Mason Riggle

@RMQualtrough Johnny Bravo does exist. He's a cartoon character. My questions for you would be.. what would be different about a 'real Johnny Bravo' and the one you know? Doesn't the Universe already exist with a Johnny Bravo?

When you awaken from a dream, where does the 'you from inside the dream' go? Does 'dream you' die while 'you' remain? Consider (don't take this as belief, it's an idea to think about) your existence as a continual 'waking up' that happens when and how it does, and your desire for transcendence is just more 'waking up'.. it's just you waking up to yourself, repeatedly, forever. Right now you are in the eternal process of waking up.

“To "know" reality you cannot stand outside it and define it; you must enter into it, be it, and feel it.” - Alan Watts

Contemplation can be about anything.. why is the sky blue? What does my dog dream about? How do glasses work? Introspection is contemplation aimed at itself. Who or what is contemplating? What am I?

Experience = Limitation Infinity/Nothing can not be 'experienced' because it is 'without limits'. Infinity/Nothing has no size. Nothing/Infinity has no shape. Infinity/Nothing has no color. Nothing/Infinity has no smell. Infinity/Nothing has no density. Nothing/Infinity has no boundaries. No qualities. It can't be 'defined'. It can't be 'described'. It can't be 'experienced'. Infinity/Nothing can't 'be'. define - verb - mark out the boundary or limits of. describe - verb - give an account in words of (someone or something), including all the relevant characteristics, qualities, or events. How could you tell that an apple was an apple, if you couldn't 'distinguish' anything from anything else? Limitation = Experience. Experiencing = Being = Seeming = Dreaming = Imagining = Creating Reality (Infinity/Nothing) 'experiences itself' (creates itself, dreams itself, limits itself, is itself). It pretends (imagines) to be separate from itself (limited) so that it can know (be) itself.

"The biggest ego trip is getting rid of your ego, and of course the joke of it all is that your ego does not exist." - Alan Watts What is mistaken to be the 'thinker of thoughts' is just more thought. The 'experiencer of experience' is just more experience.

Ego is the notion of a 'thinker' in addition to and separate from 'thinking'.. a 'doer' in addition to 'what's being done'. An 'experiencer' who 'experiences'.

A lot of great replies to this already. Practice is a way for organisms to hone self control, but don't conflate what organisms do with a 'you' who's doing it. It can be quite unsettling to begin to see everything as one continuous process, all happening together, with no one 'doing' any of it, but that too shall pass

@Someone here weird, I know. It just seems to me, that by arguing that 'Sam Harris is [anything other than your own mind] is to operate from a paradigm that isn't 'Idealism'. Maybe that's me being pedantic. Maybe im all in your head.

Is 'Harris' a 'separate, individuals consciousness' or no? Who's assuming what here?

"When illusions are all you have, the fact that it's an illusion makes little difference to your mind." Leo Gura

Why can't it be the case that Harris is only concerened with the relative, and not so much the absolute? And why does nobody here have a problem talking about Harris in the relative, as if he is a material person, with a material brain that is close minded, without jumping to, Sam Harris is me/God. Doesn't anyone here realize God? Such close mindedness from everyone here, stuck in this materialist paradigm. Don't you realize Harris' words are your words? You wrote everyhting Harris has ever published, the same way you recorded Leo's videos?? Leo has a whole video about why brains don't exist.. but has no problem talking about Harris as if Sam Harris's brain exists. Either all there is is Consciousness, and Harris is that, or Harris is correct.. If Harris insisted that 'Brains are made of neurons', this is no different than Leo saying, 'Harris is a materialist'. If Leo can disect Harris at the relative level, what's so bad about Harris dissecting consciousness at the relative level. Is Leo 'stuck in a materialist paradigm' too? Well.. Leo doesn't exist.

It's the same reason the center of the surface of a sphere is every point on it's surface.

@Someone here nice.

"..and they were alleging mostly that I was a Materialist, and that I'm somehow dogmatically opposed to the idea that mind might play some role in defining reality, or parts of it.. but that's just not true..." - Sam Harris

I am 100% certain that something seems to be happening, it's self evident.. but I could always be totally confused about what that something is. --------------------------------------- You could be dreaming right now. If you dream about me talking to you on a forum, does that prove that you're not dreaming this? No. I could be dreaming THIS right now. If I dream about you talking to me on a forum will that prove that I'm not dreaming this? No. How do you know you won't eventually awaken from the dream you are in now to discover that you're actually just a brain in a vat somewhere?? You don't. How do I know I won't eventually awaken from a dream I'm in now to discover that I'm actually just a brain in a vat somewhere?? I don't. But none of the seems to matter. My reality is always exactly how it seems, until it seems otherwise, in which case it's still exactly how it seems.

@AdeptusPsychonautica yes, it seems to me like there's a me talking to a you, and that's good enough for me.. but it's the 'seeming' that's foundational. Is this forum 'real' or does it just 'seem real'? If I can't tell the difference, which I can't, then there's no difference. ^this part seems to be missed by so many.

you shall find out which one happens. Do I want coffee or tea? I guess I'll know the answer the moment it occurs to me, and no sooner.

@KaRzual the only thing you ever do is 'be how you are being', and you are always doing this, effortlessly.

@KaRzual it seems that way. Could you 'not live your life'? What is there that you could do, that would be 'other than what you are already doing'?

@KaRzual this is annoyingly paradoxical stuff.. You want to know 'how to let go of control', and 'letting go of control' can (is within the infinite possibilities of infinity) happen, but it will happen if and only if, and when and only when it does, and none of that is 'up to you'. It's similar to looking at an image full of other hidden images.. and I say, 'do you see the cat?'.. and you say, no, how do I see it? There is nothing you can do to 'cause yourself to see it before you see it.'. You can discover it on your own, if and when you do.. or I could point it out, if and when I do.. neither are up to you.

@KaRzual 'I' is a thought occurring now, like a bubble occurring in a whirlpool. Notice too, that there really isn't even a 'whirlpool'.. there is just 'whirllpooling' that occurs in a river.. you can't show me a whirlpool without showing me the river. There is no 'whirlpool' that exists 'separate' from 'the river'. Similarly, there is no 'you' inside your organism somewhere. There is 'what your organism is doing', and sometimes what your organism does is produce the thought, 'I am doing this', without recognizing that that thought is just more of what it's automatically doing.

This is the whirlpool thinking it's swirling itself. Deciding is happening, but there's no 'you' who's doing it.

@KaRzual "It is always now. However much you feel you may need to plan for the future, to anticipate it, to mitigate risks, the reality of it is now. Now, this may sound trite, but it's the truth. It's not quite true as a matter of physics, in fact, there is no "now" when it comes to the entire universe… You can't talk of an event occurring simultaneously occurring here and at the same moment occurring in Andromeda. The truth is, "now" is not even well defined as a matter of neurology. Because we know that inputs to the brain come at different moments and that consciousness is built upon layers of inputs… whose timings have to be different. Our conscious awareness of the present moment is in some relevant sense already a memory. But as a matter of conscious experience, the reality of your life is always now." - Sam Harris

@KaRzual Sometimes the thought occurs 'I am doing this', but that is just more thought occurring. This is like a whirlpool suddenly thinking, 'I am swirling myself'. This would be a mistake. This language creates the illusion of a 'doer' who is doing what is being done... a 'swirler' of the whirlpool somewhere inside the whirlpool in addition to the swirling. I am happening. There's no one 'doing it'.