Moksha

Of course first-person consciousness is possible. I'm asking for logical evidence that no-person consciousness is possible. If you're only asserting that consciousness exists when people exist, well duh

He's a very smart guy, but his logic is a little flawed. He left physicality because it couldn't explain the evolutionary selection of consciousness, but he doesn't recognize that evolution could select for intelligence, which in turn produces consciousness, rather than selecting for consciousness itself. He does recognize that the physicalists can't definitively explain why consciousness occurs in the first place. The epiphenomenalists have explanations for that though. Like any good scientist, he refuses to indoctrinate his own, or any other, scientific theory. That is the beginning of wisdom. Unfortunately, it is also the end of wisdom, until he is willing to validate direct experience.

Damn you for luring me back onto the hamster wheel, but one more turn.

Loved it, especially his admission that he doesn't believe in any theories, and the recognition of the possibility of an ultimate reality that is beyond human comprehension.

Ajata is not created (0), and infuses all of its creations with its essence (1).

@Mikael89 We can assume unconditional consciousness, and then extrapolate that consciousness is possible outside of birth, but the assumption itself is unprovable. Any logical conclusions derived from it are similarly unprovable. Here's where I hop off the hamster wheel It's a fun game, but let's cut to the chase. Humans have been running the rational wheel for millenia. The game is ultimately constrained to its own cage. It is impossible to know anything outside of the game itself, when you only play by the rules of the game. We have realized the limitations of human rationality: Gödel's incompleteness theorems What if ultimate reality cannot be constrained by logic? What if it is literally beyond human comprehension? How can ultimate reality logically exist and not exist in the same moment? The sages called it a Mystery for a reason. Maybe Consciousness would put it this way. Let's call it "C" since we're all friends. C points at the hamster: The human mind C points at the wheel: The game of logic C points at the cage: Relative reality C points outside the cage: Ultimate reality C opens the cage: Enlightenment

You can thrive in the world of form without being identified by the world of form. You are both human and being. You are the only you that there ever will be. So make the most of it. Stay connected to being while engaging in doing. Your choices will be more creative, your actions will be higher quality, and your results will be more refined. Source is the salt that brings out the goodness in everything

Well, see my original post. Our thoughts are confirmed within the spacetime cosmos. But there is a deeper dimension underlying spacetime that is not bound by spacetime

@Nirvanalight You made the right choice Ask yourself this: If Jesus made this sacrifice, humanity is already saved from intense suffering and death. What more is required? On a deeper level, focus on your intuition rather than on your thoughts. When you are able to experience the light that you are, free from any beliefs, you will realize that you are the only answer there is.

@Mikael89 Multiplying "that" by infinity = 100% chance that birth is a precondition of Consciousness. Your underlying assumptions are conscribed to cases where birth exists.

1 is everything. 0 is nothing. Ultimate reality is the eternal Mystery that is both and neither

Infinity = 1 + 0

I've been under anesthesia as well. Clipped to instant nothingness, then awaking to everythingness, with zero awareness of the passage of time, except a refreshing sense of restfulness. Consciousness was still in us, because consciousness is us; we just weren't aware. Doesn't change anything about the logical proof of consciousness. If the existence of consciousness beyond personhood could be logically proven, smarter minds than ours would already have done so.

@peachboy Unconsciousness is relative to consciousness. It is the negative state, or absence of consciousness. There is no lower structure than the absence of consciousness. Emptiness is emptiness. First-person unconsciousness is the lack of consciousness in the individual. One could argue that consciousness requires individuality, and unconsciousness is the ultimate unity. When alive, people vary in levels of unconsciousness, until at death they dissolve into utter unconsciousness because they no longer exist. First-person unconsciousness is certainly impossible, but this could be true because consciousness requires personality to exist. Just because the probability of first-person consciousness is 100% doesn't mean the probability of no-person consciousness is 100%. Un-experienceable doesn't prove that experience always exists. All of this to reiterate that I agree with your conclusion about consciousness Not because it is logically unavoidable, but because it can be directly experienced, beyond logic.

Yes to everything you observed. The "energy" you describe, expanding to fill the bounds of spacetime, is Consciousness infused into the world of form. It is Atman. But there is another dimension. Beyond spacetime, underlying the world of form, is transcendent Consciousness, which created the world of form: Brahman.

@peachboy I agree with you, but not for logical reasons. Levels of consciousness exist, but you could equally argue that consciousness sinks to zero at death. In the absence of first-person consciousness, the probability of first-person unconsciousness persisting after death alchemizes into absolute certainty. Conceptual arguments for consciousness are unavoidably self-defeating. Ultimately it has to be directly experienced to be understood.

@Nahm So beautiful. Especially as a parent, which is a microcosm of the universal message ?

Emptiness and fulness are two ends of the same stick. Consciousness is infinitely spacious, and it is infinitely abundant. It is not just the void, but it is everything arising from the void. The ultimate reality is beyond all things and beyond nothing.

"Selfishness" is unavoidable, because Self is all there is. "selfishness" is identification with the ego, which is illusionary and only leads to suffering. We just need to be the Selfish love that we are

^^^ the problem.

Yes Enlightenment dissolves the ego enough that "you" sink from the surface as a wave, and are more deeply settled as the tidal current beneath the wave. There is still a distant sense of individuality, but a deeper realization and connection with your source, which is the ocean itself. Meditation sinks you to the "middle" of the ocean. Less surface movement, more power and stability. When you physically die, even the tidal current disappears, and you dissolve back into the primal ocean that you are. Or to use another analogy, "you" are traveling back along the ashvattha tree, which grows upside down, with its taproot above and its branches below, back along the tree to the root from which you sprung.

The ultimate Mystery is beyond name, analysis, or conceptual comprehension. It is not only emptiness. It is not only fulness. It is not only nonexistence. It is not only existence. It is not only nothing. It is not only everything. It is not all of these. It is not none of these. It is transcendent to all dualities. It is the ultimate singularity.

Great quote. When the mountains become mountains again, somehow they surpass their original majesty. They are infused with aliveness that you could barely sense before, and are more precious because you see them as they are. The same is true for the human and every other form.

@Member One time as a kid I dreamed that I dreamed that I was dreaming. Now that is a mindfuck