What IS reality, part 1

[Mu_]

So this is part of something I've been trying to articulate and synthesis for the last 10 years or so.  There's been many influencers and life experiences that have gotten this view to this point (Leo being one of them, we seemed to have had very identical awakening experiences). It's not complete and probably will never be, but I wanted to put it up and see what people thought in its current iteration.

Isn't it true all current models and opinions of reality (or perhaps anything for that matter) take their position based upon evidence that comes through human experience (since, well there’s only humans having these conversations on this planet). This can include experiences ranging from the subjective experiences of individuality, division, separation, distance, and time, to the mystical classifications of experiences, such as no-time, oneness, being, a sense of god or being god, or non-duality.

For example doesn’t science seems to make claims about reality based upon the 5-6 subjective senses of human experience or pose questions on the subject of something called “objective matter” based on such. A simple claimed given (experience) of up, down, left, right seems to require the subjective sense of such to make such a proposition and base further science on. Or doesn’t time require a agreed upon constant or measurement and subjective experience to point to and form a questions about or make a claim about. For example the statement I dropped a ball down the hole at 30 miles per hour seems to be coming from a unquestioned agreement that a “ball” went “down” a hole (subjective seen/felt experience) at “30 mph” (agreed upon seen/felt/labeled subjective experience). From my experiences of “non-duality/oneness” such a statement seems silly because there is nothing moving in any direction at any speed, all is one with no division, there are no moving parts, all is experienced as oneself. AND, the position of non-duality seems to be a experience of its own claim resting on “self/subjective experience” as proof of its own a statements (purists would argue neither subjective or objective, but a merger of the two). And interestingly at the same time, neither is invalidated, since both could hold the position of a possible actual truth.

Free will is another that can be looked through this lens. Isn’t free will only proven by the self/subjective experience of such. There doesn’t appear to be objective proof of this accepted notion. And same for determinism, no-free will, the everything is happening out of our control, a result of genes, determined by the brain, effected by the environment. None of these seem to have actual proof that is not arrived at from anything other then the subjective senses/experience or measurements coming from a subjective sense/experiences. And yet again interestingly, none of these can be invalidated.

Now I don’t want people to get the idea that there is no experience (because experience seems to be the only constant in this framework of comparison,and no I’m not saying there can’t be something without experience because its very real that the sun could exist without an experiencer, but thats a topic for another day), but the claim that materialism/individuality, free will/determinism, oneness/non-duality seem unprovable and rest upon a particular type of experience to prove their claim about reality and all further expressions from them. Experience seems to be whats most real, profound and an unknowable mystery, encompassing the very ability to feel and see everything so far spoken about as ones life, neither validating or invalidating the materialism or non-duality/oneness views.

This claim seems to have implications into the realms of psychology/morals/reasoning as well. A realm in which everything seems self referenced. Is this right or wrong, good or evil, for example, a questions that for a materialist/individual appears to be asked to oneself and an answer appears, generally backed by reasons on a felt/believed sense and backed by life experience/conviction. The same question asked to a “evolving” individual/non-dual/more encompassing “realizer” is again answered from a self referenced experiential sense/experience using the words such as knowning, realizing, seeing, felt in the heart, etc (all subjective/self referenced)(and yes I’ve been here). Again experience seems to be the constant here in both, but the actual of the content remains a profound mysterious happening, that can take the many infinite forms between materialism, and non-duality/oneness, the yet created, the neither of these, and perhaps in alien unthinkable dimensional experiences incomprehensible by humans.

Also I’m not saying science is not useful or value judgements should not happen because obviously these have some human benefit, which maybe needs some addressing in this piece (or another piece).  But that far to often we find ourselves battling with the opposing camp we find ourselves in (and even within ourselves) on matters if we are honest with, we will find that our basis for being right boils down to the same thing, our "Experience".

 

Edited September 6, 2018 by Mu_