RMQualtrough
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2021
There is no external world, your perceptions happening in mind are all there is.
You can never know what is out there... Because for a thing to be "like" something, an observer is required. E.g. for certain wavelengths of light to appear as red, this can only happen in mind. We know that if we exit our minds red is not actually "out there".
What is observer without observed (there is none), and what is observed without observer?
If we exit our minds somehow, it would be impossible for the external world to be "like" anything whatsoever. Not big, small, round, square. If it's not like anything, it must be like the only thing that does not require an observer to give subjective form or meaning to: Literal nothingness.
A color can't exist outside of our experience since the way in which it appears to us through our sensorial apparatus is part and parcel of what it means to be a color.
A perception and the way it appears to us are the very same thing. A sound and the way it sounds to us is the very same thing – which also happens to be what we mean by hearing. A color and the way it looks to us is the very same thing – which also happens to be what we mean by seeing. We objectify these perceptions and imagine them to exist independently of our experience, but it’s precisely to be in our experience that makes them what they are to begin with. That is, the way perceptions appear to us is equivalent to what they are.
A color cannot exist independently of experience, because in conceiving it as such, we need to think away the seeing from the color – but that is to think away the very thing that the color is, namely seeing. Any thinking in which color is regarded objectively involves this conceptual sleight-of-hand that ultimately ends in a situation where we must imagine seeing to exist independently of experiencing in order to pull it off.
We can begin to understand why things as they are in themselves cannot have color, and why they can’t be round nor hard – color is nothing but seeing, and shape and texture and softness is nothing but feeling. An object can’t be hard in and of itself, since we by hard refer to a manifestation of feeling. Neither can it be red nor round, if we by those words refer to manifestations of seeing – which we do, since it was from seeing that those concepts were derived from to begin with.
You can never know what is out there... Because for a thing to be "like" something, an observer is required. E.g. for certain wavelengths of light to appear as red, this can only happen in mind. We know that if we exit our minds red is not actually "out there".
What is observer without observed (there is none), and what is observed without observer?
If we exit our minds somehow, it would be impossible for the external world to be "like" anything whatsoever. Not big, small, round, square. If it's not like anything, it must be like the only thing that does not require an observer to give subjective form or meaning to: Literal nothingness.
A color can't exist outside of our experience since the way in which it appears to us through our sensorial apparatus is part and parcel of what it means to be a color.
A perception and the way it appears to us are the very same thing. A sound and the way it sounds to us is the very same thing – which also happens to be what we mean by hearing. A color and the way it looks to us is the very same thing – which also happens to be what we mean by seeing. We objectify these perceptions and imagine them to exist independently of our experience, but it’s precisely to be in our experience that makes them what they are to begin with. That is, the way perceptions appear to us is equivalent to what they are.
A color cannot exist independently of experience, because in conceiving it as such, we need to think away the seeing from the color – but that is to think away the very thing that the color is, namely seeing. Any thinking in which color is regarded objectively involves this conceptual sleight-of-hand that ultimately ends in a situation where we must imagine seeing to exist independently of experiencing in order to pull it off.
We can begin to understand why things as they are in themselves cannot have color, and why they can’t be round nor hard – color is nothing but seeing, and shape and texture and softness is nothing but feeling. An object can’t be hard in and of itself, since we by hard refer to a manifestation of feeling. Neither can it be red nor round, if we by those words refer to manifestations of seeing – which we do, since it was from seeing that those concepts were derived from to begin with.
