winterknight

The end of suffering, that's what's best.

It's not a bad thing. It's the best possible thing, even though it is unimaginable.

Sort of and yes. The words are illusion, but what they point to (without being able to accurately capture) is not. I already tried, but you didn't get it. That's understandable. It's impossible for you to get. For me to try to describe it in ever more elaborate terms is not going to be helpful. It would just be like this: The room is not there, and the room is not not there. The room is not both there and not there. See? Is that useful? Of course not.

Nothing that can be spoken about or named

The truth is that to say that the illusion exists is, strictly speaking, wrong... but that's not going to make any sense until you yourself have a direct experience of the truth. The images on a TV screen cannot even be called images on a TV screen. But from the seeker's standpoint, it will seem as if the illusion goes on. Well, whether it's mental masturbation or not, I have no particular opinions on whether the multiverse concept is correct or not...

Not exactly. As soon as you say "wall" -- you've brought in a concept. When you have a concept, it's attached to an "I," a mind which thinks that concept. If the mind is still and there is no thinking -- even the idea "wall" will not come to mind. No conceptualization means no wall. But this by itself is not enlightenment. Enlightenment is that even if the idea "wall" comes to mind, that entire wall-mind duality is itself not conceptualized about by the mind. And that is because the background of that pairing is recognized, so that the wall-mind pairing is seen to be unreal. So the wall-I duality is not seen as a separate thing; it's not conceptualized/identified with. The Self has no desires. The desire for visions is a desire of the mind. Nothing wrong with pursuing that desire, but while you pursue it, ask who it is that watches those visions... Even the universe doesn't exist, let alone the multiverse. Yes, yes, these are exactly the insights you need to be having. Now you need to stay with it or proceed until you come to a state of calm peace even while you are doing things in the world -- and then stay with that state. And if you fall out of it, search for the I again until you come back to that state. No. But don't take my word for it. Inquire yourself and find it out in your own experience. Who asks that question?

I appreciate your thoughts but I disagree. I'm not particularly interested in getting into a debate about it, though. Thanks, but the truth it doesn't really matter all that much one way or the other in the end. There is a direct experience of the Truth that is more important than the theories. 1. Whether there is pain depends upon your context. There may appear that there is, but there is not, actually. This can only be understood when you know your true nature yourself. 2. No, enlightenment is a matter of piercing the illusion of personal identity. The best way is Ramana Maharshi's self-inquiry combined with other practices to quiet the mind. There's no real use trying to understand the enlightened state beforehand, except to know that it is pure truth and bliss. It is beyond words and concepts, actually, and best not to weigh yourself down with expectations. You cannot fully surrender on your own. You can only partially surrender -- that's the most you can do. What that means is that you accept whatever happens -- both in the outside world, and in terms of your thoughts and emotions. Let it go. Let it all go. Let decisions go. Let pain go. Let the need to change things go. Or if you feel that need, let that go. Whatever you do, think, or feel, let it go, let it go, let it go. Whatever pain you experience, let it go. Whatever desire you have, let it go. If you feel like you cannot let it go, let that feeling go too. That is the continuous effort of surrender. This will turn into full surrender but you cannot control when that happens. The other possibility is to practice Ramana Maharshi's self-inquiry at all waking moments, which will automatically turn into full surrender at a certain point.

Sure, dual aspect monism is more or less fine with me. It's a working theory that opens up the door to the possibility of consciousness discovering itself... and that's what really matters.

Cool! Enjoy

Ok, that's fine. The things that science explains, science explains. And it's very useful for that. The point is that there are things -- experience in people's WMs -- it cannot. If there is anything that science cannot explain, it destroys the materialist framework. Materialism says that everything can be explained scientifically. "Matter" means that which can be explained scientifically. So if science cannot explain certain things, and if materialism is false, then we have to ask ourselves -- what are these phenomena that science cannot explain? It turns out that they are experience. Conscious experience. So science cannot explain conscious experience. Science cannot explain consciousness. So consciousness is what cannot be captured in materialism or science. If consciousness cannot be captured by science or matter, then that destroys the reason for believing that the brain generates consciousness. Maybe the brain correlates with consciousness, but it does not generate it. Why? Because it cannot explain conscious experience. Consciousness is actually, at the very least, a separate substance from matter... and that has problems. What we really have is a situation where consciousness is the only substance, and matter is just a thought within it, and science is just a useful way of talking about that particular thought.

Your model is not a scientific explanation, it is an explanation of why science cannot explain it. Scientific explanation means noticing a phenomenon and explaining in terms of causes and effects -- in theories that anyone can test publicly. For example, when science explains how a disease works, it looks at phenomena that everyone can see: particular symptoms. These physical symptoms are linked to certain biological changes. All this can be seen with scientific instruments. Anyone can use these instruments. Changes can be predicted. Explanations can be tested and falsified. That's what makes for scientific explanations. When we are dealing with experience in someone's WM, science cannot do any of these things. It cannot even see it, let alone predict it, or talk about its mechanisms or causes. That means that there are things that science cannot explain. The WM model shows that to be the case.

So you consider something explained when you can't even know that it's happening? "Binary for green" is explained by suggesting that we can't know that it's happening? That's what you call an explanation?

It's a legit question, no worries. It is not an inference. It is a direct realization beyond the possibility of doubt. I don't identify myself with the mind, so I am not afraid of suffering. The mind, suffering, pain, pleasure, none of these exist. They might seem to exist, but they do not, really. It is only the mind that could be afraid of suffering, and if we accept its seeming existence for discussion's sake, then I would say that it is much less afraid of suffering than before, but it still does try to avoid it. There is also much less emotional suffering. Ok, so if scientists have no reason to explain things that might be happening in other people's WMs, then those things won't be explained. Do you see that? If that's the case, then science will not explain those things, because scientists have "no reason" to explain them. They cannot know if they are going on. But they might be going on. Right? So if that's the case then there is a group of phenomena -- that is, what's happening in other people's WMs -- that science cannot explain, because scientists cannot know if they are going on. Do you see this?

But you've already admitted the scientist can never even know whether someone else is experiencing binary-as-green or not. How can they explain this if they cannot know whether it is happening or not?

Ok, fantastic. So let's look now at exactly what science is. Science is about explanation of phenomena in terms of sense data that we can all agree upon. But in order to explain phenomena, it has to be able to access them. Since a scientist cannot "experience anything but their WM," scientists cannot explain phenomena that are occurring in other people's WMs. If that is the case, science cannot explain these phenomena. Are we still on the same page? If you want you can say that one day love could be a number and that 2+2 could = 19, but I am happy to say that such things will never happen...

Again, you've already agreed several times that no one could know if someone else was seeing green-as-binary. As long as they still referred to grass as "green," you would never know. So again, do you understand that scientists might know this could happen, but would never be able to tell?

Correct, he wouldn't. But he knows it could be the case. He cannot know if it is actually happening. So the point is that things might be happening in people's world models that scientists will never be able to know are happening. Do you see that?

It's fundamentally different. That was just a matter of augmenting the senses (that's what all scientific instruments do). Here, even if you knew the state of every atom in the universe, you'd still be faced with the same problem. We're getting confused here. Again, let's assume X sees binary for green -- because of what you call X's world model. How would someone else, Y, a scientist, ever know this? You already said he couldn't. Because Y is within his world model. If that's the case, how would Y ever explain that binary-for-green phenomenon in X, given the fact that Y cannot even know it's happening?

Ok, if the scientist can't tell if someone is seeing binary for green, then how can he know how the brain connects to that experience? The scientist cannot even know that it's happening. How can the scientist use the brain to explain it?

Ok, but again: how would the scientist ever know whether someone else was seeing binary for green in their world model?

Right, but the point is that if that's the case, then science cannot access other people's world models. As you said, you cannot know -- and no one can know -- no scientist can know -- if someone else is experiencing the color green as a binary number. If that is the case, then science cannot account for the experiences that people have within their world models. It cannot account for it because it cannot access it. All it has access to is brain data and words. Not the experiences that people have within their individual world models. Correct?

You're very welcome. I will try to keep the thread open for as long as I can and it seems helpful . Haven't read Butterflies are free to fly. What's it about? Ha. Too bad academic psychology (not psychoanalysis) itself is trying so hard to be like the other sciences now. What do you mean by "existentially"? Fear is a feeling connected to an interpretation of the world. You feel fear when you feel a threat to what you think you are. Ha, yes, true. Ok, great. If that's true, then that means that science cannot know or access people's world models, right? Because as you say, even if it was on a screen, the scientist has their own world model, right?

I don't understand. Can you rephrase this question? Yes, but can you answer my question? Could you tell if someone saw the color green as a binary number? As long as they called it green, would you ever be able to tell?

How do you know that their experience of the color green isn't radically different from yours? Say, for example, that they actually see some long binary number -- 111000011101101 -- whenever they see the color green. But they call it "green." Could you be sure that isn't the case?

Not changeable in nature, but that different things are said about it depending on the situation. You might tell a child to conquer their fear, sometimes, depending. But that might not be useful to say to an adult, for example. The point is that societal sayings are not to be taken as simple truth and applied without thinking.