There is no such thing as teaching and learning. There is only intelligence discovering itself.
Do you know what it means to be naive? It means a lack of experience, judgement and knowledge. [from Old French naif “naive, natural, genuine; just born; foolish, innocent; unspoiled, unworked” (13c.), from Latin nativus “not artificial,” also “native, rustic,” literally “born, innate, natural” (see native (adj.)).] This sounds very much like a global brain because where there is experience, judgement and knowledge there is bound to be continuing incoherent compulsive thought, which is the network of an artificial brain. This you can see for yourself. You don’t need to take my word for any of it. The dictionary itself is clear enough.
So let’s try being naive for a few minutes. Find out what happens. No-one is forcing us to be clever and sophisticated.
Then one may find out that this ‘you and me’ nonsense has no meaning to it whatsoever, that it is a completely artificial construct. But one has to be willing to play with it, take a risk to be wrong, embarrassed, hurt, whatever it is that keeps us hemmed into protecting ourselves and our ideas of separate identity.
Otherwise, what the hell are we here for? It is no fun to go on forever as part of a compulsive incoherent machine.
Shared definitions are usually a good idea in conversation. You seem to be proposing the naive brain as opposed to an artificial brain. That the global brain is more akin to a naive brain. More in innocence than in dogma. More seeing than knowing?
A brain without division can’t be full of ideas, opinions and beliefs, including beliefs about its own nature. When it tells itself, 'I am conditioned, ’ without seeing the fact behind those words, it has caught itself in a most horrific nightmare.
So, I think we mean that a brain is “global” because it is not constrained (by identity by dogma)
Firstly, I am conditioned. Do we agree that this is a fact?
Secondly, what you are riling against (in the form of Inquiry’s bloody-mindedness) has more to do with identifying with some fact, turning it in to conclusions and dogma, weaponising the teaching, psychological oneupmanship, knower vs knower. (which is probably due to our cultural, psychological and neurological conditioning)
So there is the intellectual argument that describes how we are necessarily conditioned beings - are we convinced that the argument is sound and valid, do we agree that it is correct?
Then I suppose you are asking whether we have actually seen clearly what the whole movement of self is - had some clear, liberating insight into our human experience.
It doesn’t matter to me where we are coming from in this instance - I am just asking whether we feel that the statement “I am conditioned”, the human experience is determined, if you will - is correct.
What is it that is conditioned? And is there any part of the observer or the witness of this conditioning that is itself free and unconditioned? Or there is only a state of conditioning brought about by the very obvious fact that thought must always remain limited and incomplete. Human experience is therefore determined by whatever remains unresolved in our past and kept alive by thought. It is this limited content of our consciousness that seems to keep us caught in a state of reactive living. This is our general psychological conditioning, briefly sketched.
You see, we have been over this question of conditioning so many times and it doesn’t seem to make much difference. We continue to get hurt and we continue to remain mostly defensive. So what are we asking of each other when we go into this question? Does the clear intellectual description of what is going on within ourselves make much difference?
I think its important, helpful that we find our common ground - if we don’t both accept x, we should be discussing that, rather than just assuming stuff incorrectly about our interlocutor and necessarily continuing in error (ie. talking past each other).
Beliefs make a difference. We are conditioned (ha ha) to react in a certain manner - identify with, get hurt and defensive etc as we see here on the forum.
Now is there anything special about the intellectual descriptions provided by K or Buddhism regarding our human experience? - because thats all we are dealing with : words describing stuff.
Dogmas can lead to wars, as they do here. Because we identify with concepts that we accept as true,
I’m going to say that these concepts (about self) will only be transformative in the very few that become obsessed, or are unable to ignore the problem of suffering.
You can’t help making absolute statements that imply understanding you don’t really have. How would you know anything about “intelligence”? Is the conditioned brain and its incoherent thought intelligent?
Then one may find out that this ‘you and me’ nonsense has no meaning to it whatsoever, that it is a completely artificial construct. But one has to be willing to play with it, take a risk to be wrong, embarrassed, hurt, whatever it is that keeps us hemmed into protecting ourselves and our ideas of separate identity.
Please take you teacher shtick somewhere else.
It is no fun to go on forever as part of a compulsive incoherent machine.
How would you know? Are you not “a compulsive incoherent machine” like the rest of us? If you’re not, create your own forum where you can play teacher.
I don’t know what I am. I don’t say I am this or that. Maybe I am nothing at all other than what thought tells me to say. So I am thought. That’s very simple, isn’t it?
And what are you? Are you also not thought? Of course you are. This is what we are. Therefore, teaching and learning is a nonsensical concept. It serves only to keep alive a belief that we are at separate levels of consciousness, which is quite absurd.
Hopefully, if we are seeing this together, then thought is operating differently from its pattern of mechanical assumptions, chief of which is to assume within the brain the guise of an entity called oneself which somehow feels and acts as though separate from the rest of thought. This is what one means by intelligence discovering itself. But intelligence without love is cold and useless.
Well I think we kinda agreed that the reactions of the self are determined, and that we get hurt and defensive.
And so to the question of our relationship to the teachings about self and suffering I suggested that some kind of intensity was lacking in most of us.
Meaning that we don’t really arrive at insight into the whole movement of self, nor any real freedom through awareness of our suffering, because intellectual understanding by itself isn’t sufficient for transformation.
But you imply that you know more than we do. Recently you told us there is an end to our condition (that isn’t the death of the brain), and one could know this only if it at ended for them.
I can go back to everything you’ve said in the past month and show more of such statements you’ve made, but I won’t waste my time.
teaching and learning is a nonsensical concept. It serves only to keep alive a belief that we are at separate levels of consciousness, which is quite absurd.
If “teaching and learning is a nonsensical concept” for you, that’s your problem - not ours.
Hopefully, if we are seeing this together, then thought is operating differently from its pattern of mechanical assumptions
Unless one shares your assumption that teaching and learning is a nonsensical concept".
intelligence without love is cold and useless.
Another of your long-held assumptions. You don’t know what intelligence or love is, yet you persist in saying and implying that you do
This is your implication, not mine. You are not exploring the question, which leaves us stuck. Exploring this together, we wouldn’t need to be concerned with who says what. We would not even be there. It is our own knowledge and opinions that keeps love at bay.
This is all logical stuff. It has nothing to do with what you or I think about it.
Agreeing that we are conditioned, or that we tend to get hurt if our beliefs are challenged is already common ground. From there we at least know that we are looking from the same starting point, agreeing on basic facts that might provoke further questions in dialogue.
From where you are with Inquiry, you are talking past each other : He thinks you are x, you think you are y. So you are talking past each other, or are in conflict, you are not looking in the same direction. Dialogue is broken.
With Rick the other day, I wanted to take the conversation to a certain point, he wanted to take it elsewhere : no common ground.
As for two people having the same level of curiosity or need, I’m not sure why you’re pointing at that.
My first reaction is that insight is not dependant on another. I can be calm and you can be excited or seriously implicated - this won’t be a barrier to insight surely?
Are we attending wholeheartedly to whatever is presenting itself in this moment? (or are we resisting)
My question was : will I resist if the other’s energy is not as it “should” be? (or if they are using the “wrong” words) or will I attend wholeheartedly nonetheless?
I am presenting myself to you and you are presenting yourself to me. That’s all that exists in this moment. Two people are talking, communicating, making contact. They are having a dialogue. Anything else is extraneous. Anything else dilutes the intensity of this moment. So what else is present? Is there an image of the other person? That image must be based on the past, not the present. And who is presenting such an image? Again, the image-maker must be living in the past and not in the present. So either I am with you or I am taking care of my pictures and stories.
If we have followed each other so far and remain together on a common ground of enquiry then the next question must be obvious. What are we actually without these images in play? Is there a you and me at all at this moment? Or there is only thought enquiring into itself, observing its habits and dependencies, finding out what it means to cling to the images and stories of both the past and the future. There is incoherent compulsive thought only when it lives in a place far away from the present moment.
In other words : what is motivating my experience? Am I attending freely to the situation presenting itself (eg. the questions, the enquiry, what my interlocutor is actually saying) - Or am I concerned with what should be - am I motivated by protecting my status, defending my dogma etc…?
This is the same question : what is the authority in this dialogue? My psychological status, or attention without fear?
Thinking is time - is this a fact?
If so, are we bound to the past? As in its slave? Or can time and knowledge (eg. of words and concepts) simply be tools?
Either we are able to ignore the movement of self, or we are not able to ignore it.
Either we see the necessity of death (in this instant), or not.