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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,818
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Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? 1
#26499806 - 02/23/20 11:25 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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As Crowley once remarked, each of us is the sole center of the universe. In a very relevant sense. While it is true that all of us exist in reality, each connected to the other in a fundamental sense, we are also individuals, with a unique set of perceptions that cannot (at present) be shared with other individuals. So in a deep way, everything that has ever happened has happened, for us, in our own minds. Every sense and impression we have of the world has been apprehended by our brains, minds and souls. All the immensity of the world and universe, as far as you are concerned, is a construct inside of you. Each individual is, in this way, the seat of the world. This does not have to be solipsism. It is true of others, for them. As John Lennon said, “There ain’t no guru who can see through your eyes.”
What do you think? Have you ever thought about it this way? I've often wondered whether that sense of the hugeness of the world, and the vast stretches of time involved, are anything other than a construct of our own minds, for practical purposes. Everything you intuitively feel about the grandness of existence is inside of you, it seems.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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thealienthatategod
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: DividedQuantum] 1
#26500011 - 02/23/20 02:26 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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heyDQhey,
it seems, the point is the center, only being the point, because it lies within. nesting universes, and the human brain, with 100's of billions of cells, and trillions of connections between these billions seems to be a universe in its complexity.
as individuals connected at peripheries, but the center is the one place where i find i can be truly alone. while at the center everything else moves billions of miles an hour, but the center is perfect stillness.
is the center the only place where inner space can jump off the wheel?

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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: thealienthatategod] 3
#26500097 - 02/23/20 03:22 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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functionally but not realistically, our experience is central to our personal cosmos.
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thealienthatategod
retrovertigo


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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: redgreenvines]
#26500162 - 02/23/20 04:31 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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what do you think the universe is where experiences overlap?
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,532
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: thealienthatategod]
#26500449 - 02/23/20 07:46 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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that might be realistic but how to make it functional, we miss so much.
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Yellow Pants


Registered: 05/14/17
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: redgreenvines]
#26500665 - 02/23/20 10:32 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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We have a perspective due to the body and mind and stuff. But the world is big mon.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,798
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: DividedQuantum]
#26500794 - 02/24/20 01:36 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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I liked this thought at a time 
Quote:
Time is the center of the universe wherever you are.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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laughingdog
Stranger

Registered: 03/14/04
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: sudly]
#26501397 - 02/24/20 12:03 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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" All the immensity of the world and universe, as far as you are concerned, is a construct inside of you. "
. That's too bad, I have to poop from time to time. ( I would prefer it didn't stay floating around inside me.)
. Seriously though logically if all is one, there are no boundaries, & therefore no inside or outside, as well as no self to be differentiated from non-self.
. And as regards: "inside of you" also no self inside of self.
. It seems many absolute statements run into paradoxes if pursued. for example the famous: "Could God create a rock so heavy He could not lift it?" . Logicians probably have a name for, & deconstruction of, such conundrums.
. Seems there is a good reason many mystics don't attempt to define certain "altered" or "mystical" states. And when some do it is said, such statements are only: "fingers pointing at the moon" (& not the moon).
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: laughingdog] 1
#26501487 - 02/24/20 12:45 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Well I'm not saying the outside world doesn't exist, or that there is really any difference between the two. But I think that recognition comes at a deeper level. Presuming we have perceptions made possible by our brains, the point is that everything we sense or feel about the world is a mental construct. Then yes, I think it goes beyond this into an undivided whole, but at a practical level, I think it's an interesting model.
I don't mean it all literally, and as you'll note, I said it's not solipsism, because the personal construct of the world happens in everyone's brains/minds, so we can recognize others with our limited perceptions as being equal. And I think the realization that we are literally one comes at a deeper ontological level.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Darwin23
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: DividedQuantum] 1
#26501838 - 02/24/20 04:18 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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I wrote a really cool song about this, I'll have to upload it to share at some point. Anyway, we are quite literally the center of the universe, or that is, at least, our perception. We perceive the universe's edge as moving away from us and the limit is the speed of light. Beyond that horizon, we see nothing as its light hasn't reached us, yet. Because everything started at once and all directions have the same limit, every direction can be seen to an equal distance which makes us the center of a giant globe of space. In the sense, any observer is always literally in the center of the universe.
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Take a look at my journal
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Mr. D Green
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: Darwin23]
#26510362 - 02/29/20 08:22 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Can you picture existence without I? Meaning you...
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Loaded Shaman
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: DividedQuantum] 1
#26510730 - 03/01/20 02:58 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Yes, and absolutely so.
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  "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." — Confucius
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: DividedQuantum] 2
#26512058 - 03/01/20 10:42 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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I always remember reading "Every man and every woman is a star" in Crowley's The Book of the Law. I don't remember "center of the universe," but spacial metaphors aside, one still has to ask what one means by "us." It isn't our physical body because even a known physical star is not at the center of the universe (wherever that is, the universe not being a symmetrically expanding sphere). So this statement must be figurative for that typical linguistic expression for narcissism - individuals who behave AS IF they are the center of the local universe and everyone else is but a minor satellite in orbit around them.
True, it's not solipsism, psychological monism, because other perspectives are acknowledged. But many philosophers, with Kant being perhaps the best known for positing that all any of us know is phenomena but that nobody knows the noumena, reality itself. Everything we know are representations in our individual minds and every mind is unique. So this is yet another issue, our intrinsic alienation from one another because we are not telepathic. We all agree to a consensual reality.
If by us we identify the 'I' that we each possess/share as individual expressions of THE eternal "I AM," and if we understand it correctly, humility results instead of hubris. As George Swinnock wrote in The Blessed and Boundless God, “God is a sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere,” Perhaps, only insofar as we recognize that our personal center cannot but help align with the omniscient Center which is God by that description, we are the Center of the universe.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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redgreenvines
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: MarkostheGnostic] 1
#26512334 - 03/02/20 06:03 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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i'm good with that
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The Mycologist
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: DividedQuantum] 1
#26512361 - 03/02/20 06:44 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Its actually a phenomenon of the universe that no matter where you are it appears to be moving away from you in all directions.
So with our current understanding, everyone is the center.
-------------------- "That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.” ― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

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redgreenvines
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: The Mycologist] 1
#26513970 - 03/03/20 05:11 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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that is the best explanation in fact!
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Is each one of us, in some sense, the center of the universe? [Re: redgreenvines] 1
#26515463 - 03/03/20 08:41 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: that is the best explanation in fact!
Not bad and definitely succinct!
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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