zurew

I dont think you can reproduce the criticism in your own words. If a gun was put to your head, how would you describe my position and what do you think my issue is?

Fuck, Mike is triggering the fuck out of me with his stupid confident attitude and takes on the matter. Now im questioning the idea that Mike has general intelligence because his PhD isnt even remotely predictive at all how intelligent/capable he is in other domains. Mike is a fucking fine tuned LLM for training.

Let me try this one last time to demonstrate what one of my issue is. If by the term 'Leo' I mean a particular lion in Africa, and you mean Leo Gura, then we are obviously referring to two different things. And then if I made the sentence 'Leo managed to protect his group from a pack of hyenas yesterday' and you would respond to that with "But Leo Gura couldnt have done that because we were hanging out yesterday and we were tripping balls and you just cant grasp the depth of what it is like to trip balls with Leo Gura" then thats just wouldnt be responsive to what I said and hence wouldnt change the truth of what I said. If you want to change the truth value of my sentence in a scenario like this, you have to use the same meaning - so for example, it would be responsive to say, "no that particular Lion you referred to in your sentence couldnt have done that, because of x y z (where X could be something like "Because we were filming that lion all day, and we have video evidence that there was no hyena attack yesterday.") Now, all of this is compatible with me grasping and also compatible with me not grasping the depth of what it is like to trip balls with Leo Gura - 1 point is just that your inference doesnt make sense, you are concluding me not grasping it based on a thing thats completely unrelated. The second point is that if you insert my definition in your sentence then it becomes incoherent. You probably cant trip balls with an actual lion in Africa. And now imagine that you didnt clarify that by the term Leo you meant Leo gura and all im left is your sentence that is completely incoherent under my semantics (under how I use the terms) and im also left with you seemingly have issue with the truth of my sentences under my semantics. Im there like thinking its either the case that he is trying to challenge my claim "Wait , is he trying to challenge the fact that the lion was actually attacked by a pack of hyenas yesterday?!?!" or it is the case that he engaged in equivocation and he was talking about something completely unrelated to what I said (tripping balls with Leo Gura). Now lets go further with a different analogy. A nondualist makes the statement that 'my pet named Ice cream is a cute dog' and then Leo Gura responds to that with saying "No, no ,no you are wrong, you have to understand how ingenius God is at making frozen desserts. God invented dogs just to hide a frozen dessert typically made from milk from you. Only the smartest will see through the Ice cream illusion." Do you think that would be responsive in any way to what the nondualist said? No it wouldnt be, and him concluding that a nondualist is wrong about frozen desserts is stupid, because the nondualist havent said anything related to frozen desserts hence his/her position is unclear on the matter. Its unresponsive for the fact that none of what Leo Gura said changes the fact, that the nondualist's dog is named Ice cream.

Thats cool, but then its not a response to whats being said, in that case you are talking about and pointing to a different thing. Which was our whole point in this whole thread and thats why I pushed for clarification of the term to get a sense how he uses these terms but then got shot down for being pedantic.

You're not able to yet grasp that if you use the definition nondualist have for enightenment then what Leo said in those statements is incoherent. The only way to make it coherent is to change the meaning behind the term and hence engage in equivocation. Drop the label 'enlightenment' and just insert in the intended meaning and the problem is solved.

I dont know why you would think that Im missing the point about that particular thing. Its not me who wants to fight for a label - its Leo. I never said that anyone can give an exhaustive account for any given term , especially not for enlightenment and for awakening. But the issue isn't that one cant give an exhaustive account, the issue is changing the meaning behind the term and not engaging with a meaning that was explicitly given to you.

So parse through his statements while inserting in the definition for enlightenment I gave and make it make sense. "Becoming conscious of the nature of Reality/Existence is imaginary. Humans invented becoming conscious of the nature of Reality/Existence to keep themselves from actually realizing God. You have to understand how ingenius God is at hiding. God invented becoming conscious of the nature of Reality/Existence just to hide itself from you. Only the smartest will see through the enlightenment illusion."

Does this sounds like someone who acknowledges the horizontal?

I dont think its even a coherent sentence that you made there - what does it even mean that having a particular definition behind a label is dogma? We have usually shared meaning behind the terms we utter and thats a good thing because thats what allows us to communicate. What you did there is precisely the move that doesnt engage with anything and this is the move that makes it about semantics. People tell you what they mean by a given the term - engage with that meaning if you want a substantive talk - suggesting what meaning should be put behind a given label is just not engaging with whats being said. If people tell you exactly what they mean by the term enlightenment - engage with that meaning - dont do the Leo move where you redefine the word and then start to engage in equivocation.

Tell that to Leo, who conflated the vertical dimension with the horizontal and who prioritized the vertical. If enlightenment is taken to be the whole horizontal dimension then it doesnt make sense to use the language he did "enlightenment is lower" or "enlightenment is an illusion" since enlightenement under how you phrased it would be the ever present truth and it also doesnt make sense to say that everything is depended on states because by definition that move would deny ever-present (the whole horizontal dimension) truth that is avalaible under all vertical dimensions. It would be a clear category error even under how you described this whole thing ,becuase it would be like saying the x axis is lower than the y axis. This is why we said that enlightenment (the horizontal dimension) isnt depended on any particular level or state of consciousness (vertical dimension), which is perfectly compatible with the whole model your described.

Thats not the point, the point is that its not dependent on any particular state. The idea is that enlightement is always "avalaible", no matter the state.

Similar issues come up with trying to solve RR with predefined rules. Every rule requires a specification in its application and every rule requires an interpretation. The number of ways you can interpret and apply any given rule is combinatorially explosive and context sensitive. A rule always conveys more than it explicitly says (You cannot specify all the condition of the application of the rule in the rule). "Okay lets try to make a rule for how to use this specific rule" - You are just pushing back the issue one more step, because now you have the exact same problem (you need to know all the specificity conditions how to apply that higher order rule), so your ability to follow rules is based on something other than rules. RR also goes deeper than representations (mental entity that stands for or refers towards an object in the world) , because representations doesnt explain RR, they presuppose it. Empirical evidence for this: "Things and Place - How the mind connects the world by Zenon W. Pylyshyn" - The multiple object tracking, where the more objects you need to track at the same time, the more you lose your ability to track the attributes of said objects - So for example, lets say there are 8 objects and one of them is a red X. After lots of momevent, you can still tell the location of that object, but you won't notice that its content has changed over time (the red X has become a blue circle). The only thing that was consistently tracked of that object is its here-ness and now-ness (or in other words adverbial qualia). So all the representational aspects of the object was changed, but the ability to track it still remained.

Its funny that you are the guy who talked about Gödel's incompleteness theorem and now you are here denying that relevance realization is even an issue and try to push for the computational solution. Even when you said your point about data and categorizing that data - categorization already entails relevance realization and one main reason why is because you dont differentiate objects based on logical differences (based on an object having at least one predicate that the other object doesnt have) - you do categorization based on relevant differences that you almost never able to fully formally explicate. It would be like trying to define desert by an exact number of grain of sand. Whats the difference between a dog and a cat? - if we start to sit down and collect all the predicates of dogs and cats, you immediately realize that there is basically an infinite number of shared predicates between them , therefore sitting down and checking predicates one by one with an algorithm isn't tenable and here we are just at the level of categorization (and btw, the very fact that you are able to compare two objects in the first place and you try to check for the predicates already presupposes that you can carve those two objects out from the world - without that carving first, you cant even begin to do your comparison and you cant run down your predicate list).

I still dont undertand how you reject "true by definition" statements. This is why I said that you redefining the term enlightenment isn't an honest engagement with what the nondualists are saying. The label is irrelevant the shared meaning is whats relevant (this is why Unborntao suggested that if you really want you can label that shared meaning as 'Godrealization' if you prefer that label over enlightenment). If you use the same definition for enlightenment as they do, then you cant say that enlightement is an illusion because by their definition it cant be an illusion, the correct way to object to that is to say that none of them are enlightened, given how they defined enlightenment.

If you replace the Absolute with Existence (which I think is less ambigous and more clear what it is pointing to) then it becomes clear why non-dualists object to things like "You can go beyond Existence" or "You can go beyond Reality". It does comes down to semantics, and the reason why is because if you apply the exact same meaning how nondualists use the words you are using, then your statements become incoherent, so if we want to be charitable towards you - the most charitable move is to say that what you are saying is probably coherent under your own semantics, and its just that you are using different meaning behind those same terms (and its completely fine to say that you cant convey the meaning behind your terms, what isnt fine is not granting that it comes down to semantics, because saying that it isn't about semantics, that implies that non-dualist use your terms with the exact same meaning as you (there is no equivocation), which would be silly, because that would mean that non-dualists think that their own statements are incoherent. If enlightenment is taken to mean something like "becoming conscious of the nature of reality", then the sentence "Going beyond being conscious of the nature of reality" doesnt make much sense or just like how making the statement that " enlightenment is an illusion" under this semantic wouldnt be coherent because it would be cashed out as "Being conscious of the nature of reality is an illusion" One other way to make sense of what you are saying - is suggesting that there is no such thing as enlightement, where one can become comprehensively conscious of the nature of reality in one go, because its an ongoing process where you can have ever deeper awakenings into what the nature of reality is. One other way to make sense of what you are saying is that enlightenment 'isnt becoming comprehensively conscious of the nature of reality' - but in this case again this is a semantic issue, because nondualists define enlightenment as 'comprehensively conscious of the nature of reality' and by saying that enlightenement is an illusion is just equivocation where you redefine the word 'enlightement' in order to make your objection. The way to correctly object to their statement would be like saying "Under how you guys use your semantics and under what you guys mean by enlightenment , none of you are enlightened". Applying normativity to awakenings and by that move creating a hierarchy of awakenings only make sense if the norm can be coherently applied to all of those awakenings. Its also the case, that you can arbitrarily create multiple different kind of hierarchies depending on what norm you want to apply/you are interested in. So for instance you can create a hierarchy of awakenings just on 'sense of self' and the less sense of self you have the "higher" your awakening is.

I dont know what it means to 'reduce Consciousness to my notion of Absolute Truth'. Again this goes back to what I said about the difference between uttering statements while being in a particular state of consciousness vs a particular state of consciousness is determining/making true a particular statement. So all im saying is that for instance "Consciousness is Absolute" that statement isn't true because it is made from God's level 9999 level of consciousness , that statement is true regardless what level of consciousness it is made from, because the truth value of that sentence isnt made true by any particular state of consciousness. Or in other words - 'not beind depended on a particular level of consciousness' just means that It is a truth which is true across all levels/states of consciousness. All of what Im saying is compatible with your leveled ontology. Levels can change certain truth, but necessarily not all truth, because the truth of the existence of the levels itself is depended on what im saying.

We could also use the statement "There are levels of consciousness" or "Everything is consciousness" and you wouldnt want to subject those statements to a particular level/state of consciousness

This is where hopefully your clarification comes, because I think that is how a good chunk of the "nondual" people used the term here and hence why the objections. If by absolute truth you mean a truth that is depended on a particular state of consciousness, then that sounds like a very unique way to use the term. This is why its useful to give your semantics sometimes.

Absolute truth , would be a truth that is true regardless of the level of consciousness, because its not made true by a particular level/state of consciousness.

It makes sense to say that a rat is more aware than an ant, but it wouldnt make sense to say that a rat is more or less aware than awareness itself. In that particular case, the reason why it was labeled as a relative truth, is because its context sensitively true and the truth conditions could be changed. Once comparison is used, under this usage of the term , we are talking about relative truth. "When you make any argument to me, that is coming from your existing state of consciousness. Your arguments have zero validity in higher states." That doesnt make much sense , since not all statements are indexed to a particular level/state of consciousness. And I will clarify what is meant by that since most of this is just language game and relies on you being ambigous with your language. So there is a difference between uttering a statement while being in a particular state of consciousness vs the truth value (whether the statement is true or false) of the statement is made true by a particular state/level of consciousness. Btw you have to agree with this , otherwise you refuted yourself. So ,when you uttered the statement // Your arguments have zero validity in higher states // - is that very statement depended on/made true by a particular state of consciousness? You are in a clear bind here, because its either the case that you have to affirm that it isn't depended on it, and by that move you give up the "all sentences are made true by a particular state of consciousness" principle or it is the case that you say "yes its depened on it" in which case you shouldnt be taken seriously, since there are states of consciousness from which your statement is possibly false.

The problem isnt that people reject your notion of God, the problem is that you are making a category error (under the notions how people who objected to you use the terms relative and absolute). Its like saying that it makes sense to say "something is taller or less tall than tallness itself". Tallness isnt a category that can have the property of being less or more tall. And it isn't a question of open-mindedness or lack of knowledge , its a question of making meaningful sentences. Do you think it makes sense to say something like - "You are not open minded to the fact that tallness is an illusion and you can be taller or smaller than tallness?". Or to say "there are levels of tallness to tallness" And yes, it is a norm that you are using, but what is it? Is it something like 'Sense of realness'? Because that norm can be meaningful and it can make sense when it comes to comparative judgements, and hence why the metaphor "awakening" can be used - you judge something illusory to something more real. This is the issue that multiple people have already pointed out to you (including me) that you are equivocating on the term "absolute" and "relative" and you are using those terms with a different meaning comapared to how others(who objected to you) use it. Again, its not a question of being lost in non-dual dogma, its a question of making meaningful sentences. Like making sentences like "You can go beyond nonduality", what the fuck does the adjective "beyond" can possibly mean there? Because, again, under how people understand the semantics of such statements, its just a meaningless statement that involves a category mistake (and by clarifying what notions you are using behind those statements, you can make it meaningful, but for that you need to bother with clarification). I can give you a couple more statements to give you an intuition pump (demonstrate what our issue is) that all involve category errors and its not a matter of lack of open mindedness or knowledge: 1) Something before time - 'before' is a temporal property and it pressuposses time, its like saying time before time - meaningless, unless you can give such meaning to the term 'before' that is non-temporal. 2) Another one is saying that space is larger than the sun. If by the term 'space' we mean the container within which things are located and extended, then the predicate "small" or "large" cant be applied to it and it becomes a meaningless statement. However, there is a way to make it possibly a meaningful statement, if we engage in equivocation, where by the term 'space' we mean the observable Universe. In that case, the sentence could be cashed out something like "in the container within which things are located and extended, the observable Universe is larger than the sun". 3) There is a location to the container within which all things are located and extended.

What is the norm that is used to create the hierarchy (when it comes to awakenings)? Like what possible norm can be used so that it make sense to compare something absolute with something relative? Because whatever norm that is used there would need to transcend both relative and absolute categories in order for the judgement/comparison to make sense.

Also you should drop this "give infinite charity to him" when he doesnt do that towards anyone. He doesnt give the most basic charity to anyone. If he doesnt understand a given claim then from 100 cases 99 times he wont ask questions to try to make sense of your claim or to check what you mean by certain words, he will just assume that you dont know what you are talking about or he will interpret in a way where it will make your claim obviously false. Like do you think the dude is tracking what @UnbornTao's objection is? Or he is running the "you dont understand God" script for the millionth time as a "response"?

Yes "there is need for it". Too much toleration for stupid claims and bad inferences and none of this makes sense even under his own epistemology. He explicitly stated what his inference was and its a blatantly trash one and you know this. You wouldnt tolerate such inferences if you would replace Leo with any other person, and the quality of inference doesnt improve by changing the subject in the inference. For example - even if we take the following claim for granted "All people who tried to talk about awakening and elightenment and God are completely wrong about those things" - still, what about people that Leo doesnt know about? - like why would anyone think that awakening would entail talking/writing about awakening? This is just one extremely obvious objection to the inference, and this is the guy that you admire for his intelligence? Probably not every enlightened master has the narcissistic urge to tell you periodically how much of a rat you are and how much more conscious he/she is compared to you. Like why would you tolerate this?

"Nothing personal, its just that im the most conscious being, and all of you are little unconscious rats compared to me" "Ohh man, its so annoying that people try to idolize me and put me on a pedestal, they will do that whatever I say or do, so I make sure that I maximize the living fuck out of it" No, its sounds like a narcissist having a psychosis and a claim that you dont know either, because you inferred it based on what others have said about God, which is very stupid for many different reasons, 1 main reason being is that it doesnt establish your conclusion.