Mason Riggle

@Phoenix11 man I could have used this yesterday.. thanks a lot, me.

It might help to understand that 'imaginary' and 'real' are the same thing. Consider why you think this comment is 'real'.. it's only because it 'seems real'. Seeming real and being real are not different things. Notice that it 'appears (seems) that they are having their independent experience'.. that's good enough whether they are or aren't!

@machiavelli for example.. you may not consider 'your hand' to be you.. it 'belongs to you'.. it's your hand. In this same way, we often consider 'others' not to be you.. they are something that 'belongs to you'.. it's your friend, your mother, etc. But it's all you.

@machiavelli 'others' are not 'dreamt up by you'.. the dream that there are 'others' and 'you' is the ONE thing there is.. and that's the REAL you.

@machiavelli when I say 'you are everything' I mean absolutely everything that there is.. there are no 'others'.. there is no 'my imagination'.. there is just 'imagination' which is what you are.

Still holds.. Solipsism is a bad map because it's easy to confuse "I am alone as everything" (yes!) with "I am separate from that which I imagine" (nope). It's not a bad map if you know how to read it.. if you look at a map that says 'you are here--->★', and you think you are located on the map.. you are reading the map wrong.

"Ego Death" is the realization that 'ego' never was.. everything continues, it's just that the imaginary separation between 'you' and 'that which is not you' (ego) goes away during realization, and returns with imaginary separation.

@RMQualtrough exactly. I make the distinction between solipsism (lowercase s) - there is only me, and everything 'else' is 'my imagination'. and Solipsism (capital S) - there is only me, and there is no 'everything else'.. I am everything that there seems to be.

@Inliytened1

This is my response to you on your critiques of Sam Harris.. you get upset with yourself (him) when your divisions don't add up.. it don't add up because everyone is you. When you say 'Sam Harris hasn't realized God'.. I laugh. There is no Sam Harris who isn't you. Sam Harris can't realize he is God. Nobody 'else' can. Rupert Spira hasn't realized he is God either. There is nothing 'Rupert Spira realizes that Sam Harris doesn't', because 'Rupert Spira talking to Sam Harris' is just more God pretending not to be.

@Carl-Richard and Harris clearly pushes back against ontological materialism. He's not committed to the idea that physical reality is anything other than mind stuff...

Just as Sam is an aspect of mind. Matter and Sam Harris exist in the same way.

@Carl-Richard do you experience material? Does material exist?

'“Consciousness is the prior condition of every experience; the self or ego is an illusory appearance within it; look closely for what you are calling “I,” and the feeling of being a separate self will disappear; what remains, as a matter of experience, is a field of consciousness—free, undivided, and intrinsically uncontaminated by its ever-changing contents.” - Sam Harris

@Carl-Richard do you think matter 'exists' as 'mind stuff'? Does my computer exist, or does it just seem to exist? What's the difference? Do you think Sam Harris exists? It's just funny to me, to imagine a Sam Harris that exists, apparently with a brain that has thoughts about materialism, but his existence is not 'material'.. that Sam only exists as form? Which is different from actually existing how?? I don't get it.

"I believe that this notion of emergence is incomprehensible—rather like a naive conception of the big bang. " - Sam Harris "I take seriously the idea that we’re in a simulation. I have no idea whether or not it’s true, but if it is, if we are in a simulation, it’s not that nothing is real, not that there are no tables and chairs and trees. Rather, it’s that they exist in a different form from what we first thought. There’s a level of computation underneath what we take to be physical reality.”- Sam Harris

@Carl-Richard you are the one who said form is not matter. Are you a materialist?

@Carl-Richard Can you tell me the difference between 'mind stuff' and 'material stuff'?

When you say 'he capitulates to materialism'.. do you think the 'he' who capitulates is material, or no? Is there a physical Sam Harris with a brain that capitulates to materialism?

"But even if one thinks that the human mind is entirely the product of physics, the reality of consciousness becomes no less wondrous, and the difference between happiness and suffering no less important. Nor does such a view suggest that we will ever find the emergence of mind from matter fully intelligible; consciousness may always seem like a miracle. In philosophical circles, this is known as “the hard problem of consciousness”—some of us agree that this problem exists, some of us don’t. Should consciousness prove conceptually irreducible, remaining the mysterious ground for all we can conceivably experience or value, the rest of the scientific worldview would remain perfectly intact." - Sam Harris

it's not trivial.. as in.. it 'matters'.

I can dream of all of this.. but it would be ridiculous to know that this was a dream, and still try to convince the characters in this dream that it's a dream... just as ridiculous as convincing them it's not.

@Carl-Richard it's like you are telling me that my chair is 'just mind stuff'.. it's not really 'matter'.. but also, my chair is made of wood.

Then what is matter? Is there any difference between a 'material' Spria and a 'mind' Spira?

this