LastThursday

Time exists. We even have a word for it. It's just not what you thought it was, it was something else: just a thought. There's no eternal moment, there's just this. This is not created by or related to anything else, it's just this. You are this. Everything is this. Apologies for the woo woo semi-poetic nature of my post. It's actually very very simple, but so incredibly hard to grasp or explain. It's scary to abandon yourself to just this, without the crutch of time and tomorrow to lean on.

A thought is that part of experience which doesn't obey the normal rules. A thought comes, a thought goes - unlike the sofa you're sat in. If a thought stuck around and you could touch it and smell it and taste it, then it would become "real".

This question seems very familiar, but I don't know why. Anyway... Tricky things to contemplate: 1. Your conscious experience includes more than brains right? So is it possible brains are inside consciousness, instead of consciousness being inside brains? 2. Is it possible to have an experience that isn't in consciousness? Think deeply about it. If not then there is nothing outside consciousness - everything is consciousness. 3. If the only way to prove the brain produces consciousness, is by using your conscious experience, can you trust that? Isn't that circular reasoning? 4. If a brain produces consciousness, then it must be outside of consciousness and separate from it. So how can point 2 be true?

Having a strong interest in languages and language, it's often fun to play around with it. One of my recurring thoughts is the abysmal state of gender neutral pronouns in English. Since we're in the 21st century it's a sensible hypothetical exercise to try and fix this. So. What to do? My first thought is that language isn't prescriptive by nature. Just because you want language to be a certain way, doesn't mean that anyone else cares about what you want. So any sort of language reform is going to encounter immense resistance and even worse: complete indifference. However, some languages are worse than others in this respect. French at least has a language academy that attempts to keep it in check - so ironically reform for French would probably be easier to instigate if the will was there. English is in the indifference category, so no chance there. The second thought, is that English in particular is extremely diverse. If you're going to install a new language feature, you better make sure it fits all dialects and regional variations. That is a very tall order, even if you overcome indifference. Fourthly, written language is actually a parallel (visual) language to the spoken language. You can see this immediately from the large lack of correspondance between spelling and pronunciation in English for example. So here I'm really talking about spoken English and the written version closely following that. So to pronouns. The thing about pronouns is that they are a core part of grammar. It's not like coining a new technical word (noun or verb) and it being used only in rarefied settings. Pronouns are everywhere. So we have to look at how pronouns actually work if we want any new ones to "fit in". Pronouns can be categorised by person, i.e. who or what they refer to. Generally 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person. They can also be categorised by "gender", i.e. male, female and neutral. They are also categorised by their plurality: singular or plural. Finally they are categorised by part of speech: subject, object, possesive, possessive adjective, reflexive. Any new scheme for pronouns has to correspond to all these categories, otherwise they won't fit with their grammatical use. A very interesting point is the neutral category of pronoun: it. The sense in English is not actually "either gender", but "inanimate". This is quite important to take into consideration. We use it for objects, and possibly for animals, but rarely to refer to people except in a derogatory way. So if we want gender neutrality we need to actually invent a new "gender neutral" category that refers to "animate beings". Also if we're going to have a "gender neutral" category, what happens for plurals? There are three cases. The first case is where it is known that there is a gender mixed group of people. The second case is where it is unknown what the mix of genders are. The third where there is only one gender in the group. Should we differentiate these cases? If we're going to be using inclusive language, then it should not matter what the mix of genders are in a group. So it seems like we can collapse all three cases into one. But, if we are doing that, then why should we differentiate gender in the singular case? Good question. One reason to differentiate gender at all is that in a sense gendered pronouns are being used as adjectives through the back door. What is really meant by "Give him the book", is "Give male it the book". So it's a shortcut way of referring to attributes of a person. Should we mess about with established pronouns instead of just adding new ones? I'd say no. Instead we should introduce gender neutral singular pronouns, to give the most options. Ok, so the new gender neutral categories are: animate singular (1st, 2nd, 3rd person), animate mixed plural (1st, 2nd, 3rd person). The last consideration is the use of the words they and them. This has an informal singular gender neutral use, but only solves the problem for 3rd person singular. I would instead be inclined to leave it as a plural and invent new words. What about the actual words themselves? They need to be short, like all the other pronouns. They need to decline like the other pronouns. They need to sound like English. Here's my solution for gender neutral words: Subject Singular 3rd Person: dee Subject Plural 3rd Person: dey Object Singular 3rd Person: derm Possesive Singular 3rd Person: deer Possesive Singular Adjective 3rd Person: derz Reflexive Singular: deerself Obviously spellings would have to be Englishified. Weird eh?

Hello journal, it's been a while. It's typical of my interests in general that they run in phases. The typical pattern is that something gets my interest up and then I'll explore it to death. This seems to last longer and longer the older I get, but usually one day for no particular conscious reason I stop. I've never really regretted having stopped doing something that interested me, mostly because there's lots of other goodness to be interested in. That's not to say the some of my interests don't resurface from time to time. Sometimes it can actually take years before I continue off from where I stopped. But I just get straight back into it. This journal may or may not go the same way. To be frank I never thought I'd keep posting for this long at all, but I think the lockdown here in the UK helped that along - it gave me a daily routine outside of work to focus my mind on (since I'm at home all day every day). Whilst I'm generally good with routine and habit, paradoxically I'm bad with self discipline. Lockdown has started again for a month here and most probably longer. Practically, for me not much changes other than on weekends, where I have been seeing friends and family. Now the scramble for everyone to religiously meet on Zoom every weekend has started. It kind of makes me feel uneasy, as it feels imposed rather than spontaneous and a bit of a panic reaction. I think this time, I will just dip in and out when the mood takes me. Boy I'm antisocial at times! Bah humbug.

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.