Infinite Love

[zeroISinfinity]

11 minutes ago, Member said:

Kanye ?

Introducing myself with american culture. 

[Ry4n]

I like Frank Yang's description of it being like dying and having sex with the entire universe at the same time. 

[The0Self]

20 hours ago, Mikael89 said:

What are you talking about? Atheists think that you will stop/cease to exist when you die. Most people think that, at least where I live.

This is actually impossible to think. Any individual can think they know it, but they don’t. They sometimes might even have a feeling in the back of their mind that “they will experience nothing” — still an imagined experience.

To solidify my point, the reason (or at least an obvious gesture toward) why the individual cannot imagine what it’s like when it’s not there anymore, is obviously, of fucking course, because it isn’t there now.

Edited November 6, 2020 by The0Self

[The0Self]

3 minutes ago, Mikael89 said:

No, it's easy to think, because you go to sleep every night. People think it's like going to dreamless sleep but never wake up again. Or like getting unconscious forever, or anesthesia..

Fair enough, but for them, in a sense, they think it’ll be like something. They think it’ll be like going to dreamless sleep but never waking up again, for instance, as you said.

[The0Self]

Just now, Mikael89 said:

Yes.

Well, death is not like anything. This is death. There is no death.

[peachboy]

10 hours ago, Mikael89 said:

No, it's easy to think, because you go to sleep every night. People think it's like going to dreamless sleep but never wake up again. Or like getting unconscious forever, or anesthesia..

I've never really understood how people don't understand this.

Dreamless sleep is not characterised by a lack of consciousness, rather a lack of memory. If that were not the case, then alarm clock manufacturers would surely go out of business as they'd all be useless.

Despite memory being absent, the part of the mind that is listening for alarm clocks is (to a primtive degree) recording how much time has elapsed throughout the sleep cycle. Only upon waking is this information allowed to re-synchronize with consciousness, giving a vague sense of time elapsed and causing the illusion that un-consciousness in the first-person is somehow possible.... when clearly it isn't.

In contrast, this doesn't happen with anesthesia. There is no alarm clock loud enough that will wake you from the surgeons table.

Most subjective reports of anesthesia detail the "time-traveller" phenomenon: the moment you are anesthetized is the moment you wake up. Five hours could have elapsed, but for the subject, the experience is near-instant like a time-traveller that pops out of a point on the timeline and re-emerges at a later point. A subjective worm-hole.

Death is basically the same. In the absence of first-person un-consciousness, the probability of first-person consciousness persisting after death alchemizes into absolute certainty. Any illusions of un-consciousness are simply skipped over to the extent that the "timeline" associated with the first-person experience becomes the dominant timeline.

Or in other words, the certainty of eternal consciousness is a perfect 100% with no spaces in between.

[Moksha]

@peachboy I agree with you, but not for logical reasons. Levels of consciousness exist, but you could equally argue that consciousness sinks to zero at death. In the absence of first-person consciousness, the probability of first-person unconsciousness persisting after death alchemizes into absolute certainty.

Conceptual arguments for consciousness are unavoidably self-defeating. Ultimately it has to be directly experienced to be understood.

[peachboy]

7 minutes ago, Moksha said:

@peachboy I agree with you, but not for logical reasons. Levels of consciousness exist, but you could equally argue that consciousness sinks to zero at death. In the absence of first-person consciousness, the probability of first-person unconsciousness persisting after death alchemizes into absolute certainty.

Conceptual arguments for consciousness are unavoidably self-defeating. Ultimately it has to be directly experienced to be understood.

Un-consciousness relative to what? There is no higher structure than consciousness.

First-person un-consciousness is a nonsensical phenomenon. It's literally an oxymoron that is incapable of manifesting. It would be like trying to divide a number by zero. Cannot be done!

So the probability of first-person un-consciousness existing is 0%. Or in other words: First-person un-consciousness is certainly impossible.

If first-person consciousness is certainly possible, and first-person un-consciousness is certainly impossible, then the probability of first-person consciousness is 100%. Anything in between is disregarded as un-experienceable. 

And that is the super-structure. All else is subordinate to it.

 

 

[Moksha]

@peachboy Unconsciousness is relative to consciousness. It is the negative state, or absence of consciousness. There is no lower structure than the absence of consciousness. Emptiness is emptiness.

First-person unconsciousness is the lack of consciousness in the individual. One could argue that consciousness requires individuality, and unconsciousness is the ultimate unity. When alive, people vary in levels of unconsciousness, until at death they dissolve into utter unconsciousness because they no longer exist.

First-person unconsciousness is certainly impossible, but this could be true because consciousness requires personality to exist. Just because the probability of first-person consciousness is 100% doesn't mean the probability of no-person consciousness is 100%. Un-experienceable doesn't prove that experience always exists.

All of this to reiterate that I agree with your conclusion about consciousness  Not because it is logically unavoidable, but because it can be directly experienced, beyond logic.

[Moksha]

I've been under anesthesia as well. Clipped to instant nothingness, then awaking to everythingness, with zero awareness of the passage of time, except a refreshing sense of restfulness. Consciousness was still in us, because consciousness is us; we just weren't aware.

Doesn't change anything about the logical proof of consciousness. If the existence of consciousness beyond personhood could be logically proven, smarter minds than ours would already have done so.

Edited November 6, 2020 by Moksha

[Moksha]

@Mikael89 Multiplying "that" by infinity = 100% chance that birth is a precondition of Consciousness. Your underlying assumptions are conscribed to cases where birth exists.

Edited November 6, 2020 by Moksha

[Travelion]

When you guys say "Death is an illusion" or "Death is impossible", what do you mean?

I always thought that whenever Leo or you talk about the concept of Death, that you mean the disappearance of consciousness, (in theory) like before birth. 5 years before everyone's birth, he or she experienced what the mind can imagine as nothing. Just 0% consciousness. That with the appearance of the dead body the consciousness fades away.

What else could you otherwise mean by "Death is an illusion"? Because everything other than what I described keeps the consciousness.

[Moksha]

@Mikael89 We can assume unconditional consciousness, and then extrapolate that consciousness is possible outside of birth, but the assumption itself is unprovable. Any logical conclusions derived from it are similarly unprovable.

Here's where I hop off the hamster wheel  It's a fun game, but let's cut to the chase.

Humans have been running the rational wheel for millenia. The game is ultimately constrained to its own cage. It is impossible to know anything outside of the game itself, when you only play by the rules of the game. We have realized the limitations of human rationality:

Gödel's incompleteness theorems

What if ultimate reality cannot be constrained by logic? What if it is literally beyond human comprehension? How can ultimate reality logically exist and not exist in the same moment? The sages called it a Mystery for a reason.

Maybe Consciousness would put it this way. Let's call it "C" since we're all friends.

C points at the hamster: The human mind

C points at the wheel: The game of logic

C points at the cage: Relative reality

C points outside the cage: Ultimate reality

C opens the cage: Enlightenment

Edited November 6, 2020 by Moksha

[The0Self]

49 minutes ago, Travelion said:

When you guys say "Death is an illusion" or "Death is impossible", what do you mean?

I always thought that whenever Leo or you talk about the concept of Death, that you mean the disappearance of consciousness, (in theory) like before birth. 5 years before everyone's birth, he or she experienced what the mind can imagine as nothing. Just 0% consciousness. That with the appearance of the dead body the consciousness fades away.

What else could you otherwise mean by "Death is an illusion"? Because everything other than what I described keeps the consciousness.

The thing is it really just simply doesn't fucking matter. 

Edited November 6, 2020 by The0Self

[peachboy]

 

4 hours ago, Moksha said:

First-person unconsciousness is the lack of consciousness in the individual.

First-person unconsciousness is the lack of consciousness in the individual what?

I'm not sure what you mean by individual.

Consciousness is not something that exists within something. It is the vessel in which things (or the illusion of things) arise.

4 hours ago, Moksha said:

One could argue that consciousness requires individuality, and unconsciousness is the ultimate unity.

How would you argue that?

Perhaps it's a question of definition. Un-consciousness properly understood is the absence of awareness, not the absence of things.

If the dimensions of time and space are removed, all that remains is literally infinite consciousness. The in-finite underlying awareness, that is aware of no-thing.

But to go one step further and delete awareness itself is completely impossible, because it would simply just ping back into existence immediately.

4 hours ago, Moksha said:

First-person unconsciousness is certainly impossible, but this could be true because...

... it's true because it's self evident. That's the only reason.

4 hours ago, Moksha said:

Un-experienceable doesn't prove that experience always exists.

Yes it does! That's exactly what it proves.

There can never be a moment when you are not having an experience. All that can change is the nature of that experience.

The only other question is whether you're going to identify with the part which has the capacity to change or whether you're going to identify with the part that is eternally constant. (aka eternal consciousness).

Spoilers: It's the latter.

4 hours ago, Moksha said:

All of this to reiterate that I agree with your conclusion about consciousness  

I see your smiley face and I raise you a hearty pink cute thing. 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by peachboy

[Travelion]

@The0Self From your point of view, and surely in the absolute sense. But I don't want a misconception to occur in my mind :).

[The0Self]

6 minutes ago, Travelion said:

@The0Self From your point of view, and surely in the absolute sense. But I don't want a misconception to occur in my mind :).

The closest you'll get to an answer is what's already been described in this thread. When it's mind vs what is, mind always wins.

[Moksha]

33 minutes ago, peachboy said:

Consciousness is not something that exists within something. It is the vessel in which things (or the illusion of things) arise.

Without a vessel, logically, how can Consciousness be?

If the dimensions of time and space are removed, all that remains is literally infinite consciousness.

I agree with you, but not for logical reasons. How do you prove Consciousness can even be, outside of time and space?

But to go one step further and delete awareness itself is completely impossible, because it would simply just ping back into existence immediately.

Where is the logical proof?

... it's true because it's self evident. That's the only reason.

Yes! But Self-evidence is direct experience, not logic.

There can never be a moment when you are not having an experience. All that can change is the nature of that experience.

What happens when there is no person to perceive? If the entire cosmos collapsed, and spacetime ceased to exist, how do you logically prove Consciousness continues to be?

The only other question is whether you're going to identify with the part which has the capacity to change or whether you're going to identify with the part that is eternally constant. (aka eternal consciousness).

How do you prove there is a part that is eternally constant?

Damn you for luring me back onto the hamster wheel, but one more turn.

[peachboy]

13 minutes ago, Moksha said:

Damn you for luring me back onto the hamster wheel, but one more turn.

The logical proof is that first-person un-consciousness is absolutely impossible. To say otherwise is total nonsense. It literally doesn't make any sense. It would be like trying to imagine a circle that is also a square.

If you could be un-conscious, you would not even realise that you were un-conscious and therefore cannot ever experience your own un-consciousness. If you cannot experience your own un-consciousness, then you cannot ever be in the state of un-consciousness. If you cannot be in the state of un-consciousness, then you cannot be un-conscious. And if you cannot be un-conscious, then you can only ever be conscious.

We already know that first-person consciousness is absolute truth, because Rene Descartes demonstrated it via the evil demon proposition 500 years ago.

At the very least, we can say first-person consciousness is certainly possible.

And if first-person consciousness is certainly possible, then the capacity for that possibility to occur again can be expressed as a probability. The question is: what is that probability?

Consciousness and un-consciousness are typically regarded as a binary pair, as there's no tertiary state and it cannot be considered a spectrum because even partial consciousness falls under the banner of consciousness.

So if first-person consciousness is certainly possible, and first-person un-consciousness is certainly impossible, the probability of first-person un-consciousness is 0% which then modulates the probability of first-person consciousness to 100%.

How is this not both logical as well as self-evident? Surely this is obvious.

[The0Self]

42 minutes ago, Moksha said:

Damn you for luring me back onto the hamster wheel, but one more turn.

Words cannot express my simultaneous condolences and solidarity