The belief in a world made of Matter

[ralis]

I haven't read the entire thread, but there is the matter of space, which is no small thing.

Edited April 23, 2017 by ralis

[Jeff]

But Jeff, if it were proven that I exist then there would be a lot of other physical "stuff" that my life is dependent upon that exists as well.  Prove one by proxy proves millions of other things including the planet I live on.  From there, this planet would have no life it there weren't a star (our sun) to provide it energy for life. 

 

Oh, it just never stops once you have proven the existence of any single thing.

It is possible for something to "exist" but not necessarily have a physical form. Just resaearch on how mass/matter pops out of nothing in a Higgs field (modern physics).

[cold]

I maintain I didn't exist until an egg was fertilized.

 

I, being the particular physical manifestation that I identify as myself.

 

From that zygote nine months (more or less) later a huge (relative to the zygote anyway) being emerged as an individual (at least in my case) so yes I believe in miracles.

 

This or that is my current understanding.

 

I studied soil classification many decades ago as a requirement of earning a degree. My understanding of soil has grown even though I am not current with the latest in soil nomenclature. My ability to converse with others is limited whether it be soil, or anything else for that matter. I suspect but can't prove that I am not alone in that.

 

My understandings of soil have grown over the years mostly through observations which were / are prejudiced by my needs and desires.

 

I find a place of comfort to explore from. During my explorations I often tumble into a rabbit warren. It may or may not be comfortable. Based upon my experience I think I learn and grow more when confronted with discomfort. I don't intentionally seek discomfort. But I don't run away from it either.

 

Random tombstones I have encountered include : Born Suffered Died, and I knew this would happen someday.

I consider me (my being) a gift / blessing of the highest order. As are all of my senses.

[Brian]

Boswell the biographer of Doctor Johnson – the composer of the first English Dictionary – narrates an episode in which the Doctor claims to refute Bishop Berkeley’s position by kicking a stone.

“After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- ‘I refute it thus.’”

This refutation is a logical error called ‘Argumentum ad lapidem’ (Latin: "appeal to the stone") after this event. This is because although Johnson claims to refute Berkeley his demonstration does not prove the materiality of the stone but simply that he had the perception of the impact of his foot on the stone.

Many commentators find Berkeley’s position unacceptable but yet impossible to refute just as Boswell says.

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.

 

Thing is, it is impossible to prove otherwise. There is no refutation of "it's an illusion" which cannot be simply said to be part of the illusion. We are left with observation of apparent reality, in which the reality of said apparent reality is truly moot.

 

We can (and do) attempt to measure and formulate and model and predict in hopes of better understanding the parameters and mechanisms of our corner (in both time & space) of this apparent reality but, truthfully, we can do no more than that.

 

Curiously, the more we explore beyond that which is obvious (deeper, higher, bigger, smaller, faster, slower, more massive, less massive, hotter, colder, whatever), the more bizarre and unlike the obvious our explorations suggest those parameters and mechanisms to be.

 

We certainly aren't going to get far here; we've got folks who don't accept the concept that the rock exerts a force on your foot which is equal and opposite to the force your foot exerts on the rock.

 

"If the doors of perception were cleansed..."? Yes, perhaps.

[cold]

And if your weary by all means,

Michael row your boat ashore.

Avoid the rocks if at all possible, and please refrain from asking me why!

[cold]

After resting a bit if you are seeking honest employment check in with Brian re window cleaning, mention me if you like.

[Brian]

And if your weary by all means,

Michael row your boat ashore.

Avoid the rocks if at all possible, and please refrain from asking me why!

Hallelujah!

[ralis]

Positing from an intellectual point of view is inherently limited. However, direct experience with phenomena and what is not phenomena is an entirely different matter, which transcends all belief systems. Has anyone reading this felt space? If so, what are the implications of such a feeling? Feeling is not an emotion.

Edited April 23, 2017 by ralis

[ralis]

This scene is not just a piece of science fiction fantasy, but is meant as a transmission.

 

[dwai]

But Dwai, pleas consider this:

 

You are walking in the park. There is a tree in the park. You walk directly into the tree because you did not consciously recognize the existence of the tree. The impact cause you to have a broken, bloody nose. What happened?

 

I'll tell you what happened: you walked into physical reality. That's a no-brainer if ever there was one.

An illusory dwai, walked into an illusory tree and got an illusory broken nose. It is no different from a sleeping dream. Only thing is, we are afraid for this waking dream to end, thinking it is the end of us. It is not...when we die, we just wake up from the waking dream

[dwai]

I notice that you did not at all explain how you prove that Marblehead does not exist.

 

Also, I do not disagree that everything that I perceive is through my "mind". But, can you prove that your mind is not simply inside your physical body, and the physical body is in a physical world? Hence, when Marblehead kills your physical body, your mind and all such perception of consciousness completely shuts down.

 

How can you prove that you are correct?

Because I know that which is not the mind, which is not the body, but both mind and body belong to it.

[dwai]

I notice that you did not at all explain how you prove that Marblehead does not exist.

 

Also, I do not disagree that everything that I perceive is through my "mind". But, can you prove that your mind is not simply inside your physical body, and the physical body is in a physical world? Hence, when Marblehead kills your physical body, your mind and all such perception of consciousness completely shuts down.

 

How can you prove that you are correct?

Illusory MH does exist in an illusory world because we interact with him. Ultimately however, you, me, MH and every other "sentient being" are just one consciousness, without a second.

[Jeff]

Because I know that which is not the mind, which is not the body, but both mind and body belong to it.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but how do you know "that which you know" is not just as illusionary as what you just told Marblehead about walking into a tree? What proof can you offer?

[cold]

As a child I roomed with an older brother I had the upper bunk and once dreamed I was falling.

I was rudely awakened by contact with the floor.

An applied lesson in gravity or a lucid dream?

[silent thunder]

i seem to have the repeated experience of constantly seeing solid (seeming) objects...

 

i seem to reliably see objects with colors and shapes and in apparent positions relative to what I call my body.

 

Yet this is saturated in fallacy and assumption.  While being very convincingly and repeatably experienced as 'real'. 

 

mysterious.

 

 

Even though, my vision remains convincingly and repetitively confirmable, it is rife with fallacy and assumption.

 

 

take for instance:

 

 

i say to you "i see a coffee mug on that table."  and you look and see it and agree with me... a moment later. 

 

we both see a coffee mug... or do we?

 

I accept (based on the descriptions of the nature of light) that i have never seen a single coffee mug, or indeed any object ever...

 

even though i have had countless experiences of seeing many coffee mugs, the priests of science have convincingly demonstrated and explained, much to my satisfaction, that by the nature of light... what i actually perceive as a mug, is the process of my eyes processing the lightwaves that bounce off the mug... and not the mug itself.  Important?  i don't know... but interesting and intriguing and so important to me, in a manner.

 

 

so...

i do not see objects, i perceive the light that bounces off of objects... never the object actually, directly...

 

next up, i have never seen anything as it is now...

 

as with all perception...

i only perceive the past.  never the present as it is...

 

this is always driven home poingantly whenever i look up at the stars... the knowingness that many of the stars I see now, no longer exist, or certainly don't exist in the positions they appear to be in...  i see only the past.  i perceive only the past.

 

To see an object, light must bounce off of it, which lends to the belief in things being solid (seeming).  So light bounces off a solid seeming object and then must travel through space and time to the back of my eye. 

 

Here the lightwaves stop, or bounce, or absorb... they interact with the rods and cones of my eye, but the lightwaves stop and are not reflected, transmitted, or transferred any further into my brain.  At this point the lightwaves are transduced by my eyes into electrical signals and these signals then travel to the area of my brain where they are interpreted as my vision of an object.

 

This all takes time. 

 

So this experience of seeing an object in the present moment is again saturated in fallacy and assumption.  Even though my experience of seeing an object is in the present moment, the process of vision relates the objects not as it is now, during the experience of seeing it, but as it was when i experienced the conclusion of the visual process...

 

there is a separation in time of what I see vs what is now... be it furthest stars of the universe... or the coffee mug on the table, the difference between is only a merely a matter of degrees and again the process while saturated in very convincing experience is riddled with fallacy and assumption. 

 

all perception is of the past and is based on interpretation, filters and gamble... Husserl, Robert Anton Wilson.... so many have refuted naive realism so effectively.  It is very easy to operate on the false assumption that we 1)accurately perceive 'reality' and 2) that we accurately interpret what we pereive.

 

 

My vision (never of the 'solid' object itself, but the light that bounces off) and my experience of the process of vision, while in the present moment, is never of the object in the present moment, but my interpretation of the process of the past.

 

 

By the time I then open my mouth and say to you, 'pass me that coffee mug'... which presumably you will be able to do, by perceiving/transducing and interpreting its reflected lightwaves yourself, allowing you to very accurately assume its place in space relative to yourself and to me... reach out, grab it and then pass it to me...

 

all this is interpretation of the past.... yet transpiring in the present.

 

all perception is the past.... and all perception is saturated with assumption.

 

so much has transpired before my mouth even creates the sounds that attempt to convey my experience and subsequent desire to have the coffee mug passed to me by you... that the original experience is past.  Yet my experience of it, is still present and i still end up holding in the present a mug in my hand, even though the sensations of holding said mug, are of the past, having to be transduced into electrical signals and interpretation... hopefully accurately enough so i don't drop the mug and spill the prescious hot scalding treasure inside...

 

Not to mention the subsequent transduction of your ear drums, with the audible sound waves made by my voice, which are transduced into electrical signals which then travel to the place in your brain where you interpret them as recognizable symbols of speech and you agree that you also see a coffee mug.

 

Add to this the fallacy of the color of the mug. 

say there are two mugs on the table and I ask you for the red one, not the blue one...

again so much assumption and fallacy, however useful and reliably replicable

 

i seem to have an experience of seeing a mug that is red...

yet again the priests of science have lovingly rendered to me an understanding that red is the only color that the mug is not.

 

Red is the only lightwave reflected by the mug.  So not only do i not see the mug itself directly...  eye only perceive the colors that the direct mug is not...

 

curious... and convoluted.

 

i'm off to go look at the past of the ocean waves

is the ocean solid?  it reflects light... ah fuck

 

this is awesome and painful and fun and highly annoying all at once.

 

thanks again bums... you rock my worlds...

[Brian]

Positing from an intellectual point of view is inherently limited. However, direct experience with phenomena and what is not phenomena is an entirely different matter, which transcends all belief systems. Has anyone reading this felt space? If so, what are the implications of such a feeling? Feeling is not an emotion.

It seems to be either very threatening or a liberating paradigm shift, depending on the experiencer's state at the moment.

 

My whole world changed in an instant. I still carry old baggage but I am more likely to laugh about it while I carry it, and I've noticed I carry less and less of it without having consciously set it aside.

[cold]

is the ocean solid you ask...

after all it reflects light

yes and no I reply

 

It is awesome to sit and watch

and painful when ones body is slammed by a wave into the sandy bottom

and annoying in its constant attraction

 

Once again be mindful of the rocks!

[C T]

Its habitual to view matter as existent. 

This is quite valid, since most people only make use of their gross senses to relate to the world. 

 

So an argument or proposal that originates from a subtler source of knowing or experience will always be rejected by the group who relies primarily on gross sensations to argue for matters' existence. 

 

A red rose can only be perceived by those who know what non-red is. For those who have no idea of what non-red is, it is impossible for them to formulate the colour 'red' in their mind. The same principle applies to every other sensate perception. 

[doc benway]

Positing from an intellectual point of view is inherently limited. However, direct experience with phenomena and what is not phenomena is an entirely different matter, which transcends all belief systems. Has anyone reading this felt space? If so, what are the implications of such a feeling? Feeling is not an emotion.

 

One of my main practices is exactly this - feeling space.

We work with it in several ways - feeling stillness in the body, hearing silence in the speech and sound, feeling spaciousness in the mind and heart.

Working with dream and sleep also relate to this - being lucid in dream and changing the dream gives rise to more freedom for change in waking life where things generally feel so solid there is less confidence in the ability to change. Experience of awareness in dreamless sleep gives another level of depth to the experience of "feeling space."

 

The result is to ultimately be more focused on the observer than the observed and in turn to be focused on the inseparability of the observer/observed experience.

The implications relate to the very existence of the observer and the observer/observed duality that we accept as reality.

 

I read a wonderful quote recently by Anthony Demello - 

Silence is not the absence of sound, it is the absence of self. 

[Jeff]

Its habitual to view matter as existent. 

This is quite valid, since most people only make use of their gross senses to relate to the world. 

 

So an argument or proposal that originates from a subtler source of knowing or experience will always be rejected by the group who relies primarily on gross sensations to argue for matters' existence. 

 

A red rose can only be perceived by those who know what non-red is. For those who have no idea of what non-red is, it is impossible for them to formulate the colour 'red' in their mind. The same principle applies to every other sensate perception.

 

It is also the case that those who view that they are viewing from from a subtler state, will find that there is always something subtler. That is the nature of holding such views. That is why it can helpful to let go of such notions of being right or knowing more. All views are relative.

[3bob]

it really is a great blessing to know for yourself 1st hand (which is the only way possible beyond pro and anti concepts) that Atman is eternal, thus a knowing that no regular or even subtle knowing can know - and that no making or unmaking of that is possible.

 

"Fear not"

Edited April 23, 2017 by 3bob

[cold]

A rose is a rose by any other name.

Not being color blind I can't begin to understand what one who is perceives when one is deficient in visual color perception.

I struggle to communicate clearly every day.

 

Take off power? retard the throttle for landing or smoother flight, or apply full power for a take off, or to avoid a collision?

What color is that flower I asked a seven year old? Indigo was the reply.

And out he door we go you are indigo and I'm out the door we go. Smiles all around the clearest of communication!

[C T]

It is also the case that those who view that they are viewing from from a subtler state, will find that there is always something subtler. That is the nature of holding such views. That is why it can helpful to let go of such notions of being right or knowing more. All views are relative.

Only views that are anchored in extremes are relative. Pull up the imaginary anchor, free the senses from labels and habitual tendencies, and a whole new vista of timeless awareness opens up. 

 

However, there are, though rare, some who tend towards a completely open and light approach to views, a maybe/maybe not attitude. I find this to be a workable state of being promoting a smooth passage to thusness. 

[dwai]

[Jeff]

No proof is needed or possible. We have to figure this out ourselves. That is the way this works...

Yes we do...