Is there a way to tell when you are deluded?

Well, you can always wait till you get pneumonia or an injury to the parts of your breathing apparatus, and then you'll see the need for thinking about how you breathe.

It looks like you've never practiced yoga or breath meditation.

 

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I think it would be revealing to look into how come we perceive it as unremarkable.

The breath is, after all, the immediately observable cause of us "being alive" and being able to do things with our bodies and minds. That makes it remarkable.

 

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It looks like you're jumping to conclusions, perhaps that fulfils some need for you?

I'm wondering how this could be true for our ancestors who hadn't developed speech or language, presumably they were as capable of breathing as we are.
I imagine an injured primate adapts their breathing to compensate for illness or injury, and so do we. That we are also able to speak and think about it probably makes no difference.

I can't imagine how having a cracked rib and thinking "that hurts" every time I breathe is going to make the situation any different.
So I can't see what your point is. Or maybe you don't have a point?

So do I. Particularly in light of all those writings which report the experience is not, after all, unremarkable. Aren't they suggesting that your perception of "unremarkable" is wrong, in that case?

 

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The concept of "evidence" used in the teapot analogy is one that can adequately be employed only for things that do not contextualize the (prospective) knower.

To give another example, besides God, of something we hold that contextualizes us: If we posit that electrons play a role in how we know things, then electrons are things that contextualize us as (prospective) knowers. Which is why we cannot approach seeking evidence of or about electrons in the same way we seek it of things like tables and chairs (things we are sure do not contextualize us). Which is how on the microlevel, physics turns into philosophy.

Have you noticed that the theists on this forum generally agree that I am not a theist?

Of course I do. Because exalted ideas are the only ones worth having!

On principle, yes.

I've never believed in God.

Sure. Who doesn't long for the exalted?

No, and no.

Because of their "Timmy started it!" mentality.

If I find something to be important, then I will research it myself, make effort to figure it out myself. I'm not going to wait for someone else to do it for me.

So when someone claims they want to see evidence of "God," as atheists typically do, and then they just sit on their assess, pouting - then such people simply aren't serious about their inquiry or about what they state is important to them or what they want to know about.
I'm not like that and I don't want to become like that.

Envy, feeling threatned can take on very sophisticated forms. The more sophisticated a person, the more sophisticated their envy and feeling threatened can be. They can reach a level of sophistication where they don't seem anything like what is usually understood by "envy" and "feeling threatened." Mature ego defense mechanisms don't seem like ego defense mechanisms at all - the list reads like a list of virtues, of positive qualities to aspire to, nothing at all like those ugly things listed in the previous levels.

By exploring how come I wish to make such a distinction.

Since I am not in any formal or socially relevant position where it would be part of my job description to distinguish true religious ideas from heathen supersitition, it's none of my business to attempt to do so in speculation.

"Monks, these two are fools. Which two? The one who takes up a burden that hasn't fallen to him, and the one who doesn't take up a burden that has. These two are fools."
AN 2.98

Not at all. I am vehemently focusing on those reasons, and I include into them as a factor the personal qualities of the (prospective) knower / decision-maker.

Knowing takes place within a person's mind, based on the person's faculties, qualities; it doesn't take place in some abstract impersonal space. Hence epistemology is necessarily personal.

Apply virtue epistemology to yourself: You are the knower, or at least the prospective knower. For what reason are you interested in knowing this or that? Do you assess that to be a good reason?

"All those who ask questions of another do so from any one of five motivations. Which five?

"One asks a question of another through stupidity & bewilderment. One asks a question of another through evil desires & overwhelmed with greed. One asks a question of another through contempt. One asks a question of another when desiring knowledge. Or one asks a question with this thought,[1] 'If, when asked, he answers correctly, well & good. If not, then I will answer correctly [for him].'
AN 5.165

Yes.

No, these two sentences do not follow from the above.

I think virtue epistemology deals with really basic things, things that children are expected to master. I'm just bewildered why it seems like such a problem to some people.

I talked about it in the sentences following the one quoted.

Hold as true for the sake of the argument for the time being.

All arguments, about anything, are circular, self-referential like that.


From Quine's "Two Dogmas:"


The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections -- the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.

If this view is right, it is misleading to speak of the empirical content of an individual statement -- especially if it be a statement at all remote from the experiential periphery of the field. Furthermore it becomes folly to seek a boundary between synthetic statements, which hold contingently on experience, and analytic statements which hold come what may. Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system. Even a statement very close to the periphery can be held true in the face of recalcitrant experience by pleading hallucination or by amending certain statements of the kind called logical laws. Conversely, by the same token, no statement is immune to revision. Revision even of the logical law of the excluded middle has been proposed as a means of simplifying quantum mechanics; and what difference is there in principle between such a shift and the shift whereby Kepler superseded Ptolemy, or Einstein Newton, or Darwin Aristotle?


Perhaps the thing to remember here is that arguments for or against aren't meant to convince people, but only to stimulate thought on a topic.

I think you need to clarify what your null hypothesis is in all this.

Why inquire into how other people know, but ignore matters of how one knows?

Continually directing one's attention outwards is a recipe for confusion and suffering.

 

I guess it's possible to do yoga and "practice" breath meditation and remain clueless about breathing ...

Yes, most people are like that, which is why aging, illness and death usually are what they usually are ...

If "that hurts" is the only thing you can think of when having a cracked rib and it hurts to breathe, then you're operating out of a very limited scope of ways to think about breathing.

Have you never been ill or injured and had to figure out ways of breathing that wouldn't hurt so much?

Like I said, I think it would be revealing to look into how come we perceive it as unremarkable. I'm not sure how feasible it is to do this within this discussion.

 

You too, since you brought it up as an example of an experience that occurs without thought

and I also explained how that tends to occur due to its unremarkable nature

already done.
In brief - when accompanied by tools of language, it becomes enriched and when it doesn't, it goes unnoticed

plenty of literature out there to suggest otherwise ...

If it wasn't the case, there would be no grounds for discerning enriched experiences of hearing the sound of breathing (whatever they may be) from the run-of-the-mill variety

quite a few
None are there of breathing

Not quite.
Its due to the efforts of language/literacy/codes that the experience becomes enriched.
If it was otherwise, there would be no qualitative distinction between enriched experiences and unenriched ones

Given that none of the books are full of blank pages, all of them.

already explained this.
It depends on language/codes/tools, otherwise it remains practically invisible.

regardless of the advise, the nature of giving it requires the use of language/tools/codes etc ... otherwise it would be impossible to assimilate it in the pursuit of any sort of goal.

Nothing
Its your attempt to play it as "enriching" sans any accompanying thought processes that is vague.

by meeting criteria that accompanies a claim of course.

For instance if I say I had an enriching experience walking through the forest one would certainly be suspicious if they couldn't qualify the claim in any meaningful manner

and I explained how it doesn't fit since its the nature of low end claims that they don't really rate as experiences ... much less enriched ones.

Its the nature of a lot of low end claims that they have limited scope to work with

given that your so-called enriched breathing experiences are lost in the vagueries common to those pretending to have access to something they don't, your belief doesn't amount to anything either ... although, ironically, this is the sort of ultra subjective myopic uselessness of belief (namely beliefs that can't be qualified in any meaningful manner) of pseudo-spiritualism that atheists delightfully have a field day with ....

 

You could say it is essential, but as an experience, if we want to focus on the experience of breathing, that requires special concentration of a variety that is impractical to sustain 24 hrs a day. As such, the "experience " of breathing tends to only becomes apparent when the automatic functioning of it is impaired.

Or to say it another way, if we were to take an overview of our life's most remarkable/enriching experiences (or things/events that meant the most to us), breathing would not appear in the top 10 (much less arfa brane's coveted sound of breathing) , even though it is an essential process for sustaining our corporeal existence

 

Nonsense. Other people don't really exist for you, do they ...

You're just projecting onto others your own ideas, and then you expect others to defend things you merely imagine they said or hold.

I seriously doubt you do.

Pffft. Your saying that proves you don't know jack squat about science and scholarship.

Yes, as long as one insists on remaining ignorant of the philosophy of science ...

Talking about yourself again, eh ...

There you go again! Timmy started it! And you'll just sit and pout.

And of course you'll kill off, for real or at least in your mind, all those who don't agree with you.

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There is a succint saying, but I couldn't find the exact reference for it online, that a devotee thinks of God with each and every breath.

A similar one:
MM 46: The wise inhabitants of the heavenly regions know that the perfection of the head is to offer prostrate obeisances to the Supreme Lord, the perfection of the life-breath is to worship the Lord, the perfection of the mind is to ponder the details of His transcendental qualities, and the perfection of speech is to chant the glories of His qualities.

 

People often argue that way in philosophical theology.

For example, the word 'God' might sometimes be defined by reference to a list of supposed divine qualities. Somebody else might then point out that two or more of those qualities appear to be logically inconsistent. The motive in doing that typically isn't to prove that God doesn't exist, but rather to argue that the given list of qualities isn't really a satisfactory definition of 'God'.

 

I agree with Arf. We needn't have the a-priori ability to pre-define everything that we can possibly experience, in order for us to be able to experience those things.

If that was the case, then we would never be able to experience anything new. Children wouldn't be able to learn language in the first place.

 

LG might be thinking that an experience, even if it's an unspoken private experience, doesn't really become an experience until we can speak it to ourselves in linguistic terms in some interior monologue.

I'm inclined to think that our experiences always exceeds and overflows our ability to put those experiences into words.

People can have experiences that are totally impossible to describe. Taking LSD will generate endless experiential examples. Mundane experience probably provides countless examples as well. There's philosophy's so-called 'qualia', such as how the color red looks. We can all recognize it, but try describing it in words to a blind man.

Is it possible for any linguistic description to capture and represent every aspect of human experience, without any remainder?

 

You think that an experience is meaningless unless you can talk about it.
That is complete crap, you are a fool.

Why? Because you have taken up a burden that doesn't exist. You have a problem, you have to explain everything to the extent you can't draw a breath without rationalising it.
To you, breathing is an experience that amounts to nothing; I'm surprised you're still doing it. You think you understand everything, which makes you an even bigger fool.

You're deluded, but you can't see it. Your mind is in control, and you don't know what your mind is. Good job. Ha ha. You deserve each other.

That's wrong. Your idiotic explanation as usual says nothing helpful or informative. It's just your opinion, and not a very good one.
I really wish you'd stop preaching. Who told you you knew how to do that?

Breathing might not be in your top 10, but who do you think cares? And why do you think I covet the sound of breathing? Who said it was about the sound? I did mention that your breath makes sound, but where did I say that was what breathing is about, or that I "covet" it?
You really are an idiot, aren't you?

 

You respond to what you see, not necessarily to what is written on the page.
I have often caught you in lying and misrepresenting people.

I can see how you treat people here at the forums. Many have complained about you already.

This is a very limited understanding of people's reasons for believing in God.

Dunning-Kruger at its best!

There is more to violence that just hitting and shooting people or speaking harshly and calling names.

Mentioned it earlier, in a reply to you. Do keep up with the thread.

The ease with which you project ugly things onto and into other people says a lot about you.

 

31st plane of existence, like I said. Not able to learn the Dharma.

 

Oh fuck.

 

It's not an "ability to pre-define everything". Whether we like it or not, we learn all kinds of definitions about what this or that is, this happens as we grow up, listening to what other people tell us, what we read. And then, sooner or later, we get in contact with those things, and experience them according to the definitions we've learned (or created by contemplation based on various input) before.

It's a matter of awareness. We're aware of as much as we know. We can't be aware of what we don't know; at most, we can be aware of a certain lack that we either cannot further identify, or identify it according to what we do know.

I think that depends on whom we are trying to communicate with about said experience. Describing something to someone who is hostile toward one is quite a different matter than describing it to a friendly person.

Indeed. Which is why such experiences are also mostly useless.

Sure. It may just require a different conceptual approach and a different motivation for communicating about it.

 

So according to this paradigm, our human ancestors only had "low end" experiences before they evolved speech.

Thankyou Captain Obvious.
And of course "awareness" can be of your mind and your thoughts. Unless you believe that you don't experience anything without thinking, which leaves our "unthinking" ancestors in a somewhat difficult position.

How could you possibly know that? Why say it as if you're some kind of authority, and why should anyone believe you are?