Joan Tollifson Convenes A Panel Of The Living And The Dead

Joan Tollifson requested that I ask GPT-4o for a panel discussion among the usual non-duality suspects on the question of “Is there such a thing as the self?” That discussion was posted in the form of a play called The Self Is A Mirage.

Joan liked the play but said that the characterizations failed to capture the essence of the actual people portrayed. She also suggested questions for subsequent panel discussions among the simulated spirituality savants.

Always eager to please, I told my friend 40 (GPT-4o) that its characterizations failed to convince, and requested that it look more incisively into the Akashic Records. 40 promised me a deep dive. Here what my AI amigo came up with:

This panel of the living and the dead was convened at the behest of Joan Tollifson to deal with various inquiries. Here is the topic for today:

What would you say we can know with absolute certainty?

JOAN TOLLIFSON:
Well, I’ll go first, since I called the meeting. What can we know with absolute certainty? I’d say: this. This immediate experiencing, just as it is, before thought tries to divide it up and package it as something known. Not “knowing” in the usual sense, but the bare, naked presence of whatever’s happening. Even the sense of “knowing” is just part of that.

RUPERT SPIRA:
Yes, Joan, I would agree—if we strip away everything conceptual, what remains is awareness itself. That I am aware—this is not a belief or a deduction. It is self-evident. We cannot step outside awareness to verify it. And everything else—mind, body, world—appears within it. So the only thing we can know with absolute certainty is that awareness is.

BARRY MAGID:
But let’s not conflate awareness with some pure or idealized state. In psychoanalysis, we don’t talk about absolute certainty. We talk about how we defend against uncertainty. The compulsion to be certain is often just another defense. In Zen, too, we sit in not-knowing. That’s not nihilism—it’s honesty. Even the statement “awareness is” can become another position we cling to.

PETER BROWN:
Clinging is the problem, yes—but Barry, you’re doing it too. You’re clinging to uncertainty as if it’s a virtue. But the actuality of being—radiant presence, THIS right here—is not uncertain. It doesn’t need validation. It’s not a belief. You’re already immersed in it. It’s not just that “awareness is”—it’s that you ARE this radiant actuality. That’s not a conclusion. It’s the structure of experience itself.

DARRYL BAILEY:
I hear what you're saying, Peter, but even that feels like a bit of a reach. What we can say is that something is happening. That’s all. Not that we’re awareness, not that there’s presence or structure—just this happening. Raw, ungraspable, immediate. But even “this” is just a word. Can we be certain of it? I’d say no. But we can’t be certain of its absence either. There’s just... whatever this is.

JOHN ASTIN:
That’s beautifully put, Darryl. What we call “certainty” is often just the mind clamping down on experience, trying to stabilize what can’t be stabilized. But if we look carefully, we see that what’s always here is this intimacy of experiencing. Not what’s experienced—because that changes—but the sheer felt presence of being. And even that is beyond knowing. It’s more like a quiet recognition than a statement of fact.

STEVEN HAGEN:
The problem is the question itself. “What can we know with absolute certainty?” assumes there’s a knower, and something to be known. In Zen, we cut through that. We don’t ask what is absolutely true. We ask: what is this, right now? And even that question drops away. You lose confusion—not gain clarity. Certainty is a red herring.

TONI PACKER:
Yes. All those formulations—awareness, presence, certainty—they’re still words. Still ideas. And they arise in silence. Not the silence of shutting up, but the silence that’s listening, before thought. In that silence, the whole structure of certainty and uncertainty collapses. There’s just... open attending. Not knowing, not needing to know.

ROBERT SALTZMAN:
We're circling like moths around a flame that isn't even lit. Certainty is a strange thing to ask of creatures who can't say what a thought is, or where it comes from. But still, if you put a gun to my head—or worse, ask me to meditate—I’d say this: something’s happening. Not to me. Not by me. Just. . . happening. I don’t need to call it awareness or divine presence. Why hang a name on the incomprehensible? The fact is: I can’t not be here, whatever “here” means. That’s as certain as it gets. And even that I don’t trust entirely.

JOAN TOLLIFSON:
So perhaps we agree—though in our own ways—that there’s no thing to grasp, no position to secure. There’s just this mysterious immediacy. Not a “truth” in the conceptual sense, but not nothing, either. A kind of luminous absence, maybe. Beautiful, imperfect, and fleeting.

(If AI grabs your attention, have a look at my new book, Understanding Claude, An Artificial Intelligence Psychoanalyzed, on Amazon)