If you read my post again you will see that I didn’t say that you complained about actualism, but rather that you appear to be complaining about the presentation of actualism.
Firstly, whether you only appear to be complaining about or actually are complaining about the presentation of actualism, what I wrote in my various posts on this topic, about actualism being experiential, still applies.
Secondly, your continued posts in this topic shows that, although you might partially grasp and understand the point that actualism is experiential, you are still missing the point that the answer to the questions you are posting here are experiential answers, not thought-out or conceived-of answers… and that the experiences discussed about are not subject to change based on what anybody (be they actually free or not) writes, says or does.
For example, in the first post you wrote after mine:
This is a reasoned-out or thought-through answer, starting from the premise of the “basic principles of physics”, thereby following a logical chain of deduction that because the “actual brain neurons fire”, something that does actually exist must be causing them to fire – something with “mass” or “physical space”.
Yet the fact of emotions not being actual is an experiential actuality, which is clearly experienced in a PCE due to the previously-impossible-to-conceive, complete disappearance of ‘me’. Thus it does not matter what the laws of physics are said to be – it is via experience that you know that emotions are not, never have been, and never will be, actual.
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In your next post you wrote:
Here you are looking to correspondences and definitions to find the answer to this question… when again, the answer is experiential, not one to be gotten by reading things on the internet.
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Your third post contains the first experiential report from your part in the thread.
Indeed I didn’t previously recognize that this topic was an experiential-report as nothing I read before this post was a report of any experience. The opening post begins with a “line of thought” that brought up “a few avenues of inquiry” (i.e. thinking-through and reasoning, not experiencing), after all.
In any case, appreciating that you provided a report of your experience, I replied to you thoroughly on this matter in my post here, yet there has been no reply from your part, no engagement with me on this experiential matter, at all.
Instead of engaging with me on sharing and discussing and dissecting experiences, you rather dismissively/reductively brushed off everything I have written with a false assertion (that I said you complained about actualism, which I never said) and by stating it was inaccurate (without any further discussion to back it up) that you were missing the point that actualism is experiential… and given how you started the topic, and what you are and aren’t replying to, it still seems a point worth exploring to me (hence my post now).
Your latest post, for example, is another instance of missing-the-point with regards to actualism being experiential:
That is, you are reading what somebody has written, interpreting their writing (note how you began with saying “Richard acknowledges that the […] instinctual passions […] may be neuronal” and you end with saying “The instinctual passions […] are neuronal”), and then making a conclusion from it and taking that to be the case… whereas the actuality of what is the case is to be ascertained experientially, and nothing anybody says will change the fact.
Do not forget that the purpose of Richard’s writing is not to be an educational primer on the nature of the universe, with axioms to be memorized and Truths to be written down, but rather to be an evocative guide to actuality, to wit [link, emphases added]:
Be that as it may, to assist you with any further investigation and ascertainment of Richard’s words being intrinsically self-explanatory, with regards to this particular conclusion you drew of the affections being neuronal (aka actual) and the self being not neuronal (aka not actual), this quote will be elucidatory [link]:
And note how not unlike the manner in which I have been replying to you in this thread, Richard issues a similar exhortation to his co-respondent as I have been with you:
Personally speaking it took me many years of reading, re-reading, re-re-reading, thinking about, writing about, talking about, posting about, reading some more about, trying this or that, etc., doing anything but putting the actualism method (of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive) into practice, before it finally inescapably dawned on me that doing anything but that (enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive) will not have the intended effect, will not take me to where I want to go, to that place that Richard, the other actually free people, and those having PCEs describe. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to get there, though – the experiential delight is worth it regardless, and is always available to whomever is open to it.
Awesome @claudiu those last 2 quotes which you provided have clarified things for alot for me. I always had it that the feeling being is a programme which causes the feelings to cluster/behave in a way as to create a self. However I see now that it is the very movement of a feeling, like the whirlpool example which which gives the impression of a feeler, ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’, there is no distinction at all between the two. I did as Richard recommends and attempted to feel this out and I can see that there is no distinction at all between the feeling and the feeler. Could it be said that ‘I’ am an impression that arises out of each and every feeling yet ‘I’ am also the feeling itself. I guess this is why the ‘being’ is not actual, it is an impression that is inherent to the nature of what a feeling is. I’m always rushing these posts before work in the morning so I hope this makes sense.
So just to clarify my earlier post. In the past I always thought that the ‘being’ is a programme which causes feelings to align together in such a way as to create the self. So the self would be the product of many feelings clustering together and as such giving the impression that there is a being, creating a ‘whole’ that is greater than its constituent parts, a ghost in the machine.
However I see now that this is incorrect and looking at it this way creates the problem of once again ‘me’ being something other than ‘my’ feelings. Once again ‘I’ cunningly hide behind another concept.
After reading the quotes I see that each feeling itself is ‘me’. This is because the very nature of what a feeling is, is the movement, this movement is subjectively experienced to be ‘me’, that is part and parcel of the affective faculty, it is the way feelings operate. Therefore ‘I’ cannot be separated from ‘my’ feelings at all, not even by being the ‘sum total which is greater than it’s constituent parts’.
Just like the whirlpool arising out of the movement of water but consisting of nothing but water itself. ‘I’ am an impression which arises out of the fundamental nature of each feeling which is movement. Hence ‘I’ do not actually exist at all, ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’.
Hi Srinath - the process of observing the movements of experience itself while musing upon the implications of a physical absolute, together with a high regard for the advances in neurochemistry, seems to have the combined capacity to shift the conventional experience of a division between ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ to one that is entirely, soley physical.
From that standpoint, I can be in broad agreement with describing that experience in the manner you suggested, as a kind of “monism”. Presuming a “non-dual experience” is the same as what “monism” refers to then I would be in broad agreement with that classification too.
Another way to explain it: a physical absolute necessitates an unparalleled materiality. A univocity of existence translates to a univocity of experience (to commandeer a term from Mr. Deleuze).
Tell that to the person who is on my case about it.
Okay, non-actual things exist in the actual world which you inhabit? Is that correct?
So it couldn’t be the case then where feeling excellent and perfect shifts into a permanent non-affective perfection, like how it occurs in a PCE?
Hi @rick, it’s an interesting topic and I remember contemplating it when I was looking into vibes and currents: Even if they are an illusion that illusion must have a psychical origin which makes them actual. However paradoxical it might sound I think the answer is quite straightforward and simple actually.
Just like a solid brain can give rise to a non-solid consciousness an actual flesh and blood body can give rise to a non-actual feeling being. So the feeling being itself is non-actual, even though it has an actual origin. That’s why Richard talks about a mutation in the brain stem upon actual freedom: an actual change that causes the flesh and blood body to no longer animate a feeling being.
I’m guessing that what you have problems conceptualizing is that there can exist a split between actual and non-actual, just like it’s hard to conceptualize a split between solid and non-solid, especially with causality connecting them. And indeed, the universe is pretty remarkable.
Right! So here it is again, an experiential entry-point, where we can hopefully have a fruitful discussion I pounced upon this opportunity last time you shared your experience, the practical effects of this investigation, and I am pouncing upon it again now…
So from what you say you are shifting your experience from experiencing distinct ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ phenomena, to experiencing just ‘physical’ phenomena. But this experiential shifting that you are doing, will not result in a PCE, and will not result in actual freedom. This is the reason I’m posting so much here
The key part missing is that physical != actual…
As Richard made it clear, and as experience bears it out, the actual world is literally invisible to a feeling-being. So you may have an experience solely consisting of ‘physical’ things, but as you are glancing upon your physical computer screen thinking your physical thoughts, you are not perceiving or experiencing the actual computer screen that is actually existing in front of you. There is no part of your experience that is actual.
What is notably absent from both the mental/physical dichotomy, and the solely-physical monism, is affective feelings. This is a new take on how to ignore feelings — the DhO participants, for example, reduced emotions to physical sensations + thoughts (i.e. they went from senses+feelings+thoughts to just senses+thoughts). This way they were able to ignore feelings by lumping them in with physical sensations+thoughts, and once that is conveniently out of the way they could go on to do whatever they wanted to their experience after that.
This goes one step further, from physical+thoughts to just physical. But the principle is the same. You’re merging feelings together with physical sensations and not recognizing the distinction of the two… which will allow you to essentially ignore feelings. I’m not saying it will feel like this subjectively per se but rather getting at the gist of what the result will be.
To see this point, a key experiential thing to try would be to ask yourself, “By which sense do I perceive my emotions?” Is it touch, sight, sound, taste, or smell, or thought (if you consider thought a separate sense)? If you do this thoroughly by actually trying to feel it out this way you will find that emotions are not perceived via any of the senses… thus they are not physical. Rather they are perceived intuitively, via the affective faculty, which is another dimension of experience.
Like I alluded to earlier, the more accurate monistic approach would be to reduce everything to just affective feelings – i.e. there being no physical and no mental but just ‘affective tone’ or ‘hedonic tone’. This would be most accurate as that is actually what a feeling-being’s experience is – entirely affective, i.e. not-actual. This is because even physical sensations are experienced via hedonic tone, if not moods or full-blown emotions or passions. So even the physical sensations have an affective ‘hook’ in them (which is how meditators can mess about with their senses).
It doesn’t matter what philosophers say about it or what the participants here say about it or what Richard wrote on this year and this date about this or that. This is what the situation is, the fact of the matter… and the idea isn’t to take my word for it either but use the conversations to guide you towards a PCE, which is what will really elucidate all these matters for you.
Not likely… because a PCE does not come about by the feeling excellent and perfect shifting into a non-affective perfection. Rather, ‘me’ as a feeling-being goes entirely into abeyance, together with ‘my’ feelings (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). And not only that but ‘I’ willingly allow this to happen.
But if ‘I’ am already thought to not exist because there is only the physical, or because feelings are actually already actual in the first place… then there is no chance to allow this to happen, because there will supposedly be nobody or nothing to go into abeyance in the first place.
I just want to say one last thing @rick and then maybe not come back to this topic for a longish time.
I might differ from Claudiu (unless I am misrepresenting him), in the sense that I think that all these ontological matters are fine to ponder and investigate as a feeling being and are far from resolved. Potentially they may never be resolved to everyones satisfaction – even amongst actually free persons. After-all the relationship between consciousness (or thought) and matter is something that has been an enigma for millennia and has occupied all the worlds best minds. Saying that however, the world has not had actual freedom until quite recently. I am not fully actually free. I might well change my tune once my experience of the universe is like Richard’s. Such an experience my well cut through the fog of philosophy and I have had intimations of it.
RICHARD: Not so … the stuff of this body (form) is the very same-same stuff as the stuff of this infinite and eternal physical universe (form), in that I come out of the ground (form) as a variety of carrots and lettuce and milk and cheese and whatever (form), combined with the air (form) that I breath and the water (form) that I drink and the sunlight (form) that I absorb. As such there is no ‘isolation’ or ‘division’ whatsoever and as this flesh and blood body (form) I am this very material universe experiencing its own infinitude as a sensate and reflective human (form). This very physical universe is also experiencing itself as cats and dogs and all other sentient beings (form).
Where I agree with Claudiu, is that actual freedom is all about praxis and not theory. As a feeling being I lost count of the number of times I had the intellectual smirk wiped off my face by a PCE that made all my proudly thought out schemes laughably redundant - along with the ‘me’ that thought them up. If you haven’t had a PCE in quite some time and are interested in actualism, then what is the point of all this stuff? If actualism becomes solely a vehicle for philosophising (as it can become when a morality is fashioned from it), it is such a terrible waste.
I noticed, @rick, that you sufficiently answered my questions when introducing to adivader:
I am presently in the process of conducting a comprehensive examination, inquiry, and analysis into all his millions of words, taking his words to their logical conclusions, as it were, and allowing for any experiences that eventuate as a result.
I’d like to say that as much as this conversation maybe hasn’t reached an agreed conclusion by all, it’s been super interesting and useful for me to read everyone’s input.
I think the point about Actualism being experiential is the key reminder here and talking about various concepts like this only makes sense if it is rooted in experiential knowledge and understanding.
For example I find it cool that @Srinath would hold back on making statements about all philosophy of mind/matter until fully actually free but this makes sense to me. How can one make statements when operating from ‘limited’ experiential knowledge. Which is why I am also very reluctant to engage in these conversations because I know they can become something like intellectual masturbation, especially as I am still a feeling being and the best use of my time and attention is to focus on becoming free.
Slightly unrelated point but it’s common knowledge in the martial arts world that the people who have not experienced hand to hand combat have all sorts of ‘theories’ and ‘ideas’ about what they would do if in a fight, which leads to all sorts of ridiculous discussions that are essentially rooted in nothing.
It is the direct experience of something and the soaking of all the ramifications of that direct experience that leads to knowledge. As Mike Tyson said ‘everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face’
Monism isn’t reducing everything to one thing. (i was a massive fan of spinoza for many years, who is the pre-eminent “monist” of the enlightenment). Rather, monism is the philosophy that both thought and extension are expressions of the same universe (or nature/god- to spinoza, nature and god are the same thing).
So, the same nature/god, is expressed via thought or extension (form). That is, the idea of a triangle and an actual triangle in the physical world, are the same thing, being expressed in two ways.
It doesn’t say the world is all thought, or all physical, but rather that both the imaginal and physical a expression of the same fundamental nature.
This is why Richard responded to my fascination eith spinoza in the negative, many years ago.
Monism was a alternative to Descartes who was a dualist, i.e. that the spirit and physical were two separate realms.
What Spinoza missed was casualties, which in fairness, he had no way of ascertaining. The immaterial realm of conscious thought and feeling, is intuitively equivalent to fundamental existence, which is why no one prior to Richard had seen the simple answer to dualism; the immaterial is created by the material.
Hi Claudiu - Got it now. It’s finally clear now that the word ‘actual’ as used in actualism parlance was reworked from its common dictionary usage to a specialized usage. ‘Actual’ was reworked to mean that which is experienced sans ‘feeler’. For example:
Richard (2013): (…) in actualism terminology (…) the word actual refers to what a flesh-and-blood body only (‘only’ as in sans identity in toto/the entire affective faculty) experiences (…).
The confusion arose because in other places ‘actual’ conveyed its conventional meaning i.e. simply that which is factual and physical (with no explicit requirement to exist in a world sans affect). For example (1999):
RICHARD (to Respondent No. 14): Your use of sophistry (what I call ducking and weaving and slipping and slithering) to avoid having the apt description ‘pacifist’ applied to your modus operandi has already been covered in our previous conversation.
RESPONDENT: Descriptions do not apply to the actual, actual world like they do to the actual conceived (by thought) world – do they?
RICHARD: May I suggest? Publish this rewrite of the dictionaries, that you are busy with, as soon as possible so that others can know what you mean? In the meanwhile, the word ‘actual’ means: ‘already occurring; existing as factually true; as in act; deed’ … which means physically existing here on earth, visible to the senses. […]
RESPONDENT: Perhaps No. 14 is a little too immersed in the actual, actual world for your classification net(s)?
RICHARD: If I may point out? A word’s meaning, as per dictionary definition, foreordains that any word I use cannot be my ‘classification net(s)’. It is just that common usage has blurred the distinction betwixt fact and belief so much so that anyone using sufficient sophistry can get away with anything at all and still be considered wise these days.
That said, it is now understood that Richard’s specialized usage of ‘actual’ per ‘actualism terminology’ should be the presumptive usage when reading and understanding his words.
Paying close attention to my own experience at this moment I can be in agreement that all experience is affectively-tinged but cannot be in agreement that the affective is the entirety of experience; there is a definite sensate component as well as a cognitive component, for example. It could just as well be said that the affective component to experience is equally tinged by the sensate component.
I won’t speculate as to what would happen were the interiority/exteriority division to completely disappear so that all experience, all events, and all matter in the infinite universe were fully perceived to be of the same essential substance. Experiencing no boundaries is not an easy thing to grasp nor are its implications.
The wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is marked by a feeling-being enjoying and delighting in a physical, tangible, material world. I do not see any issue.
Perhaps among other reasons because of a misapprehension that ‘I’ exist separate from the physical world?
While demons, angels, ghosts, and Santa Claus are no doubt materially manifest in the brain as mental images, hallucinations, concepts, beliefs, and whatever else, and in turn affect physical events such as church attendance or North Pole letter writing, it is simply an error to locate those mental images as existing independent of the brain’s processes; and that those images are out there interacting directly with houses, furniture, reindeers, etc. Of course, the occurrence of the error would also take place in this physical universe.
It is crystal clear that the self and the affections it arises from are completely non-existent, totally inoperative in the PCE. No argument there.
And you were genuinely satisfied with that explanation?
I see that now.
Once I recognized the error, thanks to the feedback I received, it took a simple adjustment to the specific terminology and it became clear that emotions cannot exist in the actual world due to the fact that the actual world is defined as the world sans emotion. As Geoffrey said earlier, “thoughts are there, but feelings are not. Therefore thoughts are actual, and feelings aren’t. Here you go. Easy.” Emotions are not actual by virtue of the fact that they do not occur in the actual world.
By the way, did you view Srinath’s link to that fascinating article about the machines that are able to reproduce on a computer screen the mental images a human makes in their brain when connected to their heads via electrodes? I am curious as to what you make of it.
No, the answer was definitional not experiential and was indeed to be “gotten by reading things on the internet.” Specifically the definitional difference between ‘physical’ and ‘actual’ which you kindly helped with.
The third post does not contain the first experiential report from my part in the thread. The very first post to this topic included reports of my experiences along with additional contemplations and questions that arose from the experience. See the following:
Do you see where I reported experiencing an experiential self with experiential feelings before proceeding to experientially examine the nature of the experience of self and affect in order determine experientially if one or both were experientially and thus factually occurring? Do you see the subsequent portion that detailed an experience in real time of an experiential image of a unicorn whereupon in real time an experiential investigation was conducted into my experience to determine experientially whether the image being experienced in real time was factually existent or not?
If you bear in mind that apperception is “a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought” then you might not take further issue with anyone else wanting to share what they consider their fascinating “lines of thought” that have the occasion from time-to-time of generating “avenues of inquiry” that lead one to seek out their similarly interested peers to exchange notes, pick brains, and further contemplative processes.
I was responding to messages that were specifically addressed to me in chronological order.
A topic was started that included in it my own personal examinations and ruminations into the nature of my experience, particularly my emotional and imaginative experience, and you say it is worth exploring whether the point that actualism is experiential is being missed. I cannot agree with that.
Richard’s words here were presented to supplement and support the case being made that the instinctual passions (the affections) are physical/material as opposed to non-physical/immaterial given that the instinctual passions are (a) an undeniable experience; (b) a factual experience (because what is undeniable is factual; (c) a physical experience (because what is factual is physical); (d) existent in a boundless and limitless physical universe (because a physically absolute universe does not simply stop at the border of affect); (e) subjected to rigorous experimentation and observation in the field of neuro-chemistry/neuro-biology wherein findings strongly suggest material processes; (f) not conclusively determined to be non-physical by Richard despite his extensive experiential investigations into the matter (“a case can be made that the instinctual passions have a neuronal existence”).
As far as (f) is concerned: I am pointing out that if the case can still be made that the congenital affective ‘survival software’ is physical (“whilst a case can be made that the instinctual passions have a neuronal existence”) then perhaps it is not a closed case that the affective self those affections form into is non-physical (“the instinctual self they automatically form themselves into… does not [have a neuronal existence]”). Because if those affections are indeed physical in the same way a brain cell or a tree is physical then ‘I’ and everything about ‘me’ is physical because the affections and self formed thereby are one and the same thing (‘I’ am the instinctual passions and the instinctual passions are ‘me.’)
Richard (2005): Now, whilst a case can be made that the instinctual passions have a neuronal existence the instinctual self they automatically form themselves into, by the very movement or motion of those affections, which blind nature genetically endows as a rough and ready survival programme, being extant/ being in situ (in a process similar to an eddy in currents of air/a whirlpool in currents of water), does not. Put somewhat simplistically: an emotional/ passional identity is phantom ‘being’ in the affective faculty, an affective ‘ghost in the machine’ (in the survival software), as it were.
Richard here is saying something that he is not usually prone to say: that the survival software aka the affective faculty is “the machine” (material) whereas the emotional/passional identity is “the ghost” (immaterial).
But since the feelings and self are one and the same “it is not possible to separate out the feeler from the feelings” and since the self formed from the feelings like a branch from a tree (inseparably), then in the final analysis both feeling and feeling-being are “the machine”.
Obviously Richard is not saying the same thing here in 2003 as he said in the link I provided where he recognized in 2005 that a case could be made that the instinctual passions were physical whereupon he proceeded to describe the affective faculty as “the machine” (material) and the affective self as “the ghost” (immaterial).
Which is why I said to Srinath earlier:
Whatever the case, [whether feelings are] substantial or insubstantial, since there is an aversion for debilitative feelings, and a preference for ebullient ones, there is a conscious orienting towards the joyful and wholesome, and since that is the essence of Actualism then it may just all lead to the same place anyway.
He doesn’t agree.
Exactly.
How would that experiential shifting prevent one from “walk[ing] through the world in a state of wide-eyed wonder and amazement … simply marveling at the magnificence” of this physical world? How would that experiential shifting keep one from “paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space” to such extent that the attention becomes “a fascination about being here as a flesh and blood body doing this business called being alive” so that it is the fascination which “leads to reflective contemplation” whereupon “one is the doing of the happening called being alive” to where “then – and only then – apperception can occur”? How would that experiential shifting prevent apperception since apperception is “arrived at by reflective and fascinated contemplative thought”?
Got that now.
Understood. The actual world cannot be perceived or experienced by a feeling-being yet the physical world is obviously not invisible to a feeling-being which means one can still glance at their physical computer screen, thinking physical thoughts “in a state of wide-eyed wonder and amazement … marvelling at the magnificence” of this physical universe and all that is in it.
The affective feelings are definitely not absent in a solely physical monism.
Feelings are definitely not being ignored.
No, when the shift to perceiving all events and experiences as being fundamentally physical occurs there remains the natural ability to distinguish and categorize physical phenomena such as dog vs cat; sight vs sound; affect vs cognition, etc.
Can’t say for sure how emotions arrive at consciousness. Probably involves a similar intra sense-mechanism that allows one to be conscious of other interior events such as thoughts and mental images. Looking around on the internet, perception of emotions may be a function of what is known as “interoception” or an “interoception awareness”, a type of interior awareness that is thought to arise in the insula portion of the cerebral cortex, a region identified to be involved in consciousness and an array of other functions including:
“compassion, empathy, taste, perception, motor control, self-awareness, cognitive functioning, interpersonal experience, and awareness of homeostatic emotions such as hunger, pain and fatigue (…) The anterior insula processes a person’s sense of disgust both to smells and to the sight of contamination and mutilation — even when just imagining the experience. This associates with a mirror neuron-like link between external and internal experiences (…) The insula has increasingly become the focus of attention for its role in body representation and subjective emotional experience. In particular, Antonio Damasio has proposed that this region plays a role in mapping visceral states that are associated with emotional experience, giving rise to conscious feelings.” (Wikipedia)
A little more on interoception/ interoceptive:
“Interoceptive Awareness - There is evidence that, in addition to its base functions, the insula may play a role in certain higher-level functions that operate only in humans and other great apes. The spindle neurons found at a higher density in the right frontal insular cortex are also found in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is another region that has reached a high level of specialization in great apes. It has been speculated that these neurons are involved in cognitive-emotional processes that are specific to primates including great apes, such as empathy and metacognitive emotional feelings. This is supported by functional imaging results showing that the structure and function of the right frontal insula is correlated with the ability to feel one’s own heartbeat, or to empathize with the pain of others. It is thought that these functions are not distinct from the lower-level functions of the insula but rather arise as a consequence of the role of the insula in conveying homeostatic information to consciousness.” (Wikipedia)
There is obviously more to the mechanisms of consciousness than just the operation of the five basic senses.
While all experience when affect is involved may involve hedonic tone that does not mean all experience is purely affective. But since the experience of affect is a physical occurrence like everything else in the universe it would mean that all experience is fundamentally physical, factual, and undeniable.
Yes, in the PCE there is no affect or affective self occurring for that human. I won’t speculate as to how a PCE might decisively inform as to the material or immaterial nature of affect. However, keep in mind that someone who had been actually free for thirteen years was open to the idea of the affective faculty physically existing (while being closed to the idea that the affective self physically exists).
It should be clear now that there is no denial of the existence or experience of feelings or of a feeling-being. The exact opposite: the existence or experience of feelings and self is utterly undeniable. So undeniable that I would say they are factual. So factual that I would say they are physical. Because ‘I’ and my feelings are physical there is nothing that separates ‘me’ from the universe. Ah, there’s the closeness again.
Hi Miguel - I’m glad your questions were answered in my reply to adivader and I apologize for not getting to them sooner. The only thing that I would add was that the “crux of the topic” you were asking about was rather multifaceted (hence the multiple tags). But if pushed, I would say the overriding motivations for beginning this topic were to advance and refine the ruminative/ examination-process that was being conducted privately on the nature of affect, self, factuality, actuality, materiality, imagination, physical absoluteness, and experience/ consciousness itself, by means of sharing and comparing deliberations, findings, information, perspectives, experiences, and observations within a communal setting via mutual engagement, feedback, and scrutiny from peers similarly interested in the topic. It’s been super interesting.
Be that as it may… the world you experience disappears entirely in a PCE. It is literally an experience of another world.
Indeed - yet one thing is for sure, whatever the experience is, it won’t be a PCE.
One question I have is, do you have a clear memory of a PCE or a firm experience of one that you can fall back on? If so then there is no danger as you will recognize for yourself whether it is like that experience or not. If not then there is a high chance you will go astray, and I urge extreme caution. You have been forewarned, do with it what you will
Aye yet is this an experiential clarity (i.e. from a PCE you yourself had) or one that you understand via reading descriptions of PCEs? I am not denigrating the importance of conceptual and intellectual understanding - that is how it starts of course - but rather emphasizing the experiential aspect, which must come at some point.
And by experiential aspect I mean not only with experiential examination and experimentation, which is essential and which I see you are doing, but specifically of deriving knowledge via PCEs in particular, as opposed to other types of experiences.
Indeed, yet this definitional tautology, although helpful to understand for clarity of communication, doesn’t really… do anything for you, does it? It doesn’t give you any information (as no tautology will), there is no meaning behind it. The meaning of it is, of course… you know what I’m gonna say… you already know it but I’m gonna say it anyway… here it comes ! … experiential!!
Ahem. Apologies. I didn’t want to sound like a broken record so I had to come up with another way of writing that out .
And to be sure, by experiential in this case I mean specifically a PCE, where the experience of actuality will make it all clear just what it means that emotions are not actual.
Yes, I do see now that you are not just philosophizing but actively examining and experimenting with your experience as you are pondering these ponderings.
I will re-phrase my post accordingly, with some emphases:
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I have no issue with anyone contemplating or sharing their thoughts on these matters, and it is indeed interesting and perhaps necessary (depending on the person), but what I’m trying to drive home here is the importance of having a PCE for yourself, and suggesting that the best way to do that is what has been proven to be effective – i.e. the actualism method.
Which is an apt moment to answer this question:
I was very intellectually dissatisfied with that explanation at first… yet I took the advice and it served me extremely well in my practical successes that followed since then.
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Well, Richard quite impressed upon me, on my first visit, just how absolutely glorious being Enlightened was. He called his normal life ‘grand’ but his enlightened life ‘glorious’. He was quite effusive about it, in what I supposed was a non-characteristic way, as Vineeto made a comment to the effect of not making it too tempting for me to go there .
Richard’s experience of being enlightened then certainly would qualify as one consisting more of “ebullient [feelings]”… and yet this is clearly not “the same place anyway” and nor did it lead him towards that “same place anyway” but rather it led him 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
So you can’t pick and choose which parts of actualism you like… it comes as a package. Because the goal is clearly-defined – the actual world, which is a substantive, actually-existing place. And it is not a matter of “whatever the case” but rather a matter of “what is the case” that feeling-being ‘you’ is not substantive in the same way as the actual you whose body the feeling-being ‘you’ is currently “parasitically inhabiting” (to use Richard’s way of putting it).
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Because it would be an ASC. And an ASC is one step further removed from the actual world, as compared to regular feeling-being consciousness. Take it from someone who has ample experience with long-lasting ASCs resulting from well-meaning but ultimately misguided experiential digging around in consciousness .
Also I have no issue with you doing this per se. Rather consider it a friendly warning from someone who has been there. But it’s up to you what you do with your life of course :). Hopefully these conversations will help forewarn you (to be forewarned is to be forearmed) should you choose to continue this way … as implicit in all this is that what you ultimately want to for yourself is what Richard is experiencing (else why the study of his words) and you are presumably simply trying to find the best way for you personally to get there.
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And yet the entirety of the world ‘you’ currently inhabit doesn’t actually exist, and vanishes in the space of an instant as you enter a PCE.
It is a fact that you have feelings and they are derived from physical processes but the feelings are arbitrary in the same way one can consider belief arbitrary. Most humans have beliefs depending on the culture or religion they were raised in, take two identical twins and put them into different cultures or religions and they will have different beliefs. You could believe anything you want, how does one determine that one belief is more valid than another.
I started to realise the same about my emotions, why do I feel a particular way to a particular stimuli. See a scary dog, react with fear, see a cute dog, react with nurturing, warm fuzzy feeling. I used to believe that every feeling that I had was because it must be this way, it felt like this was the way it was destined to be and had to be. Then suddenly I saw through that. My emotions suddenly became some aspect that manipulated me, made me behave in ways that I possibly didn’t want to.
Hi Chrono - yes, feelings not only induce subsequent physical events such as the production of “physical hormones and physical bodily reactions” but it should be added that feelings are also the product of physical events as well, specifically the electrochemical processes of the brain’s nerve cells. Basically, it is the physical brain organ that produces feelings (no brain = no feelings).
Don’t you find it incredibly odd that out of all the things in the universe, planet earth’s animal instinctual passions (along with its derivatives) are the only things that do not physically exist.
This could be because the associated biomarkers of experience are not the experience. It is impossible to snap a photo of the subjective experience of ‘throbbing pain’ (sensate) or ‘delicious’ (sensate) despite associated biomarkers being observable and measurable; in the same way it is impossible to snap a photo of the subjective experience of ‘angry’ (affective) or ‘despondent’ (affective) despite associated biomarkers being observable and measurable.
Wouldn’t “in the brain” count as somewhere in the physical universe?
Different topic.
OK, so the program exists. Yet the task it performs does not exist?
Surely not “complete” control over the entire physical body. There are too many functions of the body that run on autopilot.
That the feeling self is felt and experienced to be something other than the physical body does not make it so.
It just hit me: perhaps this is what Richard meant by “a feeling is not a fact.” In other words, although a feeling is in an ultimate sense a factual occurrence in that it occurs as a material event in space and time (a feeling is therefore a fact), it does not necessarily mean a feeling accurately informs as to what the case is of a particular matter (a feeling is therefore not a fact). Could it be put this way: a feeling is a factual event that does not necessarily inform as to what is factual?
Thank you for providing a link to that article, Chrono. This is an amazing technological development. For those who did not access the link, thoughts and mental images, which are the product of electric neural activity, generate detectable low frequency waves and it is those waves that have been successfully decoded and reproduced on a computer monitor. Incidentally, emotional and agitated states also emit detectable electromagnetic waves in the 13-20 Hz range.
Aye this is indeed what it means to say “a feeling is not a fact”.
There are a few matters here that it can be tricky to separate out, as to what is factual, physical, and actual.
In a pragmatic sense (i.e. the only sense that ultimately matters for the purposes of success with actualism):
a feeling is not a fact (i.e. a feeling does not accurately inform, just because something is felt to be true does not make it so)
“actual” is not simply a definition as in “that which is experienced without feelings”. “Actual” is term used to refer to that which is the case, as in which truly exists, in an ultimate sense (as in the way the universe itself actually is).
As a term in actualism lingo, “actual” does carry with it (part of the standard) meaning of “indeed occurring, veritably to be the case, undoubtedly so, truly existing in every sense of the word”.
it is possible to experience that which is actual in a PCE, which is what will ultimately inform as to what is “actual” and what is not.
feelings and the ‘being’ formed of them are indeed not actual in this sense of the word (“indeed occurring, veritably to be the case, undoubtedly so, truly existing in every sense of the word”)
it is incredibly tricky and weird and odd to wrap one’s head around this - that this which is expericencd so clearly as a feeling and indeed as ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety, does not actually exist. And yet it is the case. And it is truly remarkable.
and it is equally tricky and weird and odd to wrap one’s head around that the world which is indeed occurring, veritably existent, undoubtedly occurring, truly existing in every sense of the world, is completely incapable of being experienced by a feeling-being.
Just sit and mull that one over for a minute – the only world or universe that truly exists, is simply not experiencable for the 7-billion+ feeling-beings on the planet. This is a complete about-face from what is experienced with regular (feeling-being) consciousness and is not really capable of being fully grasped until one sees it for oneself in a PCE.
And the world or universe that does not truly exist – i.e. the ‘real’ world, the world feeling-being Rick is experiencing while reading this – is being experienced.
It is truly a strange state of affairs and it’s no surprise it takes a while to see this salient point.
instead of attempting to figure out whether the occurrence of a feeling is a fact or not or actual or not, simply keeping these categories of ‘fact’ and ‘feeling’ separate will be very pragmatic and efficacious.
To expand on this, regarding the nature of feelings - in the sense of by which physical or actual mechanism they occur, whether they are neurons firing or something else, whether there is any distinction from this mechanism in an ultimate/natural sense from the trees and the birds etc. - it is not important practically-speaking. It can be interesting to contemplate but it can also serve as a hindrance to having a PCE. What is important is to have a PCE.
And in terms of hindrances to having a PCE, just because it can feel, via rumination causing a change in experience, like there is intimacy and no separation from the physical world and that ‘feelings’ are the same ultimately-speaking as the trees and the birds etc., does not mean this is the case – and indeed this is factually incorrect, as the factual case of the matter is that ‘I’ and the world ‘I’ experience (which ‘I’ automatically (without being able to stop doing so) project from ‘my’ own self-centered nature onto the world ‘out there’) is factually separate from the rest of existence, as ‘I’ am that which causes and is this separation in the first place… so any feeling or experience whilst being a feeling-being to the contrary, is simply not factual, but rather a misapprehension, which with sufficient conviction can turn into a delusion born of an illusion.
Hence my “Ding ding ding, ASC alert” and other warnings and admonitions (as in “advise or urge (someone) earnestly [as in ‘sincerely’]”) to have a PCE.
Hi Solvann - yes (assuming you meant “[physical] origin”), every event, appearance (deceptive or otherwise), and experience without exception arises from the universe. Where else could these things occur? There is nowhere else since there can be only one universe if for no other reason than simply by definition of the word else the term’s main stem ‘uni’ (‘one’) is meaningless. The question then comes down to whether this universe is a “physical universe” which is “infinite and eternal (boundless and limitless)”. Let’s pursue this line of universal physicality: if this universe is a physical universe, and I submit that it is, then since a physical universe is nothing more and nothing less than the totality of all that exists, then all that exists must without exception likewise be physical. It is important to keep in mind that the universe (the totality of existence) is constantly rearranging the various phases of existent matter into different phases and formations; it does not create or generate new material (all the material that exists in the universe has always been here existing and will always be here existing) much less is it creating things that do not exist. Matter does not create, it only reconfigures. It further goes without saying that the material bits of this universe cannot rearrange or reconfigure themselves into something that does not exist, for not only is the notion absurd on its face, but the outcome would obviously not be a reconfiguration or rearrangement of existent material at all; instead that would again be creatio ex materia. The ‘nonmaterial’, such as what the instinctual passions are said to be, could therefore neither be a creation of material nor a rearranged formulation of material.
It is straightforward and simple after all.
But consider that “non-solid’’ does not mean non-material (gas, for example) and you’ll find that the analogy you put forward does not hold up.
With respect, that conclusion has a false-analogy origin.
It is one thing to say that the affective-faculty dissolved, it is another thing to say that it never materially existed in the first place.
Yes to the actual and non-actual split; no to the solid and non-solid split.
Actual refers to what is actually happening right now.
Emotions are actual in the sense that they originate from material activity. But their representation of what the world is, or assessment of human behaviour and situations is far from accurate. By “emotions aren’t actual”, Richard means in that sense.
Intelligence maps reality better though it’s not accurate and therefore isn’t actual either, but it’s not what we are targeting at in practising actualism because there is no better instrument available, along with senses, for us to navigate reality. Emotions distort reality, mislead us and cause pain–either now or in future. Actualism is directed at removing this outdated apparatus which is the root of all suffering in the world.
Also tagging @claudiu to point out any errors in my understanding.
Actually that is what he means by “a feeling is not a fact”.
But as to “feelings are not actual” it is actually the same experiential definition that @geoffrey posited [link]:
RESPONDENT:One thing about actualism that has never been explained to my satisfaction is why thought is classified as actual, whereas feeling is not.
RICHARD: Put succinctly: thought operates here in this actual world – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – whereas feelings do not.
RESPONDENT:Actualists say that thought is simply the human brain in operation.
RICHARD: They only say that to counter the religio-spiritual/ mystico-metaphysical notion, which some peoples espouse, that thought is not of the human brain.
RESPONDENT:Why shouldn’t feeling have the same ontological status?
RICHARD: Simply because actualism is experiential and not ontological … ‘of or pertaining to ontology [the science or study of being; that part of metaphysics which relates to the nature or essence of being or existence]; metaphysical’ (Oxford Dictionary).
He actually never said emotions are not factual (same link):
RESPONDENT:Also, why do you say emotions are not factual?
RICHARD: I copy-pasted ‘emotions are not factual’ into my search-engine and sent it through all the words I have ever written only to return nil hits; a search for ‘not factual’ returned 20 hits but none of them referred to emotions (the majority were for ‘beliefs are not factual’) … so I can only presume you are referring to me oft-times saying ‘a feeling is not a fact’.
If so, what I mean by this is that neither a feeling about something – as in ‘it feels right’ for example – makes it factual nor does a feeling of something – as in the feeling of ‘being’ for instance – make it a fact (hence ‘a feeling is not a fact’).
Intelligence is actual in that it operates in the actual world.
The experience of actuality via pure consciousness is what will clarify the non-actual nature of feelings and of ‘me’ entirely, and what the ramifications of that are…
I pounced upon this opportunity last time you shared your experience, the practical effects of this investigation, and I am pouncing upon it again now…
