Mason Riggle

@Shambhu yes, that is a strict definition.. If I told you there was a cat on my coffee mug.. I'm being very literal.. but there isn't actually a cat on my coffee mug.

@WokeBloke you seem to be getting in your own way of understanding this, that's for sure. What part of your body is aware of your body? Is it your hand? Your blood? Your brain? If it's your brain that's aware of your body, is it the whole brain? Are the cells in your brain aware of your body?.. Is it the neurons? The frontal lobe? The amygdala? Where is the 'you' who is aware of your body?

@Shambhu On Metaphors- All words are metaphors. This is why we can say the exact same thing in different languages. "One" and "Uno" mean the same thing. The word 'cat' is not a cat (two cats can be different from each other, but we call them both 'cats'.. a cat with no tail is still a cat... or a cat without claws.. or a cat without fur.. none of these qualities individually are 'what a cat is'.. 'cat' is a word.. a map.. a representation.. a metaphor.. the metaphor 'gato' means the same thing, if you understand the metaphor 'gato'). Some metaphors are more complex, containing metaphors within metaphors. 'It's raining cats and dogs' is a metaphor for 'it's raining very hard' that contains the metaphor 'cat'.

@RMQualtrough yes, one seeming like many. This is what we are trying to get WokeBloke to see. In the dream is 'seems like' there is a 'subject/object'.. but all there really is is 'seeming like'.

@Shambhu I think your reply was meant for WokeBloke. I don't have questions about this.

'the experiencer' only ever exists as experience.

If the body is seeing itself through its eyes, why is it so hard to see that the Universe is experiencing itself through you?

^he's not though.. he's not 'pulling his own strings'.. Make a puppet.. put it's strings in it's hands and see if it dances. Sam Harris is behaving exactly as his internal and external conditions dictate. Even a rock is free to behave exactly like a rock. Do rocks have free will? If 'free will' just means that I behave like myself, then it really doesn't mean anything, because this is true of everything.

Everything is experience. When you are dreaming at night.. and you hear a sound in your dream, aren't 'the sound' and 'hearing the sound' both 'the dream'? Is there a difference between 'hearing a sound' and 'the sound' in your dream?

@WokeBloke "A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings." - Sam Harris The only way for you to act against your desires, is by having some greater desire to do so.

Did you choose your desires? Is a volcano 'responsible' for how it occurs in this world? From a certain perspective, you are slave to your desires, not free from them.

@WokeBloke you need to stop equating 'seeing' with 'experiencing'.. even blind people experience their body. "I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware." - Alan Watts. There is no 'experiencer' separate from 'experiencing'. (what is often mistaken to be the 'experiencer of experience' is just more experience). There is no separate 'tree' inside a tree somewhere who is 'growing itself'.. there is no 'experiencer' within experience somewhere who is 'experiencing itself'..

@WokeBloke is 'your body' not 'part of your experience'? How do you know you have a body if you don't experience 'having a body'?

@CuriousityIsKey 'feeling embarrassed' is also 'you'. "I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware." - Alan Watts

@WokeBloke are you free to do other than what occurs to you to do? Who decides what occurs to you?

Should a Universe exist without anyone (any thing) who is aware of it's existence... how would this be different from one that does not exist?

@wildflower

@wildflower it's difficult to be explicit on this subject. The most succinct way I think there is to say it is - 'It's all you'. Can you take the perspective that 'everything that there is, is what you are'? If you do, you will be alone, because if it's all you.. if it's all one.. that's what it is to be 'alone'(all one)..

@Inliytened1 'do or do not.. there is no try' - Yoda

"You are dreaming other minds.", said the other minds to me.

@Leo Gura

Is 'Imaginary' different than 'real'?

@RMQualtrough 'choosing' is a process. Computers can choose. Choosing happens as it will. When you choose something, what method of choosing do you use? How do you choose your method of choosing? How will you choose the method of that choice? I could roll dice, flip a coin? How will I decide which to do? If I was free to choose to do anything I wanted to do.. who chooses what I want to do? Could I choose to want other than I want? How? By wanting to? Do you see the problem here?

Is it not your will to 'bend things to your will'? When you decide to 'bend your will like in lucid dreams'.. could you have 'not done that'? Only it it was your will to 'not do that'.. again... doing exactly what you will.

@gettoefl and this is always happening? Does this ever happen 'other than how it WILL'?