Consciousness is all that there is

[PolyPeter]

I start this topic to read and discuss the best arguments against the following statement: "Consciousness is the only thing that actually exists, everything else exists within it"

@LastThursday

Edited 21 hours ago by PolyPeter

[CARDOZZO]

Everything else is the only thing that exists.

[Ramasta9]

Does consciousness exist within existence or does existence exist within consciousness?

Or is consciousness just existence aware/conscious of itself? 

[Davino]

Consciousness and existence is identical. This for me is what I define as a Classic Awakening.

When you realise Reality is Consciousness, you're Awake for the first time in your life.

[PolyPeter]

11 hours ago, CARDOZZO said:

Everything else is the only thing that exists.

Everything else is the only thing that exists in the relative domain. 

Consciousness is the Universe itself, everything else is imagined.

[PolyPeter]

11 hours ago, Ramasta9 said:

Does consciousness exist within existence or does existence exist within consciousness?

Consciousness IS existence

the question of wether one is inside of the other makes no sense if they are identical.

it would be similar to asking "Is 2 + 2 strictly greater or strictly lower than 4?" 

we know that 2+2 is 4, so the answer to the question is: neither, it is the same number.

 

Where it gets difficult here, I think, it is when there is no clear conceptual distinction between human metacognition or human consciousness and actual Consciousness. 

 

Saying that Existence is identical to human consciousness is silly

Saying that Existence is identical to Consciousness itself, is absolutley true.

[LastThursday]

Here's my thinking process.

I'd have to start with the basics. What is meant by consciousness? What is its nature?

If you say consciousness is existence then from a purely language-centric view, you're setting up an equivalance between the words consciousness and existence. It's like connecting two different coloured Lego bricks and calling it it a "belief". When you resolve the words to what they actually refer to in actuality, it could be that consciousness and existence are entirely separate categories from each other. The point is that language is being used here to set up a new belief, that may or may not be ultimately true. Consciousness may not be existence (gasp!).

If you take consciousness as a definition to be something like "all that I have already experienced". We're still playing the same linguistic trick, but at least "experience" as a word is more direct and tangible than "existence". If we examine experience then we can decompose it into various sensations (another linguistic equivalence), which can be categorised into sight and sound and touch etc. Individual sensations seem to recur, such as the coldness or roughness or brightness. Going meta we can lump all these categories of experience into one and call them "appearances", because despite the differences in sensations, there is something that connects them all: they are being experienced.

Naturally, you would ask: are the appearances happening in or on some sort of substrate? Are they like projections on a screen at a cinema? Secondly, is there a something which experiences those appearances? There's a lot of leeway here to interpret things as you want, maybe there isn't a screen, maybe there isn't a watcher etc.

Personally, I like to keep things as simple as possible. There is no screen, and there is no watcher. It's ALL just appearances. The appearances have the capacity to be aware of themselves (so to speak). Appearances just exist without support from anything else.

If that is the case, then it's worth noting that "appearances" is plural. Why is it plural? Because it seems obvious that appearances are distinct and ever changing, that there is always a multiplicity of them at all times. This would seem to completely go against the idea of a unified monolithic consciousness. But, you could ask, what about the fact that appearances exist, doesn't that unify them all? It doesn't have to. Maybe appearance A has absolutely nothing to do with appearance B, maybe they are two incompatible forms of existence? Maybe it's existences, plural.

If appearances are the base of reality, then there is no concept of existing in or of a separate consciousness container. It's just appearances.

Another way to see it is, is the Mona Lisa a woman posing or is it all just brushstrokes that come together like "a woman posing". Is the Mona Lisa one thing, or a multiplicity of different things?

[UnbornTao]

23 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Here's my thinking process.

I'd have to start with the basics. What is meant by consciousness? What is its nature?

If you say consciousness is existence then from a purely language-centric view, you're setting up an equivalance between the words consciousness and existence. It's like connecting two different coloured Lego bricks and calling it it a "belief". When you resolve the words to what they actually refer to in actuality, it could be that consciousness and existence are entirely separate categories from each other. The point is that language is being used here to set up a new belief, that may or may not be ultimately true. Consciousness may not be existence (gasp!).

If you take consciousness as a definition to be something like "all that I have already experienced". We're still playing the same linguistic trick, but at least "experience" as a word is more direct and tangible than "existence". If we examine experience then we can decompose it into various sensations (another linguistic equivalence), which can be categorised into sight and sound and touch etc. Individual sensations seem to recur, such as the coldness or roughness or brightness. Going meta we can lump all these categories of experience into one and call them "appearances", because despite the differences in sensations, there is something that connects them all: they are being experienced.

Naturally, you would ask: are the appearances happening in or on some sort of substrate? Are they like projections on a screen at a cinema? Secondly, is there a something which experiences those appearances? There's a lot of leeway here to interpret things as you want, maybe there isn't a screen, maybe there isn't a watcher etc.

Personally, I like to keep things as simple as possible. There is no screen, and there is no watcher. It's ALL just appearances. The appearances have the capacity to be aware of themselves (so to speak). Appearances just exist without support from anything else.

If that is the case, then it's worth noting that "appearances" is plural. Why is it plural? Because it seems obvious that appearances are distinct and ever changing, that there is always a multiplicity of them at all times. This would seem to completely go against the idea of a unified monolithic consciousness. But, you could ask, what about the fact that appearances exist, doesn't that unify them all? It doesn't have to. Maybe appearance A has absolutely nothing to do with appearance B, maybe they are two incompatible forms of existence? Maybe it's existences, plural.

If appearances are the base of reality, then there is no concept of existing in or of a separate consciousness container. It's just appearances.

Another way to see it is, is the Mona Lisa a woman posing or is it all just brushstrokes that come together like "a woman posing". Is the Mona Lisa one thing, or a multiplicity of different things?

This guy thinks.

[PolyPeter]

1 hour ago, Davino said:

When you realise Reality is Consciousness, you're Awake for the first time in your life.

The ultimate remembering of what you are

Consciousness plays the game of forgetting itself as God dreaming reality, getting lost within its own creations

[PolyPeter]

45 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

at least "experience" as a word is more direct and tangible than "existence"

The words experience and existence are pointing to the same, so I don't really understand what you mean when you say one is more direct and tangible than the other.

 

You exist, that's the main reason you can type all your ideas on a computer to begin with.

You are experiencing being a human who is thinking that there is a way out of Consciousness as the fundamental and ultimate reality.

Thanks for taking the time to explain and share your thinking process, interesting!, I have many more things to say, but I'll take the time to think them through, and then reply.

[LastThursday]

6 minutes ago, PolyPeter said:

You exist

The "you" there would not fit in with my line of thinking, if by "you" you mean "a something that watches". I'm happy with a "you" being a construction of a multitude of appearances however. But that would mean "you" by my definition is a plurality like the brushstrokes in a painting. And that would point to multiple simultaneous existences.

I find existence as a word difficult, because it's like trying to grab a cloud. Existence becomes an easy word if you assume that there is just one quality that defines it, i.e. it is not a multiplicity, but I don't assume that.

[Davino]

@LastThursday What is an appearances? 

Keep inquiring in your vipassana practice 

An appereance will dissolve into emptiness, Awake Emptiness

Another insight that comes handy is dependent origination, you're trying to abstract appearances (by making distinctions within what...?) but there are relationships between appearances and not merely in a logical manner but in a polarisation or degree manner.

[Davino]

@LastThursday What is an appearances? 

Keep inquiring in your vipassana practice 

An appereance will dissolve into emptiness, Awake Emptiness

Another insight that comes handy is dependent origination, you're trying to abstract appearances (by making distinctions within what...?) but there are relationships between appearances and not merely in a logical manner but in a polarisation or degree manner.

[Breakingthewall]

Consciousness is a dual, relational form that reality takes. It is secondary, not essential, although always present because is possible. Consciousness is reality perceiving itself. Reality is indefinable, is unlimited being. 

[Breakingthewall]

3 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I find existence as a word difficult, because it's like trying to grab a cloud. Existence becomes an easy word if you assume that there is just one quality that defines it, i.e. it is not a multiplicity, but I don't assume that.

It's very obvious. Existence is the manifestation of reality. The manifestation of reality is relative movement, change, becoming. Without change there is no existence, only reality as absolute potential. But always there is change, absence of change is precisely "never". The difficult part is defining reality.

Edited 3 hours ago by Breakingthewall

[LastThursday]

55 minutes ago, Davino said:

An appereance will dissolve into emptiness, Awake Emptiness

Emptiness is yet another appearance. There's nothing outside of appearances.

58 minutes ago, Davino said:

by making distinctions within what...?

Distinctions are another appearance.

In fact the nature of distinction is at the heart of appearances themselves. Distinctions are everywhere; left, right, bright, dark, red, blue, loud, soft, rough, smooth. Appearances are distinctions (<-more language equivalence). How is circularity avoided though. What is distinct from what? 

Since distinction is a self-aware appearance, then there's no ground left to explain it, a distinction just is. Effectively appearance, distinction, awareness, existence, reality are synonyms for the same thing (more equivalence).

20 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Existence is the manifestation of reality.

My idea is that it isn't. Existence is exactly reality, the same thing.

Appearances are not manifested by some process, they just are. There are correlations between appearances at many many different levels (distinctions). But those correlations are yet more appearance. So, there are distinctions of "sameness" and "difference", cause and effect, dependent origination.

27 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

But always there is change

Yes because there is no ground to existence, nothing to "anchor" appearances in place.

[Breakingthewall]

19 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Appearances are not manifested by some process, they just are

Appearances are always a process relative to another process. Nothing appears if it is not related to something. Any movement occurs in relation to another movement, another state. A vibration is a stable oscillation between two states in the same system. 

23 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

There are correlations between appearances at many many different levels (distinctions). But those correlations are yet more appearance.

Sure, but what you call appearance is the existence. 

23 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

My idea is that it isn't. Existence is exactly reality, the same thing

Reality is what allows existence. Reality is unlimited being. "Being" is the key. What is the meaning of "being"? Is it something? It's what is because there are not limits. This is not a metaphor, it's the reality. Limitlessness. Existence is the inevitable manifestation. 

[Davino]

@LastThursday And you're conscious of all that and all of this

How can anything exist outside of consciousness, when inside and outside happen within Conscious, all thoughts, emotions, experiences, appearances, sensations, states are manifestations of the same one Reality, which is existence itself, truth, consciousness, Love, Infinite, Universal Mind, Living God

[cetus]

21 hours ago, PolyPeter said:

I start this topic to read and discuss the best arguments against the following statement: "Consciousness is the only thing that actually exists, everything else exists within it"

Let us discuss all the things that exist outside of consciousness.