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“I” vs. "Not I"

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posted on Mar, 14 2014 @ 09:45 AM
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reply to post by arpgme
 





Since language is about concepts, it's a great idea to use metaphors and mnemonics to help people see the truth.


If by "see the truth" you mean "understand an opinion" then yes I might have to agree. But if they do not work, they only show how good, or not so good, the speaker is at forming metaphors.



posted on Mar, 14 2014 @ 11:23 AM
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Non-Dual Consciousness (abbr. NDC for future reference) can be generally described as the purposeful and methodical deconstruction of the subject/object predicate (dualism) perceptually and cognitively inherent to most sentient life. It is a misunderstood concept seldom actualized or experienced because it is obscured by the average individuals belief that the shapes, structures and objects commonly encountered in our everyday experience are indications of reality instead of being understood as mere representations of concepts used in our measuring and assessing of reality.

Alfred Korzybski, philosopher and scientist, coined a remarkably apropos phrase which encapsulates the obscuring effect Subject/Object Dualism has on the human/animal cognitive apparatus.


The map is not the territory.


Very briefly this means that what we perceive with our senses as reality are just impressions which are then comparatively modeled with any amassed experiential data we have accumulated.These sense impressions are not the thing or object reality itself and are only illusory (subjective) representations. Resultingly, it is very easy to confuse the representations or sensory models (map) for the actual reality or thing in itself (territory). A productive understanding of NDC can begin with a mathematical understanding of nature, where all existential phenomena are perceived as an multiform extrapolation of an imperishable, timeless, unitary principle. Eastern concepts such as the Tao, Purusha and more modern philosophical expressions such as Kant's, Noumenon as well as quantum mechanical terms like Superposition and Entanglement go along way in describing the meaning and potential implications of NDC.

The earliest lucid writings on the subject are arguably found in the philosophy of Sāṅkhya which is believed to have emerged as a distinct doctrine sometime in the fifth century b.c. Essentially, it describes reality in unavoidably dualistic terms where the true objective unitary reality (purusha) is couched or concealed in the false subjective myriad reality of nature (prakrti). A brief Advaitan explanation is given below,


by S. Vivekananda

I see a black-board. How does the knowledge come? What the German philosophers call "the thing-in-itself" of the blackboard is unknown, I can never know it. Let us call it x. The black-board x acts on my mind, and the mind reacts. The mind is like a lake. Throw a stone in a lake and a reactionary wave comes towards the stone; this wave is not like the stone at all, it is a wave. The black-board x is like a stone which strikes the mind and the mind throws up a wave towards it, and this wave is what we call the black-board. I see you. You as reality are unknown and unknowable. You are x and you act upon my mind, and the mind throws a wave in the direction from which the impact comes, and that wave is what I call Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so.

There are two elements in the perception, one coming from outside and the other from inside, and the combination of these two, x + mind, is our external universe. All knowledge is by reaction. In the case of a whale it has been determined by calculation how long after its tail is struck, its mind reacts and the whale feels the pain. Similar is the case with internal perception. The real self within me is also unknown and unknowable. Let us call it y. When I know myself as so-and-so, it is y + mind. That y strikes a blow on the mind. So our whole world is x + mind (external), and y + mind (internal), x and y standing for the thing-in-itself behind the external and the internal worlds respectively.


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