Haha, that’s fair. 
Says who?
Let me save some time because your next post will be: “Says me.” And then I will reply: “Who are you?” Eventually, we’ll reach a discussion point, lol.
I don’t distinguish between a conventional and ‘real’ self. I distinguish between conventional and ultimate reality. But only because I have to, here, on the forum, in this conventional framework. Both are ‘real’, although we could probably trade anything from 1-100 posts discussing exactly what that means. Anyway, I’m guessing that about 99% of the people on this forum don’t know what I’m talking about. Which is fine. It makes it, er, special. I guess. 
“Emptiness” is the total lack of any property/ability/potential/possibility.
So, it can’t be separate. But there is no room for existence in “emptiness”.
Now, when I see/think, I do it by focusing the awareness, by taking certain perspective.
And the base or point of view of that vector (pointing awareness) appears to be “nothing”/“emptiness”.
I feel as is I’m an eye/hole of “emptiness” observing the world (internal world of thoughts/emotions and external world of perceptions).
So, we can say that I have the view from the side of “emptiness” toward existence as awareness.
My current explanation is like this: In the existence (or for the existence side), “emptiness” can be seen as a point without any space/time length/width, in a way. And I feel that anything that exists has a “emptiness” in its core, slowly sucking things into it.
It’s a bit like black hole, but “emptiness” isn’t compressed matter.
And similar to the black hole, it creates strange zone where things fall and disintegrate, yet time/space still exists (to some degree).
Possibly, this happens because the emptiness isn’t compatible with existence and it acts (from the existence point of view) as a destructive force.
But from the emptiness side (if we imagine a bit , here), it’s just nothing. It can’t be otherwise.
So, the awareness seems to be on the edge of the existence side.
From emptiness side, no relation is possible.
From existence side, emptiness is a sucker.
Awareness is the gateway for the destruction. But i works well as the observation post for destructive analysis of anything that goes by.
Not really the opposite, although I think it’s like that from the existence point of view.
Existence side: Existence vs emptiness
Emptiness side: Everything impossible and happily ignored, including existence.
From the emptiness side, toward more and more complicated things, it’s more or less vertical relationship (or lack of relation), while from the other end, it sees “virtualized” version of emptiness (or things of upper simpler dimension) in a horizontal relationship.
This is how I see, for the moment.
It’s also based on the comparison of dependencies.
Emptiness has no dependency. There is no possibility for anything, including relation/time/space and dependency that require “separation”.
Existence has to have the “existing” property (whatever it is) and thus it has at least one dependency.
When we talk about the physical world, it has so many dependencies.
It seems, I sense more of reality with things that has less dependency, other than I feel that my point of view somehow originate in the emptiness and thus it’s more real than other objects that can be focused upon, time to time.
False representation of less virtual world.
I don’ think there is “real” world.
All up to “pure existence” (if there is one), it’s virtual.
I mean, I somehow sense more reality in the emptiness, which has no possibility/potential of any kind. So it’s more or less normal for me to see everything as “virtual” but with different degree of complexity/virtualization.
I think I’ve answered this one, as far as why I feel even the physical world as “virtual”.
As for “subject”, when I have the awareness in certain state, I have no sense of “me” or “self”.
It’s like “awareness” being aware.
There is no sense of “I” am aware.
Since it’s aware, we can see it as a sort of “subject” if you prefer.
But in its primitive state, there is no sense of subject vs object.
I mean there is just the sense of “awareness”, and that’s it.
“I”, “my”, type of feeling occurs further away from the basic awareness and well into the messy thought/emotion zone, which is pretty close to perception and the physical world that comes with it.
Haha, you’re special Ingenium. 
Sorry I put words in your mouth - I didn’t mean to.
I admit I don’t fully understand what you mean when you say you distinguish “between conventional and ultimate reality” but not between conventional and ultimate “self”. Does the logic work differently between “reality” and “self”? I would have thought the form of the logic as applied to the first question would also apply to the second question.
Nah: Long posts are difficult for me. I’ll come back to this at some point though.
anon, I think this subject is really going to have a lot of definitons, suppositions and interpretations. All based upon culture, religion and self esteem.
What I see is not going to be what you, nah, or Inge sees and all of you will have different ways… We do have a social compatability on the subject but, introspectively they will be different. Its rather tough being an individual in a society. I don’t see ants having this issue.
What is real for me will not be real for you. If I tell you I have had experiences with what might be considered ghosts( stone cold sober) and that their were others that experienced it (sober too), it would not be real to you. You might believe me or you might believe I experienced something especially since i just told you I once dropped acid, this might lead you down a path of thought, but, that incident could not be real to you because of standard society realism.
Does this make sense?
Hey, that makes the second time in my ILP career that I’ve been called ‘special’. I hope that doesn’t go to my head. Then again, the first occasion of it was from Satyr and, as I recall, the expression on his virtual face as he gave me that designation was a bit different than a friendly wink. So I remain humbled, in a sense.
That’s not what I wrote. I was referring to your original statement that I’d used ‘conventional and real’ instead of ‘conventional and ultimate’. ‘Self’ I don’t refer to as ‘real’, but as self/non-self, or okay, sometimes as non-self for short when I want to goad an absolutist idealist or logical positivist, amongst others. 
‘Reality’ (that loaded term) is the two-sided coin of conventional/ultimate that we only imperfectly address as even having two sides in our limited way of constructing them from the conventional side. We’re having this discourse in a conventional framework. We can point, but even between Buddhists that’s gonna be a bit clumsy. The only advantage we have is that we both understand it’s always going to be and we can just proceed from there, striving not to grasp and cling and all that.
However, when venturing across this foreign western virtual terrain – which has only post-Nietzshe really begun to open it’s overstuffed dualistic cranium to relieve the pressure – I prefer to keep my, er, ‘realm-status’ clear before I speak. Although, technically, the fact that I’m speaking at all is a pretty solid hint as to which is at hand, lol.
Regardless, it’s all empty, but saying that is, sigh, never enough on this ‘nothingness is nihilism’ segment of the planet. It seems that you and Nah are doing the ‘emptiness dance’, in which all particular things are respectively just as they are and yet equal in their ‘suchness’. The Mahayanas say, “difference as it is is sameness; sameness of things (in their suchness) as it is is difference.”
It does to me. I’m trying my best to talk to each of you on your own terms - using your own definitions and assumptions. Nonetheless, I’m sure we are in the same ballpark in terms of what the subject is and what the related family of issues are.
It sounds as though you’re considering this more subjectively, ‘real’ as personal experience. That’s of course true enough, but I’ve been addressing it more objectively, or how the idea of ‘reality’ is constructed. The personal will always have to be ‘different’ between us, absent a mind meld or something of that nature. Perhaps one difference between theists and Buddhists is that the former considers achieving the mind-meld thingie with a supreme supernatural deity, and the latter achieving it with mind. Although we take it one step further and note that such a goal as a thing-in-itself is an illusion.
And there may be some in the middle that see the deity and mind as the same thing. IMO, they’re either completely confused or completely smart. 
I keep screwing up with my word substitutions. 
Is “real” more problematic than “ultimate”? If so, I’m curious as to why. If I was to just give you my immediate impression of what each word implies, I would say “real” implies empiricism and “ultimate” implies rationalism. Maybe something along the lines of particulars versus universals or something.
Clumsiness is so cool. Sometimes I think there is no possibility of communication without clumsiness.
What about melding objective and subjective??? I do think we can’t have a grasp unless we have both.
Feel free to do in the way you are comfortable.
You can drop if you want. I don’t mind.
You are absolutely free … (well, within the forum rules).
How is it relevent then?
How can emptiness observe if it is characterized as a total lack of “any property/ability/potential/possibility.”?
If emptiness is according to your definition it is certainly not compatible with existence. Yet if you are describing something that interacts with existence then it is certainly compatible.
I’m not sure what that means.
Sounds a bit like death versus life?
Sorry, I’m gradually losing you.
So emptiness is like death, but… the ultimate death?
I’m having trouble focusing myself at the moment. Does that put me more towards the emptiness side or more towards the existence side?
What’s the difference between “real” and “pure”?
I think my questions about this are in general the same as my questions above.
But up above you said awareness was directed. Are you saying it doesn’t have to be directed?
This makes some sense to me. But is the basic awareness somehow at odds with what you contrast it with - i.e. thoughts, emotions…?
From emptiness side: It’s totally irrelevant. It’s because there is no possibility for any relation.
From existence side: Emptiness can be seen as the background and anti-existence.
In the existence side, where emptiness is seen in a “virtualized” form, it’s relevant to existence and it has relation.
And I see existence as “virtual” because it requires this “vitualized” form/view of emptiness to assert/affirm itself, the existence.
It’s somewhat similar to the tendency of common Theist thinking.
When I say I don’t like certain specific points of Theists, they would see me as generalized Atheist and start rolling typical Theist vs Atheist talk.
But I don’t hold neither existence nor non-existence of God as my belief.
To affirm their “Theistness”, Atheist is relevant for them.
But for me, I’m not concerned about Atheist or not.
So, we can possibly say that the view of this type of Theist is more “virtual”, while my view doesn’t require supposition/virtualization of existence/non-existence of God, whatever it is.
In the virtualized view, the “lack of” concern/fixation is a hazard for the existence and maintenance of the fixation and thus very relevant.
But for those who doesn’t have the fixation, it’s nothing. Any supposition/virtualization can be taken as an arbitrary and temporally perspective, and then DISCARDED when not needed (for discussion or thinking, etc) any more.
I thought I’ve said the awareness is in the existence side.
Any view/description/thought is in the existence side.
Probably, we can see it like this;
When we point our awareness, there is a foreground and background.
We created the foreground by distinguishing it using certain criteria.
So, the foreground is denoted by the positive match with the criteria, while background is “the lack of” positive matching.
When we are aware, the awareness is affirmed by the contrast to “the lack of” awareness, which is the emptiness.
So, to the awareness, the emptiness is the background, and we feel as if it’s the source (or base position) of the focus vector.
Emptiness interact in a destructive way for the existence, and to the existence.
But it’s just the way it appears for the existence side.
It’s a bit similar to a paranoia person trying to fight against imaginary enemy figure.
S/he affirms her/himself as the fighter against this enemy, and thus interact with it.
Outside the imagination, the enemy may not exist at all.
I guess it depends on the “fixation” factor.
For the Buddhists, I guess it’s the attachment factor.
As long as we have the fixation/attachment, the lack of whatever we are attached would appear as a hazard/enemy, etc, and it’s relevant, captivating and seems “real”.
When the fixation is gone/broken, all these may start to appear as if it was a dream.
But if we want, we can temporally go back in the dream, taking the supposition for the moment, and then come back.
So, it’s like an illusion, virtual world.
Since the emptiness is the lack of existence for the existence, it is an anti-existence.
The awareness, which is first only aware of the foreground by its nature, can become aware of the background by pulling back the focal point to its origin and by observing the nature of attention/awareness.
When we realize how fixation is creating the impression of “reality”, the fixation may resolve and our awareness is pulled back, too.
And it’s as if the emptiness has sucked the existence (to the existence side) through the ring/lens/sphere of awareness.
That’s why I said “From existence side, emptiness is a sucker.”
And when things resolve, we can observe how it was made.
This make the awareness as the excellent observation point to lean the nature of virtual realities.
And it can help us to further relinquish the fixations.
I don’t see the distinction between death and life.
Living is dying, to me, in many senses.
If we feel simply “we exist !” and have no doubt about it, it’s a pretty basic fixation.
But most of us live in multitude of fixations, and some of them are artificial, making it even more virtual.
So, I prefer to see things in multitude of layers.
If you have a fixation to Life, you may see it like that.
Bust emptiness is the ultimate lack of all properties, including that of life, evidently.
When I have basic awareness without lots of fixations captivating me, I don’t feel “alive”. I don’t feel I’m a man. There is not much self identification.
Confused focus isn’t necessarily similar to the basic awareness.
Often, it’s simply you are captivated by multitude of different fixations and you can’t make sense out of the situation, most probably.
Having any question is the quality of existence side.
Questions arise when there are conflicting views, and both (or more) are somewhat captivating for us.
When we are single minded, we don’t have question.
When we are no-minded, it’s impossible to have any question and following thought.
For me, the sense of “reality” come with the degree of captivation/fixation.
By “pure existence”, I was suggesting the state in which we have only one fixation, that of “existence”.
So, “pureness” and “real” have not much relation in this context.
In other words, I feel more captivated by the emptiness compared to other things, unless certain things pull me stronger, time to time.
Awareness seems somewhat like a lens or sphere without being pulled or directed.
But then, when we loose spatial context/perspective/fixation, there is no awareness of shape, direction.
When we feel that we are in time/space world and focus on something, it’s directed.
I see both thoughts and emotions as piles of perspectives.
Although not many may agree, I see logic in emotions.
Emotions are the logic that has generally more captivating power than thoughts.
And the logic in our emotion isn’t often verified.
It’s more or less the pool of prejudice and pre-conditioning.
And our emotion has stronger tie with our physical body.
It pushes our thought, too.
When we are aware, we observe how we feel and think.
When they are observed, they loose the captivating quality, some how, and becomes more fluid.
I’ve seen many people identify themselves (or try to do so) with certain chunk of emotion and/or thoughts.
For someone, the most captivating things define the “self”, and that’s the reality s/he lives within.
I think most person have many definitions of “self” and the “realities”.
My recognition that I can do just that is my sense of self.
Geez Nah, I said I have problems with really long posts. 
That’s a good simple straightforward answer.
Was it that long? You can forget and drop this, as I’ve already said. 
I’m loosing interest, anyway.
I often have kind of a hard time understanding you. Maybe I have a bit of ADD or something. Anyway, my fault for sure. Thanks for the interaction.
It’s because I was talking about something not easy to follow.
To really understand, you had to follow my perspective, and it means you had to go into different state of awareness, which isn’t obvious at all.
But you did ask relevant questions and it was pleasant for me to try different descriptions.