What Are My Eyes For?

[Nahm]

Maybe eyes & seeing aren’t subject & object either. 

[LastThursday]

On 04/11/2020 at 6:21 PM, tsuki said:

ATM I'm going through covid and lost my sense of smell which is an interesting experience.

That's awful, I hope that you recover as soon as possible and that the Covid is not getting the better of you.

On 04/11/2020 at 6:21 PM, tsuki said:

When I'm using the phrase "prior to labeling", I mean without thinking with words, the actual thing. Distinctions are more fundamental than language. I'm perfectly capable of seeing the difference between the stool and the floor without chatting to myself.

I'm not so sure myself. I agree, experience is mostly distinctions without a running mental commentary. But is it even possible to see a stool without the language concept of a stool? Language definitely informs distinctions and distinctions inform language. It's messier than you make it out to be. Language has it's tentacles deep in our conscious experience.

This is why I have a deep issue with "direct experience" because it's anything but.

I wonder if a doctor even has the same conscious experience of a human body as someone who isn't? The language available to them allows them to have finer distinctions in consciousness than most people.

[Gesundheit]

Experience. Maybe?

[Zigzag Idiot]

The more I age my eyes see less, they perceive the world through feeling.

My eyes feel the world or rather the eyes feel the world. They perceive through feeling and not seeing. This perceiving through feeling is like they grab onto what's there.

 

From Castaneda's The Fire Within-

      I've mentioned to you that sorcery is something like entering a dead-end street. What I meant was that sorcery practices have no intrinsic value. Their worth is indirect, for their real function is to make the assemblage point shift by making the first attention release its control on that point.
      The new seers realized the true role those sorcery practices played and decided to go directly into the process of making their assemblage points shift, avoiding all the other nonsense of rituals and incantations. Yet rituals and incantations are indeed necessary at one time in every warrior's life. But only for purposes of luring one's first attention away from the power of self-absorption, which keeps his assemblage point rigidly fixed.

      The obsessive entanglement of the first attention in self-absorption or reason is a powerful binding force, and ritual behavior, because it is repetitive, forces the first attention to free some energy from watching the inventory, as a consequence of which the assemblage point loses its rigidity.
      When that happens, if you are not a warrior, you think you're losing your mind. If you are a warrior, you know you've gone crazy, but you patiently wait. You see, to be healthy and sane means that the assemblage point is immovable. When it shifts, it literally means that one is deranged.
      Two options are opened to warriors whose assemblage points have shifted. One is to acknowledge being ill and to behave in deranged ways, reacting emotionally to the strange worlds that their shifts force them to witness; the other is to remain impassive, untouched, knowing that the assemblage point always returns to its original position.

      If the assemblage point doesn't return to its original position, then those people are lost. They are either incurably crazy, because their assemblage points could never assemble the world as we know it, or they are peerless seers who have begun their movement toward the unknown.
      What determines it is energy! Impeccability! Impeccable warriors don't lose their marbles. They remain untouched. I've said to you many times that impeccable warriors may see horrifying worlds and yet the next moment they are telling a joke, laughing with their friends or with strangers.
      The mind, for a seer, is nothing but the self-reflection of the inventory of man. If you lose that self-reflection, but don't lose your underpinnings, you actually live an infinitely stronger life than if you had kept it.

 

[DrewNows]

Eyes are the windows to the soul. Check this one out! good shit...both are very relevant and good to reflect off of @LastThursday

36 minutes ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

The more I age my eyes see less, they perceive the world through feeling.

My eyes feel the world or rather the eyes feel the world. They perceive through feeling and not seeing. This perceiving through feeling is like they grab onto what's there.

Third eye vision! I heard the eyes are a muscle we can train to improve, but apparently it's not so important for all to keep at 2020 lmao, I don't believe vision impairment is permanent unless there's been severe damage  

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by DrewNows

[DrewNows]

On 04/11/2020 at 1:57 PM, Nahm said:

Maybe eyes & seeing aren’t subject & object either. 

maybe @Nahm new profile pic looks like a bar code

 

[tsuki]

1 hour ago, LastThursday said:

But is it even possible to see a stool without the language concept of a stool?

Of course it is possible to see the stool without having a concept of it!
If it weren't possible, then how on Earth would you see the first stool in your life?
Did someone have to describe the stool to you before you were able to see it? That's ridiculous!

Every time you learn something truly new that does not follow from anything you already know, you have to go through the state of not-knowing. This state lets you make distinctions before having the corresponding concepts. Concepts symbolize, or refer to, experience. They are dependent on it. Hell, when you were a baby you were experiencing long before you invented the mind and had the ability to conceptualize anything (not to mention label it).

Of course, when you see something that defies your logic, or expectations, it's not like you're looking at a "stool", but it's more like looking at "what the fuck is that fucking thing?". Yet, that thing is there, "prior to labeling it". Distinction is present in the "thingness" of "what the fuck is that fucking >>thing<<?".

2 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Language definitely informs distinctions and distinctions inform language. It's messier than you make it out to be. Language has it's tentacles deep in our conscious experience.

Concepts inform experience only as far as they create a possibility. You may hear of something without having an experience of it and create a concept out of it. It exists as a possibility, as something open to being experienced and verified for oneself. That, or the opposite - believed in and frozen as something considered true or false. Looking for something that corresponds to a concept within experience is the inverse "movement" from having a genuine breakthrough, but is still very useful. It is the conventional learning as opposed to inventing/innovating. Still waay different from memorization of facts/believing. True learning is the difference from memorizing math exercises to pass a test and actually "getting" mathematics and "working it".

2 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I wonder if a doctor even has the same conscious experience of a human body as someone who isn't? The language available to them allows them to have finer distinctions in consciousness than most people.

Of course the doctor has a completely different experience than a layman. Even if I memorized all the concepts he has, his knowledge is "fleshed out", actually refers to distinctions that he has personally made and has available experientially. Hell, his experience of his own body may be diametrically different because of all the possibilities of interaction that he has. He is much more responsive, alive.

Still, the best athletes and actual masters experience the state of flow where thinking does not occur.
It is not the language that gives masters the intelligence in the particular domain. It's experience.

[LastThursday]

1 hour ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

My eyes feel the world or rather the eyes feel the world.

That is of course swapping one sub-modality for another. I need to become reacquainted with my friend Don Juan, he was a blast.

I suppose the deeper point is that the six senses are not separate, they are simply distinctions in the flow of experience. The Assemblage point is the "distinction engine" of experience. Shift that, and the whole of experience shifts with it. I suppose taking psychadelics and other practices such as meditation shift the Assemblage point - maybe even permanently.

I guess eyes and ears and skin etc, are only associated with the sub-modalities of experience simply because of their greater correlation. So, what I mean is, I associate my eyes with seeing, because their behaviour is correlated more closely with the "seeing" part of experience, same with ears and so on. But as I've had drilled into me: correlation is not causation. Maybe in your case the feeling and seeing parts of experience have become intermingled (you have lost the distinction over time).

 

[Someone here]

I'm on my isolation retreat atm..I'm taking a three hours break to settle down otherwise I'm gonna have a mental breakdown lmao from the levels of consciousness I'm accessing.. Not sure if I'm gonna continue.. Will see. 

Amazing stuff I became conscious of. What the actual fuck lmao. 

@LastThursday

the eye is not seeing... it is just 'eyeing'.  It is the appearance of an eye.

As one looks into someone's eyes.. one is looking at an image. Behind the image and within it are nothing.  The image has no 'behind' or 'within'.. any more than the image in an 'apparent nightly dream' has a 'behind' or 'within'.

There is no 'spark' or 'focal point' or 'bit' of consciousness in.. or associated with the image seen.

One is wholly present. One is not divided into 'bits' or 'loci' or any other differentiators.

Wtf. 

[LastThursday]

8 minutes ago, Someone here said:

I'm on my isolation retreat atm..

And you came on here to ground yourself? Gulp.

9 minutes ago, Someone here said:

One is wholly present. One is not divided into 'bits' or 'loci' or any other differentiators.

No, but consciousness does have the ability to divide itself - and also to be aware of its wholeness.

Keep up the isolation - much kudos.

[from chaos into self]

On 11/4/2020 at 2:16 PM, tsuki said:

The table does not exist before the distinction is made.

What is there? Formlessness? Isn’t the lack of distinction only going to result in my pain as I walk into it?

[Someone here]

@LastThursday

LOL not sure if I'm gonna continue. Will see just taking 3-5 hours break from contemplation. 

 

you can't understand what I'm talking about from your current level of Consciousness. you are lost in conceptualizing.

seeing is an appearance. Eyes are a different appearance The eyes don't see. You have no experience of the eyes seeing anything.

They are distinctions happening within consciousness. The visual field is occurring exactly where is it occurring. It is not occurring in your eyes lmao . Or in your so called brain. It is occurring exactly where it is occurring.

Just like the 'dream world' at night.. It appears as if the dream character's eyes are seeing the dream world. But actually it's consciousness who is appearing as eyes.. As sight.. As world. 

Edited November 6, 2020 by Someone here

[LastThursday]

50 minutes ago, tsuki said:

Of course, when you see something that defies your logic, or expectations, it's not like you're looking at a "stool", but it's more like looking at "what the fuck is that fucking thing?". Yet, that thing is there, "prior to labeling it". Distinction is present in the "thingness" of "what the fuck is that fucking >>thing<<?".

I'm advocating for the weak form the of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, not the strong. So distinctions can be made "spontaneously" without being backed up by language concepts. So yeah, "what the fuck is that fucking thing" works for me. But note that "thingness" is a distinction or concept already in language - does a "thing" really exist?

But I would argue that there are also potential distinctions that are not made at all, because there isn't a language category to fit it into.  So there are things that you are not even aware of, because there's nothing in your mental (language) model that it could snap to. I'm desperately trying to think of a smart example, but I can't.

I suppose the sensation is something like this. Notice that you're not just seeing pebbles (one concept), but there is another concept hidden in the image, which you are not aware of (immediately):

 

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

8 minutes ago, Someone here said:

The visual field is occurring exactly where is it occurring. It is not occurring in your eyes

Indeed, that's the whole point of my post. What are my eyes for exactly?

[Someone here]

17 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Indeed, that's the whole point of my post. What are my eyes for exactly?

What Leo told you. 

Actually eyes don't exist. It's a concept. Right now if you are 'looking' (that's the whole problem there is no perception going on) at this screen.. There are no eyes.. There is just the screen floating in nothingness.. You imagine eyes to explain away the visual field.  As there must be something sourcing the visual field. But the eyes are not sourcing the visual field. The eyes ARE the visual field! 

And what you see in the mirror is not you btw. 

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by Someone here

[tsuki]

56 minutes ago, from chaos into self said:

What is there?

Nothing, the source, is=isn't there .

49 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

But note that "thingness" is a distinction or concept already in language - does a "thing" really exist?

It seems like you are using "distinction" and "concept" interchangeably, which I disagree with.
Concept is a distinction in the domain of possibility, or ideas. Distinction is more fundamental than concept as it can occur in various dimensions of experience. You can distinguish the vocals from bass, or TV from the wall, or one concept from another. 

That being said, I don't understand the question that you are asking.
"thing" exists as an abstract concept within the domain of possibility, or ideas. It is a concept that refers to other concepts.
What I was referring to by "thinginess" is the distinction in the visual field, "the thing itself" that the concept "stool" refers to.
Not sure if this discussion is still productive at this point though.

49 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

But I would argue that there are also potential distinctions that are not made at all, because there isn't a language category to fit it into.

Language is a higher-order construct based upon distinctions. Your statement does not compute for me.
There are things that I experienced that are impossible to express linguistically.
There are also things that cannot be perceived, and yet - can be experienced.
The closest to the state in which I am unable to make a distinction because I have no word for it, is "intellectualism" and I consider it to be a disease.

Edited November 6, 2020 by tsuki

[mandyjw]

On 11/3/2020 at 11:40 AM, LastThursday said:

@Nahm weird, but received.

 

"Weird, but received" describes my entire experience on this forum so well. 

[mandyjw]

Do eyes create, consume, or are they a creation? 

Do they create themselves? 

Do they create themselves?

Do they create themselves? 

Edited November 6, 2020 by mandyjw

[Gesundheit]

It amuses me how some people can miss the actual question op is asking. The question is what's form for? People answer that form is formlessness. Okay, but the question is still there. Form is something that can be perceived as either distinct, or indistinct from formlessness. The question is about the perception of the distinct form, not the indistinct. Can anyone answer that? Or do you not know but just like to participate?

Edited November 6, 2020 by Gesundheit

[LastThursday]

5 hours ago, mandyjw said:

On 03/11/2020 at 4:40 PM, LastThursday said:

@Nahm weird, but received.

"Weird, but received" describes my entire experience on this forum so well. 

And mine. Although I was actually being cheeky and politely poking fun at the whole, "I before E except after C" thing, since Weird breaks the rule and Received doesn't (sorry @Nahm). But I think it got lost. Ah well, it amused me. I do like a double entendre.

Edited November 6, 2020 by LastThursday