UnbornTao

Good pointing.

You should have noticed that you immediately interpreted the scribbles. Actually removing language-interpretations from your experience of them isn't necessarily easy and takes a concerted effort. You already distinguish between objective and subjective: you distinguish your preference towards a particular object from the object itself. You might also say, for example, that pain is illusory, and the next moment be in pain. So, notice the discrepancy between what one thinks and one's experience. How do you see perception? If it's absolute, why add 'perception' to it?

But GPT told me my drawing was amazing!

Why?

Of course. That way I can recruit more members to my cult - Meaningism. Join in! Free pizza on Thursdays. 🍕🍕

Not so different at all. Humanity as a whole is about wellbeing. It was a lame joke, anyway.

@Breakingthewall I understand you see it as me reacting, but that's not the case here. Don't confuse bluntness with reactivity. It seems you have your fair share of experience taking things personally, so to stay in that vein, I think I paid far more attention to what you wrote than you did while writing it. Did you read what I wrote? Perception and form are also limited. They aren't everything that exists. Okay, no more extrapolation for me. This screams BS. What do you take perspective and perception to be? And what about meaning? Again, what is an 'unlimited framework'? What exactly are you trying to convey with all that rhetoric? Just admit you really don't know what you're talking about and engage in the questioning - the sky won't fall. Being a charlatan is not consistent with the spirit of this work. At the very least, try to be honest and clear - and actually open, for that matter. You say meaning is objective on the one hand, and on the other, you say it is given, as well as a result of infinite cause-and-effect relationships, whatever that means. Could it be that it isn't clear at all - hence the existence of this thread? Be open to this possibility.

The important (hey, meaning) question to you, you mean! What meaning do we have to meaning? It'd be a shame if we were meaningless in the eyes of meaning. How rude. The outcome or "answer" would be an insight. So, you'd become conscious of what it is and this would probably change how you relate to it. The realization wouldn't detract from it or negate it either. It'd just be a recognition of what's true about meaning.

Sounds reasonable, albeit a bit simplistic. By this, I'm mainly referring to the comparison between what is versus what you want to see - calling this latter one meaning. "Subjective stories" might be more aligned with what meaning is, but it still doesn't quite capture it, in my view. A story sounds detached and fantastical, and we can easily recognize it as wishful thinking, while meaning is more primal, as if. Is meaning an interpretation? Does interpretation provide us with the meaning of something, or is meaning-making a separate activity built upon interpretation? What adds "charge" to an interpretation - what makes it good, useless, unworthy, worthwhile, significant? Are these good questions? We're moving in a good direction, though!

Okay, thanks. To play devil's advocate: everything is absolute. So, me saying that isn't very useful here. It might be the case that no one is actually doing the perceiving, yet you said that there is something occurring that we call 'perception' - and that sounds like a factual claim. Now, the former doesn't necessarily negate the latter, does it? Try to perceive these scribbles on a screen as objectively as possible - it's difficult to do. My point is that what we call 'perceiving something' tends to be interpreting or experiencing it, not merely encountering it through the senses.

The perceptive faculties seem to exist exclusively for survival purposes, but this is an interesting exercise. Do not make the mistake of turning the concept of survival into a bad thing - nor a good thing, for that matter. It is what we're up to. @aurum: I don’t think this is true, if I understand your proposition correctly. We do take our perception and experience to be an accurate reflection of reality - but that doesn't mean they are. We know that different animals perceive reality differently from us. Which is the more "correct" faculty? After some investigation, we find that we aren't even clear on what perceiving something actually is. Look at a small object and see whether you can sort out the different mental activities involved in your experience of it. Is the object its use or its label? Then how come it seems that we relate to its use and overlook the existence of the object itself? Is the use of the object perceived, or is use a function of something else?

@Breakingthewall Openness needs to be based on something real - on accurate distinctions. You seem to believe that the principle means "everything goes." Form, perception, meaning, perspective - every relative thing - is limited. It exists as some "thing." For example, our perceptive faculties operate within a certain range of stimulus. Your body is limited, as is your self. What you are, on the other hand, is what you are. Our job is to contemplate what that is. You also seem to think that limitation excludes potential - or is the opposite of it. But they're the same dynamic. If you can recognize something in the first place, it's precisely because it is a particular form. How could form exist without limit? The answer is that it can't. A thing has to be distinct from what it is not. It would be like a drawing without boundaries. The moment something is drawn, limitation arises with it; and it is precisely this boundary that allows for the existence of the drawing.

Thank you. Wouldn't taking meaning to be a bad thing also be an assessment of meaning? The way you talked about it gave me the impression that you might be viewing it that way. I agree with your second sentence. But notice how messy it can get: it seems as though we perceive (experience) meaning. But perceiving something precludes meaning, since what this process provides us with is meaningless sensory data. An additional activity (or activities) has to take place for meaning to be experienced. Without meaning, what is there? I'd say whatever is experienced, but without the context of meaning - objects, perception, a body, relationship, movement. I'd like to know your thoughts on this. Making these kinds of assertions doesn't help much, does it? (Unless you know what you're talking about.) They tend to shut down investigation before it even begins. We could claim that everything is an illusion, that nothing is, or that everything is real. Yet regardless of which position we take, we continue to recognize something we call meaning. We take it very seriously; in fact, we structure our lives around it. So, it isn't necessarily a simplistic matter. I'm trying to push us into our experience.

I like the idea.

The point is that the experience isn't happening now; you're imagining that it will, and it is an scenario you don't want to experience - hence the fear. If you wanted to experience it, or if you were willing to go through it - no matter what it is - fear couldn't arise. Play around with this. Choose something minor yet commonplace, like taking a cold shower. Make it real in your mind - be afraid of doing that. Then ask yourself: Could the fear exist if you were truly willing to go through such an ordeal? What if you didn't imagine the unwanted experience at all, or didn't create a future in your mind?

@Someone here Okay, let's use a different approach: Can you be afraid when you're willing to go through the experience you're imagining might happen in the future? No need for yes or no answers, just consider it.

Again, the only way a perspective can come to exist is as a limitation. That's what a perspective is. Where would you put yourself on something that is allegedly unlimited? If it is some place, as you seem to assume, then it must be located somewhere, and thus be limited. Besides, what is the "yourself" you're taking about? If it is separate from the thing it needs to reach, then isn't that also relative? Also, I suspect the nature of that entity isn't clear either, which is fine - we do not know. An absence of limits, we can imagine, doesn't look like anything, and there's nothing that can be "done" within it, so to speak. It wouldn't be some thing, and you mention lots of something's.

How convenient for you. The question is intended to invite contemplation rather than whatever immediately comes to mind.

You fucking shouldn't! It is more of a rhetorical device. Seriously though, what you do is you question it, share the results of that process, then question again - until you make a new observation, become aware of something, and keep going until you have insight. Then, can you share that wisdom. And even then, listeners will still have to repeat that process for themselves in order to be able to reproduce the insight, anyway. And you pay attention to feedback. For example, can you stop producing a minor form of fear that you used to experience, such as resisting something fairly inconsequential? This takes the topic out of the intellect and makes it real.

Okay, problem unsolved.

Insight is the goal. The topic is not simplistic at all. For example: What is your experience of meaning? Do you see it differently now? Isn't it the case that meaning is not limited to objects? Can you see that it is not merely a model but rather that your day-to-day experience is imbued with meaning? Do we pay any attention at all to things outside of this self-referential relationship ("what does it mean to me")? How come it is quite an important (see, meaning again) aspect of life?