Am i to understand there is no difference @Howard ? That thought made up something and was defending it’s self-image, the me, while debating?
**I’m not sure what you’re asking? Is there no difference in what? If you’re asking if thought defends the image it created, yes, that appears to be the case. But ‘defending’ happens according to the thought conditioning in the brain. The brain contains the cultural conditioning of being a particular identity, the image of me and the other, I’m Howard or Sam or Joe. It also contains a growing collection of psychological views defined by thought as “these are my beliefs.” So when “the imagined other” questions one of “my beliefs” (the conditioning in the brain) the brain responds with a programmed thought ‘defending’ “me.” That’s all a movement of the conditioned brain on auto-pilot. The brain responds like a reflex according to the programming, the psychological conditioning.
Ah i see ;-)…let me direct you to the beginning or our exchange. You can see it if you scroll back. I believe that exchange starts at no. 12, with me asking you to clarify an earlier assertion you had made to @Inquiry .
In regards to to my previous comment,
Forgive me but i should have started with ‘From your silence’. Please read the complete comment as, From your silence am i to understand there is no difference @Howard ? That thought made up something and was defending it’s self-image, the me, while debating? Hope it’s clearer now. Waiting on your response to the question. Thank you.
**Who’s silence? Does silence belong to a someone? I can’t say that the question seems any clearer, but, isn’t it obvious that ‘making up something’ and ‘defending something’ are generally two different activities?
To give you some background, I recently joined the forum but have been visiting the forum since its inception and reading the posts. I have observed the joining and progressive participation of many members, including you. Like everyone here I am no stranger to your prompt and spirited replies. But because of the apparent exception or oddity that’s being observed in our exchange, such as your continued responses to other contributors in this thread as well as in other threads, while a much prior question by me is pending a response (approx. 2 days) made me ask that clarifying question. Since it appears your prompt responses are back, albeit not on the original question, we can disregard my post # 20 and start looking into my original question # 12. Thank you for your attention and waiting to hear you share what you meant by that assertion.
**Well, thanks for your explanation. My recollection is that I asked if you would explain what you ‘see’ as the self, and then I could respond to your question, having a better understanding of what you are asking. And I never saw a response to that. But I’ll go ahead and describe the ‘context’ that led to my suggesting the two things are different. Because the context conveys the specific meaning I’m attempting to convey.
The context was a limited insight into the nature of a self-image, that “the idea of me is just that, an idea.” And that limited insight is different than an insight into “the limited nature of all thought.” The self-image, and, all thought imagery.
Is that what you were doing? It appeared as if your were imposing conditions for a reply. Please allow me to refresh your memory by quoting you from a different thread.
When you extol the virtues of having a better understanding of what someone else is asking or saying, I would think you will have to make such allowances in others when they ask the same questions or ask someone to look deeper and come back. Surely we aren’t going to exemplify double standards wherein we will label your questions in a favorable light as in “ required for understanding” and label another contributor’s questions in insinuating unfavorable terms such as “imposing conditions”, or favorably label our own assertion as a “suggestion” and another’s suggestion unfavorbly as an “assertion”. In the alternative thought can see it has double standards and is doing the same things it accuses others, in this case imposing conditions.
We are inquiring together. No contributor is exercising authority and telling the other contributor what is essential or what isn’t; whether it is the importance of “context” or something else. It appears your response isn’t addressing my question. Will you kindly go back and read the assertion and the clarifying question being asked? Thank you.
**Can you show me where any of my descriptions of ‘what thought appeared to be doing’ were directed at anyones ‘virtues’? Or, what makes looking at 'systemically-shared-thought, equate to a “personal judgment?” Isn’t this sort of thought assumption, that the thoughts are “my thoughts,” an incoherence in thought?
**Who suggested anything contrary to this?
**I just did describe what I was seeing when I made the initial suggestion in my last message. If you don’t think it didn’t answers your question, then you’ll have to clarify why. As I have no idea what leads you to feel that’s the case.
In previous response the 2nd paragraph has in detail described fist what appears to be thought’s cunning, deceptive, and convenient labeling practices, second, the incoherencies of thought pertaining to the following issue
The said description wasn’t describing
On observation it appears thought is distorting what was described earlier. It appears thought’s image of ‘you’ is afraid it has been caught in factual inconsistencies. These are some real examples of the usual fearful reactive responses of you-thought thought when the image of ‘you’ feels it’s being questioned, even though thought incoherently claims the you is just an image. In this case we see thought attaching itself to an idea, i.e. what should be, rather than what is.
My original question was a simple direct question asking to explain the difference between two things but you/thought instead of answering the original question went on to something else. It appeared to be a diversion when you/thought said it will explain the “context” but not the actual difference, though the difference was what was being asked. The statements appeared to be authoritative. So it appeared as if there was a need to clarify on “authority”, which I did. Good we are clear.
There isn’t much to discuss on these issue at this time so we can let it go for now. Hopefully we won’t have any more of these fearful reactive reactions from thought/you and get to the original question in the following post.
Upon observation it appears if a you/thought weaves it’s stories around beliefs by collecting various ideas then, usually thought faces a problem when trying to describe the facts surrounding these ideas. Let me see if i can help you clarify this mess of ideas. You had made an authoritative assertion to @Inquiry, which isn’t the same as a suggestive suggestion at # 11
I asked at 12
To clarify the difference you will need first to clarify what does an insight into the whole movement of thought mean, second, what does “knowing” that an ‘I’ doesn’t do the thinking mean, third, how they differ, fourth is there a difference between knowing and insight, and lastly, how does such a difference apply in this case.
Remind me. Where are these “fearful reactive reactions”? Clearly, you took him to task, but it wasn’t entirely clear what he said to deserve it. Could you summarize what took place, and see if he agrees with your summary?
It has been explained in para 2 of the same response you have quoted from. If you are having problems understanding it then you will self inquire. If you need my help then it will have to wait until my inquiry with Howard is over.
I see you edited your previous response and your quote is no longer there but the response is still applicable.
Clearly you are reacting to something and injecting yourself into this inquiry on how thought operates. Howard would say it’s your self-image and belief in a separate me and the other which is responsible for such reactive violent assumptions/statements, and personal judgements.
**Well, that’s clearly judgmental analytical thought, according to conditioned memory. And false as well.
**Again, judgmental analytical thought at work. The statements are merely descriptions of what’s being looked at. And where is the factual inconsistency evidence, to support this accusation?
**Same thing again. I describe what I see, with you, inquiry, or anyone here. It’s not an “authoritative assertion,” regardless of this false judgmental interpretation. No such thing occurred. But you’re free to imagine whatever you like. But that won’t make it true.
Not really. My descriptions are describing observations. To support the observations a citation of your own words was provided as evidence at #27. To be used as a reference in context of the facts of our exchange and how it started. The observable facts in this case being your deferring a response to my clarifying question not once but twice, by what appeared (to observation) as setting conditions for a reply. Not only did you/thought set up conditions but also stopped the exchange while continuing exchanges with others in the interim, which made ask the clarifying question at # 20. Therefore my responses are simply describing facts, what is observable, and supported by evidence, how thought appears to function in relationship or the lack of it.
Furthermore, again, using the example of your own words and using the same citation in context of the facts of our exchange and how it started, the evidence clearly shows what appears (to observation), the differences in how thought/you is labeling the same actions in favorable or unfavorable words to suit itself. The actions are the same (e.g. setting up conditions for replying) but the terminology changes, as can be seen in the provided evidence.
So I have described what I see and can be observed. Merely descriptions of what’s being looked at. If thought/you are imagining there is a judgment then it appears to be another one of it’s unsubstantiated judgmental accusations observable in this thread, in the given citation, and elsewhere across the forum. Yet another deception of thought and its false labeling. What appear to be thought/your incoherencies and violent efforts to distort what is either deliberately or unconsciously, for whatever reason, may be looked at later.
However, like I said in the previous response, I am not interested in these but with the original question. I have already answered your question from # 30 at i believe it’s # 31. So if we can get into the original question that will be great. Thank you for your attention.
**Clearly we have two entirely different notions of the nature of inquiry. To me it’s about listening and looking together at human conditioning. It’s about observation, it’s not about judging each other as if the conditioning was personal. And it’s observing ‘what thought is doing’, not judging or evaluating the speakers.
K: We are talking of human beings and their problems, not a particular human being, but humanity as a whole. We are talking about the radical change of human behaviour so that he is not terribly self-centred as he is, which is causing such great destruction in the world.
First, your consciousness is not yours. Your consciousness is the consciousness of all humanity, because what you think, your beliefs, your sensations, your reactions, your pain, your sorrow, your insecurity, your gods and so on is shared by all humanity.- Calcutta Nov. 1982
**It’s pretty obvious that you don’t see this, and prefer to argue. So I wish you all the best in your endeavors. But I’m not interested in argument.
This is a truncation of what I wrote. You’re misquoting me.
Strange response @Howard, but perhaps not so strange.
I will ask you some questions in interest of this inquiry, please feel free to join. These are questions you/thought asks other contributors in what appears to be a conditioned (favorable/unfavorable) use of language as highlighted in my post # 27. So regarding your/thought’s above accusatory personal judgment seen of what you assert I am doing, is that thought-story what I’m really doing, or is that an analytical assumption the brain is making according to the past memory accumulation? Is it an interpretation according to the known? Is the thought/your response what actually occurred, or, a psychological assumption?" A conditioned thought interpretation?
Clearly this appears to be another judgment by thought-you, another assertion from the conditioned and deceptive use language, contrary to evidence and false. Though the previous para clearly shows the assertion is false but let’s go ahead and look at observations from other posters as evidence. Thomas Paine observes Here and i quote 
Please feel free to ignore everything I post Howard if you’re not interested in exploring as opposed to debating.
Similarly Paul Dimmock observes Here and i quote 
PaulDimmockKinfonet Dialogue Member
I was being rather reserved. There is much more than just quibbling going on. There is a not so subtle form of intellectual bullying taking place, using K as your crony. I leave you to it.
There is much evidence of incidents like the ones obove where your incessant arguing practices are in display, even in the first citation i had provided where the poor guy just had to stop.There are 3 occasions in our exchange so far where thought’s/your argumentative tendencies are shown where i had beg you to stop arguing about irrelevant points and to focus on the original question. Aren’t these part of the incoherencies of defensive thought?
Is this a fact or a false defensive assertion of thought using distorted conditioned language? Clearly the evidence isn’t supporting the assertion.
It is obvious, me talking about my thoughts, my impressions, is not talking together. We think talking together is an exchange between people, whereas actually talking together, there can’t be any one perspective.