Your dissembling is obvious, so it doesn’t take much awareness to see it.
Calling you on your dishonesty is not a knee-jerk reaction - it’s an appropriate response to a jerk.
Which means you have an image of yourself as honest. Are you aware of this image? And what does it mean to think of oneself as honest? Honest about what? If we look carefully enough I am sure we shall see that at the bottom of it all there are only a lot of ideas in the field of honesty and dishonesty. The truth is something outside of our own personal influence.
‘There is no agency other than thought.’
You may talk about choiceless awareness until the end of your days, but if it prevents you from looking at a very simple statement like this, of what use is talk of either choiceless awareness or honesty? Your own logic is denying itself any enquiry.
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Instead of flagging this insult - I’ll do the same as Mahesh : discuss it.
It looks very much like righteous violence against others is justified by the authority of the known.
If I believe that Mahesh is in fact Paul (my sworn enemy), the righteous anger that I feel about his dishonesty must be expressed.
Could anything falsify this belief that Mahesh is Paul, or is it an unfalsifiable belief (ie crazy or at least unreasonable)?
PS. All the people who dislike unreasonable useless conflictual ego based arguments have long gone from this forum - those still present probably find watching these ad hominem type fights amusing or excitng (despite being a sad reflection of our suffering and our confusion)
We like drama! And drama is build on conflict. Conflict and resolution, conflict and resolution. We are addicted to the psychological pattern. If it doesn’t happen naturally we’ll find ways (consciously or unconsciously) to force it to happen.
What are the consequences, + and –, of being addicted to the conflict-resolution pattern?
Conflict and drama are the consequences. Which includes stuff like violence, cruelty, excitement, pain, tears, anger, broken limbs, R & D into weaponry, commerce of weaponry, cunning, guile, poverty, starvation, rape, war movies, telenovelas, peace treaties, revenge, pride etc…
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You forgot the + consequences! The right type of conflict-resolution drama can be stimulating, energizing, relationship and connection fostering, creativity inspiring. Stories have power for us, our minds, bodies, and spirits. And the story of something wrong being made right through our efforts is a good one.
I’m not trying to negate the negatives, rather to present a fuller picture of how things seem to work.
No, what it means is that your dishonesty and duplicity is too obvious to deny or down-play, and someone has to do it.
The truth is something outside of our own personal influence.
You state this as if you know it’s true…another lie. I don’t know if it’s true, but I can see dishonesty when it is obvious.
‘There is no agency other than thought.’
You said that thought can be aware of itself and I said it cannot be aware of anything because it is only a mechanism, and you agreed. Now you’re repeating your false statement as if you’ve forgotten agreeing that thought has no awareness. Without awareness, can thought have agency?
Thought is the mechanism the brain, confused and conflicted by its psychological content, uses to articulate and communicate. Thought makes no decisions or choices - it just articulates and expresses the decisions and choices that its content automatically dictates. Thought is just a keyboard utilized by its reactive content.
The whole process has little or nothing to do with what’s actually happening, and everything to do with what is believed to be true.
No I didn’t (someone just wasn’t paying attention again)
I pay attention, in my own way. 
I register the following in your consequences list:
16 negatives - violence, cruelty, pain, tears, anger, broken limbs, R & D into weaponry, commerce of weaponry, cunning, guile, poverty, starvation, rape, war movies, revenge, pride
3 positives (or leaning towards) - excitement, telenovelas, peace treaties
Your positives seem token, begrudgingly included in an overwhelmingly negative gathering. ?
R & D is considered by many to be positive.
Same goes for commerce (it allows for trust between folk and money - we like money)
Military equipement like guns, bows and arrows, GPS etc have contributed to the survival and wellbeing of humanity (many consider this a positive gain)
Some war movies are part of many folks favourite movies.
Pride makes me feel wonderful,
Including your favourites : excitement, telenovelas, peace treaties that makes 8
Cunning, guile and tears can be classed as either or neither positive nor negatives.
That leaves 9 negative (if I’ve counted correctly) - so in the spirit of fairness I’ll say that the cycles of war and peace have also contributed to people writing great novels and poetry.
Are we talking personal motives here? Traumatised brains? Rather than allowing what is being presented to tell its own story? We are all guilty of that to an extent - thats why we fight.
nb. Okay full disclosure : I think it can be demonstrated that peace rather than war is preferable to global wellbeing and progress.
Are you sure you aren’t re-presenting your consequences in a positive light to bolster your argument? Interpreting “R D into weaponry” as positive seems a real stretch. Ditto for pride, guile, and cunning, all of which elicit a knee-jerk negative vibe, especially in the context of this forum.
Shall we agree conflict-resolution living is rich in both positive and negative potential? This seems way more realistic than seeing it as (basically) an abomination.
Alls I mean is I occasionally (not often) skim rather than earnestly attend to content.
Thought has no awareness of anything outside of itself. When it views any aspect of the world, it is programmed to measure, compare and identify what it finds from the perspective of what it has previously gathered and processed, which are its stored memories either from direct personal experience or from the recorded experiences of others. These memories are limited, which makes thought’s perspective always unreliable except for certain short-term practical decisions.
The question being asked is whether or not thought can make a radical short-term practical decision, which is to shut itself off in all other areas where its own perspective is limited. These other areas include the whole psychological field of existence. This is what lies behind the question of thought being aware of itself. It is not being asked to step outside of itself and make any assessment of the universe. It is being asked only to consider its own place and function within this universe. And consideration - ‘to consider’ - is the central agency of thought, its raison d’etre, if you will pardon my French.
Nope. I 'm not sure why you want me to agree to this - as I said earlier
I have agreed that you are correct : my list of stuff associated with war contained more negatives than positives - lets please leave aside whether you are more correct than I gave you credit for. We can talk til the cows come home regarding the cost benefit analysis of bows and arrows, nuclear bombs, military R & D etc.
Anyway this bit of the argument is nonsensical : you cannot say war is neither good nor bad based on the argument that military R & D is very very bad (or good).
You use the idea of cycle of conflict & resolution rather than war - and there is the idea that there is a positive side to conflict/resolution - mainly I suppose in the resolution side of things and in the cultural expression of traumatism.
I would say that resolution is inevitable because permanent conflct is impossible to sustain - materially, physically, emotionally, psychologically, one or both sides is either destroyed or so exhausted that they cannot continue - there is a natural barrier to permanent conflict. (the question Buddha and K ask is whether conflict is inevitable)
I agree that there are spoils of war, booty to be had - but no winners really - and post conflict nostalgia or art is no compensation.
Maybe this idea that conflict is neither good nor bad is due to the ongoing confusion regarding the imaginary Absolute - Yes, good/bad is meaningless at the level of theoretical Absolute (eg. infinite universes or psychotic omnipotent gods) - but on an actual, practical level pain and suffering is about people (or sentient beings) - subjective does not mean inexistent, or less important - in fact the suffering of one puppy far outweighs the disdain of any god ( or philosopher).
I agree that conflict affects actual reality in many ways, and that our subjective opinions on the issue are just our subjective opinions. But surely we are not suggesting that we should have more wars (in order to reap the benefits)? Just because conflict affects creativity, does not mean that it improves creativity (this is a nonsense argument - ie. war not bad because war art good : either we are arguing for absolutes or not, we cannot cherry pick to suit our argument, its dishonest).
If your statement was correct : “conflict neither good nor bad”, we would have no preference between living in a time of war or living in a time of peace. We would have no qualms about raising the intensity of the conflict.
In a similar way to the awareness that the body has of its movement; i.e., where its different parts are located in space…thought needs an awareness of how and when it is moving, that it is a part of the whole, not separate. Not ‘superior’. Not the ‘I Am’.
I take your point that speaking from the absolute level without having realized the absolute level skews the inquiry. Alls I’m saying is that living the conflict-resolution pattern has both bad and good consequences. As for whether either side ‘wins’ … that’s above my pay grade. It seems to me the good of mankind and the bad are often deeply intertwined, perhaps inextricably. We straddle heaven and hell. We’re a mess. And then shows up a guy like Krishnamurti who dares to ask whether there is a different ‘better’ way to live.
That’s a misleading way of putting it. Thought has no awareness, but when thought is occurring - be it deliberately or compulsively - there is awareness of its activity. You need to understand this so you don’t keep repeating the falsehood that thought has awareness.
The question being asked is whether or not thought can make a radical short-term practical decision, which is to shut itself off in al other areas where its own perspective is limited.
No, that is not the question. The question is whether the brain can awaken to its psychological content, and seeing that content for what it is, negate it.
This is what lies behind the question of thought being aware of itself. It is not being asked to step outside of itself and make any assessment of the universe. It is being asked only to consider its own place and function within this universe.
Thought isn’t asked to do anything because that would be like asking a hammer to do something. Thought is a tool, a mechanism, but you keep giving it super powers like awareness and reason. It isn’t being asked to do anything because thought is neither aware or intelligent - it’s just something the brain does for reasons that aren’t always clear or obvious.
Thought can’t consider its own place - or consider anything - because it’s just the sound and the fury of a brain confused and conflicted by the psychological content of its consciousness.
There is awareness of the activity of thought by whom or by what? This is the central question. There is a tendency to throw out this term ‘awareness’ as though it exists as something totally separate from thought, as almost a magical property of consciousness. But first we must realise that behind all these subtle and sophisticated kinds of terminology there is the figure of thought lurking in the shadows. Every single word and definition has been invented by thought. Every careful or careless explanation has been constructed by thought. The words ‘me’ and ‘you’ are the work of thought; so you and I are ourselves thought. We don’t have any psychological existence outside of thought.
So what is it that is aware of thought if not thought itself? Usually, if we are honest with ourselves and careful enough to observe, there is awareness of what thought is doing only after the fact. This is because thought has also invented or constructed an observer called the ‘me’ who comes in to evaluate and judge what has happened. It is this observer or separate self who then talks of being choicelessly aware as a way out of its own conditioning.
Can thought be aware of itself without any interference from this observer? Then it is not about myself being aware of my thoughts, either choicelessly or otherwise, because myself no longer has any part to play. ‘There is only thought. There is no self whatsoever.’ Watch carefully your responses to these statements. It is only the observer or the self who reacts to and resists such statements. Thought itself is incapable of reaction and resistance. Thought is merely a tool of consideration; and that tool has to do to the right job. But there is no tool-maker to do it. If the tool-maker does come into play, he is working with tools forged from the sound and fury of a confused and limited consciousness, to borrow your own expression.
I am glad you are fighting back because each time we talk we are able to get a little deeper into it and we can then clear out some of the confusing language. Not many people stick so ruthlessly to pursuing this kind of question.
I am sure that awakening or freedom from the known is not dependant on discovering the correct answer to this mystery. If we believe the answer is x (or y), this is just more knowledge.
If the answer is theoretical… if it is an opinion… is smth from esperience… or can it be the more real thing?..
Thanks Rick for your response - I was worried that I was being too conflictual
Its a simple (though apparently not obvious) fact that good and bad (or hope and fear) are different sides of the same coin - they are parts of the same spectrum - I desire when looking forward to my imagined goals and fear when I look back at my possible failure.
They are intertwined because thay are the same movement.
Not having seen clearly ie. always seeing from the point of view of this confused deluded center of desire/fear - what I call the absolute is just part of the known.
I suppose the thing I was getting most riled up about is when we use what we know to make excuses for our own cruelty. (and nonsense, I always get excited when I spot obvious nonsense 
)