No one can be sure

Nothing is certain except for our Truth – our self and conscious experience reality being part of one’s Whole Being, and our Whole Beings being of Reality, in the real world of Reality :

No one can be sure
just confident against sad
a quiet unassuming steadiness
easily stilted with fear, incited with rage,
chased by the subconscious to a consumptive dependence.

Much must then we put aside
that build up dark in the shadows
of our efforts that steal sustainability
we when lost from being part, from one’s Whole,
and democratic freedom empower those of critical mass.

Whether weather or well-being
we’re the issue en mass dependent
on networked mono-cultured streams that emanate
the exponential projectory peak, as had been foreseen, (quite accurately by 1940’s)
of our human numbers, progress, innovation and development.

From finite form and faculty
apparent diversity within each “corona-ed” field
our endeavours and specialties that propagate and determine
their particular concerns, with meaning and value – as quantum field its particle (syntax of grammar its participle, as biology its issues of life, as each field of study or endeavor propagates or “corona-s” as they determine their particular topics and items, as well as propagate them – self-referential and mutually dependent are fields and their particles, in their displacement, differentiation, determination and propagation, all within our Representational reality)
but no longer can we justify them Naive when all the while, within our reality Representational.

Too late it seems even for “de-growth”
as global homeostasis seems to have tipped
and we refer to past extinctions by asteroid or volcanoes
while reliance, for our problems and needs, on linear causality,
know how and can do, continues to create new wants and outcomes unintended.

Dependent on our systems, history and nature
though we may rebel against changes we’re born into
the evermore bureaucratic hold on our specie’s destiny
will not budge, even with anarchic struggle, against state, power and control,
for we innately challenge selective fate of Nature, unless we come to our Truth.
(we control and create our environment – avoid natural selection – and place our self suspended in experience, of the world we create, denying the support and freedom from one’s Whole, and the Truth of our being part, of Who is in the environment or the real world of Reality rather than experience of it)

Gone with transcendence of one’s Whole
is the tacit and mystic truth of our being part
in one’s knowing, know how and notion and sense
of being and doing, existing and living in our reality – we are lost
while one’s Whole Being of breath, cells and action, lives in the real world of Reality.

While Earth exists and allows for our life-style
we may learn to partake in one’s living Whole Being
transcendent though He or She is, one’s Whole exists
in the real world of Reality, which we can affect and be reached by
through one’s Whole in becoming part, in our reality of conscious experience.

All our faculties come from beyond us, from one’s Whole – to be responsible and be in conflict, to be self and free, to thank and blame, to be conscious – as well as what we are conscious of, experience, think and feel.

Lost and found X-mas cheer

Re-posted from a year ago : Compare with this year’s new year entry (previous post https://realityhc.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/the-self-and-what-is-it-to-be-human/), for progress through our exponential curve – where whether we affect the weather, or not, is hard to tell from weather models, whose reports cannot see that far into the future, because the models are formed by us from within it (the weather; with stations, ballons and various probes to monitor it from within it), and sun spot  activity affects it, grossly from without it; but human activity we know affects Earth, in exponential ways and so must affect weather at least around the cities, whose air, grounds, vegetation, water, tempretures and  hazy skies we know are affected  with more people living and commuting in it, and moving to it, more and more. (exponential curve search on this blog : https://realityhc.wordpress.com/?s=exponential+curve&submit=Search)

Lead like lemmings
drawn into view
exponential explosion
under foot,
future not ahead.

Bouncing reflexive in apparent chaos
probable presence in hotted head
everything is of you in experience
part of your whole present in the present
forever X-mas clause of Reality.

Merry be, in cheer part-ache
Mary be for Christ’s sake
Glory be our betrothal to
our whole being of Reality
wholly ghost, transcendent of our part.

We near the end of this Rooster year. Proud cocky does not like its feathers ruffled. So much exposed, of finance, politics, globalisation and its culture, the environmental situation and our attitudes and responses. Human history and the Earth’s merge in the climactic (including what is climatic) exponential curve .

I see the showy Rooster plucked, as if ready for a X-mas dinner. At least in Sydney, it seems sombre. It was quiet in the shops, both of shoppers and X-mas decoration.

Next year is the year of the Dog. Our passage through the exponential curve must involve fundamental changes, like the crossing of the river Styx (across into the land of the dead). In at least a few cultures including the Egyptian, the Dog is said to be our guide in this.

Faithful companion by our side, lick our part and point to who is human, alive in Reality on Earth under heaven, our whole whose being is next to yours.

While the Earth sustains our life-style and our individual whole is alive, we may contemplate our part and end, but also be in relation with the one who is alive and on Earth, next to other living whole beings, and who will die.

Cock a doodle woof !

This year will be the Pig – woof woof and oink.

 

 

 

The self and “What is it to be human?”

A steady new year entry, level with horizon
into the sunrise of the Age of Aquarius;
where we looked up high
was with its dawn light that rises high
(in the early 70’s; the musical ‘Hair’ came out in 1967).

Or is it the setting sun, at the horizon
and dusk’s glow rose high.
Either way , level diaphragm with sun’s light from horizon
square against our vertical, stand through
exponential  wake (exponential curve search in this blog : https://realityhc.wordpress.com/?s=exponential+curve&submit=Search),
new, as always, beggining
and another end but global.

Let spirit radiate, spill over from core of diaphragm horizontal, rather than blast ahead
and up.

 

————————-

The development of AI (artificial intelligence) has moved the boundary between the subjective and objective in our reality, objectifying so much of our mental functioning that are mechanical or computer-like, though previously thought of as cognitive, creative, communicative (ripe to be “connective”, to love, consume and demand the technologies that augment our reality but also what is augmented; we consummate in our augmentation with technology), clever, curious and human. This encroachment creates a new impetus and interest to the age old question, “What is it to be human?” (Note 2 – AI and our humanity).

Last paragraph of section 3 The subjective aspects of our reality; “Our reality and Reality” orig blgd 16Oct17, re ed June, Dec18

Expanding the bracket above:

The human condition is communicative.
We gawk and talk, are ripe to be “connective”,
to love, consume and demand the technology
that augment our reality, and what is augmented;
we consummate, in our augmentaion with technology.

Also from section 3 The subjective aspects of our reality :

We loose sight of our self like Alice
chasing the back of the Rabbit (through her tunnel),
in trying to experience, the experiencing self.
Rather than risk extinguishing our self,
we must distinguish instead objective and subjective aspects
of our having-an-experience reality,
and not chase the subjective end of the “apparatus”
in self-referencing; like a dog after its tail.

I will post the first three sections (to 3 The subjective aspects of our reality) of “Our reality and Reality” orig blgd 16Oct17, re ed June, Dec18 next.

Our reality and Reality 6/6

Sixth of six parts to the article.

The theory and background to “actuality” our existence in fact as  part projection of our whole being of Reality, projected through the Central Nervous System.

7 “Orientation” – to the human condition and Reality, hc.R

Beyond what is presented in this background article there is more to “actuality” of our reality as part and projection, and more in referring to our whole being of Reality. I hope however to at least begin to establish our actuality as projected part. People as part in their self and identity should find interest in their actuality and relation with their whole being of Reality.

The approach is “Orientation” to the human condition and Reality. Our projected actuality is orientated in space, and with our whole self and being of Reality.

Introduced is the transcendent whole. He or she (gendered) is the universal basis for our existence and processes as projected part. Universal because everyone as self or identity, has a whole they belong to as part and be in relation with.

The process is integration, for both the projected part and its whole. The transcendent living whole being is more whole with integrating rather than isolated parts. Integration for part and whole is underpinned by the immanence of Reality in all parts, through their whole being of Reality.

We change in dimension and state in our reality, but it is not for us to be the transcendent whole or reach Reality. Rather, we are to be in relation with our whole who is of Reality and in Reality touched by the rest of Reality.

The essence, substance and fields of all human endeavours and practices may said to be delivered with Orientation, from government through study (science and philosophy, all social studies), practice and performance (including work and physical tasks, all exercise).

Applied in our projected actuality as piece in its place as part of its whole, we be part of our whole being of Reality, among other whole entities who are present in the present where human endeavours are done, including the things we think we do in our projected reality, in Reality.

We as self or identity in the human condition are in a projected reality of conscious experience and self witnessed. In our actuality as projection we are part of our whole being of Reality.

Through our whole, our deepest sentiments flow. Through our transcendent whole godly being we become immanent of Reality as a projected part of our whole. Gratitude, reverence and the giving of thanks, our sacrifice or subjugation, wonderment and inner enquiry, despair and the reaching for help, struggle with vengeance or against betrayal, the gathering of power, its purpose and release, the incomplete surfaces and spaces of our projected reality.

Only through our whole because we are part, can we be free and independent as a part. Supported and opened, broken and born, lead and realised, strong and uncertain, in our whole’s encompassing embrace that reaches and infuses our reality’s breadths, depths, and extent, in our being part.

Lastly, our actuality implies a cosmology, diagrammed below with description, and to three statements we can make within our reality. They indirectly refer to our truth as part and to our transcendent whole, who “must be there” in Reality :

Message : “Everything is a part; in everything is our whole”
Everything of our self and what is experienced or sensed, is a projected part of our
whole being. In every part is the presence or essence of their whole.

Instruction : “Everything is material for referring to one’s whole”
For one’s everything being a part of one’s whole. Our reality includes positive and negative states, and all their possible purposes and processes.

Goal : “Look to a relation with one’s whole”
In all that we may become, achieve or get to, because our reality includes all that we may be and experience, and is a part of our whole.

The forest cannot be seen for the trees

We cannot see the forest for the trees, but each part of the tree is a part of the forest because each tree is a part of the forest. In the same way, while we cannot see or in any other way experience our whole for other parts, we can however be a part of our whole, and through our whole being of Reality be part of greater wholes in Reality, including humanity, all existence and life on Earth, Earth, universe, and Reality itself as the one and only whole ¹.

We can look at other wholes but what we see within our reality are indications of things in Reality according to our whole self, based on his or her sense organs each sensitive to a particular “aspect of Reality” such as light, sound, touch etc (see Note 1 – phenomenal world made from “aspects of Reality”). While we cannot see Reality or our whole, we can be a part of our whole within our reality, and of Reality through our whole self being of Reality. We become immanent of or permeated by it (Reality) as a part of our whole.

1Mereology is the study of parts and wholes. While as a system of logic it is complete within itself, within our reality we strain against being part in our reductionally deterministic and linearly identifying ways. Rather than help find how and where we fit or may be applied as part, instead it becomes just one of many ways to regard or see the world we experience in our reality.
However, mereology is indeed significant for us for we are a part. Our reality is attached to one end of the complete system of parts and wholes as a part, and to its other end absolute Reality as the one and only whole. It helps to establish and understand our relation with our whole and with Reality as part, to which we may be “applied” in our actuality.

A quick edit to the last blog post Our reality and Reality 5/6

Our reality and Reality 5/6

Fifth of six parts to the article.

6 Reality, our whole and for our becoming a part

Reality is Entirety, that is more than the sum of all wholes and parts, the one and only whole, which may also be considered All-Creation-God.

There must be in Reality something like a force (mystery) and/or presence (profundity) that keeps a whole whole, whether it be a molecule, stone, an apple, planet, galaxy, or the universe. To the part we are as self or identity, our transcendent whole and “the one and only whole” (Reality) will always be a profound double mystery, for their very whole-ness and one’s part in those wholes.

We cannot see the forest for the trees, but each part of the tree is a part of the forest because each tree is a part of the forest. In the same way, while we cannot see or in any other way experience our whole for other parts, we can however be a part of our whole, and through our whole being of Reality be part of greater wholes in Reality, including humanity, all existence and life on Earth, Earth, universe, and Reality itself as the one and only whole ¹.

We can look at other wholes but what we see within our reality are indications of things in Reality according to our whole self, based on his or her sense organs each sensitive to a particular “aspect of Reality” such as light, sound, touch etc (see Note 1 – phenomenal world made from “aspects of Reality”). While we cannot see Reality or our whole, we can be a part of our whole within our reality, and of Reality through our whole self being of Reality. We become immanent of or permeated by it (Reality) as a part of our whole.

Our whole must be a godly being, wondrous profound mystic cosmic yet mundane, for having our reality as a part, for being more than the sum of his or her parts as the whole, for being of Reality as one of its countless wholes, and transcendent of our part. To be in relation with our whole we can as a part within our reality, refer to our whole.

However, the “normal” tendency in our reality is to identify in our self and with what we experience. Therefore, we approach our “actuality”, our existence in fact as projection, to be a part of our whole. We are “there” amongst other aspects of our projected reality. Around these aspects that construct our reality a spatial reference or “orientation” (orientation in space) can be introduced to capture more of our projected make-up, including the subjective aspects.

Our reality becomes empirical, measurable and verifiable, in its actuality as projected in space. It takes a particular spatial sense to appreciate our actuality, which involves our stepping back into the substance of our reality that is projection, to be of actuality to appreciate it. With this sense is recognition of the human condition and various aspects for objective or scientific analysis. While this may be significant n many fields of human endeavour, we must not forget however, we can apply our selves in our actuality within our reality to refer to our whole being as his or her part, for a relation with our whole.

In referring our whole we must be indirect, because our whole is transcendent of our part. Our sense within our reality of his or her mid-line or core (geometric reference for the whole body) can be used as a reference for who “must” be there, in Reality. There is nothing solid or whole in our reality, and while only an incomplete and floating sense of core, it works for us to be in relation with our whole.

Other ways to refer to our whole include: the whole is touched by the rest of creation; is present in the present; is alive; must be there (for us to be); is transcendent of us; is in and of Reality; is Nothingness, an absence in our projected reality.

The concept of “winching” is included here. Effort to pull on the winch is necessary to “promote” or further our whole and part, and advance against the isolating bind of our identification in our self and with what we experience. Then return the winch, to refer to and allow for our whole beyond our effort and reckoning, which can only be limited because they come from a part that is ours (Notes 5 – winching; promoting our part and whole, then referring to our whole).

1Mereology is the study of parts and wholes. While as a system of logic it is complete within itself, within our reality we strain against being part in our reductionally deterministic and linearly identifying ways. Rather than help find how and where we fit or may be applied as part, instead it becomes just one of many ways to regard or see the world we experience in our reality.
However, mereology is indeed significant for us for we are a part. Our reality is attached to one end of the complete system of parts and wholes as a part, and to its other end absolute Reality as the one and only whole. It helps to establish and understand our relation with our whole and with Reality as part, to which we may be “applied” in our actuality.

Notes 5 The tendency is to identify within your reality, before you start, and as you shift to a different (new) experience or dimension. To start and keep going, rather than identified in your part and so isolated from your whole :
1a) Promote your part – introduce space, approach your actuality (to be more “presentable” to your whole and “maker”)
1b) Promote your whole – posture, trunk-al extent (so there is something of the whole to receive your part)
2) Refer to your transcendent whole – the core is the reference for, the other-end a clue to, a whole being of Reality (beyond our reckoning and effort, because they are limited by our being a part)
3) Repeat 1) Promote (part and whole) and 2) Refer – to “winch” your self closer to being a part; pulling on the winch to promote your relationship with your whole, and releasing the winch to allow and let go to your whole.
We need to apply effort, but then go beyond our efforts, by referring to our transcendent whole, because our reckoning and efforts are limited, in our being a part. One may become familiar with the levels and layers of our reality, and their unfolding, in our integration with our whole. This, knowing “what happens” to our reality in relation with our whole, can be used to promote our part (step 1a in “winching”). As we become more of a part, there is less of a leap between the conscious act of doing something (promote, step 1) and referring or presenting to the whole being (step 2). Our connecting with our whole becomes “smoother” for having initiated it with “winching”.

Our reality and Reality 4/6

Fourth of six parts to the article, as it nears completion.

5 In our “actuality” being there, being what we are

Micky Mouse in his cartoon can think he is superior to if not independent of the cinema projector, of even the cartoonist. We too can hold our assertions within our reality “I’m it” and “that’s the wot (world out there)” and be defensive about being projected. However, we can recognise being a part. As one of many me-s or self-s which are different at different times, places, company, conversations and occasions, in different states, roles and situations. And as self or identity apart from other parts that construct (make-up) one’s or our reality including, the conscious, what we experience and deeper being, also witness.

We can know and understand being a projected part of a whole being of Reality, projected by our whole through his or her CNS. As space, time and gravity were reduced to a more fundamental space-time by Einstein, all aspects of our reality, of conscious experience and self witnessed, are here reduced to their fundamental, of being projection. Our reality, projected by our whole through the CNS, contains parts as diverse and opposing as self and what is experienced (subject and object), the conscious and sense of matter, substance or body, outside and inside.

We must be clear, however. It is not something in or aspect of Reality that is being considered fundamental here, but our part within our whole. Projection refers to our whole being of Reality who projects our reality, including the self in it. We can be reductionist with the world we experience or the phenomenal world because it is constructed or put together in the first place within our reality from information about “aspects of Reality” which the whole self has sense organs for (about light focused as image in eyes, sound from ears, smell from nose etc).

We come to absolute Reality when we approach our part in our reality and refer to our whole, because our whole is of Reality. Projection is fundamental of our reality, our existence in fact in all that is our self and experience. (Notes 3 – fundamental)

Whereas, if we separate the subjective by defining it as fundamental, separate from other parts of our reality including the objective, they cannot together be parts that construct our reality and be parts together of their common whole, who is of Reality.

Projection is what we are. It is our “actuality”, our existence in fact, the substance of our reality. In their “actuality” parts of our reality take-up certain shapes in particular places, as projected and placed by our whole (through the CNS). This is immediate of our reality where vision is to the front of our having an experience, the conscious above, deeper being below, witness behind, and the self in between. (Notes 4 – “actuality”). We may approach our self more precisely by introducing a spacial reference over our own actuality.

As a part we can, should at least consider, should be able to, want to and must, regard our whole. However, as discussed, we cannot be direct in approaching our subjective self (“self-referencing conundrum” and “apparatus for having an experience”), nor can we refer to our whole in the usual direct manner we can with what we experience.

Where is the whole? Or self? Not in our reality to experience and determine “what’s what” in our linear reductive frame.

The diagram indicates how a part displaces its whole and is surrounded by the “rest of whole”. Our whole is transcendent of or beyond our part while encompassing of it. In many ways there may be more to our reality but the “rest of whole” floats our all.

The following points summarise how we are usually isolated from our whole :
1) transcendence : Our whole is displaced from our part, transcendent of or beyond it. He or she can never be in our reality as a whole because our reality is a part.
2) projection : In being projected by our whole through his or her CNS our reality is displaced from our whole in substance and dimension.
3) differentiation : Our reality separates into various different components, including the conscious, self, what is experienced, deeper being, and witness, and the projected space they are in.
4) identification : Finally, we are isolated from our whole in being identified within our reality, in our self and with what we experience. Other components are bound by this identification, the conscious being conscious of it, the witness by which we are aware of it, and our deeper being that waits for a reckoning beyond identification.

Notes 3 The world we experience is a lesser version of Reality according to our whole and his or her sense organs, within which we are normally reductionist as we determine what we experience and understand or try to in terms of simpler, more basic or more fundamental parts and processes. For example, a dog can be understood in terms of collection of organs, body, behaviour and roles. We can be reductional in our reality because our experience of the world is assembled in the first place from indications of aspects of Reality the whole self is sensitive to (through his or her sense organs). What we experience is de-assembled or reduced to the indications of those aspects of Reality as we focus separately to vision, sound, touch or any other sense that is our experience. Whereas things in Reality cannot be dissected without destroying its wholeness.
We can dissect a dead dog and surmise or deduce in our minds how it lives, but our understanding, even in terms of interdependent multi-factorial systems, falls short of life, whole-ness or being of Reality. We must understand our understanding to be a part of our reality that is a part of our whole, who is a part of Reality and among other whole entities. (And the application of this understanding, of our being a part, will be alluded to towards the end of this article.)
Reality itself must be fundamental. We (in science) have reduced the things in our reality to cells, atoms, space, time, gravity, electro-magnetic radiation etc, to smaller elements but then went on in physics, to split again and again the atom, while incorporating space, time and gravity into one space-time. In biology, the mapping of the brain and the genome reveals and takes us towards the complexity and profundity of what runs the living whole. In chemistry too, is the same mystery of what keeps the whole whole while individual atoms apparently exchange.
I’ve written about the frontiers of science, but I think there is the same issue here with fundamentals, that we are dealing with aspects of Reality our whole sensitive to according to his or her sense organs that manifest in our reality as indications (presented by our whole through the CNS ). There is no end to our reductionist pursuit. Our questions will continue beyond the answers that are determined by the same context that determine our questions, when the questions themselves originate from outside of the context. Our linear reductionist endeavours that may go on and on open ended, must be freed as parts. We can be reductionist as a part of our construct or reality, in our whole.
Reality by definition, the “one and only whole”, is irreducible. While our understanding of the world, which includes our scientific theories, applies in Reality in that they work “there”, Reality is more than what it seems to us and what seems to be working, to us. For example we know how a kettle boils water with heat under it, but in Reality is the fact of what is heat, the metal and the kettle as a whole, water, what is happening which apart from boiling is the transmission of heat, agitation of molecules, bubbling of steam and its diffusion into air, and in Reality is also everything else for that part to be, including who is observing and who organised the kettle to boil, the mine, factory and shop that the metal and kettle came from, the existence of wholes and parts, what happens, etc. What we experience of the world in our reality is Reality reduced to that part (boiling kettle) our whole is directed to that is further reduced to aspects of Reality that the whole is sensitive to (according to sensory organs) of that part, which as indication is put together by our whole for us to experience.
Of course, we can boil water without knowing, thinking or getting in touch with all that is involved in Reality. We can start and drive a car without understanding how or what we are doing. Even in an immediate act like brushing one’s hair that could be done while driving and listening to the radio, when we stop to think about it, how does our hand move, what is brush, hand and arm, hair? Where is the body? It gets done, and in thinking about it we run the risk of running out of time or being overwhelmed by uncertainty, crash the car. Instead, we usually shake our selves back into our normal sequence of events in our reality, and call it sanity and normality (or sanitary).
We must distinguish our reality and Reality, in order to appreciate our whole and our being a part. Reality is irreducible and fundamental, as is our whole who is of Reality and of whom our reality is a reduced part. We can be in our reality as a part, knowing that uncertainty, awe and wonderment too belong with our whole.

Notes 4 “Actuality” means the state of existence in fact (dictionary definition). “Our actuality” refers here to the existence of our reality as projection. Our reality in its various components, occupies space as projected by our whole, in certain ways or shapes, and in certain places in relation to their whole. Our actuality is the truth, substance and form of our reality, and will further be discussed as our state for being in relation with our whole.

Our reality and Reality 3/6

Third of six parts to the article as it steps to completion.

4 The self as a part of a construct

Our experience is determined “what” in context, “what’s what” ahead of our front-facing line-up through the “apparatus for having an experience”. Beyond this focus of knowing, what we determine breaks down or pixelates into uncertainty and unknowing. At the subjective end of the “apparatus for having an experience” we sit on the “self referencing conundrum”, where we cannot experience or determine our self.

We do need a different approach for our conscious self. Otherwise we remain concealed behind this front-facing lined-up with what we experience.

However, I do not think categorising our subjective aspects as fundamental is necessary or helpful.

We already have phenomenology (branch of philosophy that considers our reality of conscious experience and self as phenomena) which offers us the “thing-in-itself”, the state before we judge (phenomenological term) or determine “what” things experience are in their context. Phenomenology speaks of the conscious “being conscious of” and calls it intentionality. This recognition of the nature of consciousness proves reaching the conscious beyond experiencing or being conscious of, There is also in phenomenology our deeper being, dasein which translates from German to “being there” (title of Peter Seller’s movie 1980) or “presence” and refers to our existence within our reality.

While subjective aspects of our reality are indeterminable and cannot directly be experienced phenomenology addresses this “impasse” (phenomenological term) or conundrum (self-referencing) by stalling the “apparatus for having an experience” from determining or judging, and delivers (for our recognition) the self, experience and the conscious, in-them-selves. To these I add the witness, by which we are aware of those aspects delivered in the phenomenological approach.

The witness is the most hidden part of our reality. It may be though of as the displaced part to the manifestant (phenomenal) parts of our subjective aspects i.e, the conscious, self and experience, and sensed as the vacuous disassociation behind the self having an experience.

We may be aware of what the witness witnesses. Being self aware and self conscious points to the displacement of the witness and of the conscious from self. However, the witness seems independent of our sense of time and change.

While we identify in our self and with experience and determine what it is, the world is there in our periphery and background to our focus, as witnessed. The sense of the world being there whether we notice it or not, adds strongly to “one’s” notion and sense an objective world and our being in a “real” world; we can take it for granted.

With the inclusion of the witness by which we are aware of our reality as phenomenon, I proclaim “constructology” as the study of our reality as a construct of parts projected by our whole being. Beyond the phenomena and phenomenology of our conscious self and experience, our reality is made or constructed of parts necessary for experience that include the witness.

We can understand our reality as part, of our individual whole self next to other wholes in Reality. It means every part that constructs our reality is a part of our whole, including our self, conscious, witness, and what we experience, both the subjects and objects of experiencing. Not a product of the CNS, but of our whole; projected through, and not by, the CNS.

 

Our reality and Reality 2/6

Second of six parts to the article as it steps towards its completion.

3 The subjective aspects of our reality

The self is difficult to determine. “Who or what am I?” How does one refer to one’s self?

Even as words, sentences that refer to themselves or “self-reference” create in many cases confusion in our minds, recognised in philosophy as a “self-referential paradox”. Think about “This statement is false, true or false?” It sort of doesn’t go anywhere but leaves one suspended or waiting for some conclusion, some resolution, as if that is expected in a sentence. It is a commonly used example of the paradox where the question cannot be answered in its terms of true or false because the sentence cannot be true when it says it is false and if false the sentence must mean it is true but says it is not. The contradiction and irresolution in the statement itself intensifies and prolongs the self-referencing and its paradox.

More so the question “What is the self?”, one’s self itself. It brings self-referencing directly back to us, towards one’s actual self, to a “self-referencing conundrum” (https://realityhc. wordpress.com/?s= self+referencing+conundrum), which comes of us being in the “apparatus for having an experience”. In this make-up and condition for having an experience, trying to directly experience one’s self is like a camera trying to take a picture of itself (with “exposures” of itself). We cannot bend the “apparatus for having an experience” to experience our “having an experience” self.

We risk loosing our “self” trying to experience the experiencing self. Rather than thus extinguishing our self we must distinguish and firmly grasp the objective and subjective ends of our “having an experience” reality, to not chase the other end of the “apparatus” like a dog its own tail in self-referencing. The self tells the tale and hears, the dog wagging the tail is tickled by the tale wagging. Where is the self? Within our reality (of conscious experience and self) are parts including our sense of being and doing, inside and outside, subject and object.

The objective is the “easy” aspect to explain and understand as produced by the brain – Chalmers 1986, Australian philosopher. Vision from eyes and all experiences from aspects of Reality according to the whole self’s sense organs (projected for us to experience, by our whole through the CNS) belong to this group, as the object of “having an experience”. But also included are functions of the mind, including determining, remembering, filing, retrieving and analysing, that can be broken down to linear mechanical or computational processes, “easily” attributed to the brain that is computer-like, at least in part.

The subjective aspects on the other hand, include the self, consciousness, the experience itself (“raw” experience or qualia, different from what is experienced or determined what of experience, which is the object of experience, and which we may know), deeper being, and the witness. Their existence and nature are “hard” to accept as produced by the brain or anything else, with our independence, will etc. as questioned previously (from bottom p1). The subjective seem also impossible to experience or determine directly, the result of trying to being the “self-referencing conundrum”. In contrast to the “easy” and objective they, the subjective parts to our reality, are termed the “hard aspects of conscious experience” by Chalmers.

He, Chalmers, suggests we consider the subjective aspects of our reality as fundamental (i.e., irreducible) to help find new ways of considering them. Any new approach to our subjective part must be different from the linear reductive way we try to grasp things in our minds normally, which we consider “direct” and which keeps our enquiry and discovery to objective things and computer-like processes in our reality, while never addressing the subjective them-selves except as concept.

The development of AI (artificial intelligence) has moved the boundary between the subjective and objective in our reality to a great degree, objectifying so much of our mental functioning that are computer-like, though previously thought of as cognitive, creative, communicative (ripe to be connective and to love and demand the technologies that allow it), clever and human. This encroachment creates a new impetus and interest to the age old question, “What is it to be human?” (Note 2 – AI and our humanity).

We could be in a computer. Programmed self and experience run in an app. However, we are a part and there “must” be a whole human being we belong to, in Reality. We can apply our self to our whole in our actuality, as a projected part in space. Furthering part and whole as an integrating part.

Notes 2 Just when through modernity, we got used to being the self, it now threatens to disappear into the mayhem of our technological inter-phase and “connectivity”. Around the net or in the screen, if we are just enacting and interacting in our human responses, we are hardly different from AI, especially with neural networking and its apparent creativity (“inventing” its own programmes).
What is it to be human? Who or what is the true self? Who’s in charge? Is there free will? These age old questions about our self and our place in the world, are brought to a new impetus with AI, and its encroachment on so much of human functioning. We look for human-ness today in terms of jobs that computers and computerised machines cannot do, as we consider employ-ability into the future.
To a large extent, our sense of existence and purpose depends on the world we experience. It reinforces and confirms our sense of being, and our identity and roles are determined according to what’s going on and who is there, as indicated in the apparent world we experience. Made from “aspects of Reality” that the whole self has sense organs for (see Note 1 above), indication of things in the real world take us to confusion, but also conviction.
We sit comfortably with the experience of things that fit familiarly within our world view (context) and understanding (causality). We are ready to scrutinise or verify what we experience, to question or determine what it is or is doing, weary of being tricked or being wrong in our assumptions, we keep a sceptic distance. When a thing does not fit our world view, we either adopt or develop a new context that can include the thing. Or we ignore it. (Luddites actively reject new technology and the changes they bring to our reality. We may ignore, or at least post-pone an update for fear of having to re-familiarise with a new program.)
Seeing gadgets such as an automaton (mechanical dolls) do quite complex things that seem life-like, can disturb if not confuse us, until we have them within our understanding. We are now all too familiar with and are readily sucked into the screen reality (we spend much time living, working and interacting in it). However, when moving pictures were first shown on a screen, people were unsettled as to its reality. A train, for example, disappearing off the edge of the screen is said to have made people get up from their seats to look behind the screen (like some cats do). Where did it go? Where does it come from? What about the one that’s coming straight for you that presses you into your seat, or the girl strapped to the railway track who’s struggles before the approaching train makes your heart pound, your palms sweat and grip? Our reality is easily mimicked with moving pictures and sound, and augmented with large screen, music, volume and a lounge seat, that prop our upright facing.
We live within story and sense as self and identity. Uncertain of what we experience, we are validated by and susceptible to occupational and diversional, meaningful and value-adding stories. We need to make our reality certain, but certainty for us has normally been a matter of perspective, verification with different senses, and context or story, within our reality and not from beyond.
The world we experience and its stories challenges and confirms, our sense and story. Our reality is both, subject and object. In our normal identification, in our self (subject) and with what we experience (object), we avoid the “self-referencing conundrum”, within the confinement and circularity of our reality being both subject and object. Beyond our identification and our certainty, is the mystery of our being a part, and the profundity of our transcendent whole, where our true humanity awaits us, as a part.
Lost are we from being a part of our human whole being who, being of Reality, is next to other wholes in Reality. And has their self or identity heard about being a part, of those whole in Reality? Would their self or identity see value in regarding their whole? Depends on their story, and certainly. However, our being a part, our whole self and Reality, are beyond story and what we experience, in them and through them.
We must approach our self before the choosing and choice of what to click, the determining and what is determined of friend or foe, right or wrong, good or bad, the computer-like processing and what it processes.
Let AI encroach upon our humanity. But do not depend on it, nor the world we experience, for our own sense of existence and purpose. The same set of “aspects of reality” that the whole self has sense organs for creates our experience of what is in the screen, but also of what’s on the streets or in nature. They are all experience projected by our whole in our reality. Be chased as to what is real and what is self, beyond our interactive choosing, determining and virtual act (our sense of doing what the whole does in Reality), take to our actuality, and to our relation with our whole (as a part).

link to Our reality and Reality 1/6 https://realityhc.wordpress.com/2018/05/22/our-reality-and-reality-1-6/

Our reality and Reality 1/6

First of six parts to the article as it nears its completion.

I hope to establish these two distinctions between Reality (absolute) and our reality (of conscious experience and self witnessed) and between our self (part of our reality) and our whole self (of Reality). A process is then alluded to, towards the end of this article, of our integration with our whole self, of contact with Reality through our whole, and our part to play for it. More of this process will be presented elsewhere, but here discussed are pivotal issues involved in approaching our “actuality” of being part, and referring to our whole being of Reality.

1 The concept of “projection”

It is proposed here that our reality is “projected” or placed in space, through the Central Nervous System (CNS) by our whole. The CNS, which includes the brain and spinal cord, is an integral part of our whole being. We will look at how our reality, of conscious experience and self witnessed¹, can be a projected part of our whole being, projected through the CNS by our whole.

Let’s start with vision as an example of projection.

Light bouncing off real things in the real world focuses upside down inside at the back of the eyes, and stimulates the receptors there at the retina (cones and rods) which convert focused images into nerve impulses. These pulse through optic nerves and reach the brain where our vision is created and placed in projected space, for us to experience.

In similar ways information, of certain “aspects of the real world” that sense organs of the body are specifically sensitive to (eyes for light, ears for sound, sensors on the skin for touch etc.), is put together in the CNS (by our whole) to form the “outside world part” of our reality. It is the world we may experience called the phenomenal world, a useful and “powerful” ² indication of the real world. With it is a “functional” and effective perspective, of our sense of being in the world – we can jump onto a spot, point and touch, front up and throw. We are allowed this sense in our reality where, as one’s self or identity, we seemingly do things in our reality. All the while, it is our whole who does things in the real world or absolute Reality, including those things we think we do.
(Note 1 – phenomenal world made from “aspects of Reality”)

The capital R is used to indicate absolute Reality, and to distinguish it from “our reality” of conscious experience and self that is witnessed. Our reality is a projected part of our whole being, who is in and of Reality.

1Witness : the displaced part to the manifestant parts of our reality, including the self and what is experienced, by which we are aware of our self in being self aware, and of what we experience in being aware of that. See p4 – witness, constructology.
Also we witness time and change in space within our reality. Consider experience of tending fire from when humans where early homonids erectus around 1 million years ago. We evolved with fire and our gaze at its forever changing unfolding in time and our involvement.

2The powerful theories of science have their origins here, in our phenomenal world we may try to understand. Powerful because our theories and understandings work when applied in the conditions that they are meant for or were developed in. Nevertheless they remain of indication and story about the real world and things in it.

2 The self is a problem

Neuroscience seems to suggest that “what we experience” occurs in the brain. It has become a part of our modern understanding and culture (movies such as the Matrix). This diagram shows what was already being considered about our reality and the brain in the mid-1600’s, when it was used by Descartes in his work (father of modern philosophy – “I think, there for I am”). It illustrates a part of the brain registering vision and initiating pointing.

But what about our self, one’s self, yours and mine? Are we a product of the brain? With our ability to consider and question things, our sense of independence and will, and separation from what we experience, how can we be made by and so secondary to an organ? Are we not complete, in our existence absolutely as self against not self, and relative to our experience of the other, or of other things, others and the world? What about our consciousness, deeper being, sense of life, will and destiny? Where would they come from or fit, if not exist on their own?

I preempt this point, that there is no brain without a whole being, whole self or the whole body. We, as self or identity, together with and in our reality, are a part of our individual whole, “projected” through and not by the CNS but by our whole being.

Notes 1 The phenomenal world is also defined as the world that can “be perceived by the senses”. But there are no sense organs for us as self or identity. Consider your own situation. There is nothing of substance, no eyes, ears or brain, in our projected reality. We may think we see or hear in seeing and hearing vision and sound. However, the only thing that we can say we do, as self or identity in our projected reality, is experience, or have experience.
The whole self has the eyes and ears. Information of “aspects of the Reality”, those for which the whole self has sense organs for, is put together in the CNS by our whole, to give us as self or identity the world we experience and what we experience, in our reality.
Our phenomenal world is not the real world of Reality. We do not experience the real world directly. Rather, the world we experience indicates “aspects” of the real world, dependent on what sense organs our whole happens to have. Reality itself is more than the sum of all aspects.
The “power” of scientific theories to predict and work or apply lies originally in our reality’s power to indicate the real world. We can understand from aspects, apply our understanding, and experience its outcome as we experience it in our reality. It can work, most of the time within the right conditions.