Why trust our direct experience?

[Gesundheit]

6 hours ago, Fran11 said:

I offered you a extremely simple and obvious example for you to get what is meant by the language not being able to express absolute truth, and instead of givinig a little thought you just dismissed saying I was being overly technical. I'm sorry but to me that's close mindnesess.

No one is denying you can say "truths" using language, but you are just refusing to consider the limitations of any symbolic system.

Any symbol is meaningless unless it represents something in the real world. The thing a symbol represents is not the symbol itself. In fact, it can represent absolutely anything except that one symbol. The things symbols represent cannot be grasped or captured by the symbols themselves, but by the observer of the symbols, and thus language is a useful medium for sharing/transferring information. It's not a perfect medium, nobody said that it is, but it's good enough for the most part as far as mediums can go. A symbol represents a point of reference that two observers can relate to (or one observer at two different points). The point of reference is absolute truth. A point of reference of an apple, for example, is not just an idea of an apple. When we say apple, there is a range of points of reference that we refer to. It's not like I have to tell you the exact qualities of the apple. That's not even possible, let alone sharing the same problem as I will have to tell you the exact qualities of each quality, and so on to infinity. Instead, the accumulation of all the memories of all the apples that you've experienced so far gets triggered instantly when you hear the word apple. That's how communication and language work on a basic level. This explanation does not describe everything that happens. It just describes certain aspects that you can most definitely make sense of so that the point can get across. Thus, making this explanation true and not false. Now at this point one may want to get more technical and scrutinize what was said. But that would be a pointless activity unless there's something wrong with the communication. If everything was clear, there would be no need to deconstruct language. If the deconstruction happened while there's no need, then there's no point in that process because it's endless. The whole point of deconstructing language is to get a better understanding that can enhance the communication. But to get overly technical about abstract terms would be a pointless activity as stated above.

[Gesundheit]

6 hours ago, Forestluv said:

How can a set of relative thoughts describe absolute truth and another set of relative thoughts not describe absolute truth?

It depends on whether or not the thoughts are understood properly. For example, to say that I robbed a bank is a true thought, we first have to understand that: time, a self, others, a bank, and an act of robbery and all of its terminals, are all originally assumed within that statement for the sake of making sense/communication. If we don't understand this properly, the communication will be flawed and the thought will be false for the recipient regardless of whether or not it was articulated well by the sender. Furthermore, the sender could spend years talking about that one thought explaining it in all ways and nuances but still get nowhere as long as the recipient does not understand things properly. If the recipient is unaware of certain things, the communication will always be flawed and therefore false for them, even though the communication represents the actual truth of what happened to the best of language's capacity. If the recipient would receive the message correctly it would be something like this: "okay, so there is a story being told here about some person who took money from a place called a bank through means that are considered against the laws that humans constructed". And we can go into infinite technicalities and nuances considering the story, like what is a person and what is a bank and what is law, and what is a story and is the story here vocal or visual etc... but see, that would be irrelevant as long as the story is perceived correctly as a story with all the assumptions acknowledged. This is the kind of understanding that's based on being present in the moment, therefore it's based on the absolute, therefore it's absolute. This one understanding would be the correct one, even though limited, and all other interpretations would be false. For example, to say that the person is real and not assumed would make the understanding a false interpretation of the actual event. This one false assumption would make the understanding into a misunderstanding, thus making it a misinterpretation of the absolute truth, thus making it a false thought.

The thought: "someone robbed a bank" would not the whole of truth, obviously. It would be just one true thought out of the infinite set of true thoughts, since it described only certain aspects of what happened and not everything that happened. We can add another true thought about the timing of the story. Let's say the event happened a week ago. If the recipient understands what time is in the present moment and that it's a made-up concept, that won't hurt their understanding, it will rather only expand it to include another aspect of the absolute. But to think that time is a real thing that exists will corrupt the message and create a misunderstanding. To ask during which hour exactly did the robbery occur is fine because it does not affect the trueness of the story. However, to say that the event happened one day or one month ago, that would be a false thought relative to the true one, since it would be a fabrication without any basis to it that it would be referring to.

[Forestluv]

@Gesundheit Thanks for the clarifying your thoughts. I’ve tried to explain truth giving a similar example (a murder, rather than a bank robbery). That is, that the truth of the murder is prior to any evidence or interpretation. Regardless of the stories, evidence or interpretations, a murder occurred. Yet I would probably term this “realistic truth” (of what really happened) or “actual truth” (of what actually happened). I’m using the term “absolute truth” in a different context. What you are describing seems to involve an external, objective, universal reality. 

[Gesundheit]

1 minute ago, Forestluv said:

@Gesundheit Thanks for the clarifying your thoughts. I’ve tried to explain truth giving a similar example (a murder, rather than a bank robbery). That is, that the truth of the murder is prior to any evidence or interpretation. Regardless of the stories, evidence or interpretations, a murder occurred. Yet I would probably term this “realistic truth” (of what really happened) or “actual truth” (of what actually happened). I’m using the term “absolute truth” in a different context. What you are describing seems to involve an external, objective, universal reality. 

I wouldn't say it's external but still, isn't reality objective and universal? The absolute truth that is prior to language or evidence or interpretation is objective and universal, isn't it?

[Fran11]

10 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

.A symbol represents a point of reference that two observers can relate to (or one observer at two different points). The point of reference is absolute truth. A point of reference of an apple, for example, is not just an idea of an apple. When we say apple, there is a range of points of reference that we refer to. It's not like I have to tell you the exact qualities of the apple. That's not even possible, let alone sharing the same problem as I will have to tell you the exact qualities of each quality, and so on to infinity. 

See, yo do get it 

Just stop saying language can express absolute truth then.

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Fran11

[Gesundheit]

Just now, Fran11 said:

See, yo do get it 

Just stop saying language can express absolute truth then.

I can't. This is a new insight for me which may or may not be correct, and I'm still looking for more coherent understanding. Maybe I'll eventually be able to convince you 

[Forestluv]

28 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

I wouldn't say it's external 

I may have misinterpreted on that one. 

28 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

isn't reality objective and universal? The absolute truth that is prior to language or evidence or interpretation is objective and universal, isn't it?

For me, this gets super tricky. If there is a truth prior to language, evidence or interpretation - how can my mind conceive of it without language, evidence or interpretation. The best we could do is say “It’s just ISness”. Yet what it the substance of that ISness and how can we describe it without language, evidence or interpretation. Imagine you have lost all of your senses and cannot imagine. You are in a space of aware Nothingness - not even a thought or image. What ISness is here? Thinking “this is an empty space of Nothing” is something - it’s a thought. What is objective and universal in this environment? Objective relative to what?

I’m not necessarily disagreeing that you are describing a truth and an important truth - especially in today’s society with so many people creating their own narratives of their relative truth. Yet I wouldn’t term it “absolute truth”. 

10 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

Any symbol is meaningless unless it represents something in the real world. The thing a symbol represents is not the symbol itself.

The point of reference is absolute truth. A point of reference of an apple, for example, is not just an idea of an apple. When we say apple, there is a range of points of reference that we refer to. It's not like I have to tell you the exact qualities of the apple.

And what is the point of reference of this thing you call an “apple”? Is it not a diffuse cloud of atoms indistinguishable from the “tree”? What is the objective, universal truth of what you call an “apple”? This is why I included the term “external”. You seem to be suggesting that there is an innate truth “out there”, independent of an internal perceiver. 

 

[Fran11]

6 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

I can't. This is a new insight for me which may or may not be correct, and I'm still looking for more coherent understanding. Maybe I'll eventually be able to convince you 

What you explained so well is precisely what makes linguistic truths relative.

Unless you come up with a word that's equal to direct experience (not possible) you won't convience me 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Fran11

[Gesundheit]

1 minute ago, Forestluv said:

I may have misinterpreted on that one. 

For me, this gets super tricky. If there is a truth prior to language, evidence or interpretation - how can my mind conceive of it without language, evidence or interpretation. The best we could do is say “It’s just ISness”. Yet what it the substance of that ISness and how can we describe it without language, evidence or interpretation. Imagine you have lost all of your senses and cannot imagine. You are in a space of aware Nothingness - not even a thought or image. What ISness is here? Thinking “this is an empty space of Nothing” is something - it’s a thought. What is objective and universal in this environment? Objective relative to what?

The thought experiment provided here is just a thought experiment happening here and now. And since it's not actually the case, then it's invalid. The substance of isness is simply the present moment, however it may be, which is infinity. That one word does describe the absolute truth fully to me. Therefore that one word is absolute truth.

[Gesundheit]

10 minutes ago, Fran11 said:

What you explained so well is precisely what makes linguistic truths relative.

Unless you come up with a word that's equal to direct experience (not possible) you won't convience me 

How about oneness, totality, or infinity?

[Forestluv]

1 minute ago, Gesundheit said:

The thought experiment provided here is just a thought experiment happening here and now. And since it's not actually the case, then it's invalid. The substance of isness is simply the present moment, however it may be, which is infinity. That one word does describe the absolute truth fully to me. Therefore that one word is absolute truth.

If the one word ISness is absolute truth, then that’s it. Any descriptions of what ISness is, goes too far. You seem to be creating a construct that there are a set of truthful thoughts that accurately describe what ISness is and a set of thoughts that falsely describe what ISness is. These are distinctions further than ISness. We are creating a construct in which ISness is this, but ISness is not that. 

[Fran11]

2 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

How about oneness, totality, or infinity?

Try saying that to a materialist and see if he gets it.

It's still a pointer.

[Gesundheit]

2 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

If the one word ISness is absolute truth, then that’s it. Any descriptions of what ISness is, goes too far. You seem to be creating a construct that there are a set of truthful thoughts that accurately describe what ISness is and a set of thoughts that falsely describe what ISness is. These are distinctions further than ISness. We are creating a construct in which ISness is this, but ISness is not that. 

If isness is only nothing, then you're right. No words can ever describe nothing (except the word nothing ). But luckily isness is everything too, therefore the distinctions are true and included in isness. So you have nothing and you have everything as two different things, yet at the same time only one thing. This paradox allows for both correct and incorrect interpretations. Someone may be identified only with nothing and then deny the everythingness of reality, and someone else may do the opposite and identify only with everything and then deny nothingness. Wouldn't you say that that would be a misinterpretation of isness? And that the only true interpretation has to be that nothing = everything, necessarily?

[purerogue]

2 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

If isness is only nothing, then you're right. No words can ever describe nothing (except the word nothing ). But luckily isness is everything too, therefore the distinctions are true and included in isness. So you have nothing and you have everything as two different things, yet at the same time only one thing. This paradox allows for both correct and incorrect interpretations. Someone may be identified only with nothing and then deny the everythingness of reality, and someone else may do the opposite and identify only with everything and then deny nothingness. Wouldn't you say that that would be a misinterpretation of isness? And that the only true interpretation has to be that nothing = everything, necessarily?

My interpretation, word nothing is used because it is "not this" actually it is something far beyond our minds capability and does not operate withing our limited logic, or can be explained with words, but I am not know it all guy, so it is just my take on this. 

All I can say is that when I mean it can't be explained with words and our limited logic is that it simply would require mental gymnastic that we don't have as of yet. 

[Gesundheit]

2 hours ago, purerogue said:

My interpretation, word nothing is used because it is "not this" actually it is something far beyond our minds capability and does not operate withing our limited logic, or can be explained with words.

The truth is that "nothing" is here and now, and this seemingly-full here and now is not any different from the empty nothing that's meant originally. Appearance is in fact empty. Only the fabrications of the mind, which are another appearance, can make it look like it's not when one forgets that they're just fabrications/appearances and then believes them to not be fabrications/appearances but actual things.

Consider this equation: since appearance exists as appearance; that makes: isness = isness + appearance. Therefore, isness = appearance.

And by flipping the terms, nothing = everything.

It's not that the mind cannot grasp emptiness. The mind itself is assumed to begin with, but it's usually taken to be actual, that's what makes things confusing. If it's seen through the fabrications of the mind, it's already done. The mind will know its place as a misperception of truth, and thus get dismantled.

2 hours ago, purerogue said:

All I can say is that when I mean it can't be explained with words and our limited logic is that it simply would require mental gymnastic that we don't have as of yet. 

It can be explained, but if there's no point of reference it's not going to make sense, no matter the amount of mental gymnastics we may provide. This is the problem with awakening and with everything we try to learn. We don't know until we know.

@Fran11 I thought you might want to read this too.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Gesundheit

[Fran11]

28 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

It can be explained, but if there's no point of reference it's not going to make sense, no matter the amount of mental gymnastics we may provide. This is the problem with awakening and with everything we try to learn. We don't know until we know.

@Fran11 I thought you might want to read this too.

We're just trying to get different points across man.

You yourself say you cannot convey absolute truth using language without a reference point. And I say that's precisely what relativity (lingustically speaking) means.

I do not deny language is useful to discuss these topics if you are already into spirituality, that's what the forum is about, but that doesn't make it absolute.

If you could really convey absolute truth with language, a materalist would realise God just by you explaining it to him. As you know, that's far from possible.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Fran11

[Gesundheit]

15 minutes ago, Fran11 said:

You yourself say you cannot convey absolute truth using language without a reference point. And I say that's precisely what relativity (lingustically speaking) means.

You can, but they won't get it unless they share the same reference point. The reference point is the insight or understanding that allows someone to be realized. If that someone somehow forgets that reference point, they'll lose their awakening.

15 minutes ago, Fran11 said:

If you could really convey absolute truth with language, a materalist would realise God just by you explaining it to him. As you know, that's far from possible.

I don't really see the connection here. Just because we can teach mathematics to kids does not mean that it's absolute truth.

But anyway, I would argue that it's possible for a materialist to realize God simply by being open-minded, and then questioning and contemplating until it clicks. The realization will then become a reference point, or a memory. But the absolute truth is prior to it, and it will be seen as that.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Gesundheit

[Fran11]

7 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

You can, but they won't get it unless they share the same reference point. 

Again, the need for a common reference point in order for language to work is precisely what relativity means! 

You seem to think realativity means non-usefulness or something like that. 

 

[Gesundheit]

2 minutes ago, Fran11 said:

Again, the need for a common reference point in order for language to work is precisely what relativity means! 

You seem to think realativity means non-usefulness or something like that. 

Elaborate pls.

[Forestluv]

4 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

If isness is only nothing, then you're right. No words can ever describe nothing (except the word nothing ). 

ISness is what IS, it is not limited to an idea called "nothing".

4 hours ago, Forestluv said:

Any descriptions of what ISness is, goes too far. 

Of course, from that perspective one word is too many.

4 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

But luckily isness is everything too, therefore the distinctions are true and included in isness. 

And from that perspective, an infinite number of words is not enough. 

You are using a different context of "everything". If ISness is everything, then it includes ALL distinctions. Thus, it has no contrast to distinguish itself and it no longer exists as a separate "thing". 

4 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

So you have nothing and you have everything as two different things, yet at the same time only one thing. This paradox allows for both correct and incorrect interpretations. Someone may be identified only with nothing and then deny the everythingness of reality, and someone else may do the opposite and identify only with everything and then deny nothingness. Wouldn't you say that that would be a misinterpretation of isness? And that the only true interpretation has to be that nothing = everything, necessarily?

My impression is that you are creating constructs of "nothing" and "everything". There is also direct experience and experiential knowing of the null void and absolute infinity. Theory has value and I creating theory - yet to me, you seem contracted and immersed within theory. Just my impression.