LastThursday

If I'm a good subjective idealist, then all I can know is what I perceive, so that is primary. I can say with certainty that I'm having a subjective experience of seeing right now. If I close my eyes, then that subjective experience immediately changes (I see the back of my eyelids). The idea that I physically have eyes, must be secondary though. In other words having "eyes" is a thought story. This is obvious by asking: are my eyelids part of my eyes? Or, are my eyes just projections of my brain? It's not obvious where eyes begin and end. So how is it that a thought story (my eyes) is affecting my subjective experience of seeing? Is it just pure coincidence that every time my subjective vision goes dark, my subjective feeling of my eyelids are that they are closed? What role does the idea of "my eyes" have on my subjective experience? What are they for? Why are they correlated with vision?

@Corpus cool. And go one step further. What is creating the distinction once you "get it"?

I hope I'm not being provocative: is there a difference? Any discussion about reality is a metaphysics a.k.a. philosophy. And we each have our own personal flavour of metaphysics. Strictly that isn't my original question. My original question is why do eyes affect my sight? Or more accurately, why is there a correlation between the two? It is a given that consciousness itself gives rise to sight (in my metaphysics), but in turn it's not obvious why then eyes should "modulate" what happens to sight - being that eyes are in the experience of sight (and other primary experiences). As I mentioned above, the tail is wagging the dog. Why? Not really, if sight is primary in the first place. Even if the form of "eyes" are somehow constricting the experience of seeing, that still doesn't answer as to the "why?". What is the strange connection between the form of eyes and sight itself?

The tail wagging the dog. Or the tail is the dog?

Quite. I picked the question because materialism has a very clear answer (the eyes do the seeing). Whereas in subjective idealism it doesn't: eyes are simply phenomena within consciousness and seemingly have no use, since they are not the primary means of experience (consciousness itself is). So how can a subset of experience (eyes/eyelids), be affecting a super-set of experience (seeing)? Bringing in "form" is akin to bringing in objects from materialism - so I find it unsatisfactory as an answer. After all "form" is still within consciousness (a subset) and hence not primary. Anyway. I have no clear answer. But I thought it was a fun question nonetheless. Maybe it is just God's way of tricking itself?

"Weird, but received" describes my entire experience on this forum so well. And mine. Although I was actually being cheeky and politely poking fun at the whole, "I before E except after C" thing, since Weird breaks the rule and Received doesn't (sorry @Nahm). But I think it got lost. Ah well, it amused me. I do like a double entendre.

Indeed, that's the whole point of my post. What are my eyes for exactly?

I'm advocating for the weak form the of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, not the strong. So distinctions can be made "spontaneously" without being backed up by language concepts. So yeah, "what the fuck is that fucking thing" works for me. But note that "thingness" is a distinction or concept already in language - does a "thing" really exist? But I would argue that there are also potential distinctions that are not made at all, because there isn't a language category to fit it into. So there are things that you are not even aware of, because there's nothing in your mental (language) model that it could snap to. I'm desperately trying to think of a smart example, but I can't. I suppose the sensation is something like this. Notice that you're not just seeing pebbles (one concept), but there is another concept hidden in the image, which you are not aware of (immediately):

And you came on here to ground yourself? Gulp. No, but consciousness does have the ability to divide itself - and also to be aware of its wholeness. Keep up the isolation - much kudos.

That is of course swapping one sub-modality for another. I need to become reacquainted with my friend Don Juan, he was a blast. I suppose the deeper point is that the six senses are not separate, they are simply distinctions in the flow of experience. The Assemblage point is the "distinction engine" of experience. Shift that, and the whole of experience shifts with it. I suppose taking psychadelics and other practices such as meditation shift the Assemblage point - maybe even permanently. I guess eyes and ears and skin etc, are only associated with the sub-modalities of experience simply because of their greater correlation. So, what I mean is, I associate my eyes with seeing, because their behaviour is correlated more closely with the "seeing" part of experience, same with ears and so on. But as I've had drilled into me: correlation is not causation. Maybe in your case the feeling and seeing parts of experience have become intermingled (you have lost the distinction over time).

That's awful, I hope that you recover as soon as possible and that the Covid is not getting the better of you. I'm not so sure myself. I agree, experience is mostly distinctions without a running mental commentary. But is it even possible to see a stool without the language concept of a stool? Language definitely informs distinctions and distinctions inform language. It's messier than you make it out to be. Language has it's tentacles deep in our conscious experience. This is why I have a deep issue with "direct experience" because it's anything but. I wonder if a doctor even has the same conscious experience of a human body as someone who isn't? The language available to them allows them to have finer distinctions in consciousness than most people.

Rock and roll baby...

I already re-incarnated. None of me is left from when I was kid. Just some vague memories and sensations and other people's accounts. Will the idea of "me" live on? Yes in other people's heads until I finally get forgotten. After all, I'm just an idea anyway. The reality is that I'm indistinguishable from the rest of existence. Will my influence live on? Almost certainly. I have permanently changed the Earth in my way, and my possesions and things I've touched may get passed down. My close family share my genes and they will live on and "re-incarnate" by giving birth. And if you're materialist then my constituent atoms and particles are immortal and will get re-cycled during and after my death. I think the premise of re-incarnation is flawed, because it has a too narrow definition of "you".

So form is more fundamental than distinctions? It kind of makes me uneasy, is there then something more fundamental than form then? Turtles all the way down? I suppose with this line of reasoning, there is then a form for "sight" which manifests itself as the experience of seeing and the physicality of my eyes - the two being facets of the one form? Interesting. Which of the above two are right? I presume that "prior to labeling" really means "prior to making distinctions"? But surely there must be some distinction in order that I can separate out "my eyes" from "my sight"? (let me use the word "my" without questioning "my" existence please). You're right, the label of "subjective idealist" is just a concept - and "subjective experience" is actually not well defined, except in opposition to "objective experience". However, that doesn't discount that I'm actually having some form of "experience", that is one thing I'm absolutely certain about - even if I don't fundamentally know what it is. But I concede that "change" is conceptual and in fact could be/is illusory. The unchanging thing however is the experience itself. And the experience itself is made up of distinctions, one of which is my eyes and the other my sight and they are mysteriously linked. I suppose I get there are levels to this. Then, "experience" is non-duality? Or is that going too far? Or is "experience" the world of forms? I grok that "perception" requires an observer, and observerless is the way to go (on here). And so "subjective experience" is tainted with implying an observer and a shared experience (everyone has it), i.e. it's still a consensus construct and not to be trusted. For the record. After much thinking about it. I was confused about seeing. Seeing and eyes are not inseparable, they are both manifestations of the same thing. It's like pointing to the tyres and the engine and being surprised that they're linked in some way. Further, is it actually possible to "see" with other parts of the body, such as the fingers or ears? Is a bat actually seeing with its ears?

@Nahm weird, but received. @Leo Gura meta meta always go(o)d thanks. @tsuki Ok ok. Let me sit in a darkened room and contemplate further before responding. Excellent response BTW. @aurum agreed, but I cannot see without them either - saying that I haven't actually tried. Although dreams... Compliments most welcome, thanks.

Sitting by the old cherry tree The stream sings gently Pink blossoms silently falling A breeze soft and swirlling

That's right. How else does something come from nothing? There is nothing to be observed and nothing to observe it. Why does that make me laugh? Is it because it's completely absurd?

@An young being I hope I'm not being thick in the head. How is it possible to know how accurate your direct experience is? Ok, humour me, give me an example of a direct experience that's 50% accurate.

Yes, Right now I am the observer of colors, sensations, thoughts etc... Does the observer observe itself? Is that possible? Just how many observers are there?

@Twega all experience is limited, direct and indirect. There's always more experiences to be had. Direct experience is only accurate if you're clearly able to tell the difference from indirect experience. For an uninitiated mortal that's very hard. For example just ask someone if they think what they did yesterday was direct experience.

Materialism is fine. It's possible to live a perfectly good life with it. Look around you, everything was made by a materialist, including you.

What if you're not? Is there really an observer? Is it possible to have the attributes of (your definition of) God directly?

Jawad himself is just a memory that arises in consciousness. Every time you speak your name, it is a memory. You have no option but to share the memory of yourself all the time with others. People will even take pictures of that memory called Jawad. Ah, you say! But what about my private memories, will they live on? If every memory is different every time, then every memory is a kind of death, it will never be repeated exactly again. There are no memories to access (because they are not stored). So as Jawad, as a memory, you are dying all the time. But you are also being reborn with each fresh memory. The definition of "me" is changing all the time. When the physical body dies, the definition of "Jawad" will change again.

It's the other way around, the human body(s) is manifested into consciousness by consciousness itself. If you tell your life story to your children, then your memories will continue without your physical body even when you're still alive. You could argue that they're not your memories any more, but, each memory is different every time, so that is not a good argument. Memories don't belong to anything, they are manifestations of consciousness. Consciousness is completely free to play as it wants.

Does a memory ever repeat? If you have a memory of something that happened when you were a child, is it the same memory every time you have it? Or does it change each time? If a memory is never repeated, then there is nothing to store. The memory just appears from nowhere into consciousness. A different way to look at memory is to see it as an event that is spread out over time. Say you eat an icecream. When does the event finish? Is it when the icecream has disappeared? No. The event carries on because you have a recurring memory of eating icecream. It is spread out over time. A bit like an echo in a cave.