# There is no external world...



## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

There is no external world, your perceptions happening in mind are all there is.

You can never know what is out there... Because for a thing to be "like" something, an observer is required. E.g. for certain wavelengths of light to appear as red, this can only happen in mind. We know that if we exit our minds red is not actually "out there".

What is observer without observed (there is none), and what is observed without observer?

If we exit our minds somehow, it would be impossible for the external world to be "like" anything whatsoever. Not big, small, round, square. If it's not like anything, it must be like the only thing that does not require an observer to give subjective form or meaning to: Literal nothingness.

A color can't exist outside of our experience since the way in which it appears to us through our sensorial apparatus is part and parcel of what it means to be a color.

A perception and the way it appears to us are the very same thing. A sound and the way it sounds to us is the very same thing – which also happens to be what we mean by hearing. A color and the way it looks to us is the very same thing – which also happens to be what we mean by seeing. We objectify these perceptions and imagine them to exist independently of our experience, but it’s precisely to be in our experience that makes them what they are to begin with. That is, the way perceptions appear to us is equivalent to what they are.

A color cannot exist independently of experience, because in conceiving it as such, we need to think away the seeing from the color – but that is to think away the very thing that the color is, namely seeing. Any thinking in which color is regarded objectively involves this conceptual sleight-of-hand that ultimately ends in a situation where we must imagine seeing to exist independently of experiencing in order to pull it off.

We can begin to understand why things as they are in themselves cannot have color, and why they can’t be round nor hard – color is nothing but seeing, and shape and texture and softness is nothing but feeling. An object can’t be hard in and of itself, since we by hard refer to a manifestation of feeling. Neither can it be red nor round, if we by those words refer to manifestations of seeing – which we do, since it was from seeing that those concepts were derived from to begin with.


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## Knight of the Rope (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> There is no external world, your perceptions happening in mind are all there is.


Based and solipsism-pilled.

I'll go you one further. There is _no mind_. Not only does nothing that (you think) you're perceiving actually exist, you _yourself_ don't actually exist. It's infinitely more likely that the whirling gases of the infinite void came together just long enough to form some facsimile of a consciousness that _tricked itself_ into thinking it's you and deluded itself into thinking that it has lived your entire life so far, than it is for anything that actually exists to actually exist.

So smoke on that one, buddy.


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## A Welsh Cake (Jul 3, 2021)

Oooooweeeooooowweeeeeeooooo I’m a figment of your imagination ooooo.
You must commit arson and jack off to pictures of Manticores ooooooweeooooweeeeooo


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

A Welsh Cake said:


> Oooooweeeooooowweeeeeeooooo I’m a figment of your imagination ooooo.
> You must commit arson and jack off to pictures of Manticores ooooooweeooooweeeeooo


I am a figment of my imagination too. You are me. I am you. There is only God perceiving itself and manifesting as apparent objects that exist by perception.


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## Un Platano (Jul 3, 2021)

What you're describing is known as qualia. It's debatable whether qualia even exist because it's not usable information. You can't put qualia to use in any way that can't be described with a qualia-less phenomenon. For example, I can't apply the qualia of red to anything that could not also be adequately described as a certain wavelength and intensity of light. This all begs the question of what the information even is that you hold. It's information that cannot be shared, copied, or transferred to anyone else who is presumably able to interpret it. Is it really information at all then? Under this interpretation, qualia is an emergent behavior of tangible systems in your mind and not a fundamental phenomenon of the mind in and of itself.

Personally I subscribe to the mysterianism approach to it that we'll never find a satisfactory answer to whether qualia are real. By its very nature it's not something we're able to corroborate. In defining qualia to be so intangible we've created a problem that is unsolvable by its very nature.


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## Carlos Weston Chantor (Jul 3, 2021)

Smoke weed once and you'll start saying shit like "peepeepoopoo world no real"

Smoke crack for years and you'll realize the world is real because the Bible says so


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## WeWuzFinns (Jul 3, 2021)

Anything your mind creates is just a weak fabrication of reality. The only reason humans have the ability to create abstractions in their minds is to predict what comes next. When you can make good enough prediction, you can shape your future. 

Even monkeys and dogs can learn or at least sense that fire hurts and going near fire is a bad idea. Human on the other hand can predict future further. We can use the knowledge that fire burns things, and use that fire to light a bottle on fire, and use that bottle to burn a building and potentially spread that fire to other buildings.


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## heathercho (Jul 3, 2021)

Not to shitpost, but I feel like this was genuinely bought up in the Sonichu universe once upon a time....


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## The Jumping Dwarf (Jul 3, 2021)




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## Just A Butt (Jul 3, 2021)

heathercho said:


> Not to shitpost,


get out


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## User names must be unique (Jul 3, 2021)

There is an external word but there is no way to objectively test the external world since we are trapped by its laws and material constraints and cannot test from the outside. Therefore it's impossible to determine whether it's real or just a simulation or dream.


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## PaulBearer (Jul 3, 2021)

I found where the 'free will' crazies post, I'm so happy, every forum in the world has a 'free will' nutcase, a theory of mine that has yet to be disproved.

I've got nothing to add cause I think it's bullshit...apart from that I suppose.


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## Cheerlead-in-Chief (Jul 3, 2021)

Oh, the Edgelord that believes "Fetuses think life is utter shit again. My name is Not Important" again~♡ It seems life hasn't gotten better for ya, huh?

So does that mean we're living in simulations/a computer now?!


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## Help Me Move This Table (Jul 3, 2021)

I think the mind is a part of the body, which is a part of the external world, it’s all the same thing. Humans — like trees, amoeba, and hyenas — are just organisms taking in information about their environment. The “self” is a post-hoc response to stimuli, basically a story the human brain tells itself, about itself. You can “feel” you’re a “self,” and it’s “real,” but at the end of the day it’s all brain electricity.


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## Spooky Doot Skelly (Jul 3, 2021)

I've said this before and I'll say it again: "consciousness", "mind", etc. do not exist. Every time I ask for some definition I get drivel, or a circular definition. Your self-referential thinking is due to your default mode network. We know for a fact chemicals induced cause a change in "consciousness" - it's literally just your brain. Qualia does not exist, consciousness is a bullshit new-age phenomena trying to rip off Buddhist practices even though it's explicit in Theravada Buddhism that even your mind/consciousness/whatever is just an illusion. These faggots never wanna take it a step further because they'll only use qualia pseud bullshit to try and deny aspects of materialism they don't like.


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## Unassuming Local Guy (Jul 3, 2021)

Maturation with an average or higher IQ, a summary

Childhood: Reality makes observation.  I see it because it is real.

Teenage years: But what if observation makes reality?  What if it's all an illusion?

Adulthood: Oh, I was right the first time.


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## Miles (Jul 3, 2021)

The brain naturally has limits, language is limited in certain ways that it can't paint a perfect picture of reality.

For example, explain to me what the color red looks like but assume I'm blind and I have never seen a color before.

There's just natural limitations to the way we describe reality.

Reality is just a construct, it's impossible to construct reality to perfection.

The mind isn't a spiritual thing but the mind is a product of a very complex biological computer that we call the brain.


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## L50LasPak (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> I am a figment of my imagination too. You are me. I am you. There is only God perceiving itself and manifesting as apparent objects that exist by perception.


Who the fuck said anything about God?


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## Cheerlead-in-Chief (Jul 3, 2021)

L50LasPak said:


> Who the fuck said anything about God?


Remember their their first Edgelord thread where he claimed he's a Buddhist, "A newborn will open their eyes and consider life utterly worthless" etc.? He's calling back to that.
Some mod must make him stop making these edgy pseudo-nihilistic/philosophical threads


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## L50LasPak (Jul 3, 2021)

Cheerlead-in-Chief said:


> Remember their their first Edgelord thread where he claimed he's a Buddhist, "A newborn will open their eyes and consider life utterly worthless" etc.? He's calling back to that.
> Some mod must make him stop making these edgy pseudo-nihilistic/philosophical threads


Well, I mean, life is worthless, but God doesn't make it worth anything neccesarily now either. 

My money is on schizo.


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## Cheerlead-in-Chief (Jul 3, 2021)

L50LasPak said:


> Well, I mean, life is worthless, but God doesn't make it worth anything neccesarily now either.
> 
> My money is on schizo.


Maybe Schizophrenia, but I'm leaning towards "ATTENTION WHORE"


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## L50LasPak (Jul 3, 2021)

Cheerlead-in-Chief said:


> Maybe Schizophrenia, but I'm leaning towards "ATTENTION WHORE"


They're not mutually exclusive!


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## Niggernerd (Jul 3, 2021)

How can the world be real if my eyes aren't real


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

mr spongecake said:


> Qualia does not exist, consciousness is a bullshit new-age phenomena trying to rip off Buddhist practices even though it's explicit in Theravada Buddhism


Ironically it made me think of Nondualism, though I’m rather new to that specific subject. Isn’t Qualia a type of Physicalism? I checked what I could before online before asking, but they’re pretty vague and short noted on “Qualia,” and anything related. 


Cheerlead-in-Chief said:


> "A newborn will open their eyes and consider life utterly worthless"


He said what now, that doesn’t even make sense. 



I personally like the idea of Nondualism, but even I’ll admit it’s far fetched claims, even a former teacher of Nondualism - Scott Kiloby talks about it. 
This Quali shit doesn’t seem much different, albeit I am pretty ignorant on its depth bc this post does not explain it very well.


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 3, 2021)

Knight of the Rope said:


> Based and solipsism-pilled.
> 
> I'll go you one further. There is _no mind_. Not only does nothing that (you think) you're perceiving actually exist, you _yourself_ don't actually exist. It's infinitely more likely that the whirling gases of the infinite void came together just long enough to form some facsimile of a consciousness that _tricked itself_ into thinking it's you and deluded itself into thinking that it has lived your entire life so far, than it is for anything that actually exists to actually exist.
> 
> So smoke on that one, buddy.


I'm not convinced. I think it's much more likely for consciousness-snippets to exist in actual physical worlds than to exist as a temporary randomly-formed mind in the cosmos somewhere. The context in which I exist is too well-structured for it to be likely a result of an arbitrary solitary mind. I think it's more likely that through-out all reality, stars and planets are so much more common than solitary minds, that the infinitesimally smaller fraction of earth planets containing myself heavily out-weigh solitary minds that are convinced they're myself on earth.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> I think it's much more likely for consciousness-snippets to exist in an actual physical worlds than to exist as a temporary randomly-formed mind in the cosmos somewhere.


I’m fairly sure this is the line of reasoning I follow as well, while David Loy’s book on Nondualism is a very interesting, and provoking belief. It just, reaches into the ridiculous at times, at least from my ‘perspective.’
Space & Time not being real is just really odd for me to wrap my head around as a concept, the Subject - Object Illusion is no less ambiguous as well, with a certain round about way of deterring criticisms as being dualistic and erroneous in nature because of it.


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## Cheerlead-in-Chief (Jul 3, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> Ironically it made me think of Nondualism, though I’m rather new to that specific subject. Isn’t Qualia a type of Physicalism? I checked what I could before online before asking, but they’re pretty vague and short noted on “Qualia,” and anything related.
> 
> He said what now, that doesn’t even make sense.


Yes, I was going to counter argue with my own life at the risk of power leveling:

A baby waking up laughing
But @RMQualtrough would never respond to my replies and was selective.


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## heathercho (Jul 3, 2021)

Just A Butt said:


> get out



I really wanted OP to formulate a serious conversation on the planes of reality in the Sonichu world.

If Sonichu believes he's real, is he? Is his external world real? He can interact with it, therefore it must be real. Well, real to him. So if it's real to him and he believes he's real, then he must be real and we must acknowledge this fact.
If the creator of the world is the placeholder for "God", then CWC must be a god.

That means all fanfict is also real.

That's the conversation we need.


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## Cheerlead-in-Chief (Jul 3, 2021)

heathercho said:


> I really wanted OP to formulate a serious conversation on the planes of reality in the Sonichu world.
> 
> If Sonichu believes he's real, is he? Is his external world real? He can interact with it, therefore it must be real. Well, real to him. So if it's real to him and he believes he's real, then he must be real and we must acknowledge this fact.
> If the creator of the world is the placeholder for "God", then CWC must be a god.
> ...


Too bad he won't. I'm sure he's a fan of Arthur Shopeheimer...maybe or anything that appeals to his edgy beliefs that humanity should have blown it's collective brains out.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

Cheerlead-in-Chief said:


> Yes, I was going to counter argue with my own life at the risk of power leveling:
> 
> A baby waking up laughing
> But @RMQualtrough would never respond to my replies and was selective.


Well that would be a risk, I suppose. 
If you take Nondualism at face value 
Which even Scott learned not to do the hard way: 


Spoiler: Some bs you don’t wanna see 



Shame kept me living alone with all of this. After all, if I am a nondual teacher, how could I possibly explain all of this?  How could all of this be happening AFTER the awakening? Did I miss something? Am I not really awake?  Those were all questions that arose at one point or another. 

The truth is, the shift into presence was really just a beginning. It was the beginning of seeing everything within my conditioning that had been hidden and unconscious all my life.



So, I’m not really following this post toooo much, but I’m still waiting on clarification on Qualia as I search it around. 
From what I read, it kinda boils down to the Knowledge Argument, and Property Dualism..I think?


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 3, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> I’m fairly sure this the line I of reasoning my I follow as well, while David Loy’s book on Nondualism is a very interesting, and provoking belief. It just, reaches into the ridiculous at times, at least from my ‘perspective.’
> Space & Time not being real is just really odd for me to wrap my head around as a concept, the Subject - Object Illusion is no less ambiguous as well, with a certain round about way of deterring criticisms as being dualistic and erroneous in nature because of it.


Kinda trying to think about what kind of existence I would need to experience that would convince me I might be a solitary brain conjuring everything up. It'd probably be extremely dream-like but with no actual basis to any grounding reality.


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## heathercho (Jul 3, 2021)

Cheerlead-in-Chief said:


> Too bad he won't. I'm sure he's a fan of Arthur Shopeheimer...maybe or anything that appeals to his edgy beliefs that humanity should have blown it's collective brains out.



If OP is a character in my fanfict and this version believes he's real and his external world is real and he disagrees with OP's assertion of the original post, in turn wishing to annihilate OP for fucking up his world view... when does OP die? His external world is not real because his belief in it isn't there. He cannot provide proof that his interaction with his external world is tangible.
I have created him, therefore I am God. I'm a spiteful god, so I am removing him from his existence. 

Who was OP really? Where did he post to, if his external world wasn't real all along?


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

User names must be unique said:


> There is an external word


Describe it.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> Kinda trying to think about what kind of existence I would need to experience that would convince me I might be a solitary brain conjuring everything up. It'd probably be extremely dream-like but with no actual basis to any grounding reality.


The hardest thing about these topics is the extent to which we allow our imagination to spread. 
I’ll play sophism, this is from my notes on Nondualism: 



Spoiler: Tangenty bs. 



Before your brain retrieves the correlated names to the things you are looking at, you have no idea what you’re seeing. Once you draw that idea/knowledge of the object you’re gazing at, you know see it/them. Without those past: memories, ideas, concepts, knowledge, you’d see no separation



Without memories, or experience we’d see nothin, no boundaries, no lines, no hard edges. 
What’s your retort to that claim of oneness David Loy (albeit I summarized my notes big time) against Separateness/Separation?


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Describe it.


You wish for him to describe something even Locke had trouble getting across to many? 
The knowledge of External World, according to Locke who I believe was/is the leading Philosopher on External World, is the knowledge of the existence of something that is distinct from our mind, the real world to be more specific. You can have the knowledge of known you exist right now presently, you can also know the phone/computer you’re looking at exists. As you’re interacting with it, that also means you exist, that’s the basics.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

mr spongecake said:


> I've said this before and I'll say it again: "consciousness", "mind", etc. do not exist. Every time I ask for some definition I get drivel, or a circular definition. Your self-referential thinking is due to your default mode network. We know for a fact chemicals induced cause a change in "consciousness" - it's literally just your brain. Qualia does not exist, consciousness is a bullshit new-age phenomena trying to rip off Buddhist practices even though it's explicit in Theravada Buddhism that even your mind/consciousness/whatever is just an illusion. These faggots never wanna take it a step further because they'll only use qualia pseud bullshit to try and deny aspects of materialism they don't like.


You don't understand Buddhism.

Consciousness is empty. "Things" can be perceived, the perceiver is "no-thing". The two are dependent upon each other to exist:

Picture yourself in nothing but a black void. No thoughts no emotions just a perception of a black void. Now remove the black void. Where is the observer now? When there is no observed there is no observer. It is fundamentally nothing.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

heathercho said:


> That means all fanfict is also real.
> 
> That's the conversation we need.


Oh god no please god no.


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 3, 2021)

The practicalities of my views on existence and death are such that I am cautiously terrified/optimistic that I am never going to die. I am terrified because I suspect the methods by which my consciousness can be justifiably indefinitely extended in the reality I currently recognize are probably prone to monkey-paw-ification. Like maybe I make a really bad enemy who decides to lock me into my mind, and do all that they can to keep me alive. Or perhaps as I age and go senile, my brain deteriorates sufficiently that the now-chaotic continuance of my consciousness can justifiably loop over and over from one near-dead instance of my self to another, and never end.
I am somewhat optimistic because I think I _might _have some control over my fate, at least probabilistically. I think the key to it is to make a suicide bargain with yourself. That if life ever goes over some thresh-hold of suck, then you do all that you can to kill yourself. From that person's perspective he won't ever succeed, but he will successfully thin out that branch of possibility, sort of like pruning a tree. The main issue with me is I'm not actually that confident that I would go through with the bargain.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Consciousness is empty. "Things" can be perceived, the perceiver is "no-thing". The two are dependent upon each other to exist:


Awareness, wholeness, oneness, or we could call it consciousness, _takes form_ as everything that appears. Consciousness is not some blank empty slate behind everything. ~ David Loy 




RMQualtrough said:


> Where is the observer now? When there is no observed there is no observer. It is fundamentally nothing.


Okay, so we’re definitely at the Subject - Object Illusion now, what’s your take on this then? 



Spoiler: This is my notes on that particular belief. 



Objects are created in your mind, from perceived ideas, notions, or concepts which in turn is just consciousness. Seeing is just thinking of an imagined reality, believing we are experiencing the world; when you’re just experiencing what you’ve experienced itself, objectless consciousness. If objects are objectively real, you can’t say that consciousness is beyond/prior to time/space. These are just spatio, and temporal concepts with no independent/singular application from time and space


.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> You wish for him to describe something even Locke had trouble getting across to many?
> The knowledge of External World, according to Locke who I believe was/is the leading Philosopher on External World, is the knowledge of the existence of something that is distinct from our mind, the real world to be more specific. You can have the knowledge of known you exist right now presently, you can also know the phone/computer you’re looking at exists. As you’re interacting with it, that also means you exist, that’s the basics.


Phones and computers appear in mind.

Lots of things can be said to exist dependent upon how you choose to define the word exist. Do dreams exist? Most people would draw a line and say no. If you choose to say some illusory things should be considered real, then you may well say the phone and computer are real.


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## User names must be unique (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Describe it.


One person can't describe it, it's collaborative effort of multiple perspectives of other humans who I can assume are independent observers based on the fact they posses knowledge I didn't/couldn't have known. 

Yes I suppose there's always the chance they're truman show style npc's  but that would mean I am unique or special in someway that seems extremely doubtful.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> Awareness, wholeness, oneness, or we could call it consciousness, _takes form_ as everything that appears. Consciousness is not some blank empty slate behind everything. ~ David Loy
> 
> 
> 
> ...


David Loy is describing the Tao there, which is nothing+everything. The awareness you describe is the empty nothing portion, and it manifests as the something which is the appearance of dualism. You know this I think but I am responding to that anyway.

Do you want my own way of viewing this?

I think the appearance of dualism exists by absolute necessity, and in absolute total literal nothingness it is impossible for things to not manifest. For to force nothing to remain as nothing would be imposing a boundary or limit, but in nothingness there can be no such thing as boundaries or limits because if there were it would not be absolute nothing.

Consciousness is something which happens where there is interaction. Often people refer to fundamental reality as consciousness. I think this is because it is easier to think about and find within ourselves. But by exploring consciousness at a point we find it too is empty... What it really is, is closer to consciousness under general anaesthesia, in that it only happens when experience happens.

When experience happens, nothing plays the role of the experiencer, while the somethings are of course the experienced. That extends even to thought...

Call it "I" and watch how what it is retreats immediately behind that thought. For a thought is observed, and what it is, is the observer. So it isn't the "I" thought but what is behind that thought.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Phones and computers appear in mind.


In your perspective, remember I’m not directly denying/countering you, I’m just posing questions.



RMQualtrough said:


> If you choose to say some illusory things should be considered real, then you may well say the phone and computer are real.





Spoiler: This is a loooong one 



Kind of Dualistic in approach for what I thought was a very Nondualistic post.
Via Subject - Object Illusion, your Mind claims, everything else, behind us all is abstract nothingness, or Not Two.
How about:
Time & Space do not objectively exist.
If you believe that Time & Space are objectively out there. You must then come to terms with Objects being capable of viewing other Objects, which are only Subjects. Time can’t exist objectively, because you cannot point me to an event in time, only an event during our ever moving present. Though we enter Fatalism - Presentism/Eternalism discussion tangents so moving on. 
The typical person sees themself as an Object with cognizance/consciousness/mind, whichever you prefer.
The criticism to what you, I believe is Subjective Idealism, refer to if everything is just in the mind, things would stop existing when not perceived “fire to ashes.” this proved that when asleep, not seeing it, perceiving it, it still is a true aspect of the material world. Time still passes, space still _Is, _ the only answer would be the claim of a God(s) perception keeping the Tree a Tree while in the forest by itself . If God is always watching, this Idealism would be unnecessary, and a waste of time, You can’t ask someone else to prove an imperceptible though, 
The borders of perception are potentially set by beliefs and thereby someone not believing S.Idealism could make it impossible for them to see proof for it.



It’s all a fucky topic, but always fun to get into.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

User names must be unique said:


> One person can't describe it, it's collaborative effort of multiple perspectives of other humans who I can assume are independent observers based on the fact they posses knowledge I didn't/couldn't have known.
> 
> Yes I suppose there's always the chance they're truman show style npc's  but that would mean I am unique or special in someway that seems extremely doubtful.


The point of the question is that as soon as you say it is "like" anything, you are introducing perceptual experience which cannot be out there, because you would need to remove the perceptual element of the thing to find what is actually out there.

If it can't possibly be "like" anything at all, because anything it could possibly be "like" is a perception, then it can only be like the singular and sole thing which cannot possibly be perceived: Absolutely nothingness.

When saying there is an objective world, from that claim you must be able to state what you think IS out there.

We can take a TV monitor and you could stick a tape measure across it and it says 42". Smoke some good shit and perhaps the TV suddenly appears twice as wide or twice as narrow. But you see the problem is, the measuring device itself is part OF the material world that you are now perceiving as wider or narrower, and as such it shrinks or expands WITH your perception. It still says the TV is 42" even though it appears twice as narrow or w.e., rendering the measuring device useless for telling us what it is actually like out there. If both models of what is out there work as they can be verified to, then there is no way to say my TV and the tape measure isn't actually twice as wide (or w.e.) in actuality.

We have to conceive of what it would look like if we exited our mind and saw it AS IT REALLY IS. Which cannot be done, because even if we left our mind, to see what the TV really looks like invokes "SEEING" which is PERCEPTION.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> David Loy is describing the Tao there, which is nothing+everything. The awareness you describe is the empty nothing portion, and it manifests as the something which is the appearance of dualism. You know this I think but I am responding to that anyway.


Yea, it is but Taoism has the concept of that WWW word I forget which I think literally meant, “action of nonaction,” or something similar, basically forgetting the external/not perceiving it: 
When you stop being yourself, and become one with the activity at hand. 
Muscle memory, a person “in the zone,” etc, or a simplified as Subject - Object Nonduality/Nondual Thinking.


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## Bad Gateway (Jul 3, 2021)




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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

Cheerlead-in-Chief said:


> Yes, I was going to counter argue with my own life at the risk of power leveling:
> 
> A baby waking up laughing
> But @RMQualtrough would never respond to my replies and was selective.


I have no idea what you are talking about since you think I'm some guy who said fetuses hate life, hence I didn't reply.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> The point of the question is that as soon as you say it is "like" anything, you are introducing perceptual experience which cannot be out there, because you would need to remove the perceptual element of the thing to find what is actually out there.


I think my favorite explaining of the Consciousness over all else is; 
“There is no external world beyond our perceptions. There is only consciousness. What this attempts to explain is the mechanism whereby this subjectivity manifest itself into this seemingly real world of objects and subjects” 
This subjectivity is manifested via the conditioning of decades, upon thousands of years of viewing in an Objective way, rather than Subjective 
The claim that this is all built upon via subjective perception is attacked upon the basis that Trees don’t disappear in the middle of nowhere, a fire burns out at night, your asleep, yet your bed stays under you. You’re in the shower, yet your parents don’t disappear, etc etc. 
It begs too many questions upon a higher power, and from what little I do know, a higher power specific isn’t a big topic/notion in Monism/Subjective Idealism, though I could be wrong.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> In your perspective, remember I’m not directly denying/countering you, I’m just posing questions.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Consciousness is immaterial and as such is something without a physical spatial boundary. That is, consciousness has a spatial dimension no more than the emotion of love does. There is no way to bust out a ruler and say "yep, love is 50cm x 20cm.

So your sense of consciousness being like an object with a physical dimension, like say a box shape behind your eyes, cannot possibly be accurate because like love it is not physical.

Rather, it conforms to the shape of your body by illusion of the brain, because this is critical to survival. If you don't know where you end and other begins, you could not function or survive and your genes would not be replicated.

Induce an out of body experience, and the subject object divide collapses and rather than feeling confined to your body, you experience it as its boundless self, since it is immaterial like happiness of sadness.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Consciousness is immaterial and as such is something without a physical spatial boundary. That is, consciousness has a spatial dimension no more than the emotion of love does. There is no way to bust out a ruler and say "yep, love is 50cm x 20cm.
> 
> So your sense of consciousness being like an object with a physical dimension, like say a box shape behind your eyes, cannot possibly be accurate because like love it is not physical.
> 
> ...



Gorän explains Perception Veil as such: 
“…the world as it appears to us is not the actual world – it is an experiential representation of the world. And this representation, this constantly refreshed virtual depiction of ourselves and the world around us, is all that we can ever encounter…”
Basically, you cannot make the content of your world, anything other than what the content of your consciousness is. 
“But objects obviously exist, they’re right here.” 
The way we experience them, or representation of them is entirely subjective in relation to the individual, like those old mind tricks they had in grade school. 

The issue is that this brings wild claims to tail, someone comes to you and says they seen a Dragon, they’re crazy, they say they saw a Rainbow, oh cool. 
When we close our eyes, life doesn’t cease outside of us, what is real? what is illusion? do you base it entirely on personal subjective perception? 
We can separate dreams, and reality, but not illusions of existence? 
If we all are looking at this KF site, it must exist, we can’t all perceive the same personally subjective idea of KF. 
If one person claims otherwise, it’s up to them to prove their side. 
If everything is unreal, so must be the mind/conscious, which renders everything we’ve said as moot, and unimportant then?


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Which cannot be done, because even if we left our mind, to see what the TV really looks like invokes "SEEING" which is PERCEPTION.


Seer vs Seen then, right?
Seer & Seen being opposites, the Seer sees a lot of things, unchanging being the mind.
& The Seen doesn’t stop changing; Before your brain retrieves the correlated names to the things you are looking at, you have no idea what you’re seeing.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> I think my favorite explaining of the Consciousness over all else is;
> “There is no external world beyond our perceptions. There is only consciousness. What this attempts to explain is the mechanism whereby this subjectivity manifest itself into this seemingly real world of objects and subjects”
> This subjectivity is manifested via the conditioning of decades, upon thousands of years of viewing in an Objective way, rather than Subjective
> The claim that this is all built upon via subjective perception is attacked upon the basis that Trees don’t disappear in the middle of nowhere, a fire burns out at night, your asleep, yet your bed stays under you. You’re in the shower, yet your parents don’t disappear, etc etc.
> It begs too many questions upon a higher power, and from what little I do know, a higher power specific isn’t a big topic/notion in Monism/Subjective Idealism, though I could be wrong.


The word God (higher power) is very frequently used albeit we do not mean anything like the God of Abraham. In the same sense that EVERYONE believes in God so long as they believe there exists a source of all things.

Brahman is consciousness without attribute. The Tao is "unspeakable" (really it is infinite nothing/something). Nirvana or whatever means "extinguishing" if I remember right. The topic of Nothingness is crucial in Buddhism, and especially important to me, because I firmly believe that nothing is the foundation of all existence... And it is quite obvious actually, when I consider, if you empty EVERYTHING from existence, what is left? Nothing. What is the only thing that does not require a cause? Nothing.

Nothing is the uncaused cause! Any something creates an infinite regress. Nothing solves all. And the lack of limits logical laws and boundaries in nothingness is the mechanism by which it manifests as something.

There is a book called God is Nothingness which I enjoyed.

Trees don't disappear but there is no such thing as a tree separated from perception. Let me explain: When a tree falls and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound. NO! It CAN'T. It makes soundwaves we say, and those bounce off  but there is no "thwomp", because the sound of it falling ("thwomp") is dependent upon observation.

There is nothing to a tree but perception. Tree is something Brahman or nothingness or w.e. you call it is manifesting as.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Brahman is consciousness without attribute


Brahman is also the many faces of Duality, the nondual, non illusion, reality as a concrete universe, or Nakamura. So yea, basically, I agree there. 

Nothing being the uncaused cause is also true, but there’s also the Philosophy that God is the uncaused cause. Like you said about the Book you mentioned, if Nothingness is uncaused, God must be Nothingness. The cause, that was never given a cause to exist, because it is Eternal. I just feel this topic is heavy on the Nonduality aspect, and that’s why I got involved tbh. I’ve enjoyed this conversation not going to lie, very thought provoking.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> Gorän explains Perception Veil as such:
> “…the world as it appears to us is not the actual world – it is an experiential representation of the world. And this representation, this constantly refreshed virtual depiction of ourselves and the world around us, is all that we can ever encounter…”
> Basically, you cannot make the content of your world, anything other than what the content of your consciousness is.
> “But objects obviously exist, they’re right here.”
> ...


Envision dreams, how those work. In THIS reality we are not the dreamer, we are the dreamED. Right? So... Consider a dream you are having, the laws and rules of a dream are very versatile and unfixed, however, whatever is localized inside the dream does adhere to whichever laws are imposed upon that dream.

So if in the dream it is the case that saying "BOO" causes rain to happen, then if you said BOO rain would fall.

It is hard to use as an anaolgy because there are not very stringent rules placed upon dreams.

But take it up a level and imagine now that the universe is a dream. Unlike the dreams we have, the laws are very strict and unchanging. There is gravity, time, etc. We the characters are localized inside this "material-dream". In this material dream universe there are no such thing as dragons. You cannot fly. Etc. Because we are part OF the dream and adhere to its rules.

We cannot change them or bend them. I can explain why.

But if someone says they saw a dragon. I cannot deny they had a perception of the appearance of a dragon. But they are trying to imply that it happened inside the material-universe-dream where such things, by consensus, do not exist.

Hopefully that makes sense.


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> We cannot change them or bend them. I can explain why.
> 
> But if someone says they saw a dragon. I cannot deny they had a perception of the appearance of a dragon. But they are trying to imply that it happened inside the material-universe-dream where such things, by consensus, do not exist.
> 
> Hopefully that makes sense.


By using the term "consensus" aren't you admitting this material-universe-dream is external to you, and therefore indistinguishable from the concept of an "external world"?


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## General Tug Boat (Jul 3, 2021)

I look at it as the human brain is like a reciever, essentially converts the stimuli that our nervous system recieves into usable information.  It's just more or so on how not only your stimuli has neurologically developed in response to the environment, but also through the rigorous course of our evolutionary tract, how you respond to it.  Reality in itself is subjective and if anything I find it is more likely we are a universal consciousness that exists in the cloud.  That because of the fundamental limits of the universe can only inherently exist in one reference frame at a time.  Though it can coexist, where essentially the God mind is just an inherent property of all of nature. 

It just isn't something that we necessarily measure, because arrangements of information is like RAM.  It's only in a temporary state, but like the fundamental property all of matter shares it cannot be created or destroyed, only rearranged.  Time is a way of quantitatively measure displacement of information, but lacks the attribute of the actual assembly, it's up to our brains to be able to do the work in that regard. 

Cause and effect are real, not that nothing exists, it just that our receptors filter out the unnecessary data that is like junk, because it isn't significant to the survival of the organism.  All life shares the same instinct, just has different levels of being able to interpret the stimuli.

Reality is what you make it,  have fun with it, and don't take it too seriously.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 3, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> By using the term "consensus" aren't you admitting this material-universe-dream is external to you, and therefore indistinguishable from the concept of an "external world"?


It depends which "you" is being referred to. The human you are talking to right now is part _OF_ the "external world" you see?

We are part OF the dream.

Envision for a moment that this is all a dream in God's mind. We the characters localized inside this thing called the universe, are dreamed things. Indeed our bodies are made OF the universe, of matter. We arise from it. We do not come "into" it.

It is about finding what exists objectively at the absolute level, which is above and beyond what is objectively true in this dream.

So absolute I am meaning, that even if there were a creator God, or this was a simulation on a computer, it would be the origin of THAT too. We are going right to the source. And I am saying that at the source, there is no such thing as other. It is total nonduality.

When nonduality is experienced by a human, which is our finite selves, the experience is equivalent to nothing. When we go under general anaesthesia, the nothing in between is total absolute nonduality. Because the monent you experience ANYTHING, you are creating experienceD and experienceR. There is no experiencer without experienced. There is just nothing. And that is fundamental absolute reality.

From our finite selves, there is an illusion of the external world like a dream, but there is nothing actually out there beyond mind. I wrote a piece on Reddit proving this mathematically. But logically it can be shown too, since an object is nothing but what it is perceived to be. It is possible to experience various models of this "external world" and all function as expected like the example of the stretching or shrinking TV screen and tape measure. When multiple models of the world work, there is no way to be able to determine which is right or wrong.

A space alien might perceive the color red as blue. But if both taught "this is what red looks like" when seeing that specific wavelength of light, we would agree "hey look there's red". In that very simplified version of the issue, we see that there is no way to say whether upon exiting the mind the thing is actually red or blue.

Consider for a moment if you were tasked to draw the room around you as it IS rather than as it appears, how would you begin? Color is immediately out. We might instead choose to draw some squiggles to represent a wave of light (color). But a wave is still form, you are still drawing a shape which requires seeing and perception.

It gets more interesting and obvious with spatial dimensions, though, because that is where we can most easily see our measuring tools are meaningless to tell us what is really there, because they too are subject to perception. And thus a person could see something as being much different in size while the measuring tool being a material object alters size to reflect the perception, while the numerical figure remains the same. And then we can ask "what exactly IS a 30cm, when removed from perception". Am I making sense?


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 3, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> It depends which "you" is being referred to. The human you are talking to right now is part _OF_ the "external world" you see?
> 
> We are part OF the dream.


I agree, everything in this universe is made of the same basic stuff at the lowest level (probably), but I don't see how that meaningfully integrates a consciousness with the reality it's parts were made from.
Combinations of parts can have attributes that don't exist in any of the individual parts, and this suggests to me that combinations of parts of the universe can meaningfully separate it from the rest of the universe when looking at certain attributes. It could perhaps be the case, that the combination of universe parts that creates a perceptive consciousness separates the universe into observed and observer, and experienced and experiencer. When the consciousness dies, it doesn't rejoin the universe; it ceases to exist-the elevated attributes it obtained due to its pattern fall back to the background levels of the universe.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> the laws and rules of a dream are very versatile and unfixed





RMQualtrough said:


> But take it up a level and imagine now that the universe is a dream. Unlike the dreams we have, the laws are very strict and unchanging. There is gravity, time, etc.


*First off, this is simply me playing Advocate, for the sake of Philosophy. *
_*While I softly agree with some of what I’ll say, do not take it all as my 100% factual belief. *_



Spoiler: A lotta text, open at risk. 



Okay, so now we’ve broached Concepts for sure, Concepts which usually stand by reason as the ‘building blocks’ of the Universe. 
All a Concept technically is, would be an idea that we apply to a certain “real logic,” for lack of better terms: 
Gravity, Time, Light, Language, Knowledge, Truth, etc. 
The issue is, by acknowledging these Concepts are logical in Philosophy, not Mental, which would inherently harm the argument perpetrated. 
You could argue that they’re just words that we assign “meaningless meaning” towards, the issue remains that a Concept is technically Empirical, the direct opponent of Philosophical. 
The only argument I’m aware of would be that Concepts point to direct experience, we simply cannot conceptualize something that isn’t within our reasonable mental capacity. 
That could be an objective claim, but it would be made from a subjective ground.
& It would need a study group consensus to reasonably test it. 
With that being said, by virtue of it any Concept thought of, or made “law” by man, is a Concept we’ve experienced. 
“But I can imagine the Concept of a Dragon, or even a 40 foot tall Ape named King Kong!” 
Yes, but that would be due to their normal conceptual make up, colors, shapes, etc. 
We couldn’t conceptualize what a 9th dimensional hexagon looks like, or even a 4th dimensional Hyper?cube, because it’s not within the realm of plausibility to us. 

So, while we may not be able to say what an External Reality would be, we can definitely say what it isn’t, due to these Laws, Concepts you say even exist in the dream like illusion of reality we stay in. 
Space existing (in the terms of my sophism.) would imply that Space is the canvas we draw the illusions of Concepts upon. 
Space is still apart of the Consciousness within this segment, but it’s only the Canvas we draw upon, and as such is subjective to our Reality/Experience. 
Could Space be independent of us? Which would basically ask is Soce physical? Throwing aside my personal opinion, the argument I’m advocating is a big no as well, mainly due to our limited experience. 
See how experience is the big advocate in this argument? 
If Space was independent of our experience, it would be Physical, which would make Space objective, existing in the External/Material World. How could we describe an item, of that which is inexperiencable though, 
“But just because we can’t imagine it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” 
Meh, well it does kinda, you can’t say you imagine nothing at all, because you can’t. The/Your (not you specifically.) argument is that you’re imagining Nothing, which is complete opposite of Existence. 
Time also doesn’t exist, “but why?! Are you retarded?!” 
All Time is, would be a way to relate two separate events, or _Experiences._ You can’t conceive the future, you can’t conceive an events location in the past, only the experience it gave. Even if Time was objective we couldn’t tell the place an event that’s already happened, along the “span of Time” because it’s not an interactive Concept physically. & Any sort of mathematical representation of Time/Space can only do so, because they are assuming that Time/Space is objective to everything in relations due to Einstein I believe. 


Everyone’s individual experience, creates their subjective Time, along a supposed Spatial “stream/linear set” of experiences, which only means that what happens now, has absolutely zero effecting cause to the past, there’s. no. connection


. 

TL/DR: Life is subjective, illusion based, and nothing is real, you’ll die, ascend consciousness if lucky, or be stuck in some terrifying never ending cycle.
Always strive for Brahman though, as that’s the Eternity, the Many Faces, and the Nonduality, the God that is Nothing, the Nothing that is God. 

This isn’t me claiming these are all true, or all false. Dualism sucks, there’s no such thing as _ONLY  _two Truth Values, that’s just a conditioned route of belief. Fallacious in nature as a False Dilemma, 
True or False is in nature, logically incorrect, Many-Valued Logic’s, while Non-Classical also exist, which is a good 



Spoiler: example right here 



Causal force of future verbs can be deterministic or probabilistic. The proposition: “If you let go of that rock, it will fall” expresses the speaker’s belief that there is no possibility that things might turn out otherwise [Rhoda, Boyd, & Belt 2006, 443]. The expressed probability contained in the speaker’s belief is 1. But, if a mother warns her child by saying: “Don’t go out without your jacket or you will catch a cold” it is not the causal inevitability which she means but only probability, which is less than 1 but greater than 0.



Which uses Rational-Choice Theory, or when we use “rational calculations” to make “rational choices” that have higher chances to achieve outcomes that we aligned with our own personal objectives, or Subjective Experience. 


That’s all I got left in me I think as an Advocate, instead of speaking normally.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

Aghhh, my head is starting the headache.


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> TL/DR: Life is subjective, illusion based, and nothing is real, you’ll die, ascend consciousness if lucky, or be stuck in some terrifying never ending cycle.
> Always strive for Brahman though, as that’s the Eternity, the Many Faces, and the Nonduality, the God that is Nothing, the Nothing that is God.


What is Brahman, and why should I strive for it, and how could I strive for it if I wanted to?

Is it TRUE DEATH?
That which is outside of what I fear may be true: the inescapability of the continuance of my consciousness?

Is it an acknowledgement of one's past existences as other people?
Because in that case it is outside of my understanding of the way the universe works, since I don't think I ever was another person in a meaningful way. If I was another person, that person didn't know me as I currently am, and I don't know them as they were so what connects us to each other? And how could some hypothetical uber future self-aspect be able to acknowledge that tenuous connection we might have?


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> I agree, everything in this universe is made of the same basic stuff at the lowest level (probably), but I don't see how that meaningfully integrates a consciousness with the reality it's parts were made from.
> Combinations of parts can have attributes that don't exist in any of the individual parts, and this suggests to me that combinations of parts of the universe can meaningfully separate it from the rest of the universe when looking at certain attributes. It could perhaps be the case, that the combination of universe parts that creates a perceptive consciousness separates the universe into observed and observer, and experienced and experiencer. When the consciousness dies, it doesn't rejoin the universe; it ceases to exist-the elevated attributes it obtained due to its pattern fall back to the background levels of the universe.


If all existence is fundamentally one thing, which space is derived from, then it itself exists nowhere, or only "here". There is nowhere "else" for anything to go at all. So all conscious observers are superimposed on top of each other, as are all observed things. Think of it like a hologram.

What is happening here in your post is a suggestion that the body or brain is not only something through which the singularity experiences, but that it generates consciousness and qualitative elements such as redness. As though each and every person's brain is generating its own separate and personal consciousness.

Turn this around. The finite selves and brains are inside of the source. The "I" (which is, fundamentally empty or nothing) that experiences me is the same "I" that experiences you and all things simultaneously. This is difficult to comprehend for a human because linear time is important to us, so religions might suggest reincarnation as though reincarnation happens sequentially. But I am saying it is not in sequence it is all at once. Time does not create the future or destroy the past as it moves. Like a book, we do not assume the future pages do not yet exist, it is just that we read it linearly. Outside of time the entire book front to back exists all at once like a block.

You say consciousness dies and ceases to exist. You mean the personal consciousness you believe you have (of course, otherwise who is mourning at your funeral!). I suggest that what dies is merely a vessel through which a finite form experiences things. Like when the dreamer stops dreaming of a character in a dream, the dreamer goes nowhere and the character vanishes but the character was never truly real.

But remember in any case, the suggestion that non-existence is the root OF existence and nothing and something are two sides of one coin. From nothing IS something. There is nowhere "else" to "go" because elsewhere is something only possible in space, not outside of space where division cannot happen.

If you open MS Paint make the canvas 1x1. Put down a pixel. That is say, an object like a tree, now take your finite mind, that is another pixel. Where do you place it? There is nowhere to place it except on top of the pixel that is the tree. With no space there is nowhere else for things to go.

I suggest that the only thing that exists is you. This is not Solipsism, because I exist too but I am also you, and you are me. And you are your computer and pet dog and family and keyboard and etc etc. You type a message to you (me) which I read on a screen made of you, and write a response back which is read by you. BRAIN-you and brain-me are separate, but so are two leaves on the same tree. Zoom out and see that it is all "tree". You are all that exists, you are eternal. Separate human-you from that which observes the thoughts and emotions and such that human-you has, and there is the real "you". There is God.

I further suggest that we do not go from something to nothing, but rather we are always in nothing. Just as in a dream you are really asleep here in bed. We are asleep in nothing and the something is the dream.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> *First off, this is simply me playing Advocate, for the sake of Philosophy. *
> _*While I softly agree with some of what I’ll say, do not take it all as my 100% factual belief. *_
> 
> 
> ...


I usually require more simplified language with metaphors and similes to understand things. When you discuss 9th dimensional things or something, it brought to mind the concept of a "square circle".

When you say you die and ascend consciousness, I suggest to you that what dies is your finite form. The real you, which is Brahman, Nothing, (etc) goes nowhere, it is ever-present and unchanging. When you die you see your body through the eyes of your grieving relatives. Right now you see my room and my screen. That is, the true ultimate you. It is the finite you that is limited and vanishes. Ask yourself what, right now, sees the sight that your brain and eyes have produced, and consider for a moment that it is God. Not even you and God (because when we say me etc. we instinctively bring finite elements into it), just God. Consider passed loved ones, that is them. I am there too. Because that is all that exists objectively. Everything is THAT you. God-you. Brahman.

The unchanging element of consciousness is important but a different topic from discussion of an external world.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> What is Brahman, and why should I strive for it, and how could I strive for it if I wanted to?





> For Nondualism Brahman is According to *Advaita* metaphysics, *Brahman*—the ultimate, transcendent and immanent God of the latter Vedas—appears as the world because of its creative energy (māyā). The world has no separate existence apart from *Brahman*.





> Brahman is the reality that is the fundamental to all, pure existence/consciousness/and bliss.





> Brahman doesn’t supersede the properties of these, he _*IS*_ the very nature of them.





> It is the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes.[1][3][6] Brahman as a metaphysical concept refers to the single binding unity behind diversity in all that exists in the universe.




Everything, Nothing, Bliss, you and me, the Earth, the Universe, and reality itself, all at the same time of not being anything. 


I’m starting to lose focus on where I’m even at, at this point.  
So forgive if that was a ridiculously bad explanation.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> Everything, Nothing, Bliss, you and me, the Earth, the Universe, and reality itself, all at the same time of not being anything.
> 
> 
> I’m starting to lose focus on where I’m even at, at this point.
> So forgive if that was a ridiculously bad explanation.


Let me offer a descriptor:

Imagine a movie. Brahman is the screen, existence is what appears on the screen. Things on the screen are impernanent and change as the movie plays. The screen manifests as these objects (its pixels light up different colors or w.e. to create form). The screen itself never changes.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> I suggest to you that what dies is your finite form. The real you, which is Brahman, Nothing, (etc) goes nowhere, it is ever-present and unchanging. When you die you see your body through the eyes of your grieving relatives. Right now you see my room and my screen.


I agree along the premise of what my thought train was, yes. 


RMQualtrough said:


> The unchanging element of consciousness is important but a different topic from discussion of an external world.


It was relevant to my end goal, which was I’ve given all the outward information I can. & Everything from here on out will be my 100% true opinion on the topic. 


RMQualtrough said:


> When you discuss 9th dimensional things or something, it brought to mind the concept of a "square circle".


Imagine (well we can’t actually) but play along, imagine a 4D Hyper Cube, now a 9th Dimensional Sphere is nine-dimensional vector space over any field, such as a nine-dimensional complex vector space, which has 18 real dimensions.
or would look like this 


Spoiler: weird ass thing


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> But remember in any case, the suggestion that non-existence is the root OF existence and nothing and something are two sides of one coin. From nothing IS something. There is nowhere "else" to "go" because elsewhere is something only possible in space, not outside of space where division cannot happen.


Off-topic, but I remember reading a physics theory sometime ago similar in scope to this. The idea was that as an ancient universe progresses through its heat death, its state becomes more similar to the state one would expect within the singularity just prior to the big bang. Nothing happens in a dead universe, and everything is everywhere the same-so time and space are meaningless. The idea therefore is that the dead universe is the precursor to a new big bang.



RMQualtrough said:


> If all existence is fundamentally one thing, which space is derived from, then it itself exists nowhere, or only "here". There is nowhere "else" for anything to go at all. So all conscious observers are superimposed on top of each other, as are all observed things. Think of it like a hologram.





RMQualtrough said:


> If you open MS Paint make the canvas 1x1. Put down a pixel. That is say, an object like a tree, now take your finite mind, that is another pixel. Where do you place it? There is nowhere to place it except on top of the pixel that is the tree. With no space there is nowhere else for things to go.


The thing is I don't see how on my scale of observation and experience, I could be said to be the 1x1 pixel. On my scale there is a lot of extra space for things other than me to exist.
I understand how you can say "all existence is fundamentally one thing", but the way I would rephrase it is "all existence can be placed into one set". Within that set are more sets containing still more sets. One of those sets would be me, which would contain still more sets within me. There are also sets within the all-existence set that do not contain me. These sets would be external to me.

I do share your view how time within certain perspectives can become meaningless forwards as well as backwards (as well as sideways assuming sideways is an option). My view of immortality allows for the possibility that the self who dies in a car-crash can continue living in a universe 10^[large number] cycles in the past or a simultaneously occuring local universe 10^[large number] light years away.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> I agree along the premise of what my thought train was, yes.
> 
> It was relevant to my end goal, which was I’ve given all the outward information I can. & Everything from here on out will be my 100% true opinion on the topic.
> 
> ...


I'd be glad and happy to discuss the permanent and fixed nature of consciousness, I just thought it might distract people so didn't dive into that.

However, people always conflate consciousness with the contents of consciousness. And I ask them what they think would happen if we imagine for a moment that all creatures generate their own consciousness, and I swapped the consciousness of an ant with yours. From their reply it is then easy to correct the mistake.

With the dimension stuff, there was a video on YouTube, it had something like toybox or playroom in the title? And someone made a physics simulation of higher dimensions. You could throw cubes around in it and when they entered the 4th dimension it'd partly disappear to us. Like 2D creatures walking ground and coming upon a stone. To them the stone is a flat thing blocking the path completely, but there is actually a Z axis that can navigate around it they just can't see it.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> Off-topic, but I remember reading a physics theory sometime ago similar in scope to this. The idea was that as an ancient universe progresses through its heat death, its state becomes more similar to the state one would expect within the singularity just prior to the big bang. Nothing happens in a dead universe, and everything is everywhere the same-so time and space are meaningless. The idea therefore is that the dead universe is the precursor to a new big bang.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The 1x1 pixel seems impossible because you are looking outwardly 

Think of the movie screen, everything that happens in the movie appears IN the screen. I am saying everything that happens is taking place inside the singularity in much the same manner. There can be multiplicity (and indeed the appearance of duality arises by necessity), but it does not mean these things are somehow external to the singularity. Much as how nothing happening on the movie screen could somehow come out of the screen.

Space is required for division to be possible. If there is nowhere "else" in existence, where can you form a division between two things as being here and there? The divisions that are allowed for happen inside space, but space exists in that singularity. So ultimately all things are sort of superimposed on top of each other.

That screen at the theater and the movie, well search inwards and you will find the screen. That is the emptiness in which all things appear. That is the 1x1 pixel.


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 4, 2021)

I still don't see how I could become brahma, or why I would want to. I feel it has the same issues with when I try to imagine myself as a different person. In order to truly BECOME the different person I would have to remove all things that make me me, and in doing so there is no me that is experiencing being the other person. What parts of me would be retained in becoming brahma?
I had the same issue when I was told of the suppos-ed true nature of the Christian heaven. In which I would be praising God and Jesus forever and ever, and be happy. But I do not see any way that I, in my current state, could be happy in doing that. So the person in heaven who would ostensibly be me could not, in actuality, be me.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Like 2D creatures walking ground and coming upon a stone. To them the stone is a flat thing blocking the path completely, but there is actually a Z axis that can navigate around it they just can't see it.


Yea I saw a pretty nifty text the other day talking about how most 3D animals don’t _see _in 3D. 
As in, from a mile distance, a stationary is fixed along a 2 point plane. If there’s no shadows, no prior experience, and no conditioned knowledge. We’d see it as a 2D structure, until we got up to it, and moved along our variable Axis(s) to see the 3D nature. 
To see 3D in totality it was argued that we’d need to be 4D capacity with visuals, then we’d see the whole image, as if it were showing all sides and angles to us at once. 



RMQualtrough said:


> However, people always conflate consciousness with the contents of consciousness


Are you talking about Turiya, the basis of the 3 states of Consciousness?


RMQualtrough said:


> I'd be glad and happy to discuss the permanent and fixed nature of consciousness


We could probably just discuss that on your wall tbh, so we wouldn’t derail.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> I still don't see how I could become brahma, or why I would want to. I feel it has the same issues with when I try to imagine myself as a different person. In order to truly BECOME the different person I would have to remove all things that make me me, and in doing so there is no me that is experiencing being the other person. What parts of me would be retained in becoming brahma?
> I had the same issue when I was told of the suppos-ed true nature of the Christian heaven. In which I would be praising God and Jesus forever and ever, and be happy. But I do not see any way that I, in my current state, could be happy in doing that. So the person in heaven who would ostensibly be me could not, in actuality, be me.


FYI Brahma is a theistic God, Brahman is not, they're different things.

You don't "become" Brahman, you ARE it. Right now you already ARE Brahman. All things are Brahman. Brahman is the source, Brahman is fundamental reality. It is the Tao (Taoism is a Buddhist approach. All these things are the same though).

The religion of Advaita Vedanta is about realizing this. Realizing your true nature which is infinite.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> I feel it has the same issues with when I try to imagine myself as a different person. In order to truly BECOME the different person I would have to remove all things that make me me, and in doing so there is no me that is experiencing being the other person.


This may help a little bit.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> Yea I saw a pretty nifty text the other day talking about how most 3D animals don’t _see _in 3D.
> As in, from a mile distance, a stationary is fixed along a 2 point plane. If there’s no shadows, no prior experience, and no conditioned knowledge. We’d see it as a 2D structure, until we got up to it, and moved along our variable Axis(s) to see the 3D nature.
> To see 3D in totality it was argued that we’d need to be 4D capacity with visuals, then we’d see the whole image, as if it were showing all sides and angles to us at once.
> 
> ...


Yeah feel free to write me any time. My visits here are sporadic. Or of course people might get something from reading this too so maybe post here anyway? Not sure. Either way is cool.

Anyway, I don't think I refer to Turiya (not familiar with that term) because I don't believe there are any levels of consciousness. There is only one. Even in a materialist paradigm it is binary, on or off. Either something is completely and utterly oblivious to anything and everything, or it is aware of something. Awareness of even the slightest miniscule amount is the only amount of awareness there is. What changes are the contents inside it.

E.g. through a human, consciousness is filled with many things like memories and sights and sounds. The consciousness itself though, like the screen, is fixed, permanent, never-changing.


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> FYI Brahma is a theistic God, Brahman is not, they're different things.
> 
> You don't "become" Brahman, you ARE it. Right now you already ARE Brahman. All things are Brahman. Brahman is the source, Brahman is fundamental reality. It is the Tao (Taoism is a Buddhist approach. All these things are the same though).
> 
> The religion of Advaita Vedanta is about realizing this. Realizing your true nature which is infinite.


I have some suspicions as stated earlier of my own perception of my infinity--one of a similar nature to that suggested by the concept of quantum immortality, although my idea expands on it a bit. Does my idea and that of Brahman mesh at all?


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Turiya (not familiar with that term




Three states of consciousness are familiar, which are wakefulness, dreaming, and sleep. The most interesting and unusual is the fourth state called _Turiya, which is; _


> Spoiler: Definition
> 
> 
> 
> “They consider the fourth quarter as perceiving neither what is inside nor what is outside, nor even both together; not as a mass of perception, neither as perceiving nor as not perceiving; as unseen; as beyond the reach of ordinary transaction; as ungraspable; as without distinguishing marks; as unthinkable; as indescribable; as one whose essence is the perception of itself alone; as the cessation of the visible world; as tranquil; as auspicious; as without a second. That is the self (atman), and it is that which should be perceived. _Turiya_ is also mentioned in other Upanishads, _Turiya_ is not simply another state of consciousness but is considered the basis of all the other three states of consciousness. Given this conceptualization, the possibility of _Turiya_has important implications for theories of consciousness.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> I have some suspicions as stated earlier of my own perception of my infinity--one of a similar nature to that suggested by the concept of quantum immortality, although my idea expands on it a bit. Does my idea and that of Brahman mesh at all?


Hm... Well in this dream called the universe, immortality would not be possible due to entropy. That is the catch with "things". Things are always impermanent and changing. The no-thing (Brahman) is what is fixed, eternal, and never-changing. You are that. You are Brahman.

Clinging to afterlifes or eternal life for the finite self, is due to associating the finite self as being your true nature. But it is not. If I said you will reincarnate as another person, would you be comforted? Reincarnation is similar enough that a person could believe in it without needing to go the extra confusing mile to get at real apparent truth, which is that they are all things and all people and animals and plants and rocks and atoms at once.

Here is an example... If you feel sad you might say "I am sad!" as if to imply that what you fundamentally are is sadness. Yet when the feeling passes and you feel happy, you do not vanish. To associate with the finite self is like that. You will find that when it goes, the true you goes nowhere.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Reincarnation is similar enough that a person could believe in it without needing to go the extra confusing mile to get at real apparent truth, which is that they are all things and all people and animals and plants and rocks and atoms at once.


That’s what I’ve resorted to explaining my side as to friends who don’t get a lick a what I’m saying.


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Hm... Well in this dream called the universe, immortality would not be possible due to entropy. That is the catch with "things". Things are always impermanent and changing. The no-thing (Brahman) is what is fixed, eternal, and never-changing. You are that. You are Brahman.
> 
> Clinging to afterlifes or eternal life for the finite self, is due to associating the finite self as being your true nature. But it is not. If I said you will reincarnate as another person, would you be comforted? Reincarnation is similar enough that a person could believe in it without needing to go the extra confusing mile to get at real apparent truth, which is that they are all things and all people and animals and plants and rocks and atoms at once.


I would not feel anything especially at the idea of reincarnating as another person, since I have no sensation of continuity in that happening. The case in which I die and cease to exist is indistinguishable from the one in which I die, and am reincarnated as a person who is entirely disconnected from my former self.

Just to confirm, this is Buddhism, right?

Do Buddhists truly believe the Dalai Lama reincarnates into his successor whenever he dies? Because that idea seems too fantastical for me to believe. My view would be that he would continue to live, but not in a local reality. So the people who saw the person die will never see that person again.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> I would not feel anything especially at the idea of reincarnating as another person, since I have no sensation of continuity in that happening. The case in which I die and cease to exist is indistinguishable from the one in which I die, and am reincarnated as a person who is entirely disconnected from my former self.
> 
> Just to confirm, this is Buddhism, right?
> 
> Do Buddhists truly believe the Dalai Lama reincarnates into their successor whenever he dies? Because that idea seems too fantastical for me to believe. My view would be that he would continue to live, but not in a local reality. So the people who saw the person die will never see that person again.


Not just Buddhism, also many sects of Hinduism, as well as philosophy.

There are many sects of Buddhism. I do not believe in reincarnation like that because I do not believe in a permanent self. I believe instead that "all that exists is me" in the non Solipsistic sense that ANYONE who said that sentence I would say is correct as we are all one and the same: There is only the infinite field of nothing which takes the form of somethings like images on a screen.

In other words, I do not reincarnate because there is nobody TO reincarnate! I am an appearance in consciousness. Where do dream characters go when the dreamer dreams of a different scene? Do they reincarnate as something new? No because they were never real. I am only real by illusion. What is not illusory is the permanent thing that is the dreamer, that is nothing, and that is what we are.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> Do Buddhists truly believe the Dalai Lama reincarnates into their successor whenever he dies?


I don’t know about the innate specifics, but Dali Lama is apart of the Tibetan Buddhism, which is a mixture of Mahayana, Zen, Tibetan, & another I forget.
Advaita Vedanta is “Not Two,” Mahayana Buddhism is a rejection of the Atman (Soul) I think.
Advaita accepts the Soul as the one true self, Mahayana rejects it.
Buddhism believes there exists nothing permanent and unchanging, within or without man.
Advaita accepts that all we see/experience  as knowledge is valid which has for its object something that is nonsublated. Nonsublatablity is considered as the ultimate criterion for valid knowledge.

Edit Added ~ _*Mahayana Buddhism is also Dualism, (Two), the exact opposite of Advaita Vedanta (Not Two) *_

Is the dumbest way I can put I think tbh.


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Not just Buddhism, also many sects of Hinduism, as well as philosophy.
> 
> There are many sects of Buddhism. I do not believe in reincarnation like that because I do not believe in a permanent self. I believe instead that "all that exists is me" in the non Solipsistic sense that ANYONE who said that sentence I would say is correct as we are all one and the same: There is only the infinite field of nothing which takes the form of somethings like images on a screen.
> 
> In other words, I do not reincarnate because there is nobody TO reincarnate! I am an appearance in consciousness. Where do dream characters go when the dreamer dreams of a different scene? Do they reincarnate as something new? No because they were never real. I am only real by illusion. What is not illusory is the permanent thing that is the dreamer, that is nothing, and that is what we are.


The thing is, I could take that same view that you take, but it would do nothing for me. If I were convinced that I am you, then in what way am I you that makes anything new or different? The person speaking to you is never going to become you, and be able to reflect on the fond memories that I have created. I just don't see the point in obtaining that belief, as it doesn't change anything for me.

It wouldn't even abstain me from an immoral victimizing act if I were to find myself about to commit one. Since as I said, I wouldn't _be_ the victim in a way I would find meaningful.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> It wouldn't even abstain from an immoral victimizing act if I were to find myself about to commit one. Since as I said, I wouldn't _be_ the victim in a way I would find meaningful


Incorrect brotha, read this on the Ethics of Advaita 


Spoiler: Gita texts, and explanation: 



Every religion preaches that the essence of all morality is to do good to others. And why? Be unselfish. And why should I? Some God has said it? He is not for me. Some texts have declared it? Let them; that is nothing to me. Let them all tell it; and if they do, what is it to me? Each one for himself, and somebody take the hindermost—that is all the morality in the world, at least with many. What is the reason that I should be moral? You cannot explain it except when you come to know the truth as given in the Gita:
He who sees everyone in himself, and himself in everyone, thus seeing the same God living in all, he, the sage, no more kills the Self by the self.’ Know through Advaita that whomsoever you hurt, you hurt yourself; they are all you. Whether you know it or not, through all hands you work, through all feet you move, you are the king enjoying in the palace, you are the beggar leading that miserable existence in the street; you are in the ignorant as well as in the learned, you are in the man who is weak, and you are in the strong; know this and be sympathetic. And that is why we must not hurt others.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> The thing is, I could take that same view that you take, but it would do nothing for me. If I were convinced that I am you, then in what way am I you that makes anything new or different? The person speaking to you is never going to become you, and be able to reflect on the fond memories that I have created. I just don't see the point in obtaining that belief, as it doesn't change anything for me.
> 
> It wouldn't even abstain me from an immoral victimizing act if I were to find myself about to commit one. Since as I said, I wouldn't _be_ the victim in a way I would find meaningful.


It may do nothing, but I think it is true and I'm interested in understanding reality first and foremost. I'm not looking to be enlightened or escape suffering I just want to know what reality is.

I stumbled into this philosophy only due to a personal religious experience rather than seeking a belief system. I did not even know what Buddhism etc was until that experience I had caused me to look for nondual philosophies.

I suppose the apparent realization of my true nature has made me feel better about death because I see the bigger picture and do not attach myself to this body as much. I realize my finite self is merely an expression of the source. Even a materialist can come to this realization through their own paradigm.

There are many things that I have discovered on this path which my experience sent me down. I suppose I feel more empathy. I still get angry sometimes of course. I would say my life is improved in ways that I cannot really put my finger on.


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## Maurice Caine (Jul 4, 2021)

If there's no external world, explain this:


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> Incorrect brotha, read this on the Ethics of Advaita





RMQualtrough said:


> It may do nothing, but I think it is true and I'm interested in understanding reality first and foremost. I'm not looking to be enlightened or escape suffering I just want to know what reality is.


I understand the idea conjures empathy, and empathy is frequently a useful emotion to have. I would hope in the case that I'm about to wrong someone, I would be able to stop myself.
But I don't think seeing myself in the victim in a literal way is helpful to me.
Seeing myself in the victim's position probably would help though. But I don't see Buddhist ideas as necessary for me to do that.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Maurice Caine said:


> If there's no external world, explain this:


Expressions of nothingness (God) dancing in nothingness to the sound of nothingness. Amazing really <3


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## Maurice Caine (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Expressions of nothingness dancing in nothingness to the sound of nothingness. Amazing really <3


I'm just saying, your mind couldn't have made that up. I myself have seen things you couldn't even begin to imagine. The world exists, it will continue existing after your mind inevitably ceases to exist. I dunno why retards think that the world is some sort of theme park attraction tailor-made to them to gawk at. Really explains the cultural hellhole we're at.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Maurice Caine said:


> I'm just saying, your mind couldn't have made that up. I myself have seen things you couldn't even begin to imagine. The world exists, it will continue existing after your mind inevitably ceases to exist. I dunno why retards think that the world is some sort of theme park attraction tailor-made to them to gawk at. Really explains the cultural hellhole we're at.


The term "your mind" is the mistake. My mind is an appearance in what we may term God's mind, get it?

Consciousness does not belong to me. I belong to IT. "In Soviet Russia, you do not have consciousness, consciousness has you" tier.

I have seen the things that you have seen, and you have seen the things I have seen. In fact I am just you talking to you. Seperate self-you from that which observes the thoughts happening in self-you's brain.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> But I don't think seeing myself in the victim in a literal way is helpful to me.
> Seeing myself in the victim's position probably would help though. But I don't see Buddhist ideas as necessary for me to do that.


My question back then, take no point by it, I am simply conjuring the possibility up: 
First you must understand, this more “lacking morals” Advaita isn’t the real Advaita, it’s New Age. 
Known as, the man Vivekānanda, who made several changes to this original system of Advaita Vedānta. When he added an extra component to Advaita Vedānta in the form of an ethical implication. Saying that if a man realizes his identity with brahman, the all-powerful Absolute, then he should feel the power of his abilities is as unlimited as brahman itself, giving him boundless self-confidence and irresistible power. Such a person would thus be able to work for the spiritual recovery of India. I.E ego chasing. 

In contrast to this Vedānta teaches an ontological monism whereby the very nature of the soul is to be one with brahman, which is true regardless of
whether the soul chooses this identity or not. Second, ethics assumes relationships, which Advaita Vedānta effaces (because the relationship is unnecessary when we are all One Atman(Soul). Therefore, there appears to be no ethical implication embedded within Advaita Vedānta. 



Now, question: If your moral compass scares you so badly, that the idea of no punishment for your actions drives you to undeniably being evil. 
Would you be following the real Advaita, or the new, manipulative one written/changed to direct good from the US, to the “you?”


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## Fester Chavez (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> Now, question: If your moral compass scares you so badly, that the idea of no punishment for your actions drives you to undeniably being evil.
> Would you be following the real Advaita, or the new, manipulative one written/changed to direct good from the US, to the “you?”


I was just mentioning the idea of being immoral to consider whether the beliefs had value for me in giving me moral structure. I'm not confident that it will. I don't see any empirical reason to take on these Buddhists beliefs, similar to how I don't really have true empirical reasons (although I do have pseudo-empirical reasons) to think I'm immortal.

I figured if I didn't see implicit truth in Buddhist belief, perhaps there's some practical reason to believe in it.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Fester Chavez said:


> I was just mentioning the idea of being immoral to consider whether the beliefs had value for me in giving me moral structure. I'm not confident that it will. I don't see any empirical reason to take on these Buddhists beliefs, similar to how I don't really have true empirical reasons (although I do have pseudo-empirical reasons) to think I'm immortal.
> 
> I figured if I didn't see implicit truth in Buddhist belief, perhaps there's some practical reason to believe in it.


I think the Buddha said not to take his words as gospel and to seek truth for yourself. If you don't believe it is true then there is no reason to follow it. I just happen to believe the Zen/Taoist arena of Buddhism is literally true. Like I legitimately think it is right, not just because I want to.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

Maurice Caine said:


> I'm just saying, your mind couldn't have made that up.


I think you’re either trolling, or just not fully understanding what’s been said man. 
So, I’ll try to explain it again, simpler hopefully. 
1. So you don’t agree? Okay, why would we mind your not believing? 
We by nature don’t expect Dualism, this isn’t a you’re right or wrong, kind of situation to us. You’re allowed to do whatever you want, you’re still stuck in the dualistic route of thinking, and that’s fine. Just understand that I, don’t care what you believe in. You are allowed your belief, as I am mine, and yes that does mean you can insult us/me for it. Do as you wish. 
2. You don’t think the mind could make up, simple Concepts such as light? color? sounds? anything? I’ll bite. I believe there’s even been studies upon it, but I’d have to research a bit, but our consciousness has two sides; in part it is consciousness of our own selves, which is will, and in part consciousness of other things. Or, 1st Consciousness being Gross Body, 2nd Subtle Body, 3rd Casual Body, Awareness - Dreaming - Deep Sleep - Turiya as the state of liberation, where according to the Advaita school, one experiences the infinite, or non-different/dualistic. 
3. You don’t take Advaita to direct heart, not 100% even the best of its Teachers would call that ridiculous. It’s a path of self knowledge, and what knowledge lies beyond. It’s fine to not agree, it’s fine to agree, in the end you aren’t hurting us, we aren’t hurting you.


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## Maurice Caine (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> I think you’re either trolling, or just not fully understanding what’s been said man.
> So, I’ll try to explain it again, simpler hopefully.
> 1. So you don’t agree? Okay, why would we mind your not believing?
> We by nature don’t expect Dualism, this isn’t a you’re right or wrong, kind of situation to us. You’re allowed to do whatever you want, you’re still stuck in the dualistic route of thinking, and that’s fine. Just understand that I, don’t care what you believe in. You are allowed your belief, as I am mine, and yes that does mean you can insult us/me for it. Do as you wish.
> ...


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

What a derail & dead thread since he’s shown up, darn.


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## Hellbound Hellhound (Jul 4, 2021)

Physicist and pioneer of quantum theory, Erwin Schrödinger, once famously said that "we cannot stand behind consciousness", which is true: there is an inherent qualitative distance between the observer and the observed which is apparently unbridgeable. With that said, none of this necessarily means that the external world doesn't exist.

The way I see it, if the external world is merely an illusion, then I am every bit the product of that illusion, in which case, it makes no qualitative difference either way. Or, as pulp fiction author Robert E. Howard once put it:


> _"Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."_ ~ Conan the Barbarian.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Hellbound Hellhound said:


> Physicist and pioneer of quantum theory, Erwin Schrödinger, once famously said that "we cannot stand behind consciousness", which is true: there is an inherent qualitative distance between the observer and the observed which is apparently unbridgeable. With that said, none of this necessarily means that the external world doesn't exist.
> 
> The way I see it, if the external world is merely an illusion, then I am every bit the product of that illusion, in which case, it makes no qualitative difference either way. Or, as pulp fiction author Robert E. Howard once put it:


Schrödinger was a proponent of Vedanta, quite fervent in fact. He wrote books around that subject like "What Is Life?"

Realizing you are ALSO part of the illusion is one of the highest realizations possible.

Every element of the external world we experience as being "like" something which is how we learn to navigate it. Different creatures can perceive the same exact objects or sounds etc in different ways. There is a piece called "What's it like to be a bat?" that you might like.

If you envision for a moment you exit your mind and you see the world exactly as it is separate from perceptions... Describe it... What does it look like in actuality? But you see looking like something itself requires the act of seeing and seeing = a perception. And we are trying to eliminate this... If absolutely anything you could possibly see the world as being cannot possibly be how it is (as it appears external from perception) because to see it as being like a thing requires perception, then what it is must be the only thing that could never possibly be seen. Which is nothingness.

You can also play around with the limitless nature of qualitative experience. A human sees a certain set of colors, other creatures may see others that we could never conceive of. If there are unlimited colors that could potentially be seen (since color is an immaterial phenomena I see no reason it would be limited) then the odds of any single one being accurate to what is really out there drops to 0%, because it's 1 in infinity. And then it must be the only color which cannot be perceived. Which is nothingness.

There are various angles of attack.


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## Spooky Doot Skelly (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> You don't understand Buddhism.
> 
> Consciousness is empty


Wrong. Read “mind like fire unbound” and get back to me.
buddhism deals with stress and freedom from it. Emptiness is not something that is real or even possible. You have no idea what it even is. Thanks for trying.

it’s clear OP took shrooms or DMT and is now convinced that reality doesn’t exist. Despite the fact that if physicalism was false he would’ve never had those experiences in the first place. Drugs being able to alter your “consciousness” is direct proof that you are not some “field of awareness” in front of you. All that he’s discovered is that information and knowledge has to come from physical senses as its genesis. This is something pretty much everyone knows.
Seriously he types two paragraphs of mucho texto and says absolutely nothing.

“describe the external world” why is it my responsibility to recreate a full mental model of the external world for you. This is what physics is trying to do. Go read griffiths or some other text if you want an accurate physical MODEL of reality.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

Hellbound Hellhound said:


> Physicist and pioneer of quantum theory, Erwin Schrödinger, once famously said that "we cannot stand behind consciousness", which is true: there is an inherent qualitative distance between the observer and the observed which is apparently unbridgeable. With that said, none of this necessarily means that the external world doesn't exist.
> 
> The way I see it, if the external world is merely an illusion, then I am every bit the product of that illusion, in which case, it makes no qualitative difference either way. Or, as pulp fiction author Robert E. Howard once put it:


This response as a whole was informative, and worthy of a heart. I am conflicted.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> If you envision for a moment you exit your mind and you see the world exactly as it is separate from perceptions


Which is essentially the Separation/Oneness argument comes to play, Seer vs Seen; Without those past: memories, ideas, concepts, knowledge, you’d see no separation; neither would you “feel” separation either.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

mr spongecake said:


> it’s clear OP took shrooms or DMT and is now convinced that reality doesn’t exist


It’s clear you don’t understand the difference in schools of Buddhism my guy, honestly. For someone claiming to have a better inherent knowledge on it, you’re acting the opposite.
If we want to technical, if I remember right Advaita Vedanta is one of the oldest branches…maaaaybe?¿ even more so than Mahayana (Tibetan Buddhism.)
Though I say that hesitatingly.


Edit- Think I was wrong ^


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

mr spongecake said:


> Wrong. Read “mind like fire unbound” and get back to me.
> buddhism deals with stress and freedom from it. Emptiness is not something that is real or even possible. You have no idea what it even is. Thanks for trying.


I know very well what it is. Consciousness is empty by nature, things appear IN the field of awareness. This is the no-thing side of the Tao, the some-thing part is the observed. Things exist in an interdependent manner like that. Manifest requires unmanifest. Peaks require valleys. That is actually the reason why the Yin Yang symbol is designed that way, to show that form requires formlessness.

Consciousness is something that takes place when experience happens. Experienced always necessitates experiencer hence the dependency upon each other.

No drug has ever altered my consciousness. No drug ever could, because consciousness is the screen, it never changes. They have altered the contents that appear on the screen. The only thing which can happen that could be seen as an alteration (if you think brains make consciousness) is that all sensory input is turned off and the perception from the finite self ceases, giving an effect similar to general anaesthetic.

Brains are an appearance inside the universe-dream. It is via these localizations that experience happens. In normal dreams at night, the moment any part of the dreamed landscape is seen, you are localized in that dream. It creates an appearance of duality because in total nonduality there could not be experience. Brain-you is what God experiences this dream through. It is an appearance in the field of no-thing. Drugs are an appearance in the field of no-thing. The two interact thusly. A more obvious thing would have been to say general anaesthesia or blowing your brains out with a shotgun. DMT alteration is weaksauce since consciousness does not change or go anywhere at all unless you smoke so much you blackout like the anaesthetic effect.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> It’s clear you don’t understand the difference in schools of Buddhism my guy, honestly. For someone claiming to have a better inherent knowledge on it, you’re acting the opposite.
> If we want to technical, if I remember right Advaita Vedanta is one of the oldest branches…maaaaybe?¿ even more so than Mahayana (Tibetan Buddhism.)
> Though I say that hesitatingly.
> 
> ...


Advaita Vedanta is a Hindu philosophy, but it is essentially the same as Zen, Dzogchen, and the metaphysical views found in Taoism.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> Advaita Vedanta is a Hindu philosophy, but it is essentially the same as Zen, Dzogchen, and the metaphysical views found in Taoism.


Yea, the way in which I’ve studied it’s claims were during the time it was interacting, and developing alongside Buddhism & Janism, Jainism? 
But yea, it’s the oldest sub extent/extant of Vedānta. 
Buddhism & Advaita are nearly indiscernible in this sense that their end goals/beliefs usually align, only differences being in the route taken, and whole & a supposed more personalized style of Maha (Illusion, or Magic.)


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

Anyways, my inner Buddha is telling me I gotta sleep, y’all take care, I’ll reply later if I see any interesting comments.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> Yea, the way in which I’ve studied it’s claims were during the time it was interacting, and developing alongside Buddhism & Janism, Jainism?
> But yea, it’s the oldest sub extent/extant of Vedānta.
> Buddhism & Advaita are nearly indiscernible in this sense that their end goals/beliefs usually align, only differences being in the route taken, and whole & a supposed more personalized style of Maha (Illusion, or Magic.)


I think one large difference is that in most Buddhist philosophies they have added another level of meditative attainment called "Nirodha Samapatti", AKA cessation. It is when the finite self ceases to experience anything at all and you just skip forward in time. It's a non-experience. It's exactly like general anaesthesia. I have experienced general anaesthetic twice and cessation once or twice?

I don't think that is found in Advaita.

Advaita uses the consciousness moniker and I think that is USEFUL because it causes people to search inwards. If told to search for nothingness, that is not something many people will feel relates to them etc.

I would recommend that a person wishing to understand reality go in order through these practices:

Kashmir Shaivism (matter is still "real", thus a good introduction) -> Advaita Vedanta -> Zen Buddhism -> Taoism.

You can stick on Advaita but once you understand that consciousness itself is no-thing and dependent upon some-thing, you tend to prefer wording that reflects this understanding. But until then Advaita is probably best.


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## Spooky Doot Skelly (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> difference in schools of Buddhism


I don’t care about “schools” I care about the teaching.
I had all these realizations OP was having several years ago, but you grow out of them. At a point they’re just being used as a coping mechanism to not deal with the realities of life. Non-duality does not exist. It isn’t a thing and never will be.


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## Sinner's Sandwich (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> You are me. I am you.


Hell no


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

Sinner's Sandwich said:


> Hell no


You are also Chris Chan.


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## Spooky Doot Skelly (Jul 4, 2021)

RMQualtrough said:


> If both models of what is out there work as they can be verified to, then there is no way to say my TV and the tape measure isn't actually twice as wide (or w.e.) in actuality.


Just checking, do you have some sort of trouble with object permanence? You do realize just because something looks a certain way, doesn’t mean it is that way. The problems with perception and measurement have been dealt with in Measurement Theory and Constructable Numbers in Algebra.
Not to be mean, but you think you’ve stumbled upon something that everyone has missed, when in reality these epistemological “issues” have already been taken care of, but authors of non dual books do not care to look.
You don’t have to engage in mental masturbation and pontification, you are already engaging with reality as it is right now.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 4, 2021)

mr spongecake said:


> Just checking, do you have some sort of trouble with object permanence? You do realize just because something looks a certain way, doesn’t mean it is that way. The problems with perception and measurement have been dealt with in Measurement Theory and Constructable Numbers in Algebra.
> Not to be mean, but you think you’ve stumbled upon something that everyone has missed, when in reality these epistemological “issues” have already been taken care of, but authors of non dual books do not care to look.
> You don’t have to engage in mental masturbation and pontification, you are already engaging with reality as it is right now.


We are engaging with reality as it is right now, and you will notice that as it is, is perception. If it were evolutionarily beneficial to experience colors as sounds, the argument would no longer be that we step outside of our minds and red still exists there, but that, say, the sound of the G note is there. Humans can experience something similar-ish if they experience synesthesia.

There is no way to get at what is allegedly "behind the scenes" since everything said to be "behind the scenes" is in some way a thing which is perceived, not something divorced from perception. I suggest there is no behind the scenes and reality IS THIS.

"Authors of nondual books" is trivialising an ancient philosophy that predates Christ and is practiced by a huge portion of the Eastern world, and was taught by the Buddha who didn't reach the conclusions via crack pipe and DMT crystals. It's not just like Joe Rogans sitting around stoned talking shit. Actually most on "the path" do not use drugs at all. Drugs is more a tribal practice.

Almost all scientists are into nonduality, they just posit the source as some physical entity. Eventually it will be realized that literal nothingness awaits at the bottom. Something coming from something creates infinite regress. Something comes from nothing.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

mr spongecake said:


> Not to be mean, but you think you’ve stumbled upon something that everyone has missed, when in reality these epistemological “issues” have already been taken care of, but authors of non dual books do not care to look.


I appreciate the effort to stay respectful in a discourse about a purely belief based conversation, challenging beliefs is always a great course of action, so thank you. 
Like RM said, simply saying ‘Non-Dual Authors’ plays light upon a Sublet of a Religion/Spirituality that’s much older than even our Nations existence, not to consider it is the oldest of its own Sublets. 
So, I don’t think RM being of his attitude during this conversation comes off as if he’s the only person who is aware, or like he’s some enlightened Zen Teacher. I’d hope he wouldn’t lay claim to that, even those Zen Teachers that and concretely agree with Nondualism/Advaita Vedanta do not take the words to 100% face value as far as I’m aware. 
Also, those Authors do not care to look? 
Richard Sylvester has an entire book directed to answering questions posed on Nonduality. 
Christian Krägeloh has an article around answering why Phenomenological Researches failed to capture the true meaning of Nondualism 
David Loy has many articles answering criticism on Nondualism 
Dennis White has some Q&A’s pertaining to popular criticism based questions on Advaita 
Peter Fennar also has a book, and a couple articles centered around it I believe. 
Śri Harsa even has a 27 page Article centered around defending it, and even attack two other Monism/Nonduality defenders in their reasonings being inaccurate to the point of Monism/Advaita. 

So, I don’t think Advaita ‘Authors’ are lacking in retort to criticism, I just think most of their works aren’t just readily available at a thumbs press on google. You have to kinda dig for their shit, and know their names. 




mr spongecake said:


> The problems with perception and measurement have been dealt with in Measurement Theory and Constructable Numbers in Algebra.


Okay, could you name your favorite article/book on such?  I’m remembering Bohr and Heisenberg, but their works on Mathematical Perception were inherently flawed, and attacked pretty hard by other Advaita/Monism/Nondualist Authors/Teachers/& Philosophers. 

Again, thanks for being pretty open to discussion, and otherwise respectful.


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## Spooky Doot Skelly (Jul 4, 2021)

johnsinslot said:


> I appreciate the effort to stay respectful in a discourse about a purely belief based conversation, challenging beliefs is always a great course of action, so thank you.
> Like RM said, simply saying ‘Non-Dual Authors’ plays light upon a Sublet of a Religion/Spirituality that’s much older than even our Nations existence, not to consider it is the oldest of its own Sublets.
> So, I don’t think RM being of his attitude during this conversation comes off as if he’s the only person who is aware, or like he’s some enlightened Zen Teacher. I’d hope he wouldn’t lay claim to that, even those Zen Teachers that and concretely agree with Nondualism/Advaita Vedanta do not take the words to 100% face value as far as I’m aware.
> Also, those Authors do not care to look?
> ...


Defenses of non duality do not deal with its internal contradictions. Science and materialism already acknowledge that sense perception is the basis of our “reality” and our mental maps are not the territory. That leading to nonduality is a leap in logic that has never been addressed. And these own teachings, both traditions old and new, say that it is truly indescribably or in-discernible by rational thought, as that would itself be a contradiction as well. Basically, it must be experienced directly through spiritual practice to be really “understood” and as such is entirely faith based.

Google or look on Amazon/YouTube for intro textbooks to Measurement theory. You’ll probably need basic mathematics to understand the course. Same with abstract algebra although constructable numbers is more of a subset.


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## johnsinslot (Jul 4, 2021)

mr spongecake said:


> to be really “understood” and as such is entirely faith based.


Well yes, it is 10000% faith based, when I get into discussions I always make sure that people know I’m speaking from “Devils Advocate,” or better yet that nothing I say is Fact, Truth, Concrete, or even feasibly such. 
I didn’t know I came off that way in this thread, though it’s understandable to see how RM would have gave that vibe off. 



mr spongecake said:


> Defenses of non duality do not deal with its internal contradictions.


Yes some of the responses I cited by Author name do in fact speak upon the internal contradictions of Advaita, and readily accept that as a whole it is a very contradictory point. I think it was David Loy who mentioned this in his Nondualism: Comparative study of Philosophy ~ “The inherent issue with seeking Nondualism, is that by doing so you are already committing a dualistic act.” 


mr spongecake said:


> That leading to nonduality is a leap in logic that has never been addressed.


Well, it’s more so under Quantum Logic, or something akin to a Many Valued Logic. 
We (I figure you might as well,) know that Tim Maudlin feels very negatively about it, and is a very adamant and outspoken individual on the necessity of Classical Logic or the Two Truth Values logic. 
Quantum Logic in Philosophy is a different story honestly, at least I believe so. 
Quantum Logic is a ‘Logic’ that distinguishes in general between ‘actual’ properties and ‘possible’ or ‘potential’ ones, opening the door to discuss a realm of existence beyond actuality. 

The basis for Quantum Logic in Philosophy from (_100% my opinion at the moment)_ is that what we consider Classical Logic was created by Aristotle, followed by Isaac Newton. I believe, who solidified it into what is now followed upon in modern day Sciences. 
We accept these as truth, as an absolute compared to a False, because it’s what has been popularly acknowledged, and believed. 
If it had never been brought forth, once ever, and only Many Valued Logic, or Non Classical Logic was, that would be our “Truth” 
The response to this is usually, “yea but then we’d be incorrect, and living in ignorance.” From what perspectives? Yours, or a scientist? Neither matter, because you both already follow Classical Logic as a fundamentality of life, and know of you presupposed “Truth/Absolute.” 

This is opposed to Non Classical which was created in the 1930’s, or at least given a name, and is a “baby” compared to Classical. I love Hillary Putnams quote on Logic as a whole, “Logic is as empirical as geometry. We live in a world with a non-classical logic” Logic can’t be Classical in his opinion, only because distributive law isn’t universally valid. 



mr spongecake said:


> You’ll probably need basic mathematics


Fuck I’m screwed lol. 


mr spongecake said:


> Google or look on Amazon/YouTube for intro textbooks to Measurement theory.


Thank you, I’ll look into it tonight as I’m studying, it’s been good discussing with you, I’ll reply to anything else ya say with a more personally opinionated answer, given I’ve exhausted my Devils Advocacy I believe to it’s core.


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## RMQualtrough (Jul 5, 2021)

mr spongecake said:


> Defenses of non duality do not deal with its internal contradictions. Science and materialism already acknowledge that sense perception is the basis of our “reality” and our mental maps are not the territory. That leading to nonduality is a leap in logic that has never been addressed. And these own teachings, both traditions old and new, say that it is truly indescribably or in-discernible by rational thought, as that would itself be a contradiction as well. Basically, it must be experienced directly through spiritual practice to be really “understood” and as such is entirely faith based.
> 
> Google or look on Amazon/YouTube for intro textbooks to Measurement theory. You’ll probably need basic mathematics to understand the course. Same with abstract algebra although constructable numbers is more of a subset.


Materialism requires more faith, it already hinges upon "emergence" to explain the generation of immaterial (mind) from material. It is far simpler that our minds AS WELL AS MATTER, are "emergent" from the same source and in substance are one and the same.

We can already verify the existence of perception, which precedes faith (faith is something done by thoughts which are themselves perceptions).

Where there is no literal divide between material and immaterial (literal duality), with all things being equally one and the same (the manifest and the unmanifest), only one type of "thing" emerges. All things exist and play out in the same infinite empty screen of unmanifest.

Much of the unmanifest becomes manifest only by way of perception. If a tree falls and there's nobody to hear it, there is no manifestation of the "thump" sound. Because thump is a perceptual subjective rendering of soundwaves.

The Tao is nondual despite having two sides - nothing and something - because the two are inseparable. It is existence itself as well as non-existence (as the thump sound arises from non-existence when a human ear is near the falling tree). It is one. Nothing can be external if it is fundamentally all one thing. Like proposing a movie exists external to the screen.


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