How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
SamKR
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by SamKR »

Spiny Norman wrote:
SamKR wrote:
I understand consciousness as mere presence, and perceptions as what is present. When I say "what is present" I don't mean an object out there but the pure "real" experience without assumptions.
Now, without "what is present" the idea of presence cannot exist. And without presence (in absence) "what is" is not presented/discerned/manifested.
I think you're confusing mind-consciousness and eye-consciousness ( for example ). If one becomes conscious of a perception or feeling or whatever, then IMO those are examples of mind-consciousness.
Compared to say eye-consciousness, which I see as the cognition of basic visual information, followed by perception and recognition, then feeling.
Just like eye-consciousness is the presence of vision (color, shape), mind-consciousness is the presence of ideas, thoughts, images. Just as for eye-consciousness (cakkhuviññāṇa) there is corresponding form-perception (rūpasaññā), for mind-consciousness (manoviññāṇa) there is corresponding idea-perception (dhammasaññā). (Similarly we have others: sotaviññāṇa & saddasaññā, ghāṇaviññāṇa & gandhasaññā, jivhāviññāṇa & rasasaññā, kāyaviñañā & phoṭṭhabbasaññā).
Suttas also imply that mind-consciousness can be associated with all others. Mahavedalla Sutta says:
"Friend, these five faculties — each with a separate range, a separate domain, not experiencing one another's range & domain: the eye-faculty, the ear-faculty, the nose-faculty, the tongue-faculty, & the body-faculty — have the intellect as their [common] arbitrator. The intellect is what experiences [all] their ranges & domains." http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
Spiny Norman wrote:As for your statement "without what is present the idea of presence cannot exist", well, yes, but I think it's simpler to say that consciousness always has an object.
Daverupa's post above addresses this part. Thanks, Dave.
chownah
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by chownah »

daverupa wrote:
Following Nanavira, I think it's helpful to use 'presence' as a translation for vinnana in cases of examining tripartite contact.

For any presence, the presence is not replicated elsewhere: senses' arising or passing is present, else it is experienced as change-while-standing (e.g. one note is not another note & one song is not another song even though they occur over a duration as reflected in memory, but even hearing the same song again is in in toto differently present if for no other reason than that later it is the n+1 occasion of hearing it, instead of the earlier n-occasion, with consequent differences in citta, etc. This formulation, incidentally, makes positing momentariness unnecessary; anicca is a principled result of conditionality, nothing more - it doesn't need to get ossified in mental processes in that way).

Perceptions are the way sense impressions are broken up into meaningful bits. Perceiving specific notes can take training, while discerning music is relatively common. Perceiving different colors is relatively common, but discerning a lot of color-names is less common, and agreeing with someone about certain shades is less common still. Perception is an interesting event.

And, of course, there are one of three hedonic tones to any sort of perceptual presence.

And, finally, these all occur on top of one another.
Yes, there are the three hedonic tones (pleasant, unpleasant, and neither) but it is consciousness which seems to bring them out:

"'Consciousness, consciousness': Thus is it said. To what extent, friend, is it said to be 'consciousness'?"

"'It cognizes, it cognizes': Thus, friend, it is said to be 'consciousness.' And what does it cognize? It cognizes 'pleasant.' It cognizes 'painful.' It cognizes 'neither painful nor pleasant.' 'It cognizes, it cognizes': Thus it is said to be 'consciousness.'"
..........................
So is it the same instance of consciousness having arisen as a mere presence to accept a perception also making a determination of the hedonic tone or is it another occurrence of consciousness which does this?......seems like we are slipping off the plate of "merely present", perhaps.
chownah
daverupa
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by daverupa »

chownah wrote:So is it the same instance of consciousness having arisen as a mere presence to accept a perception also making a determination of the hedonic tone or is it another occurrence of consciousness which does this?......seems like we are slipping off the plate of "merely present", perhaps.
chownah
Not really. Vinnana doesn't arise as a mere presence; vinnana basically means, "presence of".

So, the presence of a distinction of hedonic tones includes everything, as it were, on top of the others: vinnana, sanna, vedana.

This idea "also making a determination" is odd, since vinnana isn't doing that, sanna is. The presence of making determinations is vinnana, and how it feels is vedana. All on top of one another.

As soon as differently present percepts obtain, we must speak of different vinnana alongside different sanna & vedana. Different, dependently arisen.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
chownah
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by chownah »

daverupa wrote:
chownah wrote:So is it the same instance of consciousness having arisen as a mere presence to accept a perception also making a determination of the hedonic tone or is it another occurrence of consciousness which does this?......seems like we are slipping off the plate of "merely present", perhaps.
chownah
Not really. Vinnana doesn't arise as a mere presence; vinnana basically means, "presence of".

So, the presence of a distinction of hedonic tones includes everything, as it were, on top of the others: vinnana, sanna, vedana.

This idea "also making a determination" is odd, since vinnana isn't doing that, sanna is. The presence of making determinations is vinnana, and how it feels is vedana. All on top of one another.

As soon as differently present percepts obtain, we must speak of different vinnana alongside different sanna & vedana. Different, dependently arisen.
You say that vinnana basically means "presence of".....is this your translation of the Pali or is it from somewhere else?
I guess that vinnana usually is translated as consciousness, do you know the Pali word which is translated into cognize? I guess I can accept consciousness as being "presence of" (I would have to give it some more thought though) except that the Buddha says that what it does is cognize and I'm having a difficult time with what the Buddha says being pointing to just presence of.
My first post on this thread pointed to the conjoined nature of con/per/feel as I am very comfortable with dealing with them (and other things in DO as we'll) through my overarching views of having no doctrine of self. It was, however pointed out that the Buddha did differentiate between these things so it seems valid to discuss the differences etc......and I agree. One way to do this is through analysis and here I a taking analysis to mean breaking a concept down into constituent parts and considering the parts separately so as to determine their qualities and functions. It does seem to me that this is what the Buddha was doing when I he expounded DO....and it is the way that many people see the world i.e. as being a big self that can be analyzed into constituent selves so as to better understand. It has been suggested by some (notably Thanissaro) that one can make good progress on the path if one can discern the relationship between any two of the "units" which comprise DO........so it seems that it might be important to have a good understanding of how these "units" interact.....so I get a bit conflicted in that some people (like your post here for instance) like to run them all together and I agree with this completely and in fact I carry it way further as I am of the view that experience essentially cannot be divided into subunits, while other people are looking for meaningful ideas to contemplate within the "units" of DO......or maybe it is the tension between these two views of experience which provides the zen slap on the face.

I don't know where all this came from.....but I don't have time right now to proofread it.....hope it is legible.
chownah
daverupa
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by daverupa »

chownah wrote:hope it is legible.
So far, it seems so.
You say that vinnana basically means "presence of".....is this your translation of the Pali or is it from somewhere else?
I can't translate Pali, I can only hammer away at it as a rather myopic hobbyist.

I'm not trying to say that "presence of" translates the term, but I am saying that vinnana is never alone, and therefore must have a buddy, and so I take the term as pointing at the necessity of a buddy: "presence of X" where X = buddy, presence of = vinnana.

vinnana <--> namarupa, in other words. It doesn't take a translation to note that the term always functions with a buddy.
I guess that vinnana usually is translated as consciousness, do you know the Pali word which is translated into cognize?
I had thought it was a conjugation of vinnana: something akin to "vinnana vinnanizes X". It's going to take others to discuss these language details, though, as I have a hard time keeping even adverbs and adjectives straight.
the Buddha says that what it does is cognize and I'm having a difficult time with what the Buddha says being pointing to just presence of.
I wonder what you think the practical difference is? "Vinnana cognizes X", "presence of X"... they seem quite similar to me (though perhaps there is a danger of ossifying whatever is present as a self-thing, and not a process-flow-snapshot, in either case).

I think experience can indeed be broken up into units ('snapshot'), and this happens all the time. Currently, you are breaking up a Jackson Pollock light-show into, among other things, letter-units and a mouse-cursor-unit (or you're on a phone, which has been broken up into phone-unit from the surround). It's just that none of these units is a self-unit, but instead dependently arisen.

The presence of visual input & seeing is contact - The vinnana of rupa & eye is contact.

---

Somewhere there was some discussion about the similarity between the definitions of sanna and vinnana, since both 'cognize' a similar realm. That discussion would probably apply here... I wonder where I saw it...
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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SDC
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by SDC »

chownah wrote:I guess that vinnana usually is translated as consciousness, do you know the Pali word which is translated into cognize?
mano vinnana

There are interpretations where vinnana is translated as perception. So you have eye, ear, nose, tongue and body perception which are exclusive to one another and then mano vinnana (which could be rendered as “analytic perception” or just “cognition”) is the uniting of the previous five perceptions, which is the formation of a concept.

I know this differs somewhat from the common translation.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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reflection
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by reflection »

Spiny Norman wrote:
reflection wrote: I think the MN43 quote is not that you can't understand some differences between perception and consciousness, but that you can't have one without the other. No painting without canvas, that sort of idea.
I broadly agree, but I don't think there is a mutual dependence - I'd say that perception depends upon consciousness, but not necessarily the other way round. Consider the meditative state of "cessation of perception and feeling", for example.
I think consciousness ceases there also.

:namaste:
Spiny Norman
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by Spiny Norman »

daverupa wrote: ....vinnana basically means, "presence of".
I'm not convinced. I think this approach confuses vinnana with phassa ( contact ).
Buddha save me from new-agers!
Spiny Norman
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by Spiny Norman »

chownah wrote: "'Consciousness, consciousness': Thus is it said. To what extent, friend, is it said to be 'consciousness'?"
"'It cognizes, it cognizes': Thus, friend, it is said to be 'consciousness.' And what does it cognize? It cognizes 'pleasant.' It cognizes 'painful.' It cognizes 'neither painful nor pleasant.' 'It cognizes, it cognizes': Thus it is said to be 'consciousness.'"
I take this to mean simply consciousness of feeling. Feeling being the object of consciousness in this example.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
daverupa
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by daverupa »

Spiny Norman wrote:
daverupa wrote: ....vinnana basically means, "presence of".
I'm not convinced. I think this approach confuses vinnana with phassa ( contact ).
I think that approach confuses co-conditionality with linear conditionality, as though each 12-step program has to complete before another begins.

Vinnana occurs for every conscious experience, whether of 'just seeing' or of complex citta-events, whether of craving or of contact. Different each time, for each differently present perceptual slurry. Depends which units are being carved out by attention and intention, etc. (i.e. namarupa{-vinnana}).

Remember, sankhara are rolling right along this whole time as well.

(We could, in a manner of speaking, say it was all sankhara, but we parse this mass up into a certain idea-shape - the dhamma - to facilitate awakening.)
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
chownah
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by chownah »

It is confession time for me! I have been talking about consciousness cognizing nod how this seems more active than just "presence of" when all along I have been making the mistake of thinking that to cognize meant to establish cognition.....but this is almost assuredly incorrect in that cognition is a term mostly used by scientists and has more or less the meaning of complex thought processes while cognize means (guess what!).....perceive!!

So, I've got to change horses in mid stream and I'm sure glad there is a raft close by!

Now I'm sort of confused.....I'll probably have some more questions to ask.

daverupa,
You seem to be leaning toward co- conditionality.......are you viewing the entire DO scheme as a Beck-Einstein condensate.....and thus experience being a quantum computer? When I change horses on midstream I often choose a horse of a different color! :quote: :jumping: :woohoo:
My speil checker sometimes changes your name to "day erupt" so don't be looking for any special meaning if I address you this way in the future.
chownah
daverupa
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by daverupa »

Bose-Einstein, I think you mean, but in any event I didn't (& still don't, thanks to lack of maths) know what that is, so it was certainly not on my mind. Perhaps you can convey the aspect(s) which called it to mind for you, in this connection?

If it's anything like the sentence from wiki about the related statistics...
In quantum statistics, Bose–Einstein statistics (or more colloquially B–E statistics) is one of two possible ways in which a collection of non-interacting indistinguishable particles...
then I think it must be off-target.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
chownah
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by chownah »

Bose it is. Mostly joking but since consciousness perceives (via cognize meaning "perceives") and perception perceives and since perception is part of the nama of nama-rupa it is starting to look like things are getting indistinguishable just like the condensate and by the way if they can't distinguish different particles then why do they refer to particles?.....since they can't distinguish them........just like why did the Buddha distinguish between perception and consciousness if they are doing the same thing? Also, the condensate is viewed (or at least I think this is right) as a quantum entanglement and one characteristic of an entanglement is that if you change one particle then all the others also change in the same way instantly......instantly as in taking zero time......instantly as in if some of the particles are far distant from the others it still takes zero time for the change in one to appear in the far distant other......instantly as in faster than the speed of light......so this is like co-conditionality on steroids.... .instant co-arising.

It is disappointing to dead end on my cognize mistake so I'm just being a bit silly to take the edge off my disappointment I think.

Your "presence of" for consciousness doesn't resonate for me as I can't see the Buddha teaching this kind of idea using the word for consciousness....I think he would just say "presence of" but I'm just guessing. I'm going to consider whether consciousness could simply mean awareness.......sort of like when you are unconsciousness you are not aware of what is happening....or if an ant was crawling on your arm but you were intently focused on a visual image you would not be aware of the tactile sensation caused by the ant.....but you would be aware of the visual....eye contact but no body contact.

chownah
daverupa
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by daverupa »

chownah wrote:Your "presence of" for consciousness doesn't resonate for me as I can't see the Buddha teaching this kind of idea using the word for consciousness....I think he would just say "presence of" but I'm just guessing.
MN 38 wrote:"Just as fire is classified simply by whatever requisite condition in dependence on which it burns — a fire that burns in dependence on wood is classified simply as a wood-fire, a fire that burns in dependence on wood-chips is classified simply as a wood-chip-fire; a fire that burns in dependence on grass is classified simply as a grass-fire; a fire that burns in dependence on cow-dung is classified simply as a cow-dung-fire; a fire that burns in dependence on chaff is classified simply as a chaff-fire; a fire that burns in dependence on rubbish is classified simply as a rubbish-fire — in the same way, consciousness is classified simply by the requisite condition in dependence on which it arises."
There isn't really an abstract vinnana, there's just particular sorts of fires (vinnana-s) which can only be defined in accordance with whatever concurrent fuels (namarupa-s) - concurrent, which would be another way of expressing the idea I'm trying to capture with "presence of"; basically, vinnana simple accounts for 'what it's like' to have whatever experience is being captured by awareness, etc, but it is not to be seen as a sameness which perpetuates (and really, nor as an instantaneous flash of infinitesimal duration. It simply lasts so long as particular fuels last, and this is as detailed as I think it needs to get, but mileage varies).

Probably this flew in the face of prevailing thinking on the matter - that vinnana was the same over time, either to continue cyclically or to come to an eventual end.

I guess I thought that he said just what you guess he would have, in this case, but I shall leave it there.

:heart:
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
Spiny Norman
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Re: How to distinguish consciousness and perception?

Post by Spiny Norman »

chownah wrote:It is confession time for me! I have been talking about consciousness cognizing nod how this seems more active than just "presence of" when all along I have been making the mistake of thinking that to cognize meant to establish cognition.....but this is almost assuredly incorrect in that cognition is a term mostly used by scientists and has more or less the meaning of complex thought processes while cognize means (guess what!).....perceive!!
I disagree, IMO cognise basically means "be aware of", and I think that's a good description of vinnana. Perception ( sanna ) is interpreting and identifying what we become aware of. In practice perception is mostly automatic and unconscious, and so very difficult to notice.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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