What is the point about discussing thought?

Before answering, I like to try and find out what the questioner means.

But maybe this is a more interesting question? Defining what “self-observation” means seems essential - especially in relation to what you say about the self.

If the statement about “old self” is seen to be true (sounds legit) what happens?
Surely just to conclude that my conclusion is true would be a mistake? (like a dog chasing its tail - whichever angle it tries to come at it from)

PS. I don’t assume either of us know what you’re talking about - sometimes I ask questions for us to enquire into what you’re talking about

Pilgrim

At the very beginning and throughout one’s life, there is observation of “what is” happening around/about oneself, and then there is a observation of “what is” happening within, when there is a trigger. It is definitely not an activity of the self. It becomes a self-centred activity when one is thinking over and discussing what was seen.

I’ll go with Yes. But I’m pretty sure I don’t actually understand the question.

previous deleted because quote was incorrect.

Thought is limited. We don’t have to stop there.

I don’t know, either. I just wonder why thought, an instrument of intelligence, does not always operate intelligently, and often operates foolishly, deceitfully, maliciously, etc. We say there is practical thought and psychological thought, the latter being impractical because there is no thinker, no I, no me, but only thought, yet thought persists in operating as if there is.

Is this because thought can be deliberate, intentional, methodical, careful and rigorous, as well as spontaneous, unbidden, impulsive, incessant, uncontrollable, confused and contradictory? If thought is malfunctioning, does it matter that there is no thinker?

Dear Mr Pilgrim,
If only there was a Nobel prize for fitting square pegs into round holes! Surely you would figure amongst this years nominees!
I have some Scandinavian ancestry (2% in DNA) - if that counts for anything, I’m willing to lay it on the line with the Academy in Sweden. :joy:

PS - Thank you, and no ill will intended (sorry if any taken) - I enjoy a bit of metaphysics as much as anyone

I don’t follow your debate about self. Where did you get this notion we are saying watching self?
I say it again. Watching and listening is not self. Self is the within the thought process forming and cultivating images.

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The eyes, the skin, the ears, the nose, and the brain process information per se. It is their function - this much is probably obvious.
If the contents of consciousness are a part of consciousness - then it can be said to be watching itself.

However, if by self we mean the identification with the center, separate from its environment, this is different from perception - it includes knowledge, an interpretation, separate objects and implied relationships (and goals?).

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Isn’t it that the “empty” or open brain/mind is alert to the stream of thoughts that present themselves as the ‘you’ or ‘me’? But ‘intelligence’ is on to the game and puts up no resistance to this flow. This seeing of this situation neither accepts or rejects because there is the understanding that any resistance whatsoever, any suppression whatsoever, is the source of conflict in the mind. ‘Freedom is always at the beginning’. The seeing in the moment of the arising of thought/thinking in its “dictatorial “ disguise as someone here put it, negates it. As I see it.

post #35:

post #36:

If the “watching” is the activity of the self-centre focused exclusively on itself — its thoughts, emotions, desires, interpretations, ideas, actions, and so on — then, yes, that is by definition a self-centred activity. Self considers everything beyond its thoughts, emotions, desires, etc., relatively unimportant.

But isn’t there an observation which is NOT the activity of the self centre, an observation which is beyond the interests of the self-centre, which excludes nothing, which encompasses the whole of the living moment, both inwardly and outwardly? Isn’t there an observation whose action is not to like or dislike, prefer or compare, condemn or approve, an observation which is not motivated by desire or emotion (all of which are the activity of thought)?

As I see it, there is. And that observation OBSERVES thought, time, self. It does not exclude that which self consists of. But it is not filled with THAT. It is empty.

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post #45:

If thought is all there is, if there is no mind beyond thought, it might not matter. Is thought all there is?

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If I see things, then I am present and what I know is present - and if I think a second me is watching the first me and its projections - this is just further confusion/projection.

The things that I see : chairs, myself, other people, objects, non-material concepts like goal, interpretation, self and other words that we may find in the dictionary are not what is perceived, they are interpretations of what is (perception + interpretation)

Naming/interpretation/conceptualisation depends on a me and its knowledge.

I, and the things that I see do not arise via awareness or sensation alone.

We feel that there truly are separate things (because we feel that our experience must be at least somewhat true) - but this has not yet been demonstrated to be the case.

For there to be time, thought or self, there must be more than just perception, there must be knowing.

A complaining mind can’t see itself, but in this topic, I am pointing to looking and watching, where self is understood to be a part of the fragmented mind and this is where thought is operating. Arguments about self are in the nature of self. That’s all. Please observe this topic. “What is the point about discussing thought?”

When I use the word “mind” I mean the cognitive faculty, which, for all intents and purposes, is thought, the mechanism that processes raw data into information, so if there’s a “mind beyond thought”, I can’t imagine it because thought is all I’m familiar with. But I don’t rule out the possibility that there may be such a mind.

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As far as I can tell, all it does is to reveal what thought thinks about itself.

The point as I see it is to put into words the insights that arise from the observation of thought. Is thought observing, aware of itself? The insight is that ‘we’ are not the contents of this thinking. Different contents for each of us, the universal stream of thought. The “material’, mechanical, movement of thinking…it is a ‘thing’ and we are not a thing. Thought has created a ‘thinker’ but it is still a ‘thing’, not what we are. We can not ‘know’ what we are because ‘knowing ‘ is the past , the realm of thought…if any of this is true it is necessary to talk to others about it. Slavery to the known is suffering. It is divisive. The self/ego is divisive and dangerous. It allows killing and brutality.

Dear @DanMcD or anyone - what do we mean by what “I am” or “we are”? Especially if we are not what we think we are.

I mean : are we saying that there really is an unknown me somewhere apart from the usual me that I feel I am?

Yes that’s the ‘point’, “‘you’ are the world”!

Thank you.

By “world” do you mean : what is, what I see, human society and what it has created or something else? Are you saying “I am the universe”? or something else.

What do you mean by “me”? Not my sense of Identity, seeing as I identify with this center known as macdougdoug.

Thought brings its practical need for surety, for certainty into the psychological where it doesn’t have a place. It wants to know. And it is frustrating to find it can’t so it makes things up to allay the frustration. It theorizes, speculates, etc. If the “thinker is the thought”, why did thought come up with this duality? What about the “experiencer is the experience”? Has there been insight into how or why thought saw a ‘need’ to create an illusory entity apart from itself, if it did? The “me and the mine” as K called it?

I recall something being said about the desire for ‘continuity’ ? If that is so, why should it desire such a thing? Why should it fear ‘ending’? Why do I fear ending?