Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Don't fuck with EIn, bro. He's deep like the ocean

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

I'm not putting words in your mouth. I'm reading what you write and interpreting the logic. This is language pal. Use it, and use it well; because no matter what you believe, this is what you are. You're nothing beyond what you are to others except for a shred of darkness thrashing in the void. If you want meaning, it's all around you; not inside you.

ok ok now I like this but I'm afraid in the same sense as a teen goth would ... please explain what you mean by this? lol

 

[Einherjar86]

I googled those terms, but don't have anything useful. Can you elaborate?

I agree that the core is a void of sorts. I'd say it's neither void nor space. The content of my thoughts and views changes all the time, but what of it? It's not me and does not sway me.

Heraclitus: "Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow."

Parmenides: "But since the limit is ultimate, it is complete from all directions, like the bulk of a well-rounded sphere, equally matched from the middle on all sides..."

The content of your thoughts and views are you, a majority part of you; and they do change what you are, so that "you" possess no essence. When you look within and discover unity, you project that unity; you don't discover it there, you imagine it there. We are all of us imagined selves. The time and effort you have put into meditation have not discovered your true self; they have merely contributed to its construction.

And I know, these are just my words, I have no knowledge of your mind; but I do have knowledge of culture, language, and narrative, and I know that selves are stories we tell ourselves. Before that, there is thought only insofar as thought implies a biological engagement with the world; but this engagement does not constitute self-awareness, and in fact has no place for a central self that can be aware of itself in any way.

"Thoughts - imperceptible mental events - are perfectly real, but our ability to apperceive ourselves thinking is linguistically mediated." (Brassier, "The Myth of the Given")

ok ok now I like this but I'm afraid in the same sense as a teen goth would ... please explain what you mean by this? lol

I mean that before thinking of ourselves as thinking beings - before making that self-referential step in evolution - we cannot think of ourselves as anything. The extreme form of this (the postmodern form) would be to say that we are not anything. Of course, that isn't a particularly realist notion; but it does get at something fundamentally important about knowledge.

There is no means of knowing oneself outside language and conceptualization, no matter how much meditation one pursues. The attainment of some pre-conscious state of unity is a myth of origins, a projection of a pristine stage of development before language sundered us from our minds. Mystics believe there is a subconscious layer, some kind of deep consciousness that can relinquish language and achieve a sense of unity with the body and thus result in greater knowledge. This is contradictory because language is a prerequisite for knowledge. There is no knowledge, and no awareness, without language.

So, as soon as we are able to speak, to communicate in language, and to become aware of ourselves, we have only done so through the mediation of a linguistic and conceptual apparatus. Prior to this moment, we are sentient meat.

 

[Dak]

A mental state of mentalstatelessness is a contradiction.

 

[Einherjar86]

Look at a wall. Do you need to call it a wall to be aware of it? Say what you wish about a mental state you have not been in.

Reread what you just wrote: "Look at a wall." Without the word for a wall, how can I be aware that I am ever looking at one?

"Wall" entails an entire history of social conditioning and meaning; without the knowledge of those conditions and that meaning, I can never be aware that I am looking at a wall.

 

[Einherjar86]

Because the wall is matter, light bounces off of it, and you have eyes.

Let's assume I have eyes (wouldn't want to accidentally offend any blind people).

I have various sensory perceptions of objects around me. This does not entail awareness. I encourage you to think harder about what "aware" means. To be aware of something means not only to perceive it in a sensory way, but to be able to conceive of its non-existence. I can be aware of a wall because I can be aware of the wall even during its absence, a capacity that does not derive from sensory perception (since, if the wall is absent, I have no opportunity to perceive it).

Animals can perceive objects in a sensory way, but very few animals possess awareness of objects. I am aware of my potential existence as a banana, as you suggested; but I do not perceive myself as a banana in a sensory way. I am aware of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, but I have no sensory perception of it.

Awareness only derives from thought as a conceptual means of knowing the world. Thought certainly precedes language in the order of being; but language precedes thought in the order of knowing. Without language and concepts, we have no awareness of the world.

 

[Einherjar86]

What you speak of is like spirituality. I must take your word for it because you can't communicate it. That's fine, but then don't participate in intellectual discussions of this sort because you have nothing to offer. You're spewing pointless trivialities - "awareness senses concept" - but have no knowledge or understanding of the years of scientific and scholarly research that have gone into developing the strong claim that awareness succeeds sensory perception, that it entails reflexivity, that it enables us to think things which we do not perceive sensorily (a fact that you have offered no rebuttal to).

The point is, I don't want to meditate if it truly results in what you describe, because I want to be able to participate in discourse. I don't want to restrict myself to some perceived outer sphere of experience that cannot be conveyed in language. That is apathetic and worthless to me. It sounds childlike and escapist. Perhaps you possess some deeper sense of the world; but what good is it, since you can't tell any of us?

For what it's worth, I think your sense of "awareness without concept" is an illusion, although I think you believe it to be true. There is nothing there for you to give anyone. All you can do is beg people to go out on a limb for you. You're like a traveling evangelist: "Do as I do, and ye shall see the light." I have no contempt or hatred for such people; but when they try to correct my theories by asking me to believe, I get defensive.

 

[The Butt]

Look at a wall. Do you need to call it a wall to be aware of it? Say what you wish about a mental state you have not been in. It's like closing your eyes and saying light does not exist, or that a foreign country does not exist when you have not been there. I may as well say you have four penises and sleep in a jar.

Getting high has fucked your brain, bro.

 

[Einherjar86]

First off, I ask nothing of you. I don't want your faith.

Meditate like I have and separate yourself from concept and you'll see. Otherwise, it'll be this back and forth.

You are asking something of me. You're asking me to meditate like you, otherwise I can't possibly understand what you're getting at.

If there's no way to communicate the knowledge you have attained, then your entire pursuit is apathetic because you're abandoning social cause and discussion for an expressionless inner sanctum. I don't care at this point what you've read or what you enjoy about philosophy. The entire argument that we have had up until this point continues to circle your self-indulgent fantasy of pure self and interior knowledge that I cannot hope to understand unless I meditate, "like you have."

If you're not asking anything of me, then stop saying there's no way for you to communicate what you're trying to say.

 

[Dak]

In all this circling, there has still not been any argument presented to explain anything I might experience in a meditative state (that satisfies Vimana's requests for personal action) as anything other than focusing on different sorts of inputs. Interpretation always-already precedes understanding. You (Vimana) interpret your experience as absence of input, but this interpretation must be based on something, and I am pressing for you to explain this basis.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm not asking. That wasn't a request. How about this: if you meditate and clear yourself of concept, you'll see. But you don't have to. I'm not commanding you.

It has nothing to do with command. You are establishing an ultimatum within the logic of the conversation that prohibits any progression.

This inner sanctum, if adopted by the world, would lead to individuals that see no point in hurting one another and would spend every waking moment dazzled by existing. That is the core of consciousness, but you have not immersed yourself in it. That is of no inadequacy on your part. It is just something you happened to have not done.

This just made my day. Keep rolling, Spicoli.

 

[Dak]

There is some significant neuroscience research on the processes and effects of meditation, and none offer any sort of evidence towards an absence of input. Rather, different areas of the brain are activated (and subsequently grow), as opposed to what is activated and stays a "normal" size in the non-meditating majority.

All you are doing is focusing on the inputs and creating positive feedbacks loops with those different areas, enhancing those areas of the brain, which provides further feedback into your non-meditative states. This isn't mystical, you haven't snuck up on the Thing Itself, etc. Of course, if you are inadvertently or unconsciously attached to some sort of dualism (which is what I suspect), I'm interested in an actual argument for it.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Spicoli

 

[Einherjar86]

Of course, if you are inadvertently or unconsciously attached to some sort of dualism (which is what I suspect), I'm interested in an actual argument for it.

You suspect that is what he's saying; or you believe that he is actually achieving some kind of dualism...?

 

[Dak]

You suspect that is what he's saying; or you believe that he is actually achieving some kind of dualism...?

I think he believes in some sort of dualism.

 

[Einherjar86]

Ah. Yes, I wasn't sure. I too would like to see an argument for it - beyond "words are symbols for memories" etc. etc.

 

[Dak]

So in short: "Just gotta feel that feel brah"?

To be clear, I'm not knocking meditation. It has well documented positive effects. I just don't believe you've found a way outside yourself.

 

[Einherjar86]

I am not trying to communicate a concept, give ultimatums, or any of the concepts you guys respond to me with. I am not trying to convey an idea. Trying to find an answer or idea goes in the opposite direction of the axis that perceives all.

It doesn't matter what you're trying to do. You're doing these things even if you're not trying to. Welcome to the human race.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

 

[Einherjar86]

To you, that's what I'm doing. It's different over here. You may as well be telling me I'm eating tacos right now, whether or not I'm trying to.

There is a logic to your language (or an illogic), and that has nothing to do with what's in your head or in mine. It has nothing to do with individual psychology. Language can be read and interpreted scientifically, materially - this is what you don't seem to grasp. Language is not just reflection of interior experience. It operates objectively, socially, it has its own gravity. This is the effect of what happens when you engage in discourse. I don't care about what's in your head. You keep turning things around by saying "Might as well say..."; but you don't seem to grasp the fact that it doesn't matter.

Your intentions, your purposes, your personal beliefs, they have no purchase here.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but inform you of something through a symbolic representation of it and giving symbolic representation of a way to it, or back into it, or to nowhere, all the same, really.

How can I convince you of nothing that can be convinced of that is inside of you already?

That last sentence is hilarious.

I'm not sure if your ideas are "beyond language," or if you just can't write.