Bend Reality

[VividReality]

Your body is reality and information is consciousness... 

Your brain is the computer, the computer is the brain. and you are awake to this. The only thing making you aware of this is your sight, this sight of this word, but with your consciousness, you are reading and understanding this. I'm not sure where this is leading me, or why i have to put this up, but hey, i have no power over this, it's be determined... or am i choosing this... but wait, i don't exist... that right... when i get off this computer i will no longer exist! Why... well because this is true until i stop writing...

[Argue]

I don't understand the logic behind "I don't exist". 

You hit your foot on a rock, you feel it! The only time you don't exist is when you're dead. 

I don't intend to offend anyone but I disagree with this whole non-existent thing. 

Its black and white thinking IMO, and can be delusional. All in all, it's extreme ideology. 

[abrakamowse]

10 minutes ago, Argue said:

I don't understand the logic behind "I don't exist". 

You hit your foot on a rock, you feel it! The only time you don't exist is when you're dead. 

I don't intend to offend anyone but I disagree with this whole non-existent thing. 

Its black and white thinking IMO, and can be delusional. All in all, it's extreme ideology. 

It is not that you don't exist, it is your ego that doesn't exists.

You exist but you are not what you think you are.

[Argue]

1 minute ago, abrakamowse said:

It is not that you don't exist, it is your ego that doesn't exists.

You exist but you are not what you think you are.

I see what you mean. I like to believe that ego is a good thing tho. 

[abrakamowse]

19 minutes ago, Argue said:

I see what you mean. I like to believe that ego is a good thing tho. 

I don't think is bad, is good because we need it to grow. But at some point it will die anyway, maybe is better to do it while alive.

But, maybe I am wrong.

Edited February 29, 2016 by abrakamowse

[lambda]

2 hours ago, abrakamowse said:

It is not that you don't exist, it is your ego that doesn't exists.

You exist but you are not what you think you are.

In my amateur opinion, I exist, and my ego exists - because my ego emits qualia that I observe, just like all my sensory perceptions. In that sense, it is as "real" as the pixels I see on my screen right now. 

I falsely identify with my ego and equate myself to my ego, when it is really just another entity of reality that "I" am observing.

[Ayla]

3 hours ago, Argue said:

You hit your foot on a rock, you feel it!

Somehow, you think that is your foot and that is why it hurts  - in fact, that is just a foot. Not yours. But the mesmerization (lol the word) is so powerful, it hurts. 

[Argue]

2 minutes ago, Ayla said:

Somehow, you think that is your foot and that is why it hurts  - in fact, that is just a foot. Not yours. But the mesmerization (lol the word) is so powerful, it hurts. 

I still don't know lol. 

Like one time, when I accidentally cut my palm open running in the gym, I felt the blood and surging pain. My bone sticking out, the nerves and neuro pathways in my brain electrifying throughout. Everything is intertwined - physically. 

Oh... Then when the operated on my hand and gave me stitches. The morphine, and numbing medicine. I could still feel the doctor stitching my palm back together. 

Now that I'm thinking about all this "non-existent" thing, the only time I don't feel like I exist is through nirvana. 

[FindingPeace]

1 hour ago, Argue said:

Like one time, when I accidentally cut my palm open running in the gym, I felt the blood and surging pain.

The body you identify as yours does exists just like everything else in reality. It can register damage and the brain interprets that as pain.

But the issue is that you claim that body as 'you' and as 'yours'. As though that body is you. But it's when you really investigate into this that you eventually find that the body isn't 'you' and actually you don't 'own' it. And actually, there is no existential 'you' residing within it. Sure there is a body exisitng there, but the conscious-awareness that identifies with it.. well what is that? What is the conscious-awareness made of? What does it look like? Where is it? Who is it?

Interestingly, if you could take your brain out of the body and put keep it alive in a glass jar, would 'you' still be there? Thoughts would continue within that brain even with the sensory deprivation. Even if you cut pieces off the brain it would continue to function and there would still be a conscious-awareness. In fact there was a real medical case of someone who had half their brain removed (the whole left side). They continued to live a normal life, being aware, calling themself 'I' and 'me'. So is the brain 'you'?

You are also identifying with being a life-form and a body. Those are just labels we humans assign to things for our own convenience. That body is no more a living being than a star in space is not a living being. They are both processes. Complex processes and systems. Interractions between matter.

But we come along and start to derive value and  meaning to everything where there is no inherent value or meaning. We direct our own senses back at ourselves, witness ourselves and call ourselves a body, and a self. When all we really are is a conscious awareness observing the processes of that body and brain.

The awareness of our existential-experience is the only thing that is truly real to us.

[abrakamowse]

10 hours ago, TenderloinTechBro said:

In my amateur opinion, I exist, and my ego exists - because my ego emits qualia that I observe, just like all my sensory perceptions. In that sense, it is as "real" as the pixels I see on my screen right now. 

I falsely identify with my ego and equate myself to my ego, when it is really just another entity of reality that "I" am observing.

Non opinion is amateur hehehehe... the ego exists but is not you.

But think what you just said. If you identify yourself with your ego, and the ego is an entity that "YOU" are observing.

Why do you want to be that entity???  instead of your real "YOU"... or let's call it the "I AM"

[Argue]

7 hours ago, FindingPeace said:

The body you identify as yours does exists just like everything else in reality. It can register damage and the brain interprets that as pain.

But the issue is that you claim that body as 'you' and as 'yours'. As though that body is you. But it's when you really investigate into this that you eventually find that the body isn't 'you' and actually you don't 'own' it. And actually, there is no existential 'you' residing within it. Sure there is a body exisitng there, but the conscious-awareness that identifies with it.. well what is that? What is the conscious-awareness made of? What does it look like? Where is it? Who is it?

Interestingly, if you could take your brain out of the body and put keep it alive in a glass jar, would 'you' still be there? Thoughts would continue within that brain even with the sensory deprivation. Even if you cut pieces off the brain it would continue to function and there would still be a conscious-awareness. In fact there was a real medical case of someone who had half their brain removed (the whole left side). They continued to live a normal life, being aware, calling themself 'I' and 'me'. So is the brain 'you'?

You are also identifying with being a life-form and a body. Those are just labels we humans assign to things for our own convenience. That body is no more a living being than a star in space is not a living being. They are both processes. Complex processes and systems. Interractions between matter.

But we come along and start to derive value and  meaning to everything where there is no inherent value or meaning. We direct our own senses back at ourselves, witness ourselves and call ourselves a body, and a self. When all we really are is a conscious awareness observing the processes of that body and brain.

The awareness of our existential-experience is the only thing that is truly real to us.

This is interesting stuff. I admit I don't quite understand it but nonetheless an interesting topic. 

[VividReality]

We be all Good in this Life

[Guest]

On 2/29/2016 at 1:02 AM, Argue said:

I still don't know lol. 

Like one time, when I accidentally cut my palm open running in the gym, I felt the blood and surging pain. My bone sticking out, the nerves and neuro pathways in my brain electrifying throughout. Everything is intertwined - physically. 

Oh... Then when the operated on my hand and gave me stitches. The morphine, and numbing medicine. I could still feel the doctor stitching my palm back together. 

Now that I'm thinking about all this "non-existent" thing, the only time I don't feel like I exist is through nirvana. 

Think about it this way: Identity is an arbitrary construct, and is useful to the survival of the organism. The organism identifies as something separate from all reality-- that serves an evolutionary advantage. The thing we are saying is YOU are not the organism. That is just a label to classify a cluster of matter that it not ultimately truly separate from reality. Through enlightenment, the deeply ingrained illusion of this boundary between the "self" of the organism and the external world dissolves-- you become everything and nothing.  That wouldn't be conducive to reproductive success in past times, but today in developed countries, the truth can be realized by many without impinging on reproductive success. The ego is just the by-product of natural selection, an emergent phenomena that results from certain traits being weeded out by the environment. The big benefit of being enlightened is knowing that the death of the organism is not important, as the self is eternal. The body will still instinctively try to survive but will also be aware the the self is not the body, and thus, will dispel all the suffering that results from that.

In other words, YOU are not the body. You are everything. The body simply operate instinctively on this lie that it is a separate entity because those traits have been particularly adaptive to ancestor bodies and their environments. 

[Argue]

11 minutes ago, Saitama said:

Think about it this way: Identity is an arbitrary construct, and is useful to the survival of the organism. The organism identifies as something separate from all reality-- that serves an evolutionary advantage. The thing we are saying is YOU are not the organism. That is just a label to classify a cluster of matter that it not ultimately truly separate from reality. Through enlightenment, the deeply ingrained illusion of this boundary between the "self" of the organism and the external world dissolves-- you become everything and nothing.  That wouldn't be conducive to reproductive success in past times, but today in developed countries, the truth can be realized by many without impinging on reproductive success. The ego is just the by-product of natural selection, an emergent phenomena that results from certain traits being weeded out by the environment. The big benefit of being enlightened is knowing that the death of the organism is not important, as the self is eternal. The body will still instinctively try to survive but will also be aware the the self is not the body, and thus, will dispel all the suffering that results from that.

In other words, YOU are not the body. You are everything. The body simply operate instinctively on this lie that it is a separate entity because those traits have been particularly adaptive to ancestor bodies and their environments. 

This is really interesting. I'm really blind to this topic.. Any suggested books to learn the fundamentals about this particular topic? I need to learn it. 

Edited March 2, 2016 by Argue

[Guest]

@Argue Leo's videos are a good place to start. Other than that, the forum here works. You will understand best by doing the enlightenment work. Books could help, but you won't ever understand it by thinking about it. Enlightenment is not achieved through thought. The problem is,if you are like pretty much everyone, you don't know how to understand things without thinking about them. That's something you must learn to do through enlightenment work.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Saitama