What is it like to be a human being?

[The Voice of Time]

I can see these ideas are new to you so naturally they are not easy to open to. Simone Weil wrote:

"Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty and ready to be penetrated by the object. It means holding in our minds, within reach of this thought, but on a lower level and not in contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of. Our thought should be, in relation to all particular and already formulated thoughts, as a man on a mountain who, as he Iooks forward, sees also below him, without actually looking at them, a great many forests and plains. Above all, our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object which is to penetrate it."

Is she making any sense? How can we know? How can we distinguish between what is happening and the conscious awareness of happenings?

You may say it is meaningless but how do you explain someone like Julia Haslett. During a dark time of her life she was touched by a simple sentence from Simone Weil:

"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity"

Is it the same as creativity or open-mindedness? Why so rare?

Julia was touched by it and in her efforts to understand it, created a documentary. Something in her sensed its importance. This isn't creativity but the search for "meaning."

You can watch the trailer to the documentary here. She raises the question of conscious attention known since the beginning. Only a relative few IMO will profit from being aware of it. It requires the need to be more than just a creature of reaction and psychologically opening to this vertical direction connecting above and below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOCE_d2R5lw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOCE_d2R5lw

I'm far from unfamiliar with it, I've had my share of hearing about it in many forms and thinking about it. I was not here talking about attention though, but your prefix "conscious" that created the term "conscious attention", as if there is such a thing as unconscious attention. There is something like self-conscious attention, that you are conscious of your own action of being attentive, but that is just describing the act of attention as being done within a self-conscious frame.

That which the person there wrote and which you talk about is indeed quite meaningless. The person pays attention to the trees... what's so special about it? That it's done without thought of anything else? If you say the person pays attention to the trees, you've not said the person pays any other attention, so why mystify it by talking about and giving importance to the nothingness of it? (The nothingness of not being influenced by other thoughts, as if it needed explanation).

It's a literary trick, it's not something real. In the same sense that a work of literature might go on and on about any sort of subject as if there was any importance to it, other than the one we make up. Being able to describe a rock with 1000 words does not make it important, only a work of meaninglessness.

[Nick_A]

Animal attention doesn't require conscius self awareness. Life in the jungle is governed by different qualities of animal life reacting to external stimuli. Reactions are unconscious. They just happen as reactions to desire. Conscious attention requires will and allows us to be unique in the world as animals not limited to reactive attention..

I didn't make that term up. For example Jacob Needleman refers to it in this article

http://theslenderthread.creativeguide.com/blog/?p=1009

“We may say that the Earth itself will be a new Earth when human beings see her, hear her, taste her with the conscious attention that only human beings can bring to her. Such attention is not the pale, powerless, thin witnessing that the word “attention” often denotes. Conscious attention is a force that, if only for a moment, lifts the being of whatever or whomever it touches. The great secret of what the Earth needs from us is here.

You are probably familiar with Plato's relationship between knowledge and opinion. It really is a vertical relationship. The closer we get to "knowledge" or the source of opinions, the closer we get to a real human perspective that reconciles opinions. This requires conscious attention. It can lead to what is called awakening.

[The Voice of Time]

Animal attention doesn't require conscius self awareness. Life in the jungle is governed by different qualities of animal life reacting to external stimuli. Reactions are unconscious. They just happen as reactions to desire. Conscious attention requires will and allows us to be unique in the world as animals not limited to reactive attention.

First: why do you mention it? It makes no difference for the conversation and only side-tracks it, I hate unnecessary side-tracking. Second: you talk like you know, while you're just making an assumption you have no reason to make and less reason to tell me. I will not discuss whether animals are intelligent, whether they think, or whether they have the ability to be self-aware.

They not capable of conveying information to confirm or refute it before us, that I know, but what I also do know is that I'm capable of developing quite meaningful relationships with animals as I've already done it, especially dogs, and that to me they appear to have all the signs that humans give besides talking and that makes me think of humans as intelligent.

Animals can be instructed, they can solve problems and instead of doing same thing over again a smart dog can try multiple approaches, which explains to me that somehow they must be able to see themselves in action: they must see their own mistakes. When they relax but are not sleeping they appear pondering and exercising their own philosophical awareness of their environment (a reason which I think might be the cause why older (but not old) dogs appear so harmonious with their environment, and not just a cause of experience or tiresomeness), when you pleasure them you'll find they'll react with creativity to get you to continue (sounds quite human), they will try in their own way to talk to you and make you, either by incentive or persuasion, to go back to what you were doing (in their own limited range of options), or maybe do something else for them.

My own dog knew better how to talk to me than my own brother, which makes me, and only half-jokingly, wonder which one is the most intelligent (though my dog's thirst for bicycle riders and cars probably makes it loose the competition, unless we are gonna exempt particular likes and dislikes as signs of intelligence). This I said here is not an argument, because there's nothing to argue: neither of us can ever know anyway, so no point in trying to ascertain knowledge. I will not discuss the particular matter further.

I didn't make that term up. For example Jacob Needleman refers to it in this article

http://theslenderthread.creativeguide.com/blog/?p=1009

“We may say that the Earth itself will be a new Earth when human beings see her, hear her, taste her with the conscious attention that only human beings can bring to her. Such attention is not the pale, powerless, thin witnessing that the word “attention” often denotes. Conscious attention is a force that, if only for a moment, lifts the being of whatever or whomever it touches. The great secret of what the Earth needs from us is here.

I wasn't saying you did it, I said "why" in general, why the whoever did it, found it necessary to do it.

You are probably familiar with Plato's relationship between knowledge and opinion. It really is a vertical relationship. The closer we get to "knowledge" or the source of opinions, the closer we get to a real human perspective that reconciles opinions. This requires conscious attention. It can lead to what is called awakening.

I still don't get it, what's special about conscious attention, what is the difference even between it and any other attention? Why does acquiring "the real human perspective that reconciles opinions" require "conscious attention"? Why not just attention to the right thing? If I'm standing with my dude and we have an argument about what sort of bark there is on a specific type of tree, we'd just localize ourselves next to a tree and then pay attention to it and its bark and see who's right... what's the problem here? Where does "conscious attention" fit in?

[Nick_A]

Does a dog have conscious choice or does it react to the dominant desire at the time? I would say no and it is the same with all animal life including man on earth.

Some come to question if they have a potential for conscious attention as a function of will leading to "choice." Obviously choice for creatures of desire are reactions to dominant desires. The question becomes why we are limited to reacting to desires and if through conscious attention we can better our inner life and become capable of will leading to the results of conscious awareness

Acquiring human choice through "understanding," "awakening" to the truth of ourselves does not come from more and more knowledge but by acquiring the quality of "being" capable of putting knowledge into a conscious human perspective. We have many ways to increase our knowledge. But how do we develop our "being? Plato described what is necessary. From book 4 of the Republic:

.........But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others, --he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals --when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance......

We live in opposition to ourselves. We can think one thing, feel another, and sense something else all at the same time. We justify this condition through our imagination. We imagine ourselves rather than know thyself. How could conscious attention and awakening be possible when we live like this? Inner alignment can only come through will and conscious attention to see ourselves as we are. Our habits and our ego struggle against it and more often than not, a person just remains as they are: asleep in Plato's cave.

Reactive attention provides life in Plato's cave attached to the shadows on the wall. Conscious attention can enable a human being to become balanced in the Platonic sense opening the way for a person to awaken to reality.

[The Voice of Time]

Some come to question if they have a potential for conscious attention as a function of will leading to "choice." Obviously choice for creatures of desire are reactions to dominant desires. The question becomes why we are limited to reacting to desires and if through conscious attention we can better our inner life and become capable of will leading to the results of conscious awareness.

Are you ignoring me? Because I can't remember that my last answer to you requested this? Why do you continue to use the term "conscious attention" when I've already said I don't understand its existence, why not answer me? And the question does not become all those wastes of words, first you have to get by the initial: what the fuck makes "conscious attention" different from attention? And why use the word "conscious" when obviously all attention is by default conscious?

Acquiring human choice through "understanding," "awakening" to the truth of ourselves does not come from more and more knowledge

No, "acquiring human choice" (why call it "human choice"? Why not just say "choice"?) comes through diversity of knowledge and an understanding of that knowledge that makes it possible to react with one among several options of schemes for action. That's pretty much choice in a nutshell.

but by acquiring the quality of "being"

This is not a quality you "acquire" but a quality that is part of you as long as you are alive whether you want it or not, the instantiation of "being" into any specific character of it is however something you acquire, but then you acquire a character and not "being", as if you don't have being you do not exist to begin with. Maybe you should've omitted talking about "being" at all and just said "character".

capable of putting knowledge into a conscious human perspective.

Perspectives are not conscious, humans are. Therefore the correct sentence is, "into a perspective of a conscious human", or if the perspective is done within a self-conscious frame, you say "into a self-conscious human perspective", then again, you don't need to say "human", as nobody is supposing you're talking about the perspective of an animal or an alien.

We have many ways to increase our knowledge.

Yes but why mention it? Excess talk and waste of words.

But how do we develop our "being"?

You can't develop your being. You can develop your character however, again, I think you're talking about your character. Being you are and stay constant however you look at it.

Plato described what is necessary. From book 4 of the Republic:

.........But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others, --he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals --when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance......

Not particularly interested in Plato.

We live in opposition to ourselves. We can think one thing, feel another, and sense something else all at the same time.

Is holding multiple perspectives against our own interests? Is that what you suggest? Because it'd be a pretty poor world if we thought in one straight way all the time, and we would do the same mistakes over and over again.

We justify this condition through our imagination. We imagine ourselves rather than know thyself.

May I ask, if we find bad aspects about ourselves, should we perpetuate those aspects because "they are me", or should be imagine ourselves good, and strive to achieve that? Because to me it seems you are suggesting that imagining ourselves in some way is bad... and for somebody like me whole love to imagine myself with lots of pretty girls while I play with my Johnson that is quite offensive to suggest, it's one of the happiest times of my day!

How could conscious attention and awakening be possible when we live like this?

How could the spaghetti monster be possible when we live like this? You are not making sense here, "what" awakening? There is no "awakening", there is moving from one perspective to another, and sometimes that's good for you, and sometime it's bad for you, there is gaining knowledge, and there's amnesia and usual forgetting and suppression of used-to-know.

Inner alignment can only come through will and conscious attention to see ourselves as we are.

If we see ourselves as cannibals and start eating humans our "inner alignment" will lead to a biological system deterioration (humans are not good nourishment, we are poor quality meat), and a turn of our minds to become psychopathic. So your wrong, there's absolutistic truth to what you say.

Instead, paying attention to how our inner biological, physiological, neurological etc. systems work, as well as our psychological, we might figure out good measures to make it work more efficient and more smooth in-between its constituents and the constituents of the outer world. Basically: eat healthy (diverse, remember vitamins, fibers and so forth), work out and exercise all of your body (but not too much), don't overdo things, don't overreach yourself, rest and seek restitution when you are tired and spent, avoid risky activities and invest safely both time, effort and money.

Our habits and our ego struggle against it and more often than not,

Not always, but often indeed our ego and habits go beyond personal well-being in terms of "inner alignment", and seek out something more. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes that's a bad thing. It's good if your ego saves your life, it's bad if your ego makes you unhappy.

a person just remains as they are: asleep in Plato's cave.

They were chained up last time I remember, not asleep.

Reactive attention provides life in Plato's cave attached to the shadows on the wall.

No, lack of knowledge does that.

Conscious attention can enable a human being to become balanced in the Platonic sense opening the way for a person to awaken to reality.

I'd say a person who wanted to know the truth about the world would require and open and investigating mind when confronted with his fellow who had escaped, or take on a transcendental study, or be creative to create his own version of truth. All of them works in the end. So again, I might ask, for the many'th time, what is "conscious attention" and what makes it differ from attention?

[Nick_A]

Are you ignoring me? Because I can't remember that my last answer to you requested this? Why do you continue to use the term "conscious attention" when I've already said I don't understand its existence, why not answer me? And the question does not become all those wastes of words, first you have to get by the initial: what the fuck makes "conscious attention" different from attention? And why use the word "conscious" when obviously all attention is by default conscious?

Would you agree that your attention is continually attracted during the day. Everything including noises and cute behinds attract your attention. There is nothing intentionally conscious at these times. They just happen as they do with dogs and horses for example.

Then there are times when we need to intentionally focus our attention for the sake of a desired goal as we would on a text book in order to pass an exam. This is conscious attention motivated by desire.

However if philosophy is the love of wisdom it must also be the love of truth at the expense of self justification. This requires a quality of consciously focused attention not on a task but on opening to the experience of the external world as a whole, as it is, rather then how we've come to know it in support of our opinions

Our personalities provide the means for acclimation and self justification. They are expressions of various opinions humanity as a whole can have. However for those attracted to the source of opinions, they need a quality of attention that can receive the external world as a whole rather than interpret it. that is the path to wisdom, the goal of philosophy IMO.

Reactive attention just happens. Attention directed by desire is the first stage of conscious attention and animals also have it. Intentional (conscious) attention directed by the need to impartially experience the wholeness of "truth" at the expense of our opinions related to self justification is a very high quality of attention. It is uniquely human and very few are capable of it,

No, "acquiring human choice" (why call it "human choice"? Why not just say "choice"?) comes through diversity of knowledge and an understanding of that knowledge that makes it possible to react with one among several options of schemes for action. That's pretty much choice in a nutshell.

Why does a dog choose to cross the road at a given time? It is its choice but is it a conscious choice, an ACT of will, or a REACTION to desire? As animals we REACT in accordance with acquired desires.

However, conscious attention that frees us from the limitation of opinions and exposing "truth" can reveal "choice" of a higher quality where one sees the forest rather than arguing over trees.

This is not a quality you "acquire" but a quality that is part of you as long as you are alive whether you want it or not, the instantiation of "being" into any specific character of it is however something you acquire, but then you acquire a character and not "being", as if you don't have being you do not exist to begin with. Maybe you should've omitted talking about "being" at all and just said "character".

I agree that our character is an attribute for our being. Can our being change? Can awakening through pursuing a dedication to truth by means of conscious attention opening to recieve existence as it is enable our being to become truly human? Are we capable of conscious evolution? I would say yes though you would probably say no.

Perspectives are not conscious, humans are. Therefore the correct sentence is, "into a perspective of a conscious human", or if the perspective is done within a self-conscious frame, you say "into a self-conscious human perspective", then again, you don't need to say "human", as nobody is supposing you're talking about the perspective of an animal or an alien.

Would it shock you to consider the possibility that what you call a conscious human perspective is an animal perspective?

A conscious human perspective requires consciously opening to receive the truth of the world through our mind, body, and emotions. Consciously working together, they reveal what is. But if our senses our dulled, our emotions express only denial, and our thoughts further imagination, how could they lead to anything but the perspective of a sick animal? A human perspective is a big thing. Just the realization that we don't have it is a step in the right direction towards becoming truly human.

You can't develop your being. You can develop your character however, again, I think you're talking about your character. Being you are and stay constant however you look at it.

Our being is what we ARE. Character is an acquired characteristic. Can we change what we ARE? I believe so but it first requires efforts to "Know Thyself" rather than imagining ourselves. But why bother when imagination seems to be more rewarding?

If we see ourselves as cannibals and start eating humans our "inner alignment" will lead to a biological system deterioration (humans are not good nourishment, we are poor quality meat), and a turn of our minds to become psychopathic. So your wrong, there's absolutistic truth to what you say.

Instead, paying attention to how our inner biological, physiological, neurological etc. systems work, as well as our psychological, we might figure out good measures to make it work more efficient and more smooth in-between its constituents and the constituents of the outer world. Basically: eat healthy (diverse, remember vitamins, fibers and so forth), work out and exercise all of your body (but not too much), don't overdo things, don't overreach yourself, rest and seek restitution when you are tired and spent, avoid risky activities and invest safely both time, effort and money.

There is nothing wrong with striving to be a better reactive mechanism. It is good for all animals. Survival of the fittest is the attempt to further the best reacting mechanism in accordance with the potentials of each species, However, the question for MAN is if he is capable of being more than a reactive mechanism - a conscious human being.

No, lack of knowledge does that.

How much knowledge does it take for a person to stop being a hypocrite? It could be said that with "intelligent" human beings, it is knowledge that furthers hypocrisy.

I'd say a person who wanted to know the truth about the world would require and open and investigating mind when confronted with his fellow who had escaped, or take on a transcendental study, or be creative to create his own version of truth. All of them works in the end. So again, I might ask, for the many'th time, what is "conscious attention" and what makes it differ from attention?

Do they all work or do they just further imagination which keeps our species trapped in the world of opinions?

Conscious attention and imagination are mutually exclusive. Imagination takes the place of conscious attention.

The trouble with explaining conscious attention in pursuit of the experience of truth is that without it we can only know it as an intellectual premise so cannot distinguish it from our usual forms of attention. But what if Simone Weil is right? Think of what we've lost through our imagination.

"The combination of these two facts – the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it – constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality. Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect. This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings." Simone Weil “Draft for A Statement of Human Obligations” SIMONE WEIL, AN ANTHOLOGY ed. Sian Miles

[The Voice of Time]

Are you ignoring me? Because I can't remember that my last answer to you requested this? Why do you continue to use the term "conscious attention" when I've already said I don't understand its existence, why not answer me? And the question does not become all those wastes of words, first you have to get by the initial: what the fuck makes "conscious attention" different from attention? And why use the word "conscious" when obviously all attention is by default conscious?

Would you agree that your attention is continually attracted during the day. Everything including noises and cute behinds attract your attention. There is nothing intentionally conscious at these times. They just happen as they do with dogs and horses for example.

Well they certainly don't happen just randomly, I very much choose to follow a certain pattern of looking at things, usually I look for something that's interesting to me, or I just survey my surroundings, which is part of what you must do when you walk around in places with many people.

Then there are times when we need to intentionally focus our attention for the sake of a desired goal as we would on a text book in order to pass an exam. This is conscious attention motivated by desire.

Motivated by desire? You really desire to look in a text book to pass the exam? I'd not be so certain it is desire, and rather I'd say it's reason taking over, desire being a part of passion and emotion, which is another faculty of mind, that would much more have me at least sit home and do something I like doing.

Also it is not "conscious attention", but "directed attention", your attention is directed at something for some reason or emotional response.

[The Voice of Time]

However if philosophy is the love of wisdom it must also be the love of truth at the expense of self justification.

No. Wisdom doesn't require truth, though truth can come in handy. A good mythology can be more useful than a lousy a truth.

[The Voice of Time]

This requires a quality of consciously focused attention

Again, there is no such thing as unconscious attention, so no reason to use the word "conscious".

not on a task but on opening to the experience of the external world as a whole, as it is, rather then how we've come to know it in support of our opinions

You can only do one thing at a time. Therefore, to know something as a whole, you must start somewhere along the line, and usually in our real world, you are stopped from completing the process because it's basically infinitely much knowledge you can create out of a simple object, by exposing it to all your senses, in all possible ways, comparing it to all possible other things in the world in all possible ways, see how it works in face of things like vacuum, and so forth.

You usually only pick up a few ways of exposure to a few senses of any given object, as the years pass by that amount increases, but never it is "whole" or "full". Sure you're here not just talking having a sensuous open mind and open emotion in the face of real world objects? I still don't get why you need to talk about "conscious attention" (or why you don't just say "attention").

Our personalities provide the means for acclimation and self justification.

A bit more specific would make it better. A personality can be a whole lot of things, and like the word "being" you have it either you want it or not, so better talk about its specific constituents.

They are expressions of various opinions humanity as a whole can have.

Personalities are not constructs of reason, you don't choose to have them (at least not all of it), and are not generally subject to your own opinions, which is an entirely different domain. Whether I am a good guy or a bad guy is not an expression of whether I like burgers or not, or whether I think the chicken came before the egg, and same goes for politics, where my share ignorance or special knowledge can make me have opinions that to others are not good while I in my ordinary life can be the best guy you could be friend/boyfriend with and the most generous and warm-hearted person in town. So whether I have an opinion about abortion, or same sex marriage or war, that is contrary to the norm for what is good, I may still be, of personality, the best guy you'd ever meet. There's no necessary correlations between those.

However for those attracted to the source of opinions, they need a quality of attention that can receive the external world as a whole rather than interpret it.

That's not a real thing. You always interpret it, whether you like it or not. If not, things just become tautologies: I see a tree because I see a tree. I feed my chickens because I feed my chickens... without interpretation all forms of intelligent behaviour ceases to exist.

that is the path to wisdom, the goal of philosophy IMO.

No. It is not. And I can tell, because I do a lot of philosophy.

[Nick_A]

However if philosophy is the love of wisdom it must also be the love of truth at the expense of self justification.

No. Wisdom doesn't require truth, though truth can come in handy. A good mythology can be more useful than a lousy a truth.

What is wisdom other than "understanding", in the real meaning or the word, the interactions of the laws of objective truth which are the source of our universe?

In chess for example, wisdom is analogous to laws creating the game. The better one can play the game, the more chess wise they are - the more they "understand" the game. To know the laws is one thing. to play the game is another.

[The Voice of Time]

What is wisdom other than "understanding"

Two quick answers:

1) Wisdom is the efficiency of knowledge and not "understanding"
2) Understanding is subjective in many ways, except in any given situation where a specific type of it is required (like a talk between two people with the intent of conveying specific information). Because there is almost never just one way to deal with things in the world, obviously you can have different understandings of things and still get through life. Sometimes the lie can be a better answer than the truth, also, because it makes you take action that is better than if you would've used the truth.

[The Voice of Time]

In chess for example, wisdom is analogous to laws creating the game. The better one can play the game, the more chess wise they are - the more they "understand" the game. To know the laws is one thing. to play the game is another.

There you contradict yourself. In the first part you say wisdom is analogous to "laws creating the game", then you start talking about a person's skills making one wiser... so which one is it? Is it knowing the rules or ones ability to play it? What if you know all the rules but have little to no skill at strategic thinking? What if you have exceptional strategic thinking but only know a portion of the rules?

Seems to me you are not reading yourself.

[Nick_A]

In chess for example, wisdom is analogous to laws creating the game. The better one can play the game, the more chess wise they are - the more they "understand" the game. To know the laws is one thing. to play the game is another.

There you contradict yourself. In the first part you say wisdom is analogous to "laws creating the game", then you start talking about a person's skills making one wiser... so which one is it? Is it knowing the rules or ones ability to play it? What if you know all the rules but have little to no skill at strategic thinking? What if you have exceptional strategic thinking but only know a portion of the rules?

Seems to me you are not reading yourself.

Anyone playing chess has to know the rules of the game. That is a given. But knowing them and understanding how they interact is something else. That is what separates the master from the casual player. Wisdom in chess leads to winning. Winning in life means to become oneself. We have strong opposition in both pursuits.

The trouble is that in chess the win proves the theory. In life, only attempts at awakening can allow a person to experience what it could mean to become oneself. Without that experience a person continues reacting to the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave.

[Nick_A]

What is wisdom other than "understanding"

Two quick answers:

1) Wisdom is the efficiency of knowledge and not "understanding"
2) Understanding is subjective in many ways, except in any given situation where a specific type of it is required (like a talk between two people with the intent of conveying specific information). Because there is almost never just one way to deal with things in the world, obviously you can have different understandings of things and still get through life. Sometimes the lie can be a better answer than the truth, also, because it makes you take action that is better than if you would've used the truth.

A computer has knowledge. Does it have wisdom? Is there such a thing as a wise computer?

Socrates was called wise because he realized he knew nothing. This means that though he knew facts, he didn't understand the vertical progression from their origin to their manifestion on our world. That is the human condition. We know facts but lack understanding and wisdom. That is why everything is as it is. The problem isn't a lack of knowledge but rather the gradual loss of the need to understand - "wisdom"

[Nick_A]

You can only do one thing at a time. Therefore, to know something as a whole, you must start somewhere along the line, and usually in our real world, you are stopped from completing the process because it's basically infinitely much knowledge you can create out of a simple object, by exposing it to all your senses, in all possible ways, comparing it to all possible other things in the world in all possible ways, see how it works in face of things like vacuum, and so forth.

You usually only pick up a few ways of exposure to a few senses of any given object, as the years pass by that amount increases, but never it is "whole" or "full". Sure you're here not just talking having a sensuous open mind and open emotion in the face of real world objects? I still don't get why you need to talk about "conscious attention" (or why you don't just say "attention").

Again I'll use chess as an example. The great Cuban world champion Capablanca replied when asked how many moves he thought ahead answered "One, and it is always the best." This means he viewed the position as a whole. When Buddha said I am awake it means he is awake to the experience of reality as a whole from the perspective of eternity.

When the Buddha started to wander around India shortly after his enlightenment, he encountered several men who recognized him to be a very extraordinary being. They asked him: "Are you a god?" "No," he replied. "Are you a reincarnation of god?" "No," he replied."Are you a wizard, then?" "No." "Well, are you a man?" "No." "So what are you?" They asked, being very perplexed. Buddha simply replied: "I am awake." Buddha means “the awakened one.” How to awaken is all he taught

Again, Opening to practice conscious (intentionally guided) attention is a step in awakening, or the conscious experience of everything as ONE. I'm not suggesting you believe it but only the reasoning behind it.

Our personality is the outward man, the machine of habitual responses that lives our life and provides our interpretations while denying the potential for the development of the inner man.

"May the outward and inward man be at one." Socrates

They aren't. That is the problem. The outward man, our personality, starves out the inner man and a person remains in Plato's cave.

That's not a real thing. You always interpret it, whether you like it or not. If not, things just become tautologies: I see a tree because I see a tree. I feed my chickens because I feed my chickens... without interpretation all forms of intelligent behaviour ceases to exist.

I'm referring to interpretations based on corrupted emotional judgment. It may be the normal thing to do but not all do it? The East teaches the value of detachment and the stoics taught the freedom from acquired emotions creating interpretations. Perhaps some have become capable of impartiality.