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solarshroomster
Wonderer



Registered: 11/01/13
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Where does the boundary between “me” and “you” lie if we both operate within the same medium of Reality and are interconnected by language?
If I were to exchange one atom of my brain for one atom of yours, at what point would I become you and you become me? Would there be any functional difference, except the memory change?
I think we make imaginary distinctions to create identities when they’re actually merged into one singular whole.
-------------------- Chopin in Eternal Sonata: "I believe that I am somehow being tested. That I am on this journey to come to some realization. And in order to do so, I think I’m supposed to live my life to the fullest, even if it is in this muddled world of dream and reality."
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Nillion
Nobody

Registered: 04/14/22
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Loc: Terra Firma
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I think the boundaries exist on some levels and don't on others, so I think you are right in many ways.
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syncro
Registered: 01/14/15
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Quote:
Buster_Brown said: It's a paradox; suppress (deny) our animal instincts even if it's ultimately impossible.
It's impossible but it's also not suppressing, denying, but changing form or quality, on a good day. Where a heavy thought was, pure mind is the same. Then if only the gut bug nation will fall in line. How many entities are we?
Success in concentration may be like herding entities, cat entities.
Edited by syncro (10/27/23 10:25 AM)
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Buster_Brown
L'une


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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: syncro]
#28520047 - 10/27/23 11:48 AM (2 months, 30 days ago) |
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I'm entertaining Angels unaware; a visitor last night tried to impress me with much the same information.
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Kickle
Wanderer



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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: Nillion]
#28520203 - 10/27/23 02:29 PM (2 months, 30 days ago) |
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Quote:
Nillion said:
Quote:
Kickle said: This brings the question: If it is merely an illusion/delusion to experience individual perceptions, then what individual could possibly realize this?
... While it is true that the filter of subjectivity prevents us from seeing and knowing the universe as it is, it does not prevent us from learning objective facts about it that can be of tremendous utility. Ergo perception though subjective is demonstrably capable of providing objective information, which can be and is employed in a consistently objective manner. ...
Drop the word "objective" and it makes sense to me. As humans our environment is capable of providing information which can be employed. And some of the information can be employed in a relatively consistent manner.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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Nillion
Nobody

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If information we observe is consistent, like the value of a measurement of weight, then this satisfies at least one of the formal definitions of the word objective.
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solarshroomster
Wonderer



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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: Nillion] 2
#28520877 - 10/28/23 07:16 AM (2 months, 30 days ago) |
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There was a theory proposed by theoretical physicist John Wheeler that interests me greatly: "it from bit", and "Participatory Universe".
Quote:
Wheeler: It from bit. Otherwise put, every it—every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself—derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom—at a very deep bottom, in most instances—an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe.[89]
Quote:
Wheeler: We are participators in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago
This resonates a lot to me with ideas I've entertained that the "noise" or "material data" we see in front of us is simply patterns re-interpreted by the mind of Reality that is all of us. That is, we "re-arrange" information within our minds to form new patterns, and in the process, new "material" worlds, new dimensions, new universes.
That we agree on the worlds we construct out of information, to Nillion's, point makes it "objective". It's also evidence that we share "one world" and that we are of "one world". However, if someone has a private, independent experience, it's still an experience that Reality is having, it's just that it hasn't been corroborated by another point of existence. From Reality's standpoint, there's no fundamental difference between "subjective" and "objective", as they're all experiences of fact, and ultimately "inner" is "outer"--"mind" and "matter" are one (at least, that's my current line of thinking on this topic...)
-------------------- Chopin in Eternal Sonata: "I believe that I am somehow being tested. That I am on this journey to come to some realization. And in order to do so, I think I’m supposed to live my life to the fullest, even if it is in this muddled world of dream and reality."
Edited by solarshroomster (10/28/23 07:20 AM)
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syncro
Registered: 01/14/15
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CC did an It from Bit thread with a talk by a swami, It from Bit from Chit.
Still no one guessed the source of this. It should be popular among yogis.
Quote:
The frank realization that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant advances," Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington writes in The Nature of the Physical World. "In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it. Then comes the alchemist Mind who transmutes the symbols. . . . To put the conclusion crudely, the stuff of the world is mind-stuff. . . . The realistic matter and fields of force of former physical theory are altogether irrelevant except in so far as the mind-stuff has itself spun these imaginings. . . . The external world has thus become a world of shadows. In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions."
Quote:
Kick at rocks, Sam Johnson, and break your bones, but cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones.
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Kickle
Wanderer



Registered: 12/16/06
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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: Nillion] 1
#28520934 - 10/28/23 08:53 AM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
Nillion said: If information we observe is consistent, like the value of a measurement of weight, then this satisfies at least one of the formal definitions of the word objective.
That's why I suggest including the word 'relatively' before consistent. I haven't found anything which is perfectly consistent. That goes against impermanence. If there is no variation (aka change) then you've discovered something which is permanent.
If there is variation, then it is a scale of how much. With some variations appearing relatively consistent. Relative to human perception.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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syncro
Registered: 01/14/15
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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: syncro]
#28520945 - 10/28/23 09:13 AM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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I suppose Arthur Eddington's quotes are known and available including that one, but particularly quoted where it struck me is in Autobiogaphy of a Yogi.
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Nillion
Nobody

Registered: 04/14/22
Posts: 1,000
Loc: Terra Firma
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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: Kickle]
#28520970 - 10/28/23 09:49 AM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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Yesterday I weighed 200 lbs on the scale. Today I weigh 205 lbs.
Those are consistent in that the amount I weighed yesterday will never change. That my weight changes and that change can be measured is also an objective perception that can be consistently measured.
If nothing in the future can change the value of measurements I took yesterday then I cannot consider the reality of impermanence to be in opposition to the idea that we perceive objective facts.
But this may just be a matter of perspective.
I consider impermanence to, also, be an objective truth that we can perceive. Some might even consider it to be the ultimate objective truth that we can arrive at and I might be one of those people.
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Nillion
Nobody

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Posts: 1,000
Loc: Terra Firma
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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: syncro]
#28520973 - 10/28/23 09:51 AM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
syncro said: where it struck me is in Autobiogaphy of a Yogi.
How do you feel or what do you think about that book, if you don't mind my asking? When I read it I was reminded of Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine series.
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syncro
Registered: 01/14/15
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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: Nillion] 1
#28520994 - 10/28/23 10:19 AM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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I read it back in 80's when pretty new learning and finding inspiration. I was taken and felt in contact with the lineage, read everything from it I could and took lessons for a time. It also lead into that from Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, etc., from there Advaita, Ramana Maharshi, Nirsagadatta, and to Vasistha, Buddhism, Daoism and so on. I view the lineage and teachings from SRF as a source of grace and beginning in this life, and take aid from them still. It introduces Babaji the immortal of the Himalayas, and in the lineage is Lahiri Mahasaya, and Yukteshwar, awesome influences along with Yogananda.
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Kickle
Wanderer



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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: Nillion]
#28521015 - 10/28/23 11:08 AM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
Nillion said: I consider impermanence to, also, be an objective truth that we can perceive. Some might even consider it to be the ultimate objective truth that we can arrive at and I might be one of those people.
Seems there is an affinity for the word objective. No biggie. But the philosophy on objects goes back thousands of years and has been refuted quite soundly imo. Naturally, it takes exposure to the refutations in order to consider them.
Impermanence is often used as a base level refutation. If something exists as an object, it must have some permanence to it. At least long enough for the brain to process it and label it. This would be enough permanence to suggest impermanence is not all pervasive.
So either impermanence pervades and there is never an object, or objects exist and impermanence has limitations. Isn't this so?
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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connectedcosmos
Neti Neti



Registered: 02/07/15
Posts: 7,426
Loc: The Pathless Path
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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: syncro] 1
#28521390 - 10/28/23 04:48 PM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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@syncro that was a great video , I may have to rewatch it
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 54. The true nature of things is to be known personally , through the eyes of clear illumination and not through a sage : what the moon exactly is , is to be known with one's own eyes ; can another make him know it?
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syncro
Registered: 01/14/15
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I didn't think I would but left it playing this morning and watched almost all of it again. I wasn't paying good attention but another thing I found interesting in it is Jim Holt's theory on the 'problem of consciousness' that quantum entanglement renders consciousness in the brain.
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lostintimenspc
Stranger
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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: syncro]
#28524960 - 10/31/23 08:50 PM (2 months, 26 days ago) |
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It'd be good to hear from a more modern Arthur Eddington.
-------------------- LSD, mushrooms and DMT are different structural levels within the same magically simulated mystery sometimes blandly called 'life' Your life, your call.
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syncro
Registered: 01/14/15
Posts: 2,696
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I'd like to hear updates on the shadow world.
I happened onto the Esoterica channel last night, and as it was Halloween, well, not sure but I ended up in the Nag Hammadi in the Gnostic Society Library, read On the Origin of the World, and some Valentinus and am going through Psychology and Salvation - The Three Elements Within The Human Being.
Interesting the similarities to the affairs in Secret Doctrine, the rulers who envy the spiritual seed, gnosis, lack it anyway. I think I got about a third into the Secret Doctrine last year and fell off. The Gnostic pieces I came across are a nice treat, beautiful and relatively simple.
Edited by syncro (11/01/23 06:14 AM)
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syncro
Registered: 01/14/15
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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: syncro]
#28525178 - 11/01/23 06:23 AM (2 months, 26 days ago) |
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It's odd considering entities that lack the seed of gnosis, I thought self-imposed, like, what's the problem? Though both gnosis and the problems are evident within.
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Nillion
Nobody

Registered: 04/14/22
Posts: 1,000
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Re: Why does Reality Exist? [Re: Kickle]
#28525187 - 11/01/23 06:46 AM (2 months, 26 days ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: Impermanence is often used as a base level refutation. If something exists as an object, it must have some permanence to it. At least long enough for the brain to process it and label it. This would be enough permanence to suggest impermanence is not all pervasive.
So either impermanence pervades and there is never an object, or objects exist and impermanence has limitations. Isn't this so?
The idea that it is either this or that regarding impermanence isn't something I able to take seriously. Impermanence can pervade and objects can exist at the same time.
It seems silly for our species to try to force some logical dichotomy upon reality. The measurements I took the other day will not change, they are permanent. The form I had at that time in space is set in time and space, then and there.
It's rather simple, objects and objective data don't change if we consider them differently. This allows us to understand the world in a useful and pragmatic manner through things like measurements. It is because things like objects exist in time and space that we are able to observe the impermanence they have over time in an objective manner.
Objectivity and impermanence thus do not negate one another but are mutually dependent and supportive. The opposition of two sides of one coin, one might say, does not make the coin cease to exist.
Edited by Nillion (11/01/23 06:49 AM)
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