Why do people claim their experience is conscious?

[WeCome1]

On 5/28/2023 at 2:53 AM, davecraw said:

Well then let's analyze the idea that only the experience of typing this message out exists. This message is the one posted with the davecraw account. Is that what people are claiming only exists?

In your other thread, @Water by the River provided links to another discussion; there is a link to the video of Francis Lucille where he attempts to explain how come your apparent experience is limited while the consciousness it appears in is unlimited. The guy is difficult to listen to, but give it a go.

Indeed, think about it: did "your direct experience 10 seconds ago" happen? Did it EXIST? Does it NOW? Well, "the direct experience of @WeCome1 typing out this answer" exists to the exact same extent as "your 10 seconds ago".

The difficulty of wrapping your mind around this is, as @OldManCorcoran tirelessly points out, due to the idea you currently have that there are points of view which belong to some entities (subjects of perception); doesn't matter if you conceive of those entities as "points of perception", or "fields of perception smeared all over the phenomena", or some "void that is aware" or anything else, does not really matter. As long as there is any sort of a "subject" - it is, implicitly, finite. And, since it is finite - it must either be one (which points to solipsism) or many (which is a more conventional view). I will not discuss solipsism (Razard is doing a fine job, check any of his threads). But the paradigm of "many subjects", almost by definition, implies that the point of view of each of them exists "somewhere", in parallel with yours; this is what you currently feel like is happening, correct?

However, if, hypothetically, we were to get rid of the notion of there existing those entities-subjects, we would not need to jump through all those hoops regarding "what experiences exist, and where do they go when nobody's looking, and do they interact in any way, and what if a tree falls in the forest when nobody's there to hear it?.." It solves, by discarding as irrelevant, the questions of deep sleep, death, reincarnation, karma (belonging to someone) etc. There is this giant, total, infinite "mind"; within it, in the state of "super-position", are all potential "experiences" that could be experienced; they "are" there in a sense that they could become manifested in it; and they "aren't" - in a sense that this mind "forgets" them when it focuses on or manifests another experience. You tell me, how many of those there "exist".

But it's all just words. More concepts attempting to describe THAT; a hand trying to grab itself. You don't need it, it's of no use. What you do need is to learn how to achieve the clarity of mind necessary for this to either become self-evident or get disproven as a neo-advaita bullshit another forum member is parroting.

Edited May 29, 2023 by WeCome1

[Reciprocality]

Saying that you are conscious is not a claim about yourself, but is instead an affirmation of existence itself, it is most often called self-consciousness, congratulations you have discovered what characterises the whole species to which you belong.

The reason you are aware of existing is irreducible, it is the only thing there exists, you can even discover through logical reasoning that the meaning of this realisation is inapplicable to anything else than whatever it came from, that it amounts to a contradiction to speak about an existence without self-awareness. 

We could infer from this argument that a cat though it seems to live a fairly long time lives only in proportion to how much it self-realises, and that this tick-rate makes the cat who lives from 2010 to 2023 actually only experience what would to us be a couple of weeks.

Regarding things like "atoms in themselves" there is no time at all, for time is only meaningful in the contexts of the things in the mind.

 

Edit: This should help the possible confusion of the first phrase: a claim about yourself is dual to to self of which there is a claim, and is actually the means by which existence affirms itself.

Edited May 29, 2023 by Reciprocality

[Reciprocality]

Existence says through the creation of you that it is and every quasi-substance of the senses, and every self-subsistent concept is a necessary means for existence to be actual.

It is fucking amazing, I can not believe how amazing it is.