This is thoughtful and reasonable. I am a nondualist myself and just recently stumbled upon your work. That is something that has bothered me, this "meaninglessness" element expressed by nondualists. However, misunderstanding contributes to this perception. Nisargadatta (whom I admire a great deal) to some questions put to him characterized life as a passing of time. Out of context that sentiment sounds nihilistic. At many other times, however, he spoke and acted with deep compassion and empathy for others and asserted that the deepest meaning of life can only be ascertained experientially (i.e., enlightenment). If that is your main bone of contention with nonduality, then there is very little difference between Idealism and nonduality indeed. Your thoroughly analytical approach, however, is truly admirable, even astonishing. You will sway many many people who would ordinarily reject any concepts contrary to materialism.
ALL: I cannot comment on philosophical content via RUclips comments anymore, due to limited time and redundancy with other places where I do discuss my philosophical system. So if you like to engage on philosophical discussions, please post in my Discussion Forum at: groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/metaphysical-speculations. You can find more useful links about my philosophical system here: www.bernardokastrup.com/2015/04/social-media-policy-and-useful-links.html. I count on your understanding!
Ramana Maharshi was hampered by words also. As a great Advaita teacher, he used words his audience could appreciate and understand. He once said that maya (illusion) is all but impossible to define, so he uses the awkward term maya and considers it good enough for the occasion. He said that the best way to communicate is through silence, which he tried to do, but many in his audience simply could not grasp it; so he chose the next best vehicle: verbal communication. "The Complete Works of Ramana Maharshi" explains his philosophy very well. Also, in the back part of that book, are the writings of Shankara (9th century); he traveled all over India winning every argument regarding Advaita Vedanta. I highly recommend that book. I think I got it from Amazon. Also, David Godman has a very good book explaining Ramana's ideas.
If your self-reflection obfuscates the unconscious, shouldn't I become aware of the unconscious when I am fully absorbed by for example a movie when I forget myself and am only focused on the film?
So I am fully conscious also when sleeping (also when not dreaming)? So why do I sleep then at all and how is the illusion created that I am sleeping? Also during surgery I am fully conscious of all pain despite being narcotized? So why are narcotics used, how do they work and what effect do they cause?
Personal thinking and remembering in Plato's Mind Uncannilly, Leibniz's Monadology often seems to provide answers to unforeseen questions, no doubt because the structure of Leibniz's universe is correct. First of all, a person, by which we mean the monad of a human, has intellectual capacities, ie has an individual Mind, which we designate mind or soul (Leibniz uses the term "spirit"). This contains his identity and has downward control, namely, dominance over a set of nested personal monads, such as the brain, the nervous system, and so forth. Leibniz's concept of monads differentiates him from the later British empiricists, such as Hume and Locke, who, unlike Leibniz, did not have Mind or mind in their toolbox to help them explain perception, impressions, and ideas. Here we will be able to to deal with such mental objects (Secondnesses) by calling them "intendeds", or "intended mental objects", a concept explored by the psychologist Meinong in the 19th century germany. These are Leibniz's apperceptions, which are perceptional experiences that we attend to so that they are intended or thought, making the experiences conscious. Monads are the mental correspondents of physical bodies. Intendeds or apperceptions are mental experiences made conscious by the intellect's intending them of thinking them (reflecting on them). These constitute our memory, and, although I cannot find such a claim at present in Leibniz's works, from Hume and Locke afterwards and simply from common sense, perceptions (memory) fade with time. They do not face in Plato's Mind, which is unchanging. Note that humans cannot see all mental experiences clearly, there is always some cloudiness or distortion, according to Leibniz. I propose that the more clear perceptions (following Hume), constitute ideas, which are then intendeds. These are similar to monads but have no corresponding physical bodies. Intendeds not being monads, these intendeds as ideas can then be compared and manipulated directly by the personal mind (soul). since they have attached intents, and downward control is in effect. Not all experiences are made conscious; the vast majority of them are not reflected on and so remain unconscious. Leibniz seems to be the first to discover this "unconscious", made famous later by Freud, whose method basically was to make perceptions (in the form of dreams) into conscious apperceptions. As to the particular mechanisms of such thinking, I refer the reader to annarborscienceskeptic.com/2011/david-hume/david-hume-impressions-and-ideas/ -- Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (retired, 2000). See my Leibniz site: rclough@verizon.academia.edu/RogerClough For personal messages use rclough@verizon.net
How can we be aware of something at all if not self-reflectively? Non self-reflective experiences are not my experiences. Are schizophrenic people having non self-reflective experiences when experiencing thoughts and feelings as not their own?
I love you, Bernard but whilst i am with you regarding the non existence of a world outside of mind, i can’t understand how that ‘world’ could be obfuscated by the glare, as well. I watched this vid years ago. You were a qualia in consciousness then and now. But in between, was this vid obfuscated or non existent/outside mind? Much gratitude for any comments from anyone, thanks. Xxx
I like to refer to existence as God's dream because it implies that there is the utmost meaning behind certain "illusions". Maybe we should use the word "metaphor/symbol" instead of "illusion".
You say one time the unconscious is in our consciousness and is therefore conscious, however, obfuscated. On the other hand you say that we only do not know that we are conscious of the unconscious. I think the latter statement is more consistent. Obfuscated means to me that there is still a bit of experience of the unconscious left. Wheras the second alternative clearly says there is no knowledge about and experience of the consciousness of the unconscious. However, if you need a mechanism to tell you what you are conscious of, then the consciousness itself seems not to contain enough information or experience to do that on its own. So the unconscious cannot have any content of qualia and is therefore an illusion. If you add your statement that conscious and unconscious is in consciousness and therefore the same, then also conscious experience is an illusion. You cannot just say there is no difference between unconscious and conscious experiences because they are all in consciousness but at the same time grant that we do not know about the unconscious. You are clearly introducing two different realms here and therefore a dualism. That this dualism is in consciousness does not matter. It's still a dualism and the mechanism to make us know of our unconsciousness is your hard problem.
+Keith Greenan *sigh*... This is a completely nonsensical argument that I've tired to explaining. Look at section 2 of this: www.bernardokastrup.com/p/policy.html
Seeing as you're still alive to comment, you have never personally experienced death by car. You have only SEEN others get hit by cars. Their dying may simply be a reflection of what you THINK getting hit by a car means in "the real world." You can't rely on empirical data as strongly as you thought, for all you see are your own mental constructions.
Hey Bernardo, don’t know if you’ll see this but is it possible to debunk hard solipsism? Or at least reduce the solipsist metaphysic to being highly unlikely compared to other idealistic views??
The point about illusion, yes its probably misunderstood by many. In Advaita Vedanta, they explain the diversities in the universe with the word Maya(pronounced Maayaa), which means "that which is not". According to this, the phenomenal world is not real but not opposite of it either( i.e. not not real). The word "illusion" doesn't really convey the meaning of the word "Maya" and hence can be said to be the case of 'meaning lost in translation'. P.S. : I love your videos BTW. :)
What about binocular rivalry? In that situation you claim that we permanently see the imgagines of both eyes. But everybody can easily experience that this is not true. That is extremely counterintuitive. Especially as you otherwise are appealing to the intuitiveness of your idealism. That is inconsistent! You interpret things differently just as you need them in the individual situation.
What about neglect? That syndrome shows that what you are not aware of is not in your consciousness. So the arguing with obfuscated consciousness is wrong. What about blindsight? Here we can even use visual knowledge but are not conscious of it. Again a counterargument against obfuscated consciousness.
Dear Mr. Kastrup, if I am not aware of something, it is not in my consciousness (the gorilla crossing the basketball scene without most spectators noting it shows that). No matter if you call that unconsciousness or obfuscated consciousness. Everything else is pure speculation and not parsimonious. So of course you still have the hard question how unconsciousness becomes consciousness intrinsically imbedded in your theory. Or how consciousness can be obfuscated to unconsciousness. Beside that your example that you technically see the stars also at noon is not a good analogy. Of course your eye receptors receive photons from stars also at noon. But it does not make any difference for them, the output signal is the same as without stars. So you you don't see stars at day. But you want to illustrate how you can see something but are not aware of it.
the seperate threads are created through the creation of seperate biological mechanisms or bodies which include there own compucentic abilities brain . so the pur being can be informed by individuation of creations thats why there is a separation in all things so when your body dies it releases you back to pure being and you will become another form of seperate sourse
the unconscious and conscious arent static and change in relation to each other depending on integration state , muscles integrate them (when working properly )
Marcus, you may like this, since it talks about the relationship between the body and the 'unconscious':www.bernardokastrup.com/2014/06/the-case-for-integrative-medicine.html Cheers, B.
I have for some time used the word 'alterconscious' for all those parts of consciousness, whether personal or larger, which lie outside the narrow confines of the personal conscious focus. Clearly, the alterconscious is not un-conscious; it's just that our personal consciousness focus is excluding it, whilst it functions - in the waking state - as a reducing valve, able to concentrate on tightly-focussed concerns, whilst excluding - somewhat - the vast cloud of the rest of Big Mind from immediate front-and-centre attention. It's all about attention. Didn't Castaneda report don Juan Matus as speaking of something that he called The Second Attention - that being what apprentice sorcerers like Carlos had to learn to attain at will.
![DDG & G Herbo - Nosey [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I9Ra0Zc2NlQ/mqdefault.jpg)
This is thoughtful and reasonable. I am a nondualist myself and just recently stumbled upon your work. That is something that has bothered me, this "meaninglessness" element expressed by nondualists. However, misunderstanding contributes to this perception. Nisargadatta (whom I admire a great deal) to some questions put to him characterized life as a passing of time. Out of context that sentiment sounds nihilistic. At many other times, however, he spoke and acted with deep compassion and empathy for others and asserted that the deepest meaning of life can only be ascertained experientially (i.e., enlightenment). If that is your main bone of contention with nonduality, then there is very little difference between Idealism and nonduality indeed. Your thoroughly analytical approach, however, is truly admirable, even astonishing. You will sway many many people who would ordinarily reject any concepts contrary to materialism.
ALL: I cannot comment on philosophical content via RUclips comments anymore, due to limited time and redundancy with other places where I do discuss my philosophical system. So if you like to engage on philosophical discussions, please post in my Discussion Forum at: groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/metaphysical-speculations. You can find more useful links about my philosophical system here: www.bernardokastrup.com/2015/04/social-media-policy-and-useful-links.html. I count on your understanding!
Ramana Maharshi was hampered by words also. As a great Advaita teacher, he used words his audience could appreciate and understand. He once said that maya (illusion) is all but impossible to define, so he uses the awkward term maya and considers it good enough for the occasion. He said that the best way to communicate is through silence, which he tried to do, but many in his audience simply could not grasp it; so he chose the next best vehicle: verbal communication.
"The Complete Works of Ramana Maharshi" explains his philosophy very well. Also, in the back part of that book, are the writings of Shankara (9th century); he traveled all over India winning every argument regarding Advaita Vedanta. I highly recommend that book. I think I got it from Amazon. Also, David Godman has a very good book explaining Ramana's ideas.
Fully participating in the sorrows of the world, as Joe Campbell would've said. "Is this a private fight, or can anybody join?"
Lovely Joe, greatly missed...
Thank you. You are keeping me company while I paint. My art is inspired by visions in meditation and mathematics in nature.
jamie Gaviola Wow, I'm happy to help inspire art!
Bernardo rocks 🤙🏽
If your self-reflection obfuscates the unconscious, shouldn't I become aware of the unconscious when I am fully absorbed by for example a movie when I forget myself and am only focused on the film?
So I am fully conscious also when sleeping (also when not dreaming)? So why do I sleep then at all and how is the illusion created that I am sleeping?
Also during surgery I am fully conscious of all pain despite being narcotized? So why are narcotics used, how do they work and what effect do they cause?
Personal thinking and remembering in Plato's Mind
Uncannilly, Leibniz's Monadology often seems to provide answers to unforeseen
questions, no doubt because the structure of Leibniz's universe is correct.
First of all, a person, by which we mean the monad of a human,
has intellectual capacities, ie has an individual Mind, which we designate
mind or soul (Leibniz uses the term "spirit"). This contains his identity and
has downward control, namely, dominance over a set of nested personal
monads, such as the brain, the nervous system, and so forth.
Leibniz's concept of monads differentiates him from the later British empiricists,
such as Hume and Locke, who, unlike Leibniz, did not have Mind or mind in their toolbox
to help them explain perception, impressions, and ideas. Here we will be able to
to deal with such mental objects (Secondnesses) by calling them "intendeds",
or "intended mental objects", a concept explored by the psychologist Meinong in the 19th
century germany. These are Leibniz's apperceptions, which are perceptional experiences
that we attend to so that they are intended or thought, making the experiences conscious.
Monads are the mental correspondents of physical bodies. Intendeds or apperceptions
are mental experiences made conscious by the intellect's intending them of thinking them
(reflecting on them). These constitute our memory, and, although I cannot find such
a claim at present in Leibniz's works, from Hume and Locke afterwards and simply from
common sense, perceptions (memory) fade with time. They do not face in Plato's Mind,
which is unchanging.
Note that humans cannot see all mental experiences clearly, there is always some
cloudiness or distortion, according to Leibniz. I propose that the more clear perceptions
(following Hume), constitute ideas, which are then intendeds. These are similar to
monads but have no corresponding physical bodies. Intendeds not being monads, these
intendeds as ideas can then be compared and manipulated directly by the personal mind (soul).
since they have attached intents, and downward control is in effect.
Not all experiences are made conscious; the vast majority of them are not reflected on and
so remain unconscious. Leibniz seems to be the first to discover this "unconscious",
made famous later by Freud, whose method basically was to make perceptions
(in the form of dreams) into conscious apperceptions.
As to the particular mechanisms of such thinking, I refer the reader to
annarborscienceskeptic.com/2011/david-hume/david-hume-impressions-and-ideas/
--
Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (retired, 2000).
See my Leibniz site: rclough@verizon.academia.edu/RogerClough
For personal messages use rclough@verizon.net
How can we be aware of something at all if not self-reflectively? Non self-reflective experiences are not my experiences. Are schizophrenic people having non self-reflective experiences when experiencing thoughts and feelings as not their own?
I love you, Bernard but whilst i am with you regarding the non existence of a world outside of mind, i can’t understand how that ‘world’ could be obfuscated by the glare, as well. I watched this vid years ago. You were a qualia in consciousness then and now. But in between, was this vid obfuscated or non existent/outside mind?
Much gratitude for any comments from anyone, thanks. Xxx
I like to refer to existence as God's dream because it implies that there is the utmost meaning behind certain "illusions". Maybe we should use the word "metaphor/symbol" instead of "illusion".
You say one time the unconscious is in our consciousness and is therefore conscious, however, obfuscated. On the other hand you say that we only do not know that we are conscious of the unconscious. I think the latter statement is more consistent. Obfuscated means to me that there is still a bit of experience of the unconscious left. Wheras the second alternative clearly says there is no knowledge about and experience of the consciousness of the unconscious.
However, if you need a mechanism to tell you what you are conscious of, then the consciousness itself seems not to contain enough information or experience to do that on its own. So the unconscious cannot have any content of qualia and is therefore an illusion. If you add your statement that conscious and unconscious is in consciousness and therefore the same, then also conscious experience is an illusion.
You cannot just say there is no difference between unconscious and conscious experiences because they are all in consciousness but at the same time grant that we do not know about the unconscious. You are clearly introducing two different realms here and therefore a dualism. That this dualism is in consciousness does not matter. It's still a dualism and the mechanism to make us know of our unconsciousness is your hard problem.
All can not be mind. If you walk in front of a car and get killed its not your mind that killed you it was the car.
+Keith Greenan *sigh*... This is a completely nonsensical argument that I've tired to explaining. Look at section 2 of this: www.bernardokastrup.com/p/policy.html
Seeing as you're still alive to comment, you have never personally experienced death by car. You have only SEEN others get hit by cars. Their dying may simply be a reflection of what you THINK getting hit by a car means in "the real world." You can't rely on empirical data as strongly as you thought, for all you see are your own mental constructions.
Hey Bernardo, don’t know if you’ll see this but is it possible to debunk hard solipsism? Or at least reduce the solipsist metaphysic to being highly unlikely compared to other idealistic views??
The point about illusion, yes its probably misunderstood by many. In Advaita Vedanta, they explain the diversities in the universe with the word Maya(pronounced Maayaa), which means "that which is not". According to this, the phenomenal world is not real but not opposite of it either( i.e. not not real). The word "illusion" doesn't really convey the meaning of the word "Maya" and hence can be said to be the case of 'meaning lost in translation'.
P.S. : I love your videos BTW. :)
What about binocular rivalry? In that situation you claim that we permanently see the imgagines of both eyes. But everybody can easily experience that this is not true. That is extremely counterintuitive. Especially as you otherwise are appealing to the intuitiveness of your idealism. That is inconsistent! You interpret things differently just as you need them in the individual situation.
What about neglect? That syndrome shows that what you are not aware of is not in your consciousness. So the arguing with obfuscated consciousness is wrong. What about blindsight? Here we can even use visual knowledge but are not conscious of it. Again a counterargument against obfuscated consciousness.
Dear Mr. Kastrup, if I am not aware of something, it is not in my consciousness (the gorilla crossing the basketball scene without most spectators noting it shows that). No matter if you call that unconsciousness or obfuscated consciousness. Everything else is pure speculation and not parsimonious. So of course you still have the hard question how unconsciousness becomes consciousness intrinsically imbedded in your theory. Or how consciousness can be obfuscated to unconsciousness.
Beside that your example that you technically see the stars also at noon is not a good analogy. Of course your eye receptors receive photons from stars also at noon. But it does not make any difference for them, the output signal is the same as without stars. So you you don't see stars at day. But you want to illustrate how you can see something but are not aware of it.
the seperate threads are created through the creation of seperate biological mechanisms or bodies which include there own compucentic abilities brain . so the pur being can be informed by individuation of creations thats why there is a separation in all things so when your body dies it releases you back to pure being and you will become another form of seperate sourse
the unconscious and conscious arent static and change in relation to each other depending on integration state , muscles integrate them (when working properly )
Marcus, you may like this, since it talks about the relationship between the body and the 'unconscious':www.bernardokastrup.com/2014/06/the-case-for-integrative-medicine.html
Cheers, B.
Brilliant and very helpful. Thank you, Bernardo - great work.
I have for some time used the word 'alterconscious' for all those parts of consciousness, whether personal or larger, which lie outside the narrow confines of the personal conscious focus. Clearly, the alterconscious is not un-conscious; it's just that our personal consciousness focus is excluding it, whilst it functions - in the waking state - as a reducing valve, able to concentrate on tightly-focussed concerns, whilst excluding - somewhat - the vast cloud of the rest of Big Mind from immediate front-and-centre attention. It's all about attention. Didn't Castaneda report don Juan Matus as speaking of something that he called The Second Attention - that being what apprentice sorcerers like Carlos had to learn to attain at will.
Interesting. What do you think about Hegel and his logic from a concept of a concept?