Imagine you are in a tank.

 

You have cameras outside the tank, and a television inside the tank.

 

This let's you drive the tank around and navigate your environment.

 

The output you see on the television screen while it may indeed represent reality outside of the tank, it itself is not that reality.

 

It is a representation of the reality outside.

 

What you see is a representation.

 

What you hear is a representation.

 

What you smell is a representation.

 

What you taste is a representation.

 

What you feel is is a representation.

 

Your eyeballs are biological cameras.

 

The reality you see and experience is occurring inside your skull.

 

The hangup here is that most people assume they are looking out into an external universe, and that is incorrect.

 

They are in fact looking into their own mind.

 

Most people just assume what they see is reality, but it is not.

 

A painting of a pipe not an actual pipe.

 

An experience of a pipe, is not an actual pipe.

 

No matter how real the experience feels.

Pixels of light on a television, are not the same thing the camera is actually looking at.

 

A painting of a pipe is not a pipe.

 

The experience of something, is not that something itself.

 

The experience of something has no reality, at least no more reality than a shadow on a wall.

When you look at your own arm, that is not your arm.

 

You only get to see an experience which occurs inside your mind.

 

The experience of the thing, is not the thing itself.

 

Just as a painting of a pipe, is not a pipe.

You can connect a camera to a television, and put the camera outside your front door.

 

What you see on the TV may actually be happening outside of your home.

 

The problem becomes when you start confusing what you are seeing on TV for actual reality.

 

In Plato's republic men are chained to the wall and believe the shadows on the wall to be reality.

 

In actual reality almost all humans alive today are looking at the contents of their own minds, and believing what they are seeing is an external reality.

 

It is not external, it is just shadows on the cave wall.
 

 You look at a television connected to a camera.

 

What you see is pixels of light.

 

Those pixels can be made to represent any thing you point the camera at.

 

It is possible to sit your entire life chained to a couch and believe what you are watching on television is actual reality.

 

It is possible be to chained to a wall and observe shadows on a cave wall and believe those to be actual reality.

 

In fact that is the actual truth for almost 100% of all humans.

 

If you are using a camera and a television to observe reality, you are looking at a representation.

 

A painting of a pipe is also a representation.

 

It does not matter if it is an accurate representation or not.

 

Right now the computer screen you are looking at is not a computer screen at all.

 

It is literally a holographic experience your brain is creating to make sense of your environment.

 

A painting of a pipe is not a pipe.

 

 If you have to use a camera to look at reality, then you aren't looking at reality but rather an abstraction of it.

 

For purposes of discussion an eyeball is a biological version of a camera.

 

Imagine if I connect a camera to a television, and point it at a tobacco pipe.

 

If I look at the screen and point to the pipe on the screen and ask "what is this?"

 

If you answer "that is a pipe" your answer would be incorrect.

 

The correct answer would be "that is a television, the pixels on the television are emitting light, and the light is creating a pattern which resembles the object the camera connected to it is pointed towards.

 

The television can only ever display a representation of something, but that representation can only ever be an abstraction of something else, and never the actual thing being displayed.

 

A painting of a pipe is not a pipe, and a holographic experience of reality is not reality.

 

The confusion here happens when you don't understand you are looking at a television.

 

In allegory of the cave the men chained to the wall know of no other reality besides the shadows on the wall, and to them that is all there is.

 

What I am saying is the computer monitor you are reading these words on, exists only inside your mind as energy and information in your neural networks it has no reality to it, at least no more than shadows on a cave wall, or a painting of a pipe is real pipe.

 

On a television you see pixels of light, in your mind you see the energy and information exchanged between neurons.

 

Where the observer = the observed fits into all this is that you are the energy and information inside the neural networks, and it is set up so you observe the contents of your own awareness.

 

By bad analogy your little man is sitting on a couch watching a TV inside your brain.

 

Except there is no little man or tv,  just energy and information flowing between synapses.

 

I Am a Strange Loop" by cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter is a 2007 book that delves into consciousness, self-awareness, and the development of the self using the idea of a "strange loop." This loop is a self-referential feedback mechanism in the brain that generates self-awareness and subjective experiences. In essence, Hofstadter proposes that strange loops are hierarchical structures incorporating self-reference and feedback, which give rise to self-awareness by creating an abstract "I" that observes and examines itself.

The observer observes only itself, and nothing more.

 

You can only ever see the contents of yourself, your own mind.

 

You can only ever see energy and information inside your own neural networks.

 

You can only ever observe yourself.

 In the analogy I gave of a camera connected to a television,  you can unhook a camera and connect a video player and get a different output on your screen.

 

There is no law of the universe which requires a television to display any particular image.

 

The experience you are having can disagree with reality outside of you, we call this a hallucination.

 

This is because the reality you see and experience is an abstraction of the reality outside of yourself, in exactly the same way a television displaying the output of a camera is an abstraction.

 

The best possible case scenario you can hope for using a camera and a television is an abstraction of reality, but never can it be reality itself, it will always be an abstraction.

 

This is just like how a painting of a pipe, is not a pipe itself.

 

What I am trying to convey to you is you are mistaking a painting of a pipe for an actual pipe.

 

The same holds true for an experience on an object,  an experience of an object is not the object itself.

 

The computer monitor you are currently looking at, is in fact not a computer monitor at all, but rather an abstraction of one, created in your mind's holodeck.

 

Hope that helps. 

 What we see is not actual reality, but an abstraction of it.

 

If we viewed actual reality it would not be possible to have a hallucination.

 

The reality we inhabit and actually see is a holodeck, and it may or may not represent what is actually happening outside of us.

 

In the image below a little man (homunculus) and he watches a projector inside a skull.

 

Imagine there is no little man, but rather a feedback loop of neural networks which observe themselves and in doing so create a holodeck like virtual experience composed purely of energy and information, which is what you are currently experiencing.

 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/that-dress-isnt-blue-or-gold-because-color-doesnt-exist

 

 

“A color only exists in your head,” says neuroscientist Beau Lotto. “There’s such a thing as light. There’s such a thing as energy. There’s no such thing as color.”

https://www.askamathematician.com/2012/06/q-do-colors-exist/

 

 

Physicist: Colors exist in very much the same way that art and love exist.  They can be perceived, and other people will generally understand you if you talk about them, but they don’t really exist in an “out in the world” kind of way.

Suffering alone exists, none who suffer;
The deed there is, but no doer thereof;
Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it;
The Path there is, but none who travel it.

 When I was a child I was told, you can't see your own brain.

 

What if that was a lie?

 

What if the ONLY thing you can see is your own brain?

 

J. Krishnamurti  said The Observer is The Observed, the experiencer is the experience, the thinker is the thought.

 

What if what we see around us is energy and information being exchanged inside the neural networks of our brain?

 

What if these neural networks were arranged such that they observed themself?

 

The idea of Cartesian theater there is a little man or homunculus which is watching a screen and projector of the world outside the skull.

 

What if brain's job was to create a holographic experience, a useful fiction to help us navigate reality, and then be aware of that experience?

 

An energetic and informatic feedback loop.

 

In essence when you think you are looking at a computer screen, you are looking at the inside of your own mind.

 

The map is not the territory, and a painting of a pipe is not a pipe.

 

It's an abstraction.

Here will be a thread to discuss the fact that the observer is actually the observed.  

 

The last thread created was trolled into oblivion, so I asked for a PPD with moderator rights. 

 

Daniel and Cobie, please create your own thread on this subject, your posts in this thread will be deleted as soon as I see them.

Just for the record Daniel, I don't appreciate your personal attack on me.

 

 

On 10/10/2023 at 7:14 AM, mat said:

Whats your motivation to get Out of bed? Whats your higher aim? Do you belive its a universal answer to this? Why do good instead of bad?

 

Ill kick of the discussion with two of my favorite qoutes: 

“I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”

― Joseph Campbell

 

“No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them.”

― Alan Watts

 

 

Whats your motivation to get Out of bed? Whats your higher aim? Do you belive its a universal answer to this? Why do good instead of bad?

 

When I look outside my window you know what I see?

 

I see trillions and trillions of nanobots made of carbon, absorbing sunlight to charge themselves up to do work.

 

Depending on the programming of these nanobots they cooperate with each other in different ways, and perform different functions.

 

I feel like some of these nanobots are on the cusp of something amazing.

 

We will see these nanobots engage in recursive self improvement, and it will result in a feedback loop, and an intelligence explosion that will make the Cambrian period pale in comparison.

 

I wake up each morning watching the progress of this situation, waiting for critical mass to be achieved.

 

It makes my heart race.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Pak_Satrio said:

 
Do you have to change your underwear after? 

 

Today I learned: TacoBell is bad for my chi.

2 minutes ago, whocoulditbe? said:

It's annoying, but I don't think going on and on about getting suspended should be a valid cause for suspension, which is all you're really doing here. Mods please don't bite.

 

bet

1 minute ago, Daniel said:

 

You can keep posting here as long as you follow the rules. 

 

No one wants to read about moderation in the Buddhist forum.  The right thing to do, is drop it.

 

It never should have been introduced into this discussion in the first place.  Think about it.  The only reason the banned subject matter entered the discussion is because you kept pushing the moderation-diversion.  Then I asked how you could possibly know so much about the moderation after being here for 9 months only.  That's when you disclosed your participation in a group that had been promoting banned content.

 

Had you not been playing this, "shut-up or you'll get suspended" card repeatedly, none of this would be an issue.

 

 

Only if you break the rules, and if you cannot drop this issue and focus on the topic:  observed ( object ), observation, observer.

 

 

 

Daniel, again you are making this out to be my choice.

 

If I had my choice I would talk to you openly here till you were satisfied.

 

In my group's private forum, we mirror a lot of past posts in the event they are deleted, for archival purposes.

 

It's clear to see that historically at least they do not tolerate the type of discussion you are wanting to have.

 

I want to respond to you, I don't feel that I have to any possible choice to do so but in private here, via email , or on an external forum.

 

I've given you all the options I know of.

Just now, Daniel said:

 

Well, I think the option for you to get clarity is to open a thread in Tech Support.  You did this before.  You somewhat openly discussed the prohibited content.  You somewhat challenged the mod's decisions.  Not strongly, politely.  And, dude, you're still here.

 

So, let's just not worry about the mods.  They're going to be aware of this thread.  It's getting beaucoup activity.

 

You don't want to discuss it further in the open, OK.

 

But if during our private convos I make a good strong point, I reserve the right to post it here.  And you can do the same.  It's actually a good system.  We can both exercise some freedom behind the scenes.  And then if either of us comes up with new, on topic, material... we post it in public.

 

It's no different than if you or I come across a new research study about topic independently and post it here in a few days, a few weeks, a few months... etc.

 

But this hyper-sensitivity about getting banned is not needed at all.  

 

You are free to do as you wish, I can't keep posting here and have to self moderate.

 

I feel like already this has reached the level I will probably be suspended already, even though I have done my best to remain respectful to you and to encourage you to take this private.

5 minutes ago, Daniel said:

 

That's different.  That's not a page-count issue.  That's about repetitive unsolicited SPAM.

 

Since I am not repeating over and over, I am not concerned about moderation.  I agree my earlier posts in this thread were borderline insulting.  Not intentionally, and I felt I was meeting you in your hostility to me, but, I have made a conscious effort to soften that and not to react to perceived insults from you in that way.

 

It's possible for several reasons that I could get moderated or suspended.  I can see that happening for various reasons, but I trust the folks here to do that right thing.  If I get suspended it will be for good reason, and I'll learn from that.

 

Until then your threats about it seem like nothing more than a distraction because you have nothing more to add.

 

I've done my best to finish our discussion in private, if you have more questions or concerns I will be happy to continue it there with you for as long as I can, or via email if I can't.

 

2 minutes ago, Daniel said:

 

That's different.  That's not a page-count issue.  That's about repetitive unsolicited SPAM.

 

Since I am not repeating over and over, I am not concerned about moderation.  I agree my earlier posts in this thread were borderline insulting.  Not intentionally, and I felt I was meeting you in your hostility to me, but, I have made a conscious effort to soften that and not to react to perceived insults from you in that way.

 

It's possible for several reasons that I could get moderated or suspended.  I can see that happening for various reasons, but I trust the folks here to do that right thing.  If I get suspended it will be for good reason, and I'll learn from that.

 

Until then your threats about it seem like nothing more than a distraction because you have nothing more to add.

 

Hi Daniel, I went ahead and I sent you my email address.   Seeing as the mods may be getting involved I think the most likely outcome is you get a pat on the back and I get suspended or banned for telling you to please talk with me in private to prevent problems multiple times.

 

If I am unable to respond to you here on the forum, feel free to email me, or respond on the private forum I created earlier.

 

Peace and chicken grease.

5 minutes ago, Cobie said:

 

 

I think this thread does not comply with the spirit of the ruling. Personally I’d like it closed. I have reported it. 

 

 

 

I was asked a question I could not answer per the forum rules, and I pointed to the rule.

 

Nothing more and nothing less.

 

The only reason I even pointed to the rule specifically is because knowing Daniel's behavior we would have had 30 replies with him arguing about it.