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Sveikas!

@Keryo Koffa You've got eXistenz all figure out! ;-)

I understand but feel quite differently. I like the idea of creating a high fidelity simulation of a person’s mind and endowing with a kind of persistence. Beauty is in the eye of, right?

Interesting question you bring up! Let's say the technology existed to download with high fidelity a person's neural map (i.e. brain) to an AI. Would you have problems with this morally, ethically? Would you enjoy interacting with a (simulation of a) loved one who has physically died? Would you want to be uploaded for the sake of those who would miss you?

Every field has its geniuses, its super-talented freaks of nature, why should the field of consciousness be any different? I like your double entendre: field of consciousness, field of consciousness!

Existentialism is bittersweet, freedom in the wasteland, the absurdity of it, the despair, the beauty.

Swami Sarvapriyananda is a treasure.

In my opinion logic only goes so far! Ultimately, perhaps, it's just a way for us to deal with the fear and confusion of living in a giant Mystery. :-)

This from my LLM friends: There are similarities between Gura's view and Ekajivavada. Both emphasize the idea that individual experiences and perceptions are manifestations of a larger, singular consciousness, challenging the illusion of separateness and individuality. This viewpoint reflects a nondual understanding of reality, where all apparent distinctions are seen as ultimately unified within a single, overarching consciousness. There are also differences: Gura's solipsism posits that One mind exists, identified as the individual self, while the external world and other minds are illusory. Ekajivavada posits that the individual self is ultimately identical with the ultimate reality (Brahman), which is the source of everything, i.e. that the world and other minds are real but dependent on Brahman.

From phenomenology the specious present a useful way to look at our perception of now.

I like how Rupert Spira puts it, paraphrasing: Consciousness is the ultimate reality: all-inclusive, inherently existent, irreducible. Awareness is consciousness suffused with knowing, it's consciousness knowing itself. Experience is the content of consciousness and awareness, the perception of all phenomena that arise in the body-mind.

Nothing really begins or ends, not definitively, exactly. Things give way to other things in a grand interdependent Flow. Birth and death are transformation.

Thanks for your response! > You can take something like the exceprt above and apply logic to it and you can dissect it infinitely and get lost doing it. Buddhists have great word for this: prapanca, i.e. conceptual proliferation. I know it because a Buddhist friend accused me (rightly!) of doing it. > Thats where Leo would say to take 5-MeO and see for yourself I am way too sensitive to psychotropics to go that route. 1 mg of THC does me in for 5-6 hours! But good suggestion, thanks.

Great! The I that can be named is not the true I, right?

@Keryo Koffa Seth! I studied years with a direct student of Jane Roberts and am living in the house where meetings were often held. (It is mysteriously arrayed with lightning rods.) When I read Seth Speaks (long time ago) I felt like I was reading a "True Nature of Reality" fact sheet! Good quote, thanks.

I love the closing sentence of the book, come back to it often in my thoughts-feelings: One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

@Rafael Thundercat I guess what I'm describing is similar in ways to a soul. But being a recovering Catholic, 'soul' is too loaded for me. What do you mean by soul expansion and contraction?

I wonder whether this resonates with anyone here, sounds similar to your experience? I am mildly identified with and attached to my personal story, the Movie of Me, my personal history, the who-what-where-when-why of myself. It matters, but is not essential. What IS essential is the feeling of first-personhood, of being a kind of center around which things orbit, events take place, stuff happens. And my gut feeling (I have no proof) is this sense of first-personhood spans innumerable lifetimes, evolves, is a continuous process with one foot in life, one in death.

I'd say it's essential to what/who I *feel* I am. What remains when the story of me (inner narration) takes a rest. I guess by first-personhood spanning lifetimes I mean the feeling that who-I-really-am is a presence that persists across many lifetimes/incarnations. I hadn't thought about immortality, above my pay grade? Glad you relate!

It's really fast. I asked it tough questions and it did okay, got most of the nuances. Bookmarked! :-)

You may try enlisting the help of a good AI. It will know the book and know Wilber's views and help clarify them.

Your spiritual path gradually opens you to the full(er) spectrum of experience, which includes light, dark, and everything in-between. It's like the palette of colors you have at your disposal to 'paint yourself and the world' becomes fuller. This wouldn't 'make you a sociopath' rather make you aware of sociopathic impulses churning around in your unconscious.

Any fans out there of The Hunting of the Snark? Do you see it as pure nonsense/absurdity, as an allegory of the dangers of the Spiritual Quest, something else?

Thought-forms definitely *seem* at times to take on a life of their own. The extent to which they actually do or not is worth exploring, I think. In another thread, wouldn't be appropriate here.

Loved the movie! Its form is like an awakening process: Just when you think you've got, you haven't!