SELF EVIDENCE We know that data moves across space and time from event to event, from object to object, same thing, by cause and effect. The cause from an earlier event makes an effect, impression, imprint on a later object, which then can be used to study the first object. One thus learns about the original referent which sourced the data in a causal messenger wave (ie photons), by looking at a symbol for the referent, which is ANOTHER event or object a distance way, both in space and in time. Symbols are LATER in time from the referent, by the time the symbol comes to be, the referent is gone, because its moment of time is gone. Later times are new referents even if they look the same. Let's call the referent R1, and as it is replicated through time, R1 becomes R2, R3, R4, R5 etc. Some time later when R1 has become R7, the cause wave hits the soon to be symbol object changing its state according to the nature of R when it was R1. At that moment when the symbol is impinged upon by R1, R1 is completely gone, it doesn't exist any more. R1 has been replaced by R7 which the symbol doesn't know exists yet. Thus the symbol can only track the PAST of the referent. By tracking we mean changing state due to the nature of the referent a while back. The causal messenger wave sourced by the referent passes through a remote object (namely the soon to be symbol) and changes it, thus the symbole learns something about the referent, namely how the referent caused the symbol to change state. The rendition zone is the area of the symbol that was actually affected, and the change itself is the rendition, or data imprint, that is made on the symbol as a causal result of the referent. It's pretty clear to see that learning about a referent by looking at later effects in a symbol remote from the referent provides evidence and theory about the referent, at best, total nonsense at worse. One renders the nature of the referent on the symbol, namely on the rendition zone of the symbol. One interprets the nature of the referent from the rendition on the symbol. The referent 'teaches' something about itself to the symbol via rendering something in the rendition zone of the symbol. Referent -> Rendition -> Symbol. The symbol and those observing the symbol, 'learn' something about the referent, via interpretation of the rendition in the rendition zone of the symbol caused by the referent. Symbol -> Interpretation -> Referent. This process of teaching and learning is called indirect perception. It is also clear that a conscious observer can't even see the symbol unless the symbol has an effect on the consciousness of the observer who then becomes merely another symbol in the chain of symbols, as the causal messenger wave propagates through the observer out further into space and time. In this case the observer's consciousness is the rendition zone, and the rendition is the conscious experiences the observer has as 'a result of' the original referent. The observer and his consciousness have become an effect of the original referent. Thus the symbol of final authority in any learning event must be the observer himself, more specifically his consciousness, and its new state as a result of the impinging cause originating from the referent. But one is still left with the question how does a conscious observer observe his own consciousness? If a conscious experience like red and green are separate events from the observer who sees these events, then again the imposition of space, time, dimension, or difference of any kind between experience and experiencer makes them two different objects, and thus there is no direct contact between them. Thus one would have to postulate yet another causal messenger wave between conscious experience and experiencer and yet another rendition zone in the experiencer that is NOT his consciousness, and yet another rendition in the experiencer which is NOT his conscious experience. You see this leads to an infinite regression. Thus by reductio ad absurdum the postulate that experience and experiencer are two different objects must be wrong. Thus the being can see his own consciousness because he has direct perception of it, because he IS IT. He has allowed his conscious experience, which he can directly perceive, to be enslaved to be used as a symbol for something else not it, namely referents out in the alleged phyiscal universe. Ultimately the process of learning about referents by looking at symbols which are different from the referent must end somewhere, or else we just have dominoes falling forever each one the effect from the earlier one, and none of them certain about anything, because being an effect does not prove there was a cause. Thus we say that consciousness is self luminous, it can see itself. because it IS itself, the seer and seen are one. Thus the conscious experiencer is the same object as the conscious experience of red and green, and it is a grand illusion that perceiver and perceived, that the I and red and green, are two different objects from each other. This means that the conscious experiencer can see the referent directly (his conscious experience) without having to look at or be yet another later symbol. Thus the original referent (red and green) BECOMES the symbol of final authority, the I learns about the referent by looking at the referent! That is the definition of direct perception, looking at what you are looking at, rather than something else representing what you want to look at. This is called a self symbolizing event, a referent that is also its own symbol. One could also call this a self referencing event, a symbol that is also its own referent. One could also call this a self evidential event. "The existence of a fundamental operating actuality is self evident." - Sufi The existence of the referent is self evidence for its own existence. One doesn't need to look at a later symbol to find out about the referent! But the only thing that could possibly be 'self' evident, is whatever 'self' is. For nothing can be self evident across a space time distance. Thus anything whose existence or nature is self evident to you, MUST BE YOU. Thus you are anything you can see or experience. That red and green out there, that's you looking back at yourself. That's what you look like in a mirror. Your consciousness is acting like a holographic mirror, and everything you see in the mirror is just you, what you look like at that moment. Thus we conclude that self evident, self symbolizing, self referencing and self luminous all mean the same thing. Technically they all mean no separation between referent and symbol, no two different objects referring to each other. One doesn't learn about the referent by looking at ANOTHER symbol later in space and time, one learns about the referent by looking at the referent directly RIGHT HERE NOW. It also means the referent and symbol are tracking each other IN PRESENT TIME, in the NOW, thus there is no space or time between the referent event and the symbol event. Physical tracking between referent and symbol is always across a space time distance, thus referent and symbol MUST BE two different objects, and can only act as evidence and theory to each other. Conscious tracking between experiencer and experience, looker and looked-at, seer and seen, perceiver and perceived, is instantaneous, a no time event, or else you couldn't see the perceived as it would already be gone by the time 'it' got to you. And this process of conscious learning is also called direct perception. There is more to self luminousness than mere self referencing or self symbolizing events, and that is the difference between mere BEING and KNOWING. One could in theory have a self referencing chain of pure cause and effect that effected only pure BEINGNESS. Self luminousness adds KNOWING into the mix of mere self referencing beingness. Dominoes falling are a causal chain of mere beingness, nothing knows anything, everything is simply in what ever state it is in, and the various states change according to the cause wave moving through the dominoes. But no domino KNOWS anything, although its mere beingness could be considered symbolic 'knowledge' about the nature of what caused it to fall. But such knowledge would be unverifiable evidence and theory at best. So yes consciousness is self referencing, as there is a kind of learning that is causeeffect in the same moment, but consciousness is also self LUMINOUS, in that it knows what is causing it to know. Consciousness can see not only the red and the green directly, it can also see the causal agency between the red and the green and one's certainty there are two different colors causing it to see that there are two different colors! That is quite impossible in a purely mechanical universe of parts interacting via cause and effect across a space time distance. That's because each effect can only see itself, and effect does not prove cause. The conscious universe, the perceiver can see the CAUSE AND THE EFFECT and can see that the cause is indeed the cause of the effect. Cause is existence of red and green. Effect is certainty of two different colors, AND the certainty that two different colors are causing the effect. Homer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Homer Wilson Smith The Paths of Lovers Art Matrix - Lightlink (607) 277-0959 KC2ITF Cross Internet Access, Ithaca NY homer@lightlink.com In the Line of Duty http://www.lightlink.com Tue Mar 2 03:41:21 EST 2010