Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
haha, well good luck with that. Reality IS your head, your mind. To think that existence is independent of your mind is completely natural and necessary for the survival of our species, but it is just in your imagination.
For example if you close your eyes you know that your computer is still in front of you even though you can't see it. You know this because throughout the course of your life when you closed your eyes and then opened them again, things remained relatively the same so your imagination lead you to believe that things still exist when you can't sense them. We can't logically come to this conclusion because everything we know about reality is based on what we can actually sense, so there is no logical proof for continued or independent existence. Our imaginations simply automatically make us believe this so we can assign a certain identity to objects and ourselves, so we can make sense of the world.
Its crazy to think about and hard to swallow, i know. I don't know how good a job I do at explaining it, but if I am unclear just let me know so i can try to explain it better.
I agree somewhat with you, the mind creates a model of reality with varying degrees of accuracy. All we really experience is the incomplete model. But I think "reality" is still out there, independent of your mind. There is an existence out there that your mind senses, but does not create. What your mind creates is the experience of the independent reality. And sometimes your brain also creates the experience of a reality that does NOT exist independently, like when you're dreaming, or hallucinating, or just plain wackadoo nuts.
Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonrider
But I think "reality" is still out there, independent of your mind.
Ok, I want to believe this as much as the next person. How could you go about experiencing this "absolute" reality then? Or even explaining it. That would mean you would have to be able to make a general conclusion about a certain object based on a specific observation.
I try to convince myself there is an external existence and absolute truth all the time when I think about this. Wouldn't that be great to see things "as they truly are" instead of how you perceive them? I think when it comes down to it since reality is only what we can sense, and we are naturally inclined to attach an identity to perceptions that appear to be related to eachother (the computer remains the same computer even after you open and close your eyes) the idea of dependant existence seems too illogical to some people who assume that these identities are ones that are assigned by something other than their own mind by causation or cause and effect.
I think absolute reality or truth (if there even is one...which I doubt) can only be understood through careful and continuous observations of existence. And by continuous I pretty much mean never ending, or at least observations over a long period of time.
Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
Ok, I want to believe this as much as the next person. How could you go about experiencing this "absolute" reality then? Or even explaining it. That would mean you would have to be able to make a general conclusion about a certain object based on a specific observation.
I try to convince myself there is an external existence and absolute truth all the time when I think about this. Wouldn't that be great to see things "as they truly are" instead of how you perceive them? I think when it comes down to it since reality is only what we can sense, and we are naturally inclined to attach an identity to perceptions that appear to be related to eachother (the computer remains the same computer even after you open and close your eyes) the idea of dependant existence seems too illogical to some people who assume that these identities are ones that are assigned by something other than their own mind by causation or cause and effect.
I think absolute reality or truth (if there even is one...which I doubt) can only be understood through careful and continuous observations of existence. And by continuous I pretty much mean never ending, or at least observations over a long period of time.
Philosophers go around in circles on this topic all the time. I konw I have gone around in circles on this topic many times on these boards. It is a very intereting question.
The fact is, you are right, you cannot PROVE an external objective reality. I've decided it's an interesting exercise from a philosophical point of view, but it doesn't matter very much from a practical point of view. My BELIEF is that an external reality does exist, my senses detect it in a limited way, and my mind makes an incomplete model of it. That seems pretty much consistent with most of what I have read (although, I may have just made those books up in a totally imaginary world that is just a product of my pure, unnattached, independent mind, which floats alone in a vast nothingness).
Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonrider
Philosophers go around in circles on this topic all the time. I konw I have gone around in circles on this topic many times on these boards. It is a very intereting question.
The fact is, you are right, you cannot PROVE an external objective reality. I've decided it's an interesting exercise from a philosophical point of view, but it doesn't matter very much from a practical point of view. My BELIEF is that an external reality does exist, my senses detect it in a limited way, and my mind makes an incomplete model of it.
I understand what you are saying and honestly half of me agrees with exactly what you believe, I am mostly arguing with you to develop my own understanding a little better, because a healthy discussion/argument is defiantly the best way to expand your mind.......besides of course the perception altering qualities of psychedelics, which is just as mind expanding.
I just can't help but notice the similarities in the ideas of existance being dependant on your mind and the product of causation with the the ideas of the ancient Buddhist teachings that say everything is relative and existance in inherently empty.
To me it seems more logical but at the same time more ridiculous that existence is not independent of the mind. My current reasoning leads me to assume that this is just because it is so hard to comprehend because our very sanity lies in the idea that the world exists independent of us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonrider
That seems pretty much consistent with most of what I have read (although, I may have just made those books up in a totally imaginary world that is just a product of my pure, unnattached, independent mind, which floats alone in a vast nothingness).
haha, maybe you did.
Why I think our brains are so powerful
Another good way to test this theory is when April 15 rolls around in a couple weeks, don't send in your taxes. When the IRS contacts you, just tell them, "Taxes are not an independent reality! They are just a product of my imagination!"
Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by WaZ
By the way, there is a $1,000,000.000 prize "to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." (
Challenge Info - James Randi Educational Foundation) Not needing the money or not being interested in collecting money is not an excuse for those who claim paranormal powers to not take this challenge - one can easily win the money and donate it to any charity afterwards. That fairly easily rules out "psychic abilities" until proven otherwise.
Well... i believe in all the psychic shit, and yet im sure that nobody will win this prize.
James Randi was a VERY famous magician/illusionist/whatever until be eclipsed by Uri Geller bending spoons with his "mind powers". So after it obviously he became very bitter towards the psychic people, even if Uri Geller were not one of them, but only another illusionist.
But as he was a magician, im sure he knows a lot of this psychic stuff, and im sure he uses all his knowledge to avoid anyone to succeed when trying. There is several ways to make psychic "noise", psychic blocking and such, so anybody which were trying to do some psychic stuff would be hindered by him (or his assistants), to ensure they would not succeed.
If Randi is willing to give $1,000,000.00 as a prize, plus all the media repercussion it would have, is because he is sure that nobody will ever win the prize.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WaZ
Obviously, a large portion of our brain is devoted to labeling things into categories and storing those relationships for later. We are good at picking out patterns and shapes from random noise to the extend that we see faces in almost anything. We look for, even crave, patterns.
Yes... since our earliest childhood, our brain is incessantly busy searching for patterns among all the data it recieves from its sensory input. It learns how to group lots of sensory data under labels, so instead my brain recieve a visual information like "red dot-red dot-black dot-black dot... (lines and lines of coloured dots) ... black dot... etc", it recieves an information like "small red sqare over a black background", which is far simpler to understand and process.
In fact, i would say our brains (or our Tonal) are (among other things) classification machines. They convert EVERYTHING in a list of labels (or concepts). For example, when i look to my right, for example, i see a lot of things, which into my brain are converted in something like:
Object#1 - Name: pillow - Where: over bed - Size: medium - Color - white, yellow, brown - etc etc
Object#2 - Name: bed - Where: on floor - Size: ... etc etc
So, instead of percieving the things as they are, we percieve them like a list of characteristics, or labels. Everything we percieve is only a list of labels. And now we arrive at the problem of the nature of the reality.
I dont doubt there is an objective reality independent of we humans, or of our minds. But this objective reality is not the "real world", "out there", just because what we call the "real, physical world" is only a list of labels into our brains.
When two or more people agrees that a thing exists and its "real", they are only agreeing that their brains have common labels for this thing. For example, me and a friend see a bong. We see it as glassy, a bit stained, large, etc. But the fact we both see it and agree with its characteristics dont make it real. It just mean that both me and my friend learned to percieve it the same way, so we give the same labels ("glassy, stained, etc") to it.
The "real" nature of the things, or rather, the most basic level of "reality" humans can percieve things is as energy. Everything is energy. Matter is energy (as proved by E=mc2). And energy is energy (obviously). So, energy is the basic level of the objective world, is of what the things are actually made. But we dont percieve the world as made of energy, because between it and us there is our brain, classifying the different manifestations of the energy, so instead we percieve it directly, we percieve just a list of labels.
This process of "labelization" of percieved energy is a learned skill we learn during our earliest childhood. So, a child learns to percieve the world as the other humans do. But this process is reversible. Through practice of meditation, mystical experiences, or use of some psychedelics, we can stop this process of labelization and percieve the world as it is, and its called "illumination", "enlightenment", "stopping the world", etc, which is described in several spiritual teachings.
BTW, i personally think our brains are not the source of our consciousness, but an intermediary between the physical world and our (non-physical) consciousness, much like our eyes are intermediary between the outside world and our brains. Our brains cant percieve light directly, so it need the eyes to convert light to electric impulses which it percieves.
And i would say our non-physical consciousness cant percieve the physical world directly, and thats why it needs our brain to do it.
Why I think our brains are so powerful
And now i see i forgot about the dreams...
How can we be sure when we are awake or when we are dreaming? Like... for me we "know" we are awake because we remember all the times we were awake before, we remember all this times as a continuous thing, so we conclude that we are actually awake.
But if every night we had a dream where we could remember all the dreams we had before, exactly like we can remember all the things that happened when we were awake? How could we be sure that we were into a dream?
What if, every night, we dreamed we lived in another place, with another people, etc, and every night we dreamed with this same place, and with the same people, and remembered what we did in the day before? How could we know it was a dream? Or how could we be sure that this was not the "reality", and what we call waking reality were not only a dream in this (other) reality?
Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
I understand what you are saying and honestly half of me agrees with exactly what you believe, I am mostly arguing with you to develop my own understanding a little better, because a healthy discussion/argument is defiantly the best way to expand your mind.......
Sorry I can't go down this road with you right now, because I sort of exhausted myself on the topic. But it is a very interesting discusion topic. Coelho has posted some interesting ideas above already, and he is usually a great person to discuss this kind of thing with.
Coelho, I went looking for the thread about whether the past is real or not, and I couldn't find it. I was going to post a link, because it get's into these same ideas about objective and subjective reality. Do you know if that one got deleted in the big shakeup? I don't even remember what forum it was in, but maybe it was in one that disappeared.
Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonrider
Coelho, I went looking for the thread about whether the past is real or not, and I couldn't find it. I was going to post a link, because it get's into these same ideas about objective and subjective reality. Do you know if that one got deleted in the big shakeup? I don't even remember what forum it was in, but maybe it was in one that disappeared.
Here it is... fortunately it survived the "inquisitorial witches hunting" done in this boards...
http://boards.cannabis.com/spiritual...past-real.html
:thumbsup:
Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
So, instead of percieving the things as they are, we percieve them like a list of characteristics, or labels. Everything we percieve is only a list of labels. And now we arrive at the problem of the nature of the reality.
Ok I agree with that......
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
I dont doubt there is an objective reality independent of we humans, or of our minds. But this objective reality is not the "real world", "out there", just because what we call the "real, physical world" is only a list of labels into our brains.
The "real" nature of the things, or rather, the most basic level of "reality" humans can perceive things is as energy. Everything is energy. Matter is energy (as proved by E=mc2). And energy is energy (obviously). So, energy is the basic level of the objective world, is of what the things are actually made. But we dont perceive the world as made of energy, because between it and us there is our brain, classifying the different manifestations of the energy, so instead we perceive it directly, we perceive just a list of labels.
I agree with you except where you claim there is an independent reality. You seem to understand that all matter is energy, so what is so hard to swallow the idea that existence is all a construct of the mind? Your mind arranges this energy to make sense of it, to give an identity or label to everything. Without the mind all we are left with is an endless abyss of energy, and energy itself has no mass, depth, color, or any other physical properties.
So independent of the mind, existence is nothing but energy. We ourselves are energy, our mind makes us consciousness of the energy around us and we assign identities to energy we sense so we are able to identify ourselves as a distinct and seperate identity from the rest of the energy floating around.
It is pretty generally accepted that we are able to become self aware because we are able to use symbols and abstract thought to interact. It is through this interaction that we come to view ourselves as unique individuals, as an "I". Humans are one of the few animals that are able to do this, and the only ones who can construct a complex self concept. If you put a dog in front of a mirror, it will not be able to recognize itself because it has no sense of I. It will either be indifferent or respond to its reflection as a separate entity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
This process of "labelization" of percieved energy is a learned skill we learn during our earliest childhood. So, a child learns to percieve the world as the other humans do. But this process is reversible. Through practice of meditation, mystical experiences, or use of some psychedelics, we can stop this process of labelization and percieve the world as it is, and its called "illumination", "enlightenment", "stopping the world", etc, which is described in several spiritual teachings.
Enlightenment, at least according to Buddhist and Hindu texts, deals mainly with understanding the emptiness of everything in existence and being able to be in control of your emotions instead of your emotions controlling you. The Bhagavad-Gita says "Nothing of nonbeing comes to be, nor does being cease to exist; the boundry between these two is seen by men who see reality". I believe that being means consciousness. Nonbeing is everything that is not conscious, or the external world. This only exists as far as some being is able to perceive it. Now I can't say I know a lot about enlightenment, but it seems to me that to be enlightened is to truly understand that what is perceived as a reality independent of the mind is an illusion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
BTW, i personally think our brains are not the source of our consciousness, but an intermediary between the physical world and our (non-physical) consciousness, much like our eyes are intermediary between the outside world and our brains. Our brains cant percieve light directly, so it need the eyes to convert light to electric impulses which it percieves.
And i would say our non-physical consciousness cant percieve the physical world directly, and thats why it needs our brain to do it.
Your right, our brain isn't the source of our consciousness, it is our mind. The brain is just a machine, it is physical, and physical things only exist if there is a consciousness to perceive them. Independent of the mind, what you consider the physical world is not physical at all, but a large mass of nothing but energy.