Open Thread, Aug 29. - Sept 5. 2016

Elo

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "Make this post available under..." before submitting.

There is an alternative

But what you go on to present is not an alternative.

you can sit down, become aware of all the maps, and notice that reality does not disappear because what you call "you" lose attachment to maps.

Do you really imagine that those of us who attempt to be rational think that reality would disappear without our attachment to maps? This is real Strawy McStrawface stuff.

"Maps" are how human beings think about the world. So, are you (1) suggesting that we not think about the world any more, or (2) claiming to have a way of doing it that doesn't rely on maps? If #1 then, well, good luck to you but I don't think it can be done. If #2 then I don't believe you. Like it or not, you think (and feel, and experience "awareness", and everything else) with your brain and all its interactions with the world are mediated by "maps", and if you think you've escaped that then I guarantee all you have actually done is to fool yourself into not noticing the maps you're using. That does not, I'm afraid, count as higher "awareness".

But maybe you're making a more modest claim, namely that we should be aware of our map-using. Yup, we should. What makes you think we aren't?

It is arational

The world is rational enough that application of rational techniques enables us, e.g., to make machines that can take us from one continent to another in less than a day. So any notion of "arationality" that could possibly describe the actual world needs to be compatible with that.

what if the point is that all arguments are equally untrue

Then "the point" is bullshit, because some arguments lead to demonstrable real-world benefits and some don't.

Because you think in patterns of being superior, you actually believe others do it too

Take a look somewhere around 32:00 in the video (I am just going on the times I listed above; I am not going to sit through it again to check the exact time) and see whether you can tell me with a straight face that the reason I think the person making the video is thinking in patterns of being superior is because I do it.

From what I can (barely) understand, reguru is advocating the notion of enlightenment as understood in the East, if in a very confusing way. Abandoning the reliance on rationality is a major idea in Zen Buddhism, for example, and koans are one of the ways to move in that direction.

-1reguru10y

An alternative to thinking. Which is "awareness". [...] I think that's the case, you think "you" have to think, not a strawman, but what I suspect. Thinking IS everything to you? Is not? [...] I know, that's why they are human projections, that's why it's inherently flawed in relation to the arational, not between different thinking. That's why the arational simply is, without understanding or reasoning. It's not a map. You can't think of it, but you can gain awareness of it, being aware that everything is a human projection is a start. Might be the limitations of rationality, because you can't think your way through this. [...] No, I've said it's fine to think, to have human projections, to do math, physics, other science. [...] Of course, you don't have to think. The world doesn't disappear, neither does anything else. That was the point of "reality won't disappear without your attachment to maps". When you silence all thoughts, or when you become aware of thoughts instead of thinking of thoughts. Might you be arational? Because there's nothing to do. Just awareness. But, here's the kicker, it's always the case. You can think however much you want and it's exactly the same. [...] If you understand what I said in the above paragraph, maybe you can see that it might be always the case. [...] Awareness is not thinking. Please try and understand the difference, by meditating. Otherwise, you can't ever understand what I am talking about. Just because you might think that you can only think about things, there is a difference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awareness not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought But don't meditate unless you really want to, the Wikipedia article gives enough of a definition. [...] I have never said that human projections are bad, the brain, neuroscience, neural pathways and so forth, it's all cool, but there's still a lot left. But you are really missing the point. What you're saying is that you are "maps, that maps of the