The Five Aggregates

[Spiny Norman]

From the Mahavedalla Sutta (MN43): The Greater Set of Questions and Answers

""Feeling, perception, & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them. For what one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one cognizes. Therefore these qualities are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them."

But does this mean we are wasting our time in trying to understand how this stuff works?

[Spiny Norman]

You may actually see a different color and also call it red.

If you're colour blind you might, but I think people with normal colour vision would agree on "red", particularly if we're talking primary colours.

[Spiny Norman]

... but with a perception like "admiration" or "reputation" or "wealth" it's much more common for the perception to be associated with craving, clinging, and becoming.

But are things like that really perceptions, or are they fabrications? I'm not sure.

[chownah]

From the Mahavedalla Sutta (MN43): The Greater Set of Questions and Answers

""Feeling, perception, & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them. For what one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one cognizes. Therefore these qualities are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them."

But does this mean we are wasting our time in trying to understand how this stuff works?

Certainly not a waste of time......I post here to help all of us who are trying to understand how this stuff works.....if I thought it a waste of time I wouldn't be here.
chownah

[chownah]

... but with a perception like "admiration" or "reputation" or "wealth" it's much more common for the perception to be associated with craving, clinging, and becoming.

But are things like that really perceptions, or are they fabrications? I'm not sure.

If you could not separate the two then it would certainly be difficult to discern which one applies.
chownah

[chownah]

You may actually see a different color and also call it red.

If you're colour blind you might, but I think people with normal colour vision would agree on "red", particularly if we're talking primary colours.

A long time ago I read an article which indicated that scientists had determined that a person will have a different perception of color depending on their mood......can't remember exactly how they determined that though.
chownah
P.S. As I recall they claimed that different moods would affect the perception of different shades of red.....they were not saying that red would look like yellow or anything extreme like that. I looked around a bit and couldn't find a reference for this so I'm wondering if my memory is mistaken on this.
chownah

[Spiny Norman]

You may actually see a different color and also call it red.

If you're colour blind you might, but I think people with normal colour vision would agree on "red", particularly if we're talking primary colours.

A long time ago I read an article which indicated that scientists had determined that a person will have a different perception of color depending on their mood......can't remember exactly how they determined that though.
chownah
P.S. As I recall they claimed that different moods would affect the perception of different shades of red.....they were not saying that red would look like yellow or anything extreme like that. I looked around a bit and couldn't find a reference for this so I'm wondering if my memory is mistaken on this.
chownah

You wouldn't want moody electricians then!

[barcsimalsi]

Yes, good point. So perhaps it's not just the fear of losing perception "abilities", but also the fear of degradation of those abilities?

Yes, looks the same to me.

since there seems to be an inevitability to the process of perception. So as long as my hearing's OK I am going to hear sounds of various sorts, and in that sense perception itself seems like a neutral activity and not an object of clinging.

To make things easier, i think we shall refer perception to the labels that arise in the mind rather than a separate stage of activity. Same like how feeling dependently arise therefore both are call mental formation.

[Mkoll]

From the Mahavedalla Sutta (MN43): The Greater Set of Questions and Answers

""Feeling, perception, & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them. For what one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one cognizes. Therefore these qualities are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them."

But does this mean we are wasting our time in trying to understand how this stuff works?

Not necessarily.

But I don't think we should expect to come to a definitive answer via rational thought which says: "Ah, so this is how it is." We can dance around the answer by thinking on it forever but we can only come to it via calm-insight. And if calm-insight arises when reading this, that's great.

[pegembara]

You may actually see a different color and also call it red.

If you're colour blind you might, but I think people with normal colour vision would agree on "red", particularly if we're talking primary colours.

My "red" could actually be "pink" to you. So even if we agree to label that color as red, it does not tell us what we are actually seeing.

Form is like a glob of foam;
feeling, a bubble;
perception, a mirage;
fabrications, a banana tree;
consciousness, a magic trick —
this has been taught
by the Kinsman of the Sun.
However you observe them,
appropriately examine them,
they're empty, void
to whoever sees them
appropriately.

Phena Sutta

When we're born, our brains most likely do the same thing, the scientists said. Our neurons aren't configured to respond to color in a default way; instead, we each develop a unique perception of color. "Color is a private sensation," Carroll said.

http://www.livescience.com/21275-color- ... tists.html

[Spiny Norman]

My "red" could actually be "pink" to you.

I still don't think that perception of colour is entirely subjective, and I think most people would agree on primary colours unless they had a sight defect.

And as I understand it emptiness is about dependent arising, it isn't about the non-existence of external objects. So if there's are objects of form then there are no visual perceptions.

[chownah]

Spiny Norman,
How could you possibly determine if colors are subjective or not? Really, how would you do it? There is absolutely no way to know as far as any scientist has been able to figure out. Have you come up with a way to determine this?......if not then you are just blowing smoke out your blowing smoke hole.
I could just maintain that colors are in fact totally subjective and we can argue till the smoke stops blowing and never have to come to any agreement at all because ther is really no way to know. I could say that when you see blue I see yellow but I have just been taught to call it blue but actually it is yellow........we might agree on the names of the colors of most things but that says nothing about how we experience them.
chownah

[Spiny Norman]

Spiny Norman,
How could you possibly determine if colors are subjective or not?

Colours are just the names we give to different wavelengths of light. And if there is no light then there is no perception of colour. Or am I missing the point?

[chownah]

My point is that if light of a particular wavelength strikes your eye and my eye there is no way to determine If they look the same for both of us.....indeed there is no way to explain how they look. So, in this sense, experiencing color is entirely subjective in that any subject experiencing color can only know how the color looks to them and can not even in principle know how it is experienced by another subject......I'm using "subject" as in "subjective".
chownah
P.S. Actually I am pretty sure that the names for colors are usually applied to a mix of wavelengths of light since in our everyday experience we never have just one wavelength of light entering the eye......for instance there is no particular wavelength for mauve, puce, or even brown.
chownah

[SamKR]

Spiny Norman,
How could you possibly determine if colors are subjective or not?

Colours are just the names we give to different wavelengths of light. And if there is no light then there is no perception of colour. Or am I missing the point?

Experience of a color and the corresponding wavelength are not the same thing, although in our experience these are usually correlated and consistent, and this is a very important point to understand. There can be perception of color even without "physical" light.