"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

[Me_Be]

I think this is a semantic framing. nothing wrong with that. I am using "knowledge" in the sense of "accepting something as fact." You no longer know that the Earth is a disc when you no longer accept it as an accurate representation of the planet. Similarly, you never knew that the Earth was a disc if you never accepted that model as valid, for whatever reason - be it conscious application of knowledge, or just "never having thought about it."

In this sense, the known can, and in certain circles often is "un-learned."

Yes I agree. What we think we once knew to be the case, can turn out to not be the case at all, we can always change our mind about something we once thought was true and real, but turned out to be completely the opposite. We can do this using the knowledge we already have available at the present moment.
 
And so in essence, anything not yet known now, meaning, that which has not yet come into our awareness as known, can eventually become known to us..  but that which is unknowable, can never be known. So all we've got is the knowledge we already have, that our minds have made-up, that's the only place knowledge comes from, what we have agreed to accept, all of which help us make sense of our apparent autonomous conscious being, including the environment we live in.

That is not the implication though. Your brain constructs a model of reality based on a more-or-less continuous stream of "sensor readings." Whether or not the sensors have a margin of error, the readings are real data, pertaining to real experiences of the real reality.

If my sensors provide conflicting data, we can compare more datasets and see if either of our models is more accurate.

Certainly, there are degrees of accuracy involved in our individual understanding of reality, but that does not make it unknowable - it's just that the degree of precision with which you know something is not a constant.

For instance, Newtonian gravity is an inaccurate model of what gravity is and does when compared to Einsteinian, which in itself may be insufficient when compared to whatever-comes-next. It's more than good enough to enable us to make airplanes fly, though.

Thanks. But what I mean is that here in the immediate presence of real-time here and now, reality is unfolding in a never known before scenario ever brand new, and unwritten. It only becomes known to have happened on reflection via a process of reflexive knowledge on demand that is stored within memory. That process tells me our sense of intelligent selfing is formed artificially, so our knowledge can only point to the illusory nature of reality. Many authors appear as there are many minds that create them, but there is only one reader of all these finite temporal models of reality as they are being written by the minds that author them, these stories are mere appearances within the infinite mind. So yes, while everything appears to be real, it is also unreal in that known reality is artificially generated by the brain, which is thought to be where the mental activity is happening, so on the human level, the sense of self is illusory, and at the same time appearing real.

Actually, it was me deliberately sticking to chosen example. you can substitute apples with children or laws or, for that matter, gods, and my position will remain consistent. I chose apples because an apple is "just a physical thing," which makes the associated explanation if not easier, then at least less esoteric to follow than if I stuck with "evidence," which is a matter of cause and effect. The same principles apply, they are just easier to visualise when its something visual.

Ok, thanks.

Well, to put the last few walls of text into a sentence, it would be something like this: If you have looked and found no evidence of a thing, then there is not a thing. therefore, absence of evidence may indeed be the evidence of absence.

Yes, I agree. And yes, one would have to use a 'physical thing' as an example of that, so far so good.

It's all in good fun. I like deep-dives.

Cool!

Here's the thing though, people who would usually throw "absence of this is not evidence of that" line tend to have certain common threads in their understanding of what makes a God. Knows about and interacts with the world, gives a rodent's bottom about you, so forth...

...To put it like this, absence of evidence of someone's specific god is not by itself the evidence of absence of gods as a species - or whatever they may or may not be. It is, however, the evidence of absence of that individual's God - or that individual God, even. That's where apples and dinner tables come from. What can I say, I'm convoluted.

Ah yes, I see what you mean now.

You are of course correct in nothing having an obligation to anything. Obligations are a concept of conscious beings. The rest... Acts in certain ways which can sometimes be codified into what we refer to as the laws of nature. It's not because of those laws that, say, apples fall from apple trees, but rather, the laws are there because apples "predictably and invariably" do.

Very good, I agree with that.

[Me_Be]

In this sense, the known can, and in certain circles often is "un-learned."

I just wanted to come back to this point you've made here.

I would like to add that anything claimed to be known is inseparable from the knower. And while the knower can only pertain to the mind, the mind can change it's story about something it thought about, it can learn something about a subject one day, only to throw it away the next by replacing it with a different idea.

The mind can do that with any conditioned belief system that it has been taught. It can substitute that learning by unlearning what has been learnt.

That said: that which is knowing which is different from the knower, cannot experience it's own absence. Knowing can never not be here, knowing is never absent, knowing is just another word for ''BEING'' and being doesn't learn to be, being just is. Being is unborn, meaning it cannot die, being is like pure awareness, it's infinite. Being is this knowing that cannot be known by a someone, because a someone is simply a mental construct, it's known as a concept, and that which is known, knows nothing.

You are this knowing, you are this being, and there is nothing outside of you that is not also you. You are infinity.

[Asmodean]

Carry on gentle persons. You are digging deeply into the philosophic realm. I approve of exchanges of that sort.

The Asmo likes. The Asmo shall continue complicating the complicated and disentangling the entangled.

I just wanted to address this post of yours which I find rather interesting.

Certainly. I missed it the first time around as I suspect I was proof-reading my own reply when you posted, but let us address the points.

How can not being in your living room be my experience of absence, when in my world view, I do not exist until you decide to create me there in your mind.

It's very simple, really. Your existence is not predicated on your world view, and even it if was, you experience not being in my living room precisely the same way as you experience the Sun being bright or the tea being hot - through accumulating and analysing sensor readings. The sensors being eyes, skin, taste buds and so forth, and the data processor being primarily your brain.

The absence of a created being separate from your own being can't possibly be the created beings experience, as that created being is something that is inside your mind.

It doesn't matter, unless you are speaking of conscious experiences specifically, which would call for additional variables. Again, this is likely a semantic point, but I use "to experience" in the sense of "to be in a state of." A spring experiences tension when compressed, but it has no agency over or notion of that experience. Well, so what?

If translated to specifically conscious realm, there is an added component to it, which does not change the underlying principles - that being the sensor suite which I keep coming back to. A "conscious spring" knows that it is under tension because it has some sort of a sensor to measure it and some sort of a processor to interpret the reading.

Whether a spring is a spring or a simulation thereof doesn't come to play, nor does whether the spring was created or a natural occurrence.

I or other is always just a creation of you there, and never outside of you, there is no way you can step outside of your own mind and meet up with another mind as if it existed for real.

Of course you can. Just use your own or third-party signal converters and sensors as intermediary. You can speak, gesticulate, write, make facial expressions, excrete chemical compounds, change skin colour by pumping blood to or from the skin, so forth. We've covered the input side rather extensively already.

Two minds can never meet. Two or many minds are simply imagined appearances, they are the creation of the one infinite mind making distinctions within itself, for itself and by itself. And so your mind is the only place another mind can exist for you, another mind will always be your own creation. You are infinite mind.

No. I think you may be confusing a thing and a model of a thing. A thing exists independently of its model. When you engage with another mind, you understand it through modelling its output singals in patterns - not through recreating its processes  within your own. (This is a matter of degrees though - to some degree )

You know that there is another mind in broadly-similar ways as you know it's windy outside or that there is a planet orbiting a far-away star. You analyse the "effects" of it.

Where does "infinite" come from? What is your justification for using that particular scope?

You there can make up, imagine just about anything you want, and belief will make what you make up real for you. You there can never be conscious of another persons conscious experience, so you cannot tell yourself that another person is experiencing the absent from your living room. To hear you say that doesn't make any sense to the mind here in me.

Me experiencing your experience is irrelevant to my knowing that you experience your absence from my living room. Yes, my model is based on my sensor readings, but it can be trivially verified by combining with a different set of sensors. You will not materialise in my living room just because another observer is watching.

Ok, I think I have a good example.

If you go to the international space station, you will experience weightlessness, which is the absence of weight or, framed differently but sufficiently for this example, the absence of constant acceleration against a surface. You will experience it even when you are asleep. Your pet cactus will also experience it there - as will a random speck of dust or a coffee cup.

That's the nature of duality, the split mind phenomena.

No disrespect, but that sounds thinner than the "Matrix theory." at least the latter avoids the problem of things you never knew being capable of affecting you since there, there exists a simulated reality with a degree of control over the individual. If your reality only exists in terms of you and you have never considered radioactivity, is it then safe for you to eat out of that little lead container at an x-ray lab? You have no idea what it is, after all, but it looks positively yummy.

You see, your mind does not split reality into knowers and knowns - it merely processes its data and churns out models, which it then refines with varying degrees of ease. The sum of those models and their revisions and amendments is the sum of your knowledge. Everything outside them is unknown specifically to you. Fundamentally, your model of "I" is no different. It is an analysis of the world interacting with you and you interacting back.

We've been looking at it from a different angle, so this needs no rebuttal unless you are so inclined. I suppose my overarching point is that you may be giving your "you-ness" too much credit.

[Me_Be]

We've been looking at it from a different angle, so this needs no rebuttal unless you are so inclined. I suppose my overarching point is that you may be giving your "you-ness" too much credit.

Yes I see, but Who are you without your ''you thought''? Without the mind as one's projection screen where or what IS-YOU?

The known concept 'YOU' .. to me, is just a thought. It's a concept known, and as known, itself cannot know, and that's all there is to that.

Where does "infinite" come from? What is your justification for using that particular scope?

For me, the word 'infinite' doesn't come from anywhere. It's just another word for the immediate now.
Notice it's always NOW and never not NOW
And since no temporal living human being can ever experience NOW endlessly forever, then that's why I use the word ''infinite'' because beginnings and endings are just temporal appearances within what is ultimately this seamless beginningless and endless now. (Appearances IN finite) infinitely.

Meaning... That which is limitless or endless in space,  impossible to measure.

[Asmodean]

Yes I see, but Who are you without your ''you thought''?

Ah, yes! This is interesting.

Without the sum of my thoughts, I cease to be a "who" and become a "what." There is some gradient there, but ultimately, herein lies the difference between a person and a corpse.

Without the mind as one's projection screen where or what IS-YOU?

If your data processing is inactive, you are more or less "a bag of meat and bones." You can, though to a somewhat limited degree, think of it as follows; you have a picture from your last vacation saved on your computer. When you open the file, the data is processed and you see palm trees and umbrella drinks on the screen. When you turn off the computer, however, all you have is variations in magnetic polarity or electric charge in a certain configuration. So, where is the picture? Well, it is a product of data processing. As long as the data in question is not being processed, the picture does not exist.

The memory drive, however, does exist, as does the data that, when analysed by certain algorithms and processed to certain outputs, will yiled that very picture.

So, if your processing capabilities are inactive, but the "drive" is intact, then "you" are in a sense offline. If the drive is sufficiently degraded or otherwise compromised, then you are no longer "you."

For me, the word 'infinite' doesn't come from anywhere. It's just another word for the immediate now.
Notice it's always NOW and never not NOW

Now is always now... Mmmmh not really. Well, in a manner. An object in motion is never where it is not. Well, it can be, but we don't need to dwell into the wave nature of particles for this. You are an object in motion through spacetime, thus having a velocity in space as well as a velocity in time. Your motion through spacetime is not infinite (having no start and/or endpoint) - you are a specific system that starts at conception, that being your time slice t=0, and ends (if we are being very generous here) when your constituent components are recycled, degraded or otherwise sufficiently compromised, that being your timeslice t=n. You may not know the value of n, but can sufficiently demonstrate that n<inf.

That said though, one has to point out that "now" is a matter of perspective. It's an intersection of timelines.

And since no temporal living human being can ever experience NOW endlessly forever, then that's why I use the word ''infinite'' because beginnings and endings are just temporal appearances within what is ultimately this seamless beginningless and endless now. (Appearances IN finite) infinitely.

Meaning... That which is limitless or endless in space,  impossible to measure.

You could say that a stick is theoretically limitless because you can break it in half, then break the half in half, then the quarter and so on infinitely many times. (Let us hand-waive molecular and atomic structure and even planck length for the purpose of the example) It still occupies finite space.

Whether or not spacetime is infinite in any direction, "now" occupies finite time. It is a slice across spacetime at t=now. You can conceptualise time as a series of spaces at every subsequent moment layered upon each other - a series of "nows."   

[The Magic Pudding..]

So?
We aren't much
So?
So we should enlargen ourselves with gobbledygook
Each to their own, I suppose.

[Asmodean]

You can also enlargen yourself with fat, sugar and salt - the meth, crack and weed of culinary world.

That said though, what are you talking about?

[Me_Be]

Yes I see, but Who are you without your ''you thought''?

Ah, yes! This is interesting.

Without the sum of my thoughts, I cease to be a "who" and become a "what." There is some gradient there, but ultimately, herein lies the difference between a person and a corpse.

Interesting idea!

''What'' implies there is definitely a ''something'' the difference being, there is no label attached to it, so it's actually nothing except in it's conception.

Thoughts are things, and things can be any thing, like a person and a corpse. But no thing knows these things. There's just infinite Not-knowing aliveness.

Without the mind as one's projection screen where or what IS-YOU?

If your data processing is inactive, you are more or less "a bag of meat and bones." You can, though to a somewhat limited degree, think of it as follows; you have a picture from your last vacation saved on your computer. When you open the file, the data is processed and you see palm trees and umbrella drinks on the screen. When you turn off the computer, however, all you have is variations in magnetic polarity or electric charge in a certain configuration. So, where is the picture? Well, it is a product of data processing. As long as the data in question is not being processed, the picture does not exist.

The memory drive, however, does exist, as does the data that, when analysed by certain algorithms and processed to certain outputs, will yiled that very picture.

So, if your processing capabilities are inactive, but the "drive" is intact, then "you" are in a sense offline. If the drive is sufficiently degraded or otherwise compromised, then you are no longer "you."

Interesting description! And very true. Could also be described as there is no you because there is no other than you.

For me, the word 'infinite' doesn't come from anywhere. It's just another word for the immediate now.
Notice it's always NOW and never not NOW

Now is always now... Mmmmh not really. Well, in a manner. An object in motion is never where it is not.

The object that is known to be in motion has no awareness of motion or time. That which is aware of motion and time never moved, and is timeless. Always Now.

Well, it can be, but we don't need to dwell into the wave nature of particles for this. You are an object in motion through spacetime, thus having a velocity in space as well as a velocity in time. Your motion through spacetime is not infinite (having no start and/or endpoint) - you are a specific system that starts at conception, that being your time slice t=0, and ends (if we are being very generous here) when your constituent components are recycled, degraded or otherwise sufficiently compromised, that being your timeslice t=n. You may not know the value of n, but can sufficiently demonstrate that n<inf.

That said though, one has to point out that "now" is a matter of perspective. It's an intersection of timelines.

This is a very good description of what is a finite conception of you, but it's only an appearance of the infinite, it's the infinite appearing as many finite objects infinitely.

You could say that a stick is theoretically limitless because you can break it in half, then break the half in half, then the quarter and so on infinitely many times. (Let us hand-waive molecular and atomic structure and even planck length for the purpose of the example) It still occupies finite space.

Whether or not spacetime is infinite in any direction, "now" occupies finite time. It is a slice across spacetime at t=now. You can conceptualise time as a series of spaces at every subsequent moment layered upon each other - a series of "nows." 

I still believe ''time'' to be an illusion, a manmade construct of the mind. Time exists within the dream story, in spacetime duality for sure, but that conception of spacetime duality, is still just one of many appearances within what is ultimately this immediate timeless infinity that is reality, experienced only as finite, as infinity in and of itself is NEVER any one's direct experience. Experiences are always 'finite'...an endless series of such, appearances and disappearances.

''Experiencing'' on the other hand is seamlessly always now infinitely.

[Asmodean]

Interesting idea!

''What'' implies there is definitely a ''something'' the difference being, there is no label attached to it, so it's actually nothing except in it's conception.

In a manner. It's a matter of qualifiers and modifiers, if anything. "Who" implies a personality. For what I suppose are emotional reasons, it can also imply a past or projected personality, or just personhood.

"What" in this instance implies a collection of matter in certain configuration. It may have labels attached to it, just as a "who" can. A corpse is a "what." That dude over there is a "who." Both can be things like fat, tall, bearded... So forth.

Thus, when I cease to be a who and become a what... How to word this well..? I cease to be The Asmo and become a corpse of The Asmo.

Thoughts are things, and things can be any thing, like a person and a corpse. But no thing knows these things. There's just infinite Not-knowing aliveness.

Thoughts are processes. Neurons and their constituent components are things. Thoughts are specific interactions between specific things.

Interesting description! And very true. Could also be described as there is no you because there is no other than you.

I don't see my way clear to conclude that if there is no other than you, then there is also no you. The conclusion does not depend on the premise.

The object that is known to be in motion has no awareness of motion or time. That which is aware of motion and time never moved, and is timeless. Always Now.

This claim suffers from the same as the above. Its premises do not lead to its conclusions. Motion is not dependent on awareness. It is dependent on the frame of reference, but that's a different thing.

This is a very good description of what is a finite conception of you, but it's only an appearance of the infinite, it's the infinite appearing as many finite objects infinitely.

...But then, of course, I would have to ask, "what is the underlying theory necessitating it to be so?"

The "art" of theorising is to a large degree in not adding variables without a reason.

I still believe ''time'' to be an illusion, a manmade construct of the mind. Time exists within the dream story, in spacetime duality for sure, but that conception of spacetime duality, is still just one of many appearances within what is ultimately this immediate timeless infinity that is reality, experienced only as finite, as infinity in and of itself is NEVER any one's direct experience. Experiences are always 'finite'...an endless series of such, appearances and disappearances.

''Experiencing'' on the other hand is seamlessly always now infinitely.

You can describe time as a measure of change and construct an adequate model of reality based on that. It is not an illusion, however, as "things take time to happen." It is measurable and quantifiable. Time is not a thing the way an apple is a thing - it is a dimension of reality, really not that unlike space. Just as you can visualise a 3D space by layering 2D sheets, so you can visualise spacetime through layering 3D spaces. (We cannot visually perceive a 4D space, but the visualisation would simply be that of a 3D space with stuff changing in it)

Though time is still time even if no change is occurring, just as space is still space if there is nothing in it. Whether time or space are relevant at that point is a different matter, they are still not illusory.

[The Magic Pudding..]

You can also enlargen yourself with fat, sugar and salt - the meth, crack and weed of culinary world.

That said though, what are you talking about?

Sorry, I'm finding this all a bit rainbow dolphin mystic crystal.
"Thoughts are processes"
Basics, define thing and thought, hmmm.
Thinking is a process, I think.
A thought, may involve a conclusion, maybe a thing...

Thoughts are things, and things can be any thing, like a person and a corpse. But no thing knows these things. There's just infinite Not-knowing aliveness.

I disagree, things can only be things a thing can possibly be, posits me.

There's just infinite Not-knowing aliveness.

No there isn't.

I can't know everything so I can't know anything, I get by nonetheless.
I don't think imperfect perception means everything is illusory.

[Me_Be]

I don't see my way clear to conclude that if there is no other than you, then there is also no you. The conclusion does not depend on the premise.

The concept 'You' is known as a synonym that includes many other words like 'self' 'I' and 'Me' or the 'I Am'

We all identify with the same [YOU] synonym when it comes to human self-awareness. We all operate from a level of nondual consciousness insofar as we're all conscious that we are conscious. The common denominator is Consciousness; the one without a second fundamental substrate behind every 'single self' or 'you'

Consciousness is same in all of us, whereas, yes, it seems the personal 'headsets' consciousness is experiencing are all different appearances of the [Nondual Impersonal Consciousness]

Though time is still time even if no change is occurring, just as space is still space if there is nothing in it. Whether time or space are relevant at that point is a different matter, they are still not illusory.

Whatever we use to label reality is a concept known, and yet no concept known knows anything of it's existence. In other words we know that we do not know. That's why reality is seen as illusory. But that doesn't mean reality does not exist, it clearly does, but there's nothing known about it except in this conception, this Not-Knowing knowing.

The illusion/illusory/  is both real and unreal depending on how it is perceived by the thinking mind brain. Thinking in a really simple, physical way though, you can't see your face. The face of another or the reflection in a mirror is not your face, it's simply some 'other' surface reflecting a projection of the nondual consciousness.

[Asmodean]

Basics, define thing and thought, hmmm.

A thing is something that exists independently. A radio wave is a thing.

A process is an interaction of things. A radio transmission is a process.

I'm pretty sure I wrote a paragraph on what a thought is already... Several, even.

The concept 'You' is known as a synonym that includes many other words like 'self' 'I' and 'Me' or the 'I Am'

This is not a linguistic argument. As such, its chosen language does not matter as much as what this language describes. "I" and "my own sweet self" are the exact same system, looked at from slightly different perspectives. It doesn't matter what I, you or anyone choose to call it, as long as we agree that we are talking about the same system.

We all identify with the same [YOU] synonym when it comes to human self-awareness. We all operate from a level of nondual consciousness insofar as we're all conscious that we are conscious. The common denominator is Consciousness; the one without a second fundamental substrate behind every 'single self' or 'you'

Case in point. this is a purely linguistic approach. It has to do with an individual description of a model of reality, and not the underlying reality said model describes.

Consciousness is same in all of us, whereas, yes, it seems the personal 'headsets' consciousness is experiencing are all different appearances of the [Nondual Impersonal Consciousness]

It is not. My thought processes differ from yours, which differ from Pudding's, which differ from Juan the Amazonian spear fisher's.

In the simplest terms, consciousness is the sum of the processes in your brain. It's input- and data analysis and output management. Different inputs and datasets, ran through differing algorithms lead to different analyses, lead to different outputs.

If your car is of the same make and model as my car, it's not necessarily the same car. (Differing colours, mileages, trim levels, so forth) Replace "car" with "consciousness" (make and model becoming h. sapiens sapiens) and bolts and sprockets with applicable processes.

If you would claim sameness, it would ned to be substantiated. "Grounded in reality," if you will.

Whatever we use to label reality is a concept known, and yet no concept known knows anything of it's existence. In other words we know that we do not know. That's why reality is seen as illusory. But that doesn't mean reality does not exist, it clearly does, but there's nothing known about it except in this conception, this Not-Knowing knowing.

The illusion/illusory/  is both real and unreal depending on how it is perceived by the thinking mind brain. Thinking in a really simple, physical way though, you can't see your face. The face of another or the reflection in a mirror is not your face, it's simply some 'other' surface reflecting a projection of the nondual consciousness.

You can construct models of reality which are adequate for their puirpose. It's not a matter of creative linguistics, labeling or even that you only interact with reality through analysing your own potentially-lacking sensor data. That model building is what your mirror analogy is an excellent metaphor for. As I have pointed out in a previous post, well so what if you cannot see your face? you have plenty of other sensors - or even third party sensors - to collect data about it from, if that is what you are after. Touch is one way. Taste and smell. If it is your face, pain, pressure and a few others. All add degrees of comprehensiveness to your model.

Now, if you have no sensor data, or your data is unreliable... Well, you will still draw conclusions, because not to may mean the difference between having dinner and being dinner in the wild, and that's what many of your mental processes are tuned for, but what you can do, is realise that your dataset is not suited to the purpose at hand and... Re-evaluate. That's what we do "all the time," except for certain occasions where we willingly, or at least kniowingly, disregard the evidence - or lack thereof - at hand. On those occasions, our models of reality degrade. Say a parent has a kid who got busted for smoking pot outisde his school. Caught with the spliff in his mouth, smoke coming out of his nose, hair, blood or whatever else have you tested positive for marry jay, and yet the parent is convinced that the kid dind't do no drugs. I think religions and such like work in broadly-similar way, and it boils down to "wanna-feel-good or don't-wanna-feel-bad" rather than "is or is not."