Philosophy Now Forum

"I don't see total darkness, as I don't see anything."

This is what baffles us sighted people. When you say "nothing" is what you see... or that you don't see anything... the only thing we are able to recognize as being like that 'nothing' you speak of is the experience of the back of our eyelids... the black darkness we see when our eyes are closed.

But that darkness is something, so it isn't like that 'nothing' you speak of, and this is utterly perplexing to us. It's like what you see in your mind's eye is not even nothingness, not even a black absence of anything. That's just crazy, mate. I can't fathom it.

Or maybe you do see the same darkness we see, but you can't know that's what we mean when we describe the darkness we see when we close our eyes.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:53 pm "I don't see total darkness, as I don't see anything."

This is what baffles us sighted people. When you say "nothing" is what you see... or that you don't see anything... the only thing we are able to recognize as being like that 'nothing' you speak of is the experience of the back of our eyelids... the black darkness we see when our eyes are closed.

But that darkness is something, so it isn't like that 'nothing' you speak of, and this is utterly perplexing to us. It's like what you see in your mind's eye is not even nothingness, not even a black absence of anything. That's just crazy, mate. I can't fathom it.

Or maybe you do see the same darkness we see, but you can't know that's what we mean when we describe the darkness we see when we close our eyes.

I suspect that the difficulty a sighted person has in imagining it, is matched only by the difficulty I have in imagining being able to see. It's an interesting question, though, about how I would even know, and one that I've often thought about. I think the answer is that there's simply no room for it, in my mind. I have all the other input, sound, touch, smell, and so on, creating a representation of the world around me, but there's no gap, as it were, that might be filled with blackness.

It actually goes beyond being a stumbling block to me. If not black...then what?

One take on it: https://www.orcam.com/en-us/blog/what-d ... people-see

"When we consider the experiences of blind individuals, a common question arises: 'Do blind people see black?' This inquiry delves into the complex nature of blindness and the varied experiences of those who live with it. Contrary to popular belief, blindness does not necessarily equate to seeing complete darkness or blackness. The perception of sight in blind individuals varies greatly, depending on the cause and nature of their vision impairment. Some may experience total darkness, while others perceive light, shapes, or even colors to varying extents. In this article, we'll explore the diverse visual experiences of blind people, shedding light on this often misunderstood aspect of blindness."

How would you describe what it is that you are experiencing right now? What do you "perceive"?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am I don't perceive anything, visually. I could also say nothing, but that could, I suppose, be misconstrued as saying blackness or darkness, but this would be incorrect.

Incorrect, but how on earth can this be encompassed such that sighted people might begin to grasp the distinction between nothing and blackness? Of course, it's not like blind people are under any obligation to straighten this out for those like me. But I find myself coming back to it and I'm not really sure why. It's almost a "spooky" thing at times. You are experiencing something that is beyond my capacity to experience myself. And, depending on the contest, that means something or it doesn't.

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am As I understand it, sighted people, and even partially sighted people, always have an ever-present visual field in their mind. I don't have such a field. I have an auditory field, a tactile field, an olfactory field, and so on, though none of these is dominant in the way that, again, as I understand it, a visual field is. They all work together, in fact.

"The visual field refers to the total area in which objects can be seen in the side (peripheral) vision as you focus your eyes on a central point."

Well, that didn't help much. Or does it mean something else entirely to you? I'm focusing my eyes now on the computer screen. My peripheral vision encompasses parts of me and my living room. Now, I can close my eyes and that's all gone. But what I "see" then is...blackness?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am I don't have any problem imagining objects, rooms, routes inside buildings or on the street, anything at all, instantaneously, from all angles at once, Spatial mapping, in other words. But none of these have a visual component.

I think I sort of understand this. But how is it different for those who once saw but then became blind? Do they see blackness/darkness?

This just popped into my head...

Suppose someone is born blind...but only in one eye. This might just reflect my own ignorance here but could this person explain what the glass eye does not see?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am Someone who is blind in one eye is not actually blind, and would, no doubt, have a visual field in their mind.

What if they were taken to a place they had never been to before? A place where they had never been able to acquire the sort of visual field they once possessed. They just start all over again, acquiring it?

Try as I might to understand what you are telling me, it just won't sink in. What is the difference between seeing blackness and seeing total darkness?

I wonder if there is a similar experience for those who are born deaf?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am I don't see total darkness, as I don't see anything.

You see nothing, but there you are out in a world bursting at the seams with countless things to see. You can move about this world and hear things, touch things, smell things, taste things. But not see them. Well, it'll just have to remain a mystery for now.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of this guy's explanation: https://youtu.be/ZDHJRCtv0WY?si=aED34sdvAOZXIVFv

It's a YouTube video from Tommy Edison.

"It's a really hard thing to get your head around. That would be like me getting my head around seeing" Tommy Edison

One person reacted to it this way: "Basically he can see black. But he doesn't know how black looks."

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am
It's also worth pointing out that it's perfectly possible that someone might be using the term darkness in a metaphorical sense. I've done it myself. For example, I recently posted the lyrics to Sally Oldfield's song Nenya, because of the strong connection I felt towards it when I was little.

Ella kom ye la! I cried unto these ones
I've wandered through the dark so long!
I've waited through the night for the rising sun!

Sally is definitely not referring to blindness here, as she's writing about Galadriel, who obviously wasn't blind. But I interpreted it differently, as if she was speaking to me, wandering through the darkness, as it were, but using darkness as a metaphor for blindness, rather than an actual description of it, because that would be wrong.

Yes, it's off of her debut album Water Bearer. She makes references in this song as well to darkness and light: https://youtu.be/i0q5-fdgcW4?si=aA5NcubUztVDEwBd

I hear that. Well, sort of. I never really communicated much at all to my parents; but that's largely because the lack of communication itself never really came up.

Anyway, just out of curiosity, if you did discuss it with them, what do you imagine they might say?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am They would probably say I was trying to describe things that ultimately can't be described, either in reference to blindness, or Paganism.

Or, perhaps, described in different ways by different people understanding the world around them in different ways. In situations like this, some parents are more tolerant than others. Like when a son or a daughter comes out of the closet and informs Mom and Dad that they are gay.

Then [for me] this part...

You interacted with and befriended Wiccans. But your personal experiences inclined you to pull back from actually becoming one of them...given their overly ceremonial and ritualized spiritual practices. Now, given my frame of mind, you might encounter new experiences down the road and change your mind. Unless...unless this is something that your deep down inside you Intuitive Self makes very, very unlikely. Like with abortion, there are just some behaviors that can never really be...justified?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am I did become one of them. I joined a Wiccan coven and went through both first and second degree initiation, and I'm still friends with them now. I doubt if I would want to go back on a full time basis, but who knows?

Just for the record?
https://www.paganlibrary.com/reference/ ... iation.php

"First degree makes you a priest/priestess, and makes you responsible for a small part of the lay community. Second degree is kinda like being a bishop - that's also when you become an "Elder" - and makes you responsible for lay community and what first degrees are in your group. In other words, 2nd degree has more and greater attendant responsibilities (which is as it should be, no?). In my tradition, 3rd degree is given when it looks like the person is ready to go off and found a coven of his/her own (preferably with his/her mate - they like to give thirds in pairs), which the person then should do (cause there shouldn't be more than one set of 3rds in a coven)"

Then the part -- my part? -- where all of this revolves largely around certain assumptions made about the human condition. Around dasein. Around the personal experiences and relationships we accumulate that may or may not prompt someone to even become aware of Wiccans and Pagans.

In other words, the part that seems [to me] beyond the reach of both philosophy and science. It's just another profoundly problematic manifestation of the Benjamin Button Syndrome.

All I know -- or rather think I know -- is that the day my life stops being fascinating and fulfilling, well, what would be the point of going on?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am I fully agree.

On the other hand, I am never able to fully agree even with my own assessments and conclusions here. The fractured and fragmented "self" as it were.

Then the part where those able to believe in an afterlife [God or No God] ponder "I" on the other side. Will the blind see, will the deaf hear, will the crippled walk? Or do our souls transcend such physical limitations?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am I was once told by a tarot reader that all my future incarnations will also be blind, as all my past ones supposedly were too. I wasn't very happy about that, but thankfully, I'm under no obligation to believe it, nor indeed in reincarnation at all.

How exactly would a reader go about demonstrating this to someone? That's always my own "thing" here in regard to value judgments. There is what you believe "in your head" about them and there's what you can demonstrate [even to yourself] is, in fact, true about them. Then the part where they tell you things about the future. But: If the future can be "seen" in the present, how does it not unfold only as it ever could?

Trivial and pointless to some, perhaps, but they may well be anything but for others.

I'll go out on a limb here...

You seem at times [to me] more partial to being around sighted than blind people. Is there any possibility at all, then, that this revolves around a part of you that does resent being blind? Or, again, is that just me imagining myself being born blind? Given the importance of our senses [vision and hearing in particular] in understand the world around us, I would need to be around others who lived in the same world I did.

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am I do indeed very much prefer to be around sighted people. I don't resent being blind, though, not even a little bit, and certainly not in the way that I sometimes did when I was little. What's the point of resenting things that you can't change?

As a child, you find out that you are blind and that there is little or no chance that you will ever see. Then from day to day to day you encounter things that remind you over and over and over again what being blind means. For some -- many? most? -- it is the number one sense. And it is largely through our senses that we come to understand the world around us.

I think that's how some -- many? most? -- sighted people might construe congenital blindness. But then the part where they might never grasp the difference between being born blind and going blind. They're just thinking how they would react if suddenly they couldn't see.

Well, if I were blind, I'd need to be around others who were blind. I don't imagine that would make me dependent on them, however, and it would provide me with crucial experiences embedded in sharing a part of myself which, from my perspective here and now, is a fundamental part of being human: seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling.

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am It's different, of course, for people who lose their sight.

It's just that very different people might come to understand all of this in very different ways. In other words, the part where we either accept that differences of opinion here are inevitable and the part where some insist there is instead the most rational way to understand it. Their way as likely as not.

Uh, then what? No, seriously, will that be a turning point in your life...you meet someone, you fall in love, you sustain a relationship, maybe you have a child together...or will you just carry on as you are now?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am I'll just go with the flow. If something happens, it happens.

Well, if it does happen, by all means, go with the flow. But there's still the part where you might think, "Okay, the commitment to celibacy is over. Seven years of sustained discipline. Not everyone could accomplish it. So, what might I do now so as not to just go with the flow, but to influence or even change the flow itself." Given a free will universe anyway.

Have others you've known made similar commitments? Are these commitments shared with other Pagans, or is it more in the way of a personal relationship? Also, is there a "standard commitment" or is every individual Pagan going to forge his or her own assessmenmt of what's okay and what's not.

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am It was just something I felt that I needed to do at the time. If someone had walked into my life and I fell head over heels in love with them, or whatever, I would have given myself permission to have abandoned it. That didn't happen, though, and, so far at least, it has only ever really happened once, for me.

By "feeling it" are you referring to what I construe to be your intuitive, spiritual Intrinsic Self? On the other hand, you might construe it in a very different way. Maybe we can get closer to narrowing the gap between us here, or maybe not.

If you had given yourself permission to abandon celibacy, what then of the Goddess you had made this commitment to? Is there a back and forth between you or is the Goddess not a literal entity but an existential manifestation of how you have come to embody nature itself.

I don't understand. How can someone who knows you have been blind from birth bring your blindness up? Given that it was entirely beyond your control. Unless it was the booze and the marijuana? Or just a joke?

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am It wasn't a joke, because that wouldn't have bothered me. In fact, the opposite is true. If someone makes a joke about it, then it means they feel comfortable enough around me to do so. But there's a difference between joking and being deliberately offensive and hurtful, which is what the individual in question was doing with his mates, when he thought I couldn't hear him.

On the other hand, men being men -- whatever that means? -- there's the part where what they tell each other about their relationships with women [especially the sex part] may or may not be what they really mean. It's just that sometimes they feel "pressured" to be "one of the guys".

Maia wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:41 am He claimed to be joking, of course, when I confronted him, but at the very least, what it told me is that he felt embarrassed about the fact that his girlfriend was blind, and needed to somehow save face, with his friends, by saying those things. And that, I'm sorry to say, just isn't good enough. As far as I'm concerned, with relationships, it's all or nothing.

Most men I have been around [in the belly of the working-class beast] would be embarrassed far more if their girlfriend wasn't "really, really pretty and really, really built". And, if they are, that'll have to do.

As for all or nothing...all what?

+++Incorrect, but how on earth can this be encompassed such that sighted people might begin to grasp the distinction between nothing and blackness? Of course, it's not like blind people are under any obligation to straighten this out for those like me. But I find myself coming back to it and I'm not really sure why. It's almost a "spooky" thing at times. You are experiencing something that is beyond my capacity to experience myself. And, depending on the contest, that means something or it doesn't.+++

Nothing is an ambiguous term, I think, as it can imply an empty space, but that, of course, would be highly misleading, and is presumably why sighted people often keep imagining that blind people see blackness.

The problem, I think, is that there's no common frame of reference, and the language we're using is designed for a sighted world. As it should be. So we have to fall back on analogy and things like that. And yes, I agree it's spooky, in particular, for me, the idea of seeing is spooky. I just can't get my head around it, try as I might. I can't fit it in, anywhere, let alone actually visualise it, as it were.

+++"The visual field refers to the total area in which objects can be seen in the side (peripheral) vision as you focus your eyes on a central point."

Well, that didn't help much. Or does it mean something else entirely to you? I'm focusing my eyes now on the computer screen. My peripheral vision encompasses parts of me and my living room. Now, I can close my eyes and that's all gone. But what I "see" then is...blackness?+++

I was using the term to mean, I suppose, a visual display, in my mind.

+++I think I sort of understand this. But how is it different for those who once saw but then became blind? Do they see blackness/darkness?+++

People who lose their sight can apparently see all sorts of things, including random swirling colours and hallucinations.

+++What if they were taken to a place they had never been to before? A place where they had never been able to acquire the sort of visual field they once possessed. They just start all over again, acquiring it?+++

As I understand it, in the UK at least, people with one eye are even allowed to drive, so it can't really be all that different from having two, while having no eyes tends to be regarded as a definite drawback, in that regard. Admittedly, though, I've never applied for a licence, so perhaps I'm mistaken about that last bit.

+++You see nothing, but there you are out in a world bursting at the seams with countless things to see. You can move about this world and hear things, touch things, smell things, taste things. But not see them. Well, it'll just have to remain a mystery for now.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of this guy's explanation: https://youtu.be/ZDHJRCtv0WY?si=aED34sdvAOZXIVFv

It's a YouTube video from Tommy Edison.

"It's a really hard thing to get your head around. That would be like me getting my head around seeing" Tommy Edison+++

According to what he was saying, he has some light perception, and can tell when it's light or dark. This is the case with a large percentage of blind people, in fact. I can't imagine what that would be like, though.

I noticed that he has another video about dreams, which is the other main question that sighted people always ask me. Dreams, of course, are a fascinating subject in their own right. But, to answer the question, I don't have any visual component to my dreams.

+++One person reacted to it this way: "Basically he can see black. But he doesn't know how black looks."+++

As I said in my reply to Prom, above, I don't believe that to be the case, at least for me. There's no room for it, no gap, as it were. If there was a void, in my mind, where a visual field should be, I would know it. It's just not there.

+++Yes, it's off of her debut album Water Bearer. She makes references in this song as well to darkness and light: https://youtu.be/i0q5-fdgcW4?si=aA5NcubUztVDEwBd+++

A beautiful album. The Songs of the Quendi, in particular, had a pretty major influence on me, when I was little.

+++Or, perhaps, described in different ways by different people understanding the world around them in different ways. In situations like this, some parents are more tolerant than others. Like when a son or a daughter comes out of the closet and informs Mom and Dad that they are gay.+++

Well, I didn't really have to come out as a Pagan to them, as they already knew it. Sort of.

+++Just for the record?
https://www.paganlibrary.com/reference/ ... iation.php

"First degree makes you a priest/priestess, and makes you responsible for a small part of the lay community. Second degree is kinda like being a bishop - that's also when you become an "Elder" - and makes you responsible for lay community and what first degrees are in your group. In other words, 2nd degree has more and greater attendant responsibilities (which is as it should be, no?). In my tradition, 3rd degree is given when it looks like the person is ready to go off and found a coven of his/her own (preferably with his/her mate - they like to give thirds in pairs), which the person then should do (cause there shouldn't be more than one set of 3rds in a coven)"

Then the part -- my part? -- where all of this revolves largely around certain assumptions made about the human condition. Around dasein. Around the personal experiences and relationships we accumulate that may or may not prompt someone to even become aware of Wiccans and Pagans.

In other words, the part that seems [to me] beyond the reach of both philosophy and science. It's just another profoundly problematic manifestation of the Benjamin Button Syndrome.+++

Practices within various traditions, and even individual covens, vary quite considerably, and with ours, I definitely wouldn't have described it in such formal-sounding terms. And that part about being responsible for the lay community is complete rubbish, to be honest, and is, I suspect, a bit of ego-dressing on the part of the writer. No one in the coven is responsible for anyone outside the coven, and there is no such thing as a lay community. Other Pagans outside the coven are simply following their own paths. For us, the initiations were acknowledgements of the stage the individual felt they had reached in their development. On reading the article, however, I noticed that the writer was part of a Gardnerian coven, that is, one that can trace its lineage directly to Gerald Gardner, the founder of Wicca, and they can indeed be a bit hierarchical and elitist.

+++How exactly would a reader go about demonstrating this to someone? That's always my own "thing" here in regard to value judgments. There is what you believe "in your head" about them and there's what you can demonstrate [even to yourself] is, in fact, true about them. Then the part where they tell you things about the future. But: If the future can be "seen" in the present, how does it not unfold only as it ever could?+++

Divination is by far the least interesting aspect of Paganism, in my opinion, though most other Pagans would probably disagree.

+++As a child, you find out that you are blind and that there is little or no chance that you will ever see. Then from day to day to day you encounter things that remind you over and over and over again what being blind means. For some -- many? most? -- it is the number one sense. And it is largely through our senses that we come to understand the world around us.

I think that's how some -- many? most? -- sighted people might construe congenital blindness. But then the part where they might never grasp the difference between being born blind and going blind. They're just thinking how they would react if suddenly they couldn't see.+++

Apart from the occasional tantrum, I had a very happy childhood. I was always excited to explore new places and things. It's not like I was constantly thinking to myself, Oh damn, I'm blind. It doesn't work like that. It's all just perfectly normal and you get on with life. It's true that when I was little I did, occasionally, get angry about the unfairness of it, but that's what kids do. I was just as likely to get angry about the profound unfairness of not getting an ice cream, or something.

+++Well, if it does happen, by all means, go with the flow. But there's still the part where you might think, "Okay, the commitment to celebacy is over. Seven years of sustained discipline. Not everyone could accomplish it. So, what might I do now so as not to just go with the flow, but to influence or even change the flow itself. Given a free will universe anyway.+++

Maybe I will. I don't know yet. Love tends to strike in the most unexpected places.

+++By "feeling it" are you referring to what I construe to be your intuitive, spiritual Intrinsic Self? On the other hand, you might construe it in a very different way. Maybe we can get closer to narrowing the gap between us here, or maybe not.

If you had given yourself permission to abandon celibacy, what then of the Goddess you had made this commitment to? Is there a back and forth between you or is the Goddess not a literal entity but an existential manifestation of how you have come to embody nature itself.+++

The commitment was always contingent on circumstances, and it was only ever to myself. I don't believe the Goddess is a literal, conscious entity, but rather a personification of nature.

+++On the other hand, men being men -- whatever that means? -- there's the part where what they tell each other about their relationships with women [especially the sex part] may or may not be what they really mean. It's just that sometimes they feel "pressured" to be "one of the guys".+++

Yes, I'm sure that's true. It's still not good enough, though, and is actually pretty pathetic.

+++Most men I have been around [in the belly of the working-class beast] would be embarrassed far more if their girlfriend wasn't "really, really pretty and really, really built". And, if they are, that'll have to do.

As for all or nothing...all what?+++

When I give someone my loyalty I expect the same in return.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:53 pm

Or maybe you do see the same darkness we see, but you can't know that's what we mean when we describe the darkness we see when we close our eyes.

No eye sees darkness. Darkness is an illusion created by the brain. A.I.

Color vision is an illusion created by the interactions of billions of neurons in our brain. There is no color in the external world; it is created by neural programs and projected onto the outer world we see. It is intimately linked to the perception of form where color facilitates detecting borders of objects

Incorrect, but how on earth can this be encompassed such that sighted people might begin to grasp the distinction between nothing and blackness? Of course, it's not like blind people are under any obligation to straighten this out for those like me. But I find myself coming back to it and I'm not really sure why. It's almost a "spooky" thing at times. You are experiencing something that is beyond my capacity to experience myself. And, depending on the contest, that means something or it doesn't.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 amNothing is an ambiguous term, I think, as it can imply an empty space, but that, of course, would be highly misleading, and is presumably why sighted people often keep imagining that blind people see blackness.

On the other hand, ambiguous is basically what any number of people are in regard to encompassing what ambiguous means. As for most sighted people, I suspect that when they first learned of others being blind...found out they could not see...they probably closed their eyes and figured that must be what it's like.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 amThe problem, I think, is that there's no common frame of reference, and the language we're using is designed for a sighted world. As it should be.

One thing that many do equate with nothing is death. Nothingness some call it. So, one way or another, we all have that to contend with. However, the problem here is that there are many, many, many spiritual paths one can choose from in order to make that part go away. And "here and now" none have actually been demonstrated to my own satisfaction. And of late I've been particular interested in finding one that does.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am So we have to fall back on analogy and things like that. And yes, I agree it's spooky, in particular, for me, the idea of seeing is spooky. I just can't get my head around it, try as I might. I can't fit it in, anywhere, let alone actually visualise it, as it were.

Well, here, it would seem to come down to dealing with the hand you've been dealt by nature.

As for spooky, the more some of us stick around, the spookier it all begins to appear. Existence itself has often been a surreal experience for me. Then this part: https://medium.com/@startuplab/the-odds ... 096c84ac2a

"I’ll repeat the title because it really is a staggering statistic! The likelihood of you being born is 1 in 400 trillion.

To put this in perspective, the odds of winning the lottery is 1 in 300 million. So just the odds of you being here is equivalent to winning the lottery not once, not ten times, but over a million times! (1.33 million to be exact). If you’re reading this, you’re already very, very, lucky."

Another assessment:

"To be born, every single person in your ancestral line, from your parents all the way back to the very first humans, would have needed to meet and procreate with each other, meaning every single one of your ancestors, from both your mother's and father's side, would have had to have met and reproduced for you to exist; this includes all the individuals involved in their respective family lines as well."

So, fit being blind or being sighted into that somewhere.

Yes, it's off of her debut album Water Bearer. She makes references in this song as well to darkness and light: https://youtu.be/i0q5-fdgcW4?si=aA5NcubUztVDEwBd

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 amA beautiful album. The Songs of the Quendi, in particular, had a pretty major influence on me, when I was little.

This just popped into my head: "What about songs that revolve around or include blindness in the lyrics?": https://www.ranker.com/list/best-songs- ... /reference

It's called "90+ Songs About Being Blind, Ranked" but actually sometimes that's the case and sometimes it's not. Or so it seemed to me. Sometimes "being blind" is a metaphor for any number of things.

"The visual field refers to the total area in which objects can be seen in the side (peripheral) vision as you focus your eyes on a central point."

Well, that didn't help much. Or does it mean something else entirely to you? I'm focusing my eyes now on the computer screen. My peripheral vision encompasses parts of me and my living room. Now, I can close my eyes and that's all gone. But what I "see" then is...blackness?

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am I was using the term to mean, I suppose, a visual display, in my mind.

I'm just attempting to wrap my head around something a part of me will almost certainly never actually be able to. I grasp that you are comfortable -- really comfortable -- in your own skin and that you live life largely on your own terms. A fulfilling and satisfying life. An independent life. But there it is: how scary being blind still seems to me. It's just hard for some sighted people to go beyond that. Maybe they pray for you and figure once they get you on the right One True Path -- their own -- not only will you be saved but surely your soul in Heaven will see God in all His glory. Plus, some might suggest, He's there to explain to you why He choose you to be born blind in the first place.

What if they were taken to a place they had never been to before? A place where they had never been able to acquire the sort of visual field they once possessed. They just start all over again, acquiring it?

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am As I understand it, in the UK at least, people with one eye are even allowed to drive, so it can't really be all that different from having two, while having no eyes tends to be regarded as a definite drawback, in that regard. Admittedly, though, I've never applied for a licence, so perhaps I'm mistaken about that last bit.

You see nothing, but there you are out in a world bursting at the seams with countless things to see. You can move about this world and hear things, touch things, smell things, taste things. But not see them. Well, it'll just have to remain a mystery for now.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of this guy's explanation: https://youtu.be/ZDHJRCtv0WY?si=aED34sdvAOZXIVFv

It's a YouTube video from Tommy Edison.

"It's a really hard thing to get your head around. That would be like me getting my head around seeing" Tommy Edison

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am According to what he was saying, he has some light perception, and can tell when it's light or dark. This is the case with a large percentage of blind people, in fact. I can't imagine what that would be like, though.

Okay, back to "spooky" it is then. Me trying to imagine your world, you trying to imagine mine. And then [of course] the part where people try to pin down how the blind and the sighted ought to think about each other.

Yes, as I recall, he mentioned entering a room that had become awash in sunlight. This he can, what, sense? But you...nothing?

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am I noticed that he has another video about dreams, which is the other main question that sighted people always ask me. Dreams, of course, are a fascinating subject in their own right. But, to answer the question, I don't have any visual component to my dreams.

Here's the dream video: https://youtu.be/XpUW9pm9wxs?si=I9XxZPcnrAu7TiYB

He tried to sum up his own experiences with dreams this way, "...just like you guys, weird things happen my dreams...;'so, here I am, it's the bottom of the ninth, runners on second and third, two men away...and all of a sudden, it's my seventh birthday party'".

In the video we have sound effects...the sounds of a baseball game and the sounds of a child's birthday party. And, sure, in both cases I can imagine all sorts of cues enabling one who is blind to enjoy baseball or a birthday party. But, again, by far, in my own dreams, it's what I see that allows me to more clearly grasp what is going on. My dreams are something I really look forward to because, well, they are often amazing. The relationships -- intellectual, emotional, social, sexual -- I have in my dreams [often recurring] bring me back to "experiences" that are largely beyond my reach now "in reality".

One person reacted to it this way: "Basically he can see black. But he doesn't know how black looks."

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am As I said in my reply to Prom, above, I don't believe that to be the case, at least for me. There's no room for it, no gap, as it were. If there was a void, in my mind, where a visual field should be, I would know it. It's just not there.

I suspect then that I will go to the grave just as perplexed as I am now.

Or, perhaps, described in different ways by different people understanding the world around them in different ways. In situations like this, some parents are more tolerant than others. Like when a son or a daughter comes out of the closet and informs Mom and Dad that they are gay.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am Well, I didn't really have to come out as a Pagan to them, as they already knew it. Sort of.

Here it probably comes down to what it is that childfren actually tell their parents...

"Mom and Dad, I'm a Communist."
"Mom and Dad, I'm a Nazi."
"Mom and Dad, I'm a heroin addict."
"Mom and Dad, I'm a serial killer."
"Mom and Dad, I'm a moral nihilist"

Just for the record?
https://www.paganlibrary.com/reference/ ... iation.php

"First degree makes you a priest/priestess, and makes you responsible for a small part of the lay community. Second degree is kinda like being a bishop - that's also when you become an "Elder" - and makes you responsible for lay community and what first degrees are in your group. In other words, 2nd degree has more and greater attendant responsibilities (which is as it should be, no?). In my tradition, 3rd degree is given when it looks like the person is ready to go off and found a coven of his/her own (preferably with his/her mate - they like to give thirds in pairs), which the person then should do (cause there shouldn't be more than one set of 3rds in a coven)"

Then the part -- my part? -- where all of this revolves largely around certain assumptions made about the human condition. Around dasein. Around the personal experiences and relationships we accumulate that may or may not prompt someone to even become aware of Wiccans and Pagans.

In other words, the part that seems [to me] beyond the reach of both philosophy and science. It's just another profoundly problematic manifestation of the Benjamin Button Syndrome.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am Practices within various traditions, and even individual covens, vary quite considerably, and with ours, I definitely wouldn't have described it in such formal-sounding terms. And that part about being responsible for the lay community is complete rubbish, to be honest, and is, I suspect, a bit of ego-dressing on the part of the writer.

That's the part that will sometimes fascinate me and sometimes exasperate me. On the one hand, it's not like religious/spiritual denominations that demand total obedience in regard to, well, practically every thing they pass judgment on...what you wear, what you drink, what you think and feel, who you sleep with, how you raise your children, etc.

On the other hand, some will note, how seriously can you take a spiritual path that basically leaves these things entirely up to the individual? Here, though, what becomes crucial for me is the part regarding immortality and salvation. Once they become a part of the narrative, there's a tendency to be more exacting in regard to what is permissible and what is not.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am No one in the coven is responsible for anyone outside the coven, and there is no such thing as a lay community. Other Pagans outside the coven are simply following their own paths. For us, the initiations were acknowledgements of the stage the individual felt they had reached in their development. On reading the article, however, I noticed that the writer was part of a Gardnerian coven, that is, one that can trace its lineage directly to Gerald Gardner, the founder of Wicca, and they can indeed be a bit hierarchical and elitist.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever been rejected or shunned or punished within any of these communities because you didn't toe the "party line"?

How exactly would a reader go about demonstrating this to someone? That's always my own "thing" here in regard to value judgments. There is what you believe "in your head" about them and there's what you can demonstrate [even to yourself] is, in fact, true about them. Then the part where they tell you things about the future. But: If the future can be "seen" in the present, how does it not unfold only as it ever could?

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am Divination is by far the least interesting aspect of Paganism, in my opinion, though most other Pagans would probably disagree.

"Divination (from Latin divinare 'to foresee, foretell, predict, prophesy, etc.') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact or interaction with supernatural agencies such as spirits, gods, god-like-beings or the "will of the universe".

Here, again, for those who believe this all I can do is to note the distinction I make between 1] what is mainly believed in the collective minds of the community and 2] what is actually able to be demonstrated as in fact true. Nothing else makes sense to me. And to the extent some reject the part about evidence is the extent to which, in my opinion, they are embracing these Divine rituals and ceremonies because it comforts them and consoles them. After all, the whole point of rituals and ceremonies is to make certain behaviors...sacred? necessary? You wouldn't do the same things over and over and over and over and over and over again if you didn't believe it was required of you. But to the extent particular Pagans embody a kind of "cafeteria faith", sure, I can understand that. I'd do it myself if I was able to.

Human psychology, bursting at the seams with defense mechanisms, can often come up with ways to rationalize -- that's one right there -- almost any behavior.

As a child, you find out that you are blind and that there is little or no chance that you will ever see. Then from day to day to day you encounter things that remind you over and over and over again what being blind means. For some -- many? most? -- it is the number one sense. And it is largely through our senses that we come to understand the world around us.

I think that's how some -- many? most? -- sighted people might construe congenital blindness. But then the part where they might never grasp the difference between being born blind and going blind. They're just thinking how they would react if suddenly they couldn't see.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am Apart from the occasional tantrum, I had a very happy childhood. I was always excited to explore new places and things. It's not like I was constantly thinking to myself, Oh damn, I'm blind. It doesn't work like that. It's all just perfectly normal and you get on with life. It's true that when I was little I did, occasionally, get angry about the unfairness of it, but that's what kids do. I was just as likely to get angry about the profound unfairness of not getting an ice cream, or something.

Ice cream is one thing, some will point out, and blindness another thing altogether. I was discussing this with Rebecca, a virtual friend of mind from way, way back, at another forum. She said what would probably frighten her the most about being blind is that, in the end, as independent as she might make her own life, there's always the part where one way or another her life changes dramatically and things get "beyond her control". That can be hard enough even with all five senses. Then the part where, without vision, in particular contexts, you can never really be sure of how people are reacting to you. On the other hand, out of sight, out of mind?

Well, if it does happen, by all means, go with the flow. But there's still the part where you might think, "Okay, the commitment to celebacy is over. Seven years of sustained discipline. Not everyone could accomplish it. So, what might I do now so as not to just go with the flow, but to influence or even change the flow itself." Given a free will universe anyway.

Maybe I will. I don't know yet. Love tends to strike in the most unexpected places.

Well, as long as you are comforatble and content with the way things are now in your life -- and your posts pretty much confirm this -- that's pretty much as far as it need go. On the other hand, there's nothing quite like falling in love, being in love, holding the one you love in your arms, falling asleep in their arms and waking up beside them in the morning.

By "feeling it" are you referring to what I construe to be your intuitive, spiritual Intrinsic Self? On the other hand, you might construe it in a very different way. Maybe we can get closer to narrowing the gap between us here, or maybe not.

If you had given yourself permission to abandon celibacy, what then of the Goddess you had made this commitment to? Is there a back and forth between you or is the Goddess not a literal entity but an existential manifestation of how you have come to embody nature itself.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am The commitment was always contingent on circumstances, and it was only ever to myself. I don't believe the Goddess is a literal, conscious entity, but rather a personification of nature.

That's often the best way to pursue commitments. In other words, for all practical purposes. And in always accepting that all things -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- must pass.

On the other hand, men being men -- whatever that means? -- there's the part where what they tell each other about their relationships with women [especially the sex part] may or may not be what they really mean. It's just that sometimes they feel "pressured" to be "one of the guys".

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2024 10:16 am Yes, I'm sure that's true. It's still not good enough, though, and is actually pretty pathetic.

Oh, yeah. But the human condition has always been bursting at the seams with opportunities to be pathetic, right? Or right up there next to it. It's just that we tend to view others as being pathetic for doing things that they might not deem to be pathetic at all. Instead, they are likely see others as the truly pathetic ones.

Most men I have been around [in the belly of the working-class beast] would be embarrassed far more if their girlfriend wasn't "really, really pretty and really, really built". And, if they are, that'll have to do.

As for all or nothing...all what?

When I give someone my loyalty I expect the same in return.

Reminds me of a scene from Against All Odds

"Terry: Hey, Jesus, I love you! You've become everything I'm about. Don't you understand that?
Jessie [overwhelmed]: Can't anyone love me without it being life or death to them?
Terry: You know most people are afraid they're never going to be loved like that."

It's one thing to be loved, and another thing altogether to be loved passionately.

I've only been in love passionately once myself. So, I should know, right?

0f course, what heterosexual man isn't going to fall in love with Rachel Ward? I've fallen in love with her myself many, many times. But then what to make of "looks" in romantic relationships.

For example, that scene from Mask where Diana [who is blind] comes to meet [and really like] Rocky. What she can't see, however, is how "deformed" his face is. But her sighted parents see that immediately and suddenly [as I recall] that's the end of that.

And though you can't see how you look yourself, all the sighted men can. And in the sighted world being attractive can sometimes be a blessing and sometimes a curse.

That's right, and the streets are full of guys like that last bloke you dated who was cracking jokes when he thought you couldn't hear him.

Now listen, Maia, if you meet a new dashing young chap and he starts to show signs of being a wanker, you bring him here and let uncle Biggs and uncle Prom sort him out.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 12:59 am That's right, and the streets are full of guys like that last bloke you dated who was cracking jokes when he thought you couldn't hear him.

Now listen, Maia, if you meet a new dashing young chap and he starts to show signs of being a wanker, you bring him here and let uncle Biggs and uncle Prom sort him out.

You can count on it!

Maia wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 11:13 am I noticed that he has another video about dreams, which is the other main question that sighted people always ask me. Dreams, of course, are a fascinating subject in their own right. But, to answer the question, I don't have any visual component to my dreams.

I wonder how you would comprehend if light was brought into your dreams?

GOD operates from beneath scales that are perceivable, penetrable by human analysis (beneath the Planck scale). The realms this intelligence operates at permit such things as lucid dreams, robotic control of living beings particularly humans (leaving humans thinking their actions were of the own will, their own volition)..and pretty much anything.

I am puzzled that this entity has you without sight, perplexed indeed.

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 3:34 am

Maia wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 11:13 am I noticed that he has another video about dreams, which is the other main question that sighted people always ask me. Dreams, of course, are a fascinating subject in their own right. But, to answer the question, I don't have any visual component to my dreams.

I wonder how you would comprehend if light was brought into your dreams?

GOD operates from beneath scales that are perceivable, penetrable by human analysis (beneath the Planck scale). The realms this intelligence operates at permit such things as lucid dreams, robotic control of living beings particularly humans (leaving humans thinking their actions were of the own will, their own volition)..and pretty much anything.

I am puzzled that this entity has you without sight, perplexed indeed.

I don't believe there's any God, or Goddess for that matter, deliberately directing things and deciding such matters. To me, the Goddess is another name for Mother Nature.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 7:43 am

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 3:34 am

Maia wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 11:13 am I noticed that he has another video about dreams, which is the other main question that sighted people always ask me. Dreams, of course, are a fascinating subject in their own right. But, to answer the question, I don't have any visual component to my dreams.

I wonder how you would comprehend if light was brought into your dreams?

GOD operates from beneath scales that are perceivable, penetrable by human analysis (beneath the Planck scale). The realms this intelligence operates at permit such things as lucid dreams, robotic control of living beings particularly humans (leaving humans thinking their actions were of the own will, their own volition)..and pretty much anything.

I am puzzled that this entity has you without sight, perplexed indeed.

I don't believe there's any God, or Goddess for that matter, deliberately directing things and deciding such matters. To me, the Goddess is another name for Mother Nature.

Sure, but don't bother ascribing GOD to it then. God nor Goddess.

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:33 am

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 7:43 am

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 3:34 am

I wonder how you would comprehend if light was brought into your dreams?

GOD operates from beneath scales that are perceivable, penetrable by human analysis (beneath the Planck scale). The realms this intelligence operates at permit such things as lucid dreams, robotic control of living beings particularly humans (leaving humans thinking their actions were of the own will, their own volition)..and pretty much anything.

I am puzzled that this entity has you without sight, perplexed indeed.

I don't believe there's any God, or Goddess for that matter, deliberately directing things and deciding such matters. To me, the Goddess is another name for Mother Nature.

Sure, but don't bother ascribing GOD to it then. God nor Goddess.

I'm not sure what you mean, to be honest.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:47 am

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:33 am

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 7:43 am

I don't believe there's any God, or Goddess for that matter, deliberately directing things and deciding such matters. To me, the Goddess is another name for Mother Nature.

Sure, but don't bother ascribing GOD to it then. God nor Goddess.

I'm not sure what you mean, to be honest.

Sometimes I come across rather cross, but this is not my intention.

My point is, that a GOD without any intelligent will upon intelligent minds is no GOD. To ascribe nature to be defined as GOD is rather short of sight.

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 9:43 am

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:47 am

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:33 am

Sure, but don't bother ascribing GOD to it then. God nor Goddess.

I'm not sure what you mean, to be honest.

Sometimes I come across rather cross, but this is not my intention.

My point is, that a GOD without any intelligent will upon intelligent minds is no GOD. To ascribe nature to be defined as GOD is rather short of sight.

If that's how you define God, then I don't believe there is a God.

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 9:58 am

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 9:43 am

Maia wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:47 am

I'm not sure what you mean, to be honest.

Sometimes I come across rather cross, but this is not my intention.

My point is, that a GOD without any intelligent will upon intelligent minds is no GOD. To ascribe nature to be defined as GOD is rather short of sight.

If that's how you define God, then I don't believe there is a God.

The evidence suggests that the true guru does not require the chela to do any prescribed actions, but rather guides natural actions. When God is the guru then to know God, one must naturally do certain things.

In terms of Christianity, this is how The Ten Commandments reads like an itemization of causation. It lists the causes for the effect of knowing God. If one hasn’t established the cause for knowing God and no longer can according to the Commandments, then Christianity provides alternative causes for the same effect of knowing God, such as being born again.

A fallen Christian would be one who knows and believes in the causation but still errs, and such folks search for words of redemption from authoritative sources.

How would a fallen Pagan be described?