[MD] Blink

[david buchanan]

lower case said to dmb:
i will resist probing your implication that dq is not related to mysticism 
and agree then with your implication that mysticism is not "mystical or 
mysterious."

dmb replies:
I did not mean to imply any such thing. As I understand it, DQ is most 
definately related to mysticism. I only meant to point out that the mystical 
reality ought not be conceived as spectacular, supernatural or 
extraordinary. Its always right here and right now, but since our normal way 
of being in the world is to rely on the static conceptual process we're 
unaware of it.

Upper Case said:
If this is all one needs to achieve enlightenment it is difficult to see why 
it would take years of arcane practice to get there. ...I guess if this is 
the sort of thing you mean by mysticism color me mystical but what's that 
got to do with cosmic consciousness and oneness with the universe?

dmb says:
Okay, good questions. If the pre-intellectual experience is that brief 
moment before this this reality is divided up into concepts, then we can say 
the pre-intellectual reality is undivided. The relevant division in this 
case would be one of the most basic to our conceptual scheme; the 
distinction between self and the world. This distinction is made so 
habitually and so automatically, that most of us believe this is a natural 
feature of reality rather than an inherited conceptual interpretaion. And so 
its just common sense in our culture to think that you and the world are 
definately not one and the same. So the years of arcane practice are aimed 
at controlling the mind so as to avoid this automatic and habitul 
distinction making process and instead hold on to that otherwise brief 
moment. After a lifetime of believing that you are separate from the world, 
this state of undivided, undifferentiated mode of consciousness reveals what 
was right under your nose the whole time, that you are not separate from the 
world. This at-one-ment is a mystical experience, it is the realization of 
the lack of division. After a lifetime of believing the opposite, this can 
be quite powerful and so we hear stories about it in terms of amazement and 
such, but its not like you see fireworks, learn all the secrets of life and 
automatically get a PhD in everything. I'm not so sure these things can be 
explained in physiological terms, but I would argue that it is completely 
natural. And finally, maybe the goal isn't to achieve this unitive vision so 
much as it is to realize that our conventional reality is very plastic, that 
there is a lot of room for creativity in shaping it.

Test Case said:
...a trained observer can read with incredible accuracy the emotional states 
of individuals across cultures from their facial expressions. In other words 
our unconscious action and mental states are biologically and 
physiologically hardwired.

dmb says:
I find that very easy to believe. I suppose we all know this level of 
communication from experience and use it every day. Wasn't there a study 
that concluded verbal content is only a small part of what is said when 
people are talking? Seems it was counted as less than 20% of the total info 
conveyed, but its an old memory.

Always a pleasure.

_________________________________________________________________
Add a Yahoo! contact to Windows Live Messenger for a chance to win a free 
trip! 
http://www.imagine-windowslive.com/minisites/yahoo/default.aspx?locale=en-us&hmtagline