Quote Originally Posted by afghooey
Great thread, mrdevious.

There are a lot of things that we tend to confuse semantically, and I think one of the things that's most often confused (in the western culture that I'm familiar with, at least) is the concept of reality.

Take, for instance, our senses. Now, not even taking into account all the energies that we can't perceive through our senses, they are still quite imperfect -- that is, what we experience is always removed from the apparent 'reality' that we are sensing. By the time the light emanating from your monitor is decoded into symbols that represent words, your senses are already taking in new information. What you're seeing is not 'real' therefore, but a memory, a reflection. No matter how you redefine your idea of what is real and what is not, your definition is flawed because nothing that isn't real in some way can exist.

Reflections can be distorted until unrecognizable -- just like you are a reflection of your parents but may not look much like them, and your dreams are reflections of your perceptions of waking life, though they seem different. Just because they are reflections doesn't mean they aren't real, or any less significant.

Say you look at yourself in a mirror. You think, "I'm real. The reflection is not real." The reflection can't be 'you' because you define yourself by the boundaries that seemingly separate you from the rest of the world. Remove these definitions, and you will realize that both yourself and the image in the mirror are just different reflections of the same information.

Now that's some interesting shiznat right there afghoohy. I've never thought of self-perception in terms of reflection, but I totally see what you mean (well, I'm super high so for the most part...). You have sort of a different way of looking at the same questions that I have been.

We all have the tendency to separate ourselves from the outer world, to consider one's own perceptions more real than other's. When I was taking psychology they explained how there's a certain part of the brain that developes in cognitive awareness. This part relates to empathy, sympathy, and being able to see another person's point of view. As a person matures this area grows and our brains discover a wonderfully abstract and advanced concept - knowing there's perception outside perception. People who are generally greedy, self-centered etc, have been shown on ECG scan's to have an underdeveloped brain in this region.

The reason I bring this up is because it somewhat relates to what I've come to understand in at least one buddhist explaination for egotism.The tendency to separate the self is a self-limitation on ones own perception. We rely so heavily one our 5 senses that we start to only mentally acknowledge what they can intimately experience through those senses. The most intimate and real view is the one going on right inside you. That being so, one needs to really conceptualize the fact that others are experiencing the same sensations, and creating their own perceptions in their own little world just like you. When you finally realize this, really realize and know it, you realize that your own suffering and desires are no more or less relavent than anybody else's and therefor not warranting the extra consideration.

I'd very much recommend reading some buddhist writings on these subjects, there are some fascinating philosophical viewpoints on all aspects of life and then some. Taoism seems to have some really interesting philosophies on the nature of... well nature, the nature of the universe and how one can achieve enlightenment by learning to completely harmonize with the flow of existence. Very compatible with buddhist thought in my opinion, and I know about 1,500 years ago buddhist, taoist, hindu, bramans, and aryan priests all got together at an anual meeting in India to discuss their philisophical viewpoints. OMG I would love it if I found some transcripts from those talks.