UnbornTao

Why so abstract? Ground your questioning: What's opinion, in your experience? Besides, you could clarify your take above.

Guys, focus: porn.

And what I said above is that enlightenment isn't an experience nor a state change. The difference is like being bored at one time, and hungry at another. No difference in that these are experiences. Now apply that to your state changes.

😁 No need to sing, though:

This doesn't change the fact that both are perceptive-experiences. Reread what I wrote above.

Sure, but not just me. So are Ramana, Ralston, Adi Da, Meher Baba, and Ken Wilber - for a reason. The destruction of the universe would still be irrelevant when it comes to enlightenment. So why would changing the chemicals in your brain be any different? I'm afraid buying into this belief is just a mistake born of having had moving experiences and dramatically unusual changes of state. No state is direct consciousness, it is only a state, no matter how grand or exciting or mind blowing it is. Altering the brain can't produce enlightenment - what it does is change its activity. In essence, it's not much different from getting drunk, hitting your head on the bathroom counter, or falling in love - they're experiences. This is not enlightenment no matter how much people want it to be.

Keep it civil guys.

@Daniel Balan Drugs cannot produce direct consciousness or lead to enlightenment, so you'd take your breakthroughs as simply "experiences" that might inform you of something or open your mind in some way, but aren't "true."

What are reality and meaning?

@Hojo Personal opinion is determined by you, whereas fact is not - what you feel, prefer, or believe is often irrelevant, except perhaps when it pertains to your subjective world ("I feel bored," for example.) The point is that a fact doesn't change or stop being "real" when you forget about it - you're simply ignorant of it. We don't have to be dense either: in your examples, that you fell, hit your head, and got amnesia can itself be called a fact. That you are alone may also be considered factual. It's an observation that we can agree on (even though consensus isn't the only criterion for establishing fact). Even when alone, it's still valid to say that other people exist, though at that moment their existence may only be a concept for you. This may help us ballpark the investigation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion "Factual" doesn't have to mean "ultimately true," but it does require accuracy and grounding in something real - usually something objective, observable, or consistent. You don't have to solve the mysteries of the universe to know that lasagna is made with certain ingredients. Opinion isn't an existential aspect of reality, so there's no reason to conflate the two. It's more like thinking you can fly and then being confronted with the reality of gravity. So, look at what an opinion is. Sorry, no synonyms for 'fact' today.

I thought it was clear

Maybe, just make sure it isn't merely wishful thinking or pretension.

It has to be real, though - a breakthrough. In your experience you likely take yourself to be somewhere behind your eyes and between your ears - and this is perceived as a solid reality, despite whatever spiritual hearsay you may have adopted. Notice that you can't find yourself wherever you look. Whatever is found is perceived or received by you. You can't locate yourself within your experience or perception, which is where you're going to look.

"... but Mr. Führer, I'm Jewish." He'd probably make you pay for his coffee.

@Someone here The point is to actually do the practice: try to locate yourself. This solid sense of oneself - what is it comprised of? @Princess Arabia Left pinky toe.

@Hojo I lost track of what we were talking about. Your writing feels a bit opaque to me - that's just my opinion, though. Why are you focused on what others tell you in order to discern fact from opinion? How does that connect to this discussion? Anyway.... after this chat, you still have five fingers on each hand, right? I think you're being unnecessarily contrarian at times. We can still acknowledge the workings of certain aspects of reality, even the basic stuff everyone considers obvious. We don't want to claim everything is relative and so "anything goes." Not exactly sure what you mean by your second sentence, but I'd say I agree for the most part. This doesn’t sound accurate. Again, you're painting with a broad brush. Inventions like math may not be existentially or absolutely true, but in the relative sense they're quite grounded and objective - hence factual. You can't just mess around with physics, for example. Let's not relegate fact to mere imagination or arbitrariness. Is this deeply experienced for what it is? Even if it's true, as a notion it is just a starting point. Not happy with this, may edit.

Do we tend to bring up life circumstances as justifications for happiness? "I'm happy because of X and Y." Not that that's bad, of course. Still, it's funny - maybe even automatic. I'm not entirely clear on what happiness actually is. It may not be what we assume it to be. Is it an emotion? Notice, too, the tendency to search within our emotional states and dispositions, which we then link to our life prospects. How we feel about our lives becomes the barometer (is this the right word?) by which we measure our "happiness" in them.

Consider that it is not an experience, and hence not subject to the mind or perception. Simply set aside all those rumors and notions and get who you are.

Can you play the Better Call Saul theme? @Carl-Richard played it before, but never made a revised version.

It's not just semantics. Regardless of whatever conceptual overlay we add, there is something there that isn't subject to personal whims or belief. You can see that, no matter what is said, the condition itself remains unchanged - your "hardware" stays intact, metaphorically speaking. Call it five bananas or twenty four pencils, your body doesn't care. We're working on clarifying this difference - the one you seem to insist doesn't exist. For now, we're calling it fact and opinion. Put simply: an opinion is an assessment, whereas a fact "exists." It comes prior to your assessment about reality. So you needn't come to a conclusion or form an opinion, but observe what's there. Also, groupthink isn't necessarily negative, in case that's being assumed. You couldn't be reading this now without that social dimension - culture and others contributing to your learning, directly or indirectly. I understand the desire to assert one's autonomy, but don't ignore the enormous influence the social domain has on your experience. You couldn't even be "alone" without "lack of others."

What's your point in bringing that up? You have five fingers on each hand (probably). That's not an opinion. No groupthink is required to validate it - except perhaps the bit of math learning needed so you can actually recognize and count them yourself. But in any case, it's still a fact, even when it isn't consciously recognized or thought about. It exists independently of you, whereas opinion depends on you. You want to say that opinion comes prior to fact, but they may well be completely separate - or just different. Notice that, in essence, opining is often a secondary matter. I'm not sure this is the most effective line of questioning, but there you go.

Just in case.