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Overcoming delusions
The_Fruit_Punch_Wiza
Veteran
What are some methods you have used at overcoming delusional concepts that have worked for you?
If you can please include an explanation in your own words of your experience, what you did, and how it worked.
If you can please include an explanation in your own words of your experience, what you did, and how it worked.
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That all I have is this moment, this breath, and that everything I might think or plan or be angsty or angry or happy about or anticipating is not necessarily so. I say that to myself a lot: not necessarily so.
Backing myself out of dualistic thinking has been doing much for overcoming delusion: it's not X, it's not Y. It just is. Other people aren't satan or Jesus. They just are. I don't feel good or bad, I am just breathing.
That sounds a lot deeper than it plays out in real life. I try to keep things simple. My delusion has frequently been that analysis and understanding would change reality. Now I skip that step in favor of just accepting it.
Be it hypnosis, meditation etc, all of them seem to point towards an "isolation" of the consciousness.
I think it's powerful if you visualize your consciousness taking a step back, and visualizing everything else as an artificial construct.
What are the emotions attached to this issue that causes you to cling on to the delusion? It may be fear of losing this idea, sadness if something really happens according to the factual state, maybe even angst?
I often pause in life, take a deep breath and just reflect at myself. Who is performing the thinking? Myself, or my body? My nervous construct? My neural reflexes? My... hormones?
I know a Greek philosopher Descartes developed the thought experiment, where he threw himself into a world of doubt, imagining that an evil demon had power over all of his senses and is throwing him nothing but illusions. And slowly, he verifies truth, one by one, as doubts are removed.
I guess one shouldn't start thinking from the delusional side. (:
French, mon cher. Despite that, Cartesian doubt was my tool years before I studied the Dharma.
OP: my technique comes straight out of Spinoza's Ethica but starts when I notice myself taking something for granted, be it a belief or an opinion or, most importantly, a prejudice/prejudgment.
As a child, I believed that the Sun rose in the east. I learned later that it does not 'rise', the Earth rotates. My senses and language continue to deceive me but my understanding overrides them.
I was raised in a sexist society. Despite the work that my friends in the women's movement have done, and my own, I have to continue challenging unconscious sexism.
This is what I have learned: deceptions and 'glamours' have been learned. They have 'dropped' into the unconscious: we have become unconsciously 'competent'. Bringing them back into awareness is my first step towards drawing their sting.
Then I had a sort of epiphany that was like hey dualistic thoughts are not dual, so what the heck is going on here.
Then I searched some more, meditated, blah .. that whole track.
The whole time this is going on though, something is aware.
Something is aware of emotions, sensations, thoughts, the body, this entire experience and views it all equally.
Who is the thinker behind the thoughts?
The problem of 'liberation' 'delusion' etc.. is not a problem of concepts, it's a simple mistake in identity.
Who are you really?
For me, it was a combination of seeing that suffering happened when I believed I was thoughts, suffering that happened when I believed I was emotions, suffering that happened when I believed I was the body.
Figure out who is aware of all this and you'll slowly start to fall back and rest within that space.
All that's required is patient endurance thru the hell you create for yourself.
Letting go of opinions, which means you stop saying "I disagree". This results in a much more peaceful and correct state of mind.
I disagree. I think that some opinions should...wait a second...
Oh, you!
Huh, What? :cool:
That is probably true sometimes, but most of the time it's simply "I'm right, you're wrong" ego stroking, disguised as some important thing. This is what I have observed anyway.
Huh? How so?
Now for cosmic consciousness, which is God's awareness of everything. Such knowing, if perfect will have no room for error between subject and object so there is no duality but only one knowing power. Such a power must have no differentiation within it, such that its activity is itself, no difference between act and nature. This is, of course, in theory.
Practically speaking, if consciousness is a duality, and perfect knowledge is unitary, the practical goal is to achieve oneness of mind.
How is this possible?
Since knowing everything is not practical, nor would an intellectual knowledge escape duality, this is not the answer. Turning the mind away from the corporeal only ignores what is a reflection to begin with, while penetration into the nature of reality is a true knowledge.
How is this possible?
Knowledge of reality can not be obtained through duality, only through a unitary. The only unitary is reality. Thus the answer is to know reality.
How is this possible?
the unreal can not comprehend the real. Only the real can comprehend the real. Only the real is the real. Thus the solution is realization. An imperfect being can not become perfect, only a perfect being can realize its perfection.
How then does a perfect being become imperfect?
Embodiment and misperception. Embodiment creates a duality of nature and body (manifest will), and misperception creates a confusion regarding the true self. it is thus practical to know your true nature while alive, and at death the imperfect embodiment is no more.
Is there life for the soul after death?
yes, for the soul, not the body. the will which created the body is inherently the will. at death, this will retracts.
Why?
because the body is not different from the will and nature construct. when the nature of the body is over, the will retracts.
why isn't the 'will' a product of nature?
the body and material will is a product of nature, but nature is not a product of nature but it is nature. After death, whatever remains returns to nature's cycle.
is there an escape or axis to this nature or any principle higher than nature?
There is nature itself which acts but does not become its own product. This is the same definition as reality and the act of reality.
I've found that arguing/debating with others has not only helped me to see other people's point of view from time to time, but it's also helped me to abandon some of my own wrong views (or at least my clinging to the idea that I have everything right).
Intersubjective agreement="A fact is only objectively true because we agree that it is". The majority of human beings agree on a standard of sensory information and reconfirm their information with others. This means if we were all born blind, we would have no information of colors and if someone could see colors, it would be considered abnormal and the person would be considered ill or disordered. Consider for example Synesthesia.
While I'd agree that objective truth and general consensus can coincide, intersubjective agreement doesn't necessarily lead to, or equal, objective truth. It's entirely possible that the majority of people who agree about something can be objectively wrong at the same time (e.g., the long-held notion that the Sun revolves around the Earth, which Galileo, in his support of Copernicus' heliocentric view, was put under house arrest for challenging).
That is the only basis for for objectivity
Should let you know that there's nothing "objective" about it.
"To objectify is to turn a being into a thing." ~ some feminist probably
That may very well be the case; but the fact still remains that intersubjective agreements can be objectively wrong, which makes me unable to agree with the statement: "A fact is only objectively true because we agree that it is."
There is one commonsense object that we all see from different angles. We piece together a conventional label for this commonsense object out of the many, variegated pieces of subjective experience shared and retold.
More often than not, the sweater made out of these many, variegated pieces of cloth can be worn by no thing that has ever lived!
That's the point, they are not objectively wrong until enough people disagree. See we can't look at intersubjective agreement as truth which is why I think disagreement is so important. It was only through addressing disagreement that we could discover that the Earth is not flat and revolves around the sun.
Gotcha.
Buddha:
"Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing,
nor upon tradition,
nor upon rumor,
nor upon what is in a scripture,
nor upon surmise,
nor upon an axiom,
nor upon specious reasoning,
nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over,
nor upon another's seeming ability,
nor upon the consideration, "The monk is our teacher.""
A classic method of understanding what truth isn't is in the Kalama Sutra. It comes with a criticism of intersubjective agreement.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bear.htm
Didn't realize you changed it while I was replying. Would you mind explaining what you mean by the part in bold?
So sorry, I didn't read it aloud before clicking the okay button, so I changed it.
Of course I will address your question. Any idea is not objectively wrong until enough people disagree. It is not objectively correct until enough people agree.
Hm. While I agree with you that we can't look at intersubjective agreement as truth, I'm not sure I can agree with you that things aren't objectively wrong until enough people disagree. For example, it can be argued that the Earth revolves around the Sun regardless of what the general consensus is, and that fact doesn't change, making it objectively true no matter what people may intersubjectively agree is true.
If we said it during Galileo's time, we'd be considered mad, and would be arrested.
We could, but we don't forget the consequences of disagreement. We are considered mad because objectively we are wrong, until enough people agree.
Nope not really. That's the problem with Objectivity. We can't find it, because the best we can do is agree.
Read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ". You'll know what I mean after.
Right, but we wouldn't be objectively wrong in saying it, even though people would think we were wrong.
But we're not objectively wrong in stating a fact, even if the majority of people think we're mad for stating it. For example, I think it's pretty clear that people like Galileo were right about the Earth revolving around the Sun, and the majority were wrong even though they thought they were right.
Again, this may be the case, but I'm not convinced. Perhaps our disagreement is stemming from what we mean by objective.
For me, an objective truth is something that's true regardless of what we may think about it. For example, the Earth revolves around the Sun. This is true regardless of what we think, and when people agreed that the Sun revolves around the Earth, they were wrong. Or would you argue they were right and the Sun really did revolve around the Earth until they changed their minds?
As for how we come to know objective truths such as this, I agree with you that disagreements can help us to discover where we may be in error in our understanding; I just can't agree that something is objectively true until people start to disagree with it, as if their agreement is what makes something objectively true.
I agree.
We don't know they were wrong. We just have more information than they have. The concept of an absolute velocity, including being "at rest" as a particular case, is ruled out by the principle of relativity, eliminating any obvious "center" of the universe as a natural origin of coordinates. Some forms of Mach's principle consider the frame at rest with respect to the distant masses in the universe to have special properties.
You'll laugh, but yes. As absurd as that sounds, on a quantum level even that is true.
Actually that's exactly what scientific inquiry does. Even on the most fundamental level, it is all probabilistic.
Hm, interesting. OK, I'll give you that one since we're talking about frames of reference here, which makes geocentrism valid from a certain perspective since, according to the theory of relativity, there's no single, true frame of reference or centre to anything. But lets try something else; what about the statement: "The Sun has a greater mass than the Earth"? Is this statement objectively true or does it also depend on something we must agree about, such as a frame of reference?
I'm not sure that it is, at least that's not how I understand quantum mechanics to work.
I'd go so far as to agree that scientific inquiry is essentially the process by which we move closer towards an understanding of objective truths (if such things exist) and/or go about refining our understanding of reality; but again, I can't agree that something is objectively true until people start to disagree with it, as if their agreement is what makes something objectively true. It makes it what they think is objectively true, but that's not quite the same thing.
If we define mass in a way that the sun has greater mass than the Earth, then it does. Axioms matter.
All things depend on an observer for the position of a particle's electrons to be actualized.
No such thing. There really is no objective truth that doesn't factor intersubjective agreement as the whole of its argument.
No, when we say 'observer' in QM, we are talking about a measuring device of some sort. If you try to measure the position of an electron, you change it's behaviour because it has to interact with a photon. Therefore, when we can't observe electrons without interacting with them and changing their behaviour.
We don't mean 'observe' the way you would with your mind or with your eyes.
If I gave you a bag with an unknown content in it. The content is there and what it is does not depend on what you think it is. We can sit down and argue about what's in the bag for a couple of hours and then reach some sort of agreement. Our agreement would not necessary make an objective truth, it would merely be a subjective opinion we've agreed upon. Until we open the bag, we don't know what the objective truth is.
You can't say something is an objective truth, just because people have agreed on it.
The only problem is how you're using the word 'objective' and your understanding of QM. Other than that, I agree.
Oh, you're good.
Ah, you beat me to it (which is a good thing since I was going to try to say something similar, but this way better than my response would've been).
Huh, that's a much better example; I wish I would've thought of it first.
Aw, no fair! I wanna be right! *pouts*
No we are not, we're talking about something observed and measured directly with senses or by the use of instrumentation.
I know what you mean, but it's impossible to separate the person observing from the measuring.
If you give me a bag with content in it, it is known by you, and this still depends on what you mean by content. It can be filled with air and by social convention it is empty, or it can have an object and this object by its mass, and energy can be defined only by how you and I see the mass and energy. Words matter. What we define as empty may not be empty at all.
Which goes back to my first point. We don't have objective truth, but perspectives.
Even when we open the bag, we are still governed by perspectives. Remember the Parable of the Elephant in the world of the blind.
Theorists of the philosophy of objectivity defines objectivity as intersubjective agreement.
Ah, technicalities!
You've got a good perspective, but you have to ask yourself what you mean by "right".
Do you know about the double slit experiment? If you look at the screen, you can see the interference pattern. You're looking at it and observing it.
However, if you put some sort of a photon detector to try to track the path of the photons, the interference disappears. This is called quantum de-coherence and is a demonstration of how observation can interfere with the results.
You can look at the experiment stream with your eyes and be the observer and you will not alter the result in any way.
Back to the basketball/baseball example, you can look at the basketball and observe it, but that won't change it's path. If you start firing baseballs at it to track it's path, you'll change the path.
Then that agreement isn't an objective truth, but shared perspective. You can say there's no objective truth, but you can't say , at the same time, that an agreement is an objective truth. That's a direct contradiction.
And that's the entire premise of post-modern epistemology.
In all honesty, unless you understand the maths involved in QM, you don't really understand QM. Look up quantum mechanics on youtube and you'll see Leonard Susskind's Stanford lectures on the topic. There is a LOT of complex maths involved and unless you've actually studied advanced maths at a university level, it's beyond you. I am an engineer and have done advanced maths, but I still can't follow the lectures without actually studying a textbook and working through examples.
I have to operate on a certain level of faith in the scientific community. While I don't have the time to dedicate myself to proper study of the topic, I know that quantum scientists do. New Agey and post-modernism does not have much of an influence on quantum scientists. Sure, there are a couple quantum physicists who have an interest in 'Quantum Consciousness', but it doesn't have much credence in the scientific community.
But you're not tracing where the particle is, which is the whole point of the double slit experiment. Anything that locates the particle before it hits the screen will destroy the interference pattern.
Instrumentation extends vision, it doesn't create it.
I like that example, 'cept for one problem. Matter is governed by these laws or relativity.
And that's all objective truth is. There's nothing absolutely objective about it. It's just how people agree about it. The word "Peer review" comes to mind.
It's not a conflict it's a definition
Review Aristotle's square of opposition.
All objective truth that exists is intersubjective agreement,
Intersubjective agreement can be false,
Thus objective truth is not always true.
Yay post modernism!
Oh definitely, and I studied it in Physics class in UMD.
How far are we talking about? I've seen it and it doesn't seem too complicated from what I've seen. I'll take a look. Sounds interesting.
Ah, like one of my best friends, she's also an Engineer!
I don't. I like to see the nitty gritty of the work myself. If it isn't sound then I dismiss it as false. If it is sound I accept it as true. Relativity seems solid to me.
Oooh calling postmodernist thinkers new agers is misleading. They are not new agers at all. They just don't have faith in what they can't prove.
You mean Roger Penrose and Stuart Hammeroff?
Their theories haven't been falsified, and they are pretty solid. Thinking of the mind as having quantum computations in the microtubials sounded outrageous, until, of course, I read their work and examined it honestly.
What I meant was that simply looking at the stream of photons with your eyes does not disrupt the stream in any way. Instead of trying to guess what you meant... care to elaborate on "As absurd as that sounds, on a quantum level even that is true"?
The definition of objective is this: Or from wikipedia:
Both of these clearly state that what you think of these truths is irrelevant.
How did we get from QM to relativity?
Yeah, I had Penrose in mind when I wrote that. Well that's for the same reason String Theory can't be confirmed or falsified. You can't use them to make predictions or set up experiments. It borders philosophy rather than science.
So yeah, when you said "as absurd as that sounds, on a quantum level even that is true", what did you mean?"