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Direct experience. Only that which you have directly experienced should be trusted.

Are you guys done yet? So.. This whole idealism /solipsism philosophy (which is Leo's position) is just inapplicable and unfalsifiable. Simply put..... You don't know that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. Right? .... This world falls into the same conception. You just don't know. At the practical level however.. To survive in the world.. .. You don't think of your bank account as something your fluffy consciousness are imagining right? Oh no no no.. You think it's objectively existing. That's all you need to know. You don't need to be certain about it. You can't be certain (see dream argument above). All you need is to adopt the most applicable and practical philosophy.

Testing direct experience. When monkey mind goes skeptical of direct experience. Why is direct experience the criteria for truth? And based on direct experience one can only ever be certain of the content of his own experience. And cannot validate or invalidate the existence of a third person objective world behind the surface of appearance. Point one thing.. Just one freaking thing that exists outside of your direct experience right now.. You might say "well the pyramids in Egypt they exist there and they are not in my direct experience now".. No! There is no pyramids and no Egypt and no "there".. All that exists in actuality right this moment is whatever you are experiencing right now + the belief or ideas that there is something existing outside of that which is actually occurring (the belief) inside of that. The idea that there is something existing outside of direct experience is just an Idea that is occurring inside direct experience!!!!! One can't get around this.

@mandyjw thanks. Will check it out

A common question that gets asked here is "does the external world exist"? Example question........ Does planet Mars exist while one is not perceiving it? Answer : Nothing exists for the you/me except the stuff that is occurring in your (my) direct experience in the NOW. Existence =NOW. Ideas about here and there.. Now and then and back then.. Up there and down here..themselves must occur NOW for them to be just more concepts occurring again NOW. It's not that there is an absolute static truth about whether "Mars" "exists".. There is no such thing as "Mars".. For all you know mars could be exploding and getting destroyed now.. So it exists at one point and it doesn't exist in the next moment. How about when you are dreaming and completely lost in your dream..mars doesn't exist in the context of your dream world. Just like a flying spaghetti monster does not exist in this world as far as we can tell.. But who knows maybe it exists in some other dimension! You see it's all relative. Identity itself is relative to time and change. Existence itself is relative to a frame of reference and to an observer. So does mars exist? Yes and no without a doubt relative to whatever one imagines this question even "means" lol. But don't go looking for an absolute answer. No idea is absolute.

Truth =pure being =actuality =direct experience =sensation, feeling, emotions, consciousness. Thoughts Are and aren't Truth. They are the Truth since they are directly experienced. They aren't the Truth sometimes in terms of the validity of the thought story.

So I replied the following today to a topic regarding enlightenment and Truth. enlightenment is simply you becoming directly conscious of the absolute Truth of existence. Absolute clarity about what is Truth and what isn't. Do you want to become enlightened??? Take out your hand and look at it.. And recognize that your hands are actual. They are Real. They are the absolute Truth. And recognize that all your concepts about Truth in your minds(thoughts) are not the Truth. Compare all your thoughts and concepts with the sensation of your hands.. Notice that your hands are Truth. While all your thoughts (without exception) are nonsense. There is only the Truth. Everything you are experiencing right now is Truth. Is enlightenment. TRUTH VS FALSEHOODS exist only on the level of thoughts.. Where there is relative truth. You could say some thoughts are more "true" then others depending on how accurate they represent reality. Absolute Truth is simply being. Nothing too fancy about it. And you are directly conscious of being right now. That's why in neo advaita they teach that you are already enlightened. there is a distinction between relative truth and relative falsehood which exists only in the mind. At the level of being.. There is no falsehood. Everything is absolute Truth. For example... 1+1=3 is falsehood at the relative level of meaning and symbols. Yet the very being of the equation (it's very existence) is absolute Truth.

@StarStruck there is a distinction between relative truth and relative falsehood which exists only in the mind. At the level of being.. There is no falsehood. Everything is absolute Truth. For example... 1+1=3 is falsehood at the relative level of meaning and symbols. Yet the very being of the equation (it's very existence) is absolute Truth. Hope I clarified this. Check out Leo's video "what is Truth". Really helpful.

You meditate and contemplate to sharpen this distinction in your mind. Meditation is simply you disconnecting from the mind and experiencing reality directly without conceptualizing your experience. The more you do this you stop being fooled by the monkey mind which suggests that Truth is other than your default state.. P. S. And of course If you like stop meditation and get lost in concepts.. It's not like you can escape the Truth.

There is only the Truth. Everything you are experiencing right now is Truth. Is enlightenment. TRUTH VS FALSEHOODS exist only on the level of thoughts.. Where there is relative truth. You could say some thoughts are more "true" then others depending on how accurate they represent reality. Absolute Truth is simply being. Nothing too fancy about it. And you are directly conscious of being right now. That's why in neo advaita they teach that you are already enlightened.

@StarStruck enlightenment is simply you becoming directly conscious of the absolute Truth of existence. Absolute clarity about what is Truth and what isn't. Do you want to become enlightened??? Take out your hand and look at it.. And recognize that your hands are actual. They are Real. They are the absolute Truth. And recognize that all your concepts about Truth in your minds(thoughts) are not the Truth. Compare all your thoughts and concepts with the sensation of your hands.. Notice that your hands are Truth. While all your thoughts (without exception) are bla bla bla. That's it.

@Gesundheit yes of course there is a distinction between what kind of porn you watch (vanilla stuff vs fucked up shit) and how often do you watch Yada Yada Yada.. The issue I see is it's so easy to become an addiction. Because it's extremely pleasant unlike video games or fast food. Especially for young boys with you know with an explosion of hormones during puberty age. the thing is.. exposure to porn results in dopamine spikes in the brains of the porn-users.. However.. after being exposed to many graphic images.. the brain becomes de-sensitised and unable to be satisfied by ordinary sexual encounters. now what is needed is sexually extreme experiences and hardcore pornography to become sexually aroused. You get how this works? What wasn't so popular and known untill recently as I mentioned in OP that watching porn causes physical damage in the brain.. Researchers found less grey matter in the brains of men who watched large amounts of sexually explicit material relative to those who watch it casually or were not exposed to it at all. So I am actually building a case here that porn is harmful and should be avoided. Watch video below for more information..

Why?

@Gesundheit Causes any possible damage to the body or mind. P. S. you are NOT going to play this game of define X ad infinitum right?

https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-pornography-brain-15354/amp/

Harmless.

There is no separate self inside the body.. That's right. Because you can't find a centerpiece in charge of it all. But there is a body. You could say the body is you. Go look in the mirror.. Look at your face.. Your hands.. Your balls.. Your arm.. Your feet. Etc... That's YOU. Tada!

@Javfly33 No it's not. It's the only thing you were doing since you were born. Also.. You gotta stop this.

@Javfly33 there is absolutely nothing wrong about survival of your ego and your body.. That's how it meant to be.. Were you planning to die or somethin?

@How to be wise why are you such a dick?

@Gesundheit relax. "everything is unconditional love" is just a hippie style of saying "everything is inevitable".

@blackchair I bet you gonna die in a matter of week if you tried to be "unconditionally loving".. I mean you must hate being thirsty to live.. Right?

For you.. As a human being.. With survival agenda.. Likes and dislikes.. It's an impossible pipe dream to love unconditionally.. There is no such thing. Unconditional Love is not a trait that you can cultivate. It's a feature of reality itself (supposedly). Reality loves Hitler unconditionally simply by allowing him to exist.

This is really a tricky one. It really depends on what do you mean "exactly" by "consciousness". And the answer can vary depending on your definition. Consciousness can be defined as : 1 - a mental state of being awake and sentient (such as.. he lost his consciousness in the accident and became conscious after a while). 2-a mental state of being aware of something (such as..he is conscious of the girl’s presence and her scent.. or he is conscious of the pain in his body). 3-a mental state of being aware of and experiencing something with the awareness and experiences of what that something is like occurring (such as consciousness is the awareness and experience of the vision.. sound..emotion..and thought with the awareness and experiences of what the vision.. sound..emotion..and thought are like occurring). 4-a command center or workspace mental process that integrates other mental processes and enables them to function together (such as consciousness is the center or workspace that functions to direct attention to some signal.. keep concentration on that signal..amplify and integrate that signal..and make information of that signal available to other mental processes). Neurologists and general doctors usually use the terms conscious and consciousness in the first meaning. General people usually use the terms in the second meaning. Philosophers.. as well as some neuroscientists..usually discuss the terms in the third meaning...and the hard problem of consciousness is the problem about consciousness in this meaning. The terms in the last meaning are used mostly by neuroscientists.. and the Global Workspace theory. the Global Neuronal Workspace theory (look it up) and the extended theory of global workspace of consciousness are about consciousness in this meaning also. There are other.. less frequent usages of the word consciousness. For example.. some use consciousness interchangeably with the mind.. which is considered too broad a usage.. and some use consciousness to mean self-consciousness.. which is obviously too narrow a usage.. Therefore.. You should be careful what the terms consciousness and conscious mean when we discuss these terms. In this regard.. . the meaning of consciousness is similar to the third meaning above.. that is.. consciousness is the composite of all conscious awareness and conscious experiences – the composite that has the awareness and experiences of phenomenality (of what things are like) and that itself has phenomenality (manifests what it is like in the mind). This theory deals with consciousness in this meaning because consciousness in only this meaning is phenomenal consciousness.. which differentiates sentient beings from non-sentient beings and differentiates us from artificial intelligence. Without having the awareness and experiences of phenomenality (of what things are like) and without the consciousness itself having phenomenality (manifesting what it is like in the mind).. even the most highly integrated and very capable brain will function just like electronic processes in present-day computers/robots.

When a single neuron fires.. it is an isolated chemical blip. When many fire together. they form a thought. How the brain bridges the gap between these two tiers of neural activity remains a great mystery.. but a new kind of technology is edging us closer to solving it.