OldManCorcoran

I don't think this makes any sense lol.

It is only difficult to make sense of if there exists a belief in a witness to subjective phenomena (qualia: sights, sounds, smells, touch). If in fact there is not a witness to any phenomena, only the phenomena itself. This is where it is so easy and not complicated at all. In a room full of people with music playing, if you are thinking that there is witness to the sound of the music, you might have the idea of 100 individuals hearing the heard music. Few people have issue with the concept of many individuals hearing one piece of music. This is easy for anyone to conceptualize, but it is the 100 individuals standing in opposition to that which is the conceptual difficulty... In that room, in actual fact, rather than there being multiple hearers of the singular music, there is only the heard music by itself without even one witness. There is the heard music and nothing else. If absolutely all other perceptions were removed from everyone in that room, and only the music stayed, all individuals in that room are then literally the same person in that moment. There is then absolutely nobody else hearing that music, everyone is then you. Because there are in fact ultimately no people, and only the heard music. If absolutely all perceptions in the entirety of existence were removed and only the music remained. The heard music is then the only thing in the whole of existence. Then there is absolute unity, because there is no longer differentiation. There is only one thing existent right then, which is the heard music itself. Without any witnesses to it. After the fact, when perceptions like thoughts which constitute the ego arise, then every single ego will assign the hearing of that music to itself, as though it was an experience had by itself and belonging to itself within the timeline of the person it thinks itself to be. And each individual will believe that they had a personal experience of an event, when the event was actually just the appearance of that sound phenomena absolutely alone without any individuals or witnesses having been present for it. It is not even possible to conceptualize a unity of observer and observed without some sort of idea of their individual nature in tact. Surely then, not a useful conceptualization at all. When there is no such thing at all as a viewer and viewed, absolutely nonexistent. When visual phenomena happens, the visual phenomena itself is the only thing present. Surely a clearer conceptual framework.

Oh, yeah I do understand that indeed. I just seen many people say you are a dead robot but they are not. It is not easy to discern who is talking about their ego (which can even be expressed as a "Self" many refer to). Like at the start I thought you meant something different. But when you put it in different language ("Now as a note, cause I know you're obsessed, YES of course there's no you there who hears the music, there is just THE hearing, the music itself") I then knew what you mean. My mind went away once, it frightened me. If it happened again now I would be okay to sit with that for half hour or so. I wouldn't want to be like Frank Yang who just exists that way permanently.

Didn't Leo used to be a pickup guru? The types of people attracted to that are the type of people to buy entirely into placebo. Like they could watch 10 seconds of Leo talking or have one hit of a joint and convince themselves they had a revelation like this

What are you trying to say? Are you implying subjective solipsism, or tethering existence to perceiving like existence necessarily exists as perceptions only? In any given perception (experience), there is nothing to the perceiving of it except that the perception is present. To say you experience the seeing of purple is nothing but a verbalization that the seen color purple is present. That is pure being. Consciousness is nothing but the fact of something's being. But consciousness is considered tied to perceptual experiences like seeing and hearing. Perceptions are just something existence appears as from time to time. Like the experiences referenced, I am experiencing seeing purple. Experiencing seeing lurple literally means nothing but "purple is present". It's presence itself. It's not a me or a you or an experience, adding elements to it like that is obscuring that it is sheer existence and nothing else. Whatever you equate it to, you limit it to. The experience of seeing purple appears, the seeing of red appears. They appear because existence takes the form of perceptions. Which it does freely and readily. It does not necessarily have to be a perception, if you see that the only thing to the seeing of a color is the presence of the color, i.e. the sheer existence of it. Then it is no longer at all confusing to envision that sheer existence does not necessarily need to exist as a perception. But it can. It can be anything... No categorical divide between perceptions and unobserved particles, the divide is a thought perception. No such thing as something or nothing, because something and nothing is an idea of the mind which would not exist in the absence of the mind which invented those labels... Hence why it so easily and readily could bleed between these apparently categorically different things. Perception are one form existence takes. It could be the only form, it would not be a problem. It could also not be, and that would also not be any problem. It can appear as your perspective and everyone else can be a dead robot, but it could also not be like that, and that would also not be any problem at all. This is better isn't it?

Why do you think so many people go on about subjective solipsism (which means they think if they're seeing white, the seeing of white is happening, but no other seeing like the seeing of red can possibly be happening). Why do you think people talk about dying and going into the source like an octopus retracting its legs, or whirpools in rivers, like Bernardo Kastrup does? It's a result of a self based framework. That's why it's not redundant. It is redundant to be adding youness to the fact of existence, or adding consciousness to it, when there is pure being and that's all. Existence can exist as perceptions, it can exist as unobserved matter galaxies away. The categorical divide between those things being a thought in the mind which does not exist outside of it. It is easy and not confusing at all when the idea of consciousness or self is untethered from the fact of existence. There is absolutely nothing to consciousness except the fact of presence (you will not find anything to "I am conscious of purple" except the fact that purple is present). Consciousness and awareness are conceptually tied to the appearance of perception while pure being (the same pure being in the fact of purple appearing when we say "I am conscious of purple") does not necessarily have to be. That is why it is a better top down framework.

That includes me and you also. We are dead matter with no God inside of us, we don't hear, feel, or see. Neither of us have qualia. You don't have it and nor do I. In actual fact, observed phenomena exists in complete absence of any such things. There could be absolutely no conscious thing in existence and observed phenomena appear just like they do now. In the statement "I am seeing" you will never find anything in that seeing except for the fact that what you are seeing is present. That the seen object itself is present. To be conscious of it or to be seeing it means nothing at all except that the seen object is present. The pure fact of its being. That pure being can exist as qualia, it can exist as both your perspective and as my perspective. It does not necessarily have to even exist as qualia, there is no such thing as a category and qualia as well as atoms in galaxies far away are of the exact same category. Neither thing is actually observed but both can "be". Existence takes the shape of qualities and also of things without any perception-based qualities. There is nothing to individual perspectives except for the existence of differentiation. If there is an appearance of pure white light and pure red light, existence is appearing as multiple forms. Individuals are created from the egos which attach themselves to these different appearances. The appearance of you seeing pure white light (in actuality no you seeing it of course) does not necessarily mean there is not also the seeing of pure red light. And if both of us see pure white light at the same time, and there is no other perception in our heads, we are literally then the same person seeing that white light. Even though the egos after the experience will assign the event to itself so it will seem to both of us that we separately saw pure white light. Because in actual fact there is neither of us seeing white light, only the existence of the perception which is the white light itself. If I was seeing pure red and you were seeing pure white, and I stopped seeing pure red and saw pure white just like you, because neither of us exist there is ONLY the seen object, then there would ONLY be the seen pure white light... And then if every living being in existence saw that pure white light, and everything else ceased to exist, then all differentiation in existence is gone and the pure white light is then the only thing existent. Not you or me or any conscious being. The white light would exist and that's it. Then other appearances and multiplicity can happen again.

The self is also an experience and does tend to appear alongside every occurring appearance. In many ways like a parasite which has attached itself to an appearance. There is heard music by itself, then appears this parasitic thought of "I am hearing this music". Over time it builds coils and coils of itself by its constant insertion of itself (thought-appearances like "I am _" "last week I _") into the fact of something's presence, like the presence of the color purple, which can in fact exist entirely absent of the self. Over time it becomes so strong that it becomes almost impossible to conceive of existence without it. It will comandeer everything. The question of death and deep sleep and various similar topics becomes a question of what will happen to it. Will it merge with some big Self? Will there be nothingness forever? It becomes so strong that it becomes impossible to comprehend that it can completely stop existing, just like any other appearance can, and nothing will change at all. You can be dead and hearing your favorite piece of music, because there wasn't any you ever hearing it full stop. The music appeared and that was it. It is one of many shapes existence takes. Never with a self involved. Only the appearance by thought that there is such a thing there. If you find some old obscure Victorian piece of music and listen to it, every long dead person who was alive and listening to it way back then, is there hearing it again. Because in actual fact nobody ever heard the music, the music appeared way back then and the music appears now. The hearing of the music is exactly the thing which is present and each time it appears it is exactly the same. Regardless of who apparently seems to be hearing it or who appears to be dead and buried or even if every living being in existence was dead. If there were no conscious beings in the entirety of existence, the heard music could still appear and it would be heard just the same. Because the hearing of the music is exactly what is present. And in fact there are no conscious beings, this is the way it has always been and always will be.

How can people be so desperate for someone to follow. It's one of the little oddities of life that I find bizarre.

Any drug which does anything other than destroy the mind leads to nothing but a bunch of appearances. Hallucinating space aliens has nothing to do with reality. A hallucination is never going to be anything other than that. Nobody can awaken technically because there is nobody? Is this the logic used by many gurus? But more practically without trying to trick people, people can awaken but the moment of that is the vanishing of the witness completely, so all thoughts appear without a thinker of them. And in that way there is nobody to know anything, only the appearing of the thought which constitutes the knowledge. It is not even overly complex or deep. There is absolutely nothing at all in the statement "I am conscious of purple", other than the fact that purple is present. The sheer fact of its being. Being can be many things. It can be an appearance of an alien and the appearance of the quality of every word it transmits also.

They do mean the same. That's what I mean, words like consciousness refer directly to the fact of being. Which is not necessarily related to perceptions. But when we say we witness purple, it is nothing other than the verbalization of the presence of purple. Not a witnessing of purple but the beingness of the purple itself. Like this, a thought doesn't have to curve back onto itself. The thought itself exists. An idea of a thought curving back on itself is a remnant of the thought that there are two elements necessarily existent within an appearing phenomena, so the idea there is an observer and the thought which is observed. But, surely easier to simply accept the presence of the thought? Not any need for any other elements to the thought except for the presence of the appearance of the thought. Which might be what you mean anyway.

I don't care about suffering and I don't care about spirituality. I don't understand what these things have to do with reality, it seems like a different endeavour.

But you are an idea yourself aren't you. Of course there is the presence of the thoughts which constitute the idea that there is a witness. That's the being you are mentioning. Nowhere in that is there a witness to the thought. The thinking is present of course. Ideas of witnessing entities make it impossible to explain basic elements of life and death. See Vedantic teachers struggle to explain basic things like deep sleep and death, which are concise and easy to comprehend and describe without the insertion of an observer. It just doesn't work because the observer described is not there.

Whatever appearances constitute my ego or my mind or my body are all present, and all unobserved. No denial of the fact of presence itself. Denial of the "my" only. It is impossible to hold an idea of both a "witness" and a "witnessed" and unify them without still maintaining at least a loose idea of a separation between these two elements, which is shown by expressing the idea of being "both". It is a weakness in the conceptual framework. The phenomena is not made of two components, it is only the end result. Not something resulting from the marriage of two different parts. If existence is to take the form of a piece of music, there is no need to take the shape of an observer and then also the shape of the music. It instead simply takes the form of just the hearing of the music itself. Straight line, direct. The hearing of the music exists and it is alone, rather than being made of two components. The reference to consciousness is a reference to the fact of presence itself, not actually to anything necessarily tied to witnessing. This is what I mean that there is nothing to "being conscious of purple" other than verbalizing the presence of the color purple. To say we are conscious of it is to say it is present. Consciousness = beingness and nothing more. Surely this is a more concise framework?

Is it not easier to conceptualize unity without the presence of the witnesses? If your favorite piece of music appears, that piece of music appears. Not heard by anyone. So each time it appears it is absolutely identical irrespective of who is there hearing it. Whether you are dead or alive, when the music appears it appears just the same. While you ride the bus, and somewhere in the world the music plays, the music exists just the same as you were there yourself. Because appearances appear by themselves without any of us being there. That seems a very solid and unconfusing framework. In which there is no need to have whirlpools in rivers or any of the strange ideas necessitated by ideas of witnesses to phenomena, which you see related by Bernardo Kastrup. Surely those ideas are the result of someone wrestling to account for numerous observing entities within an alleged super witness. And the same with the unobserved world, which makes better sense in a different framework where there are not observers and observed phenomena, but simply phenomena itself, existence being that phenomena as it may also be unobserved atoms. No need then for consciousness to be something necessarily relating to a perception, even though it can freely be those things.

That's not the case though is it. There are many different appearances appearing. You mean one existence. Which is what appears as these various elements. Both qualitative elements as well as distant unobserved galaxies... The categorical divide between those things being an idea only in the mind, meaning a perception, meaning an appearance which is not applied to reality in absence of the mind. Free flow between qualities and things without quality because none of these things are categorically different. Studying consciousness is a weird thing to do in the way it is often done within scientific communities and whatever else, because it is tied to the idea that it has something to do with observing or something to do with perception. Which is not necessarily the case. Because there is nothing to being conscious of something other than verbalizing the presence of that appearing thing. There is nothing to being conscious of the color purple other than verbalizing the fact that purple is appearing. Like that, when referring to consciousness, it is actually a reference to existence itself. Which exists in these various forms and also as things without any subjective form. Which is why studying it as a process of perception or of witnessing something is a bit weird.

Visions are perceptions, perceptions are irrelevant. The fact there aren't visions is why 5-MeO-DMT is the only psychedelic worth anything. N,n-DMT can produce insights but too rare.

No lol

I don't mind it. I don't find any of these things upsetting. I don't feel like I need to be in control. If I do or don't do something it was always going to be that way, I really don't see it as something upsetting.

Neither thing ever happens. It seems that it must when believing that there are beings who witness things, as you then have an appearing world and entities which see it. If you stop thinking of reality as witnesses which see things and objects which appear to them, you leave only the appearing world. Which is simply forms taken by existence itself. In that way, if you walked past your front door this morning, you did not see your front door. The image of your front door appeared by itself to nobody... If you die right now, and someone else walks past your front door, it is identical to you seeing it, because neither of you ever see anything. In both instances the sight of your front door appeared and that was the only thing happening. Wow. And if every living being sees white light at the same time, that is when differentiation no longer exists. As then, in reality, would only be that one seen item with no multiplicity or differentiation. As soon as multiple egos and appearances appear, there is differentiation. And that is what we then like to term individuals and apply the idea of possessing consciousness to those individuals. Even though there is no such thing. And it makes sense doesn't it. Rather than a world of dead matter and living creatures possessing consciousness. Instead merely a dead world by itself. All appearances are only forms taken by existence which appear but not to anybody. Our bodies and even internal minds as much a dead object as the sound of music or an atom.

Do you mean alien as adjective like unrecognizable/strange, or do you mean we come in peace type space aliens.

Psychedelics cause mystical events by shutting down various processes of the mind. In less evolved creatures, I would imagine they by default have less mental processes.

Dreams we have at night are our own making yet we still have nightmares. We don't actively choose to have nightmares to torture ourselves, they just happen. We know for a fact these dreams are a creation within ourselves and yet we don't often actively decide on the landscapes and whatever else which appears within it. Even in a lucid dream, the environments seem to be at least partly generated without our active participation. Likely there is no kind of personal vendetta against you deciding that you should suffer. It can just happen exactly like a nightmare happens.

May you explain why you prefer this interpretation? I see in one sense I would not consider the places in my dreams real beyond illusion, but I find it easiest to understand that something appearing is in fact appearing. If something is appearing I think the fact it is appearing can be accepted and I consider it existent. No matter how temporary that object is. I would not want my mind to vanish for my entire life, no. But when it briefly happened, I bugged out before I actually had time to allow the event to unfold. To me, it seemed to actually be death. Without a me who is there to be alive or dead? Only existence existing as many things, like sounds and sights, which neither I nor anybody else nor any conscious being has ever been present for.

Who knows. I think about it over and over obsessively. Nothing I think or do or even don't do produces the effect again, of existence without subject. Heard sound existing still but somehow absolutely and entirely without a hearer, seen sights just as much without a viewer. Not any different from the reality we know, just without the self existing in conjunction with that reality. I am reminded of something Leo said before in a video. That if something like a sound is to come into existence, it is so direct that there is no middleman, the sound just exists and it's as simple as that. As opposed to there first having to exist a conscious being to hear that sound. Of course, consciousness is just the fact of existence itself. What else is meant when saying we are conscious of a sound, except to convey the fact that the sound exists. That the sound is present. That's what the term is used to denote but I suppose that is really hidden behind layers of thought. Do you see the madness? Existence exists as distant unobserved galaxies and tiny unobserved atoms, and equally as apparently observed colors and sounds. No categorical difference whatever between an atom and a color. Categories do not exist outside the mind which thinks them. Existence being an atom and being a sound. Right? And it just so happens that for a perception to exist, it has to be a perception. See how it is entirely impossible to remove perceiving from the qualitative element of sound. So whenever existence exists as qualitative sound, there is invariably what we conceptualize as perceiving. But there's not actually anybody doing the perceiving, it is just existence appearing as a perception. And to say we are "conscious" of something is merely to give a word to the fact of its presence. Not because there is a process or person there, conscious of a sound completely = saying the sound is existing. And then you see that is all there actually is, it has always just been that sheer existence itself. Then do you see you do not exist at all. Existence has been existing as various forms in absence of witness and it's doing so right now. Even though it so strongly seems that there is a person here seeing it. How do you convince nobody it is somebody except by the appearance of the thought "I am somebody"? And this is all the effect but, I cannot replicate it again. My mind will not go away again even though I feel ready to face non existence again.