Experiences require a subject proof

[WokeBloke]

"Experiences happen to no one."

"There is no experiencer"

"There is no subject."

 

You have probably heard these comments and I would like to try to convince you that experiences actually do require a subject (you).

 

So first what is an experience? Without a proper definition the word is meaningless.

 

I suggest that there are two fundamental properties of all experiences. If these conditions are not fulfilled then you are not talking about an experience.

1. Experiences happen.

-> This is an extremely important point. Your kangaroo is about to serve you your dinner right now. This is unfortunately not happening which means it is not your current experience. In order for you to classify something as an experience it must actually happen.

2. You must be experiencing it. Or, put differently, a subject must be present.

-> This is even more important. Consider two events happening simultaneously. In the first event you are talking with your friend about experiences. In the second event a computer in an office is running a simulation but no one is watching it. Both these events are happening but there is a fundamental difference between the two events. In the first event a subject (you) is present. In the second event no subject is present. Thus the second event could not be considered an experience. However, the first event could be considered an experience since it is happening to a subject. 

So essentially experiences are what happen to you. 

Experiences do no experience.

Only the subject which is not an experience has experiences.

Thus if you claim that there is an experience then you are asserting that there is a subject.

Edited February 4, 2022 by WokeBloke

[Jonty]

Knowing/Knower/Known, Seeing/Seer/Seen, Experience/Experiencer/Experienced are not three things. They're not even two things ?

Language really confuses us. @WokeBloke check out Mandy Ramsdells blog. She's a member of this forum and explains it really well. She has a great video on it too 

https://mandyramsdell.com/blog

Edited February 4, 2022 by Jonty

[WokeBloke]

8 minutes ago, Jonty said:

Knowing/Knower/Known, Seeing/Seer/Seen, Experience/Experiencer/Experienced are not three things. They're not even two things ?

Language really confuses us. @WokeBloke check out Mandy Ramsdells blog. She's a member of this forum and explains it really well. She has a great video on it too 

https://mandyramsdell.com/blog

Do sounds hear? If no then there is a distinction between the hearer and the heard.

Edited February 4, 2022 by WokeBloke

[Jonty]

Seriously, just check out her site. 

[WokeBloke]

Just now, Jonty said:

Seriously, just check out her site. 

I did! How about this question. Do sounds see? If no then the subject which both sees and hears must be different then the sounds since the sounds can't see.

[Mason Riggle]

@WokeBloke can a subject have no experience? 

Notice that the two are inseparable, like the inside and outside of a cup. 

There is just the cup. Inside and outside are imaginary distinctions. 

Observer/observed are two sides of the same coin. 

The 'imagined separation' between you and not you, is called ego. 

[WokeBloke]

14 hours ago, Mason Riggle said:

@WokeBloke can a subject have no experience? 

Notice that the two are inseparable, like the inside and outside of a cup. 

There is just the cup. Inside and outside are imaginary distinctions. 

Observer/observed are two sides of the same coin. 

The 'imagined separation' between you and not you, is called ego. 

Arguably yes it's just there would be gap between having an experience and having no experience since nothing would happen during no experience so it would register as taking 0 time. The subject can still experience without sounds (one type of experience). This means sounds or experiences must not be fundamental since the subject still exists without them. I argue the subject is more fundamental than experiences.

Edited February 4, 2022 by WokeBloke

[Jonty]

@WokeBloke We can say "I hear a sound". Really try and study this statement and what it's saying. You could use "I see a tree" or "I taste a hotdog".

When have you ever experienced a sound that exists independently of the hearing of it? There aren't sounds out there waiting to be heard! You cannot experience sound independently from hearing. They co-exist and arise at the same time.

Have you ever experienced hearing independently from the knowing or awareness of it? Again, the two arise together. We could say therefore that sound and awareness are one as they do not exist independently of one another.

Finally, we can say that awareness can exist without hearing, but not the other way around. Therefore we conclude that all there is to hearing is the knowing, awareness or consciousness of it. This is the same for all experience. 

Leo has some great books on his list that will help with this. 

You're straying from the point with your speculation. Awareness is everything. Nothing exists independently from it. It's impossible. 

This is a rather clumsy explanation but I hope it helps. I found that by studying the statement in the first paragraph it really starts to break this thing wide open. It's quite funny when you realise what it's actually saying. 

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by Jonty

[Windappreciator]

11 hours ago, WokeBloke said:

1. Experiences happen.

-> This is an extremely important point. Your kangaroo is about to serve you your dinner right now. This is unfortunately not happening which means it is not your current experience. In order for you to classify something as an experience it must actually happen.

reception of projected imagination is experience. in any form.

[Tim R]

11 hours ago, WokeBloke said:

1. Experiences happen.

That's not a definition, it's circular. Might as well use "experience" and "happening" synonymously.

1. There are no experiences that don't happen

2. All that ever happens is experience

11 hours ago, WokeBloke said:

2. You must be experiencing it. Or, put differently, a subject must be present.

That is even less of a definition. It's an assumption.

You're trying to prove that a subject is necessary and here you're trying to put the necessity of a subject for expereince into the definition of "experience". It doesn't work like that.

You can't just arbitrarily define experience as something that requires a subject (which is still just an assumption yo're making arbitrarily) and then proceed to use that very definition as "proof" for the necessity of a subject for experience, that's a pretty gross logical blunder. 

 

You made a sincere attempt, but unfortunately you just went in circles and based your arguments on assumptions. 

If you really want to know the answer to "is a subject necessary for expereince? / is there even such a thing as a subject?" (the latter one being the question you should ask first, because the first question already assumes that a subject even exists), you have to check direct expereince.

This is absolutely necessary and non-negotiable.If you want to know the truth about the nature of experience, you can't think about it, you have to go directly to the source.

[peanutspathtotruth]

26 minutes ago, Tim R said:

That's not a definition, it's circular. Might as well use "experience" and "happening" synonymously.

1. There are no experiences that don't happen

2. All that ever happens is experience

That is even less of a definition. It's an assumption.

You're trying to prove that a subject is necessary and here you're trying to put the necessity of a subject for expereince into the definition of "experience". It doesn't work like that.

You can't just arbitrarily define experience as something that requires a subject (which is still just an assumption yo're making arbitrarily) and then proceed to use that very definition as "proof" for the necessity of a subject for experience, that's a pretty gross logical blunder. 

 

You made a sincere attempt, but unfortunately you just went in circles and based your arguments on assumptions. 

If you really want to know the answer to "is a subject necessary for expereince? / is there even such a thing as a subject?" (the latter one being the question you should ask first, because the first question already assumes that a subject even exists), you have to check direct expereince.

This is absolutely necessary and non-negotiable.If you want to know the truth about the nature of experience, you can't think about it, you have to go directly to the source.

Amazing summary of the core of all of this! This is truly the "I" - blunder.

[Mason Riggle]

@WokeBloke you think there can be an experiencer that doesn't experience anything?

Edited February 4, 2022 by Mason Riggle

[WokeBloke]

5 hours ago, Mason Riggle said:

@WokeBloke you think there can be an experiencer that doesn't experience anything?

You still exist during deep sleep or a knockout punch. And there is no experience during those events.

[WokeBloke]

7 hours ago, Jonty said:

@WokeBloke We can say "I hear a sound". Really try and study this statement and what it's saying. You could use "I see a tree" or "I taste a hotdog".

When have you ever experienced a sound that exists independently of the hearing of it? There aren't sounds out there waiting to be heard! You cannot experience sound independently from hearing. They co-exist and arise at the same time.

Have you ever experienced hearing independently from the knowing or awareness of it? Again, the two arise together. We could say therefore that sound and awareness are one as they do not exist independently of one another.

Finally, we can say that awareness can exist without hearing, but not the other way around. Therefore we conclude that all there is to hearing is the knowing, awareness or consciousness of it. This is the same for all experience. 

Leo has some great books on his list that will help with this. 

You're straying from the point with your speculation. Awareness is everything. Nothing exists independently from it. It's impossible. 

This is a rather clumsy explanation but I hope it helps. I found that by studying the statement in the first paragraph it really starts to break this thing wide open. It's quite funny when you realise what it's actually saying. 

 

I agree experiences do not happen independently of the subject. So, I have never heard a sound without being there. In order to hear a sound the subject must first be present. You agree that awareness can exist without sound but sound cannot exist without awareness. This means that awareness must not be sounds since awareness remains without sounds. In other words if you take away the sound you don't take away awareness. If awareness is not a sound then what is a sound in relation to awareness? Sounds are unaware creations or manifestations. So if what I say is true the known (sound) is actually not the knower but rather the knower's creation.

Edited February 4, 2022 by WokeBloke

[WokeBloke]

6 hours ago, Tim R said:

That's not a definition, it's circular. Might as well use "experience" and "happening" synonymously.

1. There are no experiences that don't happen

2. All that ever happens is experience

That is even less of a definition. It's an assumption.

You're trying to prove that a subject is necessary and here you're trying to put the necessity of a subject for expereince into the definition of "experience". It doesn't work like that.

You can't just arbitrarily define experience as something that requires a subject (which is still just an assumption yo're making arbitrarily) and then proceed to use that very definition as "proof" for the necessity of a subject for experience, that's a pretty gross logical blunder. 

 

You made a sincere attempt, but unfortunately you just went in circles and based your arguments on assumptions. 

If you really want to know the answer to "is a subject necessary for expereince? / is there even such a thing as a subject?" (the latter one being the question you should ask first, because the first question already assumes that a subject even exists), you have to check direct expereince.

This is absolutely necessary and non-negotiable.If you want to know the truth about the nature of experience, you can't think about it, you have to go directly to the source.

For your first point I was just pointing out one fundamental property of experiences which is that they happen. Not all that happens is an experience. For example cars are driving in china right now. This is happening but you are not experiencing it. Experience and happening are not synonymous. Happening is one property of all experiences.

As for your second point let me ask how would you define an experience? 

[Chrisd]

I' agree with you for the lolz

[Salvijus]

I would probably agree with Woke here. Mainly because of his username haha. 

In a state of cessation there is no experience of sound, sight, taste, feeling, smell, nothing at all. Yet awareness and knowledge that I exist remains. It's called nibbana in buddhism or nirvikalpa samadhi in yoga i think.

That would be a strong argument that the witnessing awareness is beyond manifestation and doesn't depend on experience to exist. Awareness can exist without experience. Experience can't exist without awareness. Both are one, but one is essential another is meh..

Edited February 4, 2022 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

18 hours ago, WokeBloke said:

Do sounds hear? If no then there is a distinction between the hearer and the heard.

This makes a lot of sense also.

[RMQualtrough]

I think that is because the sense of a "you" can vanish entirely so all that remains is whatever's taking place. It's a really weird state where things are happening but there doesn't feel to be a you entity present whatsoever.

There's no idea of "I" am seeing "that". There's just the "that", period. It's exceptionally strange.

Even smoking DMT many times, 99% of trips were just nightmare simulators on steroids and nothing more. Entering states like that was INCREDIBLY rare, regardless of dose. I think only 5-MeO would do it reliably.

Other experiences retained a me but that me was nothing at all. Even I was just an appearance in front of the nothing.

I have no idea which is accurate.

If you want to imagine it, know that your mind is applying a label that says I am here, that is there. Imagine your mind COMPLETELY loses its ability to even conceive of such a thing as an "I" part in the equation. Even if this is a state of delusion somehow, that is what takes place. That part of your mind's interpretation just VANISHES into thin air leaving only what is appearing.

Edited February 4, 2022 by RMQualtrough

[Jonty]

@WokeBloke Sound IS awareness. There is nothing to sound other than awareness. Not two!

I obviously didn't explain myself too well! Hope you get to the bottom of it ?

Edited February 4, 2022 by Jonty