Philosophy Now Forum

Greta wrote:DAM, a links that I expect you would agree with. Like you, the commentators enjoy referring to reality as illusory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF61lhEeGng

I used to read up on this stuff all the time and seen a lot of documentaries and movies. Did the mediation classes. Yoga. I've had peak experiences that felt like a true reality, rendering this reality dreamlike.

But I still think that everything is fundamentally real. The "space" between subatomic particles and between cosmic bodies is something - not nothing, or true voids. The "voids" are all infused with forces emanating from massive particles and cosmic bodies.

I gotta say I'm on board with you on this one, Greta, even if I'm not in the same car. What I linked to is of interest, but it doesn't resonate; it's too pantheistic/idealistic/monistic for me to get on board with.

One of the first things a baby learns after it is born is to point, to single out objects within the scope of its awareness. Who am I to question such wisdom? Common sense and experience tells me that the observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of, or separation from, the thing which is evaluated.

Lacwing wrote:

How does anyone? Having a foundation... having supposed proof or answers... does not assure any truth of reality.

Does it matter to you? This isn't a snarky question but it has been my experience that for many people, it doesn't make a difference if we feel good because of truth or fantasy. Does it matter to you if the intuitive experiences you have are true, fantasy, or a mixture of both, if they make you feel good?

Nick_A wrote:

Lacwing wrote wrote:How does anyone (distinguish between reality and fantasy)? Having a foundation... having supposed proof or answers... does not assure any truth of reality.

Does it matter to you? This isn't a snarky question but it has been my experience that for many people, it doesn't make a difference if we feel good because of truth or fantasy. Does it matter to you if the intuitive experiences you have are true, fantasy, or a mixture of both, if they make you feel good?

I prefer clarity... regardless of whether it makes me feel good. That could be considered truth or reality, although I don't think there are definitive, unmoving, static "answers" and conditions... rather, everything is vibrant and moving... dynamic energy. Aligning myself with a particular story or set of rules/beliefs would not feel "true" to me. That is NOT to say that people who do such cannot have awareness. It's just not what works for me, and I don't need people telling me what I need to do -- or what I am or am not. They don't fucking know. That's my divine essence speaking.

I wish clarity and awareness for everyone, in whatever way works for them. If someone finds greater awareness by walking around with a frog on their head, WONDERFUL! If they tell me that's the only way for me to find greater awareness too, and that I have no awareness without it, that's extraordinarily foolish and arrogant. What I see are a lot of people who get high on their greater awareness, and bring their ego into it to tell everyone else how it is, and to judge and cast projections onto people. That looks toxic to me. It doesn't make sense that there is only one correct way to view/realize/be/understand anything. It is the human ego that wants to attach itself to such an idea... to be identified with it. If a person really is aware of oneness that encompasses and manifests ALL, I suspect they would be inclined to have FEWER RULES than MORE OF THEM. It doesn't make sense to me that oneness needs any rules. Rules are a product of the human world -- like the clothes we wear, their significance does not extend beyond the human stuff. This is how it looks to me.

Reflex wrote:

Greta wrote:DAM, a links that I expect you would agree with. Like you, the commentators enjoy referring to reality as illusory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF61lhEeGng

I used to read up on this stuff all the time and seen a lot of documentaries and movies. Did the mediation classes. Yoga. I've had peak experiences that felt like a true reality, rendering this reality dreamlike.

But I still think that everything is fundamentally real. The "space" between subatomic particles and between cosmic bodies is something - not nothing, or true voids. The "voids" are all infused with forces emanating from massive particles and cosmic bodies.

I gotta say I'm on board with you on this one, Greta, even if I'm not in the same car. What I linked to is of interest, but it doesn't resonate; it's too pantheistic/idealistic/monistic for me to get on board with.

One of the first things a baby learns after it is born is to point, to single out objects within the scope of its awareness. Who am I to question such wisdom? Common sense and experience tells me that the observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of, or separation from, the thing which is evaluated.

I am an observer and I am observed regularly - the observer is also the observed

I think your angle is "we are all one thing". It's true, no doubt. The universe is one thing. But we are also separate. It depends on one's perspective.

Where I do agree with those in "your car" is maintaining a strong awareness of being part of something much bigger than just humans, although we probably don't accord on the details. I personally see an over-focus on humans - making humanity the be-all-and-end-all - a recipe for misery and lack of centredness.

I personally could have gone much deeper into the metaphysical after some powerful experiences but - dare I say it on an anti-reason thread - I decided it was not logical. If there is something after death then that will work itself out with me as it no doubt does with the billions of poor buggers who have gone before me. If there is nothing, then a focus on nature gave me pleasure without wasting my time.

It can then be argued that preparation for the afterlife can improve one's posthumous prospects, but there are so many prescriptions from various faiths that you'd be hard pressed to pick. If we look for common items in the exhortations of various faiths then we come back to simple commonsense - generally a loving and understanding approach to life. Many do that anyway.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:

Nick_A wrote:

IN a recent work, Henri Nouwen emphasizes the essence of spirituality in a most succinct fashion: “To whom do we belong? This is the core question of the spiritual life. Do we belong to the world, its worries, its people and its endless chain of urgencies and emergencies, or do we belong to God and God’s people.”

1 Corinthians 2: 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

If this is true it reveals the futility of human reason for answering the question of God other than theoretically. Only the Spirit of wholeness can reveal the truth to the essence of human being. But how to open to the spirit that can reveal the truth beyond what dualistic reason is capable of?

My concern is for the young who are God’s people but are having the spirit killed in them by spirit killers and blind deniers dominant in institutions of child abuse called schools. Must they become part of the spiritually dead who will bury their dead or can they receive some kind of help that will allow them to open to grace so as to become themselves? How can they be made aware of the knowledge they are born with that they are in Plato’s cave and surrounded by influences of the World but capable of consciously inwardly turning in the direction of the light entering the cave? Naturally it won’t come from the World but from people who have become God’s people. But where do they find them and how can they avoid the many charlatans and blind believers who imitate them for worldly goals? One thing for sure; kids have it rough.

Yo momma sucks.

His momma sucks the Devil's appendages.

Greta wrote:
But I still think that everything is fundamentally real. The "space" between subatomic particles and between cosmic bodies is something - not nothing, or true voids. The "voids" are all infused with forces emanating from massive particles and cosmic bodies.

Space (noumenon)..aka...emptiness, void, nothingness, is the placeholder of all phenomena.......it is empty and full at the same time... it is being no-thing and every-thing. Something and Nothing are ONE and the same, can't have one without the other.

''Real'' is a word...heard as sound...manifests an auditory illusion and known in the mind as a concept.Hence, a word and the known have illusory existence and not real existence.

Reality has no concept of real or unreal.....that comes from the word itself which is basically meaningless and empty. The known is made up of words, which is a collection of subtle or gross sounds. What man sees is an optical illusion of light. What man hears is an auditory illusion of sound.

The five senses function every moment as a phenomenon of life, and the belief that their functions are dependent on the individual is an assumption and not real.

The five senses do function irrespective whether the grown-up knows it is an individual or not. If the five senses were dependent on the individual, a grown-up individual could easily turn on or switch off the five senses by will or choice, but the individual cannot do that.

It can be compared to a dream since there is no one living it. Life is living itself.

Dontaskme wrote:

Greta wrote:
But I still think that everything is fundamentally real. The "space" between subatomic particles and between cosmic bodies is something - not nothing, or true voids. The "voids" are all infused with forces emanating from massive particles and cosmic bodies.

Space (noumenon)..aka...emptiness, void, nothingness, is the placeholder of all phenomena.......it is empty and full at the same time... it is being no-thing and every-thing. Something and Nothing are ONE and the same, can't have one without the other.

''Real'' is a word...heard as sound...manifests an auditory illusion and known in the mind as a concept.Hence, a word and the known have illusory existence and not real existence.
.

The Wisdom of Dontbugme:

You are at your most hungry when fully replete.
You are at your most lonely when surrounded by your loved ones.
You are at your fastest when standing still and at your slowest when you run.
You can see the most when your eyes have been plucked out, and are blind when you see.
You are up when you are down, you are left when you are right.
My mother is the most alive when I killed her.
Is that the nice man in the white coat, or is his coat the darkest black?
Is he coming to get me? I am outside the van whilst being shut inside.
The hardest bars are but putty. Ouch they hurt.

I am at my most free when I am locked away in this cell.

Lacewing wrote: I wish clarity and awareness for everyone, in whatever way works for them. If someone finds greater awareness by walking around with a frog on their head, WONDERFUL! If they tell me that's the only way for me to find greater awareness too, and that I have no awareness without it, that's extraordinarily foolish and arrogant. What I see are a lot of people who get high on their greater awareness, and bring their ego into it to tell everyone else how it is, and to judge and cast projections onto people. That looks toxic to me. It doesn't make sense that there is only one correct way to view/realize/be/understand anything. It is the human ego that wants to attach itself to such an idea... to be identified with it. If a person really is aware of oneness that encompasses and manifests ALL, I suspect they would be inclined to have FEWER RULES than MORE OF THEM. It doesn't make sense to me that oneness needs any rules. Rules are a product of the human world -- like the clothes we wear, their significance does not extend beyond the human stuff. This is how it looks to me.

I agree. This is why I begin with the premise that we are in Plato’s cave. What sense is there in one person governed by imagination telling another governed by imagination what is real? We all have a piece of objective truth coated with subjective imagination so we are all equal in imagination. The first question for me becomes if this is natural or unnatural condition for our species. If natural then the best a person can hope for is happiness or contentment in fantasy. I don’t see anything wrong with that if it is what a person wants. They are often very nice people. But what of a person who feels it to be unnatural? Then the question becomes how to awaken from it. This person as I’ve come to understand it is in a dangerous position. If true, the more they begin to understand, the greater the power of imagination becomes and they may not be able to be either happy or content. I admire these rare people who have pursued objective truth; this pearl of great worth at the expense of great hardships.

The point I am stressing is that it is foolish for me to tell you or anyone else what to believe. My question is for those who have felt something important in Socrates’ remark: "I know nothing" and have come to experience the power of imagination. What should their goal be and what are their options?

Greta wrote:I am an observer and I am observed regularly - the observer is also the observed

And the observing. I think there is too much emphasis placed on the "illusion" aspect in some circles. It is, I think, largely in revolt against the strong materialism that has dominated our culture over the past 300 years. I favor balance.

Nick_A wrote:My question is for those who have felt something important in Socrates’ remark: "I know nothing"

My friends and I repeat this often.

Nick_A wrote:What should their goal be and what are their options?

For me, it is freeing. I can stop identifying with something or anything which I must define and then defend at all costs.

Then, it seems, that blockages are removed from channels through which all sorts of broader awareness and ability travels. There can be (and is for me) an ongoing openness to, and opening into, "that"... while NOT needing, demanding, or lusting after it (as that would make it a thing to identify with, I guess). From what I've seen, it doesn't matter how I do this. But there are ways I'd like to do it... as I remain open to always more. The options are limitless. There are no rules. Nothing is serious or locked-down. It is a dance in the world of forms, while one's head may be above the clouds and the stars, and one can feel a broader sense of oneness pulsing in them. It doesn't need words or stories, but we can try to use them if we like. How we do this is our art... and defines our experience on this stage... and surely ripples throughout the connected whole. There is no significance... there is simply all of it to vibrate with. Beautiful, horrific, condensed, expanded, static, dynamic, all of it... magnificent. That's how it looks to me.

Lacewing wrote:

For me, it is freeing. I can stop identifying with something or anything which I must define and then defend at all costs.

How does this differ from escapism which is the refusal to impartially witness? Are you familiar with karma yoga which leads to freedom by experience with non-identifictaion as opposed to acting without identification.

Nick_A wrote:

Lacewing wrote:For me, it is freeing. I can stop identifying with something or anything which I must define and then defend at all costs.

How does this differ from escapism which is the refusal to impartially witness?

Uh, because it's conscious and loving and accepting?

Nick_A wrote: Are you familiar with karma yoga which leads to freedom by experience with non-identifictaion as opposed to acting without identification.

Tell me which one you might be concluding I am.

I don't know, Nick. I have been very cooperative with your line of questioning, even though I've suspected that you are looking for something to invalidate in some subtle way, while strengthening your own viewpoint. I don't want to do this any more with you. If you cannot focus more on the commonality that we share, and stop trying to find and highlight the differences, I see no value in this discussion.

Lacewing wrote: I don't know, Nick.

I have been very cooperative with your line of questioning, even though I've suspected that you are looking for something to invalidate in some subtle way, while strengthening your own viewpoint. I don't want to do this any more with you. If you cannot focus more on the commonality that we share, and stop trying to find and highlight the differences, I see no value in this discussion.

Fair enough. I'm probably not long for this forum since I posted another thread deletion request on the forum board. If it isn't deleted I'll be restricted to posting "Yo momma sucks." How long will that last?

Nick_A wrote:Lacewing wrote: I don't know, Nick.

I have been very cooperative with your line of questioning, even though I've suspected that you are looking for something to invalidate in some subtle way, while strengthening your own viewpoint. I don't want to do this any more with you. If you cannot focus more on the commonality that we share, and stop trying to find and highlight the differences, I see no value in this discussion.

Fair enough. I'm probably not long for this forum since I posted another thread deletion request on the forum board. If it isn't deleted I'll be restricted to posting "Yo momma sucks." How long will that last?

If you can't stand the heat, you need to find yourself another kitchen. In the meantime, you might consider taking others' questions as seriously as you would wish them to take yours.

Nick_A wrote: If it isn't deleted I'll be restricted to posting "Yo momma sucks."

Oh no, not another "Yo momma sucks" campaign. We're doomed, we're all doomed, run for the hills.