Direct Experience: More Accurate, But Also Limited?

[Twega]

By now, Leo has shown me how necessary direct experience is to find the truth. But I have a question, or actually, more like a doubt. We know conscious experience is correlated with (BUT NOT CAUSED BY) brain activity. I have never had direct experience with molecules or neurotransmitters. Suppose I was born an alien with a mix of a highly complex brain and an even more expansive state of consciousness. In that case, I could, perhaps, have a direct conscious and instantaneous experience of molecules and neurotransmitters. Something I can't know as a human. Does this thought experiment show that although direct experience is accurate, it is also limited?

[Leo Gura]

You already have direct experience of molecules and neurotransmitters. You simply aren't recognizing that these things are concepts. You are confusing concepts for something else.

Santa Claus is a very real thing you have a direct experience of right now -- as a concept. That's what Santa Claus is. The mistake is trying to think of Santa Claus as something more than that.

Direct experience is always perfectly accurate. The problem is all the misinterpretation you add on top of it.

[Twega]

@Leo Gura , Yes I am aware that I'm conscious of them as concepts, but my analogy was about becoming conscious of them not as concepts but as forces of nature, very directly. Like watching a thunderstorm, or  feeling the heat of the sun.

[Forestluv]

8 minutes ago, Twega said:

Like watching a thunderstorm, or  feeling the heat of the sun.

You can observe neurotransmitters like watching a thunderstorm or the feeling of the sun. For example, right now you are feeling the effect of neurotransmitters, similar to feeling the heat of the sun. And you can observe. I found it helpful to loosen up on my ideas of what it "should be like" and allow observation, imagery and experience to go to deeper levels.

Neurotransmitters aren't like tiny ping pong balls bounding around in the brain. That is just a representation of imagery. There are all sorts of representations we can create. There are quantum representations of material / immaterial / particle / wavelength / energetics / probabilities. And you can create your own representations of imagery that you can observe / feel. 

[Member]

Why do you have to think about molecules and stuff? An alien could experience a totally different world than the one you're living in right now. And it might be able to even experience different realities, at will, without traveling at the speed of light... but of thought. We just assume that the molecules and neurotransmitters create this reality but on a very deep level there's only experience and thought patterns that shape everything that is.

[An young being]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You already have direct experience of molecules and neurotransmitters. You simply aren't recognizing that these things are concepts. You are confusing concepts for something else.

Santa Claus is a very real thing you have a direct experience of right now -- as a concept. That's what Santa Claus is. The mistake is trying to think of Santa Claus as something more than that.

Direct experience is always perfectly accurate. The problem is all the misinterpretation you add on top of it.

Experience is real.

Having insights on the experience using your logical mind may or may not be real 

[LastThursday]

@Twega all experience is limited, direct and indirect. There's always more experiences to be had. 

Direct experience is only accurate if you're clearly able to tell the difference from indirect experience. For an uninitiated mortal that's very hard. For example just ask someone if they think what they did yesterday was direct experience.

[An young being]

17 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

@Twega all experience is limited, direct and indirect. There's always more experiences to be had. 

Direct experience is only accurate if you're clearly able to tell the difference from indirect experience. For an uninitiated mortal that's very hard. For example just ask someone if they think what they did yesterday was direct experience.

It's not about whether it's accurate or not. It's about how accurate you can get. When you get it infinitely accurate, that's when there is nothing called accurate.

[LastThursday]

@An young being I hope I'm not being thick in the head. How is it possible to know how accurate your direct experience is? Ok, humour me, give me an example of a direct experience that's 50% accurate.

[An young being]

11 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

@An young being I hope I'm not being thick in the head. How is it possible to know how accurate your direct experience is? Ok, humour me, give me an example of a direct experience that's 50% accurate.

When you look at the world, I would say it is 50% accurate. I define accuracy with how fast your mind reacts to your experience. Just a fun definition though. It gets funnier when your are able to experience things in micro seconds, when your are able to notice the 'lag'

Edited November 2, 2020 by An young being