A small teaser for the upcoming new theory I'm working on

[DocWatts]

3 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

@DocWatts

It's funny you should mention these kind of sources as I haven't even touched any of them. I do have trouble with reading books. The commitment to such a large  volume always deters me. I do learn a lot from podcasts and the like. (I need to be really engaged to get those receptors to perceive at least something)

Of course that means I might reinvent the wheel a couple of times, but on the plus side I get the nice feeling of eureka even though someone must have thought about it at one point. 

Most of the inspiration is from personal contemplation of direct experience. Trying to put things together to make sense of what experience is.

If that's the case, what you've managed to achieve is all the more impressive - adjacent paths to a similar destination, I suppose! 

Nothing wrong with reinventing the wheel, a lot of the insights from phenomenological texts are frankly poorly communicated. It's obvious you have a deep grasp on this material from how refreshingly straightforward you're able to convey what someone like Martin Heideggar contorted his text into a pretzel to communicate.

[UnbornTao]

17 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

@UnbornTao

For the experiencer, from his phenomenological perspective nothing exists but experience. I don't have theories, I don't need them anymore, only direct consciousness. Funny coming from someone who is working so hard to develop a theory of epistemology right? I think that there is some purpose for a theory as an instrument to keep pointing back to raw experience. That is why I want a theory of epistemology that is based in a basic phenomenological ground. Very simple, like a rock. 

"experience is not existential"
What do you mean by that?

You can't experience anything that isn't an experience.

You mention an experiencer! But is the one supposedly behind the act of experiencing ever located - or experienced?

It seems to me that experience does not exist by itself. Rather, it is a result, the product of an activity. Being, on the other hand, exists by itself. Is creates, or is the source of, existence. Being and existence might even be synonymous.

Even though it appears there is an experiencer, is not the sense of self itself a product of mental activity? You (who is that, exactly?) experience sensations, the body, feelings, objects, moods, perhaps even a sense of awareness. But is a self ever truly experienced?

Are you your self?

We return here to the fundamental distinction between being and self. On paper it sounds simple enough, but in actuality it is challenging to make, because we begin from the presumption of being a self. And we remain ignorant of the substrate of being.

You know, we should start a thread on What is experience? Wait…

The feedback from that thread boils down to this: we don't really know what it is yet. And it requires a breakthrough in consciousness.

Edited August 21 by UnbornTao

[Anton Rogachevski]

17 hours ago, DocWatts said:

If that's the case, what you've managed to achieve is all the more impressive - adjacent paths to a similar destination, I suppose! 

Nothing wrong with reinventing the wheel, a lot of the insights from phenomenological texts are frankly poorly communicated. It's obvious you have a deep grasp on this material from how refreshingly straightforward you're able to convey what someone like Martin Heideggar contorted his text into a pretzel to communicate.

Wow thank you friend,

To even be compared to such an elite intellectual is a huge compliment. I do my best

Edited August 21 by Anton Rogachevski

[Anton Rogachevski]

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

we don't really know what it is yet.

When in "time" will you know? In the "future"?

 

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

breakthrough in consciousness.

This obsession with breakthroughs is not healthy in my opinion and misses the point. I'm not saying it's not gonna be cool. There are cool ways in which experience may dance, but everything is already in front you right now, staring you in the face, as you stare in it's face. There's nothing but You to find within an infinite You. You are it, being, experience, everything forever and ever.

[Anton Rogachevski]

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

It seems to me that experience does not exist by itself.

It's inference. Try to see when you infer things and when you actually look. 

[UnbornTao]

8 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

When in "time" will you know? In the "future"?

If not now, now.

Quote

This obsession with breakthroughs is not healthy in my opinion and misses the point. I'm not saying it's not gonna be cool. There are cool ways in which experience may dance, but everything is already in front you right now, staring you in the face, as you stare in it's face. There's nothing but You to find within an infinite You. You are it, being, experience, everything forever and ever.

I'm just saying: if you want to realize the truth, you have to become conscious of what's true. Thinking about it, drawing a conclusion, believing in something, adopting hearsay, shifting your state, clinging to an idea, becoming convinced, and so on - none of that will cut it. It requires several "enlightenments." Being in the same place as the subject addressed, as if.

What is in front of you? Do you know what that is? This still rests on the assumption that your perception is an accurate reflection of what's there. Your sense of the world - of reality itself - stands on a set of unrecognized assumptions and beliefs. Unless those are discovered, little real headway can be made.

8 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

It's inference. Try to see when you infer things and when you actually look. 

How does experience manifest, except as an activity?

Do you encounter experience in the same way you "find" a rock? I'm not suggesting a rock - or objects in general - are necessarily existential here either, but they at least point toward something physical, objective. By existential, I mean what exists as itself. It exists on its own, independent of the relationship between things. Notice how everything that exists exists in relationship to something distinct from itself - thanks to not-that-thing. In other words, everything is relative. What is?

A process is about what isn't, since it always relates to time and never to Now. That's one basic explanation for it. But don't believe me.

No attempt at reaching "here" from "here" (where we stand) can brigde this gap. We try to use the mind, only to discover that the mind cannot comprehend the nature of anything. That's one reason Zen has a reputation for being baffling, nonsensical, even paradoxical. So, it is impossible, and within this impossibility is where the possibility must be personally created. 

Feeling cute, might delete later.

Edited August 21 by UnbornTao

[Anton Rogachevski]

45 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Do you encounter experience in the same way you "find" a rock?

Yes a "rock" is Experience, everything is. You can't look anywhere without finding it. And it is you!

You don't need to keep walking around in circles around it, it's accessible to you here and now. There's no process Phenomenologically speaking. The "process" is a story. 

[UnbornTao]

1 hour ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

Yes a "rock" is Experience, everything is. You can't look anywhere without finding it. And it is you!

You don't need to keep walking around in circles around it, it's accessible to you here and now. There's no process Phenomenologically speaking. The "process" is a story. 

Yes, that's essentially what is being put into question: whether it comes from an insight or something else, like a concept. Without a body, could you even perceive? Do you hold experience to occur after perception (as is commonly assumed), or to be prior to perception? How do you see it?

Hmm, actually, could you unconsciously be referring to the self (the experiencer) by your claim above? It seems likely. 

Edited August 21 by UnbornTao

[Anton Rogachevski]

30 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Do you hold experience to occur after perception

There is no "perception" nor a "perceiver" besides as concepts phenomenologically speaking just pure experience. ("Out there outside somewhere", maybe, but that's also a thought)

It's hard to understand what is happening to you. It seems you don't want to get it. Do you by any chance think. "This can't be it, it must feel amazing and extraordinary, but this is just normal." 

How good are you at simply stopping thoughts? Can you reach a "no mind" state easily?

[UnbornTao]

22 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

There is no "perception" nor a "perceiver" besides as concepts phenomenologically speaking just pure experience. ("Out there outside somewhere", maybe, but that's also a thought)

It's hard to understand what is happening to you. It seems you don't want to get it. Do you by any chance think. "This can't be it, it must feel amazing and extraordinary, but this is just normal." 

How good are you at simply stopping thoughts? Can you reach a "no mind" state easily?

Hey, you're the one who brought up an 'experiencer'! I wanted to know what that was about.

It seems like you want to insist this is a simplistic matter, something equivalent to drawing a conclusion or something along those lines. But there might still be things left for us to grasp. And it's possible this impulse to be satisfied with an answer itself stands on a plethora of assumptions. For example, I bet we'd have a hard time actually encountering this "pure experience" business - it might turn out to be conceptually dominated. After all, concepts aren't just thoughts. For example, notice how you actually can't stop thinking. I suggest that isn't a random occurrence.

To be clear, I don't expect to arrive at truth through an exchange like this, but perhaps we can stimulate different avenues for inquiry. And recognize that, more often than not, our condition is one of profound "existential ignorance."

Actually, perception is quite a solid event or mechanism. You can't get around it. Overlooking the body isn't intelligent. If anything, the body precedes states and conceptual activity. Without a brain or the body, how could what's commonly regarded as "experience" occur? It couldn't. You can observe this when you close your eyes and the visual field disappears (or turns black) - so this isn't just a thought.

Some questions.

Edited August 22 by UnbornTao

[Anton Rogachevski]

@UnbornTao

Dear friend,

Would you be offended if I said that your cup is still full? So to speak. 

You are not yet ready to let go of your imaginary ideas about an "objective reality" and "the brain perceiving" and that's ok. When you see through them finally as imaginary and hallucinatory you will start to see what I mean by the basic phenomenal epistemic ground, the empty mind that is free of believing in imaginary things. Through such a mind you can see clearly the nature of experience and to really know that you don't know. This profound unknowing is the mystical in a nutshell.

Edited August 22 by Anton Rogachevski

[UnbornTao]

@Anton Rogachevski

To add to that, we aren't dealing exclusively with absolute matters. For example, stop breathing - and that'll have an effect on your experience. Why?

I wanted to ground the consideration. Approaching what is true demands acknowledging what's right in front of us, as well as beyond us. This includes our so-called experience of self, life, and reality. Another example: bring attention to the fact that we often experience various forms of suffering, to varying degrees - even when we "know" that concepts may be behind it. Why is that?

What is the source of the communication? What is it that one "has" relative to these matters?

It's true that we already do not know, and this condition should be profoundly experienced, as you seemed to advocate above. At the same time, in order to grasp existential subjects such as reality and being, breakthroughs are required. In other words, thinking about the truth is different from directly grasping it. I just wanted to caution against this tendency, so as to avoid complacency. If you've had enlightenments, that's great to hear, too.

Edited August 23 by UnbornTao

[Anton Rogachevski]

On 8/22/2025 at 11:30 PM, UnbornTao said:

grasp existential subjects such as reality and being

I'm very skeptical about the ability of a breakthrough to get you accurate knowledge of theses subjects.

Here's a new little addition to the theory that might clarify things:
 

Dualism is essential to this framework because it requires us to see the world through two lenses at once, each valid within its own domain. From the perspective of the inferred, noumenal world, it is true that there exists a biological body, and that this body is the seat of consciousness. Yet phenomenologically, the body is not a thing in itself but an experience, and alongside it there exists only the idea of “body” and the idea of “consciousness.” Physically, it is true that the body is mortal and will one day die. Phenomenologically, however, “death” and “birth” are themselves ideas, while the body remains only one element within the broader field of experience, never the whole of it.

This illustrates the gap between physical facts and experiential appearances. Noumenally, no experience could arise without a body; phenomenologically, experience is boundless, and the body plays only a minor role within it. Seen this way, experience proves to be an unreliable guide to physical reality. It carries a mystical quality, for the experiencer encounters everything as mysterious.

From this ground we must begin: our only genuine access to the world is inferential, drawn from within an enigmatic field of experience that can never be fully studied from the outside, objectively. Such a situation should instill a deep humility in all claims to knowledge.

-------

Mysticism is about a profound unknowing, so if you are looking for knowledge of things, it's not for you.

Edited August 24 by Anton Rogachevski

[UnbornTao]

@Anton Rogachevski

Thanks, the sentiment of mystery is mutual. It shows the theory is headed in a good direction. It is a profound condition.

We talked about Zen people and also mentioned Thomas Aquinas and his instance of "divine revelation." Others throughout history have also claimed to directly grasp their own nature, and many of them seemed sincere. This was done directly, "through" consciousness. Even though it is unthinkable and paradoxical, it is a possibility for anyone. If it is not possible, that's sad - and we’re stuck with indirect knowledge about reality.

Consider Ramana. He's a rare case of a profound, sudden, "full-blown" enlightenment. There was no inference or guessing on his part, not even an insight, but an awakening.

What if consciousness is the source of experience and reality?

As a simple observation to start us off, we could put it this way: one is conscious of experience.

Edited August 26 by UnbornTao

[MightyMind]

@Anton Rogachevski "We cannot yet study or describe subjective experience in strictly material terms", "to study experience from within itself, through itself, and in its own terms — a task as philosophically demanding as it is necessary." - I really like this. I see this as something we have forgotten but now remembering, interesting times. I'll be following those links and having a read. Good share

Edited September 4 by MightyMind

[Anton Rogachevski]

@MightyMind

Thank you dear reader,

I would love to hear what you think. How could I improve it more?