You can never explain the physical world

a reply to: bb23108
Who is responsible for the actions of the body or mind?

a reply to: Itisnowagain
I already answered this - the body-mind. And as long as anyone is apparently associated with a body-mind, they, as the body-mind, are responsible for its actions.

Why are you playing these games? If you think you are not responsible, type some rule-breaking comments and you will get banned because you are responsible.

You did this with BlueMa at one point, and she wouldn't carry on the conversation with you any longer. Please see what you are doing here - oh wait, you aren't doing it, it is just happening.

Sheesh.

a reply to: bb23108
What is the point in what you think you have realized and why are you promoting it?
Are you free from worrying about the future or past? Are you trying to make the world a better place? Is it about living after death?
Just trying to understand what it is all about for you.

originally posted by: bb23108
a reply to: Itisnowagain
I already answered this - the body-mind. And as long as anyone is apparently associated with a body-mind, they, as the body-mind, are responsible for its actions.

No one is responsible for the body's actions. Are you doing the beating of the heart? Are you doing breathing? Are you doing seeing? Are you doing hearing?
It is the belief that you are the doer which is the illusion - this is what makes life hurt - this is what makes now be full of yesterday and tomorrow. When now is free from the one who is planning something better it is just as it is - peaceful but when it is full of 'me and my life' it is not so peaceful.

a reply to: Itisnowagain
I have only authored two threads. You could start with those, if that is what you are really interested in.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: bb23108

You are one presumptuous online character, LesMis. I have been studying and practicing these matters much much longer than YouTube has been around. You have clearly not studied very closely the Upanishads, Shankara's elaborations, etc. - and if you have, then you missed their essential message.

But this does not surprise me given your forever materialistic stance, at least as your LesMis character is presented online.

Their essential message and outcome was the varna. Even good old Shankara believed in it. So you've read from the very source, and despite their ludicrousness, you still promote them? Is it because you think the Vedas was the word of god?

Ultimately awareness is beyond the body-mind and is prior to all conditions. You are tending to identify the word awareness with attention, which it is not. Also, a common mistake amongst various you-tubers regarding awareness, attention, and the observer function of the mind - which I have often criticized.

Yes you keep saying it is beyond the body-mind but are unable to back up the claim. In other words it seems like a wild guess. It is no wonder that people do not use the term awareness the way you do.

Why is there no fundamental sense of ageing when one FEELS who they are in terms of self-aware being? One IS self-aware feeling, but this is likely the reason your LesMis character cannot grok this. Your character, LesMis, identifies strongly with mentality, and this abstraction knots up the being in terms of feeling altogether to infinity, and even just feeling in and as the whole body-mind.

When I asked you to do that "experiment" it is necessary to compare the "feeling" of yourself back then to the "feeling" of yourself currently. Not as the online character LesMis, but as who you actually ARE.

If you cannot do this, then you should learn to feel into life more, and allow yourself to feel the simple joy of being - apart from all content and abstracted mentality. This self-awareness is feeling-being, beyond all content, never ages - and is self-evident.

I have to feel it? Oh, it’s that you can only feel that what you say is true, reason be damned. You will only go so far as to feel what you are, while at the same time refuting the sight, the sound, the smell, the touch, and the taste of what you are. Sounds like faith.

I felt completely different back then than I do now.

You should learn to see, touch, smell, taste and hear into life a bit more.

a reply to: Visitor2012

That's an excellent question, and I'd like to add my two cents in if I may. Although I question the premiss that one can experience anything physically. Nonetheless, there are simple examples of so-called non-physical experiences. If you wake up from a dream, did you experience it? Where's the physicality of a dream?

In regards to your attempt to use physicality as the litmus test for reality, can you point to any recent scientific discovery which claims that physicality is that essential fabric of reality? Because decades ago, scientific research and discovery has gone FAR beyond the study of physics and are in deeper areas of research that are non-physical in nature. So why do you still view the physical like it is the basic foundation of all existence when science has already moved on?

No scientific discovery claims physicality is the essential fabric of reality. The idea whether reality is physical or mental or spiritual, is not the pursuit of science, but philosophy. Science already operates as if physicalism is true or it would not be able to utilize the scientific method, which also operates as if physicalism is true. Physicalism is built into science as its inherent metaphysical foundation.

The notion of the physical and non-physical is ancient, and I believe expressed best by Plato:

STRANGER: My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single moment, however trifling the cause and however slight the effect, has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power.

Personally I do not believe in any materialistic monism, where there is one substance or stuff we like to call matter. My metaphysics is a sort of pluralism.

Now I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on dreams, but as for dreams, the assumption that you are a little man experiencing things within the head is illogical, without evidence, and unessecary. There is no actual horse in someone's head when they dream of a horse, and there is no little man interacting with it. The head is not a little universe where landscapes and objects appear (where would they fit?) when one goes to sleep. To ask "where's the physicality of a dream" is like asking "where's the physicality in a backflip". No, we cannot hold a backflip in our hand as if it was an object; we can only perform them. Dreaming is the same way. In both cases, a physical being is required to perform these actions (dreaming and backflipping), and only when we think about them in hindsight, can we speak of these actions as things. So as per your question, the "physicality of a dream" is that which dreams.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
I felt completely different back then than I do now.

You should learn to see, touch, smell, taste and hear into life a bit more.

One's essential being is awareness or conscious light-energy, unlimited feeling. It is prior to the senses but is not separate from anything. If you would let go of your fixed mental disposition and just feel into this fully, you would see that there is no diminishment of awareness ever, but the experience of the senses does diminish in memory because of its conditional nature.

However, in the current moment, one's feeling being (self-aware Consciousness) never hampers the experience of the senses - in fact, it becomes obvious that the body-mind is an integrated whole with the environment, so full participation in life is embraced. In fact I started a thread about this very matter, as you know.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: bb23108

Their essential message and outcome was the varna. Even good old Shankara believed in it. So you've read from the very source, and despite their ludicrousness, you still promote them? Is it because you think the Vedas was the word of god?

Yes, you obviously missed the essential message Shankara was speaking about. And no, I do not relate to the Vedas as you suggest.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
I have to feel it? Oh, it’s that you can only feel that what you say is true, reason be damned. You will only go so far as to feel what you are, while at the same time refuting the sight, the sound, the smell, the touch, and the taste of what you are. Sounds like faith.

Self-aware consciousness is fortunately beyond the limits of the conceptual mind. So conceptual mind cannot prove it - as you obviously demonstrate.

That we are self-aware consciousness is self-evident truth. If you can't understand and feel this, so be it.

Prove you just are the biological body-mind. You just assume this as a self-evident truth but have no real proof.

a reply to: bb23108

Yes, you obviously missed the essential message Shankara was speaking about. And no, I do not relate to the Vedas as you suggest.

You relate to someone else’s readings of the Vedas? I do not understand.

Self-aware consciousness is fortunately beyond the limits of the conceptual mind. So conceptual mind cannot prove it - as you obviously demonstrate.

That we are self-aware consciousness is self-evident truth. If you can't understand and feel this, so be it.

I’m sorry but it is your demonstration. Unproven, unwarranted and unnecessary. Saying it is true because it is true is not an argument for or against your theory. This is why I believe you are parroting another, as you cannot furnish your ideas with any valid reason why you believe them.

It is also quite obvious that the idea of self-evident truth is lost on you.

Prove you just are the biological body-mind. You just assume this as a self-evident truth but have no real proof.

How is it an assumption? You keep saying this but fail to tell me how or why this is the case. The assumption is yours, friend. You’ve assumed you are something more than a body, yet cannot show or reason about this “more” than the body. You have no reason nor evidence to promote such claim, and is easily discarded.

assumption |əˈsəm(p)SHən|
noun
1 a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof

proof |pro͞of|
noun
1 evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement

Are the countless people you see on a day-to-day basis not evidence enough? What other than bodies do you see? What about when you look at or touch yourself? What other than a body are you touching and looking at? What other than your fingers are you touching your keys with? When you look at pictures of yourself, what do you see? Not yourself? Have you felt pain? Have you felt pleasure? When you go to the doctor what is it they examine? Why are you unable to walk through walls? How come you cannot fly? Why are you unable to cease breathing? Why must you eat food? Why must you drink water? How come you cannot fit through the head of a pin? Does your heart rate not raise when in various states of arousal? Do you not get shivers when you’re cold? Do you not go to the washroom? Do you not sleep? Why do you sleep? Why get dressed? Why smile? Why make love? Why not eat a stone or a tree branch? Why not drink salt water? Why not wrestle with a grizzly bear?

We’ve scoured bodies to no end and for thousands of years and have found no such thing as what you are saying is self-evident.

Please, explain to me how none of this is not proof. It seems like nothing short of a divine being telling you that you are a body will suffice.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

No one is responsible for the body's actions. Are you doing the beating of the heart? Are you doing breathing? Are you doing seeing? Are you doing hearing?
It is the belief that you are the doer which is the illusion - this is what makes life hurt - this is what makes now be full of yesterday and tomorrow. When now is free from the one who is planning something better it is just as it is - peaceful but when it is full of 'me and my life' it is not so peaceful.

Who is responsible for you sitting at a computer, discoursing on the internet?

You or a banana?

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
You relate to someone else’s readings of the Vedas? I do not understand.

In various traditional texts there are further elaborations - such as by Shankara. If you read them you would obviously know that the footnotes and narrative are sometimes longer than the traditional texts.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
This is why I believe you are parroting another, as you cannot furnish your ideas with any valid reason why you believe them.

Responded to below.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
Please, explain to me how none of this is not proof. It seems like nothing short of a divine being telling you that you are a body will suffice.

It is obvious to me that our fundamental being is associated with a body-mind, and is TENDING to be identified with it, but that identification is an illusion that can actually be understood and released.

This is true, I am clear of this directly, not through the medium of someone else's words. I have certainly been guided to this understanding over a period of many years by others, as have you with your rationalism. And so this truth is self-evident to me - directly.

There have been many experiences that created real tangible effects in the body-mind, but that were not generated by the physical body-mind itself or any physical object. It was a tangible force beyond the physical. And before you ask, no, scientific instruments cannot measure it.

It is not self-evident to you, so I accept that about your online character, LesMis. But do remember that you only feel as good as you can feel; and if you feel, you heal, brother.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: BlueMule

Have you ever penetrated the surface of a story, reached into the subtext, and extracted a truth that resonates with you?

It depends on the work, but it is the main reason I read.

That depends on what you think a story is. I think the essence of a story is not on the page. I think it is in a liminal no-mans land between the page and the reader. That liminal zone can be a barren place for one person, and a source of mystical inspiration for another person.

Absolutely so, Tartuffe. I have even written a thread on this very subject not too long ago. For once we agree.

So, if you agree that the essence of a story is not on the page, but rather is betwixt and between, how do you reconcile that with your nominalist method? After all, it doesn't look as if you can tie a string to the essence.

👣

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

but as for dreams, the assumption that you are a little man experiencing things within the head is illogical.

It would seem. Yet this same ability to use logic is what grounds your belief that a dream is really happening....even though it's only happening in your head. Logic and rationality fails when it comes to determining the difference between what is physical and what is an illusion in a dream. Because they both use sense perception as their basis. The experience is both one and the same. So logic is not as capable as you might think, when it comes to discerning such matters.

If a highly logical person goes to bed at night and begins to dream, why does he so easily assume he is the representation of himself within the dream? Because it feels real, and if it feels real than logically and rationally it IS real. That ALONE is proof enough for him. So he falls for the dream hook, line and sinker, without so much as a single doubt about its reality.

There is no actual horse in someone's head when they dream of a horse, and there is no little man interacting with it.

Indeed. But you're missing the point. Mainly your assumption that what you're experiencing NOW, of the so-called physical waking life, is somehow more valid than an experience one has while in a dream. Isn't that the main topic of the discussion? The unsubstantial or inexplicable nature of physical reality? So hear me out and consider it for a moment.
Let's talk about this 'Actual' horse you're referring to. ALL life is a phenomenon. Dreams are ALSO a phenomenon. In addition to the fact that they both share the same sensory perceptions, they share something else in common, they are both experiential. And as such, the ONLY connection we have to them is through experiencing.

When comparing waking life to a dream, You NEVER doubt the reality of either experience whilst you're experiencing it. So within the context of experiencing, there is no experiential difference between you interacting with a horse in the waking life, and doing the same within a dream. Neither experience can be claimed to be more real, than the other. And if it weren't for hindsight, we would not be able to tell the difference between the two.

Let me clarify my point. The sense perception you use to experience petting a horse in the waking life, thus giving you the sensation that it is real, is NO DIFFERENT then the experience of petting a horse in a dream and believing it's also happening. The physicality of your world is no more valid than what is experienced in dreams and your logic is unable to determine the difference between the two. As is proven every night when you go to bed and fall into a dream.

So back to your claim, you say when someone is dreaming of a horse..there is no real horse in their head. Well what makes you believe there's a REAL horse in the physical realm? Where is the reality of your physical realm, if all you're using to substantiate that reality are the same deceiving sense perceptions that fool you in a dream?

You're not able to see the unreality of a dream when it is being experienced, so where is this extra discernment in your waking life that leads you to believe physicality is more real? And what DIFFERENT sense perceptions are you using to make that determination? Without the advantage of hindsight of course.

To ask "where's the physicality of a dream" is like asking "where's the physicality in a backflip

Like you said, there is no physical horse in your head when you dream of one. Hence, no physicality to a dream. Obviously I'm referring to physical objectivity. Using the term as such, there's nothing objective about a verb whatsoever so the two can not be compared.

Words correspond with reality. Words do not define reality.

Words that correspond with reality are the basis of the definition of truth.

Reality or the natural world is a miracle, because it has no source or predecessor or antecedent that we know of.

Most scientists are most likely willing to agree that we are not necessarily providing a description of nature in and of itself BUT, it doesn't mean that we aren't describing something in an accurate manner. The reason why most scientists and most people are willing to trust the results of science is because the better scientific theories make testable predictions that are, to a good degree, in good agreement with experimental results. In addition, these results tend to hold up quite will over time.

You are free to posit any theory, any philosophy you want but, the problem with most non-physical theories and philosophies is that they don't make testable predictions and/or they make very vague, non-numerical, often tautological predictions (like something will happen on April 24th) . Another problem with non-physical theories is that they often rely, to much higher degree, on interpretation to make the vague predictions agree with reality, like when a "psychic" claims that if some even doesn't happen on a certain date, then we will enter another cycle, and if it doesn't happen at the end of the cycle, then we have a new window of opportunity, something like that.

The biggest difference between dreams and reality is that a person can control the dream state in a manner unlike we can control "reality state". For example, a person can train themselves to ask themselves, is this a dream, to the point where it becomes a habit. Then when they dream they can ask, is this a dream, and they find out YES, then you can have a Lucid dream, you can control nearly all aspects of the dream. Now what if you are awake and then ask yourself, is this a dream, then you try to manipulate this world in the same manner? What happens? Nothing!!! HA! There is a big difference between dream states and reality states.

Reality states requires far more effort to control, far more technology, and power, and money ,etc ,etc.

a reply to: deloprator20000

There is a branch of science that makes testable predictions, uses the scientific method and peer-reviewed journals, and gets results that have held up for a century which agree with predictions. But that isn't enough to overcome the taboo against it. Yes, there are taboos in science. This branch of science is the only branch that is so threatening to the dominant paradigm, it provokes organized resistance against it. Harassment, character assassination, guerrilla skepticism, lack of funding... all because some scientists put ideology before evidence. That branch of science is parapsychology.

Few people are really aware of all that, because the gatekeepers have pretty tight control over information that reaches the public.

👣

a reply to: deloprator20000

The biggest difference between dreams and reality..'

By reality are you referring to the physical? Because no current scientist has ever claimed that to be a reality.

.. is that a person can control the dream state in a manner unlike we can control "reality state". For example, a person can train themselves to ask themselves, is this a dream, to the point where it becomes a habit. Then when they dream they can ask, is this a dream, and they find out YES, then you can have a Lucid dream, you can control nearly all aspects of the dream. Now what if you are awake and then ask yourself, is this a dream, then you try to manipulate this world in the same manner? What happens? Nothing!!! HA! There is a big difference between dream states and reality states. 

Another big difference is that the physical realm is bound by laws which don't exist in dreams nor within the so-called Astral plane.

  There's no such thing as a 'reality state'. There are states....then there is reality. The Lucidity you're describing has it's equal counterpart in the physical realm. It's called conscious Awareness (They both mean the same thing). That's the only thing that separates a dreamer from a person who is lucid within a dream. They are consciously aware or lucid. Likewise in the physical realm.

 But, can a being who is consciously aware within the physical realm manipulate it like he can the world in a dream? No, because of those same laws. But a being like that CAN consciously influence his environment in other ways, but these manifest in ways that are impossible to explain, let alone describe. But then we're venturing into the mystical, metaphysical, black arts, witchcraft, etc... which are ENTIRELY different subjects all together.

a reply to: Visitor2012

The million dollar question is, when the mind is in the lucid dream state, does it require a body to maintain that state. Is this the natural environment for the mind, as it dos not seem to have the fetters of physical reality with regards to time and distance acting as a break. Consciousness learns to be human , and thinks logically in a linear fashion whilst tied to a body because it must to function . But once that is learnt, and the consciousness has realised its an individual and self aware, which it couldn't do if first it didn't have a body. Does it need a body anymore.?

a reply to: anonentity

The million dollar question is, when the mind is in the lucid dream state, does it require a body to maintain that state.

It's not the mind that becomes lucid, it's the consciousness, the self, you, becoming aware within the dream state OF the mind allowing you to perceive the happening. And there needs to be an organism dreaming for it to happen. The organism is the instrument.

Is this the natural environment for the mind, as it dos not seem to have the fetters of physical reality with regards to time and distance acting as a break.

It's another realm of phenomenal experience. I don't know what it means to have a natural environment for the mind.

But once that is learnt, and the consciousness has realized its an individual and self aware, which it couldn't do if first it didn't have a body. Does it need a body anymore.?

Not an individual. The consciousness awareness behind the looking glass isn't an individual, it just believes itself to be. The realization is discovering this for itself which would not be possible if it didn't have a means whereby it could experience itself. So in that respect, the human body is a precious thing and very much needed for this to occur. One reason why your life is such a precious gift. Because the body is the vehicle through which this Devine process happens.

After it recognizes itself fully and completely, does it need the body? No. But that doesn't mean it ends the life. Nothing of the sort. Besides, life is already shorter than a blink of an eye.