Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Sculptor1
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Sculptor1 »

GaryLouisSmith wrote: October 14th, 2019, 7:59 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: October 14th, 2019, 6:26 pm

Theists and Philosophers are mutually incompatible categories in my opinion.
Of course you would think that because for you philosophy is really anti-philosophy.
LOL
How so?
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Felix wrote: October 15th, 2019, 1:23 am
I am a dualist and I really don't understand the idea that it is obviously a product of mind and matter.
It's not difficult to imagine. What do (can) you experience during dreamless sleep? No objects of perception there.
Oh, but there are. Non much memory of it though. Long term meditators and others can experience being conscious of being in dreamless sleep. I've had many experiences where I am not dreaming, am asleep, I can hear myself snoring, hard to explain the other facets of the experience that make it different from being awake. Essentially lucid not dreaming. My sense is that the organism continues to perceive when sleeping, and many can perhaps connect to this via the feeling that 'ooh, I was having a nice time before I woke up' and this is not connected to the dreams. But the little I we identify with does not get memories from these states, unless you learn or happen upon being lucid then.
Belindi
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Belindi »

Karpel Tunnel, are you saying in effect your brain is activated , presumably by acetylcholine, and not activated by acetylcholine at the same time?
I ask, because introspection although useful is not enough to found a theory on.
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Felix
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Felix »

Felix: It's not difficult to imagine. What do (can) you experience during dreamless sleep? No objects of perception there.

Karpel Tunnel: Oh, but there are. Non much memory of it though.
No, I did mean dreamless sleep, a state of pure awareness, the yogis call it turiya or the 4th state of consciousness, the others being the waking state, dreaming, and deep sleep. John Wren-Lewis speaks of it in this report: https://bit.ly/31lA3hT

He said: "One change that did impress me, however, was that to begin with my sleep seemed to become quite dreamless. Hitherto I had always been a big dreamer. In fact I seemed no longer to experience sleep as unconsciousness, but rather a withdrawal into something like the pure void state of my original NDE."
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Belindi wrote: October 15th, 2019, 7:17 am Karpel Tunnel, are you saying in effect your brain is activated , presumably by acetylcholine, and not activated by acetylcholine at the same time?
I ask, because introspection although useful is not enough to found a theory on.
I am not presuming to know the changes in neurotransmitters involved. Consider that the phenomenon might not fit the model you are working with, here based on acetylcholine.

https://www.sciencealert.com/your-consc ... scientists
https://www.livescience.com/56788-dream ... tates.html

I met advanced meditators who said they had these experiences and then in my late 20's I began to experience them myself. I do understand that for you to believe it is as I take, you would need more evidence, but I would be wary of ruling things out based on current knowledge, or even slightly outdated knowledge.

I have good reasons to believe dreamless sleep consciousness is not only possible, but much more the rule than we realize. We often conflate cognitive functions, here potentially memory with consciousness. I reached a place where I could remember, but I think others can connect to the sense that they have been experiencing, even though they cannot remember it.

Lucid dreaming was considered not possible, despite reports, and then they figured out a way to test it, and it is clearly a correct interpretation of what people subjectively experienced.

Even comatose patients and patients considered to be in vegetative state, it turns out, are often conscious, to varying degrees.
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Felix wrote: October 15th, 2019, 11:28 am
Felix: It's not difficult to imagine. What do (can) you experience during dreamless sleep? No objects of perception there.

Karpel Tunnel: Oh, but there are. Non much memory of it though.
No, I did mean dreamless sleep, a state of pure awareness, the yogis call it turiya or the 4th state of consciousness, the others being the waking state, dreaming, and deep sleep. John Wren-Lewis speaks of it in this report: https://bit.ly/31lA3hT

He said: "One change that did impress me, however, was that to begin with my sleep seemed to become quite dreamless. Hitherto I had always been a big dreamer. In fact I seemed no longer to experience sleep as unconsciousness, but rather a withdrawal into something like the pure void state of my original NDE."
I was responding to the 'no objects of perception', but also misread/misunderstood the first part. Yes, I have experienced dreamless sleep states with no objects of perception, but often there are objects of perception: bodily sensations, the sound of my snoring, feelings.
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Felix
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Felix »

It can be very subtle. Franklin Merrell-Wolff refers to objects of perception as ponderable matter. It's rather like, "I am aware, and also aware that I perceive such and such," as opposed to the usual waking state perception of "I am aware of such and such."
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
GaryLouisSmith
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by GaryLouisSmith »

Karpel Tunnel wrote: October 15th, 2019, 11:41 am
Belindi wrote: October 15th, 2019, 7:17 am Karpel Tunnel, are you saying in effect your brain is activated , presumably by acetylcholine, and not activated by acetylcholine at the same time?
I ask, because introspection although useful is not enough to found a theory on.
I am not presuming to know the changes in neurotransmitters involved. Consider that the phenomenon might not fit the model you are working with, here based on acetylcholine.

https://www.sciencealert.com/your-consc ... scientists
https://www.livescience.com/56788-dream ... tates.html

I met advanced meditators who said they had these experiences and then in my late 20's I began to experience them myself. I do understand that for you to believe it is as I take, you would need more evidence, but I would be wary of ruling things out based on current knowledge, or even slightly outdated knowledge.

I have good reasons to believe dreamless sleep consciousness is not only possible, but much more the rule than we realize. We often conflate cognitive functions, here potentially memory with consciousness. I reached a place where I could remember, but I think others can connect to the sense that they have been experiencing, even though they cannot remember it.

Lucid dreaming was considered not possible, despite reports, and then they figured out a way to test it, and it is clearly a correct interpretation of what people subjectively experienced.

Even comatose patients and patients considered to be in vegetative state, it turns out, are often conscious, to varying degrees.
How would you explain this? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmALPeBXwRE
Belindi
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Belindi »

Karpel Tunnel wrote: October 15th, 2019, 11:41 am
Belindi wrote: October 15th, 2019, 7:17 am Karpel Tunnel, are you saying in effect your brain is activated , presumably by acetylcholine, and not activated by acetylcholine at the same time?
I ask, because introspection although useful is not enough to found a theory on.
I am not presuming to know the changes in neurotransmitters involved. Consider that the phenomenon might not fit the model you are working with, here based on acetylcholine.

https://www.sciencealert.com/your-consc ... scientists
https://www.livescience.com/56788-dream ... tates.html

I met advanced meditators who said they had these experiences and then in my late 20's I began to experience them myself. I do understand that for you to believe it is as I take, you would need more evidence, but I would be wary of ruling things out based on current knowledge, or even slightly outdated knowledge.

I have good reasons to believe dreamless sleep consciousness is not only possible, but much more the rule than we realize. We often conflate cognitive functions, here potentially memory with consciousness. I reached a place where I could remember, but I think others can connect to the sense that they have been experiencing, even though they cannot remember it.

Lucid dreaming was considered not possible, despite reports, and then they figured out a way to test it, and it is clearly a correct interpretation of what people subjectively experienced.

Even comatose patients and patients considered to be in vegetative state, it turns out, are often conscious, to varying degrees.
Is a brain-mind state with no information from memory or environment to be included in 'consciousness'? I learned TM and have heard of pure consciousness.I was advised to sit in a position that would help me not to fall asleep during meditation.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Tamminen »

GaryLouisSmith
I think the red is a simple thing external to all seeing.
So you think it is external to the bottle too? Some think it belongs to the bottle, being one of its properties. I say it does not exist external to the bottle and it does not exist as a property of the bottle. It exists as a word in our language pointing to the physical properties of the bottle by means of the phenomenal qualities we have learnt to connect with those physical properties. The phenomenal qualities as such are nothing but relations within our color spectrums, colors in relation to other colors, and when our color spectrums are similar enough, we can refer to physical properties of objects using our similar color spectrums in telling what we see. Qualia without language cannot be properties of things because there is no way of determining whether they are similar or dissimilar compared to others' qualia. The structures can be compared, not the qualia as such.

If Tom cannot tell the difference between red and green, he cannot understand what 'red' and 'green' mean. He can perhaps communicate with others by inventing a word 'gred' and saying that he denotes by it what others denote when they say 'red' or 'green'. Now if phenomenal colors were properties of objects, 'red' and 'gred' would refer to the same physical properties but obviously different phenomenal properties. Phenomenal colors are real of course, but not properties of things. They express the properties of things in their own subjective ways, more or less adequately, becoming more and more objective as language makes it possible. If phenomenal qualities, taken apart from our common language, were properties of objects, objects would have as many properties corresponding to their physical properties as there are those who look at them.
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Felix
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

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Belindi: Is a brain-mind state with no information from memory or environment to be included in 'consciousness'?
"It has been stated that the key to Nirvanic Consciousness consists of ananesthetizing of the power of experiencing and of thinking, combined with a continuing self-consciousness. This is the essential process that reveals the significance of the step. Practically, the process of transformation may or may not involve the complete anesthetizing. If the anesthesia is complete, then the consciousness of the universe of objects is wholly annulled, either temporarily or permanently. This is the mystic destruction of the universe and the Awakening to Nirvanic States.

Objectively viewed, the individual who does this appears to enter a complete state of ecstatic trance, in which there is a suspension of vital conscious process in the Sangsaric sense. This is all that the physical scientist qua physical scientist can observe. And if the observer holds to the theory that the Sangsaric type of consciousness (the usual subject/object awareness) is the only possible consciousness, then he would say the trance involved the total extinction of consciousness in every sense. Some psychologists take this position, but since they are unable to trace what they cannot see, they are quite unqualified to pass judgment upon the state in question. For in this matter, the bare observer is entirely helpless. The realizer may report the continuity of his self-consciousness, but the observer, as such, has no check whatsoever. If, in turn, he should become a realizer in his own right, then he would Know, but that knowing would not be the result of his observing external states or conditions. He would no longer be a bare observer." -- Franklin Merrell-Wolff, from his book The Philosophy of Consciousness without an Object
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

GaryLouisSmith wrote: October 15th, 2019, 10:51 pm How would you explain this? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmALPeBXwRE
Could have been all sorts of things. I wouldn't try to explain it. If I knew the person well, maybe I would have a sense of what he might call to himself, what my prey on him or simply be attracted to him or come to bless him. But I don't know the guy. And even if I did, there are so many possibilities.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Belindi wrote: October 16th, 2019, 6:25 am Is a brain-mind state with no information from memory or environment to be included in 'consciousness'?
Sure. If you are aware, you are aware. And once you connect with those portions of yourself that are aware by do not leave you much detailed memory - though as I said I think many people have a felt memory, they remember being pleased to be in that state - then you can experience both awareness or consciousness and remember it. I remember being in dreamless sleep.
I learned TM and have heard of pure consciousness.I was advised to sit in a position that would help me not to fall asleep during meditation.
Well, most people in the early stages of mediation, the first years, even if they are dedicated, and longer if they are not so dedicated, if they fall asleep they are no longer meditating, they are sleeping. They are taking a nap. Naps, while just wonderful sometimes, are not changing patterns or deepening awareness. I think I can at lucid dreamless sleep via non-Eastern practices, ones that most people would not call meditative. I have meditated. though idiosyncratically eventually, but I have spent much more time other practices which attempt to bring consciousness where it has not been, to accept and express, for example emotions, and other thing that do not fit with Eastern Practices. Eastern practices can lead to lucid dreamless sleep, I am sure, but that wasn't my way. Still, a nap is not what the Buddhists or the Hindus for that matter consider a central practice.
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by GaryLouisSmith »

Karpel Tunnel wrote: October 16th, 2019, 3:51 pm
GaryLouisSmith wrote: October 15th, 2019, 10:51 pm How would you explain this? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmALPeBXwRE
Could have been all sorts of things. I wouldn't try to explain it. If I knew the person well, maybe I would have a sense of what he might call to himself, what my prey on him or simply be attracted to him or come to bless him. But I don't know the guy. And even if I did, there are so many possibilities.
Why make it complicated? Why don't you simply say that the goddess Kali came to possess him erotically and then left?
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Re: Do you think a theist can understand atheist?

Post by GaryLouisSmith »

Tamminen wrote: October 16th, 2019, 12:36 pm @GaryLouisSmith
I think the red is a simple thing external to all seeing.
So you think it is external to the bottle too? Some think it belongs to the bottle, being one of its properties. I say it does not exist external to the bottle and it does not exist as a property of the bottle. It exists as a word in our language pointing to the physical properties of the bottle by means of the phenomenal qualities we have learnt to connect with those physical properties. The phenomenal qualities as such are nothing but relations within our color spectrums, colors in relation to other colors, and when our color spectrums are similar enough, we can refer to physical properties of objects using our similar color spectrums in telling what we see. Qualia without language cannot be properties of things because there is no way of determining whether they are similar or dissimilar compared to others' qualia. The structures can be compared, not the qualia as such.

If Tom cannot tell the difference between red and green, he cannot understand what 'red' and 'green' mean. He can perhaps communicate with others by inventing a word 'gred' and saying that he denotes by it what others denote when they say 'red' or 'green'. Now if phenomenal colors were properties of objects, 'red' and 'gred' would refer to the same physical properties but obviously different phenomenal properties. Phenomenal colors are real of course, but not properties of things. They express the properties of things in their own subjective ways, more or less adequately, becoming more and more objective as language makes it possible. If phenomenal qualities, taken apart from our common language, were properties of objects, objects would have as many properties corresponding to their physical properties as there are those who look at them.
Let’s say that Tom and Jerry are looking at a thing. Tom says it is a round, silver coin. Jerry says it is a black, oval slug. (Maybe they are standing in different light.) Those are two “subjective expressions of the same physical object”. That physical object has certain physical properties and a physicist can tell us what those are, but we cannot see them directly.

Actually, I think, the subjective “expression” is not of the object, but of the object plus the whole context of other nearby objects, including a lamp, and the physical nervous system of the observers. The phenomenal world is an “expression” of a very complicated system of physical objects.

I put quotes around “expression” because that is what I am concerned about. What in the hell does it mean??!! I have no idea.

Phenomenal Red is an expression of a rather complicated physical system. A materialist would say that it IS the rather complicated system. Identity. The word “expression” seems to say that there are two things there: the phenomenal thing and the system. And there is a relation or nexus of “expression” between them. I’m lost. Help!

Back to Tom and Jerry seeing different things. I think that, in your philosophy, can be taken care of by saying they are operating in different physical systems.

It seems to me that my way of explaining things is much much simpler.
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