Logical error in spiritual advice: territory > map

[Vynce]

Excuse my western logical brain here, but: 

There is this popular advice that living in the "territory" or direct experience is more important than living in the "maps" or mental experience. At least if you want to live in truth and love. 

I totally agree with that. In fact you can verify this by yourself, if you sit in still presence right now. Reality seems more peaceful and loving that way. 

On the other hand, living in your thoughts and mental constructs causes the exact opposite. Doubt and dissatisfaction may arise. 

But according to my own experience and Leo's teachings, thoughts and direct experience are sourced by the same consciousness. So how can there be this stark difference of Love when you switch between map and territory. 

After all non-duality means there is no difference between map and territory. 

 

Edited April 4, 2022 by Vynce

[JosephKnecht]

14 minutes ago, Vynce said:

So how can there be this stark difference of Love when you switch between map and territory. 

Without a map, you will be lost.

Without a territory, you won't Be. 

[vizual]

Both the direct sensory information of the environment and your thoughts, projections and mental images that we use to interpret that sensory information is both constructed in the brain. One is not more real than the other if we are looking at direct experience. We can say that the sensory input is the 'objective' factor, and the mental images are the 'subjective' factor. But both the subjective and the objective reside in the same direct experience. Meaning; what we think to be objective is not more direct than the subjective.

So both the map and the territory arise in direct experience.

[Vynce]

2 minutes ago, vizual said:

Both the direct sensory information of the environment and your thoughts, projections and mental images that we use to interpret that sensory information is both constructed in the brain. One is not more real than the other if we are looking at direct experience. We can say that the sensory input is the 'objective' factor, and the mental images are the 'subjective' factor. But both the subjective and the objective reside in the same direct experience. Meaning; what we think to be objective is not more direct than the subjective.

So both the map and the territory arise in direct experience.

That's the paradox in it. So logically we can frame the advice the other way around. "Live more in the maps, than in the territory - they are the same". But if that was true everyone would dwell in truth and love. You see my dilemma here?

[BipolarGrowth]

A map of the Grand Canyon is not the Grand Canyon, but it can certainly make being at the Grand Canyon more enjoyable, safe, and easy. 
 

The same goes for consciousness work. 
 

People do so much to get away from thought, but once you become proficient at being with being, you can see that thought does not have to make anything worse. 
 

You can be as present with thoughts as you are without them, but this does take some development. 

[Scholar]

23 minutes ago, Vynce said:

That's the paradox in it. So logically we can frame the advice the other way around. "Live more in the maps, than in the territory - they are the same". But if that was true everyone would dwell in truth and love. You see my dilemma here?

You are playing a language game here and you need to become aware of it somehow, that's the advice I would give.

[Michael Jackson]

44 minutes ago, Vynce said:

But according to my own experience and Leo's teachings, thoughts and direct experience are sourced by the same consciousness. So how can there be this stark difference of Love when you switch between map and territory. 

After all non-duality means there is no difference between map and territory. 

Absolutely speaking as you said the map=the territory. Because the map is part of the world, it's not outside of it. The problem though is, you don't see the map for what it is. You don't look at the map and see it as what it is, as a map, as part of the territory. You see the map as something bigger, you confuse it with the whole territory and don't see the truth of the map. When you're not in truth, the Love which you are get's veiled. It is still there but you simply overlook it.

[vizual]

Without a map there is no territory. A map is simply a symbolic interpretation of data. Your brain is constantly mapping new data. When we look at quantum mechanics it tells us there is no data without an interpreter, meaning; something or someone making sense of the data.(QM could be proven wrong on that though, who knows)

 In simple terms; there can only be an object insofar there’s a subject, and vice versa. There is no territory without someone or something making sense of that territory.

[Vynce]

29 minutes ago, vizual said:

Without a map there is no territory. A map is simply a symbolic interpretation of data. Your brain is constantly mapping new data. When we look at quantum mechanics it tells us there is no data without an interpreter, meaning; something or someone making sense of the data.(QM could be proven wrong on that though, who knows)

 In simple terms; there can only be an object insofar there’s a subject, and vice versa. There is no territory without someone or something making sense of that territory.

No. 

A trained meditator can observe his environment without any knowledge or interpretation of what he is experiencing.  

You can live fully in the territory, without any maps what's so ever. Every new born lives like that. 

Making maps is a sub-function of consciousness. 

[Reciprocality]

The territory is rendered under the some maps, which is the only reason you can actually make maps.

The territory shares an identity with the maps they are rendered under, the the maps which sketches out that territory shares an identity with both.

Some maps are innate, a priori, without them you would be insane.

 

The sketch-map is also the territory itself, everything is the territory.

 

This is another way of saying that all roads leads to Rome, or that existence is holonistic, or that inteligence is firstly sensible then it is fantastical. The scetchmap is fantastical, the innate map is sensible.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Reciprocality

[Vynce]

24 minutes ago, Reciprocality said:

Some maps are innate, a priori, without them you would be insane.

Can you give me an example of such an "a priori" map?

[Leo Gura]

The problem with mental constructions is that they are co-opted by the ego and very easy to get lost in.

The mind contructs false and distorted narratives to serve its own survival. In contrast, BEING is pure and free of those games. Maps get infected with ego.

[Reciprocality]

@Vynce Space, time and causality, without these there would be no reciprocity commenting here. These were called forms of sensible intuition by Kant.

Then there are thing like flatness, roundness, triangle, etc.. all these are never experienced in the senses themselves, yet that which happens in sensation can seem quite flat. If it were no such a priori mathematical concept of for instance the perfect line between starting point and destination or flat surface then we would use excessive energy to walk our path, these mathematical creations are minimal.

Logic takes the form of cohesion in direct consciousness, there is a reason nothing ever really seems "off", it is because we make everything cohesive, if we did not then we could neither have a singular consciousness. Even when we can not solve a problem it unfolds in perfect cohesion, the same goes for all paradoxes.

The 'sketch maps' are like our schema.

[Vynce]

46 minutes ago, Reciprocality said:

Then there are thing like flatness, roundness, triangle, etc.. all these are never experienced in the senses themselves

Why can't I experience flatness without thinking? 

Maybe you mean perfect flatness, roundness, lines ect. True they cannot be experienced. It's only the mind "claiming" to experience such a thing. The only perfectness is infinity itself, but thats another topic. 

Also:

48 minutes ago, Reciprocality said:

time and causality

Time and causality cannot be experienced directly. It's pure mind made illusion. So I insist that you give me an example of something, that can be experienced, like my left thumb, which has to have an "a priori" map, in order to be experienced. 

[Vynce]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

The problem with mental constructions is that they are co-opted by the ego and very easy to get lost in.

The mind contructs false and distorted narratives to serve its own survival. In contrast, BEING is pure and free of those games. Maps get infected with ego.

Thats super paradoxical. 

God only has one substance to create. Itself. Consciousness. Love. 

And right now this love is accessible through awareness (for example) of my right hand. But if I attach thought (also part of infinite Love) to this hand, reality feels like shit. 

This stuff should be illegal. 

[Reciprocality]

36 minutes ago, Vynce said:

"Why can't I experience flatness without thinking? "

"True they cannot be experienced. It's only the mind "claiming" to experience such a thing. "

@Vynce The flatness of your roof is rendered in approximation to the innate concept of perfect flatness, for no other reason would you ever intuit both imperfect and perfect flatness under the same class of "flatness".

You walk towards the kitchen and automatically you take the shortest route, and if you don't then that is because there is a point b between a and c, the actual line will never be perfect, but your conceptual means of navigation is.

It is hard to "prove" it, actually it can't be proven except for in him who sees it himself. 

 

36 minutes ago, Vynce said:

Time and causality cannot be experienced directly. It's pure mind made illusion. So I insist that you give me an example of something, that can be experienced, like my left thumb, which has to have an "a priori" map, in order to be experienced. 

It is correct that time, space and causality can not be experienced, that is my whole point. They are that upon which experience is contingent, they are only "experienced" as that which occurs in them, which means that they are never themselves experienced. 

Now you can define experience such that time, space and causality is experienced, this only means that they are experienced trough that which they render, a posteriori knowledge (sensation). But for the sake of first order logic it is better and more precise not to consider sensibilities themselves as experience, for in that matter there would be nothing other than consciousness which makes intelligibility.

At which point everything is inductive, and nothing innate. Which again means that there would be no perceived difference between anything and thereby consciousness itself impossible, identity would be impossible, cohesion impossible. 

 

Your left thumb requires empirical intuition such as color to be experienced, but it also requires the sensible intuition of space and time to be experienced, this is of course self evident. But what is less obvious is that it also requires mathematical constructs such as roundness to be experienced.

Edit: the particular shape of the thumb is not innate, but that by which the shape is possible is.

Edit: it is also imprecise to call the purely mathematical concepts "constructs" as they are extremely different to the conclusions which can be drawn from the them, these however, are more like constructs. These two classes have been identified as analytic (the concepts) and synthetic (the constructs rendered by means of the pure concepts).

Edited April 4, 2022 by Reciprocality