Aug 20, 2017
Question...
This blog is essentially about two narrative topics that are or will be more important to us in the near future, chaos and determinism. To quote Edward Lorenz, "Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” and, oddly, William Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Strangely, both succinctly declare what this blog is all about and how chaos, determinism, and the past along with sentience or awareness are in process of generating human subjective experience--again, the life of each one of us as it is lived. This blog seeks to humanize our language of experience and to help us focus on experience at the expense of an undue prioritizing of theory over experience.
Aug 16, 2017
The "Body"
Many materialists and naturalists hold the view, with variations, that we encounter some version of a physical, natural, or material world in perception and cognition. Once that metaphysical and epistemological view is in tact in the body-memory with its attendant feelings, the world is cast away from its dynamic and living source in a feeling-body. The mistake here is to believe in an encounter with the world. Being unaware "of" the always and already prior union of the body-world, the body-world union is concealed. By repetition, this embodied encounter belief regularly operates to render the union hidden. It glides unobtrusively into a background function that is subject and object (form khanda*) yielding.
Identities are manifest in relation to objectification. "I am in relation to my circumstances." Both selves and circumstances are generated in reciprocal relations. Circumstances incarnate forms, feelings, perceptions, and consciousnesses shaped by incarnate memories, the "cognitive unconscious" of the cognitive scientists. These derive from prior acts of body, speech, and mind. These prior acts form the intentional memory configurations that provide meaningful manifestations of selves and situations. We find ourselves, in all cases, on the manifest side of these memory configurations. Selves and situations are at the effect end of the evanescence of experience. We are not the agents of these acts that produce time as experience. We find ourselves already in identities and situations. Hence, there is no perception of creations or beginnings. This process of experience is without beginning.
At this point, a question may arise: "If this union of the body-world is prior to thought and perception, how is it known?" The answer, perhaps a seemingly elusive one is "We are it." It is held in the body. It is felt in the body, it is breathed in the body. The body, as mentioned in a previous blog post, lives in real time, experience time. The body holds the felt evanescence of time. Its manifestations are the manifestations of worlds, of experience.
Ever had the experience of noticing the halt of an air conditioning unit? Or, the silencing of a birdsong? Or the cessation of children's laughter as they play nearby? How is it that we do not notice the air conditioner, the birdsong, or the children's laughter when it was occurring? We seem to notice only the cessations. Well, we may say, I wasn't conscious of the sounds but I became conscious of them when they ceased. Are you sure you were not conscious of them? Perhaps a different type of knowledge was operative that held the sounds. Perhaps we were able to become conscious of the sounds because they were held in a different kind of knowing, one that we are not habituated to call "knowing."
More to follow...
Identities are manifest in relation to objectification. "I am in relation to my circumstances." Both selves and circumstances are generated in reciprocal relations. Circumstances incarnate forms, feelings, perceptions, and consciousnesses shaped by incarnate memories, the "cognitive unconscious" of the cognitive scientists. These derive from prior acts of body, speech, and mind. These prior acts form the intentional memory configurations that provide meaningful manifestations of selves and situations. We find ourselves, in all cases, on the manifest side of these memory configurations. Selves and situations are at the effect end of the evanescence of experience. We are not the agents of these acts that produce time as experience. We find ourselves already in identities and situations. Hence, there is no perception of creations or beginnings. This process of experience is without beginning.
At this point, a question may arise: "If this union of the body-world is prior to thought and perception, how is it known?" The answer, perhaps a seemingly elusive one is "We are it." It is held in the body. It is felt in the body, it is breathed in the body. The body, as mentioned in a previous blog post, lives in real time, experience time. The body holds the felt evanescence of time. Its manifestations are the manifestations of worlds, of experience.
Ever had the experience of noticing the halt of an air conditioning unit? Or, the silencing of a birdsong? Or the cessation of children's laughter as they play nearby? How is it that we do not notice the air conditioner, the birdsong, or the children's laughter when it was occurring? We seem to notice only the cessations. Well, we may say, I wasn't conscious of the sounds but I became conscious of them when they ceased. Are you sure you were not conscious of them? Perhaps a different type of knowledge was operative that held the sounds. Perhaps we were able to become conscious of the sounds because they were held in a different kind of knowing, one that we are not habituated to call "knowing."
More to follow...
*Rosenberg, Alex. 2017. "THE STONE; A Foundation Of Science". Query.Nytimes.Com. Accessed August 18 2017. https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E7DF1F3CF93BA2575AC0A9679D8B63&rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fthe-stone&action=click&contentCollection=opin
**"Khandha Sutta: Aggregates". 2017. Accesstoinsight.Org. Accessed August 16, 2017. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.048.than.html.
This blog is essentially about two narrative topics that are or will be more important to us in the near future, chaos and determinism. To quote Edward Lorenz, "Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” and, oddly, William Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Strangely, both succinctly declare what this blog is all about and how chaos, determinism, and the past along with sentience or awareness are in process of generating human subjective experience--again, the life of each one of us as it is lived. This blog seeks to humanize our language of experience and to help us focus on experience at the expense of an undue prioritizing of theory over experience.
Aug 15, 2017
Upcoming: Suffering and the Foundation of Ethics
This blog is essentially about two narrative topics that are or will be more important to us in the near future, chaos and determinism. To quote Edward Lorenz, "Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” and, oddly, William Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Strangely, both succinctly declare what this blog is all about and how chaos, determinism, and the past along with sentience or awareness are in process of generating human subjective experience--again, the life of each one of us as it is lived. This blog seeks to humanize our language of experience and to help us focus on experience at the expense of an undue prioritizing of theory over experience.
Aug 14, 2017
Me-ness: A Brief Meditation
I am making an entreaty here. Please come along with me and explore this me-ness at its root. The revelation that beckons us may lead us to accept our ultimate vulnerability, i.e., the ground of courage.
When observed in a moment of empty, silent, me-ness, it reveals itself to be no one in particular. In a word, the I am is empty of identity. It is at once, me and not me. Take a good look you'll see what I mean. In its being revealed for what it is in experience, it shows itself to be anonymous. The self is empty of self-nature. Who am I then? I am no one in particular; I am everyman. I am the everyman! More precisely, I am the everyself, gender is not at hand.
In the raw revelation of selfness, I am revealed to be worldless as well. Without identity, its correlate, world, vanishes. World and identity are like form and color, distinguishable yet inseparable.
When observed in a moment of empty, silent, me-ness, it reveals itself to be no one in particular. In a word, the I am is empty of identity. It is at once, me and not me. Take a good look you'll see what I mean. In its being revealed for what it is in experience, it shows itself to be anonymous. The self is empty of self-nature. Who am I then? I am no one in particular; I am everyman. I am the everyman! More precisely, I am the everyself, gender is not at hand.
In the raw revelation of selfness, I am revealed to be worldless as well. Without identity, its correlate, world, vanishes. World and identity are like form and color, distinguishable yet inseparable.
This blog is essentially about two narrative topics that are or will be more important to us in the near future, chaos and determinism. To quote Edward Lorenz, "Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” and, oddly, William Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Strangely, both succinctly declare what this blog is all about and how chaos, determinism, and the past along with sentience or awareness are in process of generating human subjective experience--again, the life of each one of us as it is lived. This blog seeks to humanize our language of experience and to help us focus on experience at the expense of an undue prioritizing of theory over experience.
poem
Oriental Islamic rug on my office floor,
that's the body being complicated.
They are called "magic" carpets for
good reason.
They are called "magic" carpets for
good reason.
This blog is essentially about two narrative topics that are or will be more important to us in the near future, chaos and determinism. To quote Edward Lorenz, "Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” and, oddly, William Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Strangely, both succinctly declare what this blog is all about and how chaos, determinism, and the past along with sentience or awareness are in process of generating human subjective experience--again, the life of each one of us as it is lived. This blog seeks to humanize our language of experience and to help us focus on experience at the expense of an undue prioritizing of theory over experience.
"so to speak"
We could, with justification, follow almost every meaningful sentence we utter with the words "so to speak."
This blog is essentially about two narrative topics that are or will be more important to us in the near future, chaos and determinism. To quote Edward Lorenz, "Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” and, oddly, William Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Strangely, both succinctly declare what this blog is all about and how chaos, determinism, and the past along with sentience or awareness are in process of generating human subjective experience--again, the life of each one of us as it is lived. This blog seeks to humanize our language of experience and to help us focus on experience at the expense of an undue prioritizing of theory over experience.
On narration...
We begin with a telling etymology of the word "narrative": early 15c., from Old French narracion "account, statement, a relating, recounting, narrating, narrative tale," and directly from Latin narrationem (nominative narratio) "a relating, narrative," noun of action from past participle stem of narrare "to tell, relate, recount, explain," literally "to make acquainted with," from gnarus "knowing," from PIE *gne-ro-, suffixed form of root *gno "to know."*
In addition, we add the Latin word gnosis, "knowledge" and the Sanskrit word Jnana, "knowledge" from the verb jna, "to know, and English "know." Here it is of immense interest that the word "narrative" has its roots in words for "knowledge." We shall aim to indicate why in the following.
Why narrative? Narratives are, upon reflection, the stories we live. When living in their pure execution, narratives speak situations that, more often than not, seem real. Upon reflection, we call them thoughts. Thoughts are a conceptual artifice designed to explain what happens. They too are a component of narration.
In addition, we add the Latin word gnosis, "knowledge" and the Sanskrit word Jnana, "knowledge" from the verb jna, "to know, and English "know." Here it is of immense interest that the word "narrative" has its roots in words for "knowledge." We shall aim to indicate why in the following.
Why narrative? Narratives are, upon reflection, the stories we live. When living in their pure execution, narratives speak situations that, more often than not, seem real. Upon reflection, we call them thoughts. Thoughts are a conceptual artifice designed to explain what happens. They too are a component of narration.
*"Online Etymology Dictionary". 2017. Etymonline.Com. Accessed August 14 2017. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=narration&allowed_in_frame=0.
This blog is essentially about two narrative topics that are or will be more important to us in the near future, chaos and determinism. To quote Edward Lorenz, "Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” and, oddly, William Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Strangely, both succinctly declare what this blog is all about and how chaos, determinism, and the past along with sentience or awareness are in process of generating human subjective experience--again, the life of each one of us as it is lived. This blog seeks to humanize our language of experience and to help us focus on experience at the expense of an undue prioritizing of theory over experience.
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