Philosophy Now Forum

osgart wrote:no . They are imaginary. And they are not non fiction.
Sherlock Holmes and his world will not come into reality. Their is no law of destiny that he will. Proof of this is he missed his time period of entry; the 1800s in england. There are no found records of his identity. Nor Watson.

This thread is not talking about human man-made fictional characters like the ones you find at Disney World - it's talking about naturally occurring fictional characters, the ones thought into existence by no thing aka eternity. It's talking about the ones appearing as thoughts that no one thought or words that no one wrote. Many authors do apparently appear, but there's only one reader/processor.

Dontaskme wrote:I do not know what I am

That's not true, I've told you what you are on several occasions.

One cannot know this I am and also be it, for that would require this immediate beingness/aliveness to split itself in two into a knower and the known...which is impossible.

Nothing is impossible when you make it up as you go along.

The physical ear never heard a sound, it does not hear a thing, but sound cannot be heard without the instrument of hearing which is the ear.

Still, at least you can use them for hooking your glasses on and stopping your hat from slipping down over your eyes, so they're not completely useless.

This thread is not talking about human man-made fictional characters like the ones you find at Disney World

No, this thread is about Dontaskme World where you might as well never even bother getting out of bed because there's nothing beyond it to get out for, in fact, there isn't even a bed to get out of.

Dontaskme, I totally misunderstood what you meant by "I Am". I thought that by "I Am" you referred to eternity , the Way. I thought so because in the Bible God says " I am that I am". I interpret that to mean that God is necessary and deterministic Being same as eternity or the Way.

Necessary Being, i.e eternity, is what is real. However it doesn't follow that what eternity does is false and illusional. What eternity does is the relative world that we inhabit, the world of mind and matter.

Now, the question is: are fictional characters as real as stones, humans, trees, or tables? You might say so and I guess that you would say fictional characters, stones, humans, tree, and tables are all illusions. I am with you regarding eternity and I am against you regarding the reality of eternity eternalising itself in time. For me, both of those are real and moreover eternity eternalising itself is as real as eternity.

For you therefore there's no problem about the illusionary nature of fictional characters. For me I have the problem that if "eternity eternalising itself" is not a delusion but is real how is it that I think that fictions are real.

My answer is that fictions are real insofar as they mirror reality, but are not real insofar as they fail to tell the reasoned truth about reality. Thus a politician's speeches are less real insofar as the politician intends to deceive or how ignorant the politician is; but a politician's speeches are true insofar as the politician is both sincere and well-informed.

Belinda wrote:Dontaskme, I totally misunderstood what you meant by "I Am". I thought that by "I Am" you referred to eternity , the Way. I thought so because in the Bible God says " I am that I am". I interpret that to mean that God is necessary and deterministic Being same as eternity or the Way.

Iam-ness is eternity. Another word for eternity and there are as many as one would like to make up is this ALIVENESS/BEINGNESS/ONENESS presence...aka I am-ness

Belinda wrote:Necessary Being, i.e eternity, is what is real. However it doesn't follow that what eternity does is false and illusional. What eternity does is the relative world that we inhabit, the world of mind and matter.

Yes I agree. But the nondual world of eternity can only work in the world of relationship aka the world of cause and effect in time - and it's the concept of relationship that's the illusion, not eternity itself. Therefore reality IS and it IS NOT....THAT doesn't sound as crazy at it appears when we think about opposites. For example, take the concepts empty and full.. an empty glass is empty, but when filled, the galss is no longer empty anymore, even though it was once empty. So the concept empty can be empty and not empty...same with full...simply because of the actual glass being the container of both concepts in the same moment of eternity.

Eternity is like the glass in which everything appears either one or the other, one or it's opposite. The same idea applied to empty and full is applied to the concept of is and is not. And lets not forget the word ''container'' is not what it seems for no thing is ever contained, because there is no boundary attached to eternity...but without the concept eternity no thing can place itself as existing anywhere...and so that too is illusion in that there is no place for anything to hang out except as imagined.

Belinda wrote:Now, the question is: are fictional characters as real as stones, humans, trees, or tables? You might say so and I guess that you would say fictional characters, stones, humans, tree, and tables are all illusions.

I've said many time before that stuff is real as a manifestation of eternity, it's just the naming of the stuff that's the illusion.

Belinda wrote: I am with you regarding eternity and I am against you regarding the reality of eternity eternalising itself in time. For me, both of those are real and moreover eternity eternalising itself is as real as eternity.

Well yes. only in the sense that eternity is a real fictional concept.

Belinda wrote:For you therefore there's no problem about the illusionary nature of fictional characters. For me I have the problem that if "eternity eternalising itself" is not a delusion but is real how is it that I think that fictions are real.

Again, only as concepts, anything known is all about fictional concepts....real is.. but it's unknowable...anything known about the unknowable can only be known via fictional concepts...in other words imagined.

Belinda wrote:My answer is that fictions are real insofar as they mirror reality, but are not real insofar as they fail to tell the reasoned truth about reality.

But there is only the mirror which has no concept of itself, the mirror can only reflect what it imagines to be real. Fictions don't mirror reality, the mirror mirrors reality by reflecting itself AS AND THROUGH fictional characters... I'm using the mirror as another word for MIND...The nondual world of thought and feeling and sensation is real, but the one who knows that.. is the illusion, not the thoughts, feelings and sensation.

What I mean for example is you don't have to know to go to the toilet when you want to pee, you don't make the decision to go pee, the sensation does.

So then the sensation makes it feels as though there is an entity having those sensations, and that is the illusion, for there is only the sensation arising to no one or thing. It is the mind that attaches itself to the sensation and calls it mine, when in fact it belongs to no one, for the mind is located where exactly??

Dontaskme wrote:

But there is only the mirror which has no concept of itself, the mirror can only reflect what it imagines to be real. Fictions don't mirror reality, the mirror mirrors reality by reflecting itself AS AND THROUGH fictional characters... I'm using the mirror as another word for MIND...The nondual world of thought and feeling and sensation is real, but the one who knows that.. is the illusion, not the thoughts, feelings and sensation.

What I mean for example is you don't have to know to go to the toilet when you want to pee, you don't make the decision to go pee, the sensation does.

So then the sensation makes it feels as though there is an entity having those sensations, and that is the illusion, for there is only the sensation arising to no one or thing. It is the mind that attaches itself to the sensation and calls it mine, when in fact it belongs to no one, for the mind is located where exactly??

I am basing my argument on the axiom that human reason has limited access to eternal truths. The limit is not only the inductive gap but also the mirror itself that is the limit of subjectivity.

As for my subjectivity, it includes my intuition that I am a self. Incidentally is the notion of self cultural? Are there actually societies where all or nearly all individuals believe that they are not selves? I understand that certain religionists teach that there are no selves and that this particular religion has some power of authority but how effective is that teaching?

I find that I don't have to believe that I'm not a self in order to believe that fictional characters are narratives among narratives, some of which 'we' arbitrate as truth and some as fiction. The criterion for the arbitration is normally whether or not the narrative has or had space-time credentials. And of course, "space-time credentials" is an overarching narrative.

Is there nothing which is not mind-dependent? I believe that there is something which is not mind-dependent, and that is what eternity is. I also believe that reason can increase understanding of what is not mind-dependent, i.e. understanding of eternal truths.This sort of philosophical rationalists' reason is of course not about evidence, but is about ethical and technological benefits of the reason narrative.

I suspect that the narrative which avows that there are no selves can deprive individuals of freedom of thought , and can be used politically to enforce subservience among populations. Whereas the reason narrative tends to freedom because, theoretically, every individual can use reason.

What a word means is a concept. No concept can be anything other than a concept and all concepts are 'self referential'. They cannot refer to anything but other concepts.

Do not ask 'me' who knows this. No 'me' can ever say... every 'me' is a concept.

Dontaskme wrote:What a word means is a concept. No concept can be anything other than a concept and all concepts are 'self referential'. They cannot refer to anything but other concepts. ...

Unless there is an external world for them to refer to there can be no concepts.

Arising_uk wrote:

Dontaskme wrote:What a word means is a concept. No concept can be anything other than a concept and all concepts are 'self referential'. They cannot refer to anything but other concepts. ...

Unless there is an external world for them to refer to there can be no concepts.

I'd like to rephrase what Arising_uk says.

Unless there is a correlating object or objects of experience there can be no subject or subjects of experience. The corollary is that conscious entities which are not subjective selves cannot learn about any parallel object or objects of experience.

On a personal level unless I am a subject of experience (including innate ideas)I could not synthesise any ideas and, because this state of affairs would apply to everybody , no human could learn anything and evolution would be limited to genes and would not include ideas.

Besides the web of concepts to which Dontaskme refers is not only the common sense intuition that there is something besides the web of concepts, but also that the web of concepts is itself a component part of that parallel something.

Belinda wrote:
Besides the web of concepts to which Dontaskme refers is not only the common sense intuition that there is something besides the web of concepts, but also that the web of concepts is itself a component part of that parallel something.

There is nothing beyond, besides or external to concepts. Concepts are only parallel to the no thing in which they arise in a world of cause and effect duality. There is nothing outside of that arena.The world of concepts is this immediate aliveness, this is it, there is nothing else known. The no thing in which concepts arise here is another concept called eternity - this alone is not a thing because it is not known except as a fictional thing...and it is that no thing which is paradoxically expressing itself as all things, aka everything...which is another word for no thing.

Again as usual, I am pointing to the Nondual nature of reality.

The harbal's and uk arisings of this world do not and never have existed, except as dead concepts.

The plant and wild animal kingdom are already this nondual reality - it is only human thinking that apparently separates this into that by using artificial language as a way of surviving as a species...but they have taken on their language as real reality when in nondual truth there is no thing here separate from the no thing which is everything. Which is both real and unreal, is and is not...both yet neither.

The sheer fact that appearances make it look like the world is real is convincing enough - but appearances come and go in that which does not. Nothing that comes and goes is real - but the no thing in which all things appear has to be real for any thing to appear at all. It's what's known as the grand illusion. The trickless trick.

Of course it feels real but what the mind considers real can appear and disappear without a trace. And nature never repeats exactly.

Arising_uk wrote:

Dontaskme wrote:What a word means is a concept. No concept can be anything other than a concept and all concepts are 'self referential'. They cannot refer to anything but other concepts. ...

Unless there is an external world for them to refer to there can be no concepts.

The internal and external world appear in the exact same moment which is always and ever NOW. They are one and the same No/thing. Reality is Non/dual.

A movement within stillness.
A noise within silence.
A knowing within not-knowing.
Life within death.
Death within life.

Dontaskme wrote:

There is nothing beyond, besides or external to concepts.

Since nearly all of the living and non-living world exists without concepts your claim, Dontaskme, is unduly anthropocentric.

Belinda wrote:Dontaskme wrote:

There is nothing beyond, besides or external to concepts.

Since nearly all of the living and non-living world exists without concepts your claim, Dontaskme, is unduly anthropocentric.

Aliveness is everything happening in this immediate experiencing. Nothing is happening independently of this aliveness aka everything. This is permanently ON

Nothing is known of a non-living world. A non-living world cannot exist. Living world exist only cause it cannot not exist.
The living world knows it is living by looking at itself / experiencing itself. It's not conceptual, although concepts arise in it.
So it is through the concepts arising that any thing about reality is known at all. But, anything known about reality is not what reality is. Reality JUST is.

Life is not human. There is no human, there is only life humaning through the concept known. Human is a made-up word/concept..belief.. arising in this unknowable life which is living itself.

Viewing and interpreting everything in terms of human experience is actually everything aka life interpreting what's happening as and through the human experience which is unique to humans and does not happen to any other creature, because only human live a conceptual life. The conception of 'me' is known in the dual nature of language. But language is not what reality is.

Reality is totally unknowable. Superimposed upon reality is the fictional story made-up purely of concepts and beliefs...believed to be real as it appears, so it seems.

Dontaskme wrote:...

Reality is totally unknowable. ...

Then how would you know this?

I understand Dontaskme's theory of existence as idealism, or immaterialism as it's sometimes called. It's substance monism but not the only substance monism, and there's nothing to choose between idealism and materialism except any ethical corollaries that may issue thence.

Arising_uk wrote:

Dontaskme wrote:...

Reality is totally unknowable. ...

Then how would you know this?

Sorry for the long post ...but that's what you get sometimes when you answer to my posts..

I don't know this...any knowing is just coming out of this body mind mechanism via an idea known as a human being. When there is no concept or idea about 'me' there is no 'me'...can 'me' even exist without the idea? yes and no... yet I cannot find what an idea is or where it is located, yet it exists...but how or where or why....I've no idea. I cannot find the beginning of this 'I' that claims to know anything. But there is an energetical sense of a self referential 'me' claiming to be the knower for the sake of human communication, else reality wouldn't make sense. Most humans are unaware there is no knower, except for the enlightened masters like Jesus or Buddha...

One rises to Buddha status or Christ Consciousness when the sense of I am a separate entity collapses. No one in their right mind wants this generally ..for it means the end of the separate 'me', but for others it's a blessed relief, and the end of suffering, suffering still arises, but the enlightened one will not claim that suffering or identify it as happening to them personally.
Life is already enlightened right now as everything boundlessly free...so nobody gets enlightened anyway.

There is knowing, as in things known, but the knower of the known cannot be known or found in the things known. As that is like the snake and the rope analogy, It certainly looks like a snake, but the snake is actually just a piece of dead rope. Form is not what it appears. One can't rely on that which is subject to change or has no edge. Form is illusory in this sense and not to be trusted to find absolute concrete truth.

The 'me' character cannot find the beginning of 'me' that could be the knower of the known. Knower and known are infinitely one...aka infinity for eternity expressing itself now.

This cannot be explained intellectually, but there is a pointing here to our eternal home that one will either resonate toward or not. It's not for everyone. But I love the subject of nonduality.