On Jul 25, 2010, at 5:42 AM, Magnus Berg wrote: > Hi Marsha, sorry for the interruption, I have a few things left unsaid here. > > >>> I think you're forgetting something regarding "experience". Experience >>> is not just about you, it requires something on the other end of the >>> experience as well. >> >> Marsha: >> Do you think so? I don't think it always to be so. There are static >> patterned experiences AND unpatterned experiences. > > Yes, I do. Unpatterned experience is still experience. It's never *only* DQ, > only DQ is nothing (no-thing). If you really, really try to experience > nothingness, > would that be something like meditation? In that case, it's still an > experience of > something in your brain. It can be very dynamic thoughts, you may have no > concious control over them, but they're still thoughts, and as such > intellectual > patterns.
Perhaps pure sensation, but still without pattern or thought. I use the term 'unpatterned experience' to avoid using DQ which is unknowable and undefinable. There was full awareness, but I say there were NO concepts or intellectual patterns. When thoughts returned, the difference was very noticeable. Btw, I didn't really try to experience nothingness, in visual awareness thoughts just dropped away. It is modern to say it is an experience 'in the brain', but there is no certainty that it is solely a function of the brain. In fact, there is very little certainty of how either awareness or the flow of consciousness function. I had the same experience a couple of times. That was last fall, I haven't had such an experience since then. I know what I've describe sounds a bit wacky, and I cannot think that it is extremely profound because then the questions arises: Why me? It is more likely something dsthat happens all the time, but slips awareness because of the intrusion of thoughts. > > Or what else would you describe as an experience completely void of SQ? Unpatterned experience seems to fit the description well. > >>> This is usually used the other way around, to >>> indicate that a tree might *not* fall in the forest if nobody is there >>> to hear or see it. However, it's just as valid if we turn it around. For >>> you to have an experience, it requires both an experiencer and something >>> to experience. This is the subject and object side of the Quality event. >>> This isn't speculation. The way you use the word "experience", it seems >>> as if you just acknowledge the subjective side of it, but that's just >>> half of the experience, half of quality, and half of reality. >> >> You do not need to acknowledge anything: neither the subjective nor the >> objective. > > What? So you have scrapped the quality event? You do not need to acknowledge/energize the event. One can just let it slide on by. I learned this in mediation many moons ago. Nothing special here. > >>> Regarding the "most useful hypothesis" you mentioned. I think the MoQ >>> levels are quite useful here as well. As I replied to Ham yesterday, some >>> are often afraid to take anything for granted nowadays, and that is because >>> SOM doesn't acknowledge anything but the lowest possible explanation to >>> be really real. It doesn't acknowledge that taste is real, because taste is >>> just >>> a biological process built using inorganic ones. >> >> Nothing wrong with direct tasteful experiences. I won't deny them. >> >> >>> And then gravity is next, gravity isn't real anymore because there is some >>> underlying process that explains how it works. So, in fear of believing in >>> something that might get jerked away, people stop believing in anything. >>> The only thing that people *can* believe in is experiences that science is >>> quite incapable of explaining, like why a work of art is beautiful, or why >>> you >>> like a song. So that becomes the only things that people can say: "This is >>> my >>> reality. Neither you nor anyone else can take that away from me by >>> explaining >>> that it's just chemistry, or magnetism, or entropy, or whatever." >> >> Conventionally useful and workable patterns are good, and some offer more >> beauty and harmony than others. > > When you say "Conventionally useful and workable patterns are good", I sense > you're referring to the *theory* of gravity, right? But that's not what I > meant. When > I say "gravity", I mean the force (or whatever it is) that keeps our feet on > the ground, > not the theory with formulas that can be used to calculate how fast an apple > will fall. All these aspects of "gravity" seem useful. What is this force apart from the patterns that identify it? > > That article about gravity you posted a link to for example, the aim of that > was to > make us doubt, not the currently used *theory* about gravity, but gravity > itself! We > were not supposed to doubt Einstein's formulas, but the very fact that > gravity holds > us to the ground. The realness of gravity was defined as something else, and > we > sticking to the ground was just a side-effect. Explanations (patterns) change. No reason to doubt sticking to the ground, at least not in this moment. > Also, in the taste example, you have no problem acknowledging the realness of > taste, but you duck the realness of gravity by talking about useful and > workable > patterns. I think it's a bit inconsistent. I taste. I stick to the ground. What's to doubt? >>> But the levels of the MoQ *are* exactly such stepping stones that we *can* >>> believe in. We can claim without having to ever take it back, that the >>> taste of >>> the freshly brewed coffee in my cup is real, that gravity keeps my feet to >>> the >>> ground, etc. >> >> For me the levels offer a hierarchical, evolutionary criteria on which to >> consider >> moral questions. Why do you need to believe in a cup of coffee? If a cup >> of >> coffee is there, taste it. If you trip, pick yourself up. > > Because if you don't have a good framework with which to show that the taste > of a > cup of coffee is real, SOMeone will take away that experience and explain it > in > terms of biochemical formulas. Krimel, for example? His explanations are really interesting and describe the movement within conventional understanding, but I have a very healthy skepticism against ALL authorities: religious, scientific or the new church of probability. > I know very well that you're not the kind of person that believes more in > biochemical > formulas than a taste experience, but some people are. I think the idea is to expand understanding. Sometimes the biochemical theory is as interesting as the taste experience, sometimes more interesting. >> Did I somewhere state that your sister has a mustache or wore army boots? > > No, did I state something similar about you? Or why did you say that? Sorry, I was most likely projecting on to you some defensiveness. It's a fault I cannot always control. >>>> But in the fourth >>>> level it has become formalized and can do the most damage by its >>>> emphasis an objective, thing-in-itself world and "real" knowledge. >>> >>> And what damage is that exactly? That things you believe in can be taken >>> away? >> >> For all the advanced technological and scientific knowledge the world is a >> mess >> with too much ugliness, and without any abatement of greed, and without much >> relief from suffering. imho > > IMHO, science and technology can be extremely beautiful, and I think it's a > big mistake > to connect technology and science with ugliness, greed or suffering. I agree with you. Here's where I think Krimel's "zoom in, zoom out, refocus" is very useful. > II bet there are plenty examples to show they stick together, but I also bet > there are > at least that many examples to show the opposite. So, there's simply no > connection, > it just depends on which examples you choose. Again I agree. > > Magnus > Marsha ___ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
