Edit: I dug through OP's post history and found this thread. The thread gives better context to what /u/reguru is trying to say.
A tip: very little is gained by couching your ideas in this self-aggrandizing, condescending tone. Your over-reliance on second person is also an annoying tic, though some make it work. You don't, however.
You come off as very arrogant and immature, and very few people will bother wading through this. The few that will do it only in hopes of correcting you.
If you're at all interested in improving the quality of your writing, consider, at the very least, reading a few other top level, highly upvoted posts. They do not have these problems, and you'd be served by emulating them.
Reality is arational. Everything you do is arational.
"Reality is arational." is an easily defensible position, though it would take some work to make an idea worth entertaining out of it.
"Everything you do is arational." is flatly solipsistic and useless. You must agree that words have meaning, if only subjunctively, by your usage of them. 'Rational' means something, and it describes behavior. Behavior is goal-directed, and be judged by how well it achieves those goals. That is what bare rationalism is. If you disagree with this, you'll need better justifications.
You aren't aware of it because you lack awareness. By becoming aware that you are unaware, you have increased your awareness.
Contradiction can be used for effect, but always err on the side of 'don't do it'. You're work is better served rigorous than poetic.
Yet still, you will always lack awareness. ... My definition of awareness is the subjective experience of separating thoughts from awareness. You can become aware of thoughts, and if an "I" thought appears, that was not you, you simply became aware of it.
Y'know, despite myself, I found this passage genuinely pleasing on a aesthetic level. It's a mess of negation and recursion and strange loops that I can only compare to the bizarre logic of time travel, or perhaps the descriptive amalgams of cosmic horror. This is not a compliment.
You seem to be equating awareness with at least four different things, three if that was supposed to be a recursive definition.
1) awareness as total self-knowledge ("you will always lack awareness") Since this is pure armchair speculation anyway, I'm sure the mere existence of quines) makes "You will never reach total awareness" false as a theorectical proposition.
2) awareness as consciousness/the self ("separating thoughts from awareness")
3) awareness as noticing something ("You can become aware of thoughts,")
4) your own definition
My point is that I think that you, confuse the map for the territory. Now I made the same mistake, because "map not being the territory" is a map. In all actuality, all types of communication are, and equally untrue.
Solipsistic and useless.
The way I see it is that reality is the way it is and it is arational. Gravity does not exist. We may create a layer on top of arational reality and call it reality, while in all actuality it is a virtual reality.
Useless and solipsistic.
It is simply a human projection on top of the arational reality. Arationality is completely independent of reasoning, everything rational and irrational exists within a matrix (virtual reality) of the arational.
Do I need to say it?
It's fine to do physics, math or other science but it is still a human projection.
I think this is false. Mathematics is interesting precisely because of its non-humanity. The joy of doing mathematics is incommensurate with an imagination of the joy of doing mathematics. The missing ingredient, of course, is the unknown, of discovering something outside yourself.
To call it a human projection is to miss the entire point of preforming these actions in the first place, which is curiosity, exploring the unknown.
You might think that there is no alternative to using maps (like I do here) but I am simply pointing out that you can discover arational reality without creating another map to point out its existence.
The "map/territory" dichotomy is just another map, as you yourself said. In reality, there is only atoms and the void. Self/other, subject/object are all a part of reality itself, and the delineation is only useful, never necessary.
If you want to find out for yourself, what happens when you become silent of all thoughts? Does reality disappear?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
The point is that you can sit down, become aware of all the maps
you cannot
Because it is an illusion. The illusion that some maps are better than others when they are all the same from the perspective of the arational.
The arational has no perspective, because it is not the type of thing to have perspectives. Reality has no mind, no agency.
Reality is, however, patterned and models exploit this patterning.
Suppose one person (call her Alice) choose to act as if there exists models better than other models, while another person (call him Bob) chooses to not do this. One may object to using words like 'true' or 'accurate' to describe their approaches, but there is a certain quality the former would have that the latter does not. The former may make a habit ingesting certain objects, or preforming pointless tasks for useless trinkets. The other would object that 'hunger' and 'money' are just models and no model is better than another.
These approaches lead to certain outcomes. Again, one might not like describing one as 'true' and the other as 'false', but there is a certain pattern there to be found there.
What's the point of this post? It's an invitation, you have to figure it out yourself.
While I'm sure there are many people here who enjoy puzzles, obscurantism is frowned upon.
The social contract of lesswrong is the opposite of your epigram: "What's the point of this post?" You have to figure that out on your own. It's not our job, but yours. I don't doubt you have some insight here. I'm sure it could even be couched into a post fit for this community. But you have to do the job of filtering your thoughts, crafting your posts and hoping against hope you didn't make an embarrassing mistake.
Finally, I apologize for combative tone of this post. This was written out of sympathy rather than disgust or disrespect. (at the very least, notice if being offensive was my aim, I could have done a better job of it)
"Reality is arational." is an easily defensible position, though it would take some work to make an idea worth entertaining out of it.
That's not even following the position, as you already created a map or look to create one.
"Everything you do is arational." is flatly solipsistic and useless. You must agree that words have meaning, if only subjunctively, by your usage of them. 'Rational' means something, and it describes behavior. Behavior is goal-directed, and be judged by how well it achieves those goals. That is what bare rationalism is. If you disagree with this, you'll need better justifications.
Indeed, if I can remove that I would, because it misses the point, or rather that could be worked on in more detail. But maybe from the context of the arational reality, everything is arational. If you, however, are inside it, some actions may seem superior over other actions.
You seem to be equating awareness with at least three different things, two if that was supposed to be a recursive definition. 1) awareness as total self-knowledge ("you will always lack awareness") Since this is pure armchair speculation anyway, I'm sure the mere existence of quines makes "You will never reach total awareness" false as a theorectical proposition. 2) awareness as consciousness/the self ("separating thoughts from awareness") 3) awareness as noticing something ("You can become aware of thoughts,") 3) your own definition
Lack of awareness means in my opinion, a measurement of awareness, not a separate definition. I don't think you or I cannot reach "Total awareness" while still thinking within the paradox of limited awareness. Because if I realize my awareness is limited, I become a little more aware, yet on top of that I missed my unawareness. Of course, there's probably those who has done so and know.
Solipsistic and useless. Useless and solipsistic. Do I need to say it?
How is this refuting any of the arguments made? You either agree or you don't, then you say why. Useful or uselessness factor is another discussion which I didn't even bring up I think.
A tip: very little is gained by couching your ideas in this self-aggrandizing, condescending tone. Your over-reliance on second person is also an annoying tic, though some make it work. You don't, however. You come off as very arrogant and immature, and very few people will bother wading through this. The few that will do it only in hopes of correcting you. If you're at all interested in improving the quality of your writing, consider, at the very least, reading a few other top level, highly upvoted posts. They do not have these problems, and you'd be served by emulating them.
How is this relevant to any of the ideas made in the post?
I think this is false. Mathematics is interesting precisely because of its non-humanity. The joy of doing mathematics is incommensurate with an imagination of the joy of doing mathematics. The missing ingredient, of course, is the unknown, of discovering something outside yourself. To call it a human projection is to miss the entire point of preforming these actions in the first place, which is curiosity, exploring the unknown.
The argument is that it is a human projection, that reality is arational. I never made the argument that just because something is a human projection doesn't mean it removes any positive connotations. You just are aware that it is a human projection, and that it is fine to be that way. (according to the argument)
I can't see why it would be the case.
The "map/territory" dichotomy is just another map, as you yourself said. In reality, there is only atoms and the void. Self/other, subject/object are all a part of reality itself, and the delineation is only useful, never necessary.
Atom is a map. The void is a map. One can be invited to the void, yet speaking of it or finding it, was a map. Then one can notice one was there all along.
You couldn't find a counter-argument to my claim. Because by silencing thoughts you realize that reality does not cease to exist, even of patterns and such. A map of neural pathways is still a map, for example, because it is a thought.
It does not need a map, it simply exists as an experience, which is the point of my post. So maps are not the territory, literally.
you cannot
Of course, you can, by realizing everything is a map, except the territory which cannot have a map, be explained, communicated, in any way.
The arational has no perspective, because it is not the type of thing to have perspectives. Reality has no mind, no agency.
When mapping things, it might be relevant to have the arational in the equation as well (metaphorically speaking) as a means to have a wider perspective.
Reality is, however, patterned and models exploit this patterning.
Reality is arational. Patterns and models may project their view and believe that they are exploiting the arational, while they are actually fooling themselves without realizing it is a projection.
Suppose one person (call her Alice) choose to act as if there exists models better than other models, while another person (call him Bob) chooses to not do this. One may object to using words like 'true' or 'accurate' to describe their approaches, but there is a certain quality the former would have that the latter does not. The former may make a habit ingesting certain objects, or preforming pointless tasks for useless trinkets. The other would object that 'hunger' and 'money' are just models and no model is better than another. These approaches lead to certain outcomes. Again, one might not like describing one as 'true' and the other as 'false', but there is a certain pattern there to be found there.
Which is a projection, it cannot be anything other than a projection. It's perfectly okay to discuss things while being meta-aware the discussions are projections, this is not the argument.
While I'm sure there are many people here who enjoy puzzles, obscurantism is frowned upon. The social contract of lesswrong is the opposite of your epigram: "What's the point of this post?" You have to figure that out on your own. It's not our job, but yours. I don't doubt you have some insight here. I'm sure it could even be couched into a post fit for this community. But you have to do the job of filtering your thoughts, crafting your posts and hoping against hope you didn't make an embarrassing mistake.
The insight can only be witnessed through empirical investigation. Because of the nature of this insight, it cannot be communicated. The last part was to invite you to see reality for what it is.
I understand the extreme postmodernism and reductionism that permeates this post, and I have some sympathy for it.
But nonetheless, there's at least two points that your argument cannot account for:
1) if gravity is only a map, why it exists outside of our brain? Anyone can have their opinion about gravity, but that doesn't mean that a different map it's going to let you fly or have a different acceleration from the correct map;
2) why the brain, who is many, many orders of magnitude above the smallest constituents of reality, should be able to perceive the underlying territory with a simple and undefined things like "silent of all thoughts"?
1) if gravity is only a map, why it exists outside of our brain? Anyone can have their opinion about gravity, but that doesn't mean that a different map it's going to let you fly or have a different acceleration from the correct map;
Gravity is within arational reality, it's our label whether it is classical or modern physics. Gravity is a human projection. Your brain is a human projection. These things are easy logical conclusions, so should they be easily seen as such?
2) why the brain, who is many, many orders of magnitude above the smallest constituents of reality, should be able to perceive the underlying territory with a simple and undefined things like "silent of all thoughts"?
I don't really understand what your question is about. Is it about who is capable of understanding the insights provided?
Regardless if I misunderstand, what I said is probably one of the most difficult things to achieve but "silent of all thoughts" was simply an argument, a map, if you do become silent of all thoughts, reality does not disappear. All those thoughts were maps, the present moment is the way it is.
Then some thoughts will sneak in obviously because you can't really silence all thoughts with thoughts. You just get more thoughts, because you believe you are in control. That is creating maps. You don't flow with the stream of life, you are resisting.
The brain is a remarkable thing, you should be able to perceive underlying territory at any moment, since that is the way it is. That you understand that "YOU" is a logical conclusion, the same with gravity, anything :)
Gravity is within arational reality, it's our label whether it is classical or modern physics. Gravity is a human projection. Your brain is a human projection.
You are avoiding the question. If the concept of "gravity" is a human projection, why changing the projection doesn't change the fact that you cannot fly?
I don't fully understand what you mean.
Gravity is a human projection.
But why would being aware something is a human projection change the projection itself?
I'm saying a different thing, but possibly we are assigning very different meanings to words, in which case one of us is hopelessly confused.
What I'm saying is that I have a way to think about gravity that might be different from other people. Maybe in the past they thought differently about gravity, maybe there is someone who is convinced about levitation and that the mind is able to defeat gravity. Different people --> different projections.
So: why those different projections aren't able the change the underlying fact that gravity works in a certain way that is independent from those projections?
Reality is arational. Everything you do is arational. You aren't aware of it because you lack awareness. By becoming aware that you are unaware, you have increased your awareness. Yet still, you will always lack awareness. The same with me. My definition of awareness is the subjective experience of separating thoughts from awareness. You can become aware of thoughts, and if an "I" thought appears, that was not you, you simply became aware of it.
My point is that I think that you, confuse the map for the territory. Now I made the same mistake, because "map not being the territory" is a map. In all actuality, all types of communication are, and equally untrue.
The way I see it is that reality is the way it is and it is arational. Gravity does not exist. We may create a layer on top of arational reality and call it reality, while in all actuality it is a virtual reality.
It is simply a human projection on top of the arational reality. Arationality is completely independent of reasoning, everything rational and irrational exists within a matrix (virtual reality) of the arational.