Philosophy Discussion Forums

Ormond wrote:Yes, it is possible. One just turns off the machine generating the concepts.

Fooloso4 wrote:Have you been able to do this? I have not. I have learned to quiet my mind but not function without thinking or concepts.

Right, I didn't mean "function without concepts", and to the degree it sounded that way it's poor writing on my part. I like Felix's "mute button", that works for me. Thanks for the help Felix!

Perhaps there is a gateless gate, but still only a few manage to pass through even though they are humble and disciplined in their efforts.

Personally, just one view, I'm not interested in passing through the gateless gate, achieving nirvana, enlightenment and all the other glorious becoming trips conceptions of permanent radical psychological transformation. If such things are possible, they would seem to affect so few as to be largely irrelevant.

I prefer to look at this as maintenance procedures for one of the human body's mechanical processes. As example, I bike 5-10 miles most days to stay in shape. I try to eat healthy foods. I get adequate sleep. These are simple obvious common sense acts which can be applied to all functions of the body, including the thought machine between our ears.

The point is that it is one thing to say it can be done, but quite another to have actually done it. All too often we read about all things being one and freeing ourselves of the mind in order to experience things as they are, but I fool myself if I think that we have actually done this. So, I say, maybe it is doable, I don’t know.

If you patiently did situps over a period of time you'd get a flatter stomach, right? Why make meditation type experiences any more complicated than that? Of course it's doable, and of course you can do it. It's simply a matter of whether you choose to explore in that direction. Don't think of it as some kind of profound esoteric transformation, but simply as learning how to turn the down the volume of the thought machine.

The lower the volume of thought in a particular situation, the more interesting reality tends to become, as we're no longer being so distracted by the blaring radio between our ears. Smaller and smaller things can be fulfilling once we're actually paying attention to them.

You might find you've been standing in a field watching the breeze blow through the tops of the pine trees for an hour, because your thought machine is not constantly demanding that you go somewhere, do something, get something, become something etc. When all that mental noise recedes on to the back burner, the wind in the tops of the pines starts feeling like enough. A handful of dirt may become more interesting than any philosophy book.

There's nothing magical about any of this, it's like situps, it just requires the patient application of simple mechanical exercises over time.

There are some mystics, for example, who claim that mystical experience can result from effort or deprivation or some other form of intention and others say that it cannot, that the best we can do is prepare ourselves. In Zen Buddhism we find the same thing, with different schools saying different things and strong criticism of those who claim it is easy. Then there are those like Paul and Mohammed who claim to have gained divine knowledge without actually having done anything.

Making things complicated is how experts maintain their status as experts. Anybody who is famous probably got that way by telling a lot of people what they want to hear. Many of us like glorious stories of profound transformation, so some people tell those stories. I'm not saying all this talk is wrong, only that it seems like rather a distraction from the far simpler business of learning how to manage the volume controls.

Perhaps the illusion is that we can step outside of language.

How about lowering the volume of thought? Does that sound doable to you?

I have not had the experience of unity. If someone says that they have I do not know what it is that they have experienced, only what they call it.

You're talking with a friend, but you can't focus on what they're saying because the TV is blaring in the background. So you turn down the volume of the TV and then you can hear them better.

Right, but what is the human situation? Is it a man made separation created by thought or is that thought creates a problem it calls separation? Do we yearn for unity because we have become separate or do we create the notion of separateness because we yearn for something and call it unity?

Imagine you're wearing tinted sunglasses and so everywhere you look reality appears to be tinted. Everybody else is wearing the same sunglasses so they all confirm your observation. Except that reality isn't actually tinted, it just appears that way when wearing the sunglasses. That is, the apparent separation is a function of the tool we are using to observe reality, not reality itself. Meditation doesn't create unity, it just removes the sunglasses to reveal the unity that already exists.

It may be that the thought of separateness creates the perception of separateness.

All thought creates the perception of separateness, because thought operates by a process of conceptual division. As example, the noun.

In other words, the problem is not thinking but what we think.

This is a very popular theory of course. Much of religion is built upon it for example. My thinking is surely guilty of attempting to create a conceptual but unreal line of division between thought content and thought itself. There's a fair amount of writing ego involved, worship of my own apparent cleverness and so on.

That said, I do sincerely feel there is value to be found in seeing this as a basically simple mechanical issue. Doing so would seem to make constructive remedies available to far more people than any "advanced" esoteric philosophy can reach. A good compromise might be to start with the simple mechanical exercises, and if something esoteric should happen along the way, deal with that then.

Ormond:

If such things are possible, they would seem to affect so few as to be largely irrelevant.

Then we are in agreement. That is my point about the few.

If you patiently did situps over a period of time you'd get a flatter stomach, right?

I would make my hernia, my lower back, and my spinal stenosis worse, but I get your point.

Why make meditation type experiences any more complicated than that? Of course it's doable, and of course you can do it.

Yes, this is doable and although I no longer do it I did do meditation on a daily bases when I was younger - six o'clock every morning. Just last night I read something that made me think about starting up again, but not so early. I like to sleep and believe that sleeping and dreaming are very important. Although meditation is certainly helpful, it did not enable me to silence my mind except for a few moments at a time, but it can help lower the volume (I see you use the same metaphor below). This is a much more modest goal than what I thought you were talking about.

We seem to have a somewhat different concept of and attitude toward philosophy. For me it is, on the one hand self-reflection and self- improvement, to look honestly at myself and change what I do not like; on the other, it is reading and attempting to understand the great philosophers. I do not read them to find answers or remedies. That is one thing that philosophy taught me not to do. It is in some ways closer to admiring a great work of art or hearing a great musical performance. Although it can be difficult and challenging, especially when reading someone I have not read before, it is pleasurable. I do not generally recommend philosophy to others unless they show an interest. I do not think it is for everyone and do not think that everyone benefits directly.

Fooloso4 wrote:Although meditation is certainly helpful, it did not enable me to silence my mind except for a few moments at a time, but it can help lower the volume (I see you use the same metaphor below). This is a much more modest goal than what I thought you were talking about.

The error is mine. While I try to discuss such things in simple accessible practical language, I don't always succeed. Part of the problem is that this audience, indeed most audiences, want complexity and this writer and many others are too often too willing to comply.

There was a semi-famous book in the sixties called "Be Here Now". Three words. The title alone was enough for anyone who was serious about exploring in these directions, you didn't even need to open the book.

We seem to have a somewhat different concept of and attitude toward philosophy. For me it is, on the one hand self-reflection and self- improvement, to look honestly at myself and change what I do not like; on the other, it is reading and attempting to understand the great philosophers.

Well, I'm obviously engaged in philosophy too. Perhaps my interest is more in using philosophy to travel towards the boundary of it's realm, and then look out over the edge. Most astronomers focus their attention on objects in the sky. I guess I'm more interested in the space between the objects.

I do not read them to find answers or remedies. That is one thing that philosophy taught me not to do. It is in some ways closer to admiring a great work of art or hearing a great musical performance.

Ok, I hear you, words and ideas have a beauty which can be appreciated for it's own value. It would likely help my relationship with ideas a good deal to look at it more that way.

Ormond wrote:Most astronomers focus their attention on objects in the sky. I guess I'm more interested in the space between the objects.

I like that!

Fooloso4 wrote:I do not read them to find answers or remedies. That is one thing that philosophy taught me not to do. It is in some ways closer to admiring a great work of art or hearing a great musical performance.

Ormond wrote:Ok, I hear you, words and ideas have a beauty which can be appreciated for it's own value. It would likely help my relationship with ideas a good deal to look at it more that way.

Fooloso, many scientists share your view - the more they find out, the more the story develops.

Ormond, you seem to be on a mission to learn more from first hand experience rather than texts. While the kinds of semi-dormant states that you and others advocate can be both rejuvenating and illuminating, I can't help wondering ... if the best thing you can do while living is to blank out (as much as possible), to what end would that rejuvenation and illumination be put?

Greta wrote:Ormond, you seem to be on a mission to learn more from first hand experience rather than texts.

That's close, but let's be a bit more precise. My mission is not so much to learn from first hand experience, as it is to have the first hand experience. The experience is not a means to some other end, it is the end.

We don't breathe to learn about breathing.
We don't eat to learn about eating.
We don't do the wild thing to learn about that.
We don't sleep to learn about sleep.

Breathing, eating, sex and sleeping all have their own value which is not dependent on what we learn from them, what we call them, our opinions about them, and so on.

If we look at thinking as just another mechanical operation of the human body, all the esoteric mumbo jumbo is stripped out of the topic, and this becomes a very simple subject. We rest the mind for the same reason we rest the body.

Greta wrote:While the kinds of semi-dormant states that you and others advocate can be both rejuvenating and illuminating, I can't help wondering ... if the best thing you can do while living is to blank out (as much as possible), to what end would that rejuvenation and illumination be put?

Excellent question, thank you.

When you sleep at night, when you blank out for 8 hours a day every day, to what end is that rejuvenation put? Who knows? You can use your refreshed body in a million different ways. The same applies to a refreshed mind.

To answer another way....

To the degree we "blank out" ie. lower the volume of thought, hit the mute button etc. the need for that experience to be a means to some other end tends to fade. It's thought which is always on the move, projecting the past in to the future, grabbing for this, reaching for that, looking, searching, turning everything in to a means to some other end.

This is because thought is inherently divisive in nature, so it's always creating the experience of separation from reality, or as some would call it, God. This apparent separation is a kind of hunger that thought is always trying to fulfill in a million different ways. Thought says, "If only I had X, then I'd be fulfilled". But as we've all seen, X only fills the void for so long, and then thought recreates the hunger, and we're off on another search for something, somebody, anything to fill the hole.

To the degree we lower the volume of thought this whole process of searching tends to slow or stop, because the influence of that which is creating the hunger is reduced. As the search fades, the need to have some desired end beyond what's happening now does as well.

No, I'm not suggesting we should all meditate 24 hours a day to achieve a permanent state of bliss and all of that, a future tripping dream I see as a kind of hogwash which is just another product of the ever searching nature of thought.

You're here on a philosophy forum trying to sharpen your mind. You don't do philosophy all day long every day, it's just a healthy enjoyable hobby which enhances other parts of your life. Just as we explore the "on button" of thought we can explore the "off button" too. The two go together, like up and down, night and day, male and female, the alpha and the omega, the potato and the potawto, the tomato and the tomawto.

Whitedragon wrote:So many debates gravitate around the degrading of the Lord. In our attempts to disprove him or discredit him, we find some satisfaction. These questions and accusations bring us to a new question, what has he actually done wrong?

Ok, I've got a bit of a list:

1. Bushbabies. I don't know about the rest of you but to me those eyes are just too fecking big and I don't like the way they look at you one little bit.

2. Those monkeys or baboons with the red and blue bottoms. He must have been pulling our plonkers there I reckon.

3. Actually animals generally are probably a bit of a cock-up on His part. I sit down for a quiet dinner with the Missus, put a nature programme on TV and before you can even take a mouthful one of the little feckers will be defecating all over the place (hippopotamus) or tearing the head off of a duck (badgers do this). It's all very unpleasant and so unnecessary.

I have to go now but I'll be back with more regrettable animals later this evening.

Ormond:

"Be Here Now".

On several occasions what you have said reminded me of that book. His turn toward Judaism is interesting, although I have not read anything he has to say about it.

Greta:

Fooloso, many scientists share your view - the more they find out, the more the story develops.

I agree and think that this is something that those who are critical of science do not understand. It is first and foremost a mode of inquiry.

Greta wrote:While the kinds of semi-dormant states that you and others advocate can be both rejuvenating and illuminating, I can't help wondering ... if the best thing you can do while living is to blank out (as much as possible), to what end would that rejuvenation and illumination be put?

Ormond wrote:Excellent question, thank you.

When you sleep at night, when you blank out for 8 hours a day every day, to what end is that rejuvenation put? Who knows? You can use your refreshed body in a million different ways. The same applies to a refreshed mind.

To answer another way....

To the degree we "blank out" ie. lower the volume of thought, hit the mute button etc. the need for that experience to be a means to some other end tends to fade. It's thought which is always on the move, projecting the past in to the future, grabbing for this, reaching for that, looking, searching, turning everything in to a means to some other end.

This is because thought is inherently divisive in nature, so it's always creating the experience of separation from reality, or as some would call it, God. This apparent separation is a kind of hunger that thought is always trying to fulfill in a million different ways. Thought says, "If only I had X, then I'd be fulfilled". But as we've all seen, X only fills the void for so long, and then thought recreates the hunger, and we're off on another search for something, somebody, anything to fill the hole.

To the degree we lower the volume of thought this whole process of searching tends to slow or stop, because the influence of that which is creating the hunger is reduced. As the search fades, the need to have some desired end beyond what's happening now does as well.

No, I'm not suggesting we should all meditate 24 hours a day to achieve a permanent state of bliss and all of that, a future tripping dream I see as a kind of hogwash which is just another product of the ever searching nature of thought.

You're here on a philosophy forum trying to sharpen your mind. You don't do philosophy all day long every day, it's just a healthy enjoyable hobby which enhances other parts of your life. Just as we explore the "on button" of thought we can explore the "off button" too. The two go together, like up and down, night and day, male and female, the alpha and the omega, the potato and the potawto, the tomato and the tomawto. :-)

Yes, there is a balance to be achieved and the current dominant zeitgeist increasingly only values actions that generate profit. This is where your ideas come under pressure: you are suggesting that we ease off, to stop and smell the roses and give ourselves the space to be calm and sane(ish). However, in today's world, if one does too much bushwalking - or any "self indulgent" activity - then they are ready to be easily out-competed by smart and super-motivated Asiatics.

There is a pushback against "The System" that is driving us - that stands between us and the kind of calm you advocate. Unfortunately, as with the hippies in the 60s, today's counterculture's efforts have been sincerely motivated but confused. This is why they helped to elect an authoritarian anti-science establishment figure - the owner of multinational companies, with a Wall Street-studded cabinet. The US's "Evangelist Spring" seems to have been just as manipulated by Wall Street as the Arab Spring was manipulated by Islamic fundamentalists.

I'm guessing that, aside from the obvious political and social manipulation of influential parties, misgivings about science come from finding the implied message too depressing. That is, after all the trouble life deals us, then we just disappear. Seemingly we are supposed to feel grateful for the "gift" of nothingness, to finally relieve us of life's struggles. Oh yay and hurrah.

So, if science and education are rejected, what is there to stop us from believing that we live forever? To believe that deceased love ones met a better fate than total annihilation? The discontent that science's afterlife message created has been played on by anti-science stakeholders such as commercial fossil fuel interests and conservative religious powerbrokers. Science and education aren't the enemy, just that the intellectual domain was economically rationalised, along with everything else, including religion. As Fooloso noted, science has its own fascination and beauty - it follows the forensic trail in the "greatest whodunnit ever told".

Yes, classification does separate us from that which is classified in an immediate sense. However, it also opens the door to deeper connections and understandings. So ideally we cycle back and forth, seeking balance between the peace of relative dormancy and the stimulation of activity, and in each there's the hope of taking a break from "being a self" for a while.

Greta: if the best thing you can do while living is to blank out (as much as possible), to what end would that rejuvenation and illumination be put?

Meditation is not "blanking out," it's a heightened state of awareness, which actually requires greater vigilance than thinking, since thinking is usually mechanical. In fact there is nothing more annoying to thoughts than to label them "thought" when they arrive. It really drives them up your wall - or actually out of your mind - when you do that.

Turnips. I'm sure God didn't mean them to turn out like that.

Felix wrote:

Greta: if the best thing you can do while living is to blank out (as much as possible), to what end would that rejuvenation and illumination be put?

Meditation is not "blanking out," it's a heightened state of awareness, which actually requires greater vigilance than thinking, since thinking is usually mechanical. In fact there is nothing more annoying to thoughts than to label them "thought" when they arrive. It really drives them up your wall - or actually out of your mind - when you do that.

Like many, I never progressed beyond beginner meditation - TM with either mantras or focus on breath.

What you describe - deeper meditation - seems rather like philosophical rumination in some respects, eg. rather than settling for "that is an apple" and moving on, the ruminant* might consider the deeper reality of what an apple actually is and its role and analogues in the larger scheme of things.

* not of the ungulate variety

Felix wrote: Meditation is not "blanking out," it's a heightened state of awareness, which actually requires greater vigilance than thinking, since thinking is usually mechanical. In fact there is nothing more annoying to thoughts than to label them "thought" when they arrive. It really drives them up your wall - or actually out of your mind - when you do that.

I did a lot of this kind of thing when I was younger, until I realised it is a lot of pretentious ********.

-- Updated December 27th, 2016, 4:16 am to add the following --

Pretentious b o l l o c ks.

Hello again Greta the Great,

Greta wrote:This is where your ideas come under pressure: you are suggesting that we ease off, to stop and smell the roses and give ourselves the space to be calm and sane(ish). However, in today's world, if one does too much bushwalking - or any "self indulgent" activity - then they are ready to be easily out-competed by smart and super-motivated Asiatics.

A well rested and thus sharpened mind can be put to any use, just as well rested sharpened body can. Business can drive one crazy. If we allow that to happen, then we don't do very good business.

There is a pushback against "The System" that is driving us - that stands between us and the kind of calm you advocate.

The only thing that stands between us and calm is us. It's true "the system" is bombarding us with a thousand different kinds of mind stimulation, but in the end it's us that chooses how to manage that environment.

Seemingly we are supposed to feel grateful for the "gift" of nothingness, to finally relieve us of life's struggles. Oh yay and hurrah.

Being grateful for the availability of nothingness, both within life and perhaps beyond it, would be a highly rational act.

First, being ungrateful accomplishes nothing other than to generate painful conflict inside our own heads, hardly a rational course of action.

Second, as we've discussed, much of life is actually defined by an ongoing search for nothingness, such as when we "lose ourselves" in some activity.

Third, the vast overwhelming majority of reality is nothing, or perhaps relative nothing. Space, the empty void, dark matter, whatever we wish to call it, is the main event, the defining characteristic of reality. So surely it is at least very interesting, and given it's unimaginable size, going to war with it is again fairly labeled an irrational act.

Whether one prefers the term "God" or "Nature", the most rational act is to try to fall in love with it, because then one is engaged in controlling that which one has at least some hope of controlling, one's own experience of reality/god/nature/whatever.

The theists in Western culture get all this, and have for thousands of years. But, the story they have come up with for falling in love with reality only works for some people. Those who can't connect with the theist stories face the challenge of coming up with their own stories, their own kind of love relationship with reality. If the theist stories don't work for us, the rational act is to discard that which isn't working, and get about the business of finding something that does.

Science and education aren't the enemy,

Agreed. Science and education aren't the enemy.

Our blind unquestioning faith based relationship with science and education is the enemy.

So ideally we cycle back and forth, seeking balance between the peace of relative dormancy and the stimulation of activity, and in each there's the hope of taking a break from "being a self" for a while.

This sounds sensible.

I would add only that it's possible to be both at peace, and very active, at the same time. It's easier to find peace say, way out in the woods. But peace is available where ever we are if we want it bad enough. As example, some people report finally finding their peace in jail.

Meditation is not "blanking out," it's a heightened state of awareness, which actually requires greater vigilance than thinking, since thinking is usually mechanical.

Thanks for this great description Felix, a welcome addition to the conversation.

Yes, meditation can involve the same kind of discipline and focus as philosophy, but it's an exploration in the opposite direction.

Philosophy involves patiently building concept castles. Meditation involves patiently tearing the concept castles down. The two might be compared to the holistic process of nature, where both creation and destruction are always ongoing, working together as a team.

(Sorry I'm late in replying...I was kind of distracted the last couple of days)

Greta wrote:

Dclements wrote:But you forget Greta, to Christian it isn't a problem if 'God works in mysterious ways' (or in ways that appear no different than just nature itself), it is just a problem for non-believers who do not understand him.

Believers don't understand their deity either, hence the "mysterious ways". They just have faith that all will work out for the best.

I don't believe much but I have a similar "faith", myself, albeit based on the Earth's evolutionary history (I disagree with Gould about evolution being a bush, a statement made before the emergent technological leaps in the Information Age). If an intelligent species, human or other, breaks through "the hard barrier" and continues to develop, then the progress they could make in billions of years is beyond imagining.

My point has always been that, even if a glorious future awaits, that's not very useful for those acting as collateral damage in the process of creating this dream. Yes, that new highway may ultimately benefit many more people than someone's home due to be bulldozed, but let's not forget that it's not a house being bulldozed but a home being sacrificed for a glorious future. If the universe is in the process of creating something godlike, it would still be remiss to ignore the extraordinary suffering inflicted on innocents along the way, and to question why such extremity of awfulness is necessary.

I think your pretty close to nailing the real problem in the head which is we live in a world where we may one day through 'progress' make a better world. However in the mean time this highway to whatever glorious future awaits us is paved in pain and suffering of those that will never be able to really benefit from. Why some people have to pay with though pounds of their flesh and a large part of their soul and other reap the rewards for their sacrifice I don't think anyone can say way it has to be that way, except for just that it is in Western civilization and a large part of the rest of the world. It is possible that Christianity at one time really cared about helping the poor and better mankind, but since it is easier to get money from rich people who want to be 'saved'; it was likely a given that trying to save the poor would have to be put on the back burner when money became the main priority for the church. Maybe if the church actually tried harder to help people maybe things might not be the way they are, but since the church has only so much and priest are as human/hedonistic as the rest of us are, expecting them to really do anything may be too much. Even if the point of the church is to 'save' people both in this world and the 'next'.

My only fear is that not only is this 'highway to the future' paved with the bodies of those that force to make it, with each advancement we make we increase the complexities and dangers of the world we live in. And on top of that, our culture and society is FAR too backwards thinking to be able to handle these problems without making mistakes after mistakes which not only threatens to hurt people in the future but could likely wipe us out. Of course this could just be my paranoia and the threat may not be so bad; but for some reason I really don't think so.