Reply to the response to Entry 414

"First I have to say that to my knowledge science of today rely on two ways to gain information:

1. By rational/ critical/ logical thinking. However by doing so they rely on thoughts that in turn are just instruments of some kind of subject behind them that uses them. Thus the knowledge gained from thinking is relative as an information source about the subject behind them, and will never be the subject itself, or reach it.
2. By using our five senses. We gain information about the world and conduct experiments that prove/disprove a hypothesis. Thus the knowledge gained from the senses is relative as an information source about the subject behind them, and they are forever separated from the subject.

In summary relying on thinking/senses for information about who we truly are will give us only relative secondary information, and never be able to reach the subject itself that is using them.

In my view we must begin our search with what we know (that we exist), and as close to correctness as possible. This gives that: we can’t rely on thinking/senses as a way to know who we truly are, since they are separated from it, and will give only speculative information (this gives also that all knowledge gained by thoughts/senses is relative = that is possibly all science of today). We can’t even assume that the world or other people exist since we know it from our thinking/senses.

‘How do you more reasonably truly know your knowledge of subjects is truly who you are? In other words, what is it about your knowledge of subjects that allows you to more reasonably say it is complete knowledge of who you are?’

‘You appear to imply that there is a oneness connecting all subjects, and if so it takes you to the questions of what is origin of the oneness, and how does the oneness of subjects allow you to more reasonably truly know who you are?’

(Well all right I will let you know that I’m a fan of the Advaita Vedanta philosophy of Adi Shankara.)"

Mattias Svensson January 5 2003

Response:

We agree that the relative nature of human thought is a barrier to more reasonably truly knowing who we are, so that it follows that if the relative nature of human thought is overcome, it may be possible to more reasonably truly know who we are. Though it is unclear how you can eliminate the relative nature of human thought, and still have anything you can know, and how you can know something "beyond thinking/senses" and know that you have. Can you give a more reasonable example of non-relative human thought?

Other issues:

We agree that your claim "you exist in someway or another" cannot more reasonably be denied. However, that does not mean that your claim is more reasonably true knowledge.

Since apparently we cannot get outside of our minds and know that we are, so that all we can know is what we know, we equate our five senses with our thoughts and vise versa. To separate our thoughts from our five senses ignores the inherent connection between them, stemming from our apparent inability to get outside of our minds.

417. Entry:

Reply to the response to Entry 416

"I will not argue anymore over this. I have given an opinion and you have responded better than I hoped. The question of the challenge is really a great one and it touches upon the very essence of both philosophy, religion, physics, biology etc, etc... But I still feel that one second of meditation would be as good as debating for one hour. For me to continue this argumentation would be fruitless since I know that meditation can open doors to new understanding that intellectual reasoning never can reach. I sense in your answer to Entry 416 that you don't have a clue about this."

Mattias Svensson January 8 2003

Response:

We acknowledge that it is possible that you are correct that "meditation can open doors to new understanding that intellectual reasoning can never reach." However, it is unclear how you can attain understanding through meditation or any else, without reasoning at some level. Viz., we can only understand based on what we consciously know, and therefore, understanding requires reasoning at some level or else there is no understanding we can know, and if we cannot know understanding, and it does not make sense how we can say we understand. This problem takes us to another problem from the response to Entry 416, in which it does not follow how we can overcome our causal, relative perspective and know that we have. We do not see a way out except for less reasonable faith in, for example, the ability of meditation to transcend our causal, relative knowing, and in the end attain a state of non-causal, non-relative knowing or understanding. (Note, if there is something about meditation, the act of concentrating on a single point, we don’t know, we would like to know. I.e. what is it about meditation on a single point that it more reasonably leads to understanding beyond our causal, relative perspective?)

418. Entry:

Reply to the response to Entry 417

"Now first of all I am not competent to finish this off in a perfect way, since my knowledge and experience in both philosophy/ meditation is not complete in any way.
Lets look at the most famous Zen koan ‘you know the sound of two hands clapping, now hear the sound of one hand clapping’. Try to explain that in intellectual terms.
But people have solved it through meditation and understand it quite well; this point is well documented in history!
Now to explain this intellectually you would probably need to know exactly how the human is built physically, psychologically, (and maybe spiritually), if not no one will take you seriously and just think you were making up stories (the question is just if this will be possible with normal scientific methods?). On the other hand, what if someone did the experience and explained it, we still would not believe it since its beyond the capacity of the intellect and we don’t experience it our selves!
So we are caught here in between just as I think this challenge is.

If no one can solve your challenge try to change it into this one: ‘why is this question so difficult to solve?’"

Mattias Svensson January 9 2003

Response:

The Zen koan can be explained using the concept of "interconnectedness", whereby the two hands are in a state of oneness. Viz., one hand clapping symbolizes two hands clapping. However, this interpretation is only our opinion, and it depends on what the author of the Zen koan meant.

We concede that it is possible that someone may be able to more reasonably truly know who we are, but it is beyond the intellectual capacity of anyone else to more reasonably truly know. We cannot do anything about this problem except make the Competition as transparent and accessible as possible.

We think that as long as the proposition is not overcome and reasons are provided, the Competition is answering your question on why the proposition is so difficult to overcome. A more pertinent question for after the Competition as suggested by Chris Brown in Entry 411, is to ask a question based on who we more reasonably are in terms of incomplete knowledge.

419. Entry:

Dispute of the response to Entry 412

"I had missed this ‘Other issue’ at the end of 411 Entry and address it here.

Other issue: (411 Entry)

You say ‘completion of perception occurs every instant’, and yet how do you more reasonably know that the perception in the instant is complete, and in what sense is it complete?

Indirect perceptions are what they are and willful efforts to increase them have limited gain. To commit much time to doing so very quickly becomes unreasonable hence the approach to knowing with sourcing of knowledge direct from the unconscious with somnambulism and devising ways to make it conscious so it may work with direct knowledge within the self as it arrives to optimize the satisfaction of life. Direct perceptions are filtered by the unconscious and so are not easily increased when a limit is unconsciously applied.

Request:
It appears that a common symantical vagary is clouding our more reasonable knowing of how we might truly know ourselves in part or in whole. Accordingly it seems reasonable at this point that the competition focus on the meaning of the word ‘truly’. Our reasoning has traversed the qualities of; quantity and has settled somewhat the temporal question in that the simultaneous aspect of knowing is achieved by combinations of indirect with direct perceptions.

Disputes, 412 Entry:

Accepted with moderation:
Since you acknowledge that ‘the totality of the self is patently unknowable in one moment’, you implicitly acknowledge that we cannot more reasonably truly know and be who we are at the same time.

Moderation:
Yes in the moment where indirect knowledge of who we are transforms into direct consciously accessed knowledge. Afterwards an increased conscious direct experience of knowing occurs. This lasts for a few days as this is the threshold for memory that addressees immediate needs. Ironically here, the individual who is attempting to know themselves more reasonably and still be as themselves actually has no immediate reasonable need to do so. The entire effort is the product of compulsive desire for self knowledge and control. The increases of indirect information continue until suddenly so much unconscious knowledge has become conscious, that at a point, intermittently for three days, the person subjectively cannot help but know, increasingly, of who they are, while the action of doing so is manifesting exactly who they are. Knowing and being simultaneously the same person in short periods. Since the activity is not a need but a deep desire, the Ego accepts the activity as need then the Id allows the activity to momentarily dominate the mental being on a selectively filtered level. More on this at the end of the disputes.

Accepted with augmentation:
‘To get around this acknowledgement, you contend that.... by establishing more reasonable partial knowledge of who we are, the proposition can be overcome....’

Explanation:
The moderation to the first dispute addresses this fact of existential limit to our existence.

Disputed with moderation:
However, you are overlooking that the proposition refers to both true part knowledge and true whole knowledge, and since true part knowledge in order to be considered complete requires true whole knowledge as well,....

Moderation:
Consciously knowing of the complete aspects of partial knowledge by indirect perception of intuition, feelings, allow us to accumulate factual basis. This relates to the way time and knowledge of ourselves, accumulated as the Id makes its way through a quest it cannot complete because it cannot reason, and the Ego has only the facts the Id allows it until it can reason deeply enough, with relation to the Ids purposes, to make it understand. The more indirect knowledge of oneself released by the Id becomes knowable in the way the Id demands but cannot provide itself.

Accepted with relation to first moderation and the above:
true part knowledge and true whole knowledge are simultaneous. You may wonder why we even make the distinction between part and whole, and the answer is we have done so for the sake of clarity, especially in regard to empiricists who may think that though they do not truly know all of themselves, and they truly know part of themselves.

Disputed:
To get around your acknowledgement in another way, you contend that the Competition is ‘folly’ in its quest for completion.

Dispute:
The quest for completion is only folly when knowledge useful to more completely knowing in the long term is ignored to enable a completion fulfilling a short term fear or desire. Dissociative actions of memory are the main tool of the Id to deprive the Ego as it tries to reason its way into an understanding that might control the Id for its own purposes.

Accepted with moderation:
Viz., if you are correct that complete knowledge is ‘patently unknowable’, then any quest for complete knowledge without entailing the quest for usable knowledge is nonsensical.

Moderation:
The quest for complete knowledge directly in a single moment or even contiguous moments is not within human mental capability. Indirect knowledge, strong emotions and spiritual movements provide a very adequate ‘background’ for knowledge of the self.

Disputed:
What you overlook is that it is possible to completely know,

Dispute:
Direct complete knowledge of who we are is not possible, indirect knowledge, not fitting the strict criteria of ‘completion’ makes a sense of ‘completion’ felt.

Accepted without refute:
and therefore the Competition, if the proposition is overcome, could result in usable knowledge, and even if the proposition is not overcome, it will result in usable knowledge. I.e. the knowledge that our identity is defined more reasonably by our inability to truly know our identity, which in turn may be used to shape our outlook. We do not see how you can refute this position, because knowledge of our more reasonable inability to truly know who we are is both knowledge of who we are and usable knowledge of who we are.

Accepted with augmentation:
The argument you could make is that the Competition is inconsistent, because it requires internally that the concept of more reasonableness be the criteria of things, but the Competition itself does not face the same requirement. Viz., it does not necessarily follow that the focus of the Competition itself is more reasonable, and nor is it required that it is. This argument appears to be a problem, but as mentioned in the response to Entry 411, the Competition does not claim its focus is more reasonable, nor does it necessarily follow that the internal requirement of a system has to be applied to the system itself in order to maintain consistency.

It is understood that the word sequence ‘more reasonable’ has greater productive potential in the Competition’s execution. Complete, or more complete is stretching beyond a fit, the words applicability. More reasonable provides options for increased understanding. If we work to describe here how we might know ourselves, in our many hidden aspects, many of them totally unneeded to know, we will first reasonably identify those and accept them for that, then move on. This is the ‘more and more’ aspect rightfully enabled by the Competition. It is my perspective that the philosophical aspects of who we are; as can be identified in a way that will not be expressed with meaning that then changes us in the next minute of existence; becomes a distillation of our intentions in their infinitely increasing totality. Reasonably if intentions are not engaged initially, in the definition of how we might know ourselves more reasonably, the effort loses reasonableness. Who we are, becomes, why we are. Establishing this sets a foundation, a place to continue building agreement of of less vital aspects of who we are or why."

Chris Brown January 12 2003

Response:

You contend that there is a direct relationship between the unconscious and conscious through the act of somnambulism, but then later on in your reply you say that "direct complete knowledge is not possible" and "the quest for complete knowledge directly in the single moment or even contiguous moments is not within our mental capability." So we must rule out somnambulism as a means for attaining direct complete knowledge, especially since we have already established an indirect relationship between the unconscious and conscious through somnambulism. 1

From this position, you contend that "direct perceptions are filtered by the unconscious", or in other words, the unconscious itself is a source of direct complete knowledge, and that through the indirect transfer of the knowledge from the unconscious to the conscious, we can attain "an adequate background for knowledge of the self". Added to your argument, you propose that "intentions" must be included in an understanding of ourselves, otherwise our effort to know who we are loses reasonableness. Hence, by adding the notion of "intentions" you have established a one-way bridge between the unconscious and conscious.

Though it is unclear from our causal perspective, how our unconscious can more reasonably be a source of direct, complete perceptions or knowledge. What are the grounds for the direct, complete knowledge of the unconscious?

Also, even if we accept "intentions" as a necessary aspect of knowing who we are, it does not necessarily follow that "intentions" equate with complete knowledge, which takes us back to the unconscious itself and your grounds for its direct, complete knowledge? Yet because of the established indirect relation between the unconscious and conscious, it does not matter if you can more reasonably show the direct, complete knowledge of the unconscious. Therefore, your knowledge of who we are is limited to incomplete knowledge which may be more reasonably valid within limits, but that issue is outside of the confines of the Competition which is focused on the more reasonableness of complete self-knowledge versus incomplete self-knowledge.

_______________________

1. For example in Entry 404, you clearly define the epistemic limits of somnambulism: "knowing in the sense of the word as it has been used I assume means conscious knowledge. Somnambulism is used along with post hypnotic instruction that exploits phylogenetic instinct to create a motive to dissolve the barrier between the conscious and the unconscious and make a part of the past unconscious consciously available. Since consciously we are not static and the conscious through cognition alters the meaning of information the subconscious gains through the perceptions, the resulting ‘knowing’ is imperfect. However it has sufficient accuracy to state that we truly know who we are because the unconscious is still 99% as it was."

420. Entry:

"Cutting through the verbal fog and cutting to the chase: it has been amply demonstrated that the firing of the brain's neurons produce the thing called conscious thought. It is equally clear that these neurons fire by means of mechanisms on a quantum level. What this means is that the thoughts that one later becomes conscious of as his or her own, have been previously triggered by millisecond signals that one is not conscious of. Humans are not conscious of signals operating at speeds faster than one hundred or two hundred milliseconds, therefore the brain is being operated by neurons firing at speeds beyond human consciousness. It is not necessary to demonstrate the mechanisms which identify who we are or what defines us (whether photons or neutrinos from the sun or wherever) to assert that a person can never truly know who he or she is. The conscious brain lacks the operational capability to know who one is. The proposition is not precisely stated since ‘at the same time’ is not defined. ‘At the same time’ could be defined in terms of nanoseconds, picoseconds, or smaller increments of time."

Eugene Goheen January 25 2003

Response:

We agree at this point in human understanding that the general source of conscious thought is the firing of neurons. We are not aware of a more reasonable explanation, and yet it is unclear to us how the firing of neurons actually produces conscious thought. Viz., what is it about the firing of neurons that conscious thought is produced? You refer to a mechanism at the quantum level which is triggered by millisecond signals we are not conscious of. But the concept of quantum is beyond our comprehension because it partly refers to things beyond our comprehension, just as you acknowledge the millisecond signals are beyond our comprehension as well. So it does not follow how you can say the mechanism and signals are "equally clear" as the firing of neurons. Also, what is it about the quantum mechanism and millisecond signals, which are beyond our comprehension, that allow them to actually produce conscious thought? What is conscious thought? Has it ever been empirically identified?....

Though it is more reasonably possible that the conscious brain lacks the operational capability to know who one is, we are not convinced based on your argument that the conscious brain more reasonably lacks the operational capability to know who one is. A sounder argument to more reasonably establish we cannot truly know who we are and which is consistent with the firing of neurons is simply to more reasonably show from our causal perspective, the interactive nature of things, and thereby the representational nature of things.

Other issue:

"At the same time" refers to the simultaneous occurrence of true knowledge of who we are, in part or in whole, and being who we are.

Entries 411-415 Entries 421-425