Drawing the line between feeling and fact

Just to be clear - indeed it is correct that they cannot say it was a phantom just because they no longer suffer from it.

But that is not why it is a phantom :slight_smile: It is a phantom because it is a phantom. Once you see it is a phantom then of course you see it had been a phantom the entire time. It’s not that there is something substantial that you eliminate and you retroactively call it a phantom because you are misinformed. Rather it’s that there is a phantom the entire time, and once you see that it is a phantom then you realize you were being fooled all your life and it had been a phantom all along. Of course, seeing ‘I’ am a phantom in the first place, can take some doing…

Hi Claudiu - these discussions have prompted a lot of thought about the nature of illusions.

Here’s some preliminary findings:

  • Illusions exist in the actual world.

View the following image:
10.1177_20416695211018720-fig1

Here’s is some background regarding the illusion produced by that image (an illusion existing in time, and space, and form):
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20416695211018720

An illusion materializes due to an interplay of several variables. And all those variables are physical. The illusion that materializes is likewise physical.

The feeling-being exists in this physical universe, and can never be separate from it (for as long as it persists, that is). See the following:

Richard (2001): I am speaking of a physical absolute … all suffering happens in time and space as form …
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 33

Unmistakable. “All suffering” exists in time and space and form. As ‘I’ am suffering and suffering is ‘me’, then ‘I’ exist in time and space and form.

Illusory or otherwise, ‘I’ can never separate from the universe that forms ‘me’.

Hallucination has physical basis. But can it be called real?
A mirage has a physical basis. But can it be called real?
Likewise our feelings have physical basis, but the feeler that emerges with feelings need not be real or actual.
(“Real” refers to its meaning in colloquial sense, not in AF parlance)
(Four more messages to reach our first century. Come on, guys).

Hmm… rather than taking Richard’s word for it, wouldn’t it be more fun to find out for yourself?

That being said, how do you reconcile your understanding of what Richard said here, with what Richard says at the following? Emphases mine.

and:

And before you say that it’s because “actual” was re-defined to mean “without emotion”, I have to back-track on my earlier agreement on that point as it’s not actually the case… the special meaning ascribed to the term “actual” is none other than what the word “real” is supposed to mean in the first place (as in factual, true), to wit:

Now, the actual world is indeed the world of the senses (ie the world without a feeler / without feelings), but that isn’t because this is definitionally the case. It is rather because the feeler/feelings aren’t actual / don’t actually exist (or in standard-use terms they aren’t real / don’t really exist), ie they are illusory, and once the illusion dissipates the world that is experienced is the actually-existing one (ie the one not experienced as an illusion/via an illusion).

That is to say, it’s not a definition that the actual word is the one without a feeler/feelings, but rather a fact, a consequence of the way things are.

With that in mind the above quotes might be worth a re-read (ie replace all instances of actual/actually/actuality with real/really/reality, in the standard usage sense, and read it again).


Does this mean you are considering the notion that ‘you’ are indeed illusory? If so that is a promising step!

A Google search informed me that “hallucinations are perceptions in the absence of an external stimulus.” This means that actual perceptions are occurring. And it doesn’t even mean that there is no stimulus responsible for the perception; it just means that the perception occurs absent an external stimulus. The perceptions are synthesized internally. Whether one perceives a tree where no external tree exists does not mean the perception is not happening in time and space and form; it does not mean the perception, and its contents, are not occurring in this physical absolute.

What is ‘real’ has a connotation with those perceptions that arise from external stimuli. But the universe makes no distinction whether the perception arises in attendance with external stimuli or not. There is no ‘external’ or ‘internal’ in a boundless, borderless, limitless universe.

It’s been tremendously rewarding to sus this out for myself. When it registered that Richard arrived at the same conclusion it was validating and vindicating. Nonetheless, had he never explicitly said that emotions exist in time and space as form, my discernments would remain intact (until or if evidence revealed otherwise). There is of course the thorny issue of him going on to say the complete opposite, which you allude to:

To be clear, this is the statement you are asking me to reconcile with that preceding statement:

Richard (2001): I am speaking of a physical absolute … all suffering happens in time and space as form …
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 33

The two statements cannot be reconciled. They are diametrically opposed, the exact opposite, in total conflict. Suffering cannot happen in time and space as form while having no existence in actuality. To reconcile the two, one would need to assert that Richard does not mean what he says and does not say what he means.

If you think it best to go back to that then okay.

Sure, it may well be the case that it is so. And if indeed ‘I’ am an illusion, then until ‘I’ cease to exist, then ‘I’ perforce exist. To say ‘I’ don’t exist when ‘I’ do exist is to deny what is undeniable. If ‘I’ am this fear, and this fear exists, then ‘I’ exist. Illusions are not nonexistent.

As I demonstrated, illusions occur in the actual world.

There is no line that can be drawn between ‘me’ (whatever it is ‘I’ ultimately am) and what truly, physically, factually, and actually exists. The limitless, borderless, boundless aspects of the absolute draw no lines and make no distinction between illusion and non-illusion, between hallucination (perception sans external stimulus) and non-hallucination (perception with external stimulus). There is no inner and outer domain for a boundless universe.

The physical animal experience signalling emotion physically exists. The genetic impulse resulting in emotion physically exists. The emotion itself is meta-physical, intuited, and consists of a belief that that moment ‘is’ anger, that ‘I’ am angry. Because we all have identical or near-identical genetic generation, and common in each society social programming, we agree between one another which physical attributes ‘mean’ each emotion. But the emotion is experienced as a belief. Just as ‘I’, arising from the remembered emotions, is a belief.

A belief is a thought attached to an emotion. An emotion is an animal response (which is physical) attached to a thought. A thought is physical insofar as it exists physically in our brains.

But ‘I’ exist no more than santa claus does. ‘I’ is a persistent belief which persistently & repeatedly triggers the animal passions, thus keeping itself alive as a belief. Just as every year presents magically appear under the Christmas tree.

I think it’s the link between a fact (eg the existence of tigers) and the emotion (eg fear) being retractable/removable/non-existent as a fact which reveals the non-existence (not having objective reality) of the emotion-to-fact link.

Any one of those links can be changed or completely removed. The removal of all links, and thus the removal of the being arising from the movement of emotion, reveals the non-existence of the being.

I think it’s hard/impossible to imagine because ‘I’ cannot imagine ‘me’ not existing.

It’s worth stating that the way a horse experiences emotion is somewhat different than the way we do, because only we have a ‘self’ generated. The way a fly or a bacteria experiences whatever pre-emotional state is also different, it’s more of a simple ‘push’ with perhaps no actual fear attached. Somewhere along the way it went from ‘impulse’ to full-blown emotion with all the belief that comes with it. The moment of impulse is a factual occurrence, but the metaphysical ‘self’ generated from it was only ever a belief. With the ending of the self, follows the ending of the impulse as well.

A promising development indeed!

Humm… ok, say there is a child who believes in Santa Claus. Every year he strives to be a good boy so he will get the presents he desires, and every year he gets those presents and his belief in Santa Claus is reinforced. To him, Santa Claus exists. And by exists I mean, to him there is a man at the north pole actually making presents all year and actually distributing them every Christmas with his reindeer sleigh etc.

Now at one point the child is old enough, and be it a sudden realization that Santa Claus isn’t real or at some point just realizing that he no longer believes, at some point the child stops believing in Santa Claus.

So my question to you is - did the child kill Santa Claus? :smiley: . Did Santa Claus exist at one point and then cease to exist (i.e. the child’s actions caused Santa Claus to die)? Or did the child simply stop believing in Santa Claus - thus revealing that Santa Claus never existed in the first place?

And again, by Santa Claus I don’t mean an image or thought or something in the child’s mind which happened at one point and stopped happening at another point, but rather an actual man at the north pole making presents.

This is not to deny that all those years the child had a lived experience of Santa Claus existing – realizing Santa Claus never existed doesn’t change that fact – but it is simply to say that even when the child experienced Santa Claus to exist, Santa Claus did not exist.

The language can get a bit tricky here. To make it clear: in the example of Santa Claus, the fact of the matter is that there never was a man at the north pole. This is what is meant when it is said “Santa Claus never existed in the first place” – it means, “There never was a man at the north pole making presents in the first place.” It doesn’t mean there was no felt and lived experience of Santa Claus existing and making presents.

Thus when it is said that ‘I’ don’t exist and never did exist, what is meant is that this feeling-entity that ‘I’ feel ‘myself’ to be, never is and never was this actual flesh and blood body being conscious. It is not to deny there is a felt and lived experience of ‘me’ existing as these feelings, this fear, etc.

Regardless of the nature of how it comes to be that the child has a felt and lived experience of Santa Claus existing, it is still an undeniable fact that there never was a man at the north pole making presents in actuality.

As Santa Claus does not truly, physically, factually, and actually exist, we can draw a very clear line between Santa Claus and things that do exist (like the trees, the birds, this computer screen, this computer keyboard, etc.)

And therefore we can draw an equally clear line between ‘me’ the feeling-being entity that doesn’t actually exist, and things that do exist.

This conversation is quite engaging and fun!

Cheers,
Claudiu

‘I’ believe that ‘I’ exist.

Certainly the moment of this physical brain experiencing belief exists, but that doesn’t mean that ‘I’ exist

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The maintenance of ‘Me’ is chiefly because of a belief that it is ‘good’ for me to continue anyway - that is the genesis of good, actually. And so ‘I’ prop up everything that is ‘me,’ not interested in challenging or questioning ‘my’ belief in ‘myself.’

Part of what Richard challenges us with is that ‘I’ don’t live up to my beliefs about myself anyway… the results don’t match with the beliefs. Regardless of the moment of believing happening or not, from physical causes or not, there is no factual link between everything that is ‘me’ and what is actually happening in the world. Our internal worlds are absolutely littered with contradictions, false memories, convenient forgettings, grudges, etc etc etc.

‘I’ am made up with all of these beliefs, contradictions. There is no solidity or validity to ‘me.’ Yes the moment of believing happens, as can be seen by the actions of billions of people all around the world and down through history, but that doesn’t make ‘me’ actual. ‘I’ am a lie I tell to myself over and over for the entire physical life of this body - unless ‘I’ remove myself.

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Yes. But then when, for example, fear arises in your body, wouldn’t you have a sense of “me”?
When you have a sense of “me”, it automatically creates ‘external’ and ‘internal’, no?

It’s the other way around–A belief is an emotion attached to thought.

What label we stick to a set of physical responses for the purpose of identification is immaterial. Does whether one identifies them collectively as anger or not bear any relevance to experiencing it as a belief?

No, but it is fuel for people to ‘reify’ the belief among themselves.

I thought of something that might help further clarify matters as well.

From the link:

Here, we introduce and explore Scintillating Starbursts , a stimulus type made up of concentric star polygons that induce illusory scintillating rays or beams.

Speaking particularly of this illusion, “This illusion exists in the actual world” can be construed to mean one of two [EDIT: three] things, depending on what we mean by “this illusion”:

A: The constituent parts of the illusion actually exist (the “concentric star polygons”).
B: The things the illusion purports itself to be actually exist (the “scintillating rays or beams”).
[EDIT: C: The illusory effect is being perceived (i.e. a human looking at the illusion perceives “scintillating rays or beams”)]

Now, A is certainly true - those concentric star polygons are indeed being rendered on the screen here. [EDIT: And C is true as well - a human looking at this illusion does in fact perceive “scintillating rays or beams”.]

However, B is not true. To say that the scintillating rays or beams that we both presumably see when we look at the illusion actually exist, would be to be saying that there is actually light being emitted from the screen, in the shape of those scintillating rays or beams, that our eyeballs are picking up and eventually being made present in our sensorium.

But this is not true. There are no rays or beams of light actually being emitted from the screen. Rather, there is the illusion of rays of light being emitted, but there are no rays of light emitted. Our sensory apparatus is ‘tricked’ into ‘seeing’ rays of light when there are none.

Even though when we see the illusion, our eyes don’t make a distinction per se between the polygons they see and the rays of light they ‘see’ - it doesn’t change the fact that the polygons actually exist while the rays of light do not.

Now, typically when people describe things as illusory / not real, they are referring to B - that that which the illusion professes to be, does not actually exist (i.e. there are no rays or beams of light), not A - that the parts that constitute the illusion do not actually exist (i.e. it would indeed be absurd to say that there are no concentric polygons being rendered on our screens)… and certainly very few would mean C - that there is no illusion happening or occurring at all when it plainly is (i.e. it would be equally absurd to say, while looking at the screen and ‘seeing’ those rays or beams of light, that you are not at that moment perceiving rays or beams of light in your visual field).

Thus:

  • The concentric star polygons exist, but the illusory rays or beams of light do not exist.
  • The child and his brain and consciousness exist, but the illusory Santa Claus does not exist.
  • A human flesh and blood body being conscious exists, but the illusory feeling-being that feels itself to exist, whether as a physical entity (e.g. as that very flesh and bloody body itself) or as a metaphysical entity (e.g. as a metaphysical ‘soul’), does not exist.
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Hi Henry - perhaps you could flesh out what you mean by an experience that ‘signals’ emotion?

It is unclear whether you find raw emotion to be physical or nonphysical.

I appreciate that you gave some thought as to whether the fright that a horse (or any animal) experiences exists. Yes, I would agree that a horse would not experience an emotional self in the way that a human would given they have not evolved the same capacity for thought and self-awareness. But would the fright that a horse experiences exist? Would it not exist? Is it physical? Is it metaphysical? Is it a belief?

Would you consider the emotions of a new-born infant to be a factual occurrence, given that they have not yet developed the ability to believe?

When fear arises, say for example, pure terror, there is little sense of anything other than that fear. The raw emotion consumes almost the entirety of consciousness. Blind rage is another example. Yet no amount of emotion, no puny or aggrandized self, is able to create a dimension that stands apart or beside an infinitely massive operation that has zero boundaries. The universe produces everything: every conscious or unconscious movement, every degree of understanding or misconception, every instant of doubt or conviction, every flicker or eruption of emotion, every variety of perception and experience, every shape and form and sound, every event bar none. Even the sense of separation is inseparable from the universe from which it arose. There can be no exceptions.

Regarding the DNA origin of ‘self’;

The origin is not an on-going cause.

So, to use the fatty liver metaphor, having a liver is a DNA based actuality, however having a fatty one is that DNA based actuality trying to store fats produced by a lifestyle of excessive consumption.

Excessive consumption is not DNA based, or every person would be born and consume excess ively without choice (like having a liver to start with).

So, while a ‘self’ has a DNA based origin, what happens after that point is not DNA based. That is to say, there is no evidence that i am aware of that prior to me feeling any of the thousands of feelings i could feel (i am a primary feeling of ‘me’, expressing in those thousands of ways), that DNA is involved at all.

In short, an origin does not imply ongoing causation.

The argument is: The feeling of “self” is an effect of some cause. And the cause is physical in nature–chemicals coursing through veins, neurotransmitters jumping between synapses, hormones signalling etc.
The fact that these processes are real isn’t disputed, but the truth/existence of the co-emerging phenomenon of those processes in the real world-- the “self”–is disputed.
How “self” is seen in the real world but not in the actual world is still a mystery. And that perhaps is the area of bone of contention in this thread.

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I think, @rick, that at this point it would be good if you reference which quote from Richard (or which statement from someone else) you are disputing about that it has anything to do with “the boundless, borderless, limitless universe”.

Because several parts of this topic seem to me to keep attacking/dealing with some straw men (which is not to say that it hasn’t produced excellent insights and clarifications -and clarifications of clarifications :smiley:-, but in spite of it).

But limiting myself only to the one related to the universe, you finished your last answer to @Kiman with

Whether in relation to the fear of the horse, the self, the real, the actual, the brain, brain processes, imagination, the idea of Santa, beliefs, the sense of separation from the universe, etc., did Richard, @Kiman in his comment or anyone else here stated that there are exceptions? That is, that something exists outside the universe?

Because you keep making it clear that it is not possible, as if those posts or Richard affirm that it is. In this last case, to your

The first word that @Kiman wrote was

So yes, he seems to be yet another one who agrees with what no one seems to disagree with… He then even added:

@Kiman did not said that that sense of “me” creates an “external” and an “internal” with respect to the universe. So he must be, like everyone else, referring to something else, right?

In turn, his quote (“There is no ‘external’ or ‘internal’ in a boundless, borderless, limitless universe”) came from your last sentence to this @Kiman comment:

So, “there is no ‘external’ or ‘internal’ in a boundless, borderless, limitless universe” was again refuting/commenting on something he had not stated about the universe.

The same thing happened when you finished one of your answers to @claudiu with

@claudiu (and others; @kiman included) has referred more than once to two worlds (the real and the actual), and what can happen or exist inside and outside each of those worlds but, where did he refer to two universes, or that anyone of those worlds could exist outside this universe? But in his answer was not necessary to infer what he was referring to since he mentioned explicitly these worlds and did not not mention the universe, right?

So, again, at this point it would be good if you reference which quote from Richard or which statement from someone else (that perhaps I missed in this numerous posts) you are disputing about that it has anything to do with the boundless, borderless, limitless universe.

‘Santa Claus’ was nothing more and nothing less than an illusion. As such, and like all naturally occurring phenomena, dynamic conditions configured ‘Santa Claus’ into existence at one point and dynamic conditions later configured him out of existence.

‘Santa Claus’ did exist in the first place; ‘he’ always existed as something. In this case, ‘Santa Claus’ did not exist as an obese elf in the North Pole, but instead as an illusion of an obese elf in the North Pole proliferated by Western society and Coca Cola. Conditions at first brought that illusion into existence through an interplay of a variety of variables; whereat some later point, conditions brought that illusion to an end through yet another interplay of a variety of variables.

‘Santa Claus’ was never anything more (and never anything less) than that illusion; and yet, for the duration that it persisted, the illusion was inseparable from the physical variables that birthed, sustained, and terminated ‘his’ existence; ‘he’, like all things, existed inseparably from this physical universe, and was therefore just as physical as anything else in nature. ‘Santa Claus’ – that illusion – was therefore as fundamentally actual as the flesh-and-blood parents that would covertly place gifts under the tree in an attempt to sustain the illusion; parents who, through a variety of dynamic physical variables, likewise were subject to birth, subsistence, and termination.

That which occurs inside the brain – images, beliefs, abstractions, or illusions – do not have a fundamentally different form of existence to that which occurs outside the brain.

The conventional perspective – the typical way of thinking – dictates that a perception is ‘real’ or ‘actual’ if what is being perceived has an external existence, whereas a perception is ‘false’ if what is being perceived does not have an external existence (the perception of a tree is considered ‘real’ if there is an externally existent tree whereas the perception of a tree is ‘false’ if there is no externally existent tree). Yet our illusion sample of the scintillating rays demonstrates that perceptions of objects that have no external existence can be just as actual as perceptions of objects that have external existence; in other words, fundamentally, the experience and existence of the illusion is just as actual as the experience and existence of the non-illusion. Despite this understanding, in typical conversation, we say, “those ‘beams’ are not actual, they don’t actually exist.” Yet, what is typically said is in actuality not correct, because those ‘beams’ do actually exist, they are happening. We call it an illusion because there is the perception of an object which does not exist outside the mind; nonetheless, the illusion – the scintillating beams – is, in every respect, as actual as the black polygons in that image which do exist outside the mind.

The universe does not distinguish between what happens inside or outside the human mind.

When the children reach a certain stage, the illusion of ‘Santa’ will disintegrate, the physical mechanisms in place that sustained ‘him’ as an illusion will disassemble, and the now-disillusioned children will scoff and say that, “Of course Santa doesn’t exist, he never existed, it was all an illusion, don’t ya know? There’s no fat man with a magic sled.” They ignore the fact that ‘he’ did exist (or they ignore the way in which he existed); ‘he’ of course was an illusion – a demonstrably actual phenomenon – that materialized inseparably from the physical universe that bore, sustained, and ultimately terminated ‘him’. ‘His’ dynamic existence was as actual as anything that ever was.

What you refer to in that paragraph as ‘actual’ are perceptions with attendant external objects, whose externality can be verified, among other methods, via human consensus. In truth, perceptions which occur absent external stimulus are just as much of the universe as those perceptions with attendant external stimulus. The actually free person’s mental visualization of the ‘number four’ is just as actual as if it were written on paper, no? Richard’s thoughts about tea would be just as fundamentally actual as the tea he sips, as another example.

Thoroughly!



For myself at least, I cannot view the scintillating rays as anything other than actually existing; to my perception and understanding, they exist just as much as the polygons. The polygons exist outside the brain to be perceived whereas the scintillating rays are manufactured inside the brain to be perceived. In both instances there are actual perceptions of actual things (one of those things does not exist outside the skull whereas the other does).

That is typically the case, yes.

Yet that very perception of what is typically regarded as ‘not real’ is, as you can attest, so plainly happening as a material/ physical phenomenon occurring in time and space as form.

Further, that not only is a perception occurring, but that a perception of something is occurring; it is plainly not a perception of nothing. Perception does not occur unless there is actually something to be perceived. That something – that object of perception – does not need to originate outside the skull for it to be actual; the activity of the brain is just as actual as the activity going on anywhere in the universe.

I arrived at a different conclusion: that the illusory rays or beams do exist in this universe; that just because the illusory objects do not exist outside the skull does not mean that they do not actually exist. Typically, however, people do not regard the objects that arise in the brain as actually existing, they typically relegate as actual only that which has existence outside the skull.

I arrived at a different conclusion: that the illusory Santa Claus does exist in this universe; just because the illusory object does not exist outside the skull does not mean that it does not actually exist. Typically, however, people do not regard the objects that arise in the brain as actually existing, they typically relegate as actual only that which has existence outside the skull.

I arrived at a different conclusion: that the illusory feeling-being does exist in this universe; just because the illusory object does not exist outside the skull does not mean that it does not actually exist. Typically, however, people do not regard the objects that arise in the brain as actually existing; they typically relegate as actual only that which has existence outside the skull.

Here’s a question: do the raw emotions of a new-born infant fresh out the womb actually exist?