Entity and Identity & Consciousness and Experience

[Mescaline]

Up front, thanks IJC for writing “we’re all fucking entities” in the other thread, haha. Actually all that you describe there is very similar to how I felt a couple of months ago, but sadly it went away again after a couple of weeks. But it feels like it's coming back because of what you wrote. I can't really thank you enough. Anyway when I first read "we're all fucking entities" I didn’t really think twice about it, but Crimzen quoted it and mentioned it resonates strongly with him, and this made me think more about it, creating all of the following (so thanks to you too Crimzen!). I do not know if anything I write here is ‘new’ to anybody, but I never thought of it in this way, and feel like sharing, and hearing your thoughts on it, and maybe realizing it's all nonsense.


Whenever I used to think about an entity, what I really thought of was some “thing”. Something that exists on itself. Something you can point at and say, ‘well, that’s the entity’. But I looked up what entity really means. The word originates from ‘entitas’, which is the latin ‘esse’ as a noun (enti- being the stem). Esse meaning ‘to be’ or ‘to exist’. Entitas then means ‘(the) existence’ or ‘(the) being’. I can hardly imagine what this really means, and not think of entitas/entity as something that exists, but, really, it is not something. For something that exists, to me seems to be an identity – Id entitas. Id in latin means ‘it’, so identity could be translated into ‘(the) it-being’ or ‘(the) being it’. (NB: not what the latin dictionary seems to make of it, saying that identity comes from idem, ‘the same’, but for me ‘(the) being it’ makes a lot more sense in understanding the difference and what follows)
So, identity is comparable to ‘(the) something being’ and entity is just ‘(the) being’. I never looked at it in this way, and maybe this is just complete nonsense.

Anyway, to get into something else first before going on with entity and identity. To me it seems obvious that all that life is made of are essentially experiences. Matter is an experience just as much as hearing a sound is an experience and having thoughts are experiences. In case of matter, matter is no more than a certain kind of sensation, a certain kind of touch sensation, which has been used to indicate that something is material instead of immaterial. The same goes for sounds. They are a certain kind of sensation which we have called sound, and having a sensation of a sound is called hearing. Thoughts are a certain kind of sensation, and having these sensations is now called thinking. And ‘a sensation’ is of course nothing but a different way of saying ‘an experience’. This kind of reduction of everything to experience can be done with pretty much everything in life as far as I can tell.

Even what is called “I” or “ego” seems to be just an experience. Actually it seems to me that ego is nothing but the collection of all these experiences, given a name. For when you are asked “who are you” you answer with experiences. I might say “I live in the Netherlands”, but actually meaning “I am the experience of living in the Netherlands”, I might add, “I am Dominique”, meaning “I am the experience of having the name Dominique”, - “I am X” = “I am the experience of X”.
So all that will ever be in life seems to me to be an experience, including the ego, you yourself, or rather what is thought of as you/I.

But, what is an experience when it is not a conscious experience..? So consciousness seems a necessary prerequisite for experience. It is pretty much all that an experience seems to be. Experience is essentially only consciousness; there is no essential difference in their “substance”, in what it is made of, what it really “is”. Going to shamelessly steal an analogy from a book I read. It makes it very obvious in my opinion. Imagine a gold chain, made of pure gold and nothing else. The gold chain is comparable to experience, whereas the gold itself is comparable to consciousness. The gold chain is in reality nothing but gold. It is only that specific shape of gold that is called a gold chain, but really it is simply pure gold. Take away the gold, and you necessarily take away the gold chain, for they are one and the same. Just like this, experience can be thought of as the form of consciousness; experience is consciousness shaped into “something”.

And here entity and identity come in again. On the one hand we have experience (including the I), and on the other consciousness. Both are the same, but different ways of looking at them. The difference to me seems to be that when talking about experience, you’re talking about ‘something being’, and when talking about consciousness one is simply talking about ‘being’. To use the gold chain analogy again, when thought of as a chain, it is something, but when thought of as gold it isn’t something, it is still formless gold, and not a thing. Of course this analogy only works when you think of pure gold as not a thing, but only as the essence of a potential thing, e.g. the chain (‘essence’ strictly understood as ‘the being’ of a thing and not a thing itself). So, what I’m getting at is that consciousness is entity, and experience is identity. Consciousness is "(the) being", whereas experience is "(the) being" given a form or shape, thus it is "(the) something being"; "(the) it being". And like said before, all experience is what the ego is – and also, identity is what experience is. So, identity is ego is experience. And when we look at everyday language, that’s exactly what we say. The ego, what is thought of as who you are, is an identity, and when talking of or describing the ego or an identity, we talk of nothing but experiences. But as explained before in other words, (an) identity has no existence, and strictly speaking is nothing but (an) entity, in the same way that the gold chain (identity) is nothing but gold (entity).
So yea, "we is entity", or just "we are all fucking entities". :idea:


All in all, just another spill of thoughts. I do not know whether I lost track of what really is here, but at the time (and still does for now) it felt like something very profound, although I can’t even put my finger on what exactly is so profound about it when reading the words. Because although it might sound a bit confusing, what I really want to say is incredibly simple, yet hard to put in words. I do not know if I even got to convey what I’m really trying to say. I feel there is something missing in this text, but this is as close as I can get to it with words. Very interested in what you all think about this, and whether it means anything to you.

 

[BrainEater]

hey man!!

i read the text a few times actually and lol it made more sense everytime i read it or at least it appeared to do that. :lol:
anyway i think it's a interesting train of thought and also kind of philosophical.

actually, it reminded me very much of this: You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can crash, drip, flow...be water my friend."
-- Bruce Lee

maybe only because of the example with the gold chain. but well then again i think it's indeed somewhat about form and formlessness. and i guess i am rather convinced that formlessness is sort of like the container for all forms.
i mean the gold itself could be seen as a form, that makes up another form, the gold chain.
the amazing thing with water is that we are mostly made of water... and what does it mean that it can also be ice and vapor??...maybe the potential/possiblity for trans-form-ation so to say. lol it's fascinating!

so seeing experience as form and consciousness as formlessness would make some sense indeed, according to your theory.
but i don't really know whether it really can be generalized like that. however in my speculation it makes sense to ask what comes first. i would say relatively obviously the formlessness as the container would come first. and that consciousness is the basis for the experience. but then again experience could also be the basis for consciousness. however it would be the same anyway lol.. it's like it can build on itself... 8)
i heard the world of forms is the world of appearances and because forms are only transient, they are considered to be illusions.

the words entity and identity remind me more of mathematics and it seems to make sense to me that you attempt to describe metaphysical and philosophical concepts in mathematical terms and ideas, so to say. i may be wrong, but to me it seems to be like that at least a little bit .. lol.. it makes sense to me, because in my view it's all mathematics anyway, in a certain way. unfortunately maybe because of that i can't really put stuff like that into words very well...
hmm interestingly i just remembered a dream that maybe relates to the topic. it was like in the dream God showed me in absolute timelessness how "He" disguised as every person i ever met and knew etc etc... actually it was so timeless i still haven't got over it lol...

do you want to say that consciousness is the entity of experience and experience is the identity of consciousness??
like a universal model for metaphysics or consciousness/experience?? lol :lol: :lol: it's fascinating and actually i have thought a lot about the same stuff, too, just in other words like you....
it seems like wordplay a little bit what you did... like the (state of) being and it being something specific or so??? maybe like alchemy?? the essences and the synthesis of them... not sure if i understood it right lol...
but then again as it seems to be so powerful we should be a little bit careful with it... just for consideration...
hmm but maybe it can help also to understand yourself better and/or more easily.
ok one more analogy and then it's enough for now. i heard/read somewhere that silence is probably the container for sound
and maybe we could say the same with darkness and light....
a lot of what i said is just my speculation or maybe speculation of someone else so just take it with a pinch of salt. something like that... :shock: 8)



peace :nod: :unibrow:

 

[Mescaline]

Hey man! I thought you would answer haha. Glad you did.

i read the text a few times actually and lol it made more sense everytime i read it or at least it appeared to do that. :lol:

haha, I'm happy it's interesting enough to read more than once
Kind of the same happens to me as well. Just keep going through the same steps in thought.. and it just gets more and more obvious every time. It kind of reminds me of conditioning your mind to see the world in a different way (or unconditioning the mind, if you like).

actually, it reminded me very much of this: You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can crash, drip, flow...be water my friend."
-- Bruce Lee

Certainly very much the same idea, if you ask me. Just put in different words. At the very least it seems very similar.

maybe only because of the example with the gold chain. but well then again i think it's indeed somewhat about form and formlessness. and i guess i am rather convinced that formlessness is sort of like the container for all forms.
i mean the gold itself could be seen as a form, that makes up another form, the gold chain.
the amazing thing with water is that we are mostly made of water... and what does it mean that it can also be ice and vapor??...maybe the potential/possiblity for trans-form-ation so to say. lol it's fascinating!

This way of thinking really does have a kind of 'magical' feel to it. As if really anything is possible. I mean, if everything is really nothing but "being", shouldn't it be possible then to change experience at will. Or maybe that is what is happening all the time? ;b But why wouldn't more drastic changes be possible? - I can certainly see how this kind of thinking can get one into a mental hospital at some point though, haha. Probably it is best to not actually want any change. Just be ;b. - Ha, that actually just made me think of pretty much all mental illnesses being a kind of "over-identifying", as in "over-wanting-to-be-something", instead of just being happy with "being". :lol:

so seeing experience as form and consciousness as formlessness would make some sense indeed, according to your theory.
but i don't really know whether it really can be generalized like that.

Ye, I agree on that. "Experience"/"Identity"/"Form" and "Consciousness"/"Entity"/"Formlessness" are just approximations, if that's the right word for it . Really, any words to describe such aspects of reality/life will not work in the end. Like you mentioned yourself in a different thread if I remember correctly?

however in my speculation it makes sense to ask what comes first. i would say relatively obviously the formlessness as the container would come first. and that consciousness is the basis for the experience. but then again experience could also be the basis for consciousness. however it would be the same anyway lol.. it's like it can build on itself... 8)
i heard the world of forms is the world of appearances and because forms are only transient, they are considered to be illusions.

Hmm, if I had to choose, I would choose formlessness as coming first as well. I can't see how experience, the "being something", can exist without there first being "being", i.e. consciousness. Formlessness or consciousness, to me seems to be able to exist on its own, although, maybe "being" on its own actually implies "being nothing". And nothing of course still is something. So maybe they just come into existence together? There is no first?
Another way would be to say, indeed, the forms are mere illusions. There is only formlessness/consciousness. So why ask what came first, when there is only one? Pretty much the same idea as saying they come into existence together, when it comes down to it .

the words entity and identity remind me more of mathematics and it seems to make sense to me that you attempt to describe metaphysical and philosophical concepts in mathematical terms and ideas, so to say. i may be wrong, but to me it seems to be like that at least a little bit .. lol.. it makes sense to me, because in my view it's all mathematics anyway, in a certain way. unfortunately maybe because of that i can't really put stuff like that into words very well...

Hahah, well it was non-intentional (I am good at maths though ). Though, I only came up with "(id)entity" because of what IJC said. There are so many words for the same concepts. But I actually like identity and entity, because you can really 'break down' those words to their actual meaning, making it all so very obvious. But maybe this just works for me. Doesn't really matter what words you use.

hmm interestingly i just remembered a dream that maybe relates to the topic. it was like in the dream God showed me in absolute timelessness how "He" disguised as every person i ever met and knew etc etc... actually it was so timeless i still haven't got over it lol...

Love those kind of dreams! Maybe you shouldn't even try to get over it, but instead get more into it?

do you want to say that consciousness is the entity of experience and experience is the identity of consciousness??
like a universal model for metaphysics or consciousness/experience?? lol :lol: :lol: it's fascinating and actually i have thought a lot about the same stuff, too, just in other words like you....
it seems like wordplay a little bit what you did... like the (state of) being and it being something specific or so??? maybe like alchemy?? the essences and the synthesis of them... not sure if i understood it right lol...
but then again as it seems to be so powerful we should be a little bit careful with it... just for consideration...
hmm but maybe it can help also to understand yourself better and/or more easily.

Ya, you could say it like that, I think. It's certainly meant as a model, for understanding reality, including yourself, yes. But always keeping in mind it is just a model, of course . I guess, if you want to completely understand life perfectly, talking about it just makes you ready for it. In the end you'll still have to be. But at least you'll know how to be, and not getting stuck in being something, or something like that.

something like that... :shock: 8)

Haha, definitely something like that

 

[autumnsphere]

Wonderful analyses, all. What interests me though is the observation that almost all people who mess with DMT and entheogens (EN + THEOS - in God, or going into God, swallowing God) are interested in philosophy, death, cutting-edge science or any thinking that analyzes things that are not seen, abstractions. Just an observation, I'm still in the is-it-real-or-not-hell.

 

[Mescaline]

I'd say it is both real and not real, for it is :lol:
Existence has all qualities, yet simultaneously having no qualities.
Better not to think about it too much, and just be instead

"...let it be, let it be, oh there will be an answer, let it be..."

 

[BrainEater]

i think i agree with what you said man.
except maybe with one thing i don't agree completely. i wouldn't say nothing is something. nothing is no-thing and hence
logically not some-thing. well... maybe nothing can become something, but in essence it's just nothing. if you ask me,
in the case that nothing is something, you can never really know what it is. lol i guess it's hard to explain.
in metaphysics i would say nothing is the container for all things. hence per definition maybe in some sense all things
are no things. lol... it's funny how some things appear as contradictions when you try to "un-do" them or so...
interestingly, in the atomic realm it's said that actually even solid stuff is basically 99% made of nothing or so, because
the small things that make up the larger things are so small and have so large spaces in between, that it's effectively
99% nothing... lol
well maybe it makes sense to say that will power is very much underrated.

hmm i also agree totally with your mental illness theory. the notion of compulsion is a very interesting thing to note.
in my view, the exagerated materalism can be seen as maybe one "factor" there. because it's like it has almost become
like a religion lol... on a broader scale it's just the dumbing down of the people. which is also exagerated.
the big brother syndrome can be seen as another factor i guess. fear is control and used as a weapon against the population in the most extreme form it's a paralysis-like state. i'd say depending on your paradigm or whatnot, if at all, don't let yourself be reduced to a robot or so. let's not buy into their game of ignorance... or at least not in the form they would
want us to or so... i call "them" reptilian people lol... in a bad way... :roll: :shock:
the thing is that the media industry manipulate a lot, only that you want their product. and this i would see as a mixed
factor. but it can also be seen as a test for your stupidity... in some ways, it's certainly an upside-down world.
something like that lol...

concerning the real and not real.. maybe there is a constant convergance of both... or in other words: a unification of opposites. to create new shit you know??? :lol: it's very interesting to think about that, but as you said, it can also be too much of a mindfuck, sometimes.. lol..



@autumnsphere well i guess it's about finding out who you really are in that sense, because of all the illusions etc etc
lol the is-it-real-or-not-hell can be a tough "place"... i would suggest that you listen to your heart, as the heart is
supposedly the source of intelligence, maybe more in a "real" sense or maybe more in a "spiritual" sense.
as far as i know i can tell you the illusion of separation from god (you), is the most deadly illusion. and in this
context it does make a difference what/who you think god is etc etc... because your thoughts matter. and you
are one with your thoughts and also with your shadow. so watch yourself in that regard. because if you don't
know what you are doing, then who else is supposed to know that??
maybe ask yourself why you would want certain things to be real and others not. as far is can see, your own
will does make a difference.the question would be how much you are aware of that.
you could also for example say you believe in god, but what is that supposed to mean?? i guess it could be
reduced to the idea that you believe in something you don't fully understand. because if you knew how it really is,
then why would you need to believe? if someone tells me he believes in god i would start to have some doubts lol.
as absurd as it may sound lol... but well of course it also depends on the general impression and the feeling of the person..something like that..


the thing is that just because you can't see something doesn't mean that it's not there. here a maybe bad example:
atoms are there, even tho you can't see them. they are all over the place...
one last suggestion i want to make that maybe makes more or less sense to you. i want you to think about
split personality in the context of the is-it-real-or-not-hell. you can try to be a whole person... or just be a whole person.
and maybe it also makes sense to ponder about the possibility that you created the experiences you are going thru yourself.
a remarkable thing to do i guess. to create something and not be aware of it. maybe it's also interesting to note
that death is supposedly the end of all illusion...
i hope any of this makes some sense and you can understand what i am saying. i am only telling what i think. just take what you want from it. :wink:


peace

 

[Mescaline]

hey braineater!

except maybe with one thing i don't agree completely. i wouldn't say nothing is something. nothing is no-thing and hence
logically not some-thing. well... maybe nothing can become something, but in essence it's just nothing. if you ask me,
in the case that nothing is something, you can never really know what it is. lol i guess it's hard to explain.
in metaphysics i would say nothing is the container for all things. hence per definition maybe in some sense all things
are no things. lol... it's funny how some things appear as contradictions when you try to "un-do" them or so...

Ye, you are right. Nothing is not something, I stand corrected . Actually what you said ("per definition maybe in some sense all things are no things") fits quite well with seeing "being" as the essence/container of of all things, the container essentially being "being no-thing". And "being no-thing" is, in a sense, the same as "nothing". Hmm, I hope this is makig some sense haha, sounds a bit confusing to me atm xD.

hmm i also agree totally with your mental illness theory. the notion of compulsion is a very interesting thing to note.
in my view, the exagerated materalism can be seen as maybe one "factor" there. because it's like it has almost become
like a religion lol... on a broader scale it's just the dumbing down of the people. which is also exagerated.
the big brother syndrome can be seen as another factor i guess. fear is control and used as a weapon against the population in the most extreme form it's a paralysis-like state. i'd say depending on your paradigm or whatnot, if at all, don't let yourself be reduced to a robot or so. let's not buy into their game of ignorance... or at least not in the form they would
want us to or so... i call "them" reptilian people lol... in a bad way... :roll: :shock:
the thing is that the media industry manipulate a lot, only that you want their product. and this i would see as a mixed
factor. but it can also be seen as a test for your stupidity... in some ways, it's certainly an upside-down world.
something like that lol...

ye I agree. Except that there is not really a "them" or "they" with bad intentions in my opinion. There are just a lot of people who have forgotten who they are and what they are doing. I tend to forgot who I am and what I'm really doing myself quite a lot, but I wouldn't say I am "bad" in those periods xD. I'd rather call "them" sad, instead of bad. But yea, I guess in a similar way that a psychotic person is sad to see but can be dangerous in some cases, in that way "they" can be dangerous as well, both mentally and physically..

 

[BrainEater]

hmm maybe the question then is: is nothing more not something than something is more nothing??? lol
well i also sometimes still wonder whether no-thing is the same thing like nothing... LOL
i guess it's like you said in some sense lol.... :lol: :lol: :lol:

the other question is when you don't know yourself what you are doing, who else is supposed to knwo that???
:wink:


peace

 

[Mescaline]

Who else is supposed to know that I don't know who I am, or who else is supposed to know who I am? :b
I think that if any given person realizes who/what they themselves are then they also know who/what everybody else is, hehe. But noone can do that for you of course.. sadly ;P
Or did I miss your point here? I feel like I did :lol:


Anyway, hahah, I actually started writing about there maybe being two different kinds of nothing in the post above.. but it got very confusing together with the "other" nothing bit, so I removed it again before submitting :lol:

Was something like this.. maybe there is another "nothing" that might be best described as "non-existence" or "non-being", which is needed for there to be existence or being in the first place. A kind of true nothingness, opposed to a nothing that is simply not something (no-thing). Might be easier schematically:

"Nothing"/"non-being" --- ( "being (no-thing)" --- "being something" )

The thing about the Nothing/non-being would be that it cannot actually exist, because if it would it would be either part of "being" or "being something". But on the other hand it must "exist" in some way for the same reason that light needs darkness to exist. Probably its just that there are no words in english for the kind of "existence" that "non-being" would have, but in any case it would have to be a kind of existence that is different from our everyday understanding of existence. .. lol So that would give us two kinds of nothing and two kinds of existence now xD :lol:

is more nothing not something than something is nothing???

haha well what do you understand by something that is nothing? Which kind of nothing? XD
I am pretty sure though, if this whole model is any good, that there is a lot of no-thing that is not something but just as much no-thing that is something, and also an equal amount of Nothing at all!

 

[BrainEater]

lol nothing is so fascinating... because it's also not what it seems lol...
hmm i made a mistake in my last post, but i have corrected it now..

btw moreover i am rather sure that energy is the nature of polarity. the world of forms/appearances and the transformation of them. as i see it, energy is like water in some way... maybe that's why bruce lee points us towards water, also...
because we are mostly water and why should we try to be something else that we not really are...
the true nature of our being or so??? i would say water is rather fundamental as the element of life or so...
maybe we just need to be more aware of what/who we really are etc etc... it could be as simple as that.

the idea that one thing has to exist for the opposite to exist also makes sense even in a universal sense or so maybe...
like ying and yang... i understood it like they are basically the same thing, in the end... like light is basically the same like
darkness, maybe just in a different form or so... :idea:

hmm maybe the whole idea of the nothing talk is pointing towards something like an abstract mind space or so... it exists, but not in reality... more like besides it or so... like another reality.... :lol: 8)
possibly in the way that it's not yet really there or so... but that it's a potential... you know??


peace

 

[Mescaline]

is nothing more not something than something is more nothing???

I'd still answer the same way. No-thing has to be not something in it's totality.. that's what no-thing is after all, right? :b
And something is in a sense also 100% no-thing just as the gold chain is completely made out of gold. I feel like the two just have to be in perfect balance, always.

About the energy.. I usually equal energy to consciousness. Two ways of describing the same thing. And water would fit as well, ye . Like depending on the way you look at the world you can reduce yourself to energy, water or consciousness. A material way (water), semi-material (energy) and spiritual way (consciousness) of describing the exact same thing. I guess all three can be seen as the true nature of our being.. and I don't think either is more right or wrong than the other. Also as far as I can tell all the same "conclusions" would follow. Except maybe in case of water, because we are not 100% made up of water, and other things in this world are certainly not either... But the idea behind it is the same still. I guess in case of water one shouldn't take it too literally, or do you think differently?

maybe we just need to be more aware of what/who we really are etc etc... it could be as simple as that.

I definitely agree with that But it seems to me that because it is so simple that it becomes hard again. Just like something that is hiding in plain sight can be the hardest to find sometimes. There is so little to "understand" about who you are, in a way there is nothing at all to understand about it.. and maybe that is why it is so hard to understand.. there is nothing to understand lol.. There is nothing to know about who one is; so in a way it cannot even be known who one is; one simply is, and that's all there is to it.. Hahah I'm repeating myself, I guess you understand :lol:

hmm maybe the whole idea of the nothing talk is pointing towards something like an abstract mind space or so... it exists, but not in reality... more like besides it or so... like another reality.... :lol: 8)
possibly in the way that it's not yet really there or so... but that it's a potential... you know??

Hhah ye, I like the idea of it being another reality, another existence. A potential existence indeed. That would fit perfectly, reminds me of the other thread about actuality and potentiality. :lol:

"Nothing" could like you said be interpreted as potentially being;
Whereas "being (no-thing)" is actually being, but also potentially being something (so that both nothing and no-thing are in a way potentials);
And "being something" is of course actually being something.

Lol, it's fascinating xD

 

[BrainEater]

lol, totally man!!!..
i agree completely with what you said. however i wouldn't say , that seeing oneself as energy, water or consciousness
would be reducing oneself...
yeah maybe it means that water is a transcendental "compound", because maybe we can convert energy thru/with it??
not sure, but maybe even like solving energy or so in water, because water is, depending on the state more or less
a resonant medium, i guess...
i mean there is somewhere a connection or so between the material and the spiritual (anti-material) realms, as well...

maybe it indeed helps as a mnemonic or so, to separate the words to get a clearer understanding. nothing = no thing,
something = some thing. sort of like the negative/indirect way of saying something. like: it's not like this, so it's like that.
or the other way round: it's like this, so it's not like that...

well the other thing that you say reminds me of cosmic jokes ideas... but also the idea of self-realization... hmm well not that self-realization could not be funny or so... but i guess it just is what is... isn't it??? lol
or can it be what it is and what it not is, at the same time, possibly??? :shock: :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
as i see it it's comparable to the question whether seeing is believing or seeing is believing... sort of a matter of definition or so... in a a way, like equations, i guess... mathematics and the universe work together... as you said balance seems to be
even some sort of basic concept of it or so...
it's probably like a step by step evolution from being skeptic to believing to knowing, but it can also go the other way round.
just because you can't see something, doesn't necessarily mean at all it isn't there... right???

btw man... i also opened a topic about logics... maybe you are interested in that, too??? 8)


peace

 

[Mescaline]

i agree completely with what you said. however i wouldn't say , that seeing oneself as energy, water or consciousness would be reducing oneself...

hmm, ye "reducing" was probably the wrong word.. "understanding oneself in terms of (or seeing onself as) water/energy/consciousness" would come closer to what I meant.

yeah maybe it means that water is a transcendental "compound", because maybe we can convert energy thru/with it??
not sure, but maybe even like solving energy or so in water, because water is, depending on the state more or less
a resonant medium, i guess...
i mean there is somewhere a connection or so between the material and the spiritual (anti-material) realms, as well...

Ye, energy would probably be the link between material and spiritual.. But I'm not sure if there has to be such a connection; a connection between two things I mean.. It kind of presupposes that the material and spiritual are two different things. But because water, energy and consciousness are just different ways of describing the same thing, then there actually is only one thing, so there is nothing to connect :lol:.
What I think is special about water is that it is very real to us. We know for a fact that we are made up out of primarily water, and we can see water, know what it looks like, what it feels like, that it can easily change shape or transform, that it is essentially formless etc. And by assuming that it is in those ways very similar to energy and consciousness, that by being similar it serves as a kind of bridge to those more spiritual or less material ways of thinking about reality and yourself. Like, if you manage to think of yourself as water, it will be easier from there to think of yourself as energy or consciousness. This would be easier opposed to going from a view of yourself as a material object to a view of yourself as a completely immaterial thing. haha, so it kinda is a connection after all, but more like an illusionary connection or a mnemonic maybe

but i guess it just is what is... isn't it??? lol
or can it be what it is and what it not is, at the same time, possibly??? :shock: :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Isn't exactly that the cosmic joke? especially the first sentence. I've almost literally laughed my ass off about that realization more than once, hahahah, with and without the help of some sort of substance :lol:

btw man... i also opened a topic about logics... maybe you are interested in that, too??? 8)

heh, I'll check it out tomorrow, but I hated logic at uni xD (or philosophy of language as it was called) .. The professor wasn't much good at explaining either, and it was like math but instead of numbers you use words. The "equations" looked like chinese to me.. just look at it rofl.. those symbols refer to sentences, propositions and words lol :

Voir la pièce jointe 5588

ugh, truly terrible xD

 

[Mescaline]

Yesterday I was thinking about a, I think, better way of defining Identity..

As so far it would be:

Non-Entity --- (Entity --- Identity)

But I thought that actually you can talk about "being something" as being something in particular, but you can also talk about "being something" as the being of all things as somsthing in it's totality; a "universal something" or "unifying something". Because when you look at the world around, you get the impression that there are seperate individual things existing. But in another way you can also see the whole world of experiential reality, of all existing things together as "something that is".
So instead of the above model it would turn into something like this:

Non-Entity --- (Entity --- (Identity --- Individuality) )

Non-Entity/non-being would remain as necessary for there to be any kind of entity/being in the first place, like two sides of a coin, or light and dark.
Entity would also still remain to be the being, or essence, of things. But for Identity the correct translation of "being the same" would actually fit it better now, compared to "being something". For individuality would now be "being something (in particular)", wheres Identity would be all the manifestations in the world of particualr things together as one. So all these individualities are in a way the same thing, if thought of as being part of one and the same world, which is a thing on itself.

In terms of Consciousness and Experience you could say that there are Individual experiences (individuality). But takig all individual experiences together would create one big Experience, or the experiential world (identity). Then Experience is completely made out of Consciousness and Consciousness would need "non-consciousness" in order for consciousness to be meaningful.

As a metaphore you could say to imagine a world made out of pure gold. The seprate golden houses and trees etc, are Individualities, but the whole gold world together is Identity. Then as the whole gold world is essentially made out of gold, the gold itself is Consciousness. But just as gold needs space to exist, there has to be something in which the gold exists, so does Consciousness need something to exist in, which might be "non-consciousness".. or probably "potential consciousness" is better..

What do you think? haha :lol:

 

[Mescaline]

Btw maybe you'd be interested in this book by Quentin Meillassoux about his philosophy that he calls speculative materialism. I'm reading it for uni at the moment.. It kind of deals with the same subject, but takes a different approach.. I don't agree with the author's opinoin up to where I am in the book, but it's still interesting to see a different opinion :b

After Finitude An essay on the Necessity of Contingency by Quentin Meillassoux

Also maybe these two books might be interesting.. from the same course, as "additional reading".. they're yet two other approaches to the subject. One is a collection of essays by different speculative philosphers, and the other about transcedental nihilims by Ray Brassier. I think transcendental nihilims sounds very interesting/promising, but I haven't read anything from that book yet :b

The Speculative Turn by Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek and Graham Harman
Nihil Unbound Extinction and Enlightenment by Ray Brassier

All three of these books are attempts at going beyond Kant's and Descartes' philosophy. Or like the course description puts it:

"Virtually all modern philosophy is bound by the idea that reality is the correlate of subjective experience. After Kant it seems impossible not to conceive of reality as either a front show phenomenon or a backstage noumenon, both being framed by finite conditions of subjectivity. A growing number of philosophers are challenging this constraint, including Quentin Meillassoux (speculative materialism), Graham Harman (object-oriented philosophy), and Ray Brassier (transcendental nihilism). Their common concern is to cure philosophy from “correlationism”."


EDIT: Also Circus Philosophicus by Graham Harman is a very ejoyable read. It's six short 'modern' myths illustrating the idea behind his object-oriented philosophy.

 

[Apeiron]

Observer/soul/entity is the base ["element"] of the being/ego/identity.
Well put

 

[Mescaline]

Reading the book by Q. Meillassoux actually changed my mind a bit about the model. I've almost finished it, and the guy has some really good suggestions, in part 'compatible' with the model in this topic. Also reminds me of hindu-philospohy. Seems like western philosophy is finally starting to catch up
I'll post more about it after I finished it so I don't talk nonsense about what the guy really means, heh . I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in this kind of stuff.

EDIT: Nevermind his book, was not what I thought it was. Has some interesting ideas, but ultimately disappointing in my opinion.

 

[autumnsphere]

I started reading this: http://speculativeheresy.files.wordpres ... coming.pdf

This guy is nuuuuuuuuuuuts. I prefer Hegel, haha.

 

[Mescaline]

Haha, after finishing his book, I have to agree. It's funny actually.. I thought the guy was crazy in the beginning of the book.. then he started making some sense and thought he was getting at something, but in the final chapter it just became complete nonsense again, imo. Felt like a cheap trick. Also except for his notion of there (necessarliy) being something that is pure contingecy/potentiality/virtuality as the source of everything there is no resemblance to eastern philosophy at all. Big disappointment

And, like a lot of philosophers he makes the assumption that there is an experiencing entity that is 'experiencing' the experienced (an external (or internal) world that is not the same 'thing' as the experiencing entity). Only if this assumption is accepted as truth does the correlationist problem of how we can have knowledge of a reality that is assumed to be anterior/independent of human existence, thus anterior/independent of human experience, even arise...