What is the Force

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: @loudzoo, yes I agree we are connected to our reality in a myriad of ways. But just as many people have the experience of distinct individuality as those that have the experience that we are more than separate individuals.

That the ego is an emergant property of consciousness, that consciousness is a function of the brain, that when you peel away those layers of emotion and thought there is no listener, that the cosmic drama you speak of is an illusion created by us because of an evolutionary need to see patterns. That in fact our very sense of self as a contiguous entity does not really exist and we are really alone in the universe - separate.

So I have touched the tail of the elephant and you have touched the trunk. My question then is, what is in between? You are trying to tell me we are connected by the trunk because you and others have experienced the trunk. But I'm telling you I have touched the tail. However the difference is I'm not trying to assert here that we are connected by the tail. I want to know what connects the tail to the trunk? What is it that connects a single idea we each experience differently and could never prove to the other anyway but yet we cant deny exists as a single entity?

This is going to be a bit clunky, but the only way I can succinctly attempt to answer so many questions and cover this much ground is through bullet points. This is great stuff but it’s a lot to cover!

1. Yes - I’d argue more people experience distinct individuality than universal connection. But, this is a learnt position. Babies cannot distinguish between themselves and everything else - so in a sense we have all experienced universal connection. Psychologists call it the oceanic feeling (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003065117690352)
For those of a Christian disposition this explains verses such as Matthew 18 2-4 pretty clearly(“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.)

2. Agreed - Ego is an emergent property of consciousness
(If anyone can ever agree on what consciousness actually is)

3. Consciousness is called the Hard Problem for good reason. It seems linked to the brain for sure
but to suggest it is merely an epiphenomenon has many problems. That really is another thread - I’m not being evasive!! See here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphenomenalism

4. Yes - the drama is an illusion, it is the maya. Worse than that - it’s not much more than a metaphor.

5. The split between speaker and listener in our heads is a ‘middle step’ it’s not the finally integrated reality.

6. “That in fact our very sense of self as a contiguous entity does not really exist and we are really alone in the universe - separate.”

I didn’t understand this. I completely agree with the first half and can’t see how you can get from the first half to the second half. If you are not a contiguous entity how can you be alone? There is no ‘you’ - in common understanding of what that word means!

7. Your ‘tail’ sounds and feels very, very familiar to me. That is the kind of human experience our current culture produces. I spend a lot of time at the tail! You find the trunk and all sorts of other bits of the elephant by working your way around the elephant. You have to let go of the tail and explore to do that though. It’s tough to do that.

We know the tail, the tail is safe, lots of people we respect tell us the tail is all there is, only knowing the tail seems to work really well for some people etc etc.

How do we explore? We must be humble and accept we probably don’t know that much - that there is more to discover. We must have the risk appetite to take some intellectual / spiritual / personal risks - to potentially seem foolish. We must develop our sensory capabilities: not the five senses but our powers of introspection, contemplation, concentration and meditation. And we will benefit from studying the maps that other explorers have left behind for our benefit.

Jediism (call it syncretic or perennial) is the study of these maps and an attempt to draw new ones as we go in our own journeys of exploration around the elephant.

8. How can we know that the tail or the trunk or the leg or the ear of the elephant is the same one as someone else is experiencing? Some say it takes a leap of faith - Soren Kierkegaard is the guy to turn to for more on that. I think it’s more evidence based than that. If we sit by a lake and watch ducks paddling about I don’t spend much time concerned with whether or not you are watching the same ducks as me. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck - it’s a duck

I don't read enough philosophy to say for sure, but I'd probably say;
1. a monist ground 'within' mind, from
2. the brain, body and environment as a physicalist vehicle 'for' mind, creating an
3. enactivism 'as' mind.

And perhaps in Dzogchen that translates to being the minds essence, its nature, and its power. Dunno if that can translate to the 3 Tenets here, and I shouldn't really talk about philosophy since I dunno much about it!!!!

In effect, our minds experience through one 'substance' (waking and dreaming awareness) (1) which is manifested from the states of information (3) created by the physical processes of the body (2).

Beyond that is unknown and unknowable, and so action perceived as being outside our 'self' is all actually various degrees of faith! But ranging wide from concrete repeatable and logical expectations, to delusional paradigms, and everything in between

And that plants lack 1 and 3 (by virtue of not having central processing apparatus), and other animals seem to have different types of 3 (not to mention different anatomy!). The Force then for me exists in all 3, and the trick is working ways to relate (in each conduit of it) to mind. So discussion of what the Force is, for me, really limited to connection; embody 1 as grounding, embed in 2 as path, and extend 3 as result.

Edit; In closing, so most every animal (humans being equally bad offenders) spends its time dealing with the interaction between 2 and 3 often going around in circles, while the spiritual approach is to refine 2 and 3 in various ways to enable 1 or generate change in 3, which creates a balancing influence that enables a resonance and harmony of mind, but how that translates to the body though seems more complex. And that process tends to also improve 2, which is why superficial 'spirituality' is popular in consumer cultures for its tendency to achieve some nature of result - and avoiding the pitfalls like falling into delusion or activating some imbalance.

For me the Force and the Jedi Way offer lots of avenues to investigate and experiment with these approach :side:

Loudzoo wrote: 1. Yes - I’d argue more people experience distinct individuality than universal connection. But, this is a learnt position. Babies cannot distinguish between themselves and everything else - so in a sense we have all experienced universal connection. Psychologists call it the oceanic feeling (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003065117690352)
For those of a Christian disposition this explains verses such as Matthew 18 2-4 pretty clearly(“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.)

2. Agreed - Ego is an emergent property of consciousness
(If anyone can ever agree on what consciousness actually is)

3. Consciousness is called the Hard Problem for good reason. It seems linked to the brain for sure
but to suggest it is merely an epiphenomenon has many problems. That really is another thread - I’m not being evasive!! See here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphenomenalism

4. Yes - the drama is an illusion, it is the maya. Worse than that - it’s not much more than a metaphor.

5. The split between speaker and listener in our heads is a ‘middle step’ it’s not the finally integrated reality.

6. “That in fact our very sense of self as a contiguous entity does not really exist and we are really alone in the universe - separate.”

I didn’t understand this. I completely agree with the first half and can’t see how you can get from the first half to the second half. If you are not a contiguous entity how can you be alone? There is no ‘you’ - in common understanding of what that word means!

7. Your ‘tail’ sounds and feels very, very familiar to me. That is the kind of human experience our current culture produces. I spend a lot of time at the tail! You find the trunk and all sorts of other bits of the elephant by working your way around the elephant. You have to let go of the tail and explore to do that though. It’s tough to do that.

We know the tail, the tail is safe, lots of people we respect tell us the tail is all there is, only knowing the tail seems to work really well for some people etc etc.

How do we explore? We must be humble and accept we probably don’t know that much - that there is more to discover. We must have the risk appetite to take some intellectual / spiritual / personal risks - to potentially seem foolish. We must develop our sensory capabilities: not the five senses but our powers of introspection, contemplation, concentration and meditation. And we will benefit from studying the maps that other explorers have left behind for our benefit.

Jediism (call it syncretic or perennial) is the study of these maps and an attempt to draw new ones as we go in our own journeys of exploration around the elephant.

8. How can we know that the tail or the trunk or the leg or the ear of the elephant is the same one as someone else is experiencing? Some say it takes a leap of faith - Soren Kierkegaard is the guy to turn to for more on that. I think it’s more evidence based than that. If we sit by a lake and watch ducks paddling about I don’t spend much time concerned with whether or not you are watching the same ducks as me. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck - it’s a duck

@loudzoo, But you are still trying to convince me of the existence of the trunk here. If that “split” is a middle step what does the integrated reality consist of?

You are correct, there is no “you” in common understanding. Consider the thought experiment of the ship of theseus. If a ship, named "Adventure" sets sail on a voyage around the world and over the course of that voyage parts wear out and so they are replaced, even crew members get replaced. All this continues until when that ship sails into harbor after its voyage, not a single part of the ship that set sail is the same except for its name, "Adventure". Is that the same ship that left on the voyage? If you say that it is not, then at what point did it become a different ship? If you say that it is the same ship, what is it that has kept it the same even though none of the ship that left is what has returned?

The very idea that we can work our way around the elephant is a misnomer. We can’t because that requires belief. And if I don’t believe the trunk exists there is no way I could ever work myself to that point. This is not to say that some can’t experience the tail and then become convinced of the trunks existence but the two are actually mutually exclusive. Meaning you can’t touch the tail and the trunk at the same time. To touch the trunk you have to let go of the tail. But you can’t experience both simultaneously. In that regard I am not a believer in dualism. I am a materialist.

You mention a leap of faith as well. I don’t not accept faith as a means to interpret my world. Faith is not a path to truth and I want to know and experience the world in a manner that is a close to truth as possible so I can’t accept faith as a means to do that. In any case I’m not asking you to convince me the trunk exists. I’m accepting that you believe it exists and that is fine for the sake of this discussion.

So that leaves us once again with the idea that I know the tail and you know the trunk and my question remains. What is it that connects those two things? We perceive different things but what connects those perceptions? What makes that ship that sailed into the harbor either a different ship or the same ship based on your belief? It’s still a ship right? But why? It’s still an elephant, but why?

Why does the force exist and what is it that connects us even though we both have wildly different concepts of it?

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

Loudzoo wrote: 1. Yes - I’d argue more people experience distinct individuality than universal connection. But, this is a learnt position. Babies cannot distinguish between themselves and everything else - so in a sense we have all experienced universal connection. Psychologists call it the oceanic feeling (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003065117690352)
For those of a Christian disposition this explains verses such as Matthew 18 2-4 pretty clearly(“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.)

2. Agreed - Ego is an emergent property of consciousness
(If anyone can ever agree on what consciousness actually is)

3. Consciousness is called the Hard Problem for good reason. It seems linked to the brain for sure
but to suggest it is merely an epiphenomenon has many problems. That really is another thread - I’m not being evasive!! See here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphenomenalism

4. Yes - the drama is an illusion, it is the maya. Worse than that - it’s not much more than a metaphor.

5. The split between speaker and listener in our heads is a ‘middle step’ it’s not the finally integrated reality.

6. “That in fact our very sense of self as a contiguous entity does not really exist and we are really alone in the universe - separate.”

I didn’t understand this. I completely agree with the first half and can’t see how you can get from the first half to the second half. If you are not a contiguous entity how can you be alone? There is no ‘you’ - in common understanding of what that word means!

7. Your ‘tail’ sounds and feels very, very familiar to me. That is the kind of human experience our current culture produces. I spend a lot of time at the tail! You find the trunk and all sorts of other bits of the elephant by working your way around the elephant. You have to let go of the tail and explore to do that though. It’s tough to do that.

We know the tail, the tail is safe, lots of people we respect tell us the tail is all there is, only knowing the tail seems to work really well for some people etc etc.

How do we explore? We must be humble and accept we probably don’t know that much - that there is more to discover. We must have the risk appetite to take some intellectual / spiritual / personal risks - to potentially seem foolish. We must develop our sensory capabilities: not the five senses but our powers of introspection, contemplation, concentration and meditation. And we will benefit from studying the maps that other explorers have left behind for our benefit.

Jediism (call it syncretic or perennial) is the study of these maps and an attempt to draw new ones as we go in our own journeys of exploration around the elephant.

8. How can we know that the tail or the trunk or the leg or the ear of the elephant is the same one as someone else is experiencing? Some say it takes a leap of faith - Soren Kierkegaard is the guy to turn to for more on that. I think it’s more evidence based than that. If we sit by a lake and watch ducks paddling about I don’t spend much time concerned with whether or not you are watching the same ducks as me. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck - it’s a duck

@loudzoo, But you are still trying to convince me of the existence of the trunk here. If that “split” is a middle step what does the integrated reality consist of?

You are correct, there is no “you” in common understanding. Consider the thought experiment of the ship of theseus. If a ship, named "Adventure" sets sail on a voyage around the world and over the course of that voyage parts wear out and so they are replaced, even crew members get replaced. All this continues until when that ship sails into harbor after its voyage, not a single part of the ship that set sail is the same except for its name, "Adventure". Is that the same ship that left on the voyage? If you say that it is not, then at what point did it become a different ship? If you say that it is the same ship, what is it that has kept it the same even though none of the ship that left is what has returned?

The very idea that we can work our way around the elephant is a misnomer. We can’t because that requires belief. And if I don’t believe the trunk exists there is no way I could ever work myself to that point. This is not to say that some can’t experience the tail and then become convinced of the trunks existence but the two are actually mutually exclusive. Meaning you can’t touch the tail and the trunk at the same time. To touch the trunk you have to let go of the tail. But you can’t experience both simultaneously. In that regard I am not a believer in dualism. I am a materialist.

You mention a leap of faith as well. I don’t not accept faith as a means to interpret my world. Faith is not a path to truth and I want to know and experience the world in a manner that is a close to truth as possible so I can’t accept faith as a means to do that. In any case I’m not asking you to convince me the trunk exists. I’m accepting that you believe it exists and that is fine for the sake of this discussion.

So that leaves us once again with the idea that I know the tail and you know the trunk and my question remains. What is it that connects those two things? We perceive different things but what connects those perceptions? What makes that ship that sailed into the harbor either a different ship or the same ship based on your belief? It’s still a ship right? But why? It’s still an elephant, but why?

Why does the force exist and what is it that connects us even though we both have wildly different concepts of it?

The answer for me (if I may here?) is not about what it is but what it does. What is the same about the ship before and after, beyond its name is its [intended] function. In the this consideration, the elephant itself is not a "thing" (metaphors while helpful for ideas let's not forget are a bit limited for intangible ideas), but a happening. The phenomenon of existence itself is what is happening. It is that happening, to me, that constitutes the universal commonality of all life. But that doesn't say much of anything when trying to approach that from a typical ego-conditioned point of view. The larger and better understood picture of what that even means is only found in moments when the veil of one's individual identity is stripped (even if for only a moment). The sages of history are known for discovering that "layer" of existence in moments of "enlightenment" where their consciousness discovers direct connection to "being" (as in the verb). Because of this, I don't know if there could be any clear enough logical explanation of where the rest of this "elephant" is because human language is likely too limited in function to accomplish describing such a thing. And that is what I understand the existence of myth tries to at least get somewhat near with symbolic storytelling.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: The very idea that we can work our way around the elephant is a misnomer. We can’t because that requires belief. And if I don’t believe the trunk exists there is no way I could ever work myself to that point. This is not to say that some can’t experience the tail and then become convinced of the trunks existence but the two are actually mutually exclusive. Meaning you can’t touch the tail and the trunk at the same time. To touch the trunk you have to let go of the tail. But you can’t experience both simultaneously. In that regard I am not a believer in dualism. I am a materialist.

You can do exercises in suspension of disbelief. It doesn't mean you have to continue to believe something after the exercise if you aren't satisfied with the results. To an extent the same is true of meditation. You have to believe it will work for it to be most effective. In a some ways, belief is the root of will when it comes to mind over matter. You can touch the trunk if you reach for it, and decide for yourself, but generally speaking you still have to take it upon yourself to reach out to feel it. If you don't like or agree with what you feel, reject it. Many people touch it and come to wildly different interpretations. Additionally, there are people who don't believe or know the trunk, but are thrust into an experience where they experience it whether they're seeking to or not, but upon feeling the trunk come to a new understanding of the elephant.

I understand that this sounds like the common refrain, "if you believe it, it's real." I'm not saying that. My experience, and the experience of others, is that the trunk is very real, it's there to be studied and learned about. Your belief or disbelief doesn't affect it's existence, but you're likely to not access it or find evidence of it unless you give yourself the opportunity to try to experience it.

No one method fits all people. There are many ways to get to the same place.

Kira wrote: You can do exercises in suspension of disbelief. It doesn't mean you have to continue to believe something after the exercise if you aren't satisfied with the results. To an extent the same is true of meditation. You have to believe it will work for it to be most effective. In a some ways, belief is the root of will when it comes to mind over matter. You can touch the trunk if you reach for it, and decide for yourself, but generally speaking you still have to take it upon yourself to reach out to feel it. If you don't like or agree with what you feel, reject it. Many people touch it and come to wildly different interpretations. Additionally, there are people who don't believe or know the trunk, but are thrust into an experience where they experience it whether they're seeking to or not, but upon feeling the trunk come to a new understanding of the elephant.

No one method fits all people. There are many ways to get to the same place.

Yes I agree. I think that what you are getting at is another way to say what I was trying to say. But belief is not a choice. you cant choose to believe something or not believe it. In this regard I have reached for the trunk many times and I have never been convinced of its existence. This is not to say that I believe the trunk does not exist, just that Im not convinced it does exist. This is the default skeptical position. What I am trying to get at is the layer beneath the trunk and the tail. What is that?

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

Kira wrote: You can do exercises in suspension of disbelief. It doesn't mean you have to continue to believe something after the exercise if you aren't satisfied with the results. To an extent the same is true of meditation. You have to believe it will work for it to be most effective. In a some ways, belief is the root of will when it comes to mind over matter. You can touch the trunk if you reach for it, and decide for yourself, but generally speaking you still have to take it upon yourself to reach out to feel it. If you don't like or agree with what you feel, reject it. Many people touch it and come to wildly different interpretations. Additionally, there are people who don't believe or know the trunk, but are thrust into an experience where they experience it whether they're seeking to or not, but upon feeling the trunk come to a new understanding of the elephant.

No one method fits all people. There are many ways to get to the same place.

Yes I agree. I think that what you are getting at is another way to say what I was trying to say. But belief is not a choice. you cant choose to believe something or not believe it. In this regard I have reached for the trunk many times and I have never been convinced of its existence. This is not to say that I believe the trunk does not exist, just that Im not convinced it does exist. This is the default skeptical position. What I am trying to get at is the layer beneath the trunk and the tail. What is that?

I disagree about belief. To me, it's a means to an end. If belief is a state of mind, which I find to be true, and it is one of the many keys to the door to knowledge then I will use it to find out concrete things that I can know. I don't have faith in the Force. I don't worship it. It's as real to me as gravity or electromagnetism. Belief was a way to initiate this exploration. I don't need belief anymore. Belief is like kindling to start the fire. At all times when I'm doing these practices, I strive to be a skeptic, to use the scientific method as much as possible. I have no interest in believing something that isn't real or true.

In a lot of ways this relationship between belief and knowing is paradoxical.

What do we mean by belief? I think you two (Kira and Kyrin) may be referring to two different ideas of belief.

I think there is the belief in a possibility of something (the humoring of an idea at least) and then there is a deep personal existential belief created by (like I mentioned before) one's default cultural paradigm. The latter one is not come to by simple choice. It is akin to stumbling upon it and being overtaken by it even subconsciously. Sometimes I even comparer it to falling in love (in those times you never even wanted to).

Kira wrote:
I disagree about belief. To me, it's a means to an end. If belief is a state of mind, which I find to be true, and it is one of the many keys to the door to knowledge then I will use it to find out concrete things that I can know. I don't have faith in the Force. I don't worship it. It's as real to me as gravity or electromagnetism. Belief was a way to initiate this exploration. I don't need belief anymore. Belief is like kindling to start the fire. At all times when I'm doing these practices, I strive to be a skeptic, to use the scientific method as much as possible. I have no interest in believing something that isn't real or true.

In a lot of ways this relationship between belief and knowing is paradoxical.

But belief is not a key to the door to knowledge. That is my point. Can you be wrong about something you believe? Of course you can, just as you can be wrong about something you have faith in. Neither one is a viable mechanism in the pursuit of truth. That kindling you speak of is not in belief, it is in experience. Experience has nothing to do with belief. Belief is a reaction to experience. You experience an event and come to believe something about that experience (Your state of mind). In other words you form a hypothesis about that experience. Then you must test that hypothesis to see if your belief is true or not true. You cant just go from belief to truth (knowledge) without this step. That is faith and once again something you can be wrong about. Evidence must be provided in order to substantiate that belief. If that evidence is not there or proves the belief to be false that belief must be abandoned or at least reserved until such time as evidence is provided.

Each of us has different paths and each of us has different values of beliefs. Some beliefs bring things others do not - maybe in the belief itself or the person or a balance of both. Human beings can choose their beliefs and faith or accept. That’s the joy of being human - we DO have a choice. Can’t say it’s not for some when it very well may be . Knowledge comes in many forms and so CAN things like truths and faiths and beliefs. In some faith , experience has everything to do with it and some faiths experience counts for not.
These things like should and must are some times suggestion ... let’s not forget what was constant in one path may not be for others. It may be for just one. I try always to leave room for what I don’t know - smiley face - it usually is the first few chairs that fill up , but make room for others is my goal. Some need evidence. That’s ok. Some dont. Happy seeking Jedi !