Everything's learned, nothing's real.

[psychedelic]

I feel that the whole idea of "the world only exists because our consciousness perceives it to exist" is a little arrogant. It's basically saying that humans are far superior to everything else because our minds create the existence of anything else. It's almost like saying you're a godly being. Only "god" can truly know what actually exists and doesn't. Saying something exists only because you allow it to, is pretty close to comparing yourself to god. This is strictly my opinion. No opinion is correct or wrong.

Consciousness is all. It includes not only human beings but everything. Me, you, all animals, planets, galaxies are god, I believe. It is not selfish, because there is no self to be fishy about.

 

[rjb]

I feel that the whole idea of "the world only exists because our consciousness perceives it to exist" is a little arrogant. It's basically saying that humans are far superior to everything else because our minds create the existence of anything else. It's almost like saying you're a godly being. Only "god" can truly know what actually exists and doesn't. Saying something exists only because you allow it to, is pretty close to comparing yourself to god. This is strictly my opinion. No opinion is correct or wrong.

I don't see this as you do, I'm sorry. I don't see why is that arrogant. I don't attribute arrogance to it, so it must be a subjective POV, something you learned it's arrogant, enforcing my point that it's all just learned. You learn to do something one way, and if it works, you stick to it until another more accurate definition comes along. It's really an honest point to defend, but what I'm suggesting is that it might not be the most accurate one.

I would consider the phenomena called "perceptual blindness". It's an interesting addition to this thread, I believe.

 

[The Day Tripper]

The world only exists as we know it because we perceive it, and subjectively interpret it. Its more a statement as to how concrete our sense of reality really is.

The world would still exist if humans did not exist, it would just be perceived in a different way, theres nothing arrogant about saying we create the reality we perceive. Saying the world does not exist AT ALL until we, one of an endless # of perceptional organisms, perceive it, is another statement entirely, and arrogant imho in that we are the only thing capable of perception of reality.

 

[ayanami_rei13]

...............

 

[rjb]

Thanks everyone who posted. Each of you made interesting points, I'm enjoying this thread. Just want to make it clear, all I'm claiming is that I know absolutely nothing, if anything. My advice in general is laugh. Laugh at the absurdity of it all! :lol:

Then dive right back in.

 

[ayanami_rei13]

............

 

[anrchy]

Ya I wanted to say congrats on creating an awesome thread rjb! One thing we can all agree on is that we all see things a little differently. Now what does that tell you about reality?

 

[misterfractal55834]

Ughh I'm being misinterpreted. If one says that things only exist because I allow them to is like saying nothing existed before you were born and nothing will exist after you die. I feel this is an arrogant statement because one is denieing existence of everything outside of ones personal consciousness. If spice has taught us anything, we are a infinitely small but still significant to the whole.

 

[anrchy]

Ughh I'm being misinterpreted. If one says that things only exist because I allow them to is like saying nothing existed before you were born and nothing will exist after you die. I feel this is an arrogant statement because one is denieing existence of everything outside of ones personal consciousness. If spice has taught us anything, we are a infinitely small but still significant to the whole.

I understand you :d

Does hyperspace not exist when we are not there? thats the question!

I think its something beyond our understanding as to how real works. but it would seem extremely ignorant to think you have to observe something in order for it to exist.

What if everyone in the world closed their eyes at the same time? The real has to be its own thing. We dont keep it around by being conscious of it.

 

[rjb]

Ya I wanted to say congrats on creating an awesome thread rjb! One thing we can all agree on is that we all see things a little differently. Now what does that tell you about reality?

Thanks man, I greatly appreciate that. I'll try to answer your question: what that tells me is that reality is unmistakable and undeniable, regardless of what we think it might be :d We all could think of it differently, but it's still what it is. It really can't be another way than it actually is, just like me and you can't be something other than we are. It's just impossible.

Ughh I'm being misinterpreted. If one says that things only exist because I allow them to is like saying nothing existed before you were born and nothing will exist after you die. I feel this is an arrogant statement because one is denieing existence of everything outside of ones personal consciousness. If spice has taught us anything, we are a infinitely small but still significant to the whole.

That doesn't sound right, I don't think any of us aimed there. But as with anything, it's not necessarily wrong, it's just incomplete because it's not properly understood. With a little tweaking, it could turn into a more accurate idea.

I'll say this: quantum mechanics have shown that particles act like waves when they're being watched by someone, and as particles when they were not observed. So we do have, at some extent, a way of influencing our reality. This could simply hint to the possibility that if we REALLY look at everything around us, it may be possible to control the experience. This is what perhaps all sorts of people tried to communicate to us over and over throughout time (gurus, philosophers, some scientists, etc), but now that I get it (just hope that I got it right), I can see why it's such a hard thing to understand, unless you just tune into it and just do it. Otherwise it can't be grasped and can't be thought of as possible. Because if you don't DO, you don't really BELIEVE, and only then the reality that you want coincides with the reality that you have. In all the other cases, it's just a biased choice and by making a biased choice you're automatically choosing to suffer, at some point or another, in some way or another. I'm not of course referring to "you" as an individual, but to the "you" in each of us.

Same with positive/negative thinking, which was discussed in a thread here. It's not that you need to be positive or negative, it's just that you have to be able to be both, each and none at the same time. Only then will you have understood all the sides of it and will be able to act on the right choice, without questioning yourself what the right choice is.

Some Alan Watts, to end this in good spirit: The Way of Waking Up

"So it's a fundamental question: do you define yourself as the victim of the world or as the world?" - Alan Watts

 

[christian]

RJB, I guess you mean that untill we NAME things, that they do not exist. But they DO exist, because if you try to walk through that dense looking thing that others called a mountain, you'll soon find out wether you believe it or not.

Sometimes a slap to the face can be a wake up call! :lol:

 

[Citta]

I'll say this: quantum mechanics have shown that particles act like waves when they're being watched by someone, and as particles when they were not observed. So we do have, at some extent, a way of influencing our reality.

You got it wrong. Particles behave like particles when they're measured, not like waves. Empirically they are always particles, while their so-called wavelike behavior doesn't exist for a single particle but appears only as a large ensemble of particles. It doesn't matter whether or not you are trying to measure particle properties or wave properties, you always measure a particle. So a single particle is always a particle, never a wave. The wave picture and particle picture are just two ways of expressing the same thing, namely a beam of particles. Quantum mechanics is a statistical theory used to calculate probabilites and not the behavior of individual particles.

It's really nothing in quantum mechanics to suggest that we influence reality with our thoughts. We influence reality sure, but that is by physical interaction understood through the laws of physics, not by mere thinking, which is probably just a pipe-dream.

 

[ayanami_rei13]

................

 

[murphythecat]

If nothing is real, then what is real?
If where we are living is ALL unreal and an illusion, how did we come up with an idea or ''real''?

When we create the idea of real, we simultaneously create the idea of unreal. Just like hot and cold exist simultaneously, because if there were no ''cold'' then ''hot'' could not be. hah.

So then, if nothing is real, then everything is real.
In other words, if the IDEA of nothing is real, then the IDEA of everything must also be real.

But then you can say: ''I am not talking about the idea of nothing. I am talking about the real... uh oh''

So there, Everything is real and unreal to a conceptual level. But this existence is real. But then once you say it's real you are coming back to a conceptual level of viewing this there unreal exists, so lets just say everything IS. without involving the ''real'' label.

Just freestyling my mind here

how can you that things are. Are they really?
what the op says is that he sense that all reality is a illusion. and I agree. the illusion of duality still is a illusion.

I'm still surprise to see that some people dont understand the notion of: we are one.
we are one. one conscience.

We are indeed god, each and every living thing, are living different experience, but its the same conscience living it.
If you cant see god in everything, you do not see god. And that is true. here nothing egoistical about it. we are god. I am god. you are god. To even say you or I is a illusion. All of that duality that we experiement in the material world is real, sure! but its all a illusion.

So, life is real, but its a illusion.

 

[rjb]

You got it wrong. Particles behave like particles when they're measured, not like waves.

My bad. But the point remains the same. I am referring of course to the Double-slit experiment.

It's really nothing in quantum mechanics to suggest that we influence reality with our thoughts. We influence reality sure, but that is by physical interaction understood through the laws of physics, not by mere thinking, which is probably just a pipe-dream.

Yeah, I agree Citta, it was just a connection my mind made, it's not something in quantum mechanics, but it's part of my experience, so I don't have any other choice but to take it as correct. I find that interpretation more personal and easier to accommodate, in the sense that now quantum principles suddenly are a part of my day to day live, where as only a short time ago I couldn't understand crap out of it. I actually understood quantum mechanics principles through personal experience, than the other way around. Go figure.

I don't subscribe to the idea that this whole universe is mechanical, simply because it's discarding a huge part of myself which I can't deny: something which we call the soul and this is something that screws everybody's theories up. That is what directly influences "reality", or that is my conclusion at this moment, based on my own experience; it's the "thing that makes the difference", if you will. The will to accept a certain idea, and then to further believe in it and involve in activities to prove or disprove that idea determines whether or not the idea will succeed. This will that I am talking about cannot be explained by any law. And there's nothing wrong with that, but we can't pretend we understood everything.

For example, think about walking from your living room to your bathroom. Sure there are some biological and thinking processes that are firing inside our head and make our body move - brain sends signals to contract muscles, gathers information from the senses and puts it all together very quick, balances all the info so that you are getting up at the exact right speed and angle, so you don't fall on your ass. So far so good. The moment you decide to move from point A to point B, that becomes your reality. The going from point A to point B. But, if you suddenly decide you don't want to go there any more, you can easily choose the reality that you're now not going from point A to point B, but have an icecream or what ever. So there's again that something which can't be explained, hasn't got a source (not a perceivable one anyway), but it definitely influences the hell out of reality. And it's part of each of us. I can easily make a parallel between how perplexing this is, and the quantum principles, where everything has a 50/50 chance of happening. Is this a quantum principle? Anyway, I'm sure we can just agree that there's a 50/50 chance of anything happening, regardless of what the concept is referred to as.

I'm still surprise to see that some people dont understand the notion of: we are one.
we are one. one conscience.

But there's nothing to be surprised about: it's not that easy of a thing to be one after all :lol:

Sometimes a slap to the face can be a wake up call! :lol:

Yeah, we all need one of those every once in a while :lol:

 

[Citta]

My bad. But the point remains the same. I am referring of course to the Double-slit experiment.

No, the point does not remain the same.

Yeah, I agree Citta, it was just a connection my mind made, it's not something in quantum mechanics, but it's part of my experience, so I don't have any other choice but to take it as correct. I find that interpretation more personal and easier to accommodate, in the sense that now quantum principles suddenly are a part of my day to day live, where as only a short time ago I couldn't understand crap out of it. I actually understood quantum mechanics principles through personal experience, than the other way around. Go figure.

I seriously doubt you understand Quantum Mechanics without having years of mathematical training and studies in physics. You may have read some popular accounts of wave-particle-duality, the uncertainty principle and so on, but much more than that and you'll have to have years of study. Quantum mechanics is deep, strange and extremely advanced mathematically. The very fact that you say the point remains the same when you wrongly said particles are waves when they are observed, and particles when they are not, attests to that you don't really understand it.

Furthermore, your personal feelings are really worth jack shit unless you can cough up sound arguments and theoretical justifications for your convictions. Just because it feels right doesn't mean it is. The psychotic person might feel that his water tap is really screaming at him, when in fact it doesn't. It's just water coming out of it. You'll have to better than that if you wish to be intellectually honest with yourself.

I don't subscribe to the idea that this whole universe is mechanical, simply because it's discarding a huge part of myself which I can't deny: something which we call the soul and this is something that screws everybody's theories up. That is what directly influences "reality", or that is my conclusion at this moment, based on my own experience; it's the "thing that makes the difference", if you will. The will to accept a certain idea, and then to further believe in it and involve in activities to prove or disprove that idea determines whether or not the idea will succeed. This will that I am talking about cannot be explained by any law. And there's nothing wrong with that, but we can't pretend we understood everything.

There is no evidence for a soul, nothing. De nada. Complete lack. All the things that you talk about, the willingness to accept ideas and further on, can by far be explained by purely material processes in the brain. Considerable evidence exists to support the notion that what we identify as consciousness and mind results from natural mechanisms in the brain. So with respect to our current understanding of the mind, and despite the fact that the ultimate relationship between consciousness and matter has not yet been entirely sealed, we can without much doubt discard any naive conception of a soul on account of the obvious dependency the mind has on the brain. That there exists some immortal soul capable of reasoning, making choices, feeling, love, memory and many of the things we identify with ourselves as conscious beings seems completely untenable.

I can easily make a parallel between how perplexing this is, and the quantum principles, where everything has a 50/50 chance of happening. Is this a quantum principle? Anyway, I'm sure we can just agree that there's a 50/50 chance of anything happening, regardless of what the concept is referred to as.

Uhm, what are you talking about? There is not at all a 50/50 percent chance of everything happening in quantum mechanics, and again this attests to that you don't understand it. And certainly it is not a 50/50 chance of anything at all happening in general, this is ignorant. Let's take a most trivial example of this; throw a dice, now what is the probability that you will get the number six? It's 1/6, not 1/2. What is the probability of getting either 1,2,3,4 or 5? Well, it's 5/6. Probabilities do not come in 50/50s at all times, in fact it seldom does.

 

[Parshvik Chintan]

what are you talking about? There is not at all a 50/50 percent chance of anything happening in quantum mechanics, and again this attests to that you don't understand it. And certainly it is not a 50/50 chance of anything at all happening in general, this is ignorant. Let's take a most trivial example of this; throw a dice, now what is the probability that you will get the number six? It's 1/6, not 1/2. What is the probability of getting either 1,2,3,4 or 5? Well, it's 5/6. Probabilities does not come in 50/50s at all times, in fact it seldom does.

well that may or may not be true for quantum dice

 

[Citta]

well that may or may not be true for quantum dice

What do you mean?

Quantum probabilities do not always come in 50/50s, that's for sure. The example of the usual dice was just to illustrate the very trivial fact that probabilities in everyday life, and not only in QM, doesn't come in 50/50s, as rjb wrongly claimed they did:

Anyway, I'm sure we can just agree that there's a 50/50 chance of anything happening, regardless of what the concept is referred to as.

 

[TheFly]

I see where the Original poster is getting at.
We define everything, and those definitions are recalled through our own memories instead of other person we are communicating to, so no body is really communicating their true thoughts. They are just relating to what the listener has already experienced.

As far as the double slit experiment the reason why it does that is because the photons are absorbed by the measurement tool (in the experiments case it was a camera -- a different type of camera then a snapspot camera). To my knowledge it is a camera that uses light(of some spectrum) to detect position and speed. Its impossible to know both at the same time because the camera are firing the same weight of the target measurement.

Imagine shooting cars at cars to measure the position and speed and the camera records the reflection of the cars bounce and takes that data to calculate its position(and with enough snapshots, speed as aswell) but your going to get invalid results because your measurement tools(shooting light/photons) weigh the same as your target(light/photons).

 

[open'nheart]

everything that we know today is the result of someone's interpretations.

You are using this argument to assert that nothing is real, but this statement leaves room for that which is not interpreted. Immediate experience as it is felt and perceived, but not interpreted.


I hear what your saying though and appreciate the sentiment. We are social creatures formed by our language in so many ways, and I would agree that this formation is not real.

to quote a friend: "love is, until it is defined"

edit: forgive me if this has been gone over. I have read parts of this thread, but not all of it.