What is meant by distinctions not being human ?

[Flint]

I watched the second part of the ultimate guide to post-modernism which was really amazing. At some point Leo mentions that Post-modernists are wrong in the sense that distinctions are not human so also not conceptual.

I have two questions.

1) Does that mean that there are first order distinctions that just happen in consciousness regardless of humans and we as humans would always experience and perceive them in the same way regardless of how we would conceptualize them afterwards ? Does anyone have any examples of those non-conceptual distinctions ?

I realize a tree is not a mouse but is that distinction really not made at a conceptual level ? Does that distinction exist in reality/consciousness if there is no one to make it ?

Do we then have first order distinctions that exist inherently in consciousness and can be perceived by consciousness itself in a non-biaised way and then second order ones that exist only in human conceptualization ?

2) For first order truth, how can I be sure that my perception of it is not biaised ? When I see a tree I may not conceptualize it but the perception of the tree itself, could that not be biaised ? Color blind people perceive colors differently, similarly a mouse would perceive the tree also in a different way I presume. Is there then some way of knowing / "non-human" perception of consciousness knowing itself and its distinctions which is direct and non-biaised ?

Thanks for your help, this was a very interesting point that needed more clarification. Perhaps a blogpost Leo ?

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Flint said:

1) Does that mean that there are first order distinctions that just happen in consciousness regardless of humans and we as humans would always experience and perceive them in the same way regardless of how we would conceptualize them afterwards ?

Of course.

But they still depend on being human. Or rather, what it means to "be human" is to see the sky as blue. If you see the sky as green you would, in a sense, no longer be human. You would literally lose a piece of your humanity.

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Does anyone have any examples of those non-conceptual distinctions?

Every color you see is a 1st order distinction. Every physical object too. Like a chair.

You have ideas of a chair, that is 2nd order. Then you have the colors and shape of the chair, which is 1st order.

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I realize a tree is not a mouse but is that distinction really not made at a conceptual level ?

Of course it's prior to concept. Animals navigate the world non-conceptually by distinguishing mice from trees.

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Does that distinction exist in reality/consciousness if there is no one to make it ?

Be careful here. 1st order distinction like seeing a color is still being created by you. But at a deeper level which is non-conceptual and which your ego does not control.

1st order is largely out of your mind's control because it being handled by God's Mind.

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Do we then have first order distinctions that exist inherently in consciousness and can be perceived by consciousness itself in a non-biaised way and then second order ones that exist only in human conceptualization ?

2nd order is thoughts and mental images. 1st order is just raw experience prior to your ideas of it.

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2) For first order truth, how can I be sure that my perception of it is not biaised ? When I see a tree I may not conceptualize it but the perception of the tree itself, could that not be biaised ?

The colors and shape of the tree was absolutely what is true. What you see is what is. But don't make the leap that the tree couldn't change its appearance. You might see a tree one moment and then it might change colors the next moment if some state of your consciousness changes.

Maybe you get hit in the head with a rock and now the tree which used to look green looks purple. So now the 1st order is purple.

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Color blind people perceive colors differently, similarly a mouse would perceive the tree also in a different way I presume. Is there then some way of knowing / "nonu-human" perception of consciousness knowing itself and its distinctions which is direct and non-biaised ?

A mouse, we might say, lives in a different 1st order reality from you. It's 1st order is totally different from yours. Now you have the problem of comparing various 1st order experiences, which is technically impossible because in order to see like a mouse you'd need to surrender your life and turn into a mouse. 

But really it's no different than being hit in the head with a rock and seeing purple trees.

The 1st order is what is called "incommensurable". Each perception is equally true in its own right. Red is red, purple is purple. Red is not truer than purple. Whether you see red or purple is just what is absolutely the case at that point in time and you cannot say anything deeper about it because it's just absolutely true.

The sight of a thing is what it is. Appearance is absolute truth. If you actually see a green sky, that's absolutely true that you see it. But that does not imply anything more, like that others must see it that way. Others could have their own absolute truth of a brown sky. Both would be true unto themselves because each Mind is sovereign.

Edited January 30 by Leo Gura

[Dazgwny]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The sight of a thing is what it is. Appearance is absolute truth. If you actually see a green sky, that's absolutely true that you see it. But that does not imply anything more, like that others must see it that way. Others could have their own absolute truth of a brown sky. Both would be true unto themselves because each Mind is sovereign.

I guess this could explain that dress thing that was a big thing a few years back and a deeper level. Some seen black and blue and others white and gold. What are we saying here? That both would be absolutely true? It means I couldn’t actually argue the point against my brother that it is black and blue because that’s what I could see? Where as he saw white and gold? We’re both correct? Or one is right and one is wrong?

Hopefully you remember what I’m talking about here😂

I don’t want to go into all shit about that dress btw I’m just using it to try garner more of an understanding about what you’ve said here

[LastThursday]

Things could be even weirder. My first order distinctions may be totally incomprehensible to another person's first order distinctions. What you call colour, I may not even recognise as part of my experience. It's totally possible that if you suddenly become me, you wouldn't be able to understand my first order distinctions at all. This happens with cochlear implants for the deaf people for example, they have to learn how to hear over time, i.e. they now have the first order distinction of "sound" but it's meaningless to start with. What matters with distinctions is their relationships to each other, not their absolute "value".

It's worth noting that first order distinctions are in constant flux. That's why you could see a white and gold dress one day, and black and blue the next.

And last thought. A chair is a first order distinction, in that it is recognised instantly and without thought, but the construct of a chair has to be learnt over time, we aren't born with the chair construct already there. So in some sense a chair is of a lesser order of distinction than a colour. But we may have latent constructs for faces, trees, sky etc.

Edited Thursday at 01:20 PM by LastThursday

[James123]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Of course.

But they still depend on being human. Or rather, what it means to "be human" is to see the sky as blue. If you see the sky as green you would, in a sense, no longer be human. You would literally lose a piece of your humanity.

Every color you see is a 1st order distinction. Every physical object too. Like a chair.

You have ideas of a chair, that is 2nd order. Then you have the colors and shape of the chair, which is 1st order.

Of course it's prior to concept. Animals navigate the world non-conceptually by distinguishing mice from trees.

Be careful here. 1st order distinction like seeing a color is still being created by you. But at a deeper level which is non-conceptual and which your ego does not control.

1st order is largely out of your mind's control because it being handled by God's Mind.

2nd order is thoughts and mental images. 1st order is just raw experience prior to your ideas of it.

The colors and shape of the tree was absolutely what is true. What you see is what is. But don't make the leap that the tree couldn't change its appearance. You might see a tree one moment and then it might change colors the next moment if some state of your consciousness changes.

Maybe you get hit in the head with a rock and now the tree which used to look green looks purple. So now the 1st order is purple.

A mouse, we might say, lives in a different 1st order reality from you. It's 1st order is totally different from yours. Now you have the problem of comparing various 1st order experiences, which is technically impossible because in order to see like a mouse you'd need to surrender your life and turn into a mouse. 

But really it's no different than being hit in the head with a rock and seeing purple trees.

The 1st order is what is called "incommensurable". Each perception is equally true in its own right. Red is red, purple is purple. Red is not truer than purple. Whether you see red or purple is just what is absolutely the case at that point in time and you cannot say anything deeper about it because it's just absolutely true.

The sight of a thing is what it is. Appearance is absolute truth. If you actually see a green sky, that's absolutely true that you see it. But that does not imply anything more, like that others must see it that way. Others could have their own absolute truth of a brown sky. Both would be true unto themselves because each Mind is sovereign.

Isnt it too much knowledge? 

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Dazgwny said:

It means I couldn’t actually argue the point against my brother that it is black and blue because that’s what I could see? Where as he saw white and gold? We’re both correct? Or one is right and one is wrong?

Well, this assumes a deeper issue which is whether he exists outside your mind at all.

You and your brother ARE a distinction.

The reason it fucks with your mind is that in the end there's nothing, but your mind keeps assuming that in the end there's something.

Don't forget that human is a distinction.

What is left if there are no more distinctions?

And then what happens when even the distinction between there not being distinctions and there being distinctions also disappears??

Edited Thursday at 01:52 PM by Leo Gura

[Dazgwny]

43 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What is left if there are no more distinctions?

And then what happens when even the distinction between there not being distinctions and there being distinctions also disappears??

I feel it would be easy to say to the first question ‘nothing’. But it feels that would be a mistake. Because there’s still one thing, that of whatever it is that is there, with no distinctions. This doesn’t seem right or quite deep enough to be nothing. It’s seems this would still be one, total oneness. 
But then for there to be one, it seems by this questioning that oneness, as weird as it sounds, is still a duality. 
Contemplating the 2nd question is what brought me to that conclusion, because I was initially going to answer ‘nothing’ because it seemed so simple a right. It’s actually the 2nd question that seems for me, to break down the barriers, and bring me to nothing. It’s like there is no answer to this, no explaination, because it’s nothing, it is actually nothing, no thing. Which in turn, is infinity, infinity and nothing is identical. This breaks my mind, it’s like a can’t think about it, yet I’m trying, it won’t grasp onto it, like I can’t get a hold of it, it’s circling my mind but I can’t grip it. And that to me would make total sense because of the nature of infinity. I’ve been this during awakenings on my trips. But with a sober mind it’s a lot more complex trying to wrap my mind around it, rather than tripping and awakening and just becoming it.

Maybe I’ve gone too far here and tripped myself up, but those two questions gave my mind a good beating and my response is where I’ve ended up. It seems like the right train of thought. What seemed like simple and obvious questions to answer at first, threw my mind round like a rag doll😂

[Dazgwny]

@LastThursday Interesting 👍🏻

[Leo Gura]

@Dazgwny It's trickier still, because if you stop making the distinction between nothing and something then you get thrown back out right where you started -- which is with something. But now that something is identical to nothing, where previously it wasn't.

See, ordinary humans think something isn't nothing. But the Awakened see something and nothing as identical.

In this way you can hold a table fork in your hand and realize it is nothing, as you hold it.

Edited Thursday at 03:17 PM by Leo Gura

[Breakingthewall]

The absence of distinctions is the absence of movement, and the absence of movement is the absence or time that is the cessation of experience, nothingness. The nothingness contains the totality of reality, and is equivalent to something, only in a latent state. from nothing always appears something, which means that there is always something since nothing is never, out of the time

[Dazgwny]

@Leo Gura Cheers for this. It’s got my mind going. It always is, but it’s the way you’ve framed it, I needed that thrown at me. I know what it feels like when these type things click during awakenings under the influence. As you say the ‘ordinary’ just don’t see this, it doesn’t click. That’s where I am, I’ve never claimed to be awake I’ve only ever claimed to have awakenings, which as you know are tremendously difficult to retain, no matter what you’ve learned. I refuse to delude myself. In my every day ordinary state I am though circling around this, just not quite getting it to click. I always have to revert back to trips, past experiences you could say rather than my present state. This has helped no end, and at some point I will just grasp it without the use of psychedelics and make that shift. It’s like I know I know, but I don’t. You’ve given me a new little spark with a couple of what seemed straightforward questions. And a response to work with. Cheers

[WelcometoReality]

I like to think of it as a blank canvas, except in reality the blank canvas is nothingness. No colors no distinctions.

Then comes the colors. One color could represent the oneness. The nothingness that permeate everything.

With two colours we start to distinguish between this or that. The canvas is divided in two. 

As we increase the complexity in the canvas by adding more colours. The colours create differences and there by shapes. The mind creates objects out these shapes.

The canvas might start to look like a landscape. A sea, a mountain, a tree, the sun, birds in the sky. But it's actually just colors on the blank canvas of nothingness.