Proof of an external world?

[r0ckyreed]

I still think I made some good points that haven’t received complete sufficient responses. No one has debunked my points yet for how an Amazon package appears on the doorstep. There is a process involved even if you don’t perceive that. You have an understanding and logic that it didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Even a bad detective finding a dead body would understand that there was a reason/cause behind how someone died. There is no package or death without a series of causes. 

It just seems foolish to state otherwise given how we understand how things work. We know that for every result, there has to have been a process regardless of if it was held in our consciousness or not. Our consciousness sees the results of the processes but it doesn’t also witness the processes. The same can be said vice versa. 

Edited November 22, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[Vibroverse]

Logic is not the highest level of understanding, there is a level of being that is beyond logic, where we can say that both statements that say there is an outside world and there is not an outside world are true. 

 

[Matthew85]

@Leo Gura Leo can you share how awakening to the fact that you are continually constructing the "external world" and all people has improved your experience of life? 

[thisintegrated]

Here's something I wrote about AI and consciousness.  Same principle.

On 02/11/2022 at 11:13 PM, thisintegrated said:

So the question is "is AI conscious".  Well how do you know if anything is conscious?  You can't.  Nothing outside of you can be known to exist.  The only way in which something exists to you is through your experience of it.  Consciousness of other people/AI isn't something you can bring into existence, so they don't exist.  AI's consciousness can never exist.  All that can exist is the result of of them having consciousness.  Like if you got stabbed in the chest in a dream by someone, that would be the result of the dream character's conscious intent, but the character never had any consciousness to begin with, it was all the doing of your own consciousness.

[r0ckyreed]

25 minutes ago, Matthew85 said:

@Leo Gura Leo can you share how awakening to the fact that you are continually constructing the "external world" and all people has improved your experience of life? 

How does it not? It sounds like Heaven and Love to my ears. I don’t think an awakened mind cares anymore “improving your experience of life.” What more is there to do if you realize that your existential nature is complete and identical to God?

Edited November 25, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[John Paul]

What is meaning?

[Mohammad]

@r0ckyreed Your points are acceptable, but, everything depends on how you define "existing" and "reality". 

I have one big problem with Leo's and many other "teachers" teachings. He uses lots of words, and assumes that he is conveying a meaning to other people. When you say "There is only one mind" or "There is no outside world", these words are practically meaningless. (I am not saying his teachings have no value, these subjects are inherently extremely hard to talk about, that's why they cannot be taught just by saying them!)

We should focus on defining the words. Then we can have better conversation with others, and also thoughts in our minds.

That amazon book is indeed real and in the outside world. But we have a distorted perception of "real" and "outside world". 

[Leo Gura]

On 11/22/2022 at 5:22 AM, r0ckyreed said:

No one has debunked my points yet for how an Amazon package appears on the doorstep.

You are being too foolish to consider that no one has ever explained how anything at all can exist, and that's because existence of anything cannot be explained.

If you wish you understand existence, stop taking existence for granted.

Quote

There is a process involved even if you don’t perceive that.

No there isn't.

Nothing, nowhere, nohow. Process is imaginary.

Quote

You have an understanding and logic that it didn’t just appear out of nowhere.

This is your fundamental mistake.

Everything literally appeared out of nowhere. But you are too dense to see it.

5 hours ago, Matthew85 said:

@Leo Gura Leo can you share how awakening to the fact that you are continually constructing the "external world" and all people has improved your experience of life? 

To answer your question would be insulting to the seriousness of the issue. Such understanding is not pursued for personal benefit.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Leo Gura

[r0ckyreed]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You are being too foolish to consider that no one has ever explained how anything at all can exist, and that's because existence of anything cannot be explained.

If you wish you understand existence, stop taking existence for granted.

No there isn't.

Nothing, nowhere, nohow. Process is imaginary.

This is your fundamental mistake.

Everything literally appeared out of nowhere. But you are too dense to see it.

I think if we trace the causes back, it will be an infinite regress problem. And yes, I can see how the tracing of the causes is an imaginary process that conflates the map for the territory. But how we live and survive, we presuppose that there was such a process for things. The mind cannot accept that everything I perceive to exist has no creator, origin, or process. 

From your state of consciousness, if you saw an unknown Amazon package, would you infer that there was a process? It could be a bomb or a book inside for all you know. Our survival mind cannot accept that there was no process; otherwise, we couldn’t exist right now and have this conversation. We could blow up and die from being wrong about what exists inside the box, which from what I hear on the radio/news, that stuff can happen and I know that is hearsay, but it is still possible.

To survive, we assume that external world exists. It may not be a true model but it is helpful for sure. I am just wondering how you would incorporate the insight that there is no external world if you notice that things seem to appear behind the scenes like an unknown Amazon package and the inference of something inside. Doesn’t your mind do that naturally?

I get how everything that I call "existence" is something I perceive or imagine, but when I am looking at an Amazon package, I cannot say for certain what exists inside it, but I know something exists in there that I cannot currently perceive.  What is inside could be almost anything such as a book, a bomb, the wrong book, a movie, a condom, etc. With rationality, I can eliminate such things as a TV, tennis racket, etc. depending on the size of the box. How do you explain all of this?

Edited November 25, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[LastThursday]

4 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

if you saw an unknown Amazon package, would you infer that there was a process?

The appearance of an Amazon package is a literal miracle as are all other appearances. You're correct that there is a process, but it's not the one you think it is.

To get a handle on it, if you ask yourself "what did I have for breakfast?" then it's clear the breakfast is not literally existing right now. It's just your imagination. You have a strong feeling that it's something you experienced, but it's just a feeling nothing more. You may even feel your breakfast in your stomach right now, but it's still not your memory of the breakfast. 

There is no functional difference between something that "happened" to you and it never having happened. The only thing that exists is what you experience right now in the moment, and you work backwards to create a story of how it got here. It's a story of cause and effect; where does a cause end and an effect start? Any process you imagine is no longer in existence - it's all effect and no cause.

So what's the process? Reality is constantly being created from nothing (dreamt) along with all your memories. Stuff over there seems to be connected to stuff over here and you call it "cause and effect" or "process". Reality is like an unfolding fractal with repeating patterns, those repeating patterns are what to materialists refer to as "real" and "matter" and "cause and effect".

[r0ckyreed]

Also, I did an experiment for the external world and this is what happened:

External World Contemplation Experiment

I closed my eyes and spun around the room so that I was completely disoriented and didn't know where anything was.  I used my imagination to move about the room.  And then, I moved about the room with a silent mind.  Just because I close my eyes and turn off my visual field does not mean my other fields turn off as well.  I still have the auditory field that is in waiting mode for any sound to occur upon it.  My tactile field is also still open as I found out the hard way when I moved about the room.  I went around the room touching items and I realize that I was touching what felt like a computer and a guitar.  I know it is my computer and guitar because I feel it.  Why do I doubt that such objects exist when I do not see them?  What makes vision the ultimate authority of consciousness?  This is what I wondered.  It occurred to me that vision and my other senses, including thought are all equal.  No sense is more true than the other.  They are all equally true.  What I call my computer is nothing but my sensations of sight and touch and imagination.  

However, there were two things that happened.  I tried to imagine where everything was.  What makes me think an external world exists is that I imagined my journal being on my desk, but in reality, it was on my bed.  Even when I did not perceive my journal, I imagined it to be in a place where it wasn't.  Now, I don't know if my journal was always on my bed even with eyes closed, but when I used my tactile field, I noticed that I was wrong about where I thought it was.  Everything exists exactly where I left it, or for the most part, where I thought I left it.  How is that possible if an external world does not exist?  My mind was totally wrong for where my journal was, so how can it be solely responsible for where everything is now?  I will have to entertain this thought more because the only way I know any of this is because I perceived it through tactile field and sight when I opened my eyes to see that I was wrong about where I thought my journal was.  This shows me that an objective reality exists in the sense that reality is not just what I think or believe but at the same time, I cannot say that reality exists independent of mind.  But I know it exists independent of what I believe or think about.

Then, I had my eyes closed and I disoriented myself and then I just stood there trying to contemplate what the existence of anything is.  How do I know I exist or have a body?  Etc.  But then, my phone rang and it was the dentist calling me to confirm my appointment.  Lol.  This makes me wonder that how does my phone ring and how does the dentist office call me if they don't exist when I don't perceive them directly?  How do I know it was the dentist who called me?  Because I have their number and answered the phone.  How do I know their office exists beyond my own mind?  I guess I don't know that either for certain.  However, what makes me convinced that it does exist is that the space around me that I perceive is infinite.  Space literally has no walls to it.  The walls of space are contained within space.  Objects cannot exist without space.  If space is infinite and there is an end to my visual field, it must imply that like the tactile field with my eyes closed, it still exists.  Like my auditory field with my eyes closed and no sound, it still exists as potential for all sound.  I may not be able to hear what people are talking about, but I can know that they are talking even if I cannot make out what they are saying.  

I will probably have to do this experiment again because my thoughts on all of this are still not clear.  The only way I know anything exists is because I perceive it and imagine it.  What my experiment revealed is that my imagination can be completely wrong, but my perceptions are completely right.  I was wrong about where I thought my journal was, but my tactile field showed me where it was.  It also revealed to me that we base our whole understanding of the world through primarily the visual field.  We take the visual field as being what the world really is.  But all fields of experience are equal

[r0ckyreed]

Contemplation & Experiment Word for Word Journal Notes:

"What is the external world?  The external world is the idea that something exists and has a nature beyond perception, ideas, and consciousness.  Things exist in a world outside of my subjective experience.

Does the external world exist?  I don't know.

Everything I have ever experienced has been consciousness

What I believe is outside of consciousness is based on an idea right now that I believe I perceived.

My mind creates a narrative-logic of ideas based off of what I perceive.  I hear a sound and the idea of air conditioning or bird is immediately attached to it.

How do I test the hypothesis that there is or is not an external world?

I am imagining a white grand piano in the living room of my grandparents house.  What is that thought? Is there an actual piano beyond my thought?  It seems like everything that exists is my perceptions and ideas.  The actual piano that I believe exists is what I call direct perception/experience.  If I do not directly experience an idea, does the idea have actual existence?  Let's test this.

I closed my eyes and walked around the room.  Just because my visual field is closed doesn't mean my other senses are closed too.  The room and space remain when my eyes are closed, but the room and space when eyes are closed aren't filled with color and vision.  It is just blackness.  The tactile field still exists and perceives the room the same.  My mind has a memory of where my phone and most objects are in the room are.  It has a memory of what my phone and guitar looked like.  But my journal was not where I thought it was.  I imagined it being on my small table, but in reality, I felt it on my bed.

If my awareness of space, touch, and hearing still exist in my room when my eyes are closed, I can assume my thoughts of things outside of my room exist as well.  Why do I prioritize sight as my main perception!!? All perceptions are equal including thought.  Just because I perceive a wall in front of me and hear something behind it, doesn't mean that there is nothing behind the wall because I cannot perceive it.  The visual form of what I am hearing is something I am imagining now, but that does not mean that the visual form of what I am hearing cannot be seen, which that is also an idea that I can see what I am hearing.  But can I really?  A bird is the form I see and the sounds I hear.  That is what a bird is to me.

Even when I don't remember where I put an object, it still exists as potential.  I didn't remember where I put my journal or car keys, but it still existed as touch with my eyes closed.  If I couldn't find my journal with my eyes closed, could it still exist? As an item that can be touched?  The only way I can say anything exists is if I perceive it.  But just because I say anything exists or not, does that mean that it actually exists or not?  The actuality of existence seems to be my perceptions of it.

I spun around with my eyes closed and didn't know my orientation.  Then, I heard a sound from my phone that appeared behind me and I knew where to go.  

The perceptions of this journal right now are more real than the mere idea of it within consciousness. To say that this journal exists means that I can see it, touch it, hear it, smell it, and think of it and of course, write in it.  The journal exists for its perceptions and its utility.  Te reality of my journal when I am not perceiving it is a mere idea that I conceive.  But the question is, when I am not perceiving something or conceiving it, does it exist beyond perception and conception?" 

- r0ckyreed's unfinished contemplation on the external world

[Matthew85]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

To answer your question would be insulting to the seriousness of the issue. Such understanding is not pursued for personal benefit.

@Leo Gura I was asking out of curiosity of how it has impacted and changed your life experience. 

 

 

[Inliytened1]

@r0ckyreed it's pure magic.   That is, to me, the true beauty of Infinity/God.  Any process or mechanism is something it holds within it.  It is not bound by it.   If you think of a brain having a conscious and subconscious mind, well, the magic of Infinity is that it requires no subconscious.  What you imagine to be the subconscious is just that - imaginary.    But then you may wonder, but how can reality, or myself as God, be doing it without me as the ego knowing it?  It has to be happening somewhere or being done somewhere.   But this is the cosmic joke.  That is you imagining there has to be a somewhere where it's being done, or even that anything is being done at all.

[Artsu]

Why do we need proof?

It's intuitively obvious.

[r0ckyreed]

5 hours ago, Artsu said:

Why do we need proof?

To verify claims and conclusions. Ask your doctor next time if we need proof of the effectiveness of your treatment. 

 

5 hours ago, Artsu said:

It's intuitively obvious.

No it isn’t. Nothing is obvious or certain. You can’t even tell whether you are dreaming or not.

[Artsu]

@r0ckyreed

I'm not dreaming.

Be real.

[Razard86]

On 11/21/2022 at 3:49 PM, r0ckyreed said:

On 11/21/2022 at 3:49 PM, r0ckyreed said:

Yes.  I thought about the same thing with Skyrim, GTA, COD, and the most obvious, dreaming.  Like I stated in my other post Awakening Is A Dream, we cannot fully unravel The Dream Doubt.  

Of course.  Of course this whole scenario is something that is being imagined in my mind.  Of course I am imagining that I have an Amazon Package coming tomorrow.  Of course I am imagining someone else reading what I am writing right now.  However, my point still stands that there are many things that I am unaware of that still seem to exist.  I honestly don't know whether there is or is not an external world, but each of us live our lives as if the external world exists.  Every time you send a text message or call your friends or chat with others online assumes that there are other people that exist somewhere beyond your current perceptions, somewhere in the "world."  But I do get that the only "world" I have ever encountered has been my consciousness, perceptions, and ideas.  The issue is that how do I know that my consciousness, perceptions, and ideas are all there is.  You can imagine you are in a dream and that is fine.  But you might as well apply the same logic and question the assumption that life is nothing but a dream.  What if there is something beyond our perceptions?  After all, our perceptions from the point of view of being on Earth tell us that the sun appears to go across the sky, and our perceptions from the point of view from outer space tell us that the Earth is round and we go around the sun.  People knew of this before they ever had a direct experience of it.  So what if, there is something more to consciousness that we cannot perceive?  I honestly have no idea.  I am literally trying to question everything I assume to be true.  I don't want to believe that the external world exists or not, I want to know whether it does.  

I grant you that I have never known anything beyond my mind/consciousness.  Everything I have ever experienced has been within my consciousness, but it makes me wonder how the hell my phone rings out of nowhere?  I mean if all of a sudden, you had an unknown package arrive at your doorstep, your mind would suggest that it didn't just appear out of nowhere, it wasn't delivered by a deer nor an ant.  Some human delivered it and maybe if you are a deductive detective, you could figure out who delivered the package through inference.  Just because we can only infer the external world doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  If there was no external world, how is detective work even possible?  Detectives use their imagination to solve crimes, but their imagination points to a world that exists beyond it.  If it was just my mind constructing reality and that is it, then how is it that murder still happens when I am not there to perceive it or imagine it?  All of this has made me question such claims that there is no external world and reality is nothing but what you perceive because on the contrary, it appears otherwise.  In addition, you would assume there is something inside of the package as well.  Why wrap a package with nothing in it.  You don't know what is inside the package, but you can imagine opening the package and there being a book inside of it.  How is that book in there?  Did it appear there because you opened the package and perceived it or was it because someone wrote the book, sent it to publisher, and then the book was shipped to Amazon facility where it was wrapped and packaged?  The latter answer seems more logically the case.  Even though logic is based off of our perceptions, I find it that just trusting our perceptions alone leaves out a huge chunk of reality undiscovered. Logic tells me that an external world exists and my perceptions tell me that only what I perceive exists.  I am curious to what you have to say to my response here.

Thanks for your time and thoughtful insight here.

 

Rocky.....you really want others to exist. All of your attempts to construct more meaning is because you do not want to realize....that right now you could awaken in a void.....ALL ALONE. You don't want that so you construct scenarios, scenarios in which you know the end point.

1. You have never controlled a dream. No matter what you do your dream will eventually just do its own thing....so bringing up things happening randomly without you realizing it....has never been in your direct experience. So that is not proof you are not doing it. Are you conscious/aware of all times that your heart beating, or that you are breathing? You do that in your sleep fine and you go about your day focusing on other things and that continues to happen. So whether you are aware you are doing something or not has NEVER been a requirement. People sleep walk.... you do not need to be aware of in control to be doing something, only egos believe in control....there is NO CONTROL, there never was.

2. External? Did you really try this rocky? Rocky....have you ever experienced anything OUTSIDE of you? Do you feel pain OUTSIDE OF YOU? Do you experience thoughts OUTSIDE OF YOU? Do you hear sounds OUTSIDE OF YOU? Do you see objects OUTSIDE OF YOU? Where? Where is everything you see located?

What you do is say the body is ME, so anything NOT the body is OUTSIDE of me. So....let's get this straight...your body digests food without your awareness, dreams without your awareness, blinks without your awareness, grows hair and nails without your awareness, but you believe it is ME!!! Even though majority of its function....is without conscious awareness. But yet...the things that you are completely unconscious of...THEY ARE SEPERATE!!! But the irony of....you could say....that whatever you perceive...is you being conscious of it. So since you are perceiving everything...then how can it NOT be you? You say its external....so is external whatever isn't the body? So right now...if you close your eyes....are you now external? 

The physical/matter logic is just a model. Everything you use to describe anything is just a model. Your precious science has just proven that location doesn't exist....this completely destroys the physical/matter logic model. So tell me how...with all the evidence and facts you have been presented...you still asking this? Easy....LOVE. You LOVE others, and you do not like the crumbling of the concept of an "other."

[Leo Gura]

@r0ckyreed Keep playing these games and you will never wake up.

[Osaid]

What does it mean for something to exist? How do you know something doesn't exist?