Solipsism, Plant Consciousness, & The Problem of Mind

[r0ckyreed]

Hello.  I recently looked at an old post by Shaun below. 

 

Here is a quote from the thread by Leo that I wish to analyze more and how it relates to the problem of mind.

Quote

It doesn't make sense to you because you are interpreting what I say from a dualistic paradigm which assumes a self/other distinction. You are projecting your delusion of duality onto what I say.

I am conscious that other users on here are simply projections of a universal mind. You are not conscious of this. So when I speak to others, I know am just speaking to myself, but you do not know that because your ego is in the way. Your ego will not even allow you to imagine what it would be like to realize that the self/other distinction is unreal.

No matter who I address I am addressing you and I am addressing myself because you, me, and all beings are ONE!

Everyone is the only being in the universe. It's like a massively multiplayer online game where one central server runs all the players. God's mind has fractured itself into a trillion pieces. Or it imagines it has. In truth, nothing is fractured because the distinction between fractured vs whole must itself collapse, leaving behind Absolute Unity. A Unity which has no opposite. The human mind cannot imagine such a Unity because it is too total to allow for a finite mind to exist in it. Within this Absolute Unity there is no difference between your human body, a chair, a kangaroo, a taco, or anything else. All of it blends into ONE. This is the Godhead. This is what you were before you were born as a human self.

So everything is one being and all projection of duality is delusion, and we are all the same being running through infinite selves, experiencing different aspects of God.  So God essentially imagines that it subdivides it's own mind in the same way that humans subdivide territories, countries, states, etc. and as a result, there are infinite bubbles of experience, which collapses into ONE bubble of experience that holds infinite experiences or facets of God, as God imagines.  Like Leo said, it is like one server that holds all the multiplayer gamers.  The same being is looking through the same eyes.  

From Leo's Perception video, he also compared Consciousness to a sponge and all the bubbles on the sponge as us egos.

Here is my issue.  When we say God is subdividing itself to experience various aspects of God, I realize that I am imagining all other bubbles of experiences and subdivisions.  I know that my human imagination is limited, and I only experience reality from my own direct first person experience right now as typing this message for another aspect of God to read.  I am imagining my audience or readers but that does not mean that they do not exist when the Typer of this message right now is focused on typing this message.  

The Typer and the Reader are the same being from Leo's quote and from non-duality, but what does this actually entail because the only thing I experience in my perceptual bubble is my ego and not any other ego, but yet other egos (even if they are imaginary in nature) still have their own internal world and thoughts (even if they are imagined by nothingness or emptiness, which is the same generator that is creating my thoughts and these words you are reading right now). I know that I am imagining your egos internal world from the Typer's or from r0ckyreed's point of view, and you are actually experiencing your point of view right now and imagining r0ckyreed's.  So we have a duality of actuality vs. imagination of the actuality is that Consciousness or God is focused on being the r0ckyreed Typer, which is imagining the Reader (whoever the hell you are).  

I do not see how this duality can fully collapse because even though the same Being or Consciousness is Typing and Reading this message, there are still differences in experience.  For instance, right now in my experience, Consciousness has always been focused on the first experience of the ego of r0ckyreed, a human being, who then is imagining consciousness to also be behind the eyes of other humans that I interact with.

Here is the problem.  Right now, I see a bed, a drawer, a desk, I am imagining the voices of other humans, and there appears to be only this bubble of experience.  But I know that I as God have infinite other bubbles that this bubble of r0ckyreed does not have access to.  The bubble of r0ckyreed is imagining r0ckyreed and is imagining all other bubbles.  But this does not mean that the perceptual bubble of Leo Gura (even if I am imagining it in the bubble of r0ckyreed) does not exist or any other human that I interact with.

Another issue is that what makes a human have a perceptual bubble of experience but not a chair?  When I look at other objects that I have been taught to call human, I know that humans are not just objects but also subjects that I believe are located behind the eyes (hence, they have a perceptual bubble that is being imagined by my perceptual bubble, and my perceptual bubble is behind also imagined by my and their perceptual bubble).

But a chair, a desk, a table, an apple do not appear to have any internal world or perceptual bubble of experience.  I mean where would it be located?  With a human being, their soul is the empty nothingness that I experience as being behind their eyes or in their brain.  What is having this perceptual bubble of experience?  Does a brain also have a perceptual bubble?  If it does, then how is it different from a chair or something else that is artificial or even natural?  

For instance, I can experience cutting up a rats brain and the rat's behaviors changing.  I can also suspect that their inner world will also change even if I am imagining it.  But what makes a perceptual bubble vs. No perceptual bubble?  What makes an object have a mind vs. not having a mind?  A dog, turtle, human, whale, shark are what I consider to have minds or internal experiences that I do not have access to but am imagining, while a desk, shoe, toy, iPhone, house, etc. do not have internal experiences or perceptual bubbles.  

Is it having a nervous system that makes objects have internal experiences, minds, and perceptual bubbles?  This seems to be the case; however, what about the consciousness of plants and trees that allegedly do not have nervous systems?  I would argue that some plants could have inner worlds or bubbles, but their bubbles are vastly different from the human experience.  It is like trying to imagine what an experience of a bat is like from a human perspective.  

The reason why I think plants could have their own bubbles is because there is evidence that suggests that plants always grow towards the sun.  Even when researchers tilt the plant sideways, the plant changes its course of growth to grow sideways to face the sun.  See the intelligence of that?  How would the plant know to grow sideways to face the sun if there was not some sort of awareness?  Let's also tie this into our immune system, nervous system and cells that make up the human body.  Our immune systems, cells, etc. have their own intelligence too like a plant. Our immune systems seem to have a consciousness of which cells are "good and bad."  It has an intelligence of their own.  I think of our cells like plants in that they grow and they die, and they have an intelligence of their own.  Our body is like a garden for many bacteria and cells who then also contribute to preserving the life of the garden (body) itself.  This runs into a strange loop of if cells, plants, etc. do not have perceptual bubbles of their own, then how do they contribute and give rise to our current perceptual bubble?  Without a body, there can be no experience, especially that of an organism.  If there can be an experience without a body, then what would the experience be experiencing?  

These all my thoughts and contemplations so far.  Have fun answering these mysteries that I do not think our human minds can ever solve because the finite human mind can never grasp the infinite nature of reality.  It may be able to implicitly understand that reality is infinite, but a finite mind cannot become infinite while still living and surviving as a human.  To become infinite is to die as the finite self that God is focused on.  At least, this is my current perspective right now that I hope will change as I continue to grow (as the plant I am ), and I am open to and encourage all contemplations on these various subjects.

Thank you!  

Edited January 23, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[r0ckyreed]

“We human beings are the individuation of the Singularity experiencing life sequentially and simultaneously.”

— Home With God, Ch. 17

“A thing does not suddenly appear when you see it. You seeing it makes it appear to you. Those who dabble into quantum physics say that nothing is there until you see it. Your seeing puts it there … In Ultimate Reality, things are there before you see them. That is, multiple possibilities exist at all times. Every conceivable outcome of every conceivable situation exists right here right now. The fact that you only see one of them does not put it there, it puts it here in your mind.” - Ch. 17

“The singularity is what some of you call God … you are the singularity … you are the individuation of the singularity … you can split your Self up and move in many directions. You call these various moments through the time space continuum as lifetimes … The continuous cycle of self (for eternity) is (living with God). Death is an energy shift … Remaining with one physical body for all eternity would not serve the purpose of Eternity itself. The purpose of Eternity is to provide you with a contextual Field of timelessness within which to offer you an opportunity for endless experience with limitless variety in the expression of who you are.” — Ch. 18, Home With God

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[Vynce]

23 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

Here is the problem.  Right now, I see a bed, a drawer, a desk, I am imagining the voices of other humans, and there appears to be only this bubble of experience.  But I know that I as God have infinite other bubbles that this bubble of r0ckyreed does not have access to.  The bubble of r0ckyreed is imagining r0ckyreed and is imagining all other bubbles.  But this does not mean that the perceptual bubble of Leo Gura (even if I am imagining it in the bubble of r0ckyreed) does not exist or any other human that I interact with.

The main problem in making sense of solipsism is that you MASSIVELY underestimate your power to imagine stuff. By that I mean especially your power to imagine, things that appear "outside" of you. Like "Leo's bubble" or "Vynce's bubble". You see, You as God would get behind the "trick of others" super easily if Leo and your parents appeared like NPC's in an RPG, who react super predictable. They would feel lifeless and unauthentic, hence you'd intuit that they are not "real". 

However, at a certain point of authenticity and liveliness you decide to say that appearances are real. Thats the trick. Thats why solipsism bothers you so much.

Another way of tackling this problem is to see that there are multiple levels of imagination. The first kind is your casual ego imagination where there are vague appearances of colors if you want to imagine a green snake. This kind of imagination doesn't last very long and changes over times. It also has the feeling to it, that you can control its shape and movement.

The other kind of imagination is this right here. Whatever you see right now. This text for example. The trick is now, that your ego can't see how it creates this text. It's just not conscious of it. It cannot be. And there are many incentives to say that "Vynce" has wrote the text and that this website is downloaded from a server and that you are just a biological entity, who observes this independently. But notice that all these "evidences" are just stories made by whom? YOU!! 

[Nahm]

 

[r0ckyreed]

@Vynce @Nahm Thanks for your all’s replies!

But how does all of this explain how there are objects in consciousness that have internal worlds (are conscious) and there are objects that don’t. 
 

For instance, other humans appear to me as objects from my point of view, but I know that their soul is behind their eyes from my point of view. However, from their point of view, there is no eyes or head and I am merely an object whose subject is their imagination. 
 

What makes one object have a subject and another not? A human has a subject or inner world of thoughts and feelings, but a chair doesn’t. A dead human is no different from a chair. You see the problem with consciousness? What gives rise to subjectivity? If you say nothing or that subjectivity is the foundation for all objects, then how do you account for other human being objects who have subjects (internal worlds) vs. objects like a brick or chair that don’t? 

Maybe bricks have the subjective experience of being brick, and humans have the subjective experience of being human. But supposing bricks do have a subjective experience, then how is a subjectivity experience of being a brick any different from no subjective experience at all? A brick does not feel pain because it has no nerve cells or c-fibers, nor any brain to commute any experience. And for those who say “brains don’t exist or are imaginary, then consider that for God to experience a human, God needs to experience a human brain. No brain, no human experience. No brick, no brick experience? 
 

The problem with idealism is that it says that when I stop observing something, it ceases to exist. That means that when I stop observing a human object, the human object ceases to exist, and from this logic, solipsism is unavoidable because the egoic-mind cannot observe another egoic-mind. But it is infallible to conclude that other people don’t exist because I don’t see them because then what am I when they aren’t observing me?

This is why I find it misleading when people say “you are God” or “you are the only thing that exists” or “there is only one bubble” because this is a misconception. The ego is Satan and the absence of ego is God. There are infinite bubbles of perception, which you could call ONE Bubble because infinity is Oneness, but it is still confusing because it could be interpreted as I (ego) is the only bubble that exists. Or I (God) is the only bubble that exists. You see how confusing that is and why people are misled to solipsism?
 

If it is true that there are infinite bubbles that the One God is experiencing all through, then that also must mean that Direct Experience isn’t all there is. That means there is stuff happening behind the scenes even if the ego is imagining it because ego’s perspective is a limited bubble of the infinite sponge! Think about that.

 

 I know some of you will say “the ego never dies because the ego is an illusion.” But even when the human form of r0ckyreed dies, the world will still continue to exist for the rest of you. If everything is an illusion, that implies that the illusion of everything exists. If illusion doesn’t exist, then everything cannot be an illusion. 

Edited January 24, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[Vynce]

20 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

but I know that their soul is behind their eyes from my point of view

Can you absolutely know that thats true? 

22 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

God needs to experience a human brain

Are you experiencing your brain right now? What exactly in your direct experience is a brain?

25 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

This is why I find it misleading when people say “you are God” or “you are the only thing that exists” or “there is only one bubble” because this is a misconception.

You will never logic your way out of this. Leave behind all the ideas and thoughts. Just focus on what is. Do that with more and more consciousness and you see how the trick is performed. You cannot understand the trick. You can only see it and forget it. Your ego will never understand the trick. 

30 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

when the human form of r0ckyreed dies, the world will still continue to exist for the rest of you

Watch your assumptions

[r0ckyreed]

3 minutes ago, Vynce said:

Are you experiencing your brain right now? What exactly in your direct experience is a brain?

It’s kind of paradoxical. If I interpret reality literally based on my subjective experiences then no, I do not see a head, brain, nor my d**k, and nor a duck right now. But, based off of what has been demonstrated by science, our subjective experiences are highly influential by objective events like brain, neurons, electrochemical imbalances, and what have you.

I have never seen my brain before so I am assuming I have one based off the logic that a brain is needed for experience to happen at the human level that it is right now.

What would actually seeing a brain be anyways? The brain is interpreting the world and yet, the brain itself is an interpretation by the brain, which sounds very trippy lol. Given the science behind cognitive psychology and various other disciplines, the human brain has been demonstrated to be central to human experience. If you look at split-brain patients, they interpret reality very differently because their corpus callosum was severed. If you cut into BA44 (Broca’s area), then a person can no longer speak. If you sever the occipital lobe, then you cannot see, and if you cut out the hippocampus, you won’t have any memories. Now, I have never experienced these experiments and nor would I want to do them on myself. I can assume that if I were to cut out my BA44, then I would also experience Broca’s aphasia.

16 minutes ago, Vynce said:

You will never logic your way out of this. Leave behind all the ideas and thoughts. Just focus on what is. Do that with more and more consciousness and you see how the trick is performed. You cannot understand the trick. You can only see it and forget it. Your ego will never understand the trick. 

48 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

What is the difference between logic and contemplation? Isn’t the way you figure stuff out by deeply contemplating what is? I realize that one should start out with meditation first and then move to analytical meditation or contemplation. And also, I do not know if logic or contemplation is a dead end from my point of view. I realize that logic and contemplation is conceptual and reality is actual so I can see where that could be a problem if I am devoid of actuality. But I think contemplation done right is aligned and integrates actuality and concepts together for a deeper understanding of both and their relationships to each other. Just meditating alone I don’t see conducive for long term because then you neglect critical thinking, which is a must to avoid self-deception and bias.

 

21 minutes ago, Vynce said:

Watch your assumptions

I get it lol. I think it is safe to assume that your existence does not hinge on mine lol. I mean people are dying all the time right now and yet the world is still here.

Thanks for your replies and thoughtfulness. I have been thinking about this crap for a while and will continue till I die.

[Windappreciator]

in a sense others do exists the same way you exist.

god has no restrictions on any thing so it can appear as 2 separate things in different locations simultaniously with infintie speed, so in that sense, 2 people are from the same but still stand opposing eachother as seperate because the process of being 2 people is instant, not just an imagination of your human mind.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Windappreciator

[r0ckyreed]

4 minutes ago, Windappreciator said:

in a sense others do exists the same way you exist.

god has no restrictions on any thing so it can appear as 2 separate things in different locations simultaniously with infintie speed, so in that sense, both are from the same but still cstand opposing eachother as seperate because the process is instant, not just an imagination of your human mind.

Yeah. That’s what I am saying. If God has no restrictions since God is infinite, then it seems like realism is true relative to the egoic point of view.  But from Absolute, the relative and reality are imagined by the Absolute.

People compare life to a dream, but if that were the case, then solipsism would be true. But since God is experiencing infinite individuations of itself, life is not like a dream. Whenever I wake up from my dreams, everything in my dream dies and wakes up with me. But this isn’t how it appears to work here and now. I could awaken right now, but the other individuations of God would still be asleep? Just like in life, I can wake up from bed and my parents can be asleep. I can realize that I am them and they are me, but God will not stop their journey of being an ego because I have finished mine. Hope this all makes sense. 

[Windappreciator]

7 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

Yeah. That’s what I am saying. If God has no restrictions since God is infinite, then it seems like realism is true relative to the egoic point of view.  But from Absolute, the relative and reality are imagined by the Absolute.

People compare life to a dream, but if that were the case, then solipsism would be true. But since God is experiencing infinite individuations of itself, life is not like a dream. Whenever I wake up from my dreams, everything in my dream dies and wakes up with me. But this isn’t how it appears to work here and now. I could awaken right now, but the other individuations of God would still be asleep? Just like in life, I can wake up from bed and my parents can be asleep. I can realize that I am them and they are me, but God will not stop their journey of being an ego because I have finished mine. Hope this all makes sense. 

yes now here comes the tricky part.

now physical reality is for everyone experience differently and there is something higher that allows those to have a sharing of certain experiences with others depending on the intersections of their perceptions.

if the intersections are too few then realities diverge and will not be shared and eventually deleted as a memory from their past, usually.

so you are generating everyone else and everything else, you are just generating your version of them

and so are they with you

Edited January 24, 2022 by Windappreciator

[Vynce]

20 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

Just meditating alone I don’t see conducive for long term because then you neglect critical thinking, which is a must to avoid self-deception and bias.

You call that contemplation but I don't see you open about the possibility that you are God and there is nothing else beside your subjective reality. The Universe is one big subjective of r0ckyreed. Everything else is just to keep you under self-deception and bias. Don't believe me. Wake up and see it. Direct experience of being God trumps every academic theory or mental masturbation. 

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, r0ckyreed said:

I have been thinking about this crap for a while and will continue till I die.

And when you die what’s seen is that it was all thoughts, including you and death. 

[Nadosa]

4 minutes ago, Nahm said:

And when you die what’s seen is that it was all thoughts, including you and death. 

That's what I fear the most: what if in the end all the brain fuck was kinda useless rumination and I "forgot to live". Well I am pretty happy the way things work out for me atm but life still leaves me in a void of not knowing who I am and whatever this is. Things just happen. And I appear to enjoy them. Or not. Idk. 

Anyways. Back to topic.

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by Nadosa

[LastThursday]

3 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

The problem with idealism is that it says that when I stop observing something, it ceases to exist. That means that when I stop observing a human object, the human object ceases to exist, and from this logic, solipsism is unavoidable because the egoic-mind cannot observe another egoic-mind. But it is infallible to conclude that other people don’t exist because I don’t see them because then what am I when they aren’t observing me?

I found this paragraph tickled my philosophical bone.

The core of the problem that you point out is really the question about what existence actually is.

Is existence what Leo calls "direct experience" and nothing more than that? Or is existence an imagined continuity whereby the world carries on with or without your observation of it? Can both be possibly true at the same time?

Direct experience is exactly what it says on the tin. Only things which are directly experienced can be said to be absolutely true, everything else is just good guesswork. So why is it then that when you directly re-experience that football hurtling towards you, it is in the place you expect it to be? Why is the world is consistent and hangs together following certain trajectories and laws?

Unity.

Everything is entangled with everything else. Above all the world seeks to be as highly correlated with itself as possible. The world in one sense is perfection, which means that there are no glitches or gaps, it's like the water in a river filling all the available space.

When you stop observing, the whole of existence conspires to conserve the existence of what you just observed, so that it doesn't just disappear into nothingness. It's like a kind of hologram, everything is encoded everywhere into the surface of the glass plate of idealism. The sofa you're sitting is on is spread throughout the whole of existence: existence has a memory of its own. The existence of the sofa is intertwined with the existence of everything else, this is what creates persistence and consistency. That's because everything is a unity and there are no boundaries separating one thing from anything else.

Peace and love ?

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

What makes one object have a subject and another not?

Your imagination.

[Preety_India]

Your duality won't collapse as long as you are alive. 

 

[r0ckyreed]

2 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Direct experience is exactly what it says on the tin. Only things which are directly experienced can be said to be absolutely true, everything else is just good guesswork.

Yeah. I agree that Direct Experience is more fundamental than concepts but the tricky thing is that Direct Experience is still limited to the perspective of r0ckyreed or LastThursday or whoever you are. This issue is that I can assume that my direct experience  is not the only one. That is solipsism. But that Direct Experience is fragmented and spread across infinite life forms experienced by the ONE Being.

This also presents issues because if there are infinite perspectives that are being shared together and not shared together (in cases of hallucinations or whatever), what is in the gaps of our experience? When I stop observing you, you cease to appear within my direct experience and I from yours. It’s like saying that if I become deaf, then music and sound ceases to exist. But it ceases to exist relative to deaf people and exists relative to non-deaf people. And maybe other senses like telepathy could exist for aliens. Maybe we could say that sound and telepathy do exist, but we just do not have access to those senses as humans.

What would we say if an alien came down with telepathy? Would we say that it doesn’t exist because it is not in my direct experience and therefore am imagining it? I don’t know. Lol. The senses are all that we appear to have, and we could know telepathy or not based on what we observe and conceptualize. It’s hard for me to believe that when I go to sleep at night that the whole human world ceases to exist and that I go into a new one if I am dreaming. But at the same time, I feel like reality is intersubjective (it is shared and created amongst all the forms and parts of God). 

EDIT: I have been thinking about it more and I am wondering what an object, subject, experience or thing is that cannot be experienced or perceived by the senses? All we know is through senses and through thoughts and intuition. If I cannot see that object or hear it or feel it or think about it, it is as if it does not exist from my experience. The fact that I can think of something seems to make it exist in form of a thought. But the issue is that like we discussed, “what about the actual object?” If you can see, touch, and feel an object I don’t. It exists to you but not for me. Could I then conclude that just because I can’t see it or think of it now, that it doesn’t exist? I’m just thinking out loud (or rather on the forum with y’all). ?. From the quote I gave you below from Home With God, every possible thing exists when I am not observing it. My observation of something is a mental construction of picking out one reality out of infinite possibilities which is kinda creepy.

2 hours ago, LastThursday said:

When you stop observing, the whole of existence conspires to conserve the existence of what you just observed, so that it doesn't just disappear into nothingness. It's like a kind of hologram, everything is encoded everywhere into the surface of the glass plate of idealism. The sofa you're sitting is on is spread throughout the whole of existence: existence has a memory of its own. The existence of the sofa is intertwined with the existence of everything else, this is what creates persistence and consistency. That's because everything is a unity and there are no boundaries separating one thing from anything else.

Peace and love ?

That’s cool. Thanks for your insight and thoughts! It reminds me of the quote above that I wrote from Home With God that opened me up to a modified take on idealism/realism.

 

8 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

 

“We human beings are the individuation of the Singularity experiencing life sequentially and simultaneously.”

— Home With God, Ch. 17

“A thing does not suddenly appear when you see it. You seeing it makes it appear to you. Those who dabble into quantum physics say that nothing is there until you see it. Your seeing puts it there … In Ultimate Reality, things are there before you see them. That is, multiple possibilities exist at all times. Every conceivable outcome of every conceivable situation exists right here right now. The fact that you only see one of them does not put it there, it puts it here in your mind.” - Ch. 17

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Edited January 25, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[r0ckyreed]

58 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Your imagination.

@Leo Gura But isn’t my imagination limited and make believe? Isn’t Ultimate Reality that which exists when I stop imagining and believing in it? Shouldn’t I not confuse the limitations of my mind for reality? Or do you mean that God imagines the differences between which forms it will experience? Thank you ? 

55 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

Your duality won't collapse as long as you are alive. 

 

Ain’t that the damn truth. ?

Edited January 25, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[LastThursday]

8 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

This issue is that I can assume that my direct experience  is not the only one.

It would seem like you would have to directly experience two direct experiences simultaneously to know the truth. Until that happens it is just a concept.

In any case, if you were to experience someone else's direct experience, whose direct experience would it become? Yours or theirs or both?

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

But isn’t my imagination limited and make believe? Isn’t Ultimate Reality that which exists when I stop imagining and believing in it?

There are levels of imagination. The ego's imagination is limited. But there is a deeper of level of imagination which creates the physical world.

Reality is imagination at all times. There are just various levels of depth to this imagination.

Notice that in your dreams the physical stuff in your dreams -- like people, houses, cars, dogs, etc -- is also imaginary.