It seems like Alan Watts was talking about attaining some kind of ‘absolute knowledge’ paradoxically by emptying the mind, which’s not really what I was referring to, I was talking about ones understanding being full of something(s) (not nothing, everything or likening nothing to everything), it could be trees, clouds, what have you, that you could comprehend what you’re looking at without labelling it, in fact much more so without labelling, you would understand it in all, or much more of its variety, its many shades or hues, and interact with it accordingly, than had you categorized it.
It could also be an awareness of the contents of your mind (or the mind itself), like recalling a memory, being aware of it phenomenally, sensually without parsing or compartmentalizing.
Kind of like how you can place a filer or grid over a jar, so only some thing can pass through, or they have to be squeezed through, distorting or warping them in the process, or alternatively, you can take the filter or grid off, and allow everything to pass into the jar as they are.
There are two kinds of knowledge: conceptual and nonconceptual. You know what conceptual knowledge is, but nonconceptual knowledge can be the knowledge you use to beat your heart and work your endocrine system. Alan talked about asking god how he made the universe and his reply would be the same as asking you how you beat your heart, “Idk, I just do it.” Or else he would say “To tell you how I did it would take an eternity because words are too limited.” That is why Hindu gods have 10 arms because to think about how to move 10 arms would be too confusing; they just do it. Then Alan goes into the nonconceptual knowledge and knowledge by faith, as it were. Faith is not fervently believing in something that you don’t really believe, but more like subconscious knowledge that can’t be conceptualized and articulated.
He talked endlessly on that subject. The Vish game is another angle he used to emphasize the circular reasoning implicit in the defining process of any standard dictionary. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vish_(game Words can only take you so far.
A more important question concerning the one dimensional component of the human mind, are we incapable of viewing the world or universe as something other than ourselves?
If we don’t we will. not the abyss, since though about thought about thought is a reduction absurdum.Meaning we will realize the absurdity of reaching the Dasein as pure abstraction.
We’s all doing that. Kinda a spiral, round dat sun, round dat earth and de hole shabang swinging our little wing of the galaxy. I mean, de sun moving, man, but its gonna rise mainly cause I am moving even when I sleep. You traveling man, even when you try to keep still. Test it. Sure as diarrhea sun gonna rise cause you traveled.
Damn my kid he look at his momses face and locked on. You think he think thought about that? Man, he no spend five minutes looking that the wall and deciding using baby logic, hey dat aint my mom, he no be using no deduction, he sees dat (forgive me honey) fucking face and he knows, right off, never having seen a fucking face (apologies honey) that that thing is interesting. He know he gonna learn and love facing that set of pixels (pardon the crass modern idiocy honey) and not some other. He knows and right off he start learning. No words in his head. Man, he say, without words, I am gonna focus on that lovely thing (see honey) cause dat is where the learning and love is. And he do that until honey and I are alone again in the house and can breathe out 18-21 years later. He knows my face is a face without reading a textbook a couple of minutes later, but the little brat knows he’s gonna stay fixed on mom’s face for a long time, mine coming in second. Not the chair, not the ceiling lamp (he’s not a fucking moth).
He knows stuff, coming out of that dark cave. right off the bat. he learn stuff, right off the bat.
You think our dog be conceptualizing stuff, but man he thinking. He don’t dig in the garbage when we’s home.
YOu think he do syllogisms, drew a map. Fuck, he deep, he knows stuff. He learning.
Wordy wordy thinking neocortex think he got a fucking bill gates monopoly. These rational head cases think they the man.
My friend tried to describe the worst pain he had ever experienced when the doctor pulled that tube with the jagged filer on the end out of his belly after surgery. I have no concept and there’s no way he can relay that information to me. It made me think of this thread. He said he’d rather break his own arm than go through that again. On second thought, I don’t wanna know.
Last fall I was riding an atv when I spotted a herd of deer, then I hit a tree which caused the handlebars to snap back as my body went forward and it was like being hit in the leg with a ball bat. Oh man that hurt and I couldn’t do anything as the deer were running around me. I had to struggle just to reach the key to turn the machine off because the vibrations were killing me. The whole time I’m thinking “Damn why does hurt so bad if pain doesn’t exist?”
There was a faith healer of Deal
Who said ‘though I know pain’s not real,
If I sit on a pin,
And it punctures my skin,
I dislike what I fancy I feel.
If experience is not real, what basis do we have to say anything about anything? From my in situ life, pain is more real than any supposedly real object in the world. I know pain is real. I might be mistaken about things.
Yes, true, experience is real, but why is experience viewed as painful? Is it not just perspective? Some people enjoy pain. Alan studied asceticism and talked a great deal about pain, but I haven’t fully gotten my head around what he is suggesting. Somehow, I figure, pain threatens the self idea, so the less of a self we feel, the less pain we realize. It’s hard to articulate what I do not understand lol. I suppose, obviously, if I’m riding an atv, then I’m enjoying my ‘self’ and therefore pain becomes real. If I were not separate from the atv, the deer, the woods, such that I could enjoy being so, then perhaps both the enjoyment and pain would fade as I cease to identify as a separate entity. Do you see what I’m trying to say?
They enjoy certain kinds of pain, pain in the context of their painfilled psyches which can lead to net gains, despite the unpleasant facets of the pain.
Yes, though there would still be pain, just it would be simply another phenomenon. It seems like in such a state one is not judging, but it is founded on judging the self, the emotions, desires.
