Do we live in the matrix?

[KenBrace]

The world we see is completely internal. It's a simulation created by the brain from the sensory stimulation it receives. 

 

So the "external" reality that we live in does not look, sound, smell, taste, or feel like anything. It's a field of information.

 

Does this mean that we live in the matrix?

Edited December 6, 2015 by KenBrace

[idquest]

By matrix, do you mean the movie or an intertwined fields of nature forces?

[Miffymog]

The world we see is completely internal. It's a simulation created by the brain from the sensory stimulation it receives. 

 

The question is does it feel like a simulation?

[centertime]

The question is does it feel like a simulation?

and what is your answer?

[SonOfTheGods]

It's a simulation created by the brain

 

Did you mean "mind" ...?

 

Or just the physical brain?

[3bob]

a matrix of subtle and not so subtle energies that weave forms out of same,  thus whole gamut of Om - yet the Self is not woven or bound by any of it.

[Miffymog]

The question is does it feel like a simulation?

and what is your answer?

No.

 

It does, of course, all depend on what you call 'The Matrix'.

 

If you take 3bob's definition

a matrix of subtle and not so subtle energies that weave forms out of same,  thus whole gamut of Om - yet the Self is not woven or bound by any of it.

then I might say yes.

 

But, if you take KenBrace's definition

So the "external" reality that we live in does not look, sound, smell, taste, or feel like anything. It's a field of information.

Then I say no.

 

What I'm saying is that what I see and hear is pretty much what is out there, just my view.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Miffymog

[Karl]

We live in a universe of objective reality which can be experienced with our senses directly. What we sense is what is-though we can misinterpret what we sense cognitively.

 

We do, however, live in a world in which the control of definitions-and therefore words/concepts-are controlled by our own need to control others. We have created our own prison, appointed guards and commissioned walls to a design which we have deemed acceptable and necessary. We don't exit, because we live in fear of the consequences and yet we are the creators of that fear.

[Nungali]

I lived 'in the matrix' for 9 months .   10 hrs a day, 5 days a week ... mostly at Fox Studios Sydney and on locations.  

 

It makes me smile when people give that movie some reality value.  Its become a new internut paradigm.

 

Whether that is what is happening in this poll or not is hard to tell, as ' the Matrix'  is  undefined here  . 

 

But yes, 'reality'  can be confusing .... especially when you cant see the wires 

 

 

 

Edited December 6, 2015 by Nungali

[soaring crane]

I've posted a few threads and comments regarding my perception of a kind of Matrix made up of the microbiological world that we exist in. I see it fundamentally similar to the movie, but vastly larger as it encompasses not only human life but all life. And has been the predominant life on this planet for as long as there has been any life on this planet.

[silent thunder]

I have long lived with the sense of eventually awakening in ´reality´ in much the same manner that I have become lucid in the dream state.

[Taomeow]

I have long lived with the sense of eventually awakening in ´reality´ in much the same manner that I have become lucid in the dream state.

 

Can be a dream within a dream. 

 

Or even funkier than that.  The "you" who went to sleep and the "you" who wakes up within a dream gone lucid are not the same you.  The "you" who "returns" to the "ordinary world" after a lucid dream is not the "you" who went to sleep in that bed (it's not that bed, for that matter) and not the same "you" who was awake in the lucid dream either.  

 

Each hemoglobin molecule in your blood consists of 574 amino acid molecules.  They are arranged in four chains which twist around each other to form a 3D globular structure of unimaginable complexity that looks like the most convoluted thornbush of the kind that can't exist in nature yet does, the kind where not a single twig is arranged randomly, every twist and turn is exactly the fraction of a fraction of a degree it is, and every "thorn" points in a particular direction and no other.  This staggeringly complex and absolutely precise architecture is identically repeated about six thousand million million million times in your blood.  These structures are assuming this particular exact shape at the rate of four hundred million million per second while others are being destroyed at the same rate. 

 

You are, effectively, someone else on the molecular level from someone you were at any point in the past, are in the present, or will be in the future merely because you exist -- and I'm not even talking the atomic level.  Yet throughout your life you identify this never-the-same entity as "you," in all its manifestations.  On what grounds?..

 

This is the million dollar question.  

 

Taoism to the rescue...  as usual.   

Edited December 6, 2015 by Taomeow

[silent thunder]

Can be a dream within a dream. 

 

Or even funkier than that.  The "you" who went to sleep and the "you" who wakes up within a dream gone lucid are not the same you.  The "you" who "returns" to the "ordinary world" after a lucid dream is not the "you" who went to sleep in that bed (it's not that bed, for that matter) and not the same "you" who was awake in the lucid dream either.  

 

Each hemoglobin molecule in your blood consists of 574 amino acid molecules.  They are arranged in two chains which twist around each other to form a 3D globular structure of unimaginable complexity that looks like the most convoluted thornbush of the kind that can't exist in nature yet does, the kind where not a single twig is arranged randomly, every twist and turn is exactly the fraction of a fraction of a degree it is, and every "thorn" points in a particular direction and no other.  This staggeringly complex and absolutely precise architecture is identically repeated about six thousand million million million times in your blood.  These structures are assuming this particular exact shape at the rate of four hundred million million per second while others are being destroyed at the same rate. 

 

You are, effectively, someone else on the molecular level from someone you were at any point in the past, are in the present, or will be in the future merely because you exist -- and I'm not even talking the atomic level.  Yet throughout your life you identify this never-the-same entity as "you," in all its manifestations.  On what grounds?..

 

This is the million dollar question.  

 

Taoism to the rescue...  as usual.   

That is pure awesome!  Thank you.

[MooNiNite]

Well i disagree with the OPs idea of the matrix. But i do believe we live in the matrix as intended by the movie which is an allegory. 

 

Here is something that is informative. 

 

[Infolad1]

Can be a dream within a dream. 

 

Or even funkier than that.  The "you" who went to sleep and the "you" who wakes up within a dream gone lucid are not the same you.  The "you" who "returns" to the "ordinary world" after a lucid dream is not the "you" who went to sleep in that bed (it's not that bed, for that matter) and not the same "you" who was awake in the lucid dream either.  

 

Each hemoglobin molecule in your blood consists of 574 amino acid molecules.  They are arranged in four chains which twist around each other to form a 3D globular structure of unimaginable complexity that looks like the most convoluted thornbush of the kind that can't exist in nature yet does, the kind where not a single twig is arranged randomly, every twist and turn is exactly the fraction of a fraction of a degree it is, and every "thorn" points in a particular direction and no other.  This staggeringly complex and absolutely precise architecture is identically repeated about six thousand million million million times in your blood.  These structures are assuming this particular exact shape at the rate of four hundred million million per second while others are being destroyed at the same rate. 

 

You are, effectively, someone else on the molecular level from someone you were at any point in the past, are in the present, or will be in the future merely because you exist -- and I'm not even talking the atomic level.  Yet throughout your life you identify this never-the-same entity as "you," in all its manifestations.  On what grounds?..

 

This is the million dollar question.  

 

Taoism to the rescue...  as usual.   

Fantastic example! Kudos!

 

Cheers!

[Infolad1]

Well i disagree with the OPs idea of the matrix. But i do believe we live in the matrix as intended by the movie which is an allegory. 

 

Here is something that is informative. 

 

Great stuff MooNiNite! 

 

Passio does great presentations. I agree with about 90%

of what he says.

 

And he's a fellow Philadelphian. (Yo!)

 

The first movie had It, allegorically speaking. The second, and third had some of it, 

wrapped up with the very cool live action anime.

 

Cheers!

Edited December 6, 2015 by Infolad1

[4bsolute]

The world we see is completely internal. It's a simulation created by the brain from the sensory stimulation it receives. 

 

So the "external" reality that we live in does not look, sound, smell, taste, or feel like anything. It's a field of information.

 

Does this mean that we live in the matrix?

 

matrix is another term for mind...

 

currently you experience the mind only.

 

Regarding your topic tags:

 

There is ony Reality. The idea of non-reality or wanting reality, comes from living in the mind and it's seperation and core idea of "something else other than me", which appears in myriads outside of you. Like this world and those you call other human beings, etc.

 

Mind is duality only. There is no non-duality inside the mind. For the mind would not exist without non-duality.

 

You did not ask for this but to give a (more) complete picture:

 

You are the Self. The Self can only be experienced by getting beyond the mind, through silence, right here in this moment where you are. This underlying principle, Sat-chit-ananda/The Heart/Source/Jnana/Turiya/Tao/etc, which you are, free from all concepts and ideas, out of which all ideas are constantly being birthed out of, is non-dual. If you want to accurately use that term.

 

Non-duality can be experienced in the dual-space of the mind. But in order to do so you must "re-learn" the skill to transcend your personal mind. This happens by total devotional surrender to that which you believe has brought You forth, inside yourself, in total intimite communion focusing inward. And to realise yourself not seperate from it, but rather it. Or through surrendering every aspect of your being in silent meditation. Also the continuous quest of tracking back the root of the I-I-I-... thought of Who am I? back into the heart out of which the mind arises, brings forth that realisation, "state" and "energy". All of it is the same. Silence is most direct.

 

All of what is in "quotes" are just terms for a better understanding. In essence there is nothing to learn, only to let go off (or going into the other direction and accumulate and thus increase ignorance and go further away from a possible "non-dual experience"). Reality/Self is no state and it's "current" or "perception" can not be described, but losely understood, as all-inclusive awareness and intelligence and "energy", complete.

 

All else is fantasy

Edited December 7, 2015 by 4bsolute

[KenBrace]

The question is does it feel like a simulation?

 

Of course. What else is a simulation supposed to feel like?

 

By matrix, do you mean the movie or an intertwined fields of nature forces?

 

I mean an abstract field of information that consciousness interprets into an experience.

 

Did you mean "mind" ...?

 

Or just the physical brain?

 

Mind is the result. The brain is the root cause. So physical brain then.

Edited December 7, 2015 by KenBrace

[Taomeow]

 Do we live in a house built by mafia-controlled developers, on unstable ground prone to erosion and seismically active, constructed out of the cheapest and unsound materials, cold in winter hot in summer, continuously releasing toxic fumes into our indoor air, the walls painted with carcinogenic paints, the floors treated with immune- and CNS-suppressing chemicals, the roof insulated with asbestos damaging our lungs, the electromagnetic pollution from the nearby power lines continuously disrupting our DNA,

 

or in a cave in nature?

 

And isn't the "matrix" that put us in that house different from the "matrix" that put our ancestors in a cave, a tepee, a yurt?..

 

I think the answer to the question "do we live in a matrix" is yes, but it's not really important.  What is important is to understand that it's a bad matrix.   Bu ren -- numb and numbing to the real human nature.  The way out is not into some "ultimate reality" (again an arrangement sterilized of humans!  don't the overlords just love the idea of getting rid of us, by hook or by crook!  and of all things life!) as much as into the genuine human reality far as I'm concerned.  We are not in Kansas anymore, that's the real problem.  All those abstract ideals are fine to pursue if real human life proves unsatisfactory.  But we would have to experience that first before deciding it's not good enough.  I suspect it's mighty good enough, we seem to have enjoyed it for a million years...  till the very recent installation of the mafia-made matrix.  

Edited December 7, 2015 by Taomeow

[3bob]

the mafias are small puppets of the great abomination

[seekingbuddha]

Matrix  movie  is the hollywood  take & twist  on  Enlightenment.  Someone had creative juices flowing.

[Taomeow]

the mafias are small puppets of the great abomination

 

Desires, right?  Attachments, is that it?

 

Sigh... 

 

Attachments, which is the bad word for "connections," "relationships," is the only thing awareness has to go on.  All those stories of "pure awareness" have to attach the word "pure" to what they are talking about, have you noticed?..

 

Desires are the only tool that we have to measure the strength of these connections which hold all of awareness together.  The problem is with the way some people, demons, monsters calibrate this tool. 

 

I have never seen a wild animal drink more water than it needs.  Domesticated ones do though -- e.g. horses.  There's something wrong with domestication.  What's wrong is that it's another word for enslavement.  Nature did not invent it.

 

By the way, many years ago I was instantly enlightened in the best traditions of the genre the moment I read this line in a book by biologist Konrad Lorenz: "the abnormal and pathological process of domestication of humans."

[3bob]

I don't know Taomeow....for instance there were wise and noble north and south American native or Indian peoples, and there were horrific and cruel north and south American native and Indian peoples that made it a point to murder, enslave and even cannibalize each other and they were not domesticated per the so called modern age.  (and the same pretty much applies all over the world at one time or another...like the merciless warlords of Asia, Europe, Africa, island nations, etc. who existed long before the industrial revolution and that lived a lot closer to "nature" than modern mankind)

Edited December 7, 2015 by 3bob

[Taomeow]

I don't know Taomeow....for instance there were wise and noble north and south American native or Indian peoples, and there were horrific and cruel north and south American native and Indian peoples that made it a point to murder, enslave and even cannibalize each other and they were not domesticated per the so called modern age.  (and the same pretty much applies all over the world at one time or another...like the merciless warlords of Asia, Europe, Africa, island nations, etc. who existed long before the industrial revolution and that lived a lot closer to "nature" than modern mankind)

 

Well, they were domesticated, those tribes you mention -- this didn't start with the industrial revolution.  This started with agriculture that brought about innovative child-rearing practices. 

 

Derrick Jensen, author of "A Language Older Than Words," cites this one distinct feature all those peaceful vs. violent 'primitive" tribes differ in: attitudes toward childhood and children.  Infant and child-rearing practices.  The peaceful ones embrace a newborn child in love and tolerance and acceptance and care.  Later their children are free to explore the world and their place in it.  The violent ones, by contrast, "school" and "discipline" their children, setting out to break them from the get-go into some preconceived shape.  Their children are not born good enough for them, they need to be worked on -- with cruelty.  

 

That's domestication for you.  I keep thinking, though I don't have definitive proof, that this is the outcome of an extraneous intervention, assaulting us in several waves (but simultaneous in many places every time), because we were so successful for so long before domestication, we couldn't have "evolved" into cruel civilized beasts we are today, because it is something that would have eliminated us long ago.  Domesticated species, any and all of them, fall apart very fast, they don't thrive long term, they accumulate deformities and maladaptive traits with every generation.  E.g. modern domestic sheep lose 3 out of 4 pregnancies to early spontaneous abortion, something that starts happening in populations of animals suffering from too much accumulated abnormality, eventually going extinct (in evolutionary terms, in a split second.)  Some researchers assert that humans currently lose more than 9 out of 10 pregnancies this way (so early that most such events go unnoticed.)  We could never have spent so much time on this planet if this was the case in prehistory.  So, domestication is a ticket to agriculture, civilization, violence, and extinction -- the four cornerstones of our current matrix.

Edited December 7, 2015 by Taomeow

[Daeluin]

The unchanging and the changing. 

What is? What isn't?

Why is it you think you could know?

How is it that in saying it, it would remain so?