2008.11.08 07:00 - Wol Playing Pema, Pema Playing Wol

Pia Iger was guardian and prepared this log.

Pema came and picked up right where he and Wol left yesterday.

In the spirits of experimenting, Wol suggested that they play each other this time. So for a good halfof this log Wol and Pema channeled each other's position.
How did they perform? Please read on. Maybe with a cup of tea,  to figure out who is who in some parts.

Geo Netizen: Good morning Pema
Pema Pera: Hi Wol, Adelene, Geo!
Pema Pera: Wol, are you ready to talk about reality and solidity and all that good stuff?
Pema Pera: or did you already pick a different topic?
Wol Euler chuckles. As ready as I ever will be.
Pema Pera: (yesterday, Wol suggested we talk about those topics)
Geo Netizen: But first Question on greeting protocols ….
Geo Netizen: Should you refer to SLT …. such as good morning …. even though it might be night for the person in RL …
Geo Netizen: maybe use something like Hi ?
Pema Pera: whatever you like, Geo!
Wol Euler: a tricky one, Geo. I usually use SL time unless I am greeting one person alone and I know their zone, then I make is specific to them
Wol Euler: Pema, why don't we start by taking each other's positions?
Pema Pera: that's a nice idea!
Wol Euler: (as you suggested to someone once ...)
Pema Pera: sure
Wol Euler: Pema is proposing as Bishop Berkeley did, that matter does not really exist.
Pema Pera: and hi Corvi!
Wol Euler: hi corvi
Adelene Dawner: Hi Corvi :)
Geo Netizen: Godd morning Corvi :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Hiya All!
Pema Pera: It should be fascinating for people coming in half-way, Wol, to see you taking my position, and me yours!
Wol Euler chuckles. It'll be fascinating enough to see what you think is my position :)
Pema Pera: So let's play it for real -- you use my lines, I use yours, rather than you saying "Pema thinks..."
Pema Pera: Well, our job is to correct misunderstandings of each other's position
Wol Euler: ah, too tricky for me. I have the logs open on a different computer so I can't copy and paste.
Wol Euler: but Berkeley does I think sum up your position as I understand it. May I continue with him?
Pema Pera: Most likely, every other sentence that each of us speaks will need to be corrected by the others, in some way or other!
Pema Pera: sure, of course, Wol!
Wol Euler: sure, that's part of hte plan!
Wol Euler: ok, here we go.
Pema Pera: go right ahead!
Pema Pera: Hi Pia!

Wol goes first.

Wol Euler: Berkeley said that the world cannot be known in and for itself, that we only know what we think that we perceive (two layers there).
Wol Euler: similarly we cannot talk about objects but only about how people perceive them.
Geo Netizen: nods at Pia
Pema Pera: (I was about to respond "sure, fair enough", but no, I'll try to take a different position, hopefully somewhere more near yours)
Wol Euler: this does away with the Language of Absolute except as "that which we cannot use"
Pia Iger: Hi, Geo
Wol Euler: hello pia
Pia Iger: waves. listening
Pema Pera: Well, our dear Bishop can deny reality, but what if you walk into a wall -- do you just walk into your mind, or into a fiction of your mind ?!?
Pema Pera: (Pia, Wol is playing Pema, Pema is playing Wol)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: /menods.
Pia Iger: did not realize that.
Pema Pera: /methinks
Wol Euler: what you walk into is Being, which informs and invests the thing you perceive to be a wall
Wol Euler: in that sense you believe that you break your nose against Being.
Wol Euler: (I'm sorry, that was unfair)
Pema Pera: may I correct here, Wol? -- and everything is fair, btw!
Wol Euler: please :)
Pema Pera: let's go full steam ahead, no niceties!
Wol Euler: Physics says that there is plenty of matter all around us, but it is of us and in us and flows through us.
Wol Euler: there is no "solid", our atoms are interchangeable and do interchange.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: wait!
Corvuscorva Nightfire: are you quoting each other still?
Wol Euler Waits
Corvuscorva Nightfire: or onto your own voice?
Pema Pera: all is Being, you, your nose, the wall, and in that sense from an ultimate point of view there is nothing solid or real, but in the story
Wol Euler: trying to, yes. Or rather putting what I think Pema means into words.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: ok

Not exactly! Pema still wanted to say something as Pema.

Pema Pera: help!
Pema Pera: I'm still trying to correct a statement from Wol from minutes ago . . . .
Wol Euler: oh, sorry, please continue
Pema Pera: but in the story of the world we think we live in, there are walls, which the we that we identify with, cannot walk through
Pema Pera: This is the answer that Pema would have given, rather than the answer that Wol-as-Pema gave, in:
Pema Pera: [7:11] Wol Euler: what you walk into is Being, which informs and invests the thing you perceive to be a wall
[7:11] Wol Euler: in that sense you believe that you break your nose against Being.
Pema Pera: So let us go slowly . . .
Pema Pera: . . . and correct each other's statements as we go, is that okay?
Wol Euler: sure

Back to their roles.

Pema Pera: So after you said that, and I corrected as Pema, I can now answer as Pema-playing-Wol:
Pema Pera: Hey, that is unfair! If I break my nose on a wall, and you say that it is all illusion, and it is all okay for Mr. Being (or whoever that may Be), what good does that do me?!?
Pema Pera: (please correct if this is not Wol-ish; otherwise please continue :)
Wol Euler: (no, quite right)
Pema Pera: (great, your turn then, as Pema)
Wol Euler: Pema would answer: the benefit to you is that it may open your mind to a new understanding of your body ad the space it inhabits, as PaB opens your mind to the possibility of other, further consciousnesses
Wol Euler: to think that "you" is not the lump of flesh and blood, perhaps.
Pema Pera: But if I'm not my body, then what am I ?
Pema Pera: some kind of ghost??
Wol Euler: you are an appearance of Being, which you already know your "soul" (for want of a word) to be, so what's the difference?
Pema Pera: is my body also an appearance of Being then?
Wol Euler: of course! (or perhaps one of Being's handpuppets, not Being itself)
Pema Pera: but if everything is an appearance of Being, where do I stand, what is left of me?
Wol Euler: perhaps that which was always there. Why does Wol accept that her mind/consciousness/perceptions are "artificial" and conditional and limited, but not that her body is?

Thanks for the use of brackets, actors can check out what they are playing.

Pema Pera: (which Wol? The one playing Wol or the one playing Pema??)
Geo Netizen: :)
Wol Euler: (the one that Pema is playing)
Pema Pera: (ah! yet another one -- got it, me playing Wol now--okay!)
Wol Euler: Pema would continue: to use one of your beloved biblical quotes back at you, Wol: you swallowed a camel when accepting that your mind is an appearance of being, why do you now strain at this gnat of physical Being=
Pema Pera: :) well, I'm not sure whether I have yet accepted anything, but I sure enjoy entertaining such ideas . . . sure, my mind is for a large part constructed, by culture, society, upbringing as well as sheer physicality o f the body
Geo Netizen scratches Ade's ruff
Pema Pera: but then again, my body is *also* constructed, out of atoms and molecules, and influences from my surroundings throughout all of my life
Pema Pera: so what's the difference?
Pema Pera: (am I still on track, as playing Wol? If not, please correct!)
Wol Euler: indeed, and for that matter think of all the bits of extraneous matter in your body now. How many of your teeth are still your own, what part of your consciousness do they play?
Wol Euler: (doing fine! this is very hard work ... I am surprised)
Pema Pera: Well, that just means that patterns are what remains, not sheer solidity
Pema Pera: I am not a hard-nosed materialist in the literal sense, but rather a more subtle one
Pema Pera: patterns in matter are good enough for me
Wol Euler: exactly, and patterns are not realities. Patterns are perception!
Pema Pera: perhaps I'm an informationalist, or informational materialist?
Wol Euler: one and one do not make two, they just ARE side by side.
Wol Euler: people perceive them both and add a superstructure of identification to make a pattern of them.
Wol Euler: the pattern is in you, not in the world.
Pema Pera: Well, coming back to the wall, how come we can't walk through *that* pattern?
Pema Pera: I mean
Pema Pera: the matter may not be solid or constant
Pema Pera: and the pattern may last longer
Pema Pera: but a pattern on paper, as a mathematical equation
Pema Pera: in TOTALLY different from a pattern layered on and as matter
Pema Pera: a picture of a wall does not a wall make, without real matter !!
Pema Pera: (i really enjoy this!)
Pema Pera: (very nice to take a refreshingly different position)
Pema Pera: (like switching teams in a soccer play)
Wol Euler: (yes, me too, unfortunately we have arrived where we left off on Monday. I have no idea how the real Pema intended to resolve this)
Pema Pera: hehehe
Wol Euler chuckles

Actors took a bow.

Pema Pera: well, shall we stop here, for now, and switch back?
Wol Euler: yes, please.
Wol Euler: that was very hard work!
Wol Euler: but quite fascinating
Pema Pera: Yes, indeed!!
Geo Netizen: Was the point to look at Berkeley’s claims … such as reality exists only in the mind (perceived by mind) or …. ?
Wol Euler: was I fair to you?
Pema Pera: mostly very close, yes
Wol Euler: not as such Geo, it came up in my mind as an argument against Pema
Wol Euler: so I was starting somewhat unfairly...
Geo Netizen nods
Pema Pera: oh no, you were fair, I think!!
Wol Euler: because that is what Pema is suggesting, it seems to me.

Nice summary here...

Pema Pera: If we would have continued, Pema would have said something like: the main problem is that we all tend to want to see the unreality of what we don't like so much about this world -- but it is almost impossible for us to be sufficiently radical to see *all*and*everything*, the whole world, subject and object and what not, as given like a dream, like an illusion, like a story . . . .
Pema Pera: Briefly, the main reason I am doing PaB is to see through that story better, it is a life long challenge
Pema Pera: And it is more fun to do together with all of you
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods.
Geo Netizen nods
Pema Pera: (and especially fun sometimes to turn the tables! :)

Wol reflected on her doubts.

Wol Euler: I suppose I am distinguishing between physical matter and intentional use.
Wol Euler: I have been wondering about the question that wol-pema asked pema-wol, why I strain at this gnat.
Wol Euler: why it is so much harder for me to accept the ultimate non-reality of the appearance of solid matter.
Pema Pera: All of us are unfree ONLY at the point where we accept something without further questioning. Accepting matter as a given, without questioning it, determines and defines one way to be unfree . . . same with any aspect of our mind that we refuse to investigate
Wol Euler ponders.
Wol Euler: I am perhaps experiencing an attachment :)
Wol Euler: to the concept of material physicality in the world.
Pema Pera: yes, that's one -- but it is good to talk and think and then see through . . . .
Geo Netizen: Assuming the *reality* of solid matter seems to be a useful assumption … good for health and wellbeing :)
Wol Euler: that is the essence of my unease, Geo.
Pema Pera: a useful *relative* assumption, relative to particular goals
Geo Netizen nods
Wol Euler: I can see and accept the idea that my mind(s) are constructions, relative and transient, because I have experienced them changing.
Pema Pera: not useful for other goals, where they become hindrances
Wol Euler: I cannot experience the kind of immateriality Pema speaks of. My senses are simply not finely grained enough.
Geo Netizen: Transient is different from unreal
Pema Pera: ah, but if you fall asleep, all solidity drops away, and you find yourself in a dream wolrd -- and then later back again -- which one (if any) is real?
Wol Euler: so am I perhaps just attached to perception? the act of perceiving
Pema Pera: you are attached to you -- that's the biggest hangup!
Pema Pera: everything else follows

Real or Unreal. So much meaning is packed in these words.

Wol Euler: geo, yes, "unreal" too in the LoA/LoR sense.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: umm
Pema Pera: yes, and unreal in LoA can be real in LoR, Language of Relative (rather than Absolute)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: what is LoA and LoR?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: thanks
Pema Pera: :)
Wol Euler: (sorry, jargon from a few months back. Seems to have gone out of fashion :-)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: ha
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I'm not so good with the abbreviations.
Pema Pera: We hear "all is unreal" and then we ponder "why is this unreal and that, world around me, my body, my mind -- without even beginning to ponder whether the one who is asking/thinking might be unreal . . . .
Pema Pera: THAT is jumping into void
Pema Pera: once you do THAT the discussion changes totally . . . . .
Wol Euler: that is where I feel that the analogy breaks down, Pema.
Pema Pera: you have to experience that, Wol
Wol Euler: but how=
Pema Pera: and it is not hard, believe it or not!
Wol Euler: I cannot experience the space between electrons.
Pema Pera: Right now, ask yourself who is asking
Wol Euler: for all that I do believe that it is there
Pema Pera: turn the lights around, as they sometimes say metaphorically
Corvuscorva Nightfire: geo...I feel like thre are two different definitions of unreal here.
Pema Pera: don't try to shine your search light around you
Corvuscorva Nightfire: what do you think?
Wol Euler: (coments are welcome!)
Pema Pera: (yes, please!)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: here are my thoughts so far...
Corvuscorva Nightfire: when someone says..I trust you..they can mean a lot of things.
Trust me to do what?
Trust me to think what?
Trust me to be what?
When we talk about "matter is real" "this wall is real" then we have to define our terms as carefully.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: so...the wall is real is absolutely true...I think.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but....
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it is not necessary, permanent, or exactly how we perceive it?
Pia Iger: I agree with Corvi. the real/unreal is not clearly defined here.
Geo Netizen: Reality is just that …. my perception is what can be faulty ….. the tower in the distance seem to have rounded corners but it doesn’t
Wol Euler: agreed! no question.
Pema Pera: There are different ways to define real/unreal, and yes, we clearly have to distinguish between them.
Wol Euler: I must now quote Dr. Johnson refuting Bishop Berkeley by kicking a stone across the street.
Pema Pera: Within the point of view that the world we find ourselves in is real, then within that world some things are real (like matter) and some things are not (like a fantasy)
Wol Euler: if matter does not exist, what moved and why?
Geo Netizen: the only thing that Dr. Johnson knew about the stone was what he saw with his eyes, felt with his foot, and heard with his ears.
Wol Euler: why do _you_ believe that something was kicked, if it is just _my_ perception?
Pema Pera: sorry, repairman coming up
Wol Euler: np, actually I need a RL break for two minutes too ;) brb

While both Pema and Wol were brb, Geo shared this:

Geo Netizen: A limerick by Ronald Knox
There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad."
"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God."
Geo Netizen: I also need to go .....
Geo Netizen: Thanks for keeping my lap warm Ade ...
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Oh NO@
Corvuscorva Nightfire laughs...
Geo Netizen Scratches Ade's ruff
Wol Euler: back
Wol Euler: me reads and chuckles.
Wol Euler: this has turned out to be one of those newfangled "dialog" sessions after all.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: mmhmm

A topic for next time to continue!

Pema Pera: sorry, long repair session, I have to log off. But Wol, let's get back some time soon to:
Pema Pera: [7:42] Wol Euler: but how
Pema Pera: [7:43] Pema Pera: Right now, ask yourself who is asking
Wol Euler: mmm, right.
Pema Pera: again, sorry, have to log off now!
Pema Pera: bfn
Wol Euler: bye, pema. thanks
Corvuscorva Nightfire smiles..

More afterthoughts.

Corvuscorva Nightfire: I'm glad you two did this..
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it was good...smart, interesting.
Wol Euler: indeed, I enjoyed it greatly. and learned from it too, I think.
Wol Euler: though my basic confusion has not lessened...
Wol Euler: I'm exhausted from all this thinking on-the-run.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: ought to be!
Corvuscorva Nightfire: that was hard thinking'!
Pia Iger: It is!
Wol Euler: taking the other person's point of view and trying to present it fairly is a great exercise. I learned so much ...
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I think it might be useful in a lot of situations.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: hmmmm
Corvuscorva Nightfire: thinks of a couple.
Wol Euler: mmhmm, exactly, pair therapy does that too.