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RE: Thought Experiment: Who Are You Really?

in #philosophy6 years ago (edited)

I don't think anyone can know anything with absolute certainty, but it's possible to think you know something and say you know something with absolute certainty (i.e. organized religion). But even if we cannot know anything for certain, it's possible to perceive the formless & nameless.

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You're right, but it's not about knowing the known. It's about the unknown :) Exploring...
It's more of a feeling than it is a knowable comprehensible thing

The only purpose of the unknown for me is making it known I.e. Acquiring knowledge and wisdom. The stateless state of remaining in the unknown is not something that I am interested in. For some people it makes sense but not for me, at least not right now.

@scottcbusiness

That makes total sense.
For me it's like...
To genuinely seek truth, you must forget everything you knew and rebuild. To genuinely seek truth you must lose who you were before to become who you must be in order to do this. To genuinely seek truth you won't be you and yet it will be the most you that you've ever been.

There are two types of truths, more or less.

One is a practical kind of truth that involves knowledge or wisdom, and the other is the absolute truth.

Knowledge and wisdom can make your life better and you can use it to make the lives of other people better. But the absolute truth is unknowable, so it doesn't make sense to seek it.

The only purpose of seeking the absolute truth is in realizing that you will never know the absolute truth and cannot know the absolute truth with absolute certainty. @scottcbusiness

A lot of the teachers and spiritual texts involve a wild goose chase to get people tired of seeking the absolute truth. It also provides a livelihood for some of the self-realized authors. But for simple people that have realized the truth of their texts, they will tell you plainly, there is nothing to be gained from seeking the absolute truth (except maybe realizing for yourself that it is unknowable).

Haha yeah, it's interesting how when someone says I have nothing to teach people they think they all the more to secretly share

Yeah, I got caught up in some of that myself @scottcbusiness It gets confusing for people seeking the truth since most teachers use poetry to get their point acrossed. It's possible to be much more direct but a direct message that doesn't offer any benefits is less attractive and would not acquire the followings that many teachers have (and had).

I consider myself lucky to realize all of this. @scottcbusiness Being a truth seeker is pleasurable in a way but expecting a grand realization of some sort and believing that the absolute truth is attainable is bad for the mind. It can add a lot of stress to a person's life and in some cases, it can make people sick.

To acquire more knowledge and wisdom it is important to reassess what we think we know but it doesn't make sense to forget everything and start from scratch @scottcbusiness Questioning our assumptions is good, but questioning what we think we know is not the same thing as forgetting.

I think the sentences you wrote indicate that you are searching for or residing in the unknown a.k.a. You are enjoying NOT KNOWING.

It's more like..... I believe if you were to genuinely seek truth you'd realize that you couldn't do so without shedding all your biases

I think that falls along the lines of remaining open-minded and questioning our assumptions. It will not give any of us the absolute truth, but it does lead to knowledge and wisdom.

...it's possible to perceive the formless & nameless.

Totally agree. To try to explain it through our system of subject-object language/barking pretty well always falls short, in my opinion. To the point that it would seem almost impossible to get a handle on except in a experiential way. Some teachers may have that ability so not meaning to rule out verbal teachings entirely.