Is nonduality the absolute or a contingent knowledge?

[Leo Gura]

@Strannik Do not think you're fooling anyone here.

You do not understand what Truth is. Simple as that.

It would be intelligent of you to show some humility.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Girzo]

11 hours ago, Strannik said:

If a pointer is confusing or ambiguous, that can easily be an impediment for people. That's how most people in common religions get stuck in their beliefs.

You know, I am an aspiring sociologist and I can tell you that it's 100% not because of pointers.  Common religions don't get people out of their beliefs because it's not their job. They might advertise like it's their job, but not really. Churches are ideology dispensaries, power structure legitimzers and part of social control mechanism.

11 hours ago, Strannik said:

Buddhists avoid using the word "God", not exactly because they are atheists, but because they know that the label "God" is too imprecise,

They don't know that. That's a belief, too.

[Strannik]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Strannik Do not think you're fooling anyone here.

You do not understand what Truth is. Simple as that.

It would be intelligent of you to show some humility.

OK, keep dreaming in your religion of "Infinite Absolute Consciousness", there is nothing wrong with that. At least it's better than the mainstream materialism. But those who are ready will break beyond that. 

I feel pity for spiritual teachers, they usually become stuck in their teachings because they invested so much in them that it becomes almost impossible to publicly admit that they were wrong and to continue growing further beyond their limited beliefs and teachings. And such stagnation becomes even worse when it is fueled by narcissism and arrogance hiding in their blind spot, this makes them totally unable to be honest to themselves and to admit at least to themselves that they might be wrong.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Gesundheit2]

@Strannik ?

[Zeroguy]

@Strannik Well done.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Zeroguy

[Devin]

13 hours ago, Strannik said:

what if nothing we can know is absolutely true other than a simple and bare given experiential fact of:

"What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia/phenomena present here and now inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them."?

Anything we can know can still be true in a relative, contingent or practical sense. Some ideas can still be more useful or practical than others. In that sense the idea of "Absolute Infinite Consciousness" may be practically useful for many people in helping them to dismantle their previous belief system of naive realism. Again, I understand that what I'm saying here may be hard to swallow for many people, but there is no obligation. There is actually nothing wrong with having beliefs in some absolute truths, that's what the vast majority of people do anyway, and there is nothing we can do about that. But if anyone wonders what the "Enlightenment" actually is (at least in the Buddhist sense), then having beliefs in some absolute truths unconsciously hidden in one's blind spot is just not that.   

 

aren't you stating that as an absolute truth

 

the disconnect i have with what you're saying is when it comes to 'knowing' and 'truth'

 

"what if nothing we can know is absolutely true other than a simple and bare given experiential fact of:" -Strannik

that knowing is no-ing; it's finite, 'relative'. 

 

do you need to identify/use something as a "relative truth" for "being useful or practical", no, that's being lazy and not in a beneficial way. "Things tend to fall down, we call this gravity", we don't have to say "gravity makes everything fall back to earth"

 

i think you're superimposing your idea of 'truth' and 'knowing'

Edited December 11, 2022 by Devin

[Strannik]

42 minutes ago, Devin said:

aren't you stating that as an absolute truth

no, everything I'm stating is a contingent truth, except for the bare given experiential fact of:

"What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia/phenomena present here and now inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them."? We label this bare fact with the word "Consciousness".

Let's take an example with the truth of "Infinite Absolute Consciousness". We all know that Consciousness is present here and now, we simply all directly experience ourselves as Consciousness. It is possible that it is indeed the bottom of reality and the absolute truth. It is also possible that there is a reality beyond Consciousness. Now, how would Consciousness ever know if there is anything beyond it, or if there is nothing beyond it? There is no way for Consciousness to go "out of itself" to directly check and experientially know if there is anything beyond it. This means that for Consciousness the possibility of anything existing or non-existing beyond Consciousness will FOREVER remain unresolvable and unknown. There may exist a reality beyond Consciousness, or there may not, and there is no way for Consciousness to know it for certain. Therefore, any statement regarding the existence of reality beyond Consciousness can only be an unverifiable and unfalcifiable belief: "Consciousness is all there is" is a belief, "there is a reality beyond Consciousness" (such as matter, or some "Neutral Prime" as per neutral monism ontology or else) is also a belief. So now we have two options. One is to religiously stick with one of these beliefs. The other one is to remain agnostic and open to any possibility. The first option would be locking ourselves into a specific religion or philosophy by taking it as an absolute truth. The second one is freedom and liberation from clinging to any absolute beliefs. 

The funny thing is that it can actually be true in the absolute sense that "Consciousness is all there is". Or it can also be absolutely true that "there is a reality beyond Consciousness". So, I'm not denying that the absolute truth may exist. I'm only saying that there is no way for Consciousness to know what this "absolute Truth" is, because Consciousness is forever imprisoned within its own boundless limits and cannot ever know in principle if there is anything or nothing existing beyond itself.   

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Devin]

42 minutes ago, Strannik said:

no, everything I'm stating is a contingent truth, except for the bare given experiential fact of:

"What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia/phenomena present here and now inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them."? We label this bare fact with the word "Consciousness".

Let's take an example with the truth of "Infinite Absolute Consciousness". We all know that Consciousness is present here and now, we simply all directly experience ourselves as Consciousness. It is possible that it is indeed the bottom of reality and the absolute truth. It is also possible that there is a reality beyond Consciousness. Now, how would Consciousness ever know if there is anything beyond it, or if there is nothing beyond it? There is no way for Consciousness to go "out of itself" to directly check and experientially know if there is anything beyond it. This means that for Consciousness the possibility of anything existing or non-existing beyond Consciousness will FOREVER remain unresolvable and unknown. There may exist a reality beyond Consciousness, or there may not, and there is no way for Consciousness to know it for certain. Therefore, any statement regarding the existence of reality beyond Consciousness can only be an unverifiable and unfalcifiable belief: "Consciousness is all there is" is a belief, "there is a reality beyond Consciousness" (such as matter, or some "Neutral Prime" as per neutral monism ontology or else) is also a belief. So now we have two options. One is to religiously stick with one of these beliefs. The other one is to remain agnostic and open to any possibility. The first option would be locking ourselves into a specific religion or philosophy by taking it as an absolute truth. The second one is freedom and liberation from clinging to any absolute beliefs. 

The funny thing is that it can actually be true in the absolute sense that "Consciousness is all there is". Or it can also be absolutely true that "there is a reality beyond Consciousness". So, I'm not denying that the absolute truth may exist. I'm only saying that there is no way for Consciousness to know what this "absolute Truth" is, because Consciousness is forever imprisoned within its own boundless limits and cannot ever know in principle if there is anything or nothing existing beyond itself.   

i think you're viewing consciousness as a 'thing'

Edited December 11, 2022 by Devin

[Strannik]

6 minutes ago, Devin said:

i think you're viewing consciousness as a 'thing'

Nope, I'm repeating again:

"What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia/phenomena present here and now inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them."? We label this bare fact with the word "Consciousness".

So, here "Consciousness" is a linguistic label pointing to the experiential fact of the presence of a direct conscious experience here and now. Experience is not a "thing". 

[Carl-Richard]

4 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Nope, I'm repeating again:

"What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia/phenomena present here and now inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them."? We label this bare fact with the word "Consciousness".

So, here "Consciousness" is a linguistic label pointing to the experiential fact of the presence of a direct conscious experience here and now. Experience is not a "thing". 

And experience is the ontological primitive of reality. This becomes clear in the non-dual mystical experience. Again, did you say you've had it?

[Devin]

20 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Nope, I'm repeating again:

"What we actually know in our direct conscious experience is only a flow of qualia/phenomena present here and now inseparable from the "isness/presence" and conscious awareness of them."? We label this bare fact with the word "Consciousness".

So, here "Consciousness" is a linguistic label pointing to the experiential fact of the presence of a direct conscious experience here and now. Experience is not a "thing". 

your use of the term consciousness is what i would label as 'direct experience', not consciousness, that's within consciousness

Edited December 11, 2022 by Devin

[Strannik]

22 minutes ago, Devin said:

your use of the term consciousness is what i would label as 'direct experience', not consciousness, that's within consciousness

All you actually know is only your direct conscious experience. What you call "consciousness" which has "direct experience" within itself is only your mind-created concept. There is no way to experientially know anything beyond direct conscious experience.  

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Strannik said:

All you actually know is only your direct conscious experience. What you call "consciousness" which has "direct experience" within itself is only your mind-created concept. There is no way to experientially know anything beyond direct conscious experience.  

Again, you're treating direct experience as if it's something limited. Limited by what exactly? My body? My sense organs? My brain?

Edited December 11, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Strannik]

51 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

And experience is the ontological primitive of reality. This becomes clear in the non-dual mystical experience. Again, did you say you've had it?

I had it, or actually having it right now, so what? Yes, the wholeness of conscious experience is by itself nondual, and that becomes obvious in a mystical experience. But how do you or I know it there is anything existing beyond that non-dual mystical experience? How do we prove that there is nothing beyond it? It is simply impossible, therefore we cannot in principle rule out a possibility that there may be some other kind of reality existing beyond experience. 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Strannik]

12 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Again, you're treating direct experience as if it's something limited. Limited by what exactly? My body? My sense organs? My brain?

If we don't know what kind of reality exists beyond experience, then we also don't know what can limit the experience. But the fact that we do not know it does not necessarily mean that it does not exist. 

I'm repeating again an analogy. Suppose that some creatures exist in 2D space, so all they can possibly experience is the 2D space. For them their experience within 2D is unlimited in 2-dimensions, they can move anywhere within 2D and find no boundaries. But they simply have no concept and no way to experience anything beyond that 2D. But in reality that 2D plain is contained within a 3D space and so it is indeed unlimited in its 2D, but still limited in 3D by its own surface. The takeaway is that if some reality is unlimited within its own domain, that does not necessarily mean that nothing can exist beyond its domain.   

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Devin]

38 minutes ago, Strannik said:

All you actually know is only your direct conscious experience. What you call "consciousness" which has "direct experience" within itself is only your mind-created concept. There is no way to experientially know anything beyond direct conscious experience.  

your use of the term 'know' again

you can't know your direct experience in the same way you're using the term know when it comes to knowing what consciousness is

that's like flying to the moon on a... shoe.. or even a better example, a verb. Or saying this shape is purple

Edited December 11, 2022 by Devin

[Strannik]

20 minutes ago, Devin said:

your use of the term 'know' again

you can't know your direct experience in the same way you're using the term know when it comes to knowing what consciousness is

that's like flying to the moon on a... shoe

There are only to ways to know available for us: to know by direct experience (including mystical) and to know by making concepts. Direct experience directly experiences itself (=experientially knows itself), that becomes obvious in the mystical experience. This is the same as saying that Consciousness (=direct conscious experience) directly knows itself (= experiences itself directly). Infact, any conscious experience is a direct experience of itself, because any qualia that are directly experienced are nothing other than the conscious experience itself (=inseparable from Consciousness). In other words, any phenomena or qualia are non-dual from the conscious experience itself. It is impossible to separate the qualia from the direct conscious experience of them, this becomes obvious and clear in mystical experience. So, what we experientially know in the mystical experience is an indivisible "blob" of the given wholeness of experience where nothing can be separated. It does not matter if it is formless mystical experience, or mystical experience with forms/qualia, that makes no difference.      

Edited December 11, 2022 by Strannik

[Strannik]

Any attempts to prove that nothing can exist beyond experience by using logical arguments (including arguments referring to nondual or unlimited nature of experience) are doomed, just like attempts of medieval theologists to prove the existence of God by logic. Logic does not apply to ontology because ontology is prior to logic.

[Devin]

16 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Any attempts to prove that nothing can exist beyond experience by using logical arguments (including arguments referring to nondual or unlimited nature of experience) are doomed, just like attempts of medieval theologists to prove the existence of God by logic. Logic does not apply to ontology because ontology is prior to logic.

i haven't seen anyone here argue that, I'd say almost the opposite was alluded

Edited December 11, 2022 by Devin
*almost

[Devin]

12 minutes ago, Strannik said:

There are only to ways to know available for us: to know by direct experience (including mystical) and to know by making concepts. Direct experience directly experiences itself (=experientially knows itself), that becomes obvious in the mystical experience. This is the same as saying that Consciousness (=direct conscious experience) directly knows itself (= experiences itself directly). Infact, any conscious experience is a direct experience of itself, because any qualia that are directly experienced are nothing other than the conscious experience itself (=inseparable from Consciousness). In other words, any phenomena or qualia are non-dual from the conscious experience itself. It is impossible to separate the qualia from the direct conscious experience of them, this becomes obvious and clear in mystical experience.    

no, anything you 'know' by direct experience is an illusion, a concept