2009.07.10 01:00 - Sharing a Shirt is Eating the Cone

The Guardian for this meeting was Pema, standing in for Wol, who was traveling. The comments are by Pema Pera.

Pema Pera: Hi Vajra!
Pema Pera: Let's wait a couple minutes to see whether others will join us
Vajra Raymaker: Hi Pema; sure
Vajra Raymaker: Someone mentioned to me that she may come
Vajra Raymaker: scuse; I'll get a cup of tea
Pema Pera: would you like to take a seat?
Vajra Raymaker: back
Pema Pera: well, a quiet time here, at 1 am it seems.
Vajra Raymaker: Pema, I have a question for you, living in Japan
Pema Pera: Yes?
Vajra Raymaker: yes 1 is a bit late for many who may frequent these areas
Vajra Raymaker: Do you get many things made with less refined rice, brown rice? Or is it as the sushi is here in North America?
Vajra Raymaker: Or perhaps are there many different qualities of rice there
Pema Pera: most Japanese eat white rice, generally a bit more sticky that what people eat in North America and Europe, or in China for that matter
Pema Pera: brown rice is rather unusual, but not unheard of -- and never used for sushi :-)
Pema Pera: sushi by the way is just one of very many different types of food in Japan, it's a kind of anomaly that people outside Japan tend to equate Japanese food with susshi
Pema Pera: *sushi
Vajra Raymaker: Well, I know that people can be quite traditional about sushi. but I thought perhaps in Japan itself there would be more possibility of innovation
Pema Pera: like equating French food with crepes
Vajra Raymaker: sure, I did not intend to equate it with sushi
Pema Pera: oh, there is tremendous innovation, fusion of French and Japanese, Italian and Japanese, Spanish and Japanese, you name it
Vajra Raymaker: nice
Vajra Raymaker: Are you in Tokyo or a smaller city or the country?
Pema Pera: just arrived in Tokyo
Vajra Raymaker: ah
Pema Pera: This month I'm based in Kyoto, but unexpected I was called to Tokyo this weekend
Pema Pera: which means I'm now in an Italian coffee shop with not completely reliable internet connection and a finite battery life :(
Vajra Raymaker: I am going to make Sushi this summer, dessert sushi
Vajra Raymaker: eek
Pema Pera: So perhaps we should continue our discussion about awareness and the role that subject and object play there?
Pema Pera: oh, that sounds great, good luck!
Vajra Raymaker: Sure; where would you like to start?
Pema Pera: wherever you like, Vajra :-)
Pema Pera: I have no preference

Vajra Raymaker: okay, well then I shall say that this is a very interesting topic to me, ever since I started dabbling in Buddhist literature, because before that time I held it as either gospel or as a mainstay assumption that the mark of the mental is that it is intentional, i.e. has an intentional object, i.e. has some object that it is about.
Vajra Raymaker: So I am quite strongly pulled by the arguments on both sides, either that all mental states do have objects or that not all of them do.
Vajra Raymaker: The latter being the buddhist idea, and also the yogi idea
Pema Pera: usually that is the case, yes, the question is whether there are exceptions, and also whether the "usual" case is fully as it seems to be, whether there are no other ways to look at the seemingly appearing of subject and other (responding to your first longer sentence)
Pema Pera: all mental *states* do have objects, I agree -- the question is whether there is more to the mind than "states"
Vajra Raymaker: Well that comment is a bit mysterious to me. I think of a state of mind as a way that the mind is during a moment or duration
Vajra Raymaker: However you could also set things up so that at any given moment the mind is in several states at once, if you somehow compartmentalized the mind, I suppose
sophia Placebo: greetings
Vajra Raymaker: Hi Sophia!
Pema Pera: the whole idea of "no self" in Buddhism in connected with other ideas such as "no time" and therefore also "no state" . . . this is a big topic :-)
Pema Pera: Hi Sophia!

Pema Pera: We are talking about the possibility of awareness that is not tied down to subject-object interaction
Vajra Raymaker: Oddly enough, I came across an article today by accident that spoke to this. A great miracle of coincidence.
Pema Pera: :-)
sophia Placebo: :)
Vajra Raymaker: An argument as to why both analytic philosophers and phenomenologists are mistaken in following Hume
Vajra Raymaker: in thinking that when you look inside you cannot observe a self
Vajra Raymaker: but only perceptions
Vajra Raymaker: e.g. perception of heat, perception of a chair
Vajra Raymaker: Chisholm, Philosophy and Phenomennological Research, Sept. 1969
Pema Pera: one big and tricky question is: when we talk about no-self, who is the you talking, observing, etc?
Vajra Raymaker: Yes
Pema Pera: can life live, can Being be, without necessarily reifying everything by positing living beings, or beings in general?
Vajra Raymaker: A subject seems to be presupposed, when we report our observations. This may be an artifact of language though
Pema Pera: Can we deal with appearances, phenomena, as they are given without positing anything more?
Pema Pera: yes, a habit really
Vajra Raymaker: Perhaps the issue is: What precisely is given.
Pema Pera: absolutely, Vajra!
Pema Pera: I would say: what is given is the presence of appearance
Pema Pera: the only thing we can really be sure about
Vajra Raymaker: [1:23] Pema Pera: Can we deal with appearances, phenomena, as they are given without positing anything more?" you ask . ButDo we know that the subject is not also given?
Pema Pera: the appearance of a subject is given, but that does not imply a real subject
Vajra Raymaker: Well, we need an argument here Pema, perhaps. Chisholm for example, thinks that a real subject is implied. It seems like one is NOT implied in that we can change the language from "I observe perceptions of heat and an itch and a feeling of longing to an itch is observed, leaving out the "I"
Vajra Raymaker: whoops left out a quotation mark or two
Vajra Raymaker: "I observe an itch" changed to "An itch is observed". The latter seems to do away with the subject.
Vajra Raymaker: Or an itch is felt

Vajra Raymaker: Whoops, he said that he had a bad connection.
Vajra Raymaker: So Sophia, do you know this point of Hume's where he says "When I introspect, I do not find an impression of anything that is mySelf, but only various perceptions of other things" ?
Vajra Raymaker: (not an exact quotation of course)
sophia Placebo: no , but i heard some argue about
Vajra Raymaker: okay so familiar to you maybe
Vajra Raymaker: wb Pema
Pema Pera: hi again!
sophia Placebo: *:::* WELCOME BACK *:::*
Pema Pera: sorry, as I mentioned earlier to Vajra, my internet connection is quite flaky
Vajra Raymaker: yes
Pema Pera: when I suggested this slot for a theme meeting, I didn't know I would be called to Tokyo, from my current home base in Kyoto, so I'm stranded in a coffeeshop now, with less than perfect connectivity
Pema Pera: If I drop out again, I'll just give up (I had to try many times to get back in).
Vajra Raymaker: Great that you could find a place to hook up
Pema Pera: But before that, shall we pick a date and time to continue this conversation -- in case I drop out again?
Pema Pera: How about a week from now, same day same time?
Vajra Raymaker: okay, or perhaps the 7 p.m. slot?
Pema Pera: sure, that's fine
Pema Pera: on Thursday you mean, six hours earlier?
Vajra Raymaker: I think I need to work at not staying up so late : -)
Vajra Raymaker: yes
Pema Pera: Thursday, July 16?
Pema Pera: sure, that's fine!
Vajra Raymaker: sure
Pema Pera: where did the discussion flow to, after I left?
Vajra Raymaker: Well, I was trying to repeat what Hume had said, and Sophia was saying she was somewhat familiar
Vajra Raymaker: I 'll copy it

sophia Placebo: had hume a theory about a self when he intospect , that he didnt found
Vajra Raymaker: He wrote about everything that could be known by experience, and in the end realized that he had not accounted for the self as knowable by experience, not directly
Vajra Raymaker: His theory was about empirical knowledge generally
sophia Placebo: ok
Vajra Raymaker: Is this feeling of heat, me? Is this itch, me? Is this sense of longing, me? Is this belief that Arizona is a state in the U.S., me? No, none of them. There is no impression of me -- htat's what he said
Pema Pera: I like that kind of analysis! It's a great start
Pema Pera: but I think we have to go further than Hume did, more radically questioning everything.
Pema Pera: what I tried to say, when I dropped out, is that the sentence you quoted just before has all kinds of assumption in it, for example the assumption that everything we deal with plays out in a linear past-present-future time line -- that is one thing I think we have to drop, when we really want to talk about the notion of "no-self"; that notion only really makes sense within the vantage point of a fourth kind of time, a different orientation to time . . . .
Vajra Raymaker: okay
Vajra Raymaker: that is very important I imagine. So much of our experience involves an experience of time
sophia Placebo: hello pila
Pila Mulligan: hi
Vajra Raymaker: Well the act of observation or experiencing seems to occur in time
Vajra Raymaker: "in time" whatever that means
Vajra Raymaker: Greetings Pila
Pema Pera: seems to, yes, exactly; there is the presence of appearance of the flow of time . . . .
Pila Mulligan: greetings

Pema Pera: Hi Pila!
Pila Mulligan: please don;t let me interrupt -- being so late arriving
Pila Mulligan: in time :)
Vajra Raymaker: The flow being, that what was once now becomes past: it is as if the series of nows moves back behind us?
Pema Pera: no, nothing exists . . . . we really have to start from scratch, there is no something "that was once"
Pema Pera: I mean, we can of course talk in every-day terms, and it is important to be able to do that too
Vajra Raymaker: yes, but is it okay to use those indexical words to describe the experience even if they do not describe actual time?
Pema Pera: but *if* we want to really talk about no-self and no-time, we have to drop almost anything we normally take for granted, and we have to be very meticulously critical about hidden assumptions
Pema Pera: we have to use words, yes, and that is fine as long as we don't take the words to reify the notions they point to -- quite hard to do that
Vajra Raymaker: But we can't talk about no-self until we have a reason to believe that there is no self, no subject of experience
Pema Pera: well, we can explore the assumption of "no-self"
Pema Pera: what would the world have to be like, for such an assumption to make sense
Vajra Raymaker: Pema, I thought you were wanting to bring up the experience of time, and then it seemed you shifted to the reality of time.
Pema Pera: at first it doesn't seem to make any sense, so we then critically investigate our assumptions
Pema Pera: sure, I'm happy to talk about the experience of time
Pema Pera: but as long as we couch that experience in terms of past-present-future, we have also introduced a kind of self, traveling through that linear time
Pema Pera: there is a kind of experience that is different
Vajra Raymaker: I mean... it seemed to come in because we were asking about the nature of experience generally, did it imply a subject
Pema Pera: "fourth time"
sophia Placebo: hi berturm
Vajra Raymaker: greetings Bert
Pila Mulligan: hi Bert
Bertrum Quan: Hi everyone
Pema Pera: hi there Bert!

Vajra Raymaker: This may be true, what you say, that if we couch the experience in terms of past, present , future, we have introduced a self. This is point to attend to
Pema Pera: btw, the good thing is that my internet connection is holding up here in the coffeeshop, but alas now my battery is near empty, and there is no electric outlet in sight, sigh . . . I may disappear any moment, but we can continue talking till I do :-)
Vajra Raymaker: But I wonder whether there is the flow of time way of conceiving past present and future and also a second way of conceiving past present future that does not suggest movement, but only locations
Vajra Raymaker: oh you are valiant for making the effort with the connection, Pema!
Pila Mulligan: isn't tme usualkly assoicated with a place (Space)?
Vajra Raymaker: So that we can get identity over time whichever way time is conceived
Vajra Raymaker: I don't know; just wondering
Vajra Raymaker: Does that work Pila. Can you speak of things having extension in time even if temporal locations are spatialized?
Pila Mulligan: well, I was just thnking how history is a when and where story
Pema Pera: well, we can speculate about many ways of possibly dealing with space and time, but when I go with my own experience, combined with what I have read and recognize in various traditions, such as Buddhism, for example, as well as other traditions, then there is a rather specific kind of "fourth time" or "zeroth time", a kind of "eternal presence" you might want to call it, and I'm happy to talk about that -- not as a speculation but as something for which we have both experiential evidence and theoretical ideas.
Pila Mulligan: how about that concept of zeroth time being an enduring place Pema?
Pila Mulligan: abstracting place
Pema Pera: like in physics, it seems best to start with experiments and then try to figure out how to find a reasonable theory to talk about what you've found.
Pila Mulligan: since presence also can refer to both this time and this place
Pema Pera: as for enduring place
Vajra Raymaker: Sure. So the question is can't there be identity over time=temporal duration = temporal extension, consistent with conemporary physics
Vajra Raymaker: I don't quite get zeroith time
Pema Pera: in fourth time there is no temporal distance, and correspondingly no spatial distance either, and no duration of the type we are normally used to
Pila Mulligan: except absolute duration
Vajra Raymaker: interesting
Pema Pera: yes, Vajra, we'd have to say a lot more about fourth time to make any sense at all :-)
Pila Mulligan: as in always
Vajra Raymaker: oh there is absolute duration? That is interesting
Pema Pera: well, my battery is hitting 0% -- I'll bail out and I'm looking forward to continuing on Thursday 7 pm next week!
Vajra Raymaker: okay
Pila Mulligan: a victm of electrons
Pema Pera: bye for now, and thanks for the fun discussion, y'all !
Pila Mulligan: bye Pema-san
Vajra Raymaker: thanks for the discussion Pema
sophia Placebo: bye pema
Bertrum Quan: bye Pema

Vajra Raymaker: So Pila, would you be able to distinguish between being in time, but eternal (lasting forever) and being outside of time?
Pila Mulligan: I think so
Vajra Raymaker: lol
Vajra Raymaker: I meant with the tools that are allowed when one disavows the idea of time as something that flows
Pila Mulligan: perception of course is inescapably subjective, no matter how much we ascend the ladder, it seems
Pila Mulligan: I cannot perceive all the nuances of anyone else's expereince
Vajra Raymaker: Well, sure. Do you think of this as a practical impossibility or as a logical impossibility?
Pila Mulligan: probably both
Pila Mulligan: but let's clairfy the this of your question :)
Pila Mulligan: Do you think of [what?] as a practical impossibility or as a logical impossibility?
Vajra Raymaker: The this is "one guy not being able to perceive all the nuances of another person's experience", say of enjoying a delicious pear, or walking to work
Pila Mulligan: that's what i thoguth you meant :)
Vajra Raymaker: It might be merely because you do not have that person's body, which I would call a practical impossibility
Pila Mulligan: probably both logical and practical
Pila Mulligan: we can be very empathetic to the pont of losing ourselves
Pila Mulligan: but not quite be someone else
Vajra Raymaker: If you think you cannot even conceive of one person physically replicating another person's perspective, by e.g. having taste receptors all oriented int he same way and having the same shape and etc. etc., then
Vajra Raymaker: in that case logically impolssible
Pila Mulligan: yes
Pila Mulligan: so we are each stuck wit some uniqueness in personal expereince
Vajra Raymaker: You really think that?
Pila Mulligan: yes
Vajra Raymaker: Isn't a Star Trek machine that encodes ALL the information about the arrangement of a person's molecules, down to smaller particles if necessary, and then duplicates the person conceivable?
Pila Mulligan: sure
Pila Mulligan: but it does not expereince the person it replicates
Vajra Raymaker: Neat idea... so the experience is itself a something?
Pila Mulligan: distinguish or idenitfying what we refer to as time, be it eternal or diplaced or mundane, is therefore limited in some part according to each perosn's expereince
Pila Mulligan: yes, expereince is something unique
Pila Mulligan: like chcolate ice cream
Vajra Raymaker: : -)
Pila Mulligan: this is the best solution to the atman dilemma
Vajra Raymaker is getting hungry
Pila Mulligan: :)
Vajra Raymaker: What is the Atman dilemma, Pila?
Pila Mulligan: well, Hindu atman -- the idea of a great or collective soul shared by everyone
Vajra Raymaker: yes...?
Pila Mulligan: isn't Vajrayana the Diamond Way?
Vajra Raymaker: yes, it is a branch of Tibetan buddhism
Pila Mulligan: I am not up to snuff on Buddhism, but I think they embrace the traditional atman view -- like Dr. Broneer, we are all one
Pila Mulligan: other branches of Buddhism did ont so embrace the term
Pila Mulligan: but if you do, then you have to somehow distinguish yourself as a being, if you like
Pila Mulligan: that is the dilemma
Pila Mulligan: am i me or am I atman
Pila Mulligan: so the easy answer is you are nothing :)
Pila Mulligan: but I like i am my expereince
Pila Mulligan: my ice cream
Vajra Raymaker: Yes, that would be another answer I suppose.
Vajra Raymaker: But what unifies your various experiences/
Vajra Raymaker: ?
Vajra Raymaker: Why are they all yours, and not some of them Sophia's, for example?
Pila Mulligan: they can be shared of course, and they have their own continuity to the degree that we accurately preceive them
Pila Mulligan: but there are those tiny nuances that are not really collectively perceived
Pila Mulligan: except by emnpathy
Vajra Raymaker: But suppose you are eating icecream right now. And it tastes delicious. Why is that taste sensation one that is part of YOU and not something that is a part of Sophia?
Vajra Raymaker: What makes it a part of you?
Pila Mulligan: no doubt to the degree that she can perceive it the ice cream expereinceis part of ther also
Pila Mulligan: but if she is not perceiving it she is not epxer3eincing it
Pila Mulligan: consciously
sophia Placebo: i dont like choclate ice cream
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: vamnilla?
sophia Placebo: sure :)
Pila Mulligan: or mango?
Vajra Raymaker: lol
sophia Placebo: no not the mango
Pila Mulligan: mango is yummy
Vajra Raymaker: Mango is my favorite
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: mango vanilla -- see we can sahre some of it
Vajra Raymaker: Vanilla is good too
Vajra Raymaker: Now let's say you have the cone and Sophia's body is no where near. Do you want to say that it is an experience that is part of you but not part of Sophia?
sophia Placebo: we can share the preceptions but not like sharing a shirt i guess
Pila Mulligan: that question involves a lot of aspects, Vajra
Pila Mulligan: in a pre-conscious kind of sensation, Sophia may be just as much involved in the cone as I am
Vajra Raymaker: How do you mean, Soph?
Pila Mulligan: but only I am actually ingesting it
Pila Mulligan: yes
Pila Mulligan: sharing a shirt is eating the cone
Pila Mulligan: sharing perceptions is seeing the shirt
Pila Mulligan: or feeling the cone sensation
sophia Placebo: hmm , how should i know what is it like to be in brain surgery awake while surgeon is cutting throiugh my brain ?
Pila Mulligan: expereinif you havenot done it?
Pila Mulligan: pardon the typo
Pila Mulligan: if you have not done it how can you know
sophia Placebo: the one who experience that may not give me his experience like he is giving me his shirt
Vajra Raymaker: that would be hard to imagine if not experienced ! : -)
Bertrum Quan: bye everyone
sophia Placebo: bye bert
Vajra Raymaker: I see what you are saying I think Soph
Pila Mulligan: bye Bert
Vajra Raymaker: bye Bert
Pila Mulligan: expereince is usually bothto some degree shared and to some dgree unshareable
Vajra Raymaker: I should be off too
Pila Mulligan: bye Vajra, nice to share with you
Vajra Raymaker: I have to wake up in a few hours
sophia Placebo: bye vajra
Pila Mulligan: the coach is about to turn into a pupmkin here
Vajra Raymaker: Oh very nice meeting you and I enjoyed this conversation with all
Vajra Raymaker: That would be a good avatar that I have not yet seen on SL
Pila Mulligan: :)
Vajra Raymaker: avatar or vehicle
sophia Placebo: nice meeting you too vajra :)
Pila Mulligan: I've seens ome cinderellas though
Vajra Raymaker: I meet see you at PH, Soph?
sophia Placebo: i guess :)
Vajra Raymaker: Yes, I guess cinderella dresses are around. Hmmmm. part way there
Vajra Raymaker: : -)
Vajra Raymaker: bye
Pila Mulligan: bye bye
Vajra Raymaker: see you next time I hope
Pila Mulligan: :)
sophia Placebo: gotta be off too
sophia Placebo: bye pila
Pila Mulligan: bye Sophia, nice to see you