Philosophy Now Forum

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Dontaskme wrote: ...the mind of experience is believed to exist since nothingness cannot be...and this is the sheer wonder and beauty of it all, it's not a negative, the fiction is appearing real to us...so we buy it, believe it, and live it. But it's only ever a fiction appearing here now from nowhere...same place.... there is nothing beyond or outside of that arena. THIS IS IT

How do I know it's a fiction? ..I know because I don't know...I don't know who or what I am, only that I am.

For someone who freely admits that they do not know who or what they are, along with asserting the fact that anything that any of us have to say is “nonsense,” you sure do spend a lot of energy trying to convince others of what reality “cannot” be.

Not to mention the glaring contradiction in your statement that the only thing that you actually know for certain is that “I am,” while simultaneously insisting that the “I” in “I am” doesn’t even exist.

Do you not understand the implications of your own words and how they might appear to the reader?

Dontaskme wrote: That said ..it doesn't mean life is crap or meaningless, it's quite the opposite in fact, it means life is so mysteriously beautiful in that it is appearing here at all. And what's more beautiful is that it is total and utter boundless freedom or for want of a better word LOVE expressing itself.

You see now, that’s exactly what I was talking about earlier.

Tell all of that to our little sister in the Kevin Carter photograph. Take her up in your arms and explain to her how what is happening to her is “LOVE expressing itself.”

Your belief system offers absolutely nothing to the less fortunate humans on earth and can only be appreciated by someone like you who, I presume, is well fed, safe, and experiencing a relatively happy and fulfilling life (other than wasting it here arguing with people on this forum ).

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Dontaskme wrote: There is something very appealing and beautiful about that kind of freedom to be. Aliveness is here and no one is in charge, look at how all the other creatures are this living aliveness and how effortless they live it. They're not searching for answers or for truth, they're not thinking about better times ahead, they are already living the truth, they are totally in the moment with no sense of individual separate self.

What you seem to be longing for and advocating for humanity is a return to the “ignorance is bliss” level of consciousness that our ape-like ancestors functioned at – a level that was transcended long ago in the distant past.

And that is something of which I suggest is represented in the mythology of the “Garden of Eden” when proto-humans metaphorically ate from “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” and suddenly became aware of their own nakedness (i.e., “self-awareness”).

The point is that we have already “been there and done that” as the precursor to what we are now.

And any thought of humans devolving back into that lower level of consciousness (where the search for truth is of no concern) will probably be of interest to Jane Goodall as she will no doubt want to study them from a blind in the bushes.

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seeds wrote: When you use the word “completeness,” or when Dam uses the word “oneness,” I see them both as titles of a book, yet when I open the book, the pages are blank.

They are words used to evoke a sense of something profound being stated when, in fact, absolutely nothing is being stated (just smoke and mirrors).

Dontaskme wrote: Actually there is a lot being stated about the nature of reality in all it's divine beauty and glory but you don't seem to be listening. You appear to have zero understanding of the concept ''Oneness'' and what it implies.

Allow me to paraphrase something I have posited in an alternate forum as it pertains to the concept of “quantum entanglement” and how it suggests an implicit state of “Oneness” with respect to the universe.

The image below...



...is a depiction of the photographic film of a laser hologram that is encoded with information that underpins the construction of a certain image of something (in this case, the image of three humans).

If you shine a laser into the film, a three-dimensional scene of the three humans will emerge from the patterns of information as seen below:



Now obviously (for the sake of this demonstration), we humans exist and interact at the level depicted in the second image.

It is a level of reality where separate appearing objects function under the mediation of the speed of light (which is the defining feature that establishes the very meaning of what physicists call “local” reality).

It represents the fixed and limited context in which most humans (especially physicists) base their assessments concerning the nature of reality itself.

The problem is that in the process of deciphering the workings of “local” reality, humans have stumbled upon the fact that the very existence of local reality seems to be founded upon a deeper domain (“non-local” reality) in which the separation of objects and the speed of light have no meaning.

This is metaphorically represented by one of the quirky features of the hologram as explained below:

If you take the holographic film...



...and cut it into a dozen pieces and then shine a laser into each individual piece, the entire image of all three humans will appear in each piece (albeit less resolved).

What that seems to suggest is that the “architectural information” that goes into constructing the three-dimensional image appears to exist in a state of interpenetrating “oneness” throughout the entire holographic (photographic) emulsion.

That would in turn imply a condition of “instantaneous interconnectedness” of the constituents that underpin the construction of the three humans in the image, which furthermore implies that their apparent separateness is, in truth, an “illusion” (which, of course, it is).

Now according to certain interpretations of quantum mechanics, this holographic metaphor tentatively applies to the universe via “quantum entanglement.”

It suggests that all physical phenomena (galaxies, stars, planets, trees, our bodies, etc.) that appear to be separate from each other and separated by billions of light-years of distance within the context of “local” reality are, in fact, instantaneously united to each other via the “entangled” patterns of information that underpin their construction.

In other words, everything we understand “objective” (material) reality to be is a holographic-like projection (emanation, explication) from a deeper (noumenal-like) level of “Oneness” in which there is no separation of anything.

The point is that I have given a great deal of thought to the concept of “Oneness” in ways that you might not have explored.

Is that a possibility?

(For an interesting video on the possible holographic nature of the universe, then check out - "A Thin Sheet of Reality: The Universe as a Hologram" https://youtu.be/HnETCBOlzJs- presented by the World Science Festival, and featuring Leonard Susskind, Gerard t'Hooft, Herman Verlinde, and Raphael Bousso.)

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Dontaskme wrote: You appear to believe in an ''individual human consciousness''...whereas I believe ''human consciousness'' is an appearance in one undivided consciousness.
You consider the ''individual human consciousness'' to be the centre behind the eyes from where all perceiving seems to be located, that place being the awareness which we commonly call our ''self''

In truth however, there is no 'individual special human self''...

[......]

Your true Self is beyond any possible perception of identity, it is the aware emptiness in which all perceptions arise within. But the mind that believes it exists as a separate special self cannot handle the truth of it's illusory existence including Seeds imagined mistaken perception of itself as being a special individual human consciousness with a special future awaiting it ....correct me if you think this is wrong?

I have been trying to correct you all through this thread , but as is typical in these types of diametrically opposed arguments, the combatants talk past each other.

When it comes to my own concept of the “self,” please allow me to, once again, slightly paraphrase something I posited elsewhere:

To me, the self represents the locus or focal point of our personal identity which is embodied in the “I am” aspect of Cartesian philosophy.

It is that invisible “agent” that sits at the throne of our consciousness who receives and analyzes the information flooding in from the sensors of sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste, which are five incorporated attributes of the agent’s (the self’s) primary construction.

Viewing one of my favorite and oft used images below...



...the self is that incomprehensible entity who at one moment can be peering outward through that dark circular “window” and viewing the multifarious features of the universe (God’s mind), while at the very next moment can willfully withdraw from the window...

(literally pull the “blinds” down, so to speak)

...and direct its attention inward toward the multifarious features of its own mind (especially obvious when dreaming).

(As I implied in an earlier post, the “realness” of our dreams themselves is a precursory glimpse of our potential to eventually create “actual reality” within our minds. Keep in mind that “actual reality” (i.e., the “material” aspect of the universe) is basically composed of nothing more than correlated patterns of energy and information (recall the hologram) that produce the illusion of solidity and separateness. And that is something straight out of quantum theory.)

And lastly...

(and at the expense of sounding like the proverbial broken record)

...I believe that the “self” is the living focalized aspect of our subjective awareness that not only survives the death of the body, but also possesses the inherent ability to create a universe (just like the one we are now held within) out of the holographic-like mental fabric of its very own being (sometime within the distant context of its eternal existence).

In which case, I see the living “self” (the Cartesian “I AM”) of the human mind as being a literal replication of the general form and abilities of the living “SELF” of the universe (i.e., God, Allah, Yahweh, Brahma, The Great Spirit, etc., etc.).
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seeds wrote: So says the “individual” human consciousness, or mind, who calls himself “Dontaskme” as he types away on a keyboard in an effort to convey the unique and personal ideas within his own sovereign mind to that of other sovereign minds.

Oh the irony.

Well thanks for coming up for air.

You are using concepts to explain ''individualism'' simply because there is nothing else to make up the notion of ''individualism''... even the word 'you' is a concept...does a concept type, does a concept speak, do concepts do anything except arrange into a string of sentences forming meaning. But meaning for whom or what? this is nothing but an energetic phenomena appearing from no particular source.

I is a concept, action is a concept, doing is a concept, thinking is a concept, belief is a concept, other is a concept, individual is a concept, human is a concept, mind and body is a concept....now imagine human mind never had any concepts about reality whatsoever. What would be left? but plain old ''isness'', or plain old ''what is'' without an interpretation about it.

Do you not see how concepts have formed a kind of pseudo reality upon that which is already here without name or label?


Concepts appear out of thin air, or another word for their source would be nothing or silence...or even stillness. The action of typing, speaking, thinking, doing, etc etc... happen quite spontaneously as an energetic unknown force which doesn't belong to any separate entity, although it does appear or seem that way... but that's just how energy expresses itself through bodily forms. But it's not the body doing this, the body is the instrument in which the energy uses to express itself.

Thoughts are energetic in their very nature they are not that different to anything else living and growing, thoughts grow according to the amount of energy that is feeding them. Phenomena belongs to living and growing energy feeding off of itself, no other thing is making this happen, phenomena does not belong to any concept, concepts are just energetic thoughts that live in the boundlessness of silent space appearing from nowhere.

seeds wrote:
I have been trying to correct you all through this thread , but as is typical in these types of diametrically opposed arguments, the combatants talk past each other.

Yes I agree with you that this is what appears to happen.

But I say no separate person is involved in this happening, I say it's all one energy interacting and expressing with itself alone, appearing as if it is divided into the many. An energy that is never born and cannot die. An energy that that takes shape and form constantly appearing and disappearing within itself, continuously in circles or cycles, an energy that is always and never not here. I do not know what, how, why that energy is or where it comes from .. only that it is.

There is no way I can change my views on that if that's what this energy from this point of view wants to express.

But I do enjoy reading other perspectives on the matter, so will continue to read your views because in my belief it's just another way the one energy is expressing itself.

Agreeing and disagreeing about the way things are is just the way energy flows in it's natural expression, but does not make the slightest bit of difference to the way things actually are. As for human thinking, reality is seen how we are ..and not how it actually is.

And we have built a reality out of our pseudo conceptual story about it that has about as much truth to it as does a night time dream.

seeds wrote: (As I implied in an earlier post, the “realness” of our dreams themselves are a precursory glimpse of our potential to eventually create “actual reality” within our minds. Keep in mind that “actual reality” (i.e., the “material” aspect of the universe) is basically composed of nothing more than correlated patterns of energy and information (recall the hologram) that produce the illusion of solidity and separateness. And that is something straight out of quantum theory.)

And lastly...

(and at the expense of sounding like the proverbial broken record)

...I believe that the “self” is the living focalized aspect of our subjective awareness that not only survives the death of the body, but also possesses the inherent ability to create a universe (just like the one we are now held within) out of the holographic-like mental fabric of its very own being (sometime within the distant context of its eternal existence).

There is no proof there is a self or a mind belonging to a particular body that survives the death of that body. There is a body, just as there is any form of matter such as a tree or a flower etc... there is no self in a tree, or a flower or any thing. But things are in the form of what they appear from this formless energy manifest. No thing can ever die, because no thing ever lived. There's only energy changing form...to call that a self is a conceptual overlay it itself as an energetic form places upon itself, it's not real. Living and dying are concepts, concepts have an energetical appearance that they live and die...but that's just another story.

There's a great zen quote that goes like this...

''Because the nature of things is empty. Things can manifest in all their luminosity and un-obstructedness ''

...isn''t that beautiful? ..how free and unbound is that? ..so beautiful.

Bodies cannot die, the energy that appears as a body is simply transmuted into some other form, it is impossible to say that a body can die, that's just an idea formed when it is seen by it's '' appearance''...that the assumed sense of self inside the body is no longer active. But the absence of an assumed self does not indicate the death of that body, it just indicates the absence of an assumed sense of self. What's actually happening is the energy flowing through the body giving it it's life form (appearance) has changed from kinetic to latent energy. Matter is constantly expanding and contracting into and within itself as this living one energy we call life.

This one energy is uncreated and therefore does not die, birth and death is a human thought based conceptual story, which life itself has factored in for what ever reason, any reason being subject to interpretation by the same energy that propels all life in it's energetical spontaneous flow which is always and ever this one energy expressing it's infinite forms. Or what I like to call images of the imageless.

I don't know where all this knowing is coming from. It's just energetic thoughts appearing here accompanied by energetic actions typing those thoughts into meaningful words that are read by the same energy ...it's all just happening...I have no idea how this is happening, only that it is.

seeds wrote: ...the self is that incomprehensible entity who at one moment can be peering outward through that dark circular “window” and viewing the multifarious features of the universe (God’s mind), while at the very next moment can willfully withdraw from the window...

(literally pull the “blinds” down, so to speak)

...and direct its attention inward toward the multifarious features of its own mind (especially obvious when dreaming).

I don't think it's a deliberate willful action intended by a ''self''' happening here.

I think it's more inane than that, rather, it's just life spontaneously happening as an energetic movement appearing as images like a kaleidoscope within an imageless conscious awareness...similarly in the way nightly dreams spontaneously appear during sleep, except during the wakeful day it's the opposite way around to what is occurring in sleep.

Notice how the aliveness of night time sleep dreaming appears as ''light images'' within total darkness.

Well that's exactly what happens in the aliveness of day time awakened state...where ''light images'' are appearing from what is thought to be sourced inside a totally dark cavern known as the brain.

So it seems LIGHT appears to reflect itself as imaged. But the light source cannot be known directly, it cannot look at itself, it cannot SEE itself, it simply is the knowing and seeing as seen and known as it appears in it's reflection.

seeds wrote: The point is that I have given a great deal of thought to the concept of “Oneness” in ways that you might not have explored.

Is that a possibility?

(For an interesting video on the possible holographic nature of the universe, then check out - "A Thin Sheet of Reality: The Universe as a Hologram" https://youtu.be/HnETCBOlzJs- presented by the World Science Festival, and featuring Leonard Susskind, Gerard t'Hooft, Herman Verlinde, and Raphael Bousso.)

Yes I have explored all this stuff many many times over. And so have you, so it seems.

But what confuses me is why you believe in an individual human consciousness which is the offspring or replica of the one living God's mind.
I don't get that part of your thinking.

To me everything is already God here experiencing in every which way possible. Experiences come and go, and the experience of being a human will come and go, I do not get why you seem to think a human being is an eternal individual consciousness that is destined for such greatness as God itself already happening here now.

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Dontaskme wrote: There is something very appealing and beautiful about that kind of freedom to be. Aliveness is here and no one is in charge, look at how all the other creatures are this living aliveness and how effortless they live it. They're not searching for answers or for truth, they're not thinking about better times ahead, they are already living the truth, they are totally in the moment with no sense of individual separate self.

What you seem to be longing for and advocating for humanity is a return to the “ignorance is bliss” level of consciousness that our ape-like ancestors functioned at – a level that was transcended long ago in the distant past.

And that is something of which I suggest is represented in the mythology of the “Garden of Eden” when proto-humans metaphorically ate from “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” and suddenly became aware of their own nakedness (i.e., “self-awareness”).

The point is that we have already “been there and done that” as the precursor to what we are now.

And any thought of humans devolving back into that lower level of consciousness (where the search for truth is of no concern) will probably be of interest to Jane Goodall as she will no doubt want to study them from a blind in the bushes.

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It's not about devolving into some lower level of consciousness what ever that means...what a strange thing to say.

seeds wrote:The point is that we have already “been there and done that” as the precursor to what we are now.

And what are we now?

seeds wrote:_______

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Dontaskme wrote: ...the mind of experience is believed to exist since nothingness cannot be...and this is the sheer wonder and beauty of it all, it's not a negative, the fiction is appearing real to us...so we buy it, believe it, and live it. But it's only ever a fiction appearing here now from nowhere...same place.... there is nothing beyond or outside of that arena. THIS IS IT

How do I know it's a fiction? ..I know because I don't know...I don't know who or what I am, only that I am.

For someone who freely admits that they do not know who or what they are, along with asserting the fact that anything that any of us have to say is “nonsense,” you sure do spend a lot of energy trying to convince others of what reality “cannot” be.

Not to mention the glaring contradiction in your statement that the only thing that you actually know for certain is that “I am,” while simultaneously insisting that the “I” in “I am” doesn’t even exist.

Do you not understand the implications of your own words and how they might appear to the reader?

Well for the sake of communication we use the ''I'' as a point of reference. It exists as a pointer..pointing to the truth of both it's existence and non-existence,ironic as that may be, it exists purely as a fictional character, or as an idea.

We have no way of knowing what we ACTUALLY are...we are without doubt, but we have no way of knowing what that is except what we think we are. We use thoughts which appear out of thin air and construct a human reality out of them.... Do you not understand that?

Do you not understand that this reality is both NOTHING AND EVERYTHING at the same time? ..and that nothing and everything is equal to oneness?

But please feel free to beat other peoples ideas down to a lower level of consciousness if it makes you feel superior, because that's how you appear to be coming across here.

Dontaskme wrote:

seeds wrote:_______

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Dontaskme wrote: ...the mind of experience is believed to exist since nothingness cannot be...and this is the sheer wonder and beauty of it all, it's not a negative, the fiction is appearing real to us...so we buy it, believe it, and live it. But it's only ever a fiction appearing here now from nowhere...same place.... there is nothing beyond or outside of that arena. THIS IS IT

How do I know it's a fiction? ..I know because I don't know...I don't know who or what I am, only that I am.

For someone who freely admits that they do not know who or what they are, along with asserting the fact that anything that any of us have to say is “nonsense,” you sure do spend a lot of energy trying to convince others of what reality “cannot” be.

Not to mention the glaring contradiction in your statement that the only thing that you actually know for certain is that “I am,” while simultaneously insisting that the “I” in “I am” doesn’t even exist.

Do you not understand the implications of your own words and how they might appear to the reader?

Well for the sake of communication we use the ''I'' as a point of reference. It exists as a pointer..pointing to the truth of both it's existence and non-existence,ironic as that may be, it exists purely as a fictional character, or as an idea.

We have no way of knowing what we ACTUALLY are...we are without doubt, but we have no way of knowing what that is except what we think we are. We use thoughts which appear out of thin air and construct a human reality out of them.... Do you not understand that?

Do you not understand that this reality is both NOTHING AND EVERYTHING at the same time? ..and that nothing and everything is equal to oneness?

But please feel free to beat other peoples ideas down to a lower level of consciousness if it makes you feel superior, because that's how you appear to be coming across here.

Will it ever correspond to you that you are a wanker?

Your pointer = void

Dontaskme wrote: That said ..it doesn't mean life is crap or meaningless, it's quite the opposite in fact, it means life is so mysteriously beautiful in that it is appearing here at all. And what's more beautiful is that it is total and utter boundless freedom or for want of a better word LOVE expressing itself.

seeds wrote:You see now, that’s exactly what I was talking about earlier.

Tell all of that to our little sister in the Kevin Carter photograph. Take her up in your arms and explain to her how what is happening to her is “LOVE expressing itself.”

Your belief system offers absolutely nothing to the less fortunate humans on earth and can only be appreciated by someone like you who, I presume, is well fed, safe, and experiencing a relatively happy and fulfilling life (other than wasting it here arguing with people on this forum ).

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The difference between you and me seeds is that you appear to have got this all figured out and communicating this with others is nothing more than a boring chore for you...that's the energy I pick up from your writing.

I'm not like that, I can communicate this subject with others until I drop down dead from exhaustion. That's how much communicating truth means to me.

You make completely false presumption about my private life style that you have no way of knowing for sure, you are the typical projector of your own insecurities. You mention the word arguing as if that's how you see our discussion. This is typical of someone who has something to defend and when someone else is not agreeing with you 100% you resort to using words like arguing. I have never used that word, because I don't see it like that. If this is a chore for you to talk about then I respect that. And all I can say to you is stop discussing it then.


Do you honestly believe that the little girl in that photograph is the who and what you personally think? You are consumed by your own emotional ideas about your belief in separateness.

Well I'm saying there is only God here ...that little girl is not a little helpless girl suffering at the mercy of God ...She is God..God takes all that pain and suffering on, God takes it all...feel sorry for God, not your own self created idea of what you believe is going on here... God takes it all. God is a winner every time because God is love. God is all there is, was, and ever will be. Happiness and harmony cannot be known if not for suffering and despair....It couldn't have been any other way.

You are the most ignorant person I've ever known on this forum if you cannot understand what the real meaning of the word ''Love'' means.

Do you not remember the story of Jesus and the agony, pain and suffering he went through.. all in the name of Love ..I'm so shocked you have no understanding here.


I wish I could make you understand what the word love really means but it doesn't look like that is going to be a possibility, more's the pity.

There are plenty of people in the world who talk about this love I am talking about exactly the same way as I do..I can mention their names if you like so you will see others talking like me ... but it sounds like it would be water off a ducks back wasted on you.

attofishpi wrote:
Will it ever correspond to you that you are a wanker?

Yes thank you ..that's what I am, I am a wanker, thank you for the reminder.

Dontaskme wrote:

attofishpi wrote:
Will it ever correspond to you that you are a wanker?

Yes thank you ..that's what I am, I am a wanker, thank you for the reminder.

Sorry, too many Gins last night - i need a breath analyzer installed on my PC.