Unknowability

[tsuki]

I've been contemplating limitation and finitude lately. I was observing the visual field, and the intellect, and noticing the limits of knowledge obtained via these senses. This has led me to question the limits of knowledge in general and unknowability popped up as a possibility.

For some reason, I intuitively knew that it is either that everything that true is known, and therefore limitations are an abstraction that do not correspond with anything that exists, or there are things that are inherently unknowable. Quick google found this little gem that seems to prove my intuition logically.

To be honest, I don't know which is the case and I feel pretty stuck atm. It seems that a single example of something that is unknowable would prove that unknowable things exist, and Godel's theorem is there to the rescue, but that would make reality so much more complicated and vast ?.

I wonder what are the implications for the so-called Leo's omniscience trips, huh?

Edited July 20, 2021 by tsuki

[impulse9]

Sometimes you need to drop all analysis and just stand in awe of the marvelous mystery.

[allislove]

2 hours ago, impulse9 said:

Sometimes you need to drop all analysis and just stand in awe of the marvelous mystery.

??

@tsuki 

Unknowability is unknowable, in other words, no mind is not conceptual   

thinking < feeling

[Leo Gura]

Truth is prior to what people call knowing. Knowledge is an indirect 2nd order thing, Truth is a direct 1st order thing.

Infinity is inherently unknowable. And yet you are Infinity.

[Nahm]

@tsuki

If a tree falls in the woods & no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

[Moksha]

5 hours ago, tsuki said:

there are things that are inherently unknowable.

This. Knowledge is bound to the conditioned mind. Humans have such a hard time accepting mystery. Let go of knowing, and be.

We have the macrocosmic mystery of the universe, and we have the microcosmic mystery at the subatomic level. Underlying that is the deepest mystery of all: the mystery of Consciousness. The one thing you cannot doubt about yourself is that you are Conscious.

- Eckhart Tolle

The more one studies attempted solutions to problems in politics and economics, in art, philosophy, and religion, the more one has the impression of extremely gifted people wearing out their ingenuity at the impossible and futile task of trying to get the water of life into neat and permanent packages.

Religious ideas are like words--of little use, and often misleading, unless you know the concrete realities to which they refer. The word 'water' is a useful means of communication amongst those who know water. The same is true of the word and the idea called 'God'...The reality which corresponds to 'God' and 'eternal life' is honest, above-board, plain, and open for all to see. But the seeing requires a correction of mind, just as clear vision sometimes requires a correction of the eyes.

Belief clings, but faith lets go...Our minds have been prepared for it by this very collapse of the beliefs in which we have sought security. From a point of view strictly, if strangely, in accord with certain religious traditions, this disappearance of the old rocks and absolutes is no calamity, but rather a blessing. It almost compels us to face reality with open minds, and you can only know God through an open mind just as you can only see the sky through a clear window.

To discover the ultimate Reality of life--the Absolute, the eternal, God--you must cease to try to grasp it in the forms of idols. These idols are not just crude images, such as the mental picture of God as an old gentleman on a golden throne. They are our beliefs, our cherished preconceptions of the truth, which block the unreserved opening of the mind and heart to reality. The legitimate use of images is to express the truth, not to possess it.

'Unless a grain of corn fall into the ground and die, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit'...What religion calls the vision of God is found in giving up any belief in the idea of God. By the same law of reversed effort, we discover the 'infinite' and the 'absolute,' not by straining to escape from the finite and relative world, but by the most complete acceptance of its limitations. Paradox as it may seem, we likewise find life meaningful only when we have seen that it is without purpose, and know the 'mystery of the universe' only when we are convinced that we know nothing about it at all.

- Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

[VeganAwake]

Finite monkeys trying to grasp Infinity... let's go for it because it's really important ?

[tsuki]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Truth is prior to what people knowing. Knowledge is an indirect 2nd order thing, Truth is a direct 1st order thing.

Perhaps, reality would be a better word for what you are describing? People tend to use the word truth as a way to express whether a concept corresponds with something in reality. This way, reality is 1st order thing. Why is this relevant?

I was trying to understand what limitation is. Not by figuring it out, but by experiencing it. If limitation cannot be experienced, or known, because it limits experience, then how do I know if it exists? There may be things that exist, and yet, are un-experiencable, and these things limit experience. Or, limitation may be pure abstraction that does not correspond with anything in reality.

Of course, one may say that if I cannot experience it, then it doesn't exist, but that in of itself is a belief! Yet, it defines what it means to exist.

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Infinity is inherently unknowable. And yet you are Infinity.

If infinity is inherently unknowable, then even infinity does not know itself. That would be interesting.

3 hours ago, Nahm said:

@tsuki

If a tree falls in the woods & no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

No. How is it relevant?

@impulse9 @allislove @Moksha @VeganAwake Seems like I have offended your sensitivity using the k-word. Sorry ?

Edited July 21, 2021 by tsuki

[Leo Gura]

24 minutes ago, tsuki said:

Perhaps, reality would be a better word for what you are describing? People tend to use the word truth as a way to express whether a concept corresponds with something in reality. This way, reality is 1st order thing. Why is this relevant?

Reality = Truth

People have very wrong ideas about what truth is.

Quote

I was trying to understand what limitation is. Not by figuring it out, but by experiencing it. If limitation cannot be experienced, or known, because it limits experience, then how do I know if it exists? There may be things that exist, and yet, are un-experiencable, and these things limit experience. Or, limitation may be pure abstraction that does not correspond with anything in reality.

You are experiencing limitation right now, and all your life.

You are literally God having a limited experience. That's what your whole life has been.

Can you walk through a brick wall? Well... there is your experience of limitation. Try walking through a wall.

Quote

If infinity is inherently unknowable, then even infinity does not know itself. That would be interesting.

Infinity knows itself perfectly simply be existing as itself.

Knowledge collapses into Being/Existence at a nondual level of consciousness.

So you can "know" Infinity deep than you can know anything in the physical world. By becoming Infinity. But this not conceptual knowledge.

Infinity knows Infinity by being Infinity. The end. As far as conceptualizing Infinity, you can play those games till the end of time and you will always come up short. All your concepts of it will be partial and limited.

[tsuki]

3 hours ago, Nahm said:

@tsuki

If a tree falls in the woods & no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Maybe my question is: does the tree even fall if there is no one to experience it?

[tsuki]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Can you walk through a brick wall? Well... there is your experience of limitation. Try walking through a wall.

Laugh as you may, but I actually tried that. ?

Is limitation a thing, or is it a pure  abstraction? Do I make it up to explain reality, or is there actually a thing? If I am making it up to explain reality, can I stop doing it and experience reality without this concept?

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Infinity knows Infinity by being Infinity. The end. As far as conceptualizing Infinity, you can play those games till the end of time and you will always come up short. All your concepts of it will be partial and limited.

OH MY GOD, this is the point is that I am trying to get across! I am trying to get what is limitation and what is perspective! Why can't you people hear the question and give me the stock answers about infinity⁉️ I am not trying to get infinity by thinking! I am trying to get what is limitation!

So frustrating! ?

[tsuki]

With all your infinite knowledge of infinity and your mystical experiences of the mystery, is a single person here that knows what limitation is? Paging doctor finite, we have a patient. He may have a concussion, just tried to go through a ?

Edited July 21, 2021 by tsuki

[Nahm]

53 minutes ago, tsuki said:

Maybe my question is: does the tree even fall if there is no one to experience it?

Right. A variation, but same point. There is no limitation for the exact same reason there is no sound / experience without a tree and an ear (‘someone there to hear it’). One or the other won’t do. If you have a tree but no ear, there’s no sound, no experience. An ear but no tree, no sound, no experience. Both are required.  But… the enlightened one is well aware there is indeed, not, two.  Tree 1, ear 2.  Tree & ear 1, sound 2.  Limitation 1, no limitation 2.

If that doesn’t click, just relax, look around, see that everything’s cool, bring those you love, the best of times, and great things to come to mind, and change the inquiry to ‘what is unlimited’? 

 

[tsuki]

@Gnosis Will you please save this thread and tell a lucid, useful story with no pretense?

No offense @Nahm I need to ponder your reply.

Edited July 21, 2021 by tsuki

[tsuki]

@Nahm So, seem to be saying that things that are not experienced do not exist. Fair enough, so let me present you with a riddle that destroys me:

Experience is limited. I cannot see the back of my head. I also cannot see the thing that prevents me from seeing the back of my head. I cannot experience the limitation of seeing. So, limitation of seeing does not exist. It is a concept that does not correspond with anything that is real. And yet, the back of my head does not exist. Get it? It makes no goddamn  sense whatsoever.

I am not rejecting it because it makes no sense, I am just expressing the fact that it feels like I'm losing it. I don't know what limitation is, and I've been literally banging my head against it my whole life ?

Edited July 21, 2021 by tsuki

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, tsuki said:

Is limitation a thing, or is it a pure  abstraction?

You have a concept of limitation in your mind. That's an abstraction.

But then there is what the concept points to. You have concrete instances of that abstraction. One of which is you walking into a wall.

What is so hard to understand here?

You are obviously limited since you can't fly. All forms are limited.

[The0Self]

So-called? Leo didn’t invent the states he’s accessed (relatively). Other beings have accessed it. Including this one; mine. The really funny thing: ever accessed the absolute? When you came out of it you actually literally never left it. And I mean literally.

[tsuki]

27 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You have a concept of limitation in your mind. That's an abstraction.

But then there is what the concept points to. You have concrete instances of that abstraction. One of which is you walking into a wall.

@Leo Gura We're on the same page here. Alright.

So let's take another "concrete instance" of limitation, which is any limitation of experience.
For example, let's take limitations of sight. As you look into your hand deeply:

• you can experience some nuance, but you cannot see the atoms with your bare eyes.
• also, you can use peripheral vision and defocus from your hand and see the arm, its background, etc, but you cannot see the back of your head.

Do these concrete instances of the abstraction called "limit" within the domain of sight exist, since you CANNOT see them?
Similarly, is the experience itself limited in any way whatsoever, and if it is, then how can you experience that limitation?

The limitations of sight, for example, can only be seen in relation to other senses and other methods of experience.

Edited July 21, 2021 by tsuki

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, tsuki said:

We're on the same page here. Alright.

So let's take another "concrete instance" of limitation, which is any limitation of experience.
For example, let's take limitations of sight. As you look into your hand deeply:

• you can experience some nuance, but you cannot see the atoms with your bare eyes.
• also, you can use peripheral vision and defocus from your hand and see the arm, its background, etc, but you cannot see the back of your head.

Do these concrete instances of the abstraction called "limit" exist, since you CANNOT experience them?

They will exist when you create them.

It gets paradoxical here because the finite and the infinite are ultimately identical, while you are trying to distinguish them.

It's sort of like you're asking, Does the next frame in the movie exist? Technically not until it is rendered on the screen. You imagine it will be rendered, but it may not be.

[ZzzleepingBear]

38 minutes ago, tsuki said:

I also cannot see the thing that prevents me from seeing the back of my head. I cannot experience the limitation of seeing.

Your riddle is full of odd assumptions that makes no sense. So no wonder that you are getting confused here.

There is not A thing that is preventing you from seeing the back of your head. It's just not possible. And the "limitation of seeing" is a complete contradiction in and of itself. You suggesting here that seeing should be other than what it is. You see?

Limitations is a suggestive word for you to come to acknowledge and acceptance something at some level. Inorder to be able to take a stepp back and gain clarity.