How Is Definitive Knowledge Possible?

[Nemra]

@Staples, I need to survive and I don't want to deceive myself into believing that I can achieve it just by meditating. I would rather survive than meditate for hours and get it after years of meditation. Also, we are different.

My intuition is that drugs or things like that change my state without my full control. If such a thing exists, why would I not do it?

Also, you must keep in mind that you are learning from Leo. If Leo hadn't talked about the alien stuff, would you have realized it?

[r0ckyreed]

4 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

Consciousness is permanent therefore consciousness cannot be knowledge. If you think knowledge is not sufficient, it's because it's temporary. 

Consciousness can have some relative knowledge. For instance, we have knowledge of survival, how to make houses, and how to direct electricity. 

I probably was wrong in saying that consciousness is permanent. I do not know that for a fact. 

[Buck Edwards]

Just now, r0ckyreed said:

Consciousness can have some relative knowledge. For instance, we have knowledge of survival, how to make houses, and how to direct electricity. 

I probably was wrong in saying that consciousness is permanent. I do not know that for a fact. 

Consciousness can never be based on knowledge. Knowledge at best is flimsy. Awakening is the awareness of this consciousness. 

 

[Leo Gura]

16 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

But isn’t awakening an insight into the nature of being/reality? An insight can be false. The only thing I can think of that is beyond knowledge, which you already pointed out is truth/existence/reality. There cannot be knowledge or insight without a reality to have knowledge/insight about.

Insight is deeper than you give it credit for. You are assuming you understand what insight is, which is not a safe assumption.

Consciousnes is even more fundamental than insight, although insight is more fundamental the knowledge.

Insight is an aspect of Awakening but not the whole of it. Awakened consciousness is the basis for the insight of awakening. Consciousness awakens first, then insight catches up, or it could work the other way too.

Awakening comes with insight but it's the same as insight.

16 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

How is understanding possible?

How is anything possible?

[r0ckyreed]

20 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@r0ckyreed this is it right there . Leo tossed you with one sentence 😂. 

Even science agrees with this. Science tells us that everything is composed of atoms and energy. And when the atoms spin at a certain rate of speed.. this determines what the object is. Science tells us that our eyes see a reflection of light and the reflection of light 
causes the image to appear before us..as a tree..as a person..as a mountain..as an ocean as the moon etc

In other words..science is beginning to see that no thing exists the way it appears to exist. It only exists because you exist. If you weren't around to see it.. there would  be no existence. It is only because you are around and you are conscious. 

Consciousness is absolute and more fundamental than all of your skeptical thoughts. 

I am not sure I agree. I agree that knowledge is entirely mind dependent, but human trafficking is happening right now independent of my mind. If I died right now, human trafficking would still be happening as it was before I was born. Things can still exist even if I am unaware of it. You think me saying human trafficking doesn’t exist because I have never witnessed it is a plausible claim? I could use your argument against you and say that human trafficking doesn’t exist because I am not witnessing it right now.

We meet this interesting contradiction because when we say something exists, we also seem to imply that we can become aware of it. So when we say that police brutality and racism exists, it implies that it is in the field of consciousness if we bother to look. Of course, people can deny racism exists, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t. Of course, we can only know racism and trafficking exist through our own consciousness because like I said knowledge is mind dependent but trafficking is mind independent.

Edit: Putting it a better way, this dream if you wanna call it that, requires that to have children is to have sex. This seems like a pretty consistent rule. That means for every child you see, you can infer there was fucking behind the scenes. Of course, have I ever witnessed the kids parents having sex? No. But this seems like a more parsimonious explanation than a child appearing out of thin air.

Edited October 1 by r0ckyreed

[Buck Edwards]

1 minute ago, r0ckyreed said:

I am not sure I agree. I agree that knowledge is entirely mind dependent, but human trafficking is happening right now independent of my mind. If I died right now, human trafficking would still be happening as it was before I was born. Things can still exist even if I am unaware of it. You think me saying human trafficking doesn’t exist because I have never witnessed it is a plausible claim? I could use your argument against you and say that human trafficking doesn’t exist because I am not thinking about it and am unaware of it. 

We meet this interesting contradiction because when we say something exists, we also seem to imply that we can become aware of it. So when we say that police brutality and racism exists, it implies that it is in the field of consciousness if we bother to look. Of course, people can deny racism exists, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t. Of course, we can only know racism and trafficking exist through our own consciousness because like I said knowledge is mind dependent but trafficking is mind independent.

Awakening is the state of consciousness and it is not mind dependent. Knowledge is mind dependent. Consciousness is therefore more fundamental than that. It is definitive in itself. There's nothing definitive about knowledge though. 

[Staples]

6 minutes ago, Nemra said:

@Staples, I need to survive and I don't want to deceive myself into believing that I can achieve it just by meditating. I would rather survive than meditate for hours and get it after years of meditation. Also, we are different.6

My intuition is that drugs or things like that change my state without my full control. If such a thing exists, why would I not do it?

Also, you must keep in mind that you are learning from Leo. If Leo hadn't talked about the alien stuff, would you have realized it?

Just saying you don't have to wait until psychedelics to get it. Go about it however you like.

I have not realized any alien stuff. It was just a thought experiment. Everything I have realized is accessible from a sober mind through contemplation, although psychedelics did help a bit.

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

How is anything possible?

It's opposite day.

I think I'm getting good at answering these koans 

[Someone here]

12 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

I am not sure I agree. I agree that knowledge is entirely mind dependent, but human trafficking is happening right now independent of my mind. If I died right now, human trafficking would still be happening as it was before I was born. Things can still exist even if I am unaware of it. You think me saying human trafficking doesn’t exist because I have never witnessed it is a plausible claim? I could use your argument against you and say that human trafficking doesn’t exist because I am not witnessing it right now.

We meet this interesting contradiction because when we say something exists, we also seem to imply that we can become aware of it. So when we say that police brutality and racism exists, it implies that it is in the field of consciousness if we bother to look. Of course, people can deny racism exists, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t. Of course, we can only know racism and trafficking exist through our own consciousness because like I said knowledge is mind dependent but trafficking is mind independent.

Is the notion of "racism being real as a mind independant phenomena" itself mind independent or mind dependent? 

How deep is the rabbit hole ?

Edited October 1 by Someone here

[r0ckyreed]

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Insight is deeper than you give it credit for. You are assuming you understand what insight is, which is not a safe assumption.

Consciousnes is even more fundamental than insight, although insight is more fundamental the knowledge.

Insight is an aspect of Awakening but not the whole of it. Awakened consciousness is the basis for the insight of awakening. Consciousness awakens first, then insight catches up, or it could work the other way too.

Awakening comes with insight but it's the same as insight.

How is anything possible?

Good points. I will contemplate them more before I respond. I don’t know how anything is possible let alone understanding it.

[Xonas Pitfall]

Direct Experience vs. Mental (Theoretical) Knowledge

These are cliché examples, but they highlight something significant.

• Imagine someone who has studied colors for years, learning about wavelengths, frequencies, the nature of waves, and the visible spectrum. If this person is colorblind, their understanding of red would remain entirely theoretical. If they suddenly gained the ability to see it, the depth of that experience would be transformative.
• The same idea applies to love, attachment, or sex. People can tell you all kinds of stories about what they feel like, you can watch movies, or see how your parents interact, but nothing compares to being the one who experiences it directly.
• Similarly, someone could describe the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, explaining the visual and auditory hallucinations, but living with schizophrenia is an entirely different reality.

This ties into the Hard Problem of Consciousness: how could abstract concepts like symbols, stories, and mathematical formulas truly explain experiences like a broken rib, the taste of chocolate, or a mother’s hug? Even though detailed descriptions can be provided, the actual complexity and depth of living through these experiences far surpass any theoretical explanation. Comparing them feels almost absurd.

This is the issue of mistaking the map for the territory. The map is not the territory. For example, I can describe what Africa looks like, and tell you about its landscapes and wonders, and you might form a mental image. However, when you go there, the experience will be infinitely richer and more than any description.

The same goes for psychedelics, which is why they are considered so important in these areas and why many people rate them as life-changing experiences. They provide a direct experience of non-duality, revealing how fragile yet expansive consciousness truly is. You cannot simply think your way into that state of being—it’s not something you can achieve by logic or theory. The experience itself is what makes it transformative. People often say it felt "more real" than their day-to-day experience: how they experienced death, an out-of-body experience, recalled a past life memory, met an entity, became a tree or a cup, met God, or had a union with Truth. How do you measure or make sense of that? 

Are you going to deny their reality too?

What makes their reality more real than yours?

1. Is it because others can observe it? Does that mean the more people witness it, the more "real" it becomes? If everyone agrees something is real, does it make it so? Consider colorblindness: if no one saw red, would it still exist? The Himba tribe, for example, doesn’t have a word for blue, and experiments show that without language to describe the color, it’s more challenging to differentiate it from others. [https://www.good.is/why-ancient-civilizations-couldnt-see-the-color-blue] Consider when racism was the norm or when people thought slavery was acceptable—did that make slaves or non-white races inherently more "real" as stupid or inferior? Money is technically an abstract concept—in "reality," it's just paper, metal coins, or digital numbers (ones and zeros) in a bank, stored on some electrical CPU circuit. Think of NFTs and Bitcoin as well, to really drive this point home. Even though these are abstract concepts, they influence our lives more than many tangible things. God, for many people, is also an abstract concept, yet it influences behavior and society more than many conventionally "real" things in the world.
2. If not consensus, what defines reality? Is it tied to survival? Does pain make something more "real"? If someone is being tortured, does the resulting death and pain make their experience more real than someone experiencing paranoid delusions and pain during an episode of schizophrenia? Both individuals feel pain, but why is one experience considered more "real" than the other? There are also people who genuinely cannot feel pain: Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP).  Also, under high doses of drugs such as opioids or anesthetics, people can drastically minimize or eliminate the sensation of pain. What if we were born with this inability to feel pain? How would that alter our experience of reality?

Something to contemplate... 💭

With so much schooling, science, and the vast availability of informational products and videos, we often forget how "mystical" reality truly is.  It is easy to believe that there is an explanation for everything. As a result, our mental models of reality can start to feel more real than reality itself. But this is not the case. Mental models are simplified explanations of a reality that is infinitely more complex and rich than any description could ever capture.

[Buck Edwards]

5 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

Direct Experience vs. Mental (Theoretical) Knowledge

These are cliché examples, but they highlight something significant.

• Imagine someone who has studied colors for years, learning about wavelengths, frequencies, the nature of waves, and the visible spectrum. If this person is colorblind, their understanding of red would remain entirely theoretical. If they suddenly gained the ability to see it, the depth of that experience would be transformative.
• The same idea applies to love, attachment, or sex. People can tell you all kinds of stories about what they feel like, you can watch movies, or see how your parents interact, but nothing compares to being the one who experiences it directly.
• Similarly, someone could describe the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, explaining the visual and auditory hallucinations, but living with schizophrenia is an entirely different reality.

This ties into the Hard Problem of Consciousness: how could abstract concepts like symbols, stories, and mathematical formulas truly explain experiences like a broken rib, the taste of chocolate, or a mother’s hug? Even though detailed descriptions can be provided, the actual complexity and depth of living through these experiences far surpass any theoretical explanation. Comparing them feels almost absurd.

This is the issue of mistaking the map for the territory. The map is not the territory. For example, I can describe what Africa looks like, and tell you about its landscapes and wonders, and you might form a mental image. However, when you go there, the experience will be infinitely richer and more than any description.

The same goes for psychedelics, which is why they are considered so important in these areas and why many people rate them as life-changing experiences. They provide a direct experience of non-duality, revealing how fragile yet expansive consciousness truly is. You cannot simply think your way into that state of being—it’s not something you can achieve by logic or theory. The experience itself is what makes it transformative. People often say it felt "more real" than their day-to-day experience: how they experienced death, an out-of-body experience, recalled a past life memory, met an entity, became a tree or a cup, met God, or had a union with Truth. How do you measure or make sense of that? 

Are you going to deny their reality too?

What makes their reality more real than yours?

1. Is it because others can observe it? Does that mean the more people witness it, the more "real" it becomes? If everyone agrees something is real, does it make it so? Consider colorblindness: if no one saw red, would it still exist? The Himba tribe, for example, doesn’t have a word for blue, and experiments show that without language to describe the color, it’s more challenging to differentiate it from others. [https://www.good.is/why-ancient-civilizations-couldnt-see-the-color-blue] Consider when racism was the norm or when people thought slavery was acceptable—did that make slaves or non-white races inherently more "real" as stupid or inferior? Money is technically an abstract concept—in "reality," it's just paper, metal coins, or digital numbers (ones and zeros) in a bank, stored on some electrical CPU circuit. Think of NFTs and Bitcoin as well, to really drive this point home. Even though these are abstract concepts, they influence our lives more than many tangible things. God, for many people, is also an abstract concept, yet it influences behavior and society more than many conventionally "real" things in the world.
2. If not consensus, what defines reality? Is it tied to survival? Does pain make something more "real"? If someone is being tortured, does the resulting death and pain make their experience more real than someone experiencing paranoid delusions and pain during an episode of schizophrenia? Both individuals feel pain, but why is one experience considered more "real" than the other? There are also people who genuinely cannot feel pain: Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP).  Also, under high doses of drugs such as opioids or anesthetics, people can drastically minimize or eliminate the sensation of pain. What if we were born with this inability to feel pain? How would that alter our experience of reality?

Something to contemplate... 💭

With so much schooling, science, and the vast availability of informational products and videos, we often forget how "mystical" reality truly is.  It is easy to believe that there is an explanation for everything. As a result, our mental models of reality can start to feel more real than reality itself. But this is not the case. Mental models are simplified explanations of a reality that is infinitely more complex and rich than any description could ever capture.

The state of consciousness cannot be reduced to a mental model. You get this through metacognition. 

[Davino]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Or it's like you have been a fish your whole life and finally you realize what water is.

[Xonas Pitfall]

@Davino "That's the most gorgeous fish I have ever seen." 🥺🐟 Bloop. Blup. Blooop. Blooopy. Blop.

[Xonas Pitfall]

@Buck Edwards What does metacognition mean to you?

[Buck Edwards]

Just now, Xonas Pitfall said:

@Buck Edwards What does metacognition mean to you?

Thinking about thinking. 

 

[Javfly33]

Because is not Knowlege. Is Reality Awakening to itself

[Leo Gura]

Look at it like this:

Is color knowledge? Is color insight?

No. Color is more fundamental than both. So clearly we got some very fundamental stuff going on even without any crazy mystical mumbo-jumbo.

Edited October 1 by Leo Gura

[Princess Arabia]

3 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

I am not sure I agree. I agree that knowledge is entirely mind dependent, but human trafficking is happening right now independent of my mind. If I died right now, human trafficking would still be happening as it was before I was born. Things can still exist even if I am unaware of it. You think me saying human trafficking doesn’t exist because I have never witnessed it is a plausible claim? I could use your argument against you and say that human trafficking doesn’t exist because I am not witnessing it right now.

We meet this interesting contradiction because when we say something exists, we also seem to imply that we can become aware of it. So when we say that police brutality and racism exists, it implies that it is in the field of consciousness if we bother to look. Of course, people can deny racism exists, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t. Of course, we can only know racism and trafficking exist through our own consciousness because like I said knowledge is mind dependent but trafficking is mind independent.

Edit: Putting it a better way, this dream if you wanna call it that, requires that to have children is to have sex. This seems like a pretty consistent rule. That means for every child you see, you can infer there was fucking behind the scenes. Of course, have I ever witnessed the kids parents having sex? No. But this seems like a more parsimonious explanation than a child appearing out of thin air.

Remember there are sperm donors and frozen eggs and artificial insemination. So this consistent rule that you claim to be consistent, isn't so consistent after all. All it takes is an egg, sex doesn't have to occur. How are you so sure that things are happening independent of you knowing about it. Not saying either way, but how are you so sure.

[r0ckyreed]

1 hour ago, Princess Arabia said:

Remember there are sperm donors and frozen eggs and artificial insemination. So this consistent rule that you claim to be consistent, isn't so consistent after all. All it takes is an egg, sex doesn't have to occur. How are you so sure that things are happening independent of you knowing about it. Not saying either way, but how are you so sure.

If I go to my car and my window and broken and my wallet gone, I’m gonna assume someone broke into my car and took my wallet when I wasn’t aware of it.

When you go to the bar, are you really gonna leave your drink on the table to use the bathroom? The drugs someone puts in your drink is gonna be independent of your awareness of it.

[r0ckyreed]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Look at it like this:

Is color knowledge? Is color insight?

No. Color is more fundamental than both. So clearly we got some very fundamental stuff going on even without any crazy mystical mumbo-jumbo.

I am gonna keep contemplating this and then will get back to you. Some empiricist would disagree and assert that experience = knowledge. You couldn’t know color without experiencing color. But knowledge is much more conceptual because you can have experience without knowledge, but you cannot have knowledge without experience.

Edited October 1 by r0ckyreed