KFA - Krishnamurti Foundation of America

Hi Nico, I am going to leap ahead to a possible breaking point between us in understanding. Just being practical, I'll leap past any breaking point.

Nico wrote:

Hi Will:  It could be that we have some agreement here.  It has been my (oft disputed) contention that there is always an observer which has an existence that is sufficient for us to say that it does exist.  We might say that it has a nominal existence by virtue of being designated (named) by consciousness, we might say it has a material existence since thought is material.  Perhaps it doesn’t much matter except to say that denying it any form of existence is an exercise in futility (and absurdity) since that denial itself would be the product of an observation. …

I would say the same thing with a different nuance by saying that if an observing is going on, the experience of no observer would be an absence. This is my answer to your next question, but I wanted to include it here because it shows what I think is an important point in this matter of subjectivity; that of negation as another way of positing identity.

Now, that opens the door to talking about those three spheres in terms of the negative, of the difference the absence makes. The presential/non-psychological is known by the absence of the temporal/psychological, and the observer is preserved; somebody knows a difference.

Nico wrote:

Now even in this meditative state described in the passage, there would have to be an observing element or the state could not be referred to.  Does any of this equate with Kierkegaard’s spheres, as I am not very familiar with his work?

I think I answered those above. Well, add that the approach Kierkegaard used was one of trying to point out the positive by describing it in terms of a process of removing the identity from it, not abstractly done, but done as in existentially.

Nico wrote:

I think it goes without saying that K is speaking of a difference in the quality of the observation in the passage, which presages an absence of the psychologically influenced observer and not the absence of a physiological/material observing mechanism."

I think those three are lined up perfectly. Now we can talk logically about the existential process, not because we know it, but because we can guess what the poor bugger going through it would face.

Nico wrote:

Hi Will:  It could be that we have some agreement here.  It has been my (oft disputed) contention that there is always an observer which has an existence that is sufficient for us to say that it does exist.  We might say that it has a nominal existence by virtue of being designated (named) by consciousness, we might say it has a material existence since thought is material.  Perhaps it doesn’t much matter except to say that denying it any form of existence is an exercise in futility (and absurdity) since that denial itself would be the product of an observation. …

Will Wrote:

“I would say the same thing with a different nuance by saying that if an observing is going on, the experience of no observer would be an absence. This is my answer to your next question, but I wanted to include it here because it shows what I think is an important point in this matter of subjectivity; that of negation as another way of positing identity.’

Niko:

Yes, I can agree that the experience of no observer is an absence, a negation of the psychological.  The psychological observer is grounded in error because of his conditioning.  In the absence of conditioning imparts a different quality to the observation.  When you say negation is another way of posing identity does this mean that you see there is a necessity of function for the observer, stripped to the bare minimum?  The more stripped it is of conditioning, the greater the freedom of perception and probably also the quality of feeling.

I am giving your #77 a careful read.

Last edited by Niko N. (2012-06-21 17:45:57)

wilbro99 wrote:

Nico wrote:

By false sense of I, I mean that the observer does not understand his mode of existence.

In this *sphere of existence*, the identity is the negative one, the one who does not understand himself. In the *sphere of existence* derived from the negation of the negation, the observer understands himself.

So, the other *sphere of existence* would logically be the negation of both, which either negates the positive derived from the negation of the negation, and gives us the void, or exposes the positive that is the positive. I think that those two are simply two absolutely different ways of experiencing not being.

Oh well, that's a thought anyway; and it was fun thinking it.

Well, I am trying to puzzle this out.  What you say reminds of a discussion K had with Bohm where he describes a double negation.  But I can’t seem to recall which book this was in.  Can you say more on why these are two absolutely different ways of experiencing not being?  I always think of the process of thinking as a positive process because posits are being made from out of what we might describe as the void.  Thinking stripped of unneeded accoutrements will yield a zone of functioning which is minimal dross and maximum freedom.  Does this make any sense at all?  But negation is what gets “you” there, which I see as being formed out of an intimation of  emptiness.  It is an intimation which we perhaps fear and therefore we do not listen to what it tells us.  Instead we go in the opposite direction and “become.”

willy sez: <<In this *sphere of existence*, the identity is the negative one, the one who does not understand himself. In the *sphere of existence* derived from the negation of the negation, the observer understands himself.

So, the other *sphere of existence* would logically be the negation of both, which either negates the positive derived from the negation of the negation, and gives us the void, or exposes the positive that is the positive. I think that those two are simply two absolutely different ways of experiencing not being.

Oh well, that's a thought anyway, and it was fun thinking it.>>

& Nico sez: <<Well, I am trying to puzzle this out.  What you say reminds of a discussion K had with Bohm where he describes a double negation.  But I can’t seem to recall which book this was in.  Can you say more on why these are two absolutely different ways of experiencing not being? …>>

Sure, I experience the absence of the other or I experience the absence of myself. In my grammar I would say that when I experience the absence of the temporal, myself in time, so to speak, I am the experience of myself as presence, and that when I experience the absence of myself as presence, a time is registered in which the self reflection is absent.

The first negation reflects upon the now empty sense of self that was, and finds itself changed into a sense of self present to itself. And so on. It's those three spheres lined up in different words.

<<… I always think of the process of thinking as a positive process because posits are being made from out of what we might describe as the void. …>>

Here is the picture I get from those words. Intelligence supports action. Let understanding be located where Intelligence is located, and thought released from the understanding write themselves. I do not know if that is what you are describing or not.

<<… Thinking stripped of unneeded accoutrements will yield a zone of functioning which is minimal dross and maximum freedom.  Does this make any sense at all? …>>

And I think you and I are saying the same thing.

<<But negation is what gets “you” there, which I see as being formed out of an intimation of emptiness.  It is an intimation which we perhaps fear and therefore we do not listen to what it tells us.  Instead we go in the opposite direction and “become.”>>

Let's see what pops with this one. The first thought is that you have nutshell Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety. There is this new consciousness conscious of being in the world it finds itself is, and full of anxiety over the ever-changing landscape, looking for some sort of continuity, and finding that continuity in that very anxiety; it persists.

If this is not the set up for disaster, nothing is, and Kierkegaard milks that fact in all of his books. Like yes, the way out of accumulation is to lose it, and if you accumulate a temporal sense of self along the way, it's best to lose it.

But enough of that. Yes, I recognize the movement you are casting into words. Fascinating.

"oh goodie..."

awareness wrote:

tree wrote:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ow6OD5UbbfA/T … /minor.jpg

"oh goodie..."

tree has been awakened

let freedom ring

According to the philosopher René Descartes ("Cogito ergo sum.") self-certainty is not a matter of self-perception, but the result of a rational act of thought. That means that I am, I do not know that because I perceive myself, but this follows clearly from my statement that I think.
so perception, awareness is the unknown and thought as limited is trying to describe it

The conclusion that perception is the happening follows from the fact that in reflecting upon that happening, I find myself in the act. What that finding means has two ways of being parsed, and one of them puts Descartes before Deshorse, the latter, Deshorse, being the one doing all of the pulling.

If perception is the happening, the question can always be asked of where the perceiver of that perception fits in, and [i]f the content of that perception is empty of all content other than the act itself, that filling could be *my world*.

If that finding is the world I find myself in, that perception is aligned with fact, and what that finding means is that to be understood.

Always stand in the boots of the practical and the metaphysical becomes the imagined, and nothing more.

Last edited by wilbro99 (2012-07-04 20:01:16)

There was this stable hand, see, and his kid was doing her math homework one day while he was mucking out the stalls. But she was having a little trouble.

"Daddy," she says, "what's 128 divided by 8?"

Of course he didn't get that job for his math skills. While he's still working it out, one of the horses stomps all 4 feet 4 times each.

The little girl and the stable hand are both amazed that the horse could figure this out, let alone so quickly. Anyway, after they polish off the homework assignment, the guy decides to take the horse down to the local college and see how smart it really is.

Calculus, physics, computer science. It aces them all. By then there is a pretty large group of people following the horse around and making suggestions. Somebody asks if it knows anything but science, so they take it across the campus to the humanities building, but of course, it is after 3 and all the class rooms are empty, and most of the faculty have gone home.

While the stable hand is off looking for someone to quiz the horse, it wanders into an empty room. There on the chalkboard is written "I think, therefor I am."

The horse looks at it for a while, absorbs what it says, and then lets out this horrible whinny - almost a scream - and falls over, dead.

Of course everyone is horrified that the world's smartest horse just died in this class room, and about the time they start wondering how to get a dead horse out of a room, an old wizened, grizzled philosophy professor walks in.

He looks at the board.

He looks at the horse.

He looks at the people and says (in a thick german accent) "You fools. You utter, utter fools. You never put Des Cartes before Des Horse!"

"The transparency of thought in existence is inwardness"SK

only the own stream of accumulated self-knowledge can undergo the transformation into the self-knowing, in which there is the timeless presence

awareness wrote:

only the own stream of accumulated self-knowledge can undergo the transformation into the self-knowing, in which there is the timeless presence

Not a good idea to mix your language with that of k.

So speaks the uncouth mind.