Consciousness and quantum theory

[phoenixthoth]

the main point for a "reason-worshipping" scientist is the following:

Partly that is the question, but knowledge is not always dependent on intellect. This is where Goedel becomes relevant. Providing the answers to undecidable questions, as we know we can do, is a good example of how our knowledge can outstrip our reasoned proofs, under all circumstances.

one can ask how can you know something you can't reason, you can't prove?
i ask how can you have faith that reason is necessary for knowledge? prove that.

 

[onycho]

Originally posted by Canute

It cannot be referred to directly because, like Spinoza's God, it is an entity (non-entity) that has no external attributes. It is non-dual, and thus cannot be perceived, conceived, described, named etc, since all these was of knowing it are dual. 'Dual' in this sense is tricky to explain and I've never managed to do it well.

There was a great Jewish philospher Moses Maimonides (Rambam) who tried to explain the unknowable nature of the Creator.

You can only describe the Creator in negative attributes as positive attributes can in no way describe that which is undescribable who has no form, shape, dimensions, substance or anything else the human mind can conceive.

Example:

positive attribute: The entity is the greatest of all manifestation.
or He is greater and mightier than all.

negative attribute: There is NONE who is a greater manifestation or
there is NONE mightier than He.

Since there is a dual description of nirvana which cannot be described cogently, can this concept of nirvana be described in a negative manner that would give some concept of Buda's revelation?

(But Irish philosopher Wu Wu Wei and Chuang Tsu do it pretty well and would show up in a search).

Irish philosphers?

One reason it can't be talked about properly is that it is an experience, not a thing, and experiences are impossible to communicate ('incommensurate' is the usual term).

Question: How then did the Buda communicate this experience to his adherents without any certainty of a thing?

But there are deeper reasons. Any assertion about this experience (state of being) is wrong, because any assertion will inevitably assign properties to this state that it does not have. Thus it is wrong to say it exists, yet wrong to say it doesn't.

You are right or maybe wrong about the duality of Buddist thought process.

Hmm. Got lost there. The main point is that Nirvana exists yet it doesn't, depending on which way you choose to look at it. We are forced to adopt a viewpoint in which these properties are either true or false, but all such viewpoints are untrue views. (It may help to relate this to Galilean relativity and motion).

The human mind demands absolutes for understanding unless of course one has the mind of emptyness.

This sounds as if Nirvana is out of reach of human knowledge. But this is not the case. Rather it is out of reach of human reasoning.

That sounds fair. If the Buda was not a demi-god, then nirvana was out of his reach as well according to your own statement.

In Buddhism creation is all there is. Everything is always beginning.

If everything always has a beginning and creation is always there, then was there a start to everything or was there an infinite reincarnation?

It's a very practical approach (Buddhism has been called 'the serious pursuit of happiness') but not an easy one. Buddhists talk of progress towards bliss in terms of zillions of lifetimes. (In my own case I suspect even this might not be long enough). However they also talk about it in terms of being just one small step. Apparent contradictions are endemic to non-dual desriptions of things, if it wasn't then those descriptions wouldn't be non-dual).

If you measure ZILLIONS of lifetimes, then you are talking about an infinite universe, as the Big Bang has not had times for that many reincarnations.

Do you mean like this: (not my capitals)

FAR AWAY IN THE HEAVENLY ABODE OF THE GREAT GOD INDRA, THERE IS A WONDERFUL NET WHICH HAS BEEN HUNG BY SOME CUNNING ARTIFICER IN SUCH A MANNER THAT IT STRETCHES OUT INDEFINITELY IN ALL DIRECTIONS. IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EXTRAVAGANT TASTES OF DEITIES, THE ARTIFICER HAS HUNG A SINGLE GLITTERING JEWEL AT THE NET'S EVERY NODE, AND SINCE THE NET ITSELF IS INFINITE IN DIMENSION, THE JEWELS ARE INFINITE IN NUMBER. THERE HANG THE JEWELS, GLITTERING LIKE STARS OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE, A WONDERFUL SIGHT TO BEHOLD. IF WE NOW ARBITRARILY SELECT ONE OF THESE JEWELS FOR INSPECTION AND LOOK CLOSELY AT IT, WE WILL DISCOVER THAT IN ITS POLISHED SURFACE THERE ARE REFLECTED ALL THE OTHER JEWELS IN THE NET, INFINITE IN NUMBER. NOT ONLY THAT, BUT EACH OF THE JEWELS REFLECTED IN THIS ONE JEWEL IS ALSO REFLECTING ALL THE OTHER JEWELS, SO THAT THE PROCESS OF REFLECTION IS INFINITE

THE AVATAMSAKA SUTRA
FRANCIS H. COOK: HUA-YEN BUDDHISM : THE JEWEL NET OF INDRA 1977

Did you mean that this jewel incrusted net by Avatamsaka Sutra was a metaphor for understanding unreality or an illusion that was merely assumed to exist? The hologram decribed is merely a reflection in a dimension that when cut into segments are exact copies of the original hologram. A sort of illusion as seen in our life experience.

As I understand it the Buddha set out to understand suffering and ended up understanding existence. He concluded that consciousness is fundamental and that in its limit state it is a non-dual experience that is eternally blissful. He asserts that 'we' all can achieve this state, but not without effort, introspection and the banishing of all our day to day assumptions in favour of certainties.

So the Buda (1)sets out (2) understands (3)concludes and (4) asserts things that he came to understand in his own conscious mind even in the absence or presence of thinking. Do any of the above statements constitute proof of some eternal truth?

In a lot of ways Theosophy agrees with Buddhism, so you might like this:

Your site was very interesting but it is my understanding that Theosophy is a system of beliefs and teachings of the Theosophical Society, founded in New York City in 1875, incorporating aspects of Buddhism and Brahmanism, especially the belief in reincarnation and spiritual evolution.

Ergo, Theosophy is considered as part of the philosophy of the Buda.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by onycho
There was was a great Jewish philospher Moses Maimonides (Rambam) who tried to explain the unknowable nature of the Creator.

You can only describe the Creator in negative attributes as positive attributes can in no way describe that which is undescribable who has no form, shape, dimensions, substance or anything else the human mind can conceive.

Example:

positive attribute: The entity is the greatest of all manifestation.
or He is greater and mightier than all.

negative attribute: There is NONE who is a greater manifestation or
there is NONE mightier than He.

Since there is a dual description of nirvana which cannot be described cogently, can this concept of nirvana be described in a negative manner that would give some concept of Buda's revelation?

Afraid not. Negative implies positive, as your example shows.

Irish philosphers?

Yeah, a very famous one. Here's some of his words.

"That implied Unicity, the totality of undivided mind, is itself a concept of its own division or duality, for relatively - relatively being relative to what itself is - it cannot or known at all.

All that could ever be known about it is simply that, being Absolute, it must necessarily be devoid of any kind of objective existence whatsoever, other than that of the totality of all possible phenomena which constitute its appearance".

Wu Wu Wei from 'The Ultimate Understanding' Ramesh Balsekar.

Not trying to browbeat you, but just to give an impression of how common this view is here are some different expressions of it.

"There is something undifferentiated and yet complete, which is born before heaven and earth. Soundless and formless, it stands alone and does not change. It goes round and does not weary. It is capable of being the mother of the universe. I do not know its name. I call it the Tao."

Lao Tzu - Translation adapted from Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching Baltimore: Penguin (1963), p. 91.

Mathematician Robert Kaplan, a fan of Parmeniedes, puts is more straightforwadly:

“The world may not only be more singular than we think, it may be more singular than we can think. “

Robert Kaplan ‘The Nothing That Is’

Also physicist Erwin Schroedinger (can't find the original source at the moment):

Nirvana is a state of pure blissful knowledge...It has nothing to do with the individual. The ego or its separation is an illusion. Indeed in a certain sense two ‘I’s’ are identical, namely, when one disregards all their special content—their Karma...When a man dies, his karma lives and creates for itself another carrier.

Question: How then did the Buda communicate this experience to his adherents without any certainty of a thing?

He didn't. He just did his best to help and encourage them to have the experience for themselves.

You are right or maybe wrong about the duality of Buddist thought process.

I agree.

The human mind demands absolutes for understanding unless of course one has the mind of emptyness.

That sounds right ay first glance but I've never thoughty about it like that. I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean. (Emptiness is an absolute).

That sounds fair. If the Buda was not a demi-god, then nirvana was out of his reach as well according to your own statement.

No. Just ultimately out of reach of his reasoning.

If everything always has a beginning and creation is always there, then was there a start to everything or was there an infinite reincarnation?

Buddhists agree with others that something cannot come from nothing. The cosmos is eternal, timeless, both or neither. In Buddhism it is both or neither, depending on how you look at it, but has to be explained as eternal or timeless because of the way we think and conceive.

This sounds paradoxical, which is a key attribute of true statements about reality in Buddhism. But it isn't actually paradoxical on analysis.

If you measure ZILLIONS of lifetimes, then you are talking about an infinite universe, as the Big Bang has not had times for that many reincarnations.

Yes.

Did you mean that this jewel incrusted net by Avatamsaka Sutra was a metaphor for understanding unreality or an illusion that was merely assumed to exist?

It's a metaphor for dependent existence and the phenomenal world. The Jewel Net's own existence, (or rather the existence of the jewels), is dependent on what underlies it, namely emptiness.

The hologram decribed is merely a reflection in a dimension that when cut into segments are exact copies of the original hologram. A sort of illusion as seen in our life experience.

Ok. What underlies the hologram in this theory?

So the Buda (1)sets out (2) understands (3)concludes and (4) asserts things that he came to understand in his own conscious mind even in the absence or presence of thinking. Do any of the above statements constitute proof of some eternal truth?

No they don't. Such a proof is impossible ex hypothesis is Buddhism. This is why experience plays the central role, rather than incomplete axiomatic systems of proof.

Your site was very interesting but it is my understanding that Theosophy is a system of beliefs and teachings of the Theosophical Society, founded in New York City in 1875, incorporating aspects of Buddhism and Brahmanism, especially the belief in reincarnation and spiritual evolution.

I thought that the European Theosophical societies predated this, but you may be right.

Ergo, Theosophy is considered as part of the philosophy of the Buda. [/B]

Again you may be right. I know very little about its roots. I've never bothered to explore it much because I thought it was complete nonsense until recently.

 

[Canute]

Just found this by accident. It seemed relevant and it's very good. It's an essay about Gnosticism and Buddhism in 'The Matrix'.

http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/new_phil_fr_intro.html

 

[onycho]

Originally posted by Canute

Just found this by accident. It seemed relevant and it's very good. It's an essay about Gnosticism and Buddhism in 'The Matrix'.

The Matrix is, at its core, a film with a moral plot. We, the viewers, like the heroes, are in on a secret: The reality that forms the lives of millions of human beings is not real. The world that seems real to most people is in fact a computer-generated simulation, but almost no one knows it. In reality human beings are floating in liquid in machine pods, with tubes connected to them in a grotesque post-apocalyptic world where the sun is blotted out.

Interesting essay you found Canute.

Many of the thoughts in this very interesting philosophical movie are my own as well but I think that there is a much deeper concept being missed.

Who, what and how is the illusion of reality generated in this computer-generated (or giant hologram) simulation that humans individually perceive as real and earthbound? Accordingly, all the laws of nature, physics, biochemistry, gravity, energy are just constructs of our consciousness.

I personally believe that like the double helix DNA encoded protein molecules that we assume to form the differentiation of one fertilized ova into all the varied tissues, complex organization of enzymes, hormones and all the millions of the human being irreducible complexity there in reality exists a similar encoded string of encrypted letters that form a code which represents the blueprint for the creation of all things.

The base is 26 separate individual letters comprising a total of some 304,805 letters in a long multilayered hologram which is in my opinion encrypted to be this very real blueprint that like the DNA molecule forms the nature of our conscious awareness of all existence in our virtual reality.

Looking at this from my perspective also requires an omniscient prime force that is responsible for all things including this blueprint encrypted code. That force also exits in a timeless state that scientists predict to exist around the very extreme gravity collapsing of dead stars.

Thereby there is a reality as suggested by your Matrix movie that not only puts us in an assumed place and time but trapped by bounds in which humanity cannot go beyond like traveling backward into time or flying with our arms to the nearest galaxy we imagine being present in our mind vats.

But this concept is only my individual construct which is limited by our finite ability to know any reality. Maybe there are hidden signs that are right in front of us which can lead us to some heretofore unknown truth.

 

[phoenixthoth]

Who, what and how is the illusion of reality generated in this computer-generated (or giant hologram) simulation that humans individually perceive as real and earthbound? Accordingly, all the laws of nature, physics, biochemistry, gravity, energy are just constructs of our consciousness.

that is the million dollar question, now isn't it?

that those are constructions of our consciousness is simply too outragous to be true, is it not?

i can't prove the answer, but i am lead to believe that our consciousnesses as well as the other things you mentioned, are the constructs of a consciousness greater than our individual consciousness. i do not believe, however, that it is a computer though in accordance with max tegmark's ensemble theory of everything paper, it may be a self-aware, and possibly aware of us, logical-mathematical framework that we exist in the context of. this uber consciousness itself may be apart of a greater uber consciousness and then the question is what, if any, is the greatest, uber uber consciousness of all consciousnesses? i believe it may be logic, perhaps many valued logic, itself for that is the most general mathematical structure in existence. so the hierarchy may be like this:
our consciousness is or is like a diff-able manifold of dimension q.
the uber consciousness is or is like the multiverse is or is like a manifold of dimension r. q <= r. I'm going to guess for no reason that q=5 and r=11.
...
the uber uber consciousness is logic not having dimension per se.

this uber uber consciousness has other names given by different people, some way less popular than others and if i named them here, what i just wrote may lose all credibility (if it had any to begin with).

 

[pelastration]

just watch your own thinking. It is all the time shifting attention. Three seconds on your coffee, then 10 sec. on your computer, then 1 sec. on pain in your left knee, then 15 sec. on the girl on the street, ... all the time shifting from one level of reality (inside body, visual sensoring outside, auditive radio, etc). It's a shift of various frequencies/dimensions. These dimensions have each a number of memories and possibilities to adapt their memories.
That's all.
Consciousness is a global body system, not just a brain system.

Just analyze for three minutes yourself and see how many impressions of different kind and intensity goes through you. Observer yourself. And try to write it down. Then tell us. Describe us 3 minutes of your consciousness. OK? Try it, Do it!

 

[pelastration]

My three minutes:
- hear a song on the radio: Golden brown.
- look to my browser and see in the left corner the color gray. A nice color.
- My emailer has a red flag.
- my jeans gives a friction on my knees.
- a little pain in my head on the right side.
- notice that I blink my eyes
- observing myself and ask myself what to write
- another song on the radio ... don't know it ... it makes me nervous.
- don't want to spend the time to change radiostation
- touching my noze
- I spelled noze ... the spelling-corrected indicated it with a red line. I changed it to nose.
- I drink a bite of my beer.
- my right Jupiter finger tinkles
...

So maybe 4 minutes ...
What's yours ... ?
When I reread the first line I notice that indeed past ... I can remember but ... it's no longer NOW.

 

[phoenixthoth]

do you hear the grasshopper?

 

[pelastration]

Originally posted by phoenixthoth
do you hear the grasshopper?

sure.
http://www.hashish.co.uk/

 

[pelastration]

Originally posted by phoenixthoth
do you hear the grasshopper?

What about your 3 minutes?