A personal understanding of the world

[elendal]

This topic is so vast that I'm not even certain I should be trying to explain my views in the first place, but it may be interesting to someone out there. I'll try to do it in as few words as possible.

Unlike monotheistic religions which describe God as a person that looks at the world, my view is much more closer to what I believe I understand as the Great Spirit. Actually, I believe the whole world, including all that we do and don't see, is the consciousness that some choose to call God. So you could say God is us (and ALL the other life out there), or God is in us, or we are in God. All of that would be both true and false at the same time from my point of view.

We are just very, very small consiousnesses. Drops of water in the vast ocean of consciousness which is all. And, just as this vast ocean of consciousness consists of small drops which we experience as ourselves, so do we consist of event smaller drops. Maybe there's some kind of consciuos atom, in a sense it cannot be devided any further. Who knows...

That would be my simplest explanation.

In the light of this view, there is no death as an end of existence. It may be quite possible that we gain some parts of our consciousness when we are born in order to live a human life, and lose it when we die.

Some may understand this as reincarnation, but it's not. There is nothing that guarantees we'll return in another human life in the same conscious form we now recognize as ourselves. Actually, from what I've read, buddhists don't approve of western understanding of reincarnation. Instead, they believe that what is being reborn over and over again is "an emanation". Some sort of an essence, not a personality. Personality is something gained at birth and lost at death.

Once I tried to explain the reason for our existence to myself and others. It made me wonder what is outside the world, outside that vast ocean of consciouness. Then it struck me. What if that ocean is enclosed in itself? It cannot sense anything outside. The only thing that can be sensed is the consciousness itself. Can you imagine yourselves being such a consciousness? No sight, no touch, no sound... Absolutely nothing to be sensed outside, whether that ouside exists or not. What would you do then? You KNOW you exist, you ARE aware of yourself. But WHY? WHO are you?

What would you do? The only answer I could come up with, is that I would create a world to experience. Not by myself, as it would take forever, but by all the parts of myself that can experience. The more consciounesses, the more experience and potential understanding. Thus, the world came to be.

Just my personal explanation of something that none of us can really explain. Maybe there's some truth to it, maybe not. Who knows...

 

[superluminal]

elendal,

That is just one of an infinity of intriguing speculations on the nature of consciousness and existence. I think along similar lines all the time. You titled the thread "A personal understanding of the world" which is the way it should be. You don't sound like you've made it the cornerston of your life philosophy and aren't going to found a religion around it. This is good. It's the "what if's" scattered throughout your post that make one a scientist at heart.

Your post caught my eye because it reminds me of a buddhist saying that stays with me: "For the raindrop, joy is entering the river". It speaks to the oneness that is at once everything and nothing that is at the heart of zen buddhism. Good shit, man.

 

[elendal]

"For the raindrop, joy is entering the river". It speaks to the oneness that is at once everything and nothing that is at the heart of zen buddhism. Good shit, man.

Thanks.

When you really think of it, all we think we know we actually believe we know. Is there really something than can be proven as "real" whether in our thoughts or in physical world? The fact that we can touch something doesn't really prove anything, except that we can touch it.

For that reason, I'm always cautious with what I believe and never try to make it a religious "fact" neither for me nor anyone else. Who says I know anything? I don't.

I simply like understanding. The world is sort of a puzzle to me, and I try to solve some small pieces I encounter in my life. Sometimes those pieces fit together, sometimes not. Sometimes they fit so beatifully that I just have to place that part along with other equally beautiful parts, and make them a sort of a-never-finished painting of my beliefs. In a way, it reminds me of art.

I don't know Zen that much, but I like it.

 

[spiritual_spy]

Nice post. Kinda works the minda little.

 

[superluminal]

elendal,

Nice philosophy.

If you look over at some of the insanity occurring in other current threads here, you will see some interesting things. The fundamental thing that underlies most of it is epistemology - basically "how we know what we know". Your idea that we can't prove that anything "really" exists is a philosophical one at best. The practical reality is that there actually is an objective world, independent of the individual. Claiming otherwise strikes me as a bit of human ego-centrism.

The word belief as commonly understood, as I've said before, is a kind stop-gap for when there is not enough information to make a more solid statement of proof or fact. It's fine to believe whatever you want as long as you realise the extent of your belief.

There are clearly some practical categories of knowledge re facts vs beliefs.

1) Some facts:
- Gravity is locally attractive
- Lifeforms on earth evolve
- 'c' is the limiting speed for material objects in our universe

These are supported by direct, overwhelming observational and experimental evidence such that we no longer question them as a part of our framework of knowledge as they relate to new subjects. In other words, they are fundamental truths. Nevertheless, this does not mean that an example that violates one of these "fundamentals" can't exist.

2) Some highly informed assertions:
- Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of massive, complex neural networks
- The universe is infinite in extent
- Singularities (black holes) exist (almost category 1)
- Modern democracies yield the highest happiness quotient for their citizens and have the strongest economies of any form of government yet tried

These are things that are pointed to by large amounts of converging data, theory, and lines of investigation. There is a high likelyhood of them being correct, but they are not fundamental in the way category 1 knowledge is.

Some beliefs:
- Our universe is contained in a dust mote on the lapel of an accountant in a larger "metaverse".
- God(s) exist as objective beings in the cosmos
- Prayer has an objectively real effect on physical events
- Spirits exist
- UFO's (i.e. alien spaceships) are visiting the earth in large numbers

These are ideas that are not supported by anything but personal claims. In fact, there is a large amount of contradictory evidence for most of them, and solid evidence (in the form of cat 2 knowledge) to refute some of them. In other words, they fall into the category of cocktail-hour chit-chat. Some of them seem to have profound importance for the "believers" and there is good psychological/neurobiological evidence that they stem from innate brain configurations that evolved as survival mechanisms.

 

[oxypunk101]

I agree, good post elendal. For the part as how we can not really be sure of anything, I totally agree. It seems that even people on these forums forget that science does not state undisputable truths. Rather the way I see it, facts are just descriptions. The difference between the facts coming from science and religion per say is that the facts coming from science are much more observable, thus often accepted as truth. All we are really doing is trying to describe the world as accurately as we can, but clearly many of us choose different descriptions to take to heart.


elendal

"When you really think of it, all we think we know we actually believe we know. Is there really something than can be proven as "real" whether in our thoughts or in physical world? The fact that we can touch something doesn't really prove anything, except that we can touch it." elendal

My take on this is our ability to describe the nature of the world is directly effected by our senses. How can we be sure what our senses our giving us truthful information? Even if our senses are giving us truthful information what says our minds decipher the senses 100% correct. This leads me to agree with you that we can never be sure what we can not be absolutely sure of anything. None the less, this is the information we have and need work it as much as we can.

Parts of this may be off topic, but in light of your thread I decided to share some of my views as well.

 

[c7ityi_]

WHO are you?

we are all the same self (god) in different bodies.

- 'c' is the limiting speed for material objects in our universe

there are particles that go faster than light.

- Singularities (black holes) exist (almost category 1)

no one has ever seen a black hole, they've never been proven, singularities are mathematical abstractions, they can't be part of the real material world.

your so called facts are personal beliefs.

 

[spiritual_spy]

we are all the same self (god) in different bodies.



there are particles that go faster than light.



no one has ever seen a black hole, they've never been proven, singularities are mathematical abstractions, they can't be part of the real material world.

your so called facts are personal beliefs.

Your nonsense is getting annoying. Unless you have reasonable proof please refrain from babbling.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Your nonsense is getting annoying. Unless you have reasonable proof please refrain from babbling.

*************
M*W: Don't hold your breath!

 

[c7ityi_]

Your nonsense is getting annoying. Unless you have reasonable proof please refrain from babbling.

no one has ever proven anything, you can only make it sound reasonable.

 

[spiritual_spy]

no one has ever proven anything, you can only make it sound reasonable.

Then make your point sound reasonable.

 

[elendal]

Your idea that we can't prove that anything "really" exists is a philosophical one at best.

Good observation. Yes, the question is a philosophical one.

My take on this is our ability to describe the nature of the world is directly effected by our senses.

That's my thought also. Puting aside the physical world and all of its manifestations which we observe every day, is there really something that you can see as undeniable and self-proving fact? I tried to find such a fact and came up with the only thing that seemed to be such a fact for me - my existence. Something along the line of "I think, therefore - I am". I would say it more like "I am aware of myself, therefore - I exist". My awarness is the only thing I can really sense directly, while everything else I sense indirectly. I can only assume that my senses translate what is really there, but I can't prove it as a fact (remember the movie Matrix? )

Taking it to a level of absurdity, I can only assume you exist, but it's really the same from your sides as well. You have the fact you exist, and you can only assume I exist as well. For all the practical purposes, we always assume others exists. Otherwise, there would be no point in doing anything, would it?

Assuming doesn't mean either a fact or illusion of something. It's just a degree of probability of something.

For example, you've never seen water flowing upwards, have you? I havent. I will not go into physics of fluids and fluid surface forces which, under some special conditions like super fluidity, allow for such an event to occur. Those conditions allow for only small drops of water to behave in such a way. For the purpose of discussion, I am talking of a river-running-up-the-hill kind of event.

It goes against the law of gravity that something can flow, on its own, in the opposite direction from the gravitational pull, correct? So, you can assume with some probability that the water can't flow upwards. The probability of anywhere between 0.0..1% to 99.9..9%. Why not from 0% to 100%? It's again my assumption that nothing has those probabilities. Why? I start with the assumption that everything that can be imagined has at least some probability, and since everything is probably imaginable, nothing has the probability od 0%. And since 100% is 1-0%, and 0% is not probable, so is 100% not probable either. These are all assumptions, of course.

Returning to the water's inability to flow upwards, let's start with the assumption of 99.9..9% it can't. But, what if you expirienced such an event? After trying to explain it using all the known laws of physics, and failing, you remain faced with such event. What would be your first reaction after failing to explain it? Mine would be to lower my assumption from 99.9..9% to somewhere around 50%, and trying to find a new law that could explain it.

Basically, that's just what the physics is doing all the time. It describes something, and assumes the description is correct as long as an exception doesn't occur. When and if such an exception occurs, the laws (the formulae, to be precise) are modified in order to include the exception.

So, you can really say science is an ongoing work of trying to describe all the forces of nature. The science facts of today (those 99.9..9% assumptions) are the science assumptions of tomorrow (those 50% assumptions).

Why did I explain my view using gravity as an example?

Recently I stumbled upon a theory that predicts that gravity may become repulsive over very great distances. It's not a mainstream theory, but it got the first prize on some science contest. It's called "Heim's Quantum Theory". Basically, the theory tries to join the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics into one theory. That has been a problem for science ever since the quantum mechanics was introduced. Einstein spent almost half of his life trying to do just that, so you know it's a pretty hard thing to do.

You can read some of the theory here:
http://www.hpcc-space.de/publications/documents/

The most informative documents for me were these:
http://www.hpcc-space.de/publicatio...vancedSpacePropulsionAIAA-paper-2002-4094.pdf
http://www.hpcc-space.de/publications/documents/aiaa2004-3700-a4.pdf
http://www.hpcc-space.de/publications/documents/AIAA2005-4321Letter.pdf (if I'm not mistaken, this one got the prize)

They're a bit hard to read for someone not acquianted with quantum mechanics, but you can skip all the formulae most of the time and read everything else.

In line with my previous explanation, this theory wouldn't be the theory that explains everything either. The theory that would explain everything would have to explain itself as well. This one doesn't do that either, but if it's correct, it's such a great leap from the current mainstream theories, and perfectly describes my point.