The Materialist Insult

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
The common definition of awareness, human awareness, depends upon the the appearance of an awake organism. . Awareness is merely a state of appearance, or an idea about something—the organism—appearing awake.

When one is 'conscious' there is an appearance appearing. Pure 'awareness' is what you are in deep sleep when there is nothing appearing.


.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

When one is 'conscious' there is an appearance appearing. Pure 'awareness' is what you are in deep sleep when there is nothing appearing.

Have you seen someone sleep? How much 'awareness' do you see? What's really there is an organism in deep sleep. No further abstraction is necessary; no mystical, non-existent substance required.

reply to post by Kashai

Friend the reason aspirin is used began with anecdotal evidence. Aspirin is derived from the bark of the Red Willow tree and this was claimed by indigenous cultures to have those properties.

Aspirin is something that can be tested because the bark of the Red Willow Tree exists. It is not anecdotal. One doesn't need to give someone the benefit of the doubt to understand its properties.

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

When one is 'conscious' there is an appearance appearing. Pure 'awareness' is what you are in deep sleep when there is nothing appearing.

Have you seen someone sleep? How much 'awareness' do you see? What's really there is an organism in deep sleep. No further abstraction is necessary; no mystical, non-existent substance required.

Do you set an alarm clock if you have to get up in the morning? Why would you do that if you are not 'aware' in deep sleep? Surely if there was no 'awareness' in deep sleep, no alarm would wake you.
Awareness is the one constant.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

Do you set an alarm clock if you have to get up in the morning? Why would you do that if you are not 'aware' in deep sleep? Surely if there was no 'awareness' in deep sleep, no alarm would wake you.
Awareness is the one constant.

What if one was def? Could an alarm wake you if you had no sense of hearing? In order to be aware, one must first be an organism. Awareness is not the one constant.

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

Do you set an alarm clock if you have to get up in the morning? Why would you do that if you are not 'aware' in deep sleep? Surely if there was no 'awareness' in deep sleep, no alarm would wake you.
Awareness is the one constant.

What if one was def? Could an alarm wake you if you had no sense of hearing? In order to be aware, one must first be an organism. Awareness is not the one constant.

One must first be aware to be able to question if one was an organism or not.

Awareness is the sense that 'I am' - can you honestly say you are not?

reply to post by Itisnowagain

One must first be aware to be able to question if one was an organism or not.

Awareness is the sense that 'I am' - can you honestly say you are not?

No. Can you?

One must first be an organism before he can question anything.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


Now I have learned to post youtube videos will you watch this with as little thought as you possibly can?

reply to post by Itisnowagain

Now I have learned to post youtube videos

Atta boy. That saves everyone a page jump to another website. I will watch it when I get home from work.

However I would rather you explain why awareness is the constant when there is no such thing. Why do we venerate this "awareness" as "the only constant" when it is preceded by something else, something much more tangible, something much more constant and real, but apparently something we value little?

Why is awareness more important than than that from which it arises?

How is awareness in anyway separate from a fully functioning human organism?

Is it not the fully functioning human organism itself—its senses, desires, functions, motivations, emotions—that is this awareness?

These questions need to be addressed before I can conclude as you do.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


All of the above questions will be answered in the video I have linked.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope

Dude, you got a makeover! Does your changing of your avatar to a much younger one mean that you are even more materialistic now? (Many people as they get older get less materialistic, especially as death approaches.)

Awareness is not actually personal - though it seems personal because it has become apparently associated with the whole body-mind. The first gesture of individuation (or separation) that awareness makes in terms of being associated with the body-mind is with the function of attention.

Attention in its most fundamental state is associated with the causal heart on the right side of the chest - an inch or so across from the subtle heart center or chakra in the middle of the chest. This "third" heart is senior to the subtle and physical hearts and is basically unknown to most people, though more and more people have heard of it now due to the popularization of the teachings of Ramana Maharshi.

Consciousness, Awareness, God, the Self, whatever one prefers to call Unconditional Reality, associates via the causal heart with attention, and so apparently individuates. Of course, I can already hear what the materialist will say about all of this, so I will say once again that one must discover this by entering into a completely committed process of finding out what Reality actually is - by first at least being open that we really know practically nothing about Reality when looking in or as the body-mind only.

If anyone thinks that we are simply the body-mind, just remind yourself of the question I have asked several times. What does the room you are in right now, actually look like in reality? If a bunch of people took a picture of this room, whose picture would really capture what the room ACTUALLY looks like in reality? This knowledge can never be known by the body-mind because the body-mind can only see, like a camera, a single point-of-view at a time.

So how can we base our entire viewpoint of reality, our very existence, on the assumption that we are the body-mind - if, in this simplest of examples, it can readily be shown the mind really does not have an actual grasp on what reality or anything appears like exactly, and even less so, what anything or anyone actually IS.

So we must deepen our understanding beyond all idealism (both materialistic beliefs and cultural/religious/spiritual beliefs) to discover what is actually Real.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope
For myself, the most important part of this consideration we have had here so far, is the agreement between us that the body-mind is best viewed as a whole single organism, or as I like to say, the whole body-mind.

This understanding actually provides the best basis for fully participating in life. If one assumes that the body-mind is simply whole, then one would necessarily participate in life with the whole body-mind. This insight that the body-mind is singular does profoundly impact our lives if we allow it to be more than just a mental insight, and actually live by this understanding.

What I mean is that if we only have some kind of mental understanding that the body-mind is best looked at as a whole, but do not live by the full implications of that understanding, then we are simply living more idealism or abstraction into a part of the body-mind (the conceptual mind) rather than as the whole body-mind.

Does not the body-mind also feel? Does not this insight also then completely oblige us to feel fully as the whole body-mind and not just think about its singularity as a right intellectual concept? If we feel fully with the whole body-mind, what are the body-mind's actual limits in feeling? Where do the body-mind's boundaries end in such feeling? (This was also one of the points of that exercise I mentioned earlier in the thread.)

And if we act as a single body-mind, fully, it becomes very obvious that this promotes right action in life.

When we fully recognize, feel, and act as a single whole body-mind, we are inherently moral in our actions because we are participating as a whole rather than in a disparate or separated way. It is the non-integrated body-mind that gets crazy - with its parts all in conflict with one another, and also potentially even destructive with self, others, and life altogether. So-called "religious/spiritual" idealists have provided plenty of horrific examples of what such separation between the body and the mind can result in.

This understanding that the body-mind is whole and single is also the necessary basis for a truly spiritual life, because any approach that is body-negative is at best only a partial truth due to excluding the body-mind in some idealistic manner.

So in this sense, the materialist and the spiritualist are best founded in this same principle - that the body-mind is a single whole and this is the basis for right life. Where the two types go from there may be another matter, but this understanding that the body-mind is single and whole is clearly the fundamental and real basis for both disciplines.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope
So, LesMisanthrope, is the materialist who recognizes that the body-mind is a single whole, also obliged to feel and act as the whole body-mind?

Isn't everything short of such whole-bodily recognizing, feeling, and acting another form of idealism that tends to separate the body-mind into disparate, even conflicting parts, and potentially breeding further idealism?

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
reply to post by Kashai

 

Friend the reason aspirin is used began with anecdotal evidence. Aspirin is derived from the bark of the Red Willow tree and this was claimed by indigenous cultures to have those properties.

Aspirin is something that can be tested because the bark of the Red Willow Tree exists. It is not anecdotal. One doesn't need to give someone the benefit of the doubt to understand its properties.

Gravity theory has the benefit of doubt and so does every other conclusion that exist related to science that can not be proven because, we have not explored the Universe and know all that is known. In order for anyone to know about the properties of the red willow tree, well clearly it involved anecdotal evidence.

Anecdotal evidence is the beginning of science and as an example the idea of a spherical earth essentially began with anecdotal evidence (in other words there were those who claimed it was true). Discovering that Gorillas actually existed began with anecdotal evidence.

The first step on addressing any phenomenon is to explore the anecdotal evidence. And ask that you provide and example of where anything that we know today douse not have its origins in anecdotal evidence?

As I have made clear modern science has no claim to fame with respect to consciousness or for that matter the issue of Psi. In respect to the latter, science has failed to actually test individuals and in consideration to the actual purges that occurred in the recent past. To imply something is false without proper testing of at least a segment of the population that was not effected. By mass murder in respect to the possibility they were psychic is in no way shape or form a valid scientific investigation.

This is an example of the Materialist insult, the idea that science does not have an obligation to investigate any phenomenon a majority of the people on this planet claim as valid.

Any thoughts?

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


Materialism is the BELIEF / DOCTRINE that nothing exists except for physical stuff.

This is like saying "I do not believe in things I don't experience in my own life"...

But just because you don't experience something (non-physical) that doesn't mean it doesn't exist...

Now , if you want to ask for "proof" or "evidence" and it doesn't show up - that just means that non-physical wasn't experienced BY YOU but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist...

I can ask for many things and experiences, but just because I don't get them that doesn't mean they don't exist.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


Did the video answer all the questions you asked?

I think LesMisanthrope must be out enjoying his new look - possibly even being approached by lots of women who cannot resist his whole body-mind in all of its singular fullness! He must know the secret of whole bodily feeling and action - not just the mental/intellectual insight aspect of it - because the ladies cannot resist a man who allows his feeling/energy to integrate all the parts of the body-mind into a singular force of being. Right on, LesMisanthrope!

Another quality thread, LesMisanthrope. While I do not agree with all that you express, I must congratulate you on making a topic that has stimulated my mind and encouraged me to think outside the box.

You have definitely shown the importance of understanding a term and what it actually means, as opposed to misusing a term to label others as an insult. Also, I think you have made some solid arguments in favour of the philosophical position of Materialism. (Or as you put them, "physical" or "real" things.)

Edit: I have decided to remove the rest of my reply because they are part of questions I will be addressing in an upcoming thread.

I will respond to each and every post in depth, but first need to find the time to do so. Thanks for the interest.