FM> I'm fascinated as to how consciousness as a part of reality could be
 FM> "different" from it!!
 WE> So have mystics and philosophers thru the ages!  Really it depends upon
 WE> your viewpoint.  A subjective viewpoint would note that consciousness is
 WE> ubiquitous in everything we observe for our observing brings to the
 WE> observed our consciousness.  So consciousness permeates all that we
 WE> observe.  An objective view will hold that the rock isn't conscious and
 WE> indeed it isn't.  Neither are we when we are unconscious.
   William, it seems to me that you went immediately from my question into a
kind of subjective dichotomy between subjective and objective and never got
around to mentioning reality at all.
   My question was meant to show my surprise that consciousness COULD be
different from the reality of which it must be a participating part.
Consciousness, whether considered as "objective" or "subjective" engenders
language symbols through which we report the effects of consciousness and
those symbols only have meaning insofar as they express the truth of the
reality of which they are a part.  The report is incomplete.  As St. Paul so
succinctly put it, "we see as through a dim glass" or as Plato had it the
reality of the world of opinion minus noesis and zetesis looks like endless
repetitons of the movements of shadows which we can choose or not to dispute
as to a "substitute" reality.  The minds which imagine themselves either
detached from reality or standing over reality like a strong, independent
monarch are the most easily fooled into mistaking the shadows for reality.  
   How *I* view the world from an immanantist point of view doesn't
necessarily reflect reality, does it?  Must not the full reality of what IS
not enter into that reflection in order for some validity to obtain?
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
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