alan kaslev
November 2008 
Truth vs Thinking
Posted on Nov 21st, 2006
by 
Sandra
Sandra
What has truth got to do with thinking?
I'm not feeling very original today, so I will simply glean a few gems from the 'net.
To start with, Jiddu Krishnamurti, from The First and Last Freedom:
"If during this discourse, anything is said which is opposed to your way of thinking and belief just listen; do not resist. You may be right, and I may be wrong; but by listening and considering together we are going to find out what is the truth.
Truth cannot be given to you by somebody. You have to discover it; and to discover, there must be a state of mind in which there is direct perception. There is no direct perception when there is a resistance, a safeguard, a protection.
Understanding comes through being aware of what is. To know exactly what is, the real, the actual, without interpreting it, without condemning or justifying it, is, surely, the beginning of wisdom. It is only when we begin to interpret, to translate according to our conditioning, according to our prejudice, that we miss the truth."
U.G Krishnamurti, one of my favourite people, who I call 'grumpy Krishnamurti' as opposed to the 'other' Jiddu Krishnamurti above ( was it me? Or did someone else call him grumpy first?) has this to say about thinking:
I'd like to quote from a zaadzster, Alan Kazlev, who is a contributor on Integral World - I've taken things out of context, so if you want more you have to read it all:
I'm not feeling very original today, so I will simply glean a few gems from the 'net.
To start with, Jiddu Krishnamurti, from The First and Last Freedom:
J. Krishnamurti
"If during this discourse, anything is said which is opposed to your way of thinking and belief just listen; do not resist. You may be right, and I may be wrong; but by listening and considering together we are going to find out what is the truth.
Truth cannot be given to you by somebody. You have to discover it; and to discover, there must be a state of mind in which there is direct perception. There is no direct perception when there is a resistance, a safeguard, a protection.
Understanding comes through being aware of what is. To know exactly what is, the real, the actual, without interpreting it, without condemning or justifying it, is, surely, the beginning of wisdom. It is only when we begin to interpret, to translate according to our conditioning, according to our prejudice, that we miss the truth."
U.G Krishnamurti, one of my favourite people, who I call 'grumpy Krishnamurti' as opposed to the 'other' Jiddu Krishnamurti above ( was it me? Or did someone else call him grumpy first?) has this to say about thinking:
U.G. Krishnamurti
"Thought is in its birth, in its origin, in its expression and in its actions very fascist. When I use the word 'fascist' I do not use it in thepolictical sense but to mean that it controls and shapes our thinking and our actions."For the record, I guess I should add what dear Jiddu said too:
"Thought is something dead and can never touch anything living. It cannot capture life,contain it, and give expression to it. The moment it tries to touch life it is destroyed by the quality of life."
"All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary."
-- J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, p. 21
I'd like to quote from a zaadzster, Alan Kazlev, who is a contributor on Integral World - I've taken things out of context, so if you want more you have to read it all:
"The tendency of the rational-intellectual mind, unguided by higher spiritual inspiration, to create ever more elaborate edifices. It has often been said – whether this is true or not, I do not know, but it is often said – that Truth is simple. Even physicists are always searching for that holy grail, a grand theory of everything that can be summed up in an equation that can be written on a T-shirt Yet the mind unaided can only turn around and around itself, gather more and more bits and ideas, or replace old ideas with new ones that are different but no better or no more elegant.
...excessive abstraction and artificiality in the proliferation of concepts like holons, quadrants, and (more recently) perspectives, that cannot be measured empirically nor experienced phenomenologically. Likewise lines, waves and stages refer to mental pigeonholing of experiences; they are ways that the experiences can be classified, but do not pertain to the concrete physical or supra-physical experiences themselves.
We all do this to some extent, look at the world through selective glasses, take what interests us or resonates with or confirms our own opinions, and ignore the rest. Thus we see everything in terms of our own understanding, our own subjective mental bubble or mental fortress; so that everything becomes a projection of one's own beliefs.
The classic version is the Tibetan Bardo Thodel, where the disincarnate mind, lacking the stability and security of the physical body, is plunged into the world of its own illusions and mental projections; illusions which it always has had, but of which it was not previously aware, because of they were drowned out by the physical body. We see the same thing in people who take LSD and have psychedelic trips; all they are experiencing is their own mind.
It might be suggested that in the case of some people with an unusually strong intellect, this process is somewhat different, because it is the rational mind, rather than the subconscious, that is throwing up the "illusions" that determine how it sees the world. And the stronger the intellect, the more impenetrable the projection. Regarding this, The Mother says:
"There are people who spend their life organising their mind. I have known some who have made their mind a kind of fortress, a huge construction. I am speaking here of people who has uncommon mental abilities. They had made their mind quite a big edifice, very powerful and of such a fixity, with such solid walls that they had lost contact with the outer mental world: they lived completely within their own construction and all the phenomena of consciousness were of their own making."
Collected Works of the Mother – Centenary Edition vol.4 p.193 (Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, 1972)"
And, again to truth: as a dear friend, Michael W, who has commented at length on my blog Aliens vs Logic, says:
"I'm not sure one can really dialog truth. In my experience, the closer one is to truth, the closer one is to silence. Utter silence."And then finally, to LOVE:
"Surely, to know love, truth, God, there must be no opinions, no beliefs, no speculations with regard to it. If you have an opinion about a fact, the opinion becomes important, not the fact. If you want to know the truth or the falseness of the fact, then you must not live in the word, in the intellect. You may have a lot of knowledge, information, about the fact, but the actual fact is entirely different. Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery. Love, and don't be caught in opinions and ideas about what love is or should be. When you love, everything will come right. Love has its own action. Love, and you will know the blessings of it. Keep away from the authority who tells you what love is and what it is not. No authority knows; and he who knows cannot tell. Love, and there is understanding."
"What is Love" Jiddu Krishnamurti
Access: Public
ah yes absolute truth is beyond categories - relative truth on the other hand is all about categories - BOTH are sacred and worthy of exploration, realization and discussion!
this from ken wilber on the Two Truths Doctrine -
” In the final analysis, the traditions are very clear that the “first step” in involutionary manifestation is indeed a nondual Mystery and cannot in any way be adequately captured (or even hinted at) by conventional truth, including any sort of science, leading-edge or otherwise. The reason is that the great traditions from Parmenides to Padmasambhava are unanimous in what Vedanta calls the “two truths” doctrine: namely, there exists absolute or nondual truth, and relative or conventional truth, and they are of radically different orders. Relative truth is concerned with states of affairs in the finite realm, such as “water molecules contain one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms,” or “the Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun,” or “the quantum vacuum potential in one angstrom of space is equal to 10 2300000 ergs,” and so on. According to Nagarjuna, Shankara, and Plotinus, you can make definite true or false statements about such finite events, and truth in the relative realm is indeed a search for those conditions under which relative assertions are true. This is relative, finite, or assertoric truth.
Not so absolute truth, about which literally and radically NOTHING may be accurately said in a noncontradictory fashion (including that one; if that statement is true, it is false). The great transcendental dialecticians—from Nagarjuna to Kant—have thoroughly demolished any such attempts, showing that every single one of the attempts to categorize ultimate reality (as, for example, by saying it is a quantum energy potential) turns on itself and dissolves in ad absurdum or ad infinitum regresses. They are not saying that Spirit does not exist, but simply that any finite statement about the infinite will categorically not work—not in the same way that statements about relative or conventional truth will work. Spirit can be known, but not said; seen, but not spoken; pointed out, but not described; realized, but not reiterated. Conventional truths are known by science; absolute truth is known by satori. They simply are not the same thing.
For Nagarjuna, the Real is shunya (empty) of all such categorizations. For Shankara, once the world of maya is created, you cannot make any statement about maya whatsoever: when you are in maya, everything you say is false; when you awaken, there is no maya—in either case, you cannot make a statement about maya (nor, therefore, about the “creator” of maya). For Plotinus, the “One” is ” not a numerical one“—in other words, the “One” is only a poetic metaphor for Suchness, not an actual model of Suchness. (The vacuum potential, on the other hand, is a model, not a metaphor.)
In short, there is nondual or absolute truth, and there is relative or conventional truth, and one simply cannot take an assertion of the latter and apply it to the former. When we use finite words to try to represent ultimate Suchness, the most we get is poetic metaphor (or metaphoric statements), but the absolute is known only by a direct realization involving a transformation in consciousness (satori, sahaj, metanoia), and “what” is seen in satori cannot be stated in ordinary dualistic words, other than metaphors, poetry, and hints (if you want to know God, you must awaken, not merely theorize). Conventional and scientific truths, on the other hand, are assertoric, not metaphoric; they work with models, not poems; they are finite, dualistic, and conventional—all of which is fine when addressing the finite, dualistic, conventional realm.
The Upanishads concur: nirguna Brahman is “one without a second,” not “one among many.” The vacuum potential has a second (or an “other,” namely, gross matter); but Brahman has no such second, and therefore Brahman certainly cannot be identified with quantum anything. It cannot be known by assertoric or metaphoric knowledge, only by awakening. Even to call Brahman “infinite” is to miss the point entirely, since the word “infinite” only has meaning by virtue of its opposite (“finite”), and therefore even statements like “formless, empty, infinite, unqualifiable, nondual” are actually dualistic to the core. Zen tries to hint at this by saying that the absolute is “not two, not one.”
he is writing here about the contemporary flatland confusion in attempting to make spiritual applications of quantum physics. read more here.
ah yes - absolute truth us beyond categories of course, BUT relative truth is all about categories.
lesson #1 in non-dualism:
both kinds of truth are sacred and worthy of exploration, realization, discussion and differentiation!
here’s ken wilber on the two truths doctrine:
for the full piece about subtle energies and making sense of quantum physics and it’s many spiritual confusions read here:
In the final analysis, the traditions are very clear that the “first step” in involutionary manifestation is indeed a nondual Mystery and cannot in any way be adequately captured (or even hinted at) by conventional truth, including any sort of science, leading-edge or otherwise. The reason is that the great traditions from Parmenides to Padmasambhava are unanimous in what Vedanta calls the “two truths” doctrine: namely, there exists absolute or nondual truth, and relative or conventional truth, and they are of radically different orders. Relative truth is concerned with states of affairs in the finite realm, such as “water molecules contain one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms,” or “the Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun,” or “the quantum vacuum potential in one angstrom of space is equal to 10 2300000 ergs,” and so on. According to Nagarjuna, Shankara, and Plotinus, you can make definite true or false statements about such finite events, and truth in the relative realm is indeed a search for those conditions under which relative assertions are true. This is relative, finite, or assertoric truth.
Not so absolute truth, about which literally and radically NOTHING may be accurately said in a noncontradictory fashion (including that one; if that statement is true, it is false). The great transcendental dialecticians—from Nagarjuna to Kant—have thoroughly demolished any such attempts, showing that every single one of the attempts to categorize ultimate reality (as, for example, by saying it is a quantum energy potential) turns on itself and dissolves in ad absurdum or ad infinitum regresses. They are not saying that Spirit does not exist, but simply that any finite statement about the infinite will categorically not work—not in the same way that statements about relative or conventional truth will work. Spirit can be known, but not said; seen, but not spoken; pointed out, but not described; realized, but not reiterated. Conventional truths are known by science; absolute truth is known by satori. They simply are not the same thing.
For Nagarjuna, the Real is shunya (empty) of all such categorizations. For Shankara, once the world of maya is created, you cannot make any statement about maya whatsoever: when you are in maya, everything you say is false; when you awaken, there is no maya—in either case, you cannot make a statement about maya (nor, therefore, about the “creator” of maya). For Plotinus, the “One” is ” not a numerical one”—in other words, the “One” is only a poetic metaphor for Suchness, not an actual model of Suchness. (The vacuum potential, on the other hand, is a model, not a metaphor.)
In short, there is nondual or absolute truth, and there is relative or conventional truth, and one simply cannot take an assertion of the latter and apply it to the former. When we use finite words to try to represent ultimate Suchness, the most we get is poetic metaphor (or metaphoric statements), but the absolute is known only by a direct realization involving a transformation in consciousness (satori, sahaj, metanoia), and “what” is seen in satori cannot be stated in ordinary dualistic words, other than metaphors, poetry, and hints (if you want to know God, you must awaken, not merely theorize). Conventional and scientific truths, on the other hand, are assertoric, not metaphoric; they work with models, not poems; they are finite, dualistic, and conventional—all of which is fine when addressing the finite, dualistic, conventional realm.
The Upanishads concur: nirguna Brahman is “one without a second,” not “one among many.” The vacuum potential has a second (or an “other,” namely, gross matter); but Brahman has no such second, and therefore Brahman certainly cannot be identified with quantum anything. It cannot be known by assertoric or metaphoric knowledge, only by awakening. Even to call Brahman “infinite” is to miss the point entirely, since the word “infinite” only has meaning by virtue of its opposite (“finite”), and therefore even statements like “formless, empty, infinite, unqualifiable, nondual” are actually dualistic to the core. Zen tries to hint at this by saying that the absolute is “not two, not one.”
oops - sorry to over state my case - (again) :O)
there was some kind of computer glitsch…..
but seriously , and i mean COME ON! - answer me this:
do you think the question as to bashar's alien channeling really falls into the category of mystic not knowing, or would we be better of asking a grandma from long island to use her common sense about this kinda stuff? gimme grandmas diagnosis of “meshugas” over all this PC tapdancing anyday!
its a serious question with joke in it.
dont we have to draw the line somewhere?
isnt a guy doing amateur theatrics and then talking complete new age faux profound banal nonsense with a pastiche accent while claiming to be an alien intelligence a good place to draw that line?
do we recognize the two truths doctrine from above?
do we acknowledge that we ALL use it all day every day to make judgements and decisions and choices?
to revisit an earlier aunanswered question:
would we vote for bashar, or someone who made similarly unlikely claims, for president?
would we go to war in iran during his term because the aliens told him we should according to prophecy? if so would it be fair and morally correct to kick up a fuss about this?
should we use krishnamurti's advice to ascertain the truthfulness of the bush admin reasons for taking us to war?
this new thread is squarely in the the same pre/trans confusion territory i have been mentioning already. this version of it elevates pre rational (aliens, spirit guides and whathaveyou)to trans rational (sage commentary on the nature of absolute contemplative truth) and then claims it is immune to rational assessment. yuk!
i am no stranger to deep contemplative truth. as people like jack kornfield have pointed out - it doesnt mean a thing in the relative realm.
or as i have heard wilber say:
oooh you're gonna love this one! :O)
“if you were an asshole before nondual realization,,you'll be an asshole afterwards - because absolute truth is not a remedy for anything in the relative realm…” and thats where we live people!
Julian! Am I wrong, or have you just blogged away on someone else's blog? (again)
I thought the way this goes is if you like something on another blog, you link and then you write about your stuff on your blog. This feels like you are blogging in someone else's Comment section.
Probably you'll show me I'm wrong?
hmmm have i made some etiquette mis-step?
i do hope not.
is the length of comments limited in the generally agreed upon rules?
if so my deep apologies.
please let me know.
i will also check in with the admin on this.
ironically - i had thought it was a little more cheeeky to link viewers of one persons blog to your own. so actually i was trying to be polite - sandra hadd a lengthy chat with me on my blog and brought a lot of folks pover to read my stuff - i was “returning the favor.” but this may be an incorrect assessment. i am happy to chat anywhere….
thanks for bringing it to my awareness michael.
if indeed this is unwelcome i will gladly not comment here or abide by the accepted general protocol or sandras specific one….
gosh i am a bit of a blockhead huh?
ok i hear you guys loud and clear - you are not interested in debate, reason, point by point argument and refinement, assessing the relative values of worldviews etc… in the way i am.
cool.
i guess i assumed ya might be. and we know what happens when we assume huh? :O)
enjoy whatever your version of blogging and fun/meaningful discussion is.
peace out.
~julian
Julian> i had thought it was a little more cheeeky to link viewers
>of one persons blog to your own. so actually i was trying to be
>polite - sandra had a lengthy chat with me on my blog
And you were there at the time, yes? So it was by invitation.
>and brought a lot of folks pover to read my stuff -
Nice of her, huh?
Then on her site it wound down, Sandra stopped, said you were “right” and let you have your way. I would think that would be enough. The implied invitation for long response in that space I felt ended when she stopped participating. And she moved over to a new space.
>gosh i am a bit of a blockhead huh?
Very gently, I agree in this case, my friend, though we can both make it right, clean it up. Yes, it would have been non-blockhead to post your long good thoughts on your site and linking back to her site, commented or not. Comments, in my eye, are not multiple long declarations which take up three time the space of the author we're commenting to!
Quietly I say, I suspect Sandra likes you more than you she wants your argumentative posts!
>i was “returning the favor.” but this may be an incorrect assessment.
I understand she brought people over to read your blog and yes I can see that it's very nice for you to return the favor. Sending people to read her blog. I didn't know you did that. Very nice. Sandra has good things to say and they'll enjoy reading her.
>ok i hear you guys loud and clear - you are not interested in debate,
>reason, point by point argument and refinement, assessing the
>relative values of worldviews etc
No, I said some of that, not “you guys” - I don't recall Sandra saying it like that.
However,I feel you and I ought not be going on like this in Sandra's space.
I'm going to Delete my above post very shortly and then Delete all my posts on this thread/blog. I feel it would be nice if we leave Sandra a nice clean Comment Section for her latest blog. It feels like you and I have spread across her site. In fact I think it would be very nice of both of us to Delete all our comments on this blog/thread bit and we can pick up somewhere else. Maybe you could transfer your several long-version Comments over to your site, linking them back here? You do have a lot to say. Does not the blog thing have mechanism for writing there and linking to here? That's what I suggested before, too. I'm just learning, posted my first blog yesterday. Anyway, I'm going to Delete this and the one above in a while after I know you've been able to read them. (If Sandra wants to jump in and tell us to Not Delete them, she wants these off-topic comments, fine, but if not, it seems like the right thing for us to do.)
I've been meaning to read more on your blog. I'll respond there if we have more to say.
Michael
Wow.
Truth vs Thought, perhaps it should be Truth vs Words ;-)
Regarding the etiquette on blog factor.
What I see is that very long comments have the effect of no longer being a comment. They do seem to become a blog, and also very long comments are not very inviting to comment upon - again it seems to just become a series of monologues.
I participated in this fully over on my other blogs and on yours Julian, and I'm happy that I got to see so clearly the effect of long comments.
I don't need anyone to delete anything, however.
I love your full alive self showing up, Michael. I'd love to see the last part of your last comment opened up on your own blog.
I hear your vast knowledge dear Julian. I honour and appreciate it.
Bashar and channeling is not the subject of this blog. I'm happy to discuss it off blog via email if you wish to.
For now, I'd appreciate any comments which refer back to the discussion on Julian's blog
The Alien Channel and Other Spiritual Circus Sideshows or to my blog: Aliens vs Logic be addressed to me personally. Or be taken back to their respective blogs.
If something on this actual Truth vs Thinking blog inspires further insights about truth or thinking, or if there is personal resonance & experience of said to share, or if there is something new tumbling from what I have quoted, I'm delighted to hear all here.
cool.
yeah i apologize for the computer glitsch that made the same long comment of mine show up 3 times!
ummm i think you'll find the two truths doctrine adds quite a bit of context to the transcendentalist dualistic stance on truth you are both taking.
Back to actual Truth_Versus_Thining!
Oh Sandra, thank you!
Sandra: U.G Krishnamurti, one of my favourite people, who I call 'grumpy Krishnamurti' as opposed to the 'other' Jiddu Krishnamurti above ( was it me? Or did someone else call him grumpy first?)
I know I used it but I suspect someone else beat us to it!
has this to say about thinking:
“Thought is in its birth, in its origin, in its expression and in its actions … … controls and shapes our thinking and our actions.”
So good to look over at the site about him and be reminded of deeper expression of deeper seeing. That the mind itself does things like think and organizes it into logic and stuff, and while refining a well-logic-ed mind, moves on to being able to use intuition to access it. You and I can feel immediately what the mind can spend hours and much writing working on. Intution seems to be to be able to reach in for the bottom line results without having to thinkabout it all over again. Even pattern recognition happens before we even know it, and by then, logic (grade school) is jumping in and then phooey off to more levels, memory, categories et al. Yikes!
Long version back at my space.
thanks Julian.
And to all:
I re-read what I wrote:
If something on this actual Truth vs Thinking blog inspires further insights about truth or thinking, or if there is personal resonance & experience of said to share, or if there is something new tumbling from what I have quoted, I'm delighted to hear all here.
The bit I'm most interested in is the “personal resonance & experience of said” - I would love to hear how anything in the quotes relates to the actual personal experience of anyone here. Including myself of course.
Jiddu himself was categorical about not simply re-stating his or any other person's words or ideas but rather to:
” watch your own mind; do not merely listen to my words, but through my words observe the operation of your own thinking and discover yourself. I am describing the picture, but it is your picture, not mine. If you really watch yourself as you listen, you will find a radical change taking place in spite of your conscious mind. It is like a seed that, being sown in fertile soil, pushes through the earth and puts out a blossom”.
I have noticed that the more I actually listen to my 'inner dialogue' - my thinking, rather than simply participate in the thinking as if there was nothing else - the more aware I become of the conditioned filters through which I see and experience life, and the more aware of these filters the more able I am to be simply present to what is.My word! After all the above there should be no-thing left to say! hehehe But someone somewhere will surely bring more words to this:):) {{{giggles}}}
On the other hand, by listening and considering together we are going to find out what is the truth, this is my path…. watching, listening, reading, drawing conclusions for my life, my role in this life as it changes with each situation. I discovered long ago that I have no desire, no calling to defend this thought or that. My strongest leaning is to listen carefully to my intention driven soul (if you will), as you say, Sandra, “listening to my inner dialogue…” connecting with my deep knowing, that keeps me open to what is.
I discovered long ago that I have no desire, no calling to defend this thought or that.
What a discovery!
I'm curious if there was an incident or situation from which this discovery arose, or did you simply notice that it was not what you do?
I notice that if I'm in a group of people who like to share their opinions strongly, and argue them, that there is a part of me that wants to 'engage' in the same way, as if there is some kind of mental entrainment going on. I suspect it is my early conditioning trying to 'define' myself within the force of a very opinionated mother!
And if I resist the pull, and instead just listen, I have a much more interesting time - I notice all the things that are being said and shared that have nothing to do with the words themselves, but everything to do with body language, tone of voice, and a myriad other ways that people communicate.
Such a rich experience, to just listen.
Feels, nice, Peggy,
>I discovered long ago that I have no desire, no calling to defend this thought or that.
Welp, if called-to, I would certaintly defend that! *grin*
“Dont defend any thoughts is a very important thing!” heheheheh Or have I just risked the invention of a new religion? heheheh
Hi Sandra,
>I notice that if I'm in a group of people who like to share their opinions strongly, and argue them, that there is a part of me that wants to 'engage' in the same way,
For me, this feels like the artific of any engaging, that is to say, opinioning might be a strong attractor, but then every enaging is from some attractor.
When I look at any of them, my interest falls away unless it has some warm feeling in it, – a presence, a smile, like that.
>if there is some kind of mental entrainment going on.
and that too. Sometimes existence wants to be energetic, too, and then any thing seems to be sufficient inspiration. *smile*
>And if I resist the pull, and instead just listen, I have a much more interesting time -
Yes. AND often my inner dialog checks in with myself, “why am I here?”
Sometimes I suspect I whttle down into no-interest. It is like I keep taking myself to a meditation cave, not to meditate, but because I “walk away from everywhere else.”
Then again, maybe this is just mid-life crisis stuff. I haven't felt spiriitual in years.
I also strongly suspect, this might be from my Catholic youth, I am not doing what Peggy mentions:
>connecting with my deep knowing, that keeps me open to what is.
so perhaps there is something I'm not doing. (?)
Deep knowing probably was once a relief. These days, It's like all that remains is my neurosis. No book I've read suggests this is the end of the road, neurosis. Then again, maybe UG wouldnt' be surprised. If I cared enough to be energetic from this space, I'd be grumpy!!!
One minute I'm content that nothing has meaning and the next I want meaning because my default neurosis are no fun! Yikes!
Some great quotes, Sandra!
My opinion in a nutshell: The truth does not require agreement.
As to blogging on blogs: we also have pods here at zaadz.
As to argumentative engagement: my attitude is that I want to inspire, engender, understanding, not proove a thesis right or wrong.
I've come accross this often when discussing internalism with people: someone will argue against some point and provide an alternative which clearly illustrates that they understand the point in the first place!
I find this quite bemusing, like someone is saying to me: not “a” but “alpha”, not “autum” but “fall”. Here's the thing: all perspectives are valid (4th precept of internalism).