What is experience?

[UnbornTao]

@Natasha Tori Maru Okay, thank you. 

[Mu_]

On 4/20/2025 at 8:24 PM, UnbornTao said:

I wanted to start a shared contemplation with you: 

What is experience? 

I can answer this indirectly.  God can experience and dream up, up down, left right, in out, emptiness fullness, self none self.  But can not experience "none experiencing".  hypothetically there may be none moments in which God doesn't experience but it would never be known so its really pointless in talking about it.

I think the dilema of the human mind or a type of god experience, is on some level there is a notion of stuff and its ability to be non awake or awake.  But experience isn't a independent seperate element of anything.  And there isn't a action of God doing experience either.

Edited May 7 by Mu_

[UnbornTao]

2 hours ago, Mu_ said:

I can answer this indirectly.  God can experience and dream up, up down, left right, in out, emptiness fullness, self none self.  But can not experience "none experiencing".  

I think the dilema of the human mind or a type of god experience, is on some level there is a notion of stuff and its ability to be non awake or awake.  But experience isn't a independent seperate element of anything.  And there isn't a action of God doing experience either.

What is your experience of experience?

Edited May 7 by UnbornTao

[Mu_]

8 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Too much concept going on, it seems. What is your experience of experience?

To much?  By what metric?  My experience of experience is sensational, and conceptual, which is a experience as well.  Or maybe another way to put it is I don't experience experience, just experiencing. 

Edited May 7 by Mu_

[UnbornTao]

10 hours ago, Mu_ said:

To much?  By what metric?  My experience of experience is sensational, and conceptual, which is a experience as well.  Or maybe another way to put it is I don't experience experience, just experiencing. 

If we could pinpoint "experience", what would we point at?

It might be that sensation and concept are experienced, yet we're tackling the fact of experience itself, rather than the "experience" of something. What is that about -- when concept is set aside?

Edited May 8 by UnbornTao

[Mu_]

On 5/7/2025 at 0:50 PM, UnbornTao said:

If we could pinpoint "experience", what would we point at?

It might be that sensation and concept are experienced, yet we're tackling the fact of experience itself, rather than the "experience" of something. What is that about -- when concept is set aside?

I think I know what your getting at and it use to be fascinating, not to say im over it and in a more enlightened space, it’s just that I can’t relate to that old way of thinking and approach. 
 

there just isn’t a way to isolate experience or approach it outside of experience/concept.   Exoerience\seemingly real things/God are not isolated and different things, energies or experiences. 
 

sensations and concepts aren’t actually isolated either, it just seems that way. 

Edited May 9 by Mu_

[Natasha Tori Maru]

10 hours ago, Mu_ said:

I think I know what your getting at and it use to be fascinating, not to say im over it and in a more enlightened space, it’s just that I can’t relate to that old way of thinking and approach. 
 

I think @UnbornTao's approach to probing and questioning is great as they are directing attention in new ways (just as a side point).

But do you grasp the fundamental elements that constitute experience? 

Typically, if one fully understands, they are able to explain succinctly. This is fundamental to logic and thinking (if one has mastered the understanding), can you also explain how this is old thinking for yourself? Why would it be old thinking if all understanding is built on it? Do you instead mean an old topic?

Experience is such a fundamental part of the ultimate intention of existence. I adore this question and all the varied answers!

 

[Anton Rogachevski]

On 4/21/2025 at 4:29 AM, Osaid said:

What isn't experience?

There cannot be such a thing, from the perspective of an experiencer at least. 

[Anton Rogachevski]

On 4/21/2025 at 3:24 AM, UnbornTao said:

I wanted to start a shared contemplation with you: 

What is experience? 

Mu!
 

All we can know is Experience, it is everything we had ever known and could possibly know. We actually know nothing but it.

We are like the fish in the water of experience, except that in our case it's even worse - we are a Sea within an infinite Sea with no land anywhere, no fish! That may be quite scary to hear, but it is essential to understand as it is the most basic epistemic foundation on top of which we will eventually build the idea of "reality". Yes we can only have an idea of reality, and never the actual reality itself, since we don't actually have access to it, but through the senses and through thoughts.

One would have to be "outside and separate from experience" to examine it as an object, which isn't technically possible, since we can only access what is experienced by us directly right now, and will never by definiton know what is supposedly "outside of experience" except as a story, because we can't ever experience a "non-experience", as you can already see it's an oxymoron. There can't be an experience of "nothing", it wouldn't register and wouldn't exist for us phenomenologically.

Yes, you can become aware that everything is Nothing at it's foundation, experience is completely empty - and that's precisely what makes us able to experience in the first place. To understand this you need see it directly and very clearly with an incredible level of awareness, but that's a little more advanced. That Emptiness is quite full and amazing, and not the "nothingness" you are imagining right now.

From a purely phenomenological perspective, without supposing a physical plane outside of perception, there's no such thing as an "experience" as a separate object which you can discuss, it's an idea that can only occur if you have another idea of "non-experience". If you realize there's no such thing, experience as separate phenomenon which you can talk about can't make sense anymore without a background.

You can see a black circle on a white background, but if both the background and and the circle were black, you couldn't see it, and it would stop existing for you phenomenologically.

Interestingly enough one could also say: You are experience! It's your fundamental nature - experience that is seemingly self generative and self aware, or as Leo would put it: "An infinite hallucination".

Perception on the other hand is a bit problematic because the ideas of a "perceived thing", and a "perceiver" are already contained within it, it assumes a mereological materialistic perspective. In this imaginary scenario "experience" is the signal that is being generated by the "brain". You could in this supposed materialistic perspective say that: "Experience is the simulation of the brain", but it's another imaginary story within the infinite hallucination that is you.

 

Edited May 11 by Anton Rogachevski

[Mu_]

9 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I think @UnbornTao's approach to probing and questioning is great as they are directing attention in new ways (just as a side point).

But do you grasp the fundamental elements that constitute experience? 

Typically, if one fully understands, they are able to explain succinctly. This is fundamental to logic and thinking (if one has mastered the understanding), can you also explain how this is old thinking for yourself? Why would it be old thinking if all understanding is built on it? Do you instead mean an old topic?

Experience is such a fundamental part of the ultimate intention of existence. I adore this question and all the varied answers!

 

When I referred to old, I was talking about my old way of thinking about this subject. 
 

did you read any of my responses, I did answer it in a different way. 
 

 

Edited May 10 by Mu_

[Mu_]

@Natasha Tori Maru

I will add that experience itself does prove one thing about reality itself, and that is its conscious and that there IS something rather than nothing.
 

True nothing could not exist otherwise there wouldn’t be this experience and once understood that there IS rather than there isn’t, you can understand through investigation that “something/god/existence” can not come from nothing or somewhere else or something else and there for “what ever this is” has to of always been. 

 

Edited May 10 by Mu_

[UnbornTao]

On 9/5/2025 at 5:41 PM, Mu_ said:

I think I know what your getting at and it use to be fascinating, not to say im over it and in a more enlightened space, it’s just that I can’t relate to that old way of thinking and approach. 
 

there just isn’t a way to isolate experience or approach it outside of experience/concept.   Exoerience\seemingly real things/God are not isolated and different things, energies or experiences. 
 

sensations and concepts aren’t actually isolated either, it just seems that way. 

Are you giving up before even starting? . I'm just questioning what 'experience' is, and you can do that too. Why did you write "experience/concept"? Could it be that the distinction between the two isn't so clear?

When we distinguish between things, that act doesn't imply that those things are separate in reality. So your point about isolation misses that nuance. A concept of something isn't the same as the thing itself, wouldn't you agree? 

Edited May 13 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

On 5/10/2025 at 8:08 AM, Anton Rogachevski said:

There cannot be such a thing, from the perspective of an experiencer at least. 

Hey, maybe 'the experiencer' is conceptual rather than experiential, so there might as well be something existing that is not experience, or experienced. 

[Mu_]

32 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Are you giving up before even starting? . I'm just questioning what 'experience' is, and you can do that too. Why did you write "experience/concept"? Could it be that the distinction between the two isn't so clear?

When we distinguish between things, that act doesn't imply that those things are separate in reality. So your point about isolation misses that nuance. A concept of something isn't the same as the thing itself, wouldn't you agree? 

I agree philosophically lol that a concept of something isn’t the same as the thing itself but in reality there are no things, energies or no-things so the whole notion that you can have or there is concepts of things or anything, is an illusion at best. 

domt get me wrong I use to believe and feel and experience this idea that I was distinguishing between a thing and the concept of it, but this to became a illusion that comes and goes. 
 

im getting the feeling  you don’t know what I mean. 

Edited May 12 by Mu_

[UnbornTao]

@Anton Rogachevski 

Nice, thank you for the response. It’s quite the mu.

What would you call a direct experience of something? And what if, in this context, direct experience isn't really an experience at all, but something more like consciousness?

Also, what would you say a concept is? Can you notice, in your own answer, what’s conceptual?

Isn’t the presumed impossibility of direct access a notion you’ve concluded? We may know what is experienced--yet what is that knowing? As you suggest, it’s indirect, not the thing itself. We can know about things and have insights--which may be a more direct or grounded form of knowing. On top of that, we hear stories of direct consciousness--of personally getting to the heart of things.

It does seem like experience is everything we have--that it's where “life” happens for us.

We could use our responses to break apart many of the assumptions we may be sharing on this topic. For example: Is it true that, in order to investigate experience, one needs to be separate from it? How do you view your self? Is it considered to be part of experience, perhaps? Is it actually the case that perception implies a perceiver?

And why do we generally assume that perception is primary, and experience secondary?

Just some food for thought.

Edited May 13 by UnbornTao

[Breakingthewall]

Experience is reality in a given configuration. Another configuration would be non-experience. For example, if you were a stone, you wouldn't have experience, but you would be. Difficult to understand, right? From experience, we think that only experience is real. We can't think about non-experience because it's beyond the realm of the thinkable, but it is real. We need the idea of God because things happening without someone directing everything seems impossible. But it is. Infinite nature manifests itself, and consciousness is one more manifestation. If you want to open yourself to the absolute, open yourself to total death, to absolute unconsciousness, to being your essence independently of experience.

[UnbornTao]

1 hour ago, Mu_ said:

I agree philosophically lol that a concept of something isn’t the same as the thing itself but in reality there are no things, energies or no-things so the whole notion that you can have or there is concepts of things or anything, is an illusion at best. 

domt get me wrong I use to believe and feel and experience this idea that I was distinguishing between a thing and the concept of it, but this to became a illusion that comes and goes. 
 

im getting the feeling  you don’t know what I mean. 

I think I do understand where you're coming from. My issue with it is that it is most likely a notion, not an experience, from the way you're answering. How likely is it that you actually experience that there are "no things"--except as a belief adopted from an external source? Do you eat food or a picture of food? See, in your experience, you're already making these distinctions; you just have to be honest about it.

You can look at a tree, and many ideas will likely emerge from that encounter--not just your raw experience of what's there, whatever that is. Maybe there's no tree there, or maybe it's of a different nature than what we think it is. Without experientially distinguishing what is what in a precise manner, though, we're stuck with our current knowledge, thinking that our "experience" is the same as what is so.

Edited May 12 by UnbornTao

[Mu_]

17 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

I think I do understand where you're coming from. My issue with it is that it is most likely a notion, not an experience, from the way you're answering. How likely is it that you actually experience that there are "no things"--except as a belief adopted from an external source? Do you eat food or a picture of food? See, in your experience, you're already making these distinctions; you just have to be honest about it.

You can look at a tree, and many ideas will likely emerge from that encounter--not just your raw experience of what's there, whatever that is. Maybe there's no tree there, or maybe it's of a different nature than what we think it is. Without experientially distinguishing what is what in a precise manner, though, we're stuck with our current knowledge, thinking that our "experience" is the same as what is so.

Ya I experience tree like stuff in a variety of ranges, same with food and what seem to be all sorts of separate or non separate things. And yes I call them experiences sometimes or god or distinctions. 
 

I don’t think I ever refuted experience and said I experience what ever in senses and what not. 

I think the thing I was pointing out is there isn’t an experience of experience, experience and what seems to be content is one. 

[UnbornTao]

20 minutes ago, Mu_ said:

Ya I experience tree like stuff in a variety of ranges, same with food and what seem to be all sorts of separate or non separate things. And yes I call them experiences sometimes or god or distinctions. 
 

I don’t think I ever refuted experience and said I experience what ever in senses and what not. 

I think the thing I was pointing out is there isn’t an experience of experience, experience and what seems to be content is one. 

Again, the fact that something is distinct doesn’t mean it is separate. That might be beside the point, though--distinction deserves its own thread. You seem to think that distinguishing something is bad or wrong; you want to believe that everything is one, but you don’t want to challenge what may be just a notion. Even then, both things might be true, paradoxically--everything being one and things being different from each other. But that's an interesting idea for us right now. 

Take your experience of eating a meal as an example: What is actually happening while you eat, and by contrast, what do you think is happening? What mental activities are you generating that are extraneous to a “raw” encounter?

You might be eating soup and finding it rather bland and unappetizing. Or maybe you’re eagerly devouring a piece of cake. Can you begin to pick out different kinds of activities within your experience of eating a particular meal?

Edited May 12 by UnbornTao

[Mu_]

17 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Again, the fact that something is distinct doesn’t mean it is separate. That might be beside the point, though--distinction deserves its own thread. You seem to think that distinguishing something is bad or wrong; you want to believe that everything is one, but you don’t want to challenge what may be just a notion. Even then, both things might be true, paradoxically--everything being one and things being different from each other. But that's an interesting idea for us right now. 

Take your experience of eating a meal as an example: What is actually happening while you eat, and by contrast, what do you think is happening? What mental activities are you generating that are extraneous to a “raw” encounter?

You might be eating soup and finding it rather bland and unappetizing. Or maybe you’re eagerly devouring a piece of cake. Can you begin to pick out different kinds of activities within your experience of eating a particular meal?

Sure I could describe all sorts of things like this but it never really gets at what it is like to experience it. 
 

and no where did you get the idea I think it’s bad or wrong to distinguish. 
 

my only point was you can experience experiences but never experience isolated by itself.