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Einstein’s observer from the Theory of Relativity has inspired me to contemplate on a possible SCIENCE OF VIEWPOINT”.
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There are two kinds of viewpoints. The first kind is based on agreement (let’s call it A-Viewpoint); and the other kind is based on context (let’s call it C-viewpoint).
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A famous example of agreement-based viewpoint (A-viewpoint) is, “Earth is at the center of the universe.” During the 17th century many people agreed upon this idea such that it became “truth” to them even when there were no physical facts to support it. It was just a subjective belief. The Christian Church even put Galileo under house arrest till his death, because on the basis of physical observations he proclaimed otherwise. It took the Catholic Church 350 years to finally admit in 1992 that Galileo was right.
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The A-viewpoint simply looks for agreement with what it already believes. It just becomes more rigid with agreement. Thus it stays the way it is without changing.
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A ubiquitous example of context-based viewpoint (C-viewpoint) is a viewpoint that looks and thinks within the context of “self” only. It is guided by self-interest. Many people in today’s world look at everything in the narrow context of self. Today’s Church of Scientology heavily indoctrinates its parishioners into self-oriented beliefs and practices, and then tells them, “What is true for you is true.” It secures willing obedience of its followers this way.
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A C-viewpoint that is “self-centric” (as described in the above example) is limited by a belief that every person is a unique “soul” that continues to exist even after the body dies.
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The idea of “soul” is merely a subjective belief. By observations every person has unique feelings and ideas just like they have a unique body. These feelings and ideas disintegrate with the body upon death. Thus the idea of “soul” is an A-viewpoint.
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The A-viewpoint of “soul” brings about the “self-centric” C-viewpoint by acting as a “filter” through which one looks. Thus, we find that a C-viewpoint may be constrained by one or more A-viewpoints.
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A situation that is not resolving may be resolved simply by looking at it in a wider context. But to broaden a viewpoint, one may have to find and resolve many agreement-based viewpoints.
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A viewpoint becomes totally objective when it uses a context as wide as the whole universe. Any lesser context makes the viewpoint subjective to that degree (Ref: Viewpoint & Objectivity).
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Some of the limitations that make a viewpoint subjective are: Self-centric. human-centric, religion-centric, culture-centric, matter-centric, etc.
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When people attack an objective viewpoint, they are doing so from a narrow viewpoint. They may look at another’s objective observation as a subjective belief because they can’t examine it objectively.
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When a person is asking for “evidence” he is using an agreement-based system. He is using agreement as the criterion for “truth” because he can’t look objectively.
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Good logical sense depends on the broadening of a single viewpoint than on hundreds of narrow viewpoints agreeing with each other and using that agreement as “evidence”.
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Comments
From https://vinaire.me/2014/01/11/mindful-subject-clearing-physics/#comment-16285
“My reality… the same persons invented the instruments who are aware of the speed of light therefore their awareness is at that level.. Some one with different awareness have different reality about the speed of light
“And that person with the different awareness will establish and prove that the speed of light moves differently.. Remember, all records in sports have been broken by those who’s reality is different.
“right… and all inventions come to be because of different reality, and these inventors than collect agreements and than that agreement is being solidified, becomes fact.”
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The above shows a confusion between A-viewpoints and C-viewpoint. It is resolving of A-viewpoints that results in the expansion of C-viewpoint.
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From https://vinaire.me/2014/01/11/mindful-subject-clearing-physics/#comment-16317
“who is doing the observation of these observations? and the conclusions are nothing but agreements… yes, your black cat looks like my black cat… but no way two entity has the same reality, sees the same way, can feel the same way.. that is not possible to know how other perspn sees something. What ever the science proves is exist because of agreement by the scientist and that is assumptions.”
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The above shows an A-viewpoint of “self” being used as a “filter”. The obsession on “who” comes from this filter.
A conclusion can come from the establishment of logical consistency among many observations and not necessarily from some personal basis. An example of this is the following.
http://www.businessinsider.com/whole-universe-map-illustration-2015-12
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As I said here about 2 years ago
https://vinaire.me/2014/01/11/mindful-subject-clearing-physics/#comment-16323
“In my opinion there is nobody doing the observing. This is just how the vectors of considerations, desires, and impulses add up at any moment.”
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From https://vinaire.me/2014/01/11/mindful-subject-clearing-physics/#comment-16293
“Putting faith into science discoveries and believing that those are in fact true… well, first one should really question those discoveries and just how many times discoveries on the same subject exist..[ were changed] and just how much assumption are present in those stated facts… are those instrument are correct.. by who’s defamation they are? The instrument or any other machinery only good and can do as the inventors reality on the subject.
Science.. is not the path one can discover what is the Universe is about.. but looking into science one can understand only how the science works and one can see its limitations .. the limitations are the realities of the scientists. this is my reality about science .. :)”
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This is essentially a criticism of a broadening C-viewpoint by a fixated A-viewpoint.
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Here is an interesting discussion on the topic of SCIENCE OF VIEWPOINT with a Scientologist on Facebook.
Inquiring Minds
Scientology is an extension of Abrahamic religions that are based on the A-viewpoint (agreement-based viewpoint) of “soul”. Scientology simply refines the A-viewpoint of “soul” as the scientific-sounding idea of “static” in Scientology Axiom #1.
One cannot bring any improvement to the conflicts among Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity Islam); and also one cannot bring a resolution to the conflict of Scientology until the concept of “self” is thoroughly examined and understood.
Self is simply a bundle of thoughts, emotions and feelings that are unique to a person similar to the body. Self is not some everlasting, eternal “soul”.
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The answer to “Who am I?” is pretty simple. “I” is just a bundle of thoughts, emotions and feelings. But it is the idea of “soul” that messes one up.
It seems to be a deeply embedded human desire to live forever. This is expressed through the idea of “soul” that survives death and lives forever. The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are built upon the idea of “soul”. Scientology takes this idea one step further and emphasizes that this soul is not only an immortal “thetan” but it can also be Godlike in its potential. That is heady stuff.
So anybody who has a strong desire to live forever is an easy mark for Scientology. Sadly the truth is that self is extinguished along with the body upon death.
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There is a natural curiosity that leads to the question “Who am I?” The answer to this question is actually pretty simple. This question arises because of introversion. One never asks this question when one is extroverted and going about one’s business.
Introversion arises because of unanswered questions that have been stacking up in a person’s mind since childhood. Many of those questions are probably answered by now. But the unanswered questions acquire a persistency and pressure. If all such questions were answered one would be fully extroverted and never worry about who he is. He would know intuitively who he is.
You cannot answer all those stacked up questions at once or out of order. You cannot determine the correct order according to your convenience either. The correct order is determined by the mind if you don’t interfere with it. This is where Buddha’s teaching of mindfulness comes in.
Please see the following exercises based on Buddha’s teachings. You can see that Scientology’s TR0 is squirreling of what Buddha taught.
https://vinaire.me/2015/10/03/mindfulness-exercises/
Did Hubbard squirrel? Yes. Hubbard squirreled big time.
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It is true that the universe is open and not closed and all truth is defined by the logical consistency within that universe.
It is also true that each person has put arbitrary bounds on “their universe” to have a frame of reference called “self”. This frame of reference helps one function. But it can always be optimized and expanded.
The meaning of terms, such as, “consciousness” “creation” and “reality”, is usually subjective and their use by people leads to vague generalizations.
To me, consciousness is “seeing things as they are.” Consciousness is reality; and reality is consciousness. “Seeing things as they are” may be compared to the concept of “as-isness” advanced by L. Ron Hubbard. My understanding is that it is the lack of clarity that disappears in as-isness, and not the reality that is being examined. With as-isness reality simply becomes clearer. This makes the concept of “as-isness” more accurately as “seeing things as they are.”
Many people consider reality to be illusion, but this consideration is meaningless unless illusion is actually isolated and experienced. One has to actually investigate and find out the exact nature of illusion. If reality is an illusion then consciousness or awareness is an illusion too.
We experience, therefore, we are conscious. And, therefore, there is consciousness. Many people consider that consciousness cannot be defined; but they think of consciousness as their frame of reference of “self” whether they admit it or not.
So, consciousness is really defined as “self”. And “self” is defined as one’s desires, intentions, observations and evaluations.
To summarize:
Subjectively, consciousness is “self”; but objectively, consciousness is this reality we call the universe.
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Objectivity is using observable universe as the stable datum, as science does. Subjectivity is using “self” as the stable datum as religion does.
The trouble with science is that it is afraid to extend that objectivity into the sphere of spirituality. The trouble with religion is that it tries to monopolize spirituality with a flawed approach.
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