[ファブリス]

You are the still point of the turning world. This is great

Are the senses perceiving or creating the outside world?

Doesn't this go against that koan thingy:

Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree. Hui-neng, the sixth Patriarch, said: "Gentlemen! It is not the flag that moves. It is not the wind that moves. It is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.

By the way, for some reason this feels related: They're Made Out of Meat!

I didn't know about this mini-film of the story. It's satisfying indeed but I am a bit disappointed they left out the very last part:

Terry Bisson Wrote:"Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone..."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

+1 to this thread.

ファブリス Wrote:You are the still point of the turning world. This is great

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are" - Anaïs Nin

bodhisamaya Wrote:Are the senses perceiving or creating the outside world?

I was just reading about the 5 aggregates, wouldn't it be that the senses just perceive, but our reactions to them is what is creating our world?

bodhisamaya and nest0r, thank you. I often come back here just to have the pleasure of reading your posts.

[ファブリス]

Terry Bisson Wrote:"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

Sounds a lot like Steven Norquist's Haunted Universe.

His description of enlightenment is basically: the universe is self conscious. There is no experiencer separate from experience. Nowhere in all those "meat brains" is there a "me" to think or to do, just thinking and doing. Only life busy "living".

So in his particular way of putting it... a utterly empty universe.

Is it possible?

The brain takes decisions up to 6 seconds before "you" are aware of it. That is, before "you" can conceptually acknowledge the decision.

BBC Horizon The secret you. Consciousness

Steven Norquist describes enlightenment as the realization that there is no "you" that lives life. Life is living just fine without our conceptual minds adding "me" in the picture, it seems...

[ファブリス]

bodhisamaya Wrote:Are the senses perceiving or creating the outside world?

Well according to "enlightened/awakened" peeps, like this Steven Norquist guy, the universe is self aware. There is no one to perceive, and nothing outside of reality to perceive reality.

"me" is a construction of the mind, added onto the experience of the senses (as much as 6 seconds later according to BBC documentary linked above). The brain's ability to conceptualize and handle abstract ideas, creates this "me" as the "cause" for our life.

And everything that I think I know about "myself" exists as the content of thought. Pretty scary.

[ファブリス]

Cool, here's the full documentary:

BBC Horizon - The Secret You

That's connected to concerns regarding Libet's research and free will, re: the timing of decisions.

“The worry raised by Libet makes sense only to someone who presupposes that consciousness, or the conscious self, is somehow apart from and distinct from the rest of the brain. That is the perspective that yields the worry: ‘Uh oh, am I out of the loop? I, my conscious self, may be somewhere in the brain, but out of the loop where the decision-making happens!’ This vision of there being this place in the brain where consciousness is, is itself incoherent, the idea I call the Cartesian Theater, the place in the brain where it all comes together for consciousness.” - My Brain Made Me Do It! - Daniel C. Dennett (2010)

Dennett's point regarding this (Edit: See also, Are We Explaining Consciousness Yet?) is that instead of an infinite regression of homunculi, miniature people nested in a theatre in your brain with miniature people nested inside theirs', there is no such thing: consciousness is smeared across space and time in the brain (and body and outside it, depending on how into embodied cognition, situated cognition, and the extended mind hypothesis you are); complementing this is Stanislas Dehaene's ‘global neuronal workspace’, mentioned previously.

Here's a couple papers about non-conscious/preconscious/conscious states in that perception, if you're interested in some more refined views from research and theories of Dehaene, et al.:

Conscious, preconscious, and subliminal processing

Conscious and Nonconscious Processes

@jubei - Thanks. ;p

Edit 2: And I should mention that while Dehaene models the continuum as preconscious/conscious there, I prefer conscious and self-conscious (just a terminology issue), more in line with Gerard O’Brien and Jon Jureidini's papers (http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/d...2440/33590 and http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/d...2440/16154).

It's the self-consciousness that trips people up, the self-reflexive awareness (not to be confused with metacognition and stuff like that) that gives the illusion of continuous, centralized me-ness, separated from the rest of the brain/body/world.

[ファブリス]

Regarding Libet, I don't know if that's what you are saying but I did reflect that if we can't predict the future, even if there is a predetermined unfolding of reality, it doesn't matter much as we still get a sense of making choices

But the question is, do "I" really make choices, or does the brain do? If the "I" only exists as content of thought (which seems to be the case), and is nowhere to be found to be experienced directly in reality... then the brain/body organism can be an individual, and at the same time does not require a belief in "me".

nestOr Wrote:It's the self-consciousness that trips people up, the self-reflexive awareness (not to be confused with metacognition and stuff like that) that gives the illusion of continuous, centralized me-ness, separated from the rest of the brain/body/world.

You mean thought?

Depends on how you define thought. ;p

I mean the distributed, integrated conscious brain activity that reaches sufficient activation that an individual becomes self-aware of it in a top-down fashion. ;p

jubei Wrote:I was just reading about the 5 aggregates, wouldn't it be that the senses just perceive, but our reactions to them is what is creating our world?

Buddhists break down the skandas into long detailed explanations of how each arises as a result of previous conditions in a never ending cycle. I am very simple-minded and those texts fill my eyes with sand within 15 minutes. Although THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYING has a section that seems to have stuck in my mind. I try not to dwell on the specifics and adapt what is useful to my own life. The theory among some that the senses project the universe out may or may not be true, but it has been a practice that I have been able to adapt somewhat. When I am getting too caught up in the dramas of everyday life, taking the perspective of the senses being a movie projector and I am simply a ticket holding viewer is helpful.

Ultimate reality is said to be non-separation, the lack of an "I", oneness with the universe and all that. Unfortunately we can't just intellectually decide this is truth and leave all suffering behind. It is a intensive process of study, contemplation and meditation. Relative reality is what I deal with now and so strategies for lessening the effects of my ignorance are my focus.