Everything is appearance in mind

"Tucson" is a frequent commenter on this blog. I like his style. Which doesn't mean that I always understand what he is saying. 

That might mean that I do understand it.

Because if I understand anything about Tucson's way of looking at the world, it's that every attempt to divide reality into (1) an understander, and (2) what is understood, results in a human conception of the cosmos which misses (3) what's really going on.

Not that (3) ever can be known. There's actually no knower and nothing to be known. And now I've probably demonstrated that I don't know anything about what Tucson is pointing toward. 

His comments, like all comments, often go unnoticed by blog post readers. So below I've fused together three recent Tucsonian comment sharings to bring them more out into the open. They're interesting. Might even be true. (If there's any such thing as conventional "truth" in the Tucsonian world.)

Re-reading Tucson's comments, I was struck by how they reminded me of some remarks made by psychologist Susan Blackmore in a podcast interview I listened to today. I'll share what I remember of what she said in my next post.

Here is a view that defies convention and reason... I do not believe in the factual existence of anything whatsoever that can be sensorially perceived and conceptually interpreted as an object. I do not believe in the existence of any objective entity that may be writing these lines, nor the words themselves.

This is because anything that appears to extend in space and time is nothing other than an appearance in mind. So, one may ask, "Who is responsible for this writing?" I am. I am responsible for every appearance, and all conscious beings can say the same whether it be bird, hippo or tulip. Because in the voidness of Intrinsic Basic Nature it is so...and I, whoever says it, am the immanence phenomenally whose transcendence noumenally is all that is.

(Noumenon is a word rarely used and for good reason. What it denotes is impossible to conceive. Noumenon could be said to symbolize the Principle of potential appearance having no conceptual or objective existence, neither presence nor absence of its own.)

There is no objective evidence of noumenon which has neither objectivity or non-objectivity or the absence of either or both. As noumenon: Only I can speak, but what is said by me as an object I can't say. Only I can look, but what is seen by me as an object I do not see. I do everything but what is done by a 'me' I do not do.

I am neither a being or not a being, the source of all doing but not the performer of any act. I am the source of all thoughts but not the thinker of any. I am, but there is no I but I -- but there is no me at all, no you, no bird, no hippo, no tulip, no us or them. And every living thing is no thing because all a thing is--is I and I am not.

What is said here can be said by any entity because every entity is I. There is nothing else whatsoever to be said and this already is too much.

If I am aware of what I am, then what I am is the object of a subject that is aware of an object, and it is then an object of which a subject is aware, and so on, ad infinitum in a perpetual regression. This also applies to a term such as 'consciousness'.

It is impossible to be aware of what is being aware, or to be conscious of what is being conscious. Therefore, as far as dialectic thought is concerned, there can't be any objective thing that is conscious or aware. Being conscious or aware is only a concept. It can be referred to symbolically with the term 'noumenon' that I mentioned above, but it does not phenomenally exist.

This is why dualistically I am not and why I can't possibly be. This implies that we can't not-exist either for the same reason. Absence of positive existence implies also absence of its counterpart, negative existence which is a kind of non-existence consisting of total absence of both positive and negative concepts.

I'm getting a headache.

What we are, then, is total absence of the presence of both positive and negative awareness, which is total absence of the presence of both positive and negative existence, which is total absence of positive and negative presence, which is absence of absence as well as of presence.

Whew!

Dialectically this establishes the fact that we can't be anything that we could ever imagine ourselves to be, singular or plural, because what we are can't be anything that could be objectively visualised by the split mind of dialectic reasoning.

So, what is this Great and Obscure Mystery that we neither are nor are not conceptually? No mystery at all!

It is what divided mind can't know because it is divided into subject and object. Divided this way it can reason, but it can't intuit its own indivision, its own wholeness, which is all that it is and all that we can be.

Comments

[Tim Myles]

Why isn't there a dislike button. I'd push is a thousand times. Tucson's ramblings are nothing but pure confusion and a particular version of pompous bull. Futhermore, they are not original. This is just Plato reworked with some new jargon thrown in. Aristotle disputed this line of weak lip flapping long ago.

[Brian Hines]

TIm, since Tucson doesn't exist, likely he won't mind your dislike.

I can understand your reaction. Still, in my opinion there's more than "pompous bull" in what Tucson says.

Read my next post, about an interview with Susan Blackmore.
http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2012/04/self-consciousness-comes-and-goes-like-the-self.html

There's some similarity between her viewpoint and Tucson's. Everything we are conscious of is a product of the human brain. Is it possible to use our brain and gain a clearer understanding of what reality is like, or not-like, apart from the human brain?

I don't know. That fact, "I don't know," speaks loudly. Nobody knows for sure. This not-knowing seems to point in the direction Tucson is pointing toward. Yet am I sure of that? No.

[Jon]

Tucson writes:

"What we are, then, is total absence of the presence of both positive and negative awareness, which is total absence of the presence of both positive and negative existence, which is total absence of positive and negative presence, which is absence of absence as well as of presence.

Dialectically this establishes the fact that we can't be anything that we could ever imagine ourselves to be, singular or plural, because what we are can't be anything that could be objectively visualised by the split mind of dialectic reasoning."

Actually the only thing that this convoluted statement establishes is that

WHAT WE ARE

IS THE TOTAL ABSENCE OF ANYTHING THAT COULD BE POSITED AS A

'WHAT WE ARE'

In other words this is simply a logical paradox in the style of 'this statement is a lie'.

Tucson writes:

"So, what is this Great and Obscure Mystery that we neither are nor are not conceptually? No mystery at all! It is what divided mind can't know because it is divided into subject and object. Divided this way it can reason, but it can't intuit its own indivision, its own wholeness, which is all that it is and all that we can be."

Well, what we are it seems is an expression or manifestation of something that is ultimately beyond our understanding or comprehension. I might say that we are cognitively closed, you might say it's because of the 'divided mind', either way it remains a mystery.

[Brian Hines]

Jon, you make good sense. In so far as anything that can be said about what we're talking about makes any sense at all.

[alleeoop]

Appears Tucson is regurgitating the Tao Te Ching.

There are no insightful words or novel thoughts. Everything real is nothing and nothing phenomenal is real.

Non-duality is the new religion.

[Pythagoras]

One of the best known sayings of Socrates (c. 469 BC – 399 BC) is "I only know that I know nothing".

It fits so well.

[tucson]

Tim Myles seems a bit grumpy.

******************

Blogger Brian, Jon, and Pythagoras seem to understand the gist of what I was trying to get at.

******************

To Alleeoop:

--Hey, John Lennon said it too, "Nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about..."

[tAo]

Strawberry Fields Forever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3jrWVp2L7U

[Robert Paul Howard]

Therefore, the "higher" (rather than a "lower") capital gains tax rate is "nothing to get hung about."

Robert Paul Howard

[tucson]

A "lower" (rather than a "higher") level of dandruff is "nothing to get hung about" in the grand scheme of things, but still it might be a good idea to try to obtain a bottle of Head and Shoulders Shampoo.

[Roger]

"Dialectically this establishes the fact that we can't be anything that we could ever imagine ourselves to be, singular or plural, because what we are can't be anything that could be objectively visualised by the split mind of dialectic reasoning."

---What we truely absolutely are is non-knowable. What we are truely in a relative dualistic way, is.....a pickup truck driver, a student, a ditch digger, a tax payer, etc.

[Roger]

"There is no objective evidence of noumenon which has neither objectivity or non-objectivity or the absence of either or both. As noumenon: Only I can speak, but what is said by me as an object I can't say. Only I can look, but what is seen by me as an object I do not see. I do everything but what is done by a 'me' I do not do."

---the noumenon, as mentioned, is in absolute terms the non-knowable. Within, relatitve terms the "me" or "I" is the subject/object manifestation of the mind/ego. So, using one's mind, there is the dualistic existense of me and you.

[tucson]

Yes, Roger, I think several of you have said it much more concisely than I. Noumenon is not knowable or describable via reason, but maybe 'it' can be perceived by a faculty that transcends that process like intuition for instance.

[Roger]

Thanks Tucson,

Write something on the faculty that trancends that process like intuition.
Roger

[tucson]

Roger,

I can't. This you will have to see for yourself.. if there is such a thing to see.

Try saying "ekshetriybkutyhntly" ten times fast, then say it backwards ten times even faster, all this while standing on your head naked facing a full length mirror with a ripe fig in your mouth trying not to crush it.

I have no reason to believe this will help, but it's all I have to offer on the subject.

[Roger]

LOL...good point....