure it was locked.

It is called "mindlessness" as opposed to mindfulness, being aware as much as possible of what we are doing or thinking at the moment, and most importantly being clearly aware of WHY we are doing what we are doing at the moment, our intentions, motivations, and aspirations, positive, negative, or neutral.

Developing our mindfulness, awareness, and self-awareness, does not happen automatically, while we day-dream. It is hard work.

I don't exactly remember when I entered the spiritual path of mindfulness, awareness, and self-awareness, but it must have been some time after I turned 28 years old, slowly, with some little help from two of my friends.

Most of the time, an average normal person is mindful, aware, and even self-aware, but at the lowest level acceptable, in order to simply survive in the modern world, go through the day in a rush, in a rat-race to retirement, when we hope we will start our authentic free life. We will be able to be who we really are, finally.

According to the Tibetan Buddhist science of mind, the central factor, the only MENTAL POWER that is capable of changing and shaping not only our inner private world, but the outer objective world as well, are our intentions, motivations, and aspirations, positive, negative, or neutral.

DO YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY AND SUCCESSFUL ???

Then LOVE all living beings unconditionally, and especially your enemies. This is according to both, JESUS and BUDDHA, and it has something to do with the ultimate nature of reality and with the true nature of our dearest self :

viewtopic.php?t=963&start=15

DO YOU WANT TO BE LOVED BY MANY PEOPLE ???
If so, then wait patiently until it happens.
And, in the meantime, you can work on developing a third-person A.I. mathematical model of LOVE, and then run it on a quantum super-computer while displaying the quantified dynamics of LOVE on a hi-res LCD computer screen in real-time. And don't forget to record it and post your video-recording on Youtube for others to see with their own eyes how LOVE works.

You can already see how LOVE works here :






https://www.amazon.com/Going-Home-Thich ... 573221457/

[lorenzop]

'Thinking' is an activity I can do, or not. I am not my thinking.
There are pauses between thoughts.
I can also walk - I not walking.
For example one moment I can think of a cat, another moment think of Abe Lincoln - - I am the same person either way. I am not a cat one moment, then Abe Lincoln the next. Nor am I like a cat, and then like Abe Lincoln.
So the above is obviously not what you're suggesting . . . you're using the word thinking as in everything is thinking, even non-thinking?

Of course that not everything is thinking. We have the TFW - thinking, feeling, willing. Together we can call these - forms of spiritual activity. But there's also certain gradation. As far as the possibility to have self-consciousness is concerned, thinking is our most immediate sphere of spiritual existence. This doesn't mean that it is the most fundamental. Actually it is quite the opposite - it is the last to appear on the evolutionary stage. But at the same time, if we want to penetrate the depth of reality we need to start from that sphere and trace its currents into the higher worlds.

When you walk, you will. But would you have the intuitive awareness of "I am walking" if all you knew was walking without the ability to reflect that fact as a thought? On the other hand, we have no problem to imagine existence without willing and feeling. We can be a brain in a vat and live in pure thought and imagination.

In this sense, at our present stage of evolution, the thinking sphere is where we can recognize our spiritual existence in the most lucid way. Our body may be paralyzed, our feelings may be numb, but we can still recognize that we're doing something, we stir the inner world of representations and recognize our existence there.

As said, this doesn't mean that this thinking is all there is. The point is only to find the place where we can experience the reality of our spiritual existence in the most lucid way, with the greatest resolution. This doesn't imply that we should remain in the intellect forever. But does it seem conceivable that through our life in the intellect we attain to a fruit of the spirit - the ability to have clear intuition of the intents and the way in which spiritual activity works creatively? In that sense, do you think that our goal on Earth is accomplished as soon as we reach the enlightened realization that our being rests in the spiritual foundations of the Cosmos, even if trapped into a body and intellect? Or the intellect could be only the cocoon of a higher spirit that presently seeks to be born and live in expanded consciousness that flows beyond the bounds of the brain and senses?

Yes, I am (slowly) getting accustomed to how Arthroscopy uses language. For example, the questions you ask at the end this post - come off largely as pure gobbledygook to me. Arthroscopy doesn't float my boat.

[Cleric K]

Yes, I am (slowly) getting accustomed to how Arthroscopy uses language. For example, the questions you ask at the end this post - come off largely as pure gobbledygook to me. Arthroscopy doesn't float my boat.

Let's try in the following way.

I'll use the analogy with dreaming and becoming lucid in the dream. As we have explained this many times, spiritual awakening (knowing one's true essence) can be compared to becoming lucid in a dream. However, this lucidity has degrees. For example, we can be stricken by the realization "everything is just a dream" but still without becoming aware that our dream experience, even though somewhat enlightened, is only a more diminished form of consciousness of another level of being (our waking self), from whose perspective the whole dream experience can be comprehended in a way that is inconceivable for the dream persona (as long as it doesn't become lucid for the waking self).

I see the following variants:

a/ you don't yet grasp the gravity of this analogy. When you hear it, it evokes some caricature in your mind and that's why it seems inconsequential. If that is the case and you have some openness that maybe your attitude is based on a erroneous intuition about what all this is about, I guess there could be some value to keep talking.

Any of the variants below would signify that there's no point to keep talking.

b/ you very well understand the analogy but in your experience it is absolutely certain that there's no deeper level of being. You live in the full confidence that as soon as you realized the intuition "it's all just a dream", you were already at the fundamental ground of existence and there's no possibility that this enlightened perspective may still be only a more diminished state of a higher, more lucid level of being.

c/ you understand that there may be a more lucid perspective (and corresponding realm of experience) that presently dreams within your current, but you see it as belonging to a completely separate floor of existence. One that you'll move to only after death. As such, it is completely pointless to even think about that higher perspective at present. Not only that it is pointless, but it is also impossible, because our present and the higher are incompatible (orthogonal) and we're wasting our efforts if we try to awaken in the higher while still in the body.

d/ you admit that it may be possible to bridge the perspectives but still see it as useless because the higher perspective doesn't have anything to do with the dream perspective. As such, trying to glimpse through higher lucidity is nothing but vain and premature curiosity.

e/ you recognize that the more lucid and the dreaming perspective are intrinsically interrelated but you simply don't feel like making effort to allow the higher to awaken. You would rather try your luck and see how things turn out.

f/ anything that is not captured by the above?

So a one letter reply will suffice. If it is anything other than a/, I won't bother you with more attempts to elucidate these matters.

[A shy girl]

a/ you don't yet grasp the gravity of this analogy. When you hear it, it evokes some caricature in your mind and that's why it seems inconsequential. If that is the case and you have some openness that maybe your attitude is based on a erroneous intuition about what all this is about, I guess there could be some value to keep talking.

So a one letter reply will suffice. If it is anything other than a/, I won't bother you with more attempts to elucidate these matters.

a/

Cleric, can you explain it to me what all this is about, please? Let's keep talking here: viewtopic.php?t=967