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tonyrey
Guest
No sane person lives as if chance is the dominant factor…
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tonyrey
Guest
We are only alone if we choose to believe we are alone! Even our knowledge of ourselves is based on faith but it amounts to certainty because to deny we are thinking is self-contradictory.
Our knowledge presupposes the reality of truth!
Our knowledge and actions presuppose the power of choice!Our lives are not based solely on ourselves but also on the reality of truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love - which converge in one Supreme Being…
Deo Gratias
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mikekle
Guest
This is basically the theory that we are all living in a sort of ‘matrix’ like reality, in that what we see and do day to day is not really real, but only an illusion. I always thought this was crazy talk, but after reading more and more articles about it, I kinda wonder now if this is isnt actually true, but not sure how anyone could go about proving it.
I will try to link some articles that swayed my views on this later on today.
I will try to link some articles that swayed my views on this later on today.
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Sochi
Guest
No, that is actually demonstrable in experience. I can refer you to a book of experiments that leave you with that conclusion. However, I don’t necessarily agree with the solipsistic understanding of “alone.” If I understand correctly, solipsism, by analogy, claims that a finger exists by itself, imagining other fingers. I’m more in the camp that sees that fingers think that they are individuals, as if they were looking at other fingers all stuck through a sheet of paper. They do have imaginary relationships with an alleged “outside” world, including other fingers, but are capable of realizing that in fact they are attached to a hand dependent on the rest of the body, particularly the head and heart.
Yes, SC, but that “outside world” is totally and only perceived on the inside. Take away a sense and that part of the “outside” world doesn’t exist, and for someone who never had it is totally conjecture. Overall, “outside” is a concept relating to commonality of substance. And it is looking through that where we find a more, far more, useful understanding of what a “you” is!
Where is the world, for you, other than in your perception of it? You always and only exist NOW, and thoughts of future and past also are NOW. And the Heart is integral with THAT.
What is the difference between fancy and belief? Look around you to the “outside” world you think is there. What two of even that same faith really have exactly the some one? It is literally impossible. The difference is that over larger numbers there is consensus about parts of a fancy about which there are necessarily individual takes. The feeling of consensus protects from the realization that it is a fantasy. Therefore it protects from the work and disruption of ego which happens when discovering the nature of the mind and going through that to a useful substrate for experience, or Reality.
And what you mention about “If I found out that something I held to be a core truth was not, I’d reanalyze my behavior and adjust it accordingly” actually happens to many people in a way so radical, no explanation of it in thought terms will suffice. ask, for instance, Gary Sheldrake on here. Or read the Catholic author Bernadette Roberts. It happened to me, and many others, but that phenomenon wasn’t commonly known at the time. I had to actually leave the Church after a while due to not only lack of support in seeing in a new way, but actual antagonism and definitely dismissal. Fortunately, I found an ages-old understanding of what happened. Now I see that is in the church, but so heavily disguised by lack of use and understanding that it is nearly invisible.
They are not illusion, it is the lack of understanding about how in fact you think about them that constitutes the illusion. And the secret lies exactly in one’s preconceptions about personhood. That is exactly where my recognition happened, as to what personhood is. It opened up degrees and kinds of freedom I hadn’t imagined. And as you posit, there is even more reason to do good, because then there is an experiential reason and root for the Golden Rule and the Great commandment.
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SecretCatholic
Guest
The theory is sound. But the plausibility needs to be weighed. Even if we are in a “matrix-like” reality, it means there is still an underlying reality, though. And even if we do not physically interact the way we think we do, we still interact and the relationships we form are real, just as this discussion is real, even though we’re conducting it over the Internet.
Sure.
I understand what you are saying. But again, there seems to be a strong enough correlation between perception and reality that we seem to understand each other most of the time and can even create highly sophisticated machinery and devices.
Unless you think that is some kind of illusion. Do you believe that there is some malevolent intelligence at work deceiving us? Because otherwise, what sense would it have made for us to develop such faulty senses? Sure, they aren’t perfect, but they seem to get the job done most of the time!
Yes, I can’t directly access anything else of reality than my perception. That is true. But it is reasonable to believe that those perceptions more-or-less accurately represent a larger, “out there” reality. If our minds are not atoms, it stands to reason that they are composite creations- a collection of otherwise independent “atoms” that already communicate with each other. The universe is constantly communicating with itself in many forms.
The mind is made to interact with the outside world. They are made for each other. A mind without an outside world is like a car engine without wheels, or wheels without a road. It’s a symbiotic, intrinsically communicative relationship, not a silly “brain in a vat” that developed in isolation without any relationship to the world at large.
We use shortcuts and come to consensus, yes. But that’s not just for the sake of protecting the ego, but for the practical purpose of functioning together. In some activities, such as engineering, science or philosophy, we are much more exact with our definitions and suffer a smaller margin of error.
I would be happy to hear your story. I do not exactly share your views. I believe in an objective reality. But I believe that there are many, perhaps infinite ways of experiencing that reality, and I certainly don’t see why you couldn’t by some fluke of nature come to another way of experiencing it. I know you wouldn’t be the first one to make that claim, and I generally take people at their word. I had a friend who had such a shift one time, and he is quite sane. I don’t think people should be dismissed or antagonized because they have a different view of reality, although we can certainly discuss it and disagree on this or that.
I believe love is a core element of our reality, especially as it relates to personhood, even if I (or anyone) may not exactly understand the totality of personhood. I would be happy to read your take on it as well.
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Sochi
Guest
Secret, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be invited to converse with someone rather than be summarily dismissed, as is often the case for me, and those like me, with some on here. Your observations deserve an attentive reply. Please forgive me for not having the time to do that right now. I will, soon. Thanks for your attention!
Oh, you might invite Gary Sheldrake to this thread, if that can be done. He could offer some clarity here as well, and he is more practiced in patience and kindness than my rather abrupt directness sometimes affords.
In the mean time, be well, and blessings on you!
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pnewton
Guest
Merrily, merrily, merrily merrily
Life is but a dream.
Do dreams continue when we wake?
I find the whole idea of possibilities interesting, but also academic. If I am in some sort of Matrix, or some reality alone, then the knowledge of this does no good. The knowledge of this would not even be possible. I will take the Occam’s Razor approach and assume the simplest solution to be true. My own little perception of the world is an inexact, but close, replica of reality. If I die, CAF will continue.
Life is but a dream.
Do dreams continue when we wake?
I find the whole idea of possibilities interesting, but also academic. If I am in some sort of Matrix, or some reality alone, then the knowledge of this does no good. The knowledge of this would not even be possible. I will take the Occam’s Razor approach and assume the simplest solution to be true. My own little perception of the world is an inexact, but close, replica of reality. If I die, CAF will continue.
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Aloysium
Guest
I might say that “everything around you must be accepted on faith”, if faith = personal knowledge.
“Outside your mind” presupposes that there is a mind and that it can include or exclude things. This is something one generally knows, albeit far from completely.
I would agree that we are alone, but only insofar as our free will, conscience and other spiritual attributes are concerned. Among these is our capacity to relate and love (and in our fallen state, hate).
We are not alone physically as we are made from and are continuous with the rest of the universe. Although we relate to it as other, it is what we are as material beings.
Mentally, we think in symbols, words, images and such that are also the means by which we are able to communicate. We communicate because we exist in a pschosocial world of ideas and feelings.
We are united ultimately in love; our spiritual world is one. Even in our uniqueness and individuality, we come together in love as one body in Christ.
These ideas do not resonate with everyone. In this case, the understanding of the words would not fit in the particular world view. One consequently may understand these statements as wrong, deluded or as constituting a belief system.
Internally, where all this thinking, experiencing and putting things in order (however it happens), it all feels true: faith not only makes sense of the world, but in connecting to it, reality is brought to light - truth reveals itself.
Ultimately, faith allows for growth in relationships, which in their truest form is love. Love of one another and primarily of God allows for greater understanding, in turn deepening that love.
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Sochi
Guest
Last first!
Love is, as far as I can tell, THE core element of Reality. “Our” reality as personhood is little more than what the very narrow apertures of sense allow as construction material for a very symbolic map vaguely equatable to a commonality structured from a matrix of Law and laws mostly invisible to us, save in relatively small instances of deduction and induction. Yet as the field of observation become more complex and detailed, as Richard Feynman pointed out, our understanding tends to be based on simpler ideas. For me this points to a verification of One Substance, though it doesn’t prove it.
Personhood is necessarily a construct based on very local (name removed by moderator)ut, like programming a computer. The basic operating system, Consciousness, identifies with imprint on a local, probably holographic sense of localization of perception. This can be called “personal awareness.” That has many stages, generally nine, in an arc moving away from infantile self absorption toward Unicity. It kind of goes from infantile solipsism, to subject/object stages, to transcendence where those yet appear, but are seen to be manifestations of Unicity, which itself can become the trans personal sense of Identity.
Few get there, and sorry, much of religiosity is prophylactic to that. But in essence, it can be understood or even experienced, as Love loving itself as ALL. Some might say that Consciousness as such is the ground of being, and all forms are modifications of THAT. Or, the Invisible and manifest are inseparably One. This view has been around the longest of any, as far as I can tell, and is based on consistent experiential observation now being verified by physics, as far as that is possible.
Of course. But in the ordinary sense, perception is reality. All the gazillions of people who disagree with anyone else are coming from their own perceived reality. If that wasn’t so, we would have neither politics nor religion, and be minus a few other things. But as the complex machinery might indicate, there is a commonality of substance. That is reducible to awareness and then to Consciousness as a Principle.
The senses aren’t faulty, only appropriate to survival needs ans little more, though they can be trained to be transparent to a higher order of perception and understanding. So at this level of “civilization” (it isn’t yet, not really) we might, as we blame so much inappropriately on “God” we might also surmise an “evil” intelligence. But first we have to discard natural events as “evil” or “caused,” as blaming the homosexual community in NYC for the ravages of hurricanes.
The proper name for “evil” is ignorance, or lack of circumspection, or prioritizing by infantile ego identification, or fear and greed, etc… In other words, evil can be generalized as limitation of sense of self to private person, and not feeling that the “other” is in essence identical to yourself, at least in value, if not skills, etc. That is the point of the Golden Rule and the Great Commandment, with the hope that practice will bring about understanding. In the same way as there is no personal God, there is no personal evil. But until one experientially sees the mind as it is, there is inevitably the sense of this and that, of subject and object. As B. Roberts says, “You will have a personal God as long as you believe you are a person.” And of course, that has a corollary.
(continued)
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Sochi
Guest
(part 2)
Anyway, I have to go; studio tour coming up. More later if you wish.
Ys this is lovely and true. I cannot recommend highly enough that you read Ken’ Wilber’s graphic idea of the four quadrants. It can be found explicated in a readable Q&A form in his.A Brief History of Everything
yes, this is precisely the view almost made inevitable by the very structure of English. And certainly we exist as something we ourselves personally didn’t create as essence, and yet in a way we do. The difficulty is in conflating the inner and the outer and positing a reductionist dualism between sense and non sense, or measuarability and meaning. The common factor of society is measurability emotionalized by lack of commonality of meaning. While we can all take out a tape measure and figure the area of a rug, we have to deal with our inner life as a matter of meaning. No one will argue that the rug is’e the measures x square meters. But they will interpret your poetry in ways you never thought possible. Some ideas for navigating this type of seeming irreconcilable miasma can be found in a wonderfully practical work by Gina Cerminara. Despite its somewhat unfortunate title, it is used even in Catholic classes on comparative religion, as it contains ideas and principles most never consider as applicable to questions of meaning. Our multi faith book club is really enjoying it at this time, in fact!
Yes. Precisely. And most of those areas are in the quadrants of measuability. Everyone who deals with gases uses Boyle’s Law, and when we lay out a back yard or estimate paint, we use the same math and pretty much the same techniques for doing the job. We also have consensus in meaning, often arrived at by airing everyone’s visions and concerns, as in our counseling group. And we do that with our faith, as well. But that is in sort of a different realm as there is pre cognitive and pre verbal inculcation of myriad local varieties involved, some overlapping, some not. This is why there are, despite the Church’s pedigree, some 40,000 christianist denominations.
Maybe in another post
As do no two people, LOL!
I can totally understand why you would make that distinction with multiple experiences (and exspressions, if I may) of that reality. And I would emphasize the importance of your friend’s shift. The reason being, that while there certainly are diagnoseable forms of madness, in kinds and degrees, the phenomenon of “shift” is uniquely interesting. I say this because after experiencing two major ones of my own, and finding the subject of fundamental importance, I have been curious about the happening as a phenomenon. This is a simplistically short synoposis of what I discovered: Regarding the kind of shift in question, it is the single human experience regarding an interior discovery of (not about) the nature of awareness that is remarkably consistent from the beginnings of recorded history. This can be said because those experiencing this shift give sometimes astoundingly congruent extemporaneous accounts of the course and meaning of their recognition. This holds, with adjustments for the nature of lingueisics, for all such individuals. And what they say is consistent without regard to time or place in history, their culture, station, gender or intelligence. Nether was their explication effected by their religion or lack of it, or their politics, save in cases where the inculcation was so strong that the experience was colored in afterthought by that seeding. There are such cases on here, of either sort, and on analysis here and elsewhere, it’s pretty clear that the experience was so overwhelming, it had to be made thinkable. Indeed it is not uncommon for there to be an adjustment/integration/re-wiring period of even years. I found this to be true in my case ans pretty much across the board.
Anyway, I have to go; studio tour coming up. More later if you wish.
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Partinobodycula
Guest
That I am alone is not an article of faith, it’s a consequence of the nature of being alive, of being self-aware. I can never gain a perspective outside of myself. I can imagine the world through another man’s eyes, but I am destined to always see it through my own. This is the only perspective that I can ever have. I can never be you. I can imagine your hopes and your fears, but the only one’s that I can ever truly know, are my own. And so I am alone. I am trapped within my own personal world, with my own joys and my own sorrows. In the end these are all that I have. These seemingly insignificant things, are the things of which I am made. These are the things that define me. The world may be only an illusion, but my hopes and my judgments, my compassion and my intolerance, my empathy and my bitterness, these things are real. Theses things are me.
I have life, and I have the world, but I can never know if the world was created by me, or by God, or the by laws of physics combined with the vagaries of chance. But what I make of this world, and what I make of this life are determined by my own choices, and my own decisions. I may have no choice in the fact that I am, but I have every choice in determining the nature of what I am. I decide whether I am humble, and compassionate, and merciful, or bitter, and self-righteous, and resentful. I alone decide these things. I alone decide what I truly am. Every man has those things that they believe, but far more important than the nature of those beliefs, is the way in which one’s life embodies them.
You have the freedom to choose what you believe, and you have the freedom to choose the manner in which those beliefs are reflected in your life. As always, the choice is up to you.
In the end it doesn’t matter whether the world is an illusion, for I am as much a creation of it, as it ever could be of me. If I have compassion, it’s because it was born of suffering. If I have hope, it’s because it was born of despair. If I have joy, it’s because it was born of sorrow. Without the world, what am I? Real, or illusion, the world is a very precious thing. For the greatest treasures ever known, are born of life.
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Gary_Sheldrake
Guest
Great video Sochi. What I do think exists is consciousness. As for everything else, it’s probably a measurement of what consciousness projects. It’s something of a Monistic Idealist way of looking at it, but I can’t extricate myself from it. I keep thinking that Amit Goswami is right.
Thanks,
Gary
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Sochi
Guest
!!! Love that guy! I’ve watched his special on PBS a few times. “Do-BE-Do-Be Do!”
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Gary_Sheldrake
Guest
Then you might want to read his book “The Self Aware Universe.” He has written many since, but I think that’s his best.!!! Love that guy! I’ve watched his special on PBS a few times. “Do-BE-Do-Be Do!”
Thanks
Gary
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Sochi
Guest
I’ve heard excerpts and really liked them. It’s on my list now, thanks.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
More to the point, “Is Anything Unreal”? 
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Aloysium
Guest
I would have to say no. Unreality is an issue that has to do with interpretation. Hallucinations are real; but the psychotic person misunderstands their nature.More to the point, “Is Anything Unreal”?
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ThinkingSapien
Guest
Unreality isn’t limited to hallucinations and psychotics, but is also applicable to subjunctive mood statements that people makes in which case it may have some utility or may be used for emotional (among other types) of expression.
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Aloysium
Guest
I wouldn’t classify them as unreal; their reality would be as statements of potential or possibility.
Are lies and distortions unreal? They are statements of what is real as if it were something other than it is.
I’m not sure what would be left as unreal - nothingness, I suppose.
- Status