Nope - this is not what I’m debating. Though I would like to look at what perception without image means .
I’m not sure that what is being understood by you is totally what I am ytrying to express. In fact sometimes it definitely isn’t.
Do you want me to go through all the statements you have made over the last few weeks stating the opposite?
If it were simply a matter of exploration, then wouldn’t we be having a slightly different conversation?
Agreed - there is some conflict going on
If you must - I was happy to let them lie
So what is the conflict? I have started several threads asking about awareness, attention, perception, etc, and on all of them you have been saying the same thing (namely that there cannot be perception/attention/awareness without thought, images, etc).
The conflict is surely something psychological? within us - more so than in the ideas expressed?
But if it were simply an open investigation into the possibility of a perception, a seeing, without mental images, then why would there need to be any conflict?
Unless one party is saying repeatedly that such perception is an impossibility because X scientist says so, etc…
Do you see what I mean? I have tried to make room for science in my investigation - I am not anti-science - but I don’t feel you have made room for Krishnamurti’s approach (or that of Chan, Zen, etc). So I’m a bit lost.
If you are wholly committed to the view that perception without thought is impossible, then we can’t investigate it (if you see what I mean).
The image making machinery stops when it is clear to the brain that some images formed in the moment and held thereafter in memory pollute the brain’s innocence. An innocence or emptiness that is necessary if it is to mature?
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Rather than mature - just freedom in the moment that allows for clarity.
That would be ‘maturity’?
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Isn’t all conflict psychological?
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There is probably an identification with one’s understanding and a resistence to perceived threats.
If there is ‘identification’ with one’s ideas, beliefs, conclusions, that sets the stage for conflict?
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This might be a strawman
Doesn’t this describe what you’re going through with your conflict over what a scientist says about perception and what K said about it?
I don’t perceive this conflict in me (nor the questions I have asked). Though the accusation has been levied.
I don’t see the strawman. This is what you are doing Douglas. You have denied that perception/awareness without images is possible, using Hoffman and others as your theoretical authority, and have not been able to shift your view in spite of all the things we have shared with you.
Seeing as this is a forum to investigate and understand the teachings of Krishnamurti I am surprised that you don’t take his views about this matter (or the views of other adjacent Chan and Zen Buddhists) as seriously as you take those of Hoffman and the others you have been influenced by?
Maybe you could explain in simple terms how the Neurological model that I have brought up contradicts K and zen?
The model is that perception, as provided by natural selection, is about fitness and is not about truth. (and even makes a lot of mistakes in its goal of fitness)
That our conscious experience is a projection provided by the brain.
I do not deny that non conceptual awareness is possible - I am merely questioning what it means.
We are not going to repeat the whole discussion here Douglas - we have already been over this on the pure attention thread, the observer/observed thread, and other threads. I.e. the hardware / software distinction.
The point is that you are still stuck with the view that perception without thought is not possible, and are beginning always from there. This is what is creating confusion.