Mason Riggle

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Everything posted by Mason Riggle

  1. Ask him, 'if there was no experience of a physical reality, what would it mean for reality to 'exist'? It would be the same as 'non-existence'. (with no 'experiencer' to experience physical reality, whom would it exist to?) For something to 'exist', is to be able to experience that thing. It's 'the experience' that makes it so. Experience is apriori.. contents of experience are secondary to experience itself.
  2. @Daniel347 I'm not sure there are logical answers. Where is 'physical reality'? Everywhere... but that's not a nice neat little answer which physicists like..
  3. @The0Self sure.. the Universe is playing peek-a-boo.. pretending to be separate from itself so that it can 'know itself', and when it remembers who it really is, the game is over, and it's time to play again.
  4. @Daniel347 ask him where physically reality is located. (can he demonstrate it to be anywhere other than 'in his experience of it'?.. perhaps then point out that physically reality exists within experience, and not the other way around.. that there is some experience is certain.. it's self evident.. but we may always be mistaken about the contents of experience.. could be a dream or a simulation or a hallucination etc..). Or ask him who is closer to the center of 'physical reality'.. you or him?
  5. @The0Self nice. In relative terms, however... an organism can become aware of it's own thoughts, and recognize that what it mistakes to be a 'thinker of thoughts' hiding somewhere inside itself (a self, or a soul) is just more thoughts arising. There isn't a 'thinker of thoughts' inside of a brain any more than there is a 'grower of hair' inside a brain.. (or think of a tree, with a separate 'grower of leaves' inside the tree telling the tree what leaves to grow.. there isn't one. Trees are happening.. leaves are growing). Thoughts are arising.. Hair is growing.. It's all happening and no one is doing it.. this is a thought that can arise which can dispel the myth of a 'separate self' who 'does things'. This is how egos die.
  6. @Inliytened1 egos can erode themselves into non-existence, like a whirlpool eroding the riverbed until the whirlpool vanishes. It should be recognized, however, that 'egos', like whirlpools, don't really exist apart from 'that which is not ego' (you can't take a 'whirlpool' out of a river and show it to me.. it doesn't exist 'independent' of the river, it's a function of the whole river.. 'whirlpooling' is what the river does now and again). Ego is a function of mind.. and depending on how mind is being, egos arise and dissolve... 'egoing' is what the Universe does now and again.
  7. You'll never find the darkness by shining a flashlight on it to look for it.
  8. 'Trying to be yourself' and 'trying not to be yourself' are the same thing.. both are 'what you are doing' when you do them, and 'what you are doing' is always 'being yourself'.
  9. If you cut holes in a net, you make fewer holes in the net.
  10. @Tyler Durden yes, separation is 'illusion'. Where is the separation between 'the inside of a cup' and 'the outside of a cup'? Only in your head.
  11. Do I have to 'try' to stop trying? Do you see the paradox here? This is why people say 'you are already enlightened'. It can be recognized that there is no 'trying'.. nothing to 'do', other than 'just be', which you are already always doing effortlessly.
  12. @Tyler Durden 'being imagined' > this is the proper way to think about it. Not being imagined by someone or something.. just 'being imagined', full stop. The words 'created', 'experienced', 'dreamt', etc. can be substituted 'imagined' and mean the same thing. Reality is 'being experienced'. There is no 'by who?' Everything being experienced is all there is. You're all of that. "I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware." - Alan Watts Up is defined relative to down (that which is not up). You are defined by 'that which is not you'. Who am I? My thoughts? My skin? My emotions? My memories? My experiences? All things which are 'not me'. If I am all of those things.. then I'm also my car, and my neighbors, and my job, and my trees...
  13. If the ego is not real, who do you suppose it is who awakens? Enlightened persons are dreamed/imagined by who? The 'ego' is imaginary separation.. ego arises when it's imagined that there is a 'you' separate from 'that which is not you'. Awakening is when this imaginary separation ceases to be.
  14. ? I'm always being myself effortlessly. Any attempt to do otherwise is just more me being myself.
  15. This assumes there's a boundary between real and imaginary;) Row row row your boat, gently down the stream.. Merrily merrily merrily merrily
  16. @Whatever I have no free will therefor what??? What are the implications? I think if you actually sat down and considered what the implications and ramifications would be, you might discover that it's not problematic, but rather, the opposite.
  17. @cetus manifesting or masquerading? ? Good one. Succinct
  18. This moment is exactly how it seems, even if it's not. If it were different than how it seems, it won't seem any different until it does, in which case it will still be exactly how it seems.
  19. @Breakingthewall yep. The ego comes and goes like whirlpools in a river. And like the ego, whirlpools don't exist separate from 'what the river is doing'.. You can't take a whirlpool out of a river and show it to me. Whirlpools appear as patterns in rivers, and don't actually 'do' anything other than be how they are, when they are, if they are. Sure a whirlpool makes bubbles, and swirls around, and erodes the riverbed, and sucks things in.. all kinds of things a whirlpool does.. but is it really DOING those things? If it was aware that it was, and produced thoughts instead of bubbles, one thought that might bubble up is 'I'm doing this..' I am responsible for all these things I do.. Me, the whirlpool.
  20. @Iksander It's always now. There is no 'independent of'.. which implies something separate from something else. This eternal moment (the past doesn't exist anywhere other than this moment, nor does the future) is all there is, and you're it. I'm it. There's nothing separate from 'everything'. You are already effortlessly being yourself, and any attempt to do otherwise is just more you being yourself. There is one path, and you're already on it.
  21. @Iksander "I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware." - Alan Watts.
  22. @Iksander yep. Consider, is your hand 'part of you' or 'external to you'? Both, yes? If the 'you' who own's 'your hand' or is aware of 'your hand' is not identical to 'your hand', then who are you? If 'your hand' is part of 'you'.. then 'your neighbor' is just as much a part of you. "Am I doing all of this, or is all of this doing me?" - Alan Watts
  23. @r0ckyreed I used to be a member of several very active 'Determinism' facebook groups where it was talked about to death. Many come to the realization the neither 'determinism' nor 'indeterminism' (should such a concept be rational) give room for 'free will' in the sense of being able to do 'other' than exactly what one will do. And since 'determinism' isn't necessary to be 'true' to show 'free will' to be a nonsensical notion, people may actively avoid the topic in favor of 'experiential' evidence of the lack of free will, rather than logical proofs.