We Are All The Same

[Leoreth]

I really like the term "psychotic space-wizard"

 

[Terxpahseyton]

What you're experiencing is basically your mind attempting to make sense (and failing to) of a bunch of foreign chemicals dicking around in it. You're not opening the key to your mind as much as you are just screwing with it and experiencing the results.

I am not fond of the term "key to your mind", but you are even less convincing. Because all this amounts to is "Er, it is not natural. Hence it is not real. Er... Idiot!"

 

[Core Imposter]

I don't understand much of anything being discussed in this thread but the assertion that "we are all the same" is noted and, as I sit here cleaning my pistols, I'd just like to point out that anyone who comes into my home and tells me I am the same as liberal scum will indeed leave in a changed form.

 

[Dachs]

You do know that Nietzsche went insane in the end right? I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basketcase.

But seriously, he did have some good ideas. It'd be nice if more philosophers looked at things a bit more rationally and less emotionally.

Yes, of course. I'm not saying that Nietzsche and his writings are the be-all end-all of Continental philosophy by any stretch. I was just responding to a question about where to go if one wanted to learn more about him and his ideas, and he's just about the only philosopher I know anything about.

Also, I think Nietzsche was much more about emotion than rationality. Part of his Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy thing. He was a skeptic, yes, but that's not really the exclusive province of rational thought.

 

[Quackers]

i wish i could upvote posts

 

[Joecoolyo]

I am not fond of the term "key to your mind", but you are even less convincing. Because all this amounts to is "Er, it is not natural. Hence it is not real. Er... Idiot!"

I dunno who's post you read. All I said was that what you're experiencing isn't like your true mind, or whatever he thinks it is. All that you're experiencing is your brain attempting to make sense out of the chemical bombardment you just put it under. And understandingly, you're going to get strange ass results because your brain isn't designed to deal with those chemicals.

But please, continue widdling my posts down into blunt insults. Sure makes me feel good to know that's how I'm read around here.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I dunno who's post you read. All I said was that what you're experiencing isn't like your true mind, or whatever he thinks it is.

So at what point exactly was it decided that a mind can be true?

But please, continue widdling my posts down into blunt insults. Sure makes me feel good to know that's how I'm read around here.

That is not how I read you. That is what I found in what I read.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I don't agree. It's a matter of definition.

An unlit candle shows no flame.

A lit candle has a flame.

A snuffed out candle has no flame.

The flame is not, then it is, then it is not again.

If you want to lit a candle what you do? Lets say you fire a match. You can say that the candle flame was in the seed form inside the matches. The form has changed.

Let's try the analogy of a journey:

I begin a journey at my front door.

The journey continues to my destination, and ends.

Who says after reaching your destination you will not begin new journey? Most probably thats what will happen and you wouldnt be able to do that without starting the first one. So only the form has changed.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The video was interesting and the characters all new to me, but the ideas are pure Sufism (among other manifestations of this idea). The permanence of a unified existence/consciousness/unconsciousness is not a new idea and in and of itself does not contradict science. Other bells and whistles tend to push it away from that though.

If we try to come up with clear and precise rules for drawing the boundaries between one "thing" and the "next", we always seem to come to the conclusion that there is exactly one "thing" in the universe. It's called "the universe".

There is a way out of that conclusion, of course: to have unclear rules for drawing boundaries. Rules that are vague and arbitrary and convention-bound and that change in the middle of the game. Which then raises the puzzling question: why would anyone much care about which verdict those kind of rules delivered?

Yes. The universe/existence is what it is and doesn't need us to understand it. We seem determined to try though. The posture one adopts as one's lens, can have a profound effect on how we act though.

It is the consciousness which determines everything. You just observe how things work on Earth. We observe evolution of species but what it realy is is a manifestation of Spirit and Consciousness.

Our consciousness is the prism through which we see everything. It is our wondrous window and our prison cell.

And this isn't something I thought up, it's something which we all know but our minds have forgotten. I know now that it's true. There is no other, there is only us and we are one.

This is something which Philosophers, Physicists, Spiritual Teachers, and other people have been saying for a long time. What we identify to be ourselves is actually just an illusion, a story created by us to explain what we experience. In fact the only thing that's really there is the pure experience, the very essence of "being", and it is from that that the universe comes.

I don't really follow. Why does attributing meaning to something imply that I believe this meaning to be absolute and universal? Above all when the majority of instances in which I attribute meaning are instances in which that meaning only makes sense subjectively; I attribute my laptop the meaning of being in front of me, but that hardly implies that I think it's in front of everyone. So if you're willing to accept the existence of subjective meanings in that instance, as I presume you are, why isn't that refused simply because we move to a higher level of abstraction?

"Cheer up, guys, it's just an illusion"?

I'm being flippant, obviously, but none the less it raises an important point. To declare life a mere "illusion", an irrational pass-time that we simply need to remove ourselves from, you accept complacence in the face of the most brutal oppressions. Why protest the Holocaust if nothing really matters? People live, people die, whatever. Caring would be objectivistic. For all the hippy-dippy clothing that we may care to dress it in, such an outlook is fundamentally nihilistic.

One perspective on this is that the limited consciousness we (all life) experience is the pathway to the experience of unity. We experience the pain and suffering we do because of our limitations. That does not make such experiences "just an illusion, get over it". I would say that one way to move closer to the "god consciousness" talked about here, is to find ways to act with kindness when faced with suffering by others.

The universe will unfold as it does with or without our individual selves. The trick for each of us is to find our way. As Kenneth Patchen said:

"A feeling of compassionate mercy, the rest doesn't matter a damn."

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Our consciousness is the prism through which we see everything. It is our wondrous window and our prison cell.

Let me just add that the more consciousness one has (more conscious one is) the more he is free.

 

[Angst]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis btw

 

[Borachio]

If you want to lit a candle what you do? Lets say you fire a match. You can say that the candle flame was in the seed form inside the matches. The form has changed.

True, you can say so. Doesn't make it true.

But the flame was not there, then it is, then it is no longer there.

Who says after reaching your destination you will not begin new journey? Most probably thats what will happen and you wouldnt be able to do that without starting the first one. So only the form has changed.

Look, life is the journey, OK.

It has a beginning. It has an end.

This has applied, or will apply, to everyone I have ever known. There is no reason to believe it will not happen to me.

1) I might believe otherwise if the people I have known would communicate with me in some way after they have died.

2) I might believe otherwise if I could remember anything before I was born.

Neither 1) or 2) have shown the slightest possibility of being true. My conclusion is stark.

 

[civver_764]

I don't really follow. Why does attributing meaning to something imply that I believe this meaning to be absolute and universal?

The problem is that something having subjective meaning is the same as saying it has no meaning at all.

"Cheer up, guys, it's just an illusion"?

It sounds weird given what we're used to, yeah, but this is true. Suffering is ultimately the result of our mental reaction to things we have decided are "bad."

That's not to say we should accept complacence. Suffering is a very real phenomena and it should be avoided for obvious reasons. And it isn't a state of being we should be trying to inflict on ourselves, the holocaust being an obvious example.

Only in a strictly defined sense can this be true. Think of a candle flame. Are you saying that when you blow it out it continues to exist? Supposing a human life is like that flame. It comes to an end, now doesn't it?

Yes it does still to exist. Everything that the flame was made of is still there.

Now I really want to know the answer to this: What substance are you talking about here? MDMA perhaps?

LSD.

Yes. Well. The trick is to make it stick in my experience. This still looks like an intellectual realization to me. But good luck anyway.

Yes, our minds are like magnets to this false reality we've created. And they're very powerful.

Key to your mind?

What you're experiencing is basically your mind attempting to make sense (and failing to) of a bunch of foreign chemicals dicking around in it. You're not opening the key to your mind as much as you are just screwing with it and experiencing the results.

What makes you say this? Do you have any personal experience or medical expertise on the subject?

Actually what happens is that these substances remove barriers that our mind has placed up. It forces us to confront what has really been true the whole time. I'm not saying that it will always result in ego death for everyone, but it always shares this underlying. Other times my thoughts simply stopped working in the context of what I thought to be true, and all that was there were little fragments of thoughts, the basic ideas that I formed my thoughts with everyday. Sometimes these realizations can even be very scary for people.

You're making the assumption that our minds operate in a normal or optimal way on a day-to-day basis and that anything which deviates from that is just "screwing with it." That's seeing things from a very limited point of view.

 

[Traitorfish]

The problem is that something having subjective meaning is the same as saying it has no meaning at all.

I don't follow. It seems that you're justifying the proposed "objective meaningless/meaninglessness" dichotomy through the dichotomy itself, which isn't logically valid.

It sounds weird given what we're used to, yeah, but this is true. Suffering is ultimately the result of our mental reaction to things we have decided are "bad."

That's not to say we should accept complacence. Suffering is a very real phenomena and it should be avoided for obvious reasons. And it isn't a state of being we should be trying to inflict on ourselves, the holocaust being an obvious example.

So your criticism, in regards to the Holocaust, is not of the National Socialist regime for its systematic execution of over ten million people, but rather of the victims for allowing themselves to fall prey to the illusion that being systematically murdered is bad?

 

[civver_764]

I don't follow. It seems that you're justifying the proposed "objective meaningless/meaninglessness" dichotomy through the dichotomy itself, which isn't logically valid.

What is subjective meaning though? What is it based on? Whatever it is based on what is that based on? It seems to me that either it is based on something which is objective, or it is based on nothing and hence meaningless.

So your criticism, in regards to the Holocaust, is not of the National Socialist regime for its systematic execution of over ten million people, but rather of the victims for allowing themselves to fall prey to the illusion that being systematically murdered is bad?

No what the Nazis did was unquestionably wrong. All I'm saying is that is was indeed possible for the victims to avoid suffering simply by understanding their true nature, my intention is not to criticize them for failing to do so. We are all one and it follows from that we should all love each other as one, not attempt to create suffering.

 

[Borachio]

Yes it does still to exist. Everything that the flame was made of is still there.

Absolutely true. But the flame, like human consciousness, has gone.

What makes you say this? Do you have any personal experience or medical expertise on the subject?

Actually what happens is that these substances remove barriers that our mind has placed up. It forces us to confront what has really been true the whole time. I'm not saying that it will always result in ego death for everyone, but it always shares this underlying. Other times my thoughts simply stopped working in the context of what I thought to be true, and all that was there were little fragments of thoughts, the basic ideas that I formed my thoughts with everyday. Sometimes these realizations can even be very scary for people.

Ahhhhhhh.

I see. The Doors of Perception. I'm not sure this is actually ego death. But I could be wrong.

I would tend to the view that it doesn't force us to do anything, or view things differently, but merely removes some preconceptions.

You're making the assumption that our minds operate in a normal or optimal way on a day-to-day basis and that anything which deviates from that is just "screwing with it." That's seeing things from a very limited point of view.

I wish you all the best of luck with this one Civver. The effects of this can be very unpredictable.

You've never had jaundice by any chance, have you? I would hope not. Because I've heard there's some incompatibility here. But maybe that's just a myth, anyway.

 

[civver_764]

Absolutely true. But the flame, like human consciousness, has gone.

Consciousness exists in all things. It's illogical to thing that a certain arrangement of non-conscious particles could create consciousness.

I wish you all the best of luck with this one Civver. The effects of this can be very unpredictable.

What do you mean?

You've never had jaundice by any chance, have you? I would hope not. Because I've heard there's some incompatibility here. But maybe that's just a myth, anyway.

No, why do you ask?

 

[Traitorfish]

What is subjective meaning though? What is it based on? Whatever it is based on what is that based on? It seems to me that either it is based on something which is objective, or it is based on nothing and hence meaningless.

Meaning is an intentional relationship that emerges through embodied praxis. It is subjective, because it describes the experiential universe of a particular subject (i.e. a particular formation of concious matter), which is produced by the practices and modes of practice specific to that subject.

What in that do you see as demanding recourse to objectivism?

No what the Nazis did was unquestionably wrong.

Why? If you deny the possibility of objective or subjective meaning, then nothing can be wrong, let alone "unquestionably" so. You're merely permitting yourself the illusion that it is so.

All I'm saying is that is was indeed possible for the victims to avoid suffering simply by understanding their true nature, my intention is not to criticize them for failing to do so. We are all one and it follows from that we should all love each other as one, not attempt to create suffering.

That still implies that the fundamental condition of their suffering was their willingness to believe in their suffering; as long as they believed in suffering, they would have suffered to some extent whether or not the Holocaust happens, whereas the Nazis could have killed away without causing an ounce of suffering if nobody believed it. So it still seems to attribute ultimate responsibility (albeit not necessarily blame) for the suffering of the Holocaust with its victims.

 

[Borachio]

What do you mean?

How many times have you tried this experiment?

The jaundice thing doesn't matter, if you've never had it. It was just something I remembered from long long ago.

 

[civver_764]

Meaning is an intentional relationship that emerges through embodied praxis. It is subjective, because it describes the experiential universe of a particular subject (i.e. a particular formation of concious matter), which is produced by the practices and modes of practice specific to that subject.

What in that do you see as demanding recourse to objectivism?

I think you're wrong in differentiating these "subjects" from one another in the first place, because they're fundamentally the exact same thing.

For instance when we say pain is bad, why is it bad? Well because it produces suffering in our minds. Why is that? Well because our minds have decided that it is bad? Well why did they decide that? Well because...oh wait.

So we can say that suffering should objectively be avoided, because it is the very definition of that which should be avoided. But we have to realize that suffering comes ultimately only from ourselves.

Why? If you deny the possibility of objective or subjective meaning, then nothing can be wrong, let alone "unquestionably" so. You're merely permitting yourself the illusion that it is so.

You're right, I was wrong in saying that there is no objective meaning to anything. Suffering is something which we, the one, can obviously experience, and it is obviously something which we shouldn't experience.

That still implies that the fundamental condition of their suffering was their willingness to believe in their suffering; as long as they believed in suffering, they would have suffered to some extent whether or not the Holocaust happens, whereas the Nazis could have killed away without causing an ounce of suffering if nobody believed it.

That's accurate.

So it still seems to attribute ultimate responsibility (albeit not necessarily blame) for the suffering of the Holocaust with its victims.

I don't think it's very useful to talk in terms of "responsibility", but yeah sure. That still doesn't make it ok or logical to attempt to create suffering in others.

How many times have you tried this experiment?

I tried it many times last year but with the same mindset that Joecoolyo had("woah this is just some trippy stuff happening to me man") and didn't really gain anything besides the knowledge that conscious experience can be changed very easily. After having spent several months meditating and contemplating how our minds work it all makes a lot more sense to me. I've only done this three times since then. The third and last time was easily the most enlightening(and is what led to this thread), I'd never before been in such a state of bliss and freedom.

My major influences towards this way of thinking have been people like Eckhart Tolle, Peter Russell, Terrence Mckenna, Bill Hicks, Timothy Leary, and the Buddhist philosophy on suffering.