| "Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; After one gains insight through the teachings of a master, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; After enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters are waters." ------ or another i like "Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” --------- Yes. I do get where you are coming from. guess after doing a lot of meditating on 'no-self'. I started picking apart my own mind, and realizing it is all just electrical sparks and chemicals. But then my engineer mind jumped in and said, of course we can model this. So then I get into arguments on the internet about how, of course we can model this. Lets say we both agree on the real world existing. I think with us living in this real world. We are just arguing over the degree to which we'll be able to model a human. Of course, a model being an approximation. And I lean pretty far in the direction that once we model 'us' sufficiently to be indistinguishable from real 'us', then it will have also generated some subjective experience. (I firmly believed this until just recently after reading 'blindsight', i'm having doubts). I think the Idealist from back in Schopenhauer day, were doing their best to describe the real world. Sometimes it sounds mystical, but that was before (or during) scientific revolution. The terminology is all different, and they didn't know a lot we take for granted. I wouldn't say they were mystics because they don't have todays knowledge. The whole 'noumenal' world versus 'Phenomenal' world is valuable 'concept'. Our senses and mind only form an internal 'model' of the real world, it isn't the real world. But we can agree water is wet. But by how much. There are lot of studies about how different people perceive objects as moving faster/slower, etc... based on fear or anxiety. Our inner 'perception' isn't 'accurate', it isn't the actual real world. Just like a computers wouldn't be. |