Is there a way to tell when you are deluded?

Gee, why indeed, Mr. Neither-Perception-Nor-Non-perception.

 

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I'm quite sure that at least deep down, even you don't believe that mantra.

After all, all this are just words on the forum - mere words - and yet you get upset over them.

Psychological violence is real.

 

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If that was true, then how could we ever experience anything new for the first time? How could any object of experience ever be mysterious to us?

Sure. Psychedelic experiences probably are mostly useless. But one thing they can reveal to us is that it's not difficult to have experiences to which no word or concept corresponds. Experiences like that fall far outside the boundaries of an individual's existing knowledge and linguistic vocabulary. I'm not suggesting that those experiences are useful for much of anything, just that their existence disproves the idea that experience is necessarily limited to what we already have knowledge of or possess words and concepts to describe.

There's no need to take psychedelic drugs. Everyday experience also provides plenty of examples of ineffable experience. There's what the color red looks like, for example. We all can recognize red by its look easily enough, but none of us can communicate what red looks like in words.

 

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Now you've managed to invert the meaning of what I've been saying, which is this: you can perceive (i.e experience) a lot of things without thinking about them. But according to you and lightgigantic (for some reason that name pisses me off), you can't perceive or experience unless you think, then speak (about something or other). That is ridiculous, ludicrous, laughable. Something a deluded person would believe, or a fuckhead.

 

We don't really, at least not completely.

Pictures of aliens are a good example of this principle: sure, as a whole, the portrayed creatures may indeed look like nothing we've ever seen before; but on the other hand, in those pictures, those creatures look simply like a combination of things we have seen before.

By not having much of a definition of it, but still some.
A completely foreign thing wouldn't even register in our awareness.


Take, for example, heart sounds. To an uninstructed lay, the heart makes one sound, and that's it. A lay wouldn't hear a "protodiastolic gallop", but would probably hear simply a sound. But a skilled person can recognize a whole number of sounds and specifics, and has an understanding of what they mean and how they come about. They couldn't notice that unless they first studied the medical textbooks where this is explained.

Of course, when heart sounds were first discovered, this required the work of someone with fine ears and a sense for analytical thinking (ie. already available concepts of various kinds, such as the idea that it might be audible when the blood is pushed out of the heart).
But normally, med students don't discover these things on their own, like the first researchers and doctors did over a long course of progressively refined work, instead, med students just learn from textbooks and then hear the heart sounds in line with what the yhave learned in the books.

"Silly" and "useless" correspond just fine.

It seems that what you're after is a very specific kind of verbal analysis of those experiences, like figuring out the exact color coordinates for each shade of color one might see in drug-induced hallucinations. And that failure to produce that kind of analysis is evidence that we can have experience without knowledge.

Back to the aliens example: Ever wondered why all the depictions of aliens always look like combinations of what we already know?

I think you are unduly limiting the notion of knowledge to verbal knowledge, hence your focus on the ineffable. You also seem to focus on the non-metaphorical as the only valid approach.

I've heard there are literary theorists who believe that it possible to adequately analyze literature only in metaphorical terms, often an emotional terminology is used. "A poem is a meeting of two minds" or "that verse is red" might be things they'd say, as opposed o the traditional approach to analyzing literature.

As for what the color red looks like - this will depend on the culture. For example, to a blind Tibetan Buddhist, saying that red is the color of compassion would make perfect sense, and would be an adequate description both for blind and for seeing Buddhists in that tradition.

It's only when we try to decontextualize terms that we run into problems you describe.

 

See, you're thinking while experiencing. And your particular thoughts enrich your experience.

 

I can think while I experience such things as listening to music, or reading a book, but this is mostly distracting, it doesn't enrich the experience at all. So I prefer to try ignoring my thoughts, and concentrate on my breathing, or "something else". Strangely, when I do this I don't feel any need to think about breathing, I just do it.

But by all means, enjoy being stuck with your belief: you not only are capable of thinking, you have to think. Who knows what might happen if you try to stop?

 

Just consider how thinking (!) how LG's screen name pisses you off, enriches (!) your experience of the communication here ...

Commonly known as "zoning out," "false concentration" or "bare awareness."

I would have the illusion of being enlightened.

 

I don't have to look it up, or ask someone like you about it. I don't care what it's "commonly" known as. When I play music, on a piano, I generally don't think about having to position my hands or fingers, or what the notes are I'm reading. In fact, I can't look at sheet music and my hands at the same time. But I just play, regardless of thoughts.

That is, I concentrate on what I'm doing, but I don't create a running mental commentary. When I play the piano, thoughts are just distracting. So, in your paradigm I'm not "experiencing" playing a piano (??) Ridiculous, absurd, cannot possibly be true.

But you already have that.

 

Lol
So at the end of the day you tag (at least what you claim to be) relevant criteria to a given experience!
:shrug:

 

I have only a slight idea what that means. But, when does this "end of the day" happen? What are "relevant criteria"? I do understand "given experience", but the rest is so obtuse I gave up.

I've noticed that's your thing, though. You put almost totally obtuse statements together, I suppose because you think it reflects how intelligent and informed you are. Bit of a failure there, then.
I don't care if you have trouble expressing yourself. If you want to be in a discussion you should try to communicate effectively.

 

When reality drags you out of your cloud castle of spurious arguments

Whatever we deem as sufficient to problematize a claim of experience .... such as you just did a moment ago with Wynn

Assuming that you validate claims via criteria, more evidence how there is a vast network of language behind your thinking at every moment

 

Ah. So "at the end of the day" I have to face reality and realise all my arguments are spurious. Well, that doesn't happen when the sun goes down, it happens all the time.

I see. So my claim of "experiencing" playing the piano, involves a sufficient set of "relevant criteria" with which I can "problematize" my claim that I am, in fact, playing a piano, and not say, a trombone?
Wow, I didn't realise experience was that complicated, but I've got you here to tell me all about it!

The criteria are necessarily things that can be vocalised, in words? There is no other possibility? If I look at a piano and I don't think or say, "there's a piano", it isn't there? I've failed to validate my claim of seeing a piano?

 

Its more that you have to realize that even you have difficulty abiding by the arguments you are trying to present here

actually wynn wasn't talking about that, she was talking about enlightenment ... to which you said that she is deluded in that regard. We can only assume that you have criteria for this claim, even if she was to retreat behind an ultra-subjective myopic form of pseudo-spiritualism that defies anyone to qualify any claim of experience with criteria


... however, if you want to talk about playing a piano as an example of an experience bereft of language/code/literacy, that is probably a more ineffective example since it involves sheet music

Its not so much complicated but perennial

... and codes and literacy et el ... Even if you were to look at a piano and think "firewood" instead of "musical instrument" you still would be obedient to this general principle. IOW there is something about extracting meaning from our environment (of which, spoken language is but a consequence as opposed to the only "tool" or "code" at hand ... just to save you from trying to derail this point with your literal mindedness for the umpteenth time) that is so perennial and so automatic that it only ever disappears from view amongst low end experiences or experiences that are so unremarkable that they don't warrant our attention.

 

On the contrary, it would be impossible for us to learn new things if we didn't have an established code for analyzing our environment, since there would be no means to distinguish one assimilated experience from a new one.

For instance, the experience of eating a new type of food would not be possible if the framework of eating (as an assimilated experience) was not available to us.

 

Look, you asked for an example of an activity or experience that doesn't need you to think about it. If all you can do in response is act like a dickhead, so be it.

As for "abiding by the arguments" I'm trying to present, I can breathe, ergo I'm abiding with my argument, which is that I can experience something and not think about it. This does not mean I'm unaware of what I'm doing, what it does mean is I have no need for an internal or external dialog.

Maybe she is, how would I know? I can only judge what someone posts.

What?

So now sheet music qualifies as a language? I guess I can live with that. But how many other things might then qualify as "languages"? Since you opened the door on it.

So our non-speaking ancestors must have done this too?
But this extraction of meaning surely doesn't require that you form actual words in your native language, either mentally or vocally? And doesn't your definition of this "extraction process" only mean that experiences we discount as not warranting attention, become "low end", when in fact this is a completely subjective and arbitrary distinction?

Like, if you can't breathe for some reason, breathing suddenly is a lot less "low end". But you can concentrate on your breathing anytime, you can do it while carrying out some other activity, and it is not "low end" then either, simply because you're focussed on it. And there are all those writings you mentioned, are they saying that breathing is an experience that doesn't warrant your attention, it's unremarkable? So they all say not to bother with it, just let it happen and ignore it? But you already do that, like most people, so why did all those books get written?

 

will the irony never end?

except for the minor detail that the moment you enrich breathing to that of an experience (ie consciously become aware of the act ... as opposed to it occurring automatically in the background as most low end claims tend to) is the moment you fail to abide by your argument

oxymoron.
Its not possible to have an experience sans awareness

by reading the posts.
What else?

same here.
Which is why we are discussing your ideas of enlightenment at the moment ... since that, lo and behold, is what you posted.
:shrug:

sure
How the hell doesn't it?

well, if you go way back when ....

In the language of semiotics, which while also posing certain limitations in particular spheres is probably sufficient enough for the time being, they talk of both language (ie the way we define or contextualize an experience) and experience itself being products of re-presentation. IOW the tools of signal (an object/experience/ thing, etc) and signifier (what the said object/experience et al conveys) combine in a certain manner for the seer (ie the person who is having the experience) to manufacture or re-present something in themselves of "reality". This in turn produces many "codes" or language that summarizes experience or ways one has to be in order to understand the experience.

So for instance, the very use of the word "movie" dictates not only the act of it (namely the projection of a film with accompanying sound) but also the behaviour required to "unpack" the experience into a meaningful event (or at least in a meaningful event as anticipated by the producers of the film and the film critics appraisal) ... eg sitting down somewhat quietly and attentively watching the reel unwind in a chronologically sequenced event from beginning to end.

So if a film critic is talking about a film, he takes it for granted that his listeners don't need to be briefed on all these codes that surround it. And persons reading the experience expect the codes that surround film making to be present if they proceed to have the experience

So as a comparison, if a group of 16th century tribes people watched the hobbit, they would probably have difficulty appreciating the critics words.
Or if the same tribe accidentally go to a Chinese restaurant next door to the theater, one can understand by hearing their experience that they never actually went to the movie theater in the first place



IOW if you take squiggles on a piece of paper to represent music, or even a piano to represent a musical instrument (or even firewood for that matter), you are involved in drawing upon different languages to extract a purpose (or narrative) ... since sheet music has no acoustic properties, pianos don't play themselves and campfires don't organize themselves (even if made from piano wood)

sure

obviously
vocabulary is but one example of a code or language .. not the alpha and omega of codes and language.

My earlier point is that elaboration of vocabulary, or, in a more general sense, elaboration of codes, provides a frame work for a more enriched experience.
So for instance, to the initiated, sheet music plus a piano equals an opportunity to play music. To the uninitiated, the sheet music becomes kindling and the piano, firewood.

Both examples involve language and codes, however one affords a grander or more advanced or refined opportunity than the other.

the reason they are termed low end is because they (commonly) move in and out of our awareness due to their unremarkable nature.
When they move out of our awareness (such as when we go about our business totally oblivious to the act of breathing) they are not experiences.
When they move into our awareness (such as when we attend a seminar on breathing techniques or are struck down with a respiratory illness) they then become experiences ... which then brings all the before mentioned tools and codes for assimilating/refining/acknowledging an act within an environment (such as breathing more slowly, deeply, carefully etc)

sure.
And if that is not a problem, they tend to a lot more low end.
Technically any experience can be low end, but for the purposes of practicality and even civility or sanity some things are termed low end.
For instance a dead body or a burning car tyre is generally a high end experience (in that its something that automatically draws our attention and thus tools of assimilation commonly accorded to an experience). If however we were suffering trauma in a war zone highly saturated with violence, it might pass as a low end (however due to the nature of trauma affecting our regular tools of assimilation, further complications are likely to develop down the track ... such as post traumatic stress syndrome)

sure, but if you try to play the act of breathing as something that isn't accompanied by any sort of awareness, you are obviously moving it out of its low end category ... and as a further detail, if we are forced in some sort of situation where we have to render the act of breathing a constant high end experience (such as a chronic illness) we are also likely to develop similar stress related maladies as a consequence of being forced to establish an act in a wrung of experience we are not accustomed.
IOW the natural healthy constitutional position of a human being is to seek engaging experiences beyond merely breathing. So even if we do some sort of breathing exercises, it is unlikely to sustain our interest for more than an hour (and indeed people who do such things have goals aside from merely breathing ... so even it takes the form of a low end experience, its actually steeped in a high end experience as the goal ... as all of the literature with heavily inscribed pages on the subject confirms ...)

they tend to have more remarkable things to talk about than mere breathing, that's for sure.
At the very least, a person was breathing before they wrote the book or even before someone buys it, so obviously there are more loftier goals afoot than mere respiration.

People who don't breath don't buy books ..... so it begs the question what a customer would hope to learn if the subject matter, as you allude to, has no higher goal than low end breathing
:shrug:

 

Not only is there no way to tell if you yourself are deluded, but it can be impossible to convince someone else that they are deluded as well. When and if ever I find a solution to this problem, I will be sure to let you know.

 

But it is possible to have an experience and not think about it. You appear to be equating awareness with an internal dialog.
So please clarify if that's what you believe, because I don't believe that awareness necessarily entails a dialog with myself or someone else.
Once I become aware of anything at all, according to you, language appears. If you're also equating language with awareness, please say so explicitly.

Well, you might be discussing my ideas of enlightenment, but I was only discussing experience. I was trying to counter your claims that experience entails language, which I thought meant conscious thinking in words. Now I'm not sure what you mean.

But this term is an arbitrary label. It must be if your semiotics argument means anything.

What if they don't "move out" of our experience? What if it's possible that you are always aware you're breathing, at least when you're awake?

Unless, as conjectured, they are always experiences, no need to go to a seminar or get sick.

Hmm. If you do something continuously while awake, what sort of language would develop from such an activity? Would it be a language you would tend to "move out" of your awareness, and "low end" it?

What? But isn't that exactly what you've been doing? You've said repeatedly that breathing is something we tend not to be aware of; now you say that "moves it out of a low end category"?

So the label isn't just arbitrary, it has the same meaning as its negative? You have "low end" experiences unless you try to experience things so you aren't aware of them, since then they aren't "low end"? Doesn't scan.

But anyway your "high end" and "low end" labels are completely arbitrary. Take the example of a piano and sheet music. This offers someone who can read music and play a piano a "grander opportunity" than someone who sees paper and firewood, in your paradigm. I say that both have equal opportunity for "enrichment", despite arbitrary classifications. Both can feel equally fulfilled, happy, etc despite the differences in their interpretation.

 

It looks like Arf is simply confusing or conflating the memory of having done something with the actual experience of doing said thing.
Also, confusing or conflating the expectation of what it might be like to do something with the actual experience of doing said thing.