"I think, therefore I am" is NOT an absolute certainty, here's why, and here is a statement that

reply to post by trysts


It doesn't make sense that he would conclude that he exists due to his ability to doubt. It does make sense for him to doubt that he exists except that he thinks, and therefore the thoughts exist.

Thoughts exists. Personalities exist. Emotions exist. The outside world exists. But the one who can watch all these things appear does not exist.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain

I am before thought - thought appears to me.

Thoughts appear and tempt you, they want to play. It is fun for a while playing with the thoughts (and trolls are like thoughts) but you must realize they are not worth disturbing your peace for. If you watch them and watch your reaction to them notice emotion is rising, if you do it can be fun just experiencing the colour of you changing, the feeling, the sensation. But what can happen is the emotion takes over and then you are not clear headed. You can feel all hot and know it and enjoy it but still play. But it is a dangerous game if you don't know what is happening.

It is dangerous when you don't know what is happening.

If you can experience what is experiencing, then is the experiencer the experiencer or the experience or both?

I don't believe there is anything to the self other than the uniqueness of the experience. So there is no experiencer, but rather an individualization of a less defined, more pure, experience. And since the individualization mechanism creates a unique version of the one experience, the individualizer claims it as it's own and also assume that it is its own experiencer. But really, there is one awareness that is the experience.

reply to post by smithjustinb


It's important to realize that life (individuality) cannot exist when being with The One (Consciousness).

Of course, death doesn't "really" exist since there is always "The One" (consciousness all is a part of), but life is The One splitting itself into Two and observing itself.


It is not the duality (preferences / individuality) that causes suffering, it is the misidentification - where we believe we are the body, thoughts, emotions, or that we are our desires , when we are really the space that all of the thoughts arises. - the perceiver of Now/Presence.

reply to post by arpgme

Of course, death doesn't "really" exist since there is always "The One" (consciousness all is a part of), but life is The One splitting itself into Two and observing itself.

You 100% sure of that. that death isnt final.....I mean 100% not 99%.

reply to post by arpgme


One problem with your logic...we cannot have thought without the mechanism to create such thought. In our cases it is our Biological Machine which is the Human Brain. The Brain cannot exist on it's own without the Human Body thus the mechanism extends to the whole of a person.

Since the existence of a Soul has not been proven we have only the fact of consciousness existing where our Mind and Body exists.

Split Infinity

reply to post by AthlonSavage

Originally posted by AthlonSavage
reply to post by arpgme

 

Of course, death doesn't "really" exist since there is always "The One" (consciousness all is a part of), but life is The One splitting itself into Two and observing itself.

You 100% sure of that. that death isnt final.....I mean 100% not 99%.

I don't know anything with "absolute" certainty except the fact that now is happening, but I am "highly" certain that it does.

reply to post by SplitInfinity

Originally posted by SplitInfinity
One problem with your logic...we cannot have thought without the mechanism to create such thought.

We do not know this with absolute certainty. It could be that the thoughts exist in a separate place and are being interpreted by the brain, sort of like a radio signal to a radio.

Originally posted by SplitInfinity
Since the existence of a Soul has not been proven

Proven to who? It depends on what your definition of "proof" is. A brain dead person having a near death experience is evidence. A person in a near death experience knowing the exact words being said is evidence. A blind person seeing for the first time in a near death experience is evidence. Scientific studies about mind communication and the torsion field is evidence. Many professions have published their studies on these phenomena and wrote books with evidence for it, but these seem to be less popular regardless of the evidence.

In my personal life it was already proven that spirits exist as they can communicate not only telepathically but physically, as they can make certain sounds and sometimes physically show their APPEARANCE (and the appearance was seen by more than one person on a regular day - so it is not hallucination).

reply to post by arpgme

Originally posted by AthlonSavage
reply to post by arpgme

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Of course, death doesn't "really" exist since there is always "The One" (consciousness all is a part of), but life is The One splitting itself into Two and observing itself.


You 100% sure of that. that death isnt final.....I mean 100% not 99%.

I don't know anything with "absolute" certainty except the fact that now is happening, but I am "highly" certain that it does.

Ok Isis ill take your word for it

Originally posted by arpgme

Potential is not existence, it is the capability to be ABLE to exist.

You are not making any sense!

How can potential not exist? Without potential or energy gradients..etc etc, life as we know it would not exist. If potential did not exist, things would remain unchanged forever (or static).

reply to post by LiveEquation


I didn't say, "potential" - the concept - does not exist.


I said "potential" - is not "existence" (being).


Potential is the capability TO exist.

The egg is the POTENTIAL FOR a chicken to exist.

The seed is the POTENTIAL FOR a plant to exist.

But "Potential" itself is an abstract term - meaning capability to be able exist.


Action however, is the energy/movement/change/focus OF existence.


The seed GROWS into a plant

The egg HATCHES into a bird.


"Action" is not abstract, it is something that can be witnessed as "occurring".

Potential does not "occur" and if it is - it is not potential it is manifestation (an occurring).

Originally posted by smithjustinb
reply to post by trysts

 

It doesn't make sense that he would conclude that he exists due to his ability to doubt. It does make sense for him to doubt that he exists except that he thinks, and therefore the thoughts exist.

Thoughts exists. Personalities exist. Emotions exist. The outside world exists. But the one who can watch all these things appear does not exist.

You lost me on the last sentence.

reply to post by trysts


When before a thought comes up in your mind, what is there? Nothing - Emptiness - Silence. It is from that "Space" that thoughts arises. You are OBSERVING your thoughts, so you are not your thoughts...

Originally posted by arpgme
reply to post by trysts

 

When before a thought comes up in your mind, what is there? Nothing - Emptiness - Silence. It is from that "Space" that thoughts arises. You are OBSERVING your thoughts, so you are not your thoughts...

To me, it appears that I am mind and body. I understand my mind to be thoughts, therefore I am my thoughts.

Originally posted by arpgme

I didn't say, "potential" - the concept - does not exist.


I said "potential" - is not "existence" (being).

You don't get it do you?

1. Potential is existence! It is the power and force of existence. If you believe in the christian god then you should know that potential is synonymous with what you would call the "Holy Spirit"

Potentiality and potency are translations of the Ancient Greek word dunamis (δύναμις) as it is used by Aristotle as a concept contrasting with actuality. Its Latin translation is "potentia", root of the English word potential, and used by some scholars instead of the Greek or English variants. Dunamis is an ordinary Greek word for possibility or capability. Depending on context, it could be translated "potency", "potential", "capacity", "ability", "power", "capability", "strength", "possibility", "force" and is the root of modern English words "dynamic", "dynamite", and "dynamo".[5] In early modern philosophy, English authors like Hobbes and Locke used the English word "power" as their translation of Latin potentia

Source

2. Action is a consequence of potential.

Stop using eggs and chickens as examples. Think of a photon of light that exists everywhere as a wave (because it exists everywhere, it has the potential to exist at any of those locations as a particle). What you would call action would be collapsing the wave into a particle.

Originally posted by trysts

Originally posted by smithjustinb
reply to post by trysts

 

It doesn't make sense that he would conclude that he exists due to his ability to doubt. It does make sense for him to doubt that he exists except that he thinks, and therefore the thoughts exist.

Thoughts exists. Personalities exist. Emotions exist. The outside world exists. But the one who can watch all these things appear does not exist.

You lost me on the last sentence.

I'm basically saying, there is no difference between the perceived and the perceiver. It is all one.

BUT, the perceived is what stands out as existing. The perceiver can only define itself according to what it sees and thinks, so therefore, it seems accurate, to me, to say that there is no experiencer, only an experience.

If you believe this, as I do, then you can feel the experience as yourself, which it is. You feel more alive because you feel like you are what is happening, rather feeling like you are just the happenings of your inner dialogue and emotions (which are also an experiencer).

If there is a concrete observer, I imagine it exists as much as a bottomless pit exists. It's not that it's there as a thing, it's just that the things around in which are visually there define it as a thing that is not there. So it is like the thing that isn't a thing.

Probably why galaxies take on the forms they do, as a reflection, or scaled down image, of the universal beingness that we are.

Originally posted by arpgme
reply to post by trysts

 

When before a thought comes up in your mind, what is there? Nothing - Emptiness - Silence. It is from that "Space" that thoughts arises. You are OBSERVING your thoughts, so you are not your thoughts...

The experience is all there is. All you have ever identified with is the experience. There is no self that you can identify with and call, "me". Your whole life, you have observed your environment and made youself fit in according to it. Thoughts and emotions are just as much a part of the experience as other people and objects. There is no self. There is only the experience.

The nature of an experience implies that there must be an experiencer of it, but this is not necessarily true. The experiencer is a black hole. It can be pointed to, but what is being pointed to is something that can only be observed by the things surrounding it that separate the empty hole of the observer with the objects of the observed. The self is a bottomless pit in which all of the objects of your experience fall into as they make way for something else. But it's not a thing. It's a hole. It's nothing.

You will always be that and you will always define it according to the things that surround it. Therefore, I say be the experience. Because that's really all there is to be. You can't be a hole.

Originally posted by smithjustinb

Originally posted by trysts

Originally posted by smithjustinb
reply to post by trysts

 

It doesn't make sense that he would conclude that he exists due to his ability to doubt. It does make sense for him to doubt that he exists except that he thinks, and therefore the thoughts exist.

Thoughts exists. Personalities exist. Emotions exist. The outside world exists. But the one who can watch all these things appear does not exist.

You lost me on the last sentence.

I'm basically saying, there is no difference between the perceived and the perceiver. It is all one.

BUT, the perceived is what stands out as existing. The perceiver can only define itself according to what it sees and thinks, so therefore, it seems accurate, to me, to say that there is no experiencer, only an experience.

If you believe this, as I do, then you can feel the experience as yourself, which it is. You feel more alive because you feel like you are what is happening, rather feeling like you are just the happenings of your inner dialogue and emotions (which are also an experiencer).

If there is a concrete observer, I imagine it exists as much as a bottomless pit exists. It's not that it's there as a thing, it's just that the things around in which are visually there define it as a thing that is not there. So it is like the thing that isn't a thing.

Probably why galaxies take on the forms they do, as a reflection, or scaled down image, of the universal beingness that we are.

That's interesting. I've read enough philosophy to be able to understand some of what is being said by them, like being able to follow the logical thread when David Hume says there is no "self", but I don't agree that there is no "self". My "self" is self-evident to me. When you or Hume say there is no "self", y'all may be following the conclusion of the flaws of language. Just like how some philosophers and logicians conclude that there is a mind/body problem. To me it's a language problem.

So, if you're saying there really is no "self", then I would disagree. It is like someone saying I don't have pain when I already know I have pain no matter if a physician says otherwise. I'm glad philosophers point out the limits of language, but I can't honestly follow them if they believe things like there not being a "self".

reply to post by arpgme


Individuality is all there can be. Just as each cell in your body operates independently as an individual to make up you, so do you operate individually to make up a greater individual.

reply to post by LiveEquation


I think we are misunderstanding each other some how. It could be because of definitions. When you said "Potential is existence" that made absolutely no sense until you pointed out a definition of potential meaning "power/force manifesting existence". So it is a thing (power/force).

When I was using the word "Potential" I agree with you - I think the misunderstanding may be the word "existence" - I am using the word "existence" as in "occurring in reality (something of physical form)".

I completely agree that action comes after potential. This is common sense because if you are not able to do something then the "doing" of that something will not happen.

The essence of reality is something that manifests as cause and effect. Everything and everyone is subjugate to the forces of cause and effect.