kieranperez

2nd & 3rd Person POV “Objectivity” Legitimacy?

9 posts in this topic

Heres a thought experiment: 

Imagine the following scenario where you have:

  • A guru
  • A disciple 
  • A video camera 

The guru and the disciple are sitting down and have a video camera rolling. Let’s say the guru in his experience starts levitating. I mean, as far as he’s concerned he’s 1 foot in the air. He tells the disciple “look how I am!” The disciple looks at him puzzled and mumbles, “master... you’re sitting right in front of me. Why are you yelling? You’re not levitating.” The guru laughs and dismisses this because he knows all there is of course is 1st person direct experience. 

Looking back at the video tape the next day though he sees exactly what his disciple saw, an old man smiling gleefully and yelling at how he was levitating while remaining planted on the ground. 

So...

Whose right? 2nd/3rd person perspective feedback or 1st person experience? Granted, yes, all experience does come from 1st person subjective. Even if you’re the guru looking back at the footage caught on camera or see the disciple saying how he doesn’t know what you’re talking about, that still only occurs within 1st person subjective perspective. So I’m  not arguing that (nor am I arguing... I’m trying to really reconcile and see what’s I might be missing because I’m stuck on this in my own contemplations and as I’ve been having more paranormal psychic moments coming up in my life and trying to make sense of them)

At the same time though... I think it would foolish to diminish the feedback. 

NOTE: This post is not about paranormal, psychic phenomena. I used the above example to illustrate a bigger point being made.

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This reminds me of recent experiments in quantum mechanics. A photon can have a clockwise or counter-clockwise spin orientation. When it is not measured, it is in a superposition - the photon has both and neither spin orientation. Upon observation, the photon adopts either a clockwise of counter-clockwise orientation. Once observed, it has to spin one way or the other, right? So, without observation what is the spin orientation of the photon? Both and neither. . . It gets even more interesting to me. Recently a research group had two "observers". A researcher in one room made an observation of the spin orientation. The researcher in another room only monitored if an observation had taken place. After a while, the second researcher gets tired of waiting and calls over to the other room. "OK Bob, we've been waiting a while. Make that observation any time now. . . ". To which his colleague calls back "We already did Tim, it was counter-clockwise". . . So did that observation take place or not? Was that photon observed to have a counter-clockwise orientation? One researcher says "yes", the other researcher says "no". . . Strange Days. . . 

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Who's right? To say someone is right and say someone else is wrong, we have to construct some sense of objective reality. With our normal scientific assumptions, most people would just say "the guru wasn't levitating but his mind gave him the illusion that he was" as a consequence of deeming the camera to be an accurate measure of objective reality. When it comes to contemplating things and etc, perhaps one of the best things you can do is look at the world with a high consciousness clarity and muted monkey mind. The type of clarity which is just totally present with everything in your experience. You've experienced this before and know what it looks like.

Like when it comes to what clarity might look like, one example I find easy to write about is just about looking at your thoughts. With clarity you feel and notice your thoughts to be just random noises like the noises you might hear outside (e.g. birds chirping). You don't "identify" with them in some sense. It's that sort of clarity and direct connection to reality which is ideal it seems. I'm working on trying to not fall in the trap of letting non-identification become an excuse to become dispassionate about life, rather high consciousness should be about exploring every aspect of my experience and being. 

But beyond high consciousness, there's still plenty for you to discover in some sense when we talk about the realm of the relative I think. And so thinking and etc are used in the domain of the relative, which is what we need. 


Hark ye yet again — the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough.

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@Serotoninluv To make an observation of something the observer has to interact with it in some way, otherwise the observer will remain in a state of not having an observation. This is a no duh statement. I suppose a question I've had about Quantum Mechanics is what is the nature of the observation, what sort of interaction is going on.

When I first heard of quantum mechanics I initially thought that in order to do the observation, we are interacting with a system in some blatantly coarse, physical way which directly changes the state of the system. Like if you physically touch something you change the state of that something, and I thought something like that was going on. But it seems that is not the case, and if there is some interaction between the observer and observed it's not as simple as that. I remember the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment being interesting. 


Hark ye yet again — the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough.

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Would everything not be a partial truth. The question is what is absolute? In that sense or what is true, that can be observed from different perspectives 1 Person, 2, 3. To prove some truth of another objective. Even with the photon. In a state of "superposition". If there is no observer who can tell the thing observed is existing in an absolute state since it is always changing. Then there would be no absolute proof? How can one even tell the photon is in a state of superposition when it always changes when it is observed? Who did the observation in the first place to claim the superposition exists which is the state of "non-observation"? Is it not similar to the "paradox" who guards the guards? 

Same with the 1. person perspective of a guru saying he is levitating if there would be an absolute truth a state of superposition. The guru is levitating by his claims(subjective reality) and not levitating in objective reality. What resolves a paradox? Or does one have to consider always both in case of uncertainty? Even if this would be partially true because I am claiming here who can argue with one's subjective reality, like the photon being an ass and doing both when not observed. (Inside the sun taking million years to produce a sunray IIRC!)


Let's say the guru is trying to pontificate something by saying he is levitating! he could be internally free saying he is levitating meaning his subjective experience is true. Yet, objectively it is always false, which would be the second person or the observation. So from an absolute 1. Person perspective there is nothing wrong. Which each perspective it most likely gets only more complex. 3rd Person could be edited so he is actually levitating. 

No idea a partial truth gives a clue to a more whole truth, using the whole Wilberian lingo, to explain this. So, when an observation has some partial truth it will ultimately lead to a more whole truth, potentially it remains partially at some level and becomes more whole on another. 

Weird example in vipassana from what I've heard... the end goal will be to crack the habit of the observer observing itself. Like there is no meta realm... anymore. You would reach an absolute and resolve a paradox? 

 

Edited by ValiantSalvatore

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1 hour ago, lmfao said:

@Serotoninluv To make an observation of something the observer has to interact with it in some way, otherwise the observer will remain in a state of not having an observation. This is a no duh statement. I suppose a question I've had about Quantum Mechanics is what is the nature of the observation, what sort of interaction is going on.

I'm not well-studied in QM, yet my surface-level understanding is that the results are quite radical. It is saying something physical is simultaneously material and immaterial. And that this material/immaterial is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere.

My understanding of the latest experiment is that one observer sees superposition of everywhere/nowhere while another observer simultaneously sees position. This stuff isn't just talk about the relative nature of reality. These are high-tech instruments showing simultaneous existence/non-existence and simultaneous there and not there. Simultaneous nowhere/everywhere/somewhere. How can a "thing" simultaneously be nowhere/everywhere/somewhere. To me, this has radical implications for the nature of reality - and can be a link between science and mysticism.  

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Tl;Dr basically all of them are right. 

A camera not capturing something or another person not experiencing it doesn't make it wrong. Unless you assume reality can only hold single states at any given time. 

What would objective reality look like? You'd have to strip all relative interpretation. So basically all senses. To which then reality doesn't look like anything. There is nothing to see. 

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15 hours ago, kieranperez said:

Whose right? 2nd/3rd person perspective feedback or 1st person experience? Granted, yes, all experience does come from 1st person subjective. Even if you’re the guru looking back at the footage caught on camera or see the disciple saying how he doesn’t know what you’re talking about, that still only occurs within 1st person subjective perspective. So I’m  not arguing that (nor am I arguing... I’m trying to really reconcile and see what’s I might be missing because I’m stuck on this in my own contemplations and as I’ve been having more paranormal psychic moments coming up in my life and trying to make sense of them)

It is impossible to create rules for solving conflicts of perspectives. That is because:

  1. Rules can only be enforced through conflict
  2. Rules are perspective-dependent

I imagine that your true underlying assumption that creates such a disturbance is that a guru, or a student are somehow different and that teaching is one-directional. You don't need to prove anything to anybody. What you experience is nobody's business, even if you fly to work every morning.


Bearing with the conditioned in gentleness, fording the river with resolution, not neglecting what is distant, not regarding one's companions; thus one may manage to walk in the middle. H11L2

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On 5/6/2019 at 8:30 PM, Serotoninluv said:

This reminds me of recent experiments in quantum mechanics. A photon can have a clockwise or counter-clockwise spin orientation. When it is not measured, it is in a superposition - the photon has both and neither spin orientation. Upon observation, the photon adopts either a clockwise of counter-clockwise orientation. Once observed, it has to spin one way or the other, right? So, without observation what is the spin orientation of the photon? Both and neither. . . It gets even more interesting to me. Recently a research group had two "observers". A researcher in one room made an observation of the spin orientation. The researcher in another room only monitored if an observation had taken place. After a while, the second researcher gets tired of waiting and calls over to the other room. "OK Bob, we've been waiting a while. Make that observation any time now. . . ". To which his colleague calls back "We already did Tim, it was counter-clockwise". . . So did that observation take place or not? Was that photon observed to have a counter-clockwise orientation? One researcher says "yes", the other researcher says "no". . . Strange Days. . . 

That is creepy, do you have a link to an article or paper for this experiment? It would seem to me that it confirms solipsism because if we all do share our experience, weird stuff like that shouldn't happen.


“Words are like Leaves; And where they most abound, Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.”

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