Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
[...] What does made the brain with all sensations, all perceptions it receives? It unifies behind one banner: "I" .
Thus, it can tie all internal and external phenomena, as varied as they are, to a single entity. This is handy. I see, I sing, I understand, I am moved. Always I, I, I, used continuously and applied to everything. I laugh, I tan, I mean, I digest. This is a convenient word to unify the whole.
By dint to be called by name, by dint of say "I", mind firmly believes in the existence of a self that would be a person in a corps. But this person is not found. Actually, There ? Nobody! [...]
Rule #1: Never quote another person's philosophical or religious truth as your own. You see this alot in religious topic, but let's examine it. Suppose I told you unicorns roam the earth. I have fables to verify this. Now, do you believe these books? Or do we decide based on the fact that we have never seen a unicorn, that it might be possible the latter doesn't exist. That said, because he have not been everywhere, at every time, this unicorn may have some basis in a similar horned prehistoric creature.
The self can probably be proven as real. Here's how we can make this assumption.
Let's say, I walk down the street in like 1700s. I stop by a barn to steal eggs from a chicken, and put them in my basket. I cross a bridge over a stream into town. I talk to a man, a woman, and a child before cutting through the forest to my house, handing the eggs to my wife, making steamy love to her.
Street
Time itself
Barn
Eggs
Basket
Bridge
Stream
Town
Forest
House
None of these things may be proven to be true. For all we know, we are naked walking around in a white void, and all this stuff is symbolic.
Chicken
Man
Woman
Child
Wife
These can be assumed to be real. Why? Because they react to our being there. It can be extension, be asserted, that because there is something to pick up this external stimuli, that we naturally exist (this is true, whether or not reality is actually real).
Now here's the interesting part:
It cannot positively be asserted that the self is distinct from others. We could asset that human beings are distinct from one another. We could also assert that human beings are actually part of a while. Both, neither, or either could be right.
Indifference is a conductive choice. Awareness in purity is the unicorn known as virtue. Self is singular and whole. The illusion is the effort to contradict truth.
As with everything else, it is an illusion, but it is a real one that exists.
A paradox? Few if any understand what we really are or what the universe is. Everything we see, hear taste or touch is an illusion, because all we experience is a coded information of the reality passed onto us by the senses. But what it tells us can often be reliable.
That the universe is real though our perception of it is illusory is proven by its reliable predictability, and also its unexpectedness, because if we were imagining it all, it wouldn't surprise us, or so logic would say is the simpler explanation that explains all the facts.
There is nothing here that conflicts with the doctrines of Buddhism. Or any other religion, I suppose, since it deals with what is real, and religious doctrines deal with what is beyond our perception of reality.
So much time has passed to evolve us into beings that we are. With all of our cravings, hopes, regrets, and all those shades of love. In essence we are a product, an effect, with a purpose to use our faculties - as they are.
Yes, it is fascinating and interesting to speculate about "nothingness vs. I". We can try to be greater (or lesser?) than we are. But the fact is, we are what we are. Nothing more.
Everything can be taken apart and reduced to nothing. But from the human perspective, our world is not such. It all sticks. It all sticks together.
How is it possible that one can claim that the physical self they can see is not reality? I have a hard time understanding this as I was raised and still am Christian. We believe that once we get to Heaven and the world comes to an end, that we will be reunited with our physical bodies.
How do you deny your physical body when you when you can see and fell that it exists? How do you reconcile this with the afterlife? Does your body just go to and stay in the grave, while your spirit goes on to the afterlife? I alway have a hard time understanding it.
How is it possible that one can claim that the physical self they can see is not reality? I have a hard time understanding this as I was raised and still am Christian. We believe that once we get to Heaven and the world comes to an end, that we will be reunited with our physical bodies.
How do you deny your physical body when you when you can see and fell that it exists? How do you reconcile this with the afterlife? Does your body just go to and stay in the grave, while your spirit goes on to the afterlife? I alway have a hard time understanding it.
That is not really what they are saying. the good ones that s. What they say is that "illusion" means it is different than you think it is. Not that it is not there. You body is a component of parts seen and unseen. Think of the unseen as IR, gluons, or sometimes how others see you. Have three people describe you. One from family. One friend, but not a real close one, and somebody that doesn't like you. They are closer to the real you than you think is the real you sometimes.
Something my Couz wrote..
The most mind-blowing thing I've learned recently is this:
Fractal geometry and chaos are intimately related. Even more interestingly, both of these things are related to the existence of prime numbers.
The mandlebrot set pattern is an image on the complex plane of convergent/divergent series, so what you're seeing is the never ending fine-line boundary between a series that explodes to infinity and a series that converges to a finite value.
When you then think about self-similarity in this object - then you go off the deep end.
Only if you allow yourself to. Once you learn to control your mind, rather than allow it to control you, you don't start running around in circles with your brain turning to mush every time you see something for which you can't come up with a Perfectly Natural explanation.
Something my Couz wrote..
The most mind-blowing thing I've learned recently is this:
Fractal geometry and chaos are intimately related. Even more interestingly, both of these things are related to the existence of prime numbers.
The mandlebrot set pattern is an image on the complex plane of convergent/divergent series, so what you're seeing is the never ending fine-line boundary between a series that explodes to infinity and a series that converges to a finite value.
When you then think about self-similarity in this object - then you go off the deep end.
I like the thinking. Imagine a singularity as not a point but a very large volume. Also there really is no things only events.
AREQ is right though. when you go past the same point for the 5th time, STOP and anchor the thinking in what we do know and except we die not knowing it all.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Illusion of self?????
