Mason Riggle

It seems like this is always the case. Whatever I call 'now' is always morphing into a different one.. all that remains is a memory.

@The Buddha seems like it. It's as if a whirlpool produced thoughts instead of bubbles.. and one thought that 'bubbles up' might be 'I am a whirlpool.' But this 'thought' that bubbles up doesn't 'do' anything... it's not 'swirling the whirlpool'.. it's not causing more bubbles. And the thing is.. there really is no 'whirlpool' (ego) which exists separate from what the whole river is doing.. you can't take a whirlpool out of a river and show it to me, the same way you can't point to your ego... there isn't one. "What is often mistaken to be 'the thinker of thoughts', is just more thought occurring."

@The Buddha Ego - the imaginary separation between 'you' and 'that which is not you'.

'Alternate realities' is a strange (i'm not sure if 'nonsense' is too strong a word here) notion. If I experience some 'other experience' which is distinct from and unrecognizable as 'this experience', how would I know? Both 'experiences' would have to part of my one 'experience' for me to tell the difference.

'The problem' of being too busy fighting to ever see it, is also Absolute Beauty. Even when you can't see the forest through all the trees, you are still looking at the forest.

@RMQualtrough 'dreaming' makes a fairly good analogy for how this works (it's not a perfect analogy. Reality is not 'exactly like your dreams at night', but similar). How do you move your hands in your dreams at night? The same exact way you create the trees in your dream. Because it's all dream, and the character you feel like in your dream is not really 'the dreamer'. Recognize that the ego is never in control of anything. It's a character in a dream called reality. The ego is something arising in each new moment, when it does. This can be noticed directly (if and when it is noticed. This can't really be noticed any sooner than it is noticed, if ever, the same way you can't discover a shortcut to work any sooner than you discover it, if ever.) Imagine dreaming that you are driving a car, and it really feels like, in your dream, that you are controlling the car.. 'the character who you feel like you are inside the dream' is NOT controlling any car.. there is no car.. there isn't even a character.. it's all dream. You are the dreamer, but not the character you dream Yourself to be.

There is the fact of experience, which can not be denied. That there is an experiencer in addition to experience is belief.

This!

@RMQualtrough be careful not to conflate the absolute and relative here. All 'real' (relative) things are 'mind stuff' (imaginary) from an absolute perspective.. and from this perspective, you ARE willing the Sun to shine (or vanish, should that be what God (Absolute you) will). In the relative sense, your organism is a system, made up of smaller systems, which is part of a larger system. The brain is behaving how it will. Thoughts are occurring. Reasoning is happening. Hearts are beating. People are reacting. Hair is growing. Trees are flowering. And all of these things are simply 'occurring' as one big system, where the state of any relative part of the system defines the states of the other relative parts, but no 'one part' is ultimately responsible for any of it... there is no separate 'you' anywhere causing it's organism to behave how it does.. part of 'how an organism automatically behaves' is creating thoughts of a 'you', when it does.

@RMQualtrough it seems to me you are thinking about this the wrong way. Processes, such as thinking, are happening, all by themselves, the way trees are happening, all by themselves. There doesn't need to be anyone 'doing things' for 'things to happen'. What causes your hand to move? You? What caused you to move your hand? Some other you?

"I experience, therefor I am." even this language carries with it some implications of an 'I' which exists separate from 'experience', as if 'the contents of experience are evidence of an experiencer who experiences those contents'. This duality can be collapsed, such that there is no difference between the two. Experience is evidence of itself. "I have no other self than the totality of [experience]" - Alan Watts. **************************************************************************** "I am. Ohhhhhh.. I AM!" - Leo Gura <---- This is an example absolute knowledge. I am big. I am old. I am human. I am experiencing. I am having an experience. <---- These are examples of relative belief.

@Marioxs34 sure.. you can logically show that 'your own existence' is undeniable as a matter of experience.

And the only thing that is undeniable is 'experience itself'. Beyond that, any reasons you may have for believing anything about the 'contents of experience', exist as more experience. When you dream at night.. are both 'the dream' and 'the contents of the dream' real?

I think this is basically what I am saying. Not 'logically self evident', however. Simply, self evident. This experience is all the evidence of itself I need. I can not doubt that 'doubting' is occurring, as Descartes put it. Anything beyond that is belief, which I can always be wrong about... especially if I have poor reasons or no reasons to believe it, and especially especially if I have reason to believe otherwise.

Perhaps you are talking less about knowledge, and more about belief? Faith(lack of reason) based belief vs Reason based belief? From my perspective, there is only 1 thing which can be 'known'.. and that one thing is- 'something seems to be happening'. I can have all sorts of beliefs, based on logic and reason, about what that 'something which seems to be happening' is, but I can always be wrong, or have poor reasons, etc.. I can not be wrong about the 'seeming', however.. that there 'seems to be' whatever there seems to be, is Absolutely undeniable.

@Marioxs34 we're both using reason to communicate.. nothing wrong with that. I'm trying to reason with you now. Logically speaking, the only way for you to 'know' what is 'real', is by judging how it 'seems' to you.. your experience of it. Have you ever had a dream that 'seemed real'? During those types of dreams, you do not know it's just a dream, because you are lost in it, it 'seems real'. How do you know you are not dreaming now? This moment 'seems real'.. but is it real? How would you know? Because it seems that way?? Of course, my logic is failing... but what I'm pointing to, can be directly noticed as a matter of conscious experience.

This started off about 'knowing'.. how do you know what's real? I posit, that what you consider to be real, is everything that 'seems real' to you. From your perspective, the only one you have, 'seeming real' is just as good as 'being real'.

@Marioxs34 it would exist as illusion, no?

^this.

'Illusion/Real' is more dualistic language. They are no different, from the perspective of conscious experience. Consider, is this forum real, or does it just seem real to you (illusion)? Is there any difference?

@Vibroverse content vs structure. The structure of reality is infinite.. but 'infinity/nothing' can't 'seem like' anything, because it has no qualities.. it's only by pretending to be what it's not (by seeming finite, or 'placing imaginary limits on itself', or 'dreaming', or manifesting of reality) that nothing/everything 'seems like something' at all. The 'how reality seems' is the content, the 'how reality is' is the structure.

Consider.. where is the you who was in the year 1997? Does that 'you' exist 'now'? 'you' can only exist 'now', because at any other time than 'now'.. the 'you' who existed (or will exist), is not the same 'you' who exists now. 'you' can not exist simultaneously 'now' and 'some other time than now', because 'some other time than now' never exists for 'you' the same way 'you' never exist for any other time than 'now'.

@Marioxs34 you can give me some very reasonable descriptions of what it's like to eat a peach. You can describe it juiciness, and texture, explain the sweetness and citrussy flavor.. but these reasonable descriptions will never allow me to 'know what it's like to eat a peach' the way that 'experiencing eating a peach' will.

I think perhaps you are reading a bit into what Leo says. As was stated earlier, no one, including Leo, is saying reason is bad. Only that it has it's limits. To go beyond reason, requires a different sort of perspective. For example.. we have words like 'infinity', which you might think you know what that word means.. but it you might be surprised at how difficult it is to come up with a 'reasonable' definition. You might say.. infinity is something that 'goes on forever'.. but then you've just substituted 'forever' for 'infinity'. 'forever' is another 'unreasonable' word. What does 'forever' mean? All of time? How does that make sense? Is 'All of time' a reasonable statement? How much time, exactly, is 'all of time'? So to really 'grasp' what these concepts like 'infinity' and 'God' are REALLY getting at, requires a sort of 'meta-perspective'. A kind of a 'letting go' of 'reasonable' concepts, and simply becoming conscious of what is True.

Language is inherently dualistic. I can either experience a cup, or describe it with language.. The cup hard as opposed to soft. It has an inside, and and outside.. But you can't have a cup thats 'just the outside'.. The language 'outside' only has meaning relative to 'inside'. The discription is not the same as experiencing the cup. Reality is non-dual, appearing (imagining itself) as duality (and multiplicity (Dualities within dualities). There is 1 everything. This language is self contradictory, but that's how it is.