Leo, I Think Your Model of Reality Is Missing a Mechanism

[Cred]

 

[Monster Energy]

5 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

Mind is Infinity.  If its unlimited why would it need another layer to explain that layer?  That's an infinite regress. Because then you would have to explain that layer and the layer below it and so on.  So the ultimate answer is it is itself.  It is its own end.  That's what science gets wrong.

The structure of experience is still left unexplained.

 

[Monster Energy]

5 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Gotcha I think your point is more nuanced than the title suggests - which was slightly misleading.

I think it's a mystery isn't it? Codependent arising of experience.

Yes, I think that’s fair. My title was probably too blunt. I agree it may ultimately be a mystery. 

 

[YIDIRYIDIR]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's a deep Mystery.

First time to see Leo say this, and got me curious of how much of reality is understood

[Monster Energy]

5 hours ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

It might be more like the puddle analogy.

“Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it still desperately hangs on to the notion that everything’s going to be all right, because this world was meant to have him in it.”

You can see this in simple cases. A chair designed by a human is more comfortable for another human than a chair designed by a monkey or an alien, because the designer had a butt shape similar to yours in mind. Likewise, you are more likely to become close friends with someone who speaks your language than someone who speaks a completely different one. A hammer designed for the human grip feels natural to use, while a tool designed for a different kind of hand would feel awkward. The tool works well because its structure matches the structure of the hand using it. Musical instruments and scales are created to sit within ranges that human ears perceive clearly and pleasantly, etc.

The same principle might apply more broadly.

You can think of it as starting with a form that wants to continue existing as that form. In other words, it has a bias toward maintaining itself rather than dissolving back into constant change, complexity, or infinity. It prefers stability over becoming something completely different.

Because reality itself is always changing and unstable, that form has to create or arrange more stable structures around itself in order to persist. It does this by selecting and reinforcing patterns that support its continued existence. In a sense, it “divides” and “materializes” parts of the world into structures that help stabilize it.

For example, a human form is biased toward materials that support its body and survival. Wood works better than water for sitting, so it is used to make a chair. Cement is more stable than wood for long-term shelter, so houses are built from it. Over time, the same process extends further: people organize systems for stable access to resources, and eventually even build governments or institutions that help maintain social stability and survival.

Something similar seems to happen even at the level of atoms! Certain atoms combine easily with others because those combinations form more stable structures. When atoms bond into molecules, they often become more stable than when they exist alone. Elements that cannot form stable structures tend to disappear quickly.

In this way, forms that want to continue existing tend to surround themselves with other structures that reinforce their stability. Patterns that support the form last longer, while patterns that do not eventually dissolve.

So I feel like it’s a self-looping bias. You come into a finite consciousness because that form is the only form that can provide that experience to you; it persisted long enough to become finite and maintain itself for some time, maybe 10 seconds, 5 months, 10 years, or 80+ years. And because of that, you will see supporting structures around yourself, since your brain and ego developed to recognize those things that help maintain you.

The form persists, and because it persists it learns to recognize and create the conditions that let it keep persisting. In that sense, it really is an ouroboros, feeding back into itself.

And I can only imagine that if you had something like a Donkey-Alien-Dog-Mix-Kubahu brain, you would probably see this same reality completely differently. The patterns you notice, the things that feel stable or meaningful, and the structures that seem important would all change depending on the kind of mind that is perceiving them.

It’s that initial bias “I want to remain, I want to be, I want to be stable, I want to persist in this finite form against the infinite” that can cause an infinite regress or a chain reaction of other finite forms to persist as well. So, I’m not sure if it’s “resonance” in the sense that sameness attracts sameness, but perhaps it tends to be stable if it has similar or complementary structures, or if it’s a form that can manipulate and bend to ensure its survival other lesser biased / weaker structures. Selfishness and Support (Love). Still, I think this is a very promising direction!

In a way, this also explains why you need “selfishness.” You need a phenomenon to construct a form out of indefinite; otherwise everything would remain undefined. And “selfishness” is a top-down human perspective. What we’re actually seeing is what happens when a finite form reconstructs the infinite into its own form to preserve itself.

Interesting analogy. But that really just explains why certain things survive, not why the patterns exist in the first place. The puddle survives because the hole fits it. That still doesn’t explain why the hole has that shape to begin with.

 

 

[zurew]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's a deep Mystery.

By Mystery you mean it is something that doesnt have an explanation in principle and or that it cannot be known?

Like the kind of move some mystics make, when they say that its not the thing that can be understood by something else, because it is the very thing by which other things (bascally everything) is understood?

Another way to say it , is to say that it is a category error to suggest that there is a further explanation or understanding.

Edited 1 hour ago by zurew

[Monster Energy]

2 hours ago, Cred said:

I don't know if it is a coincidence, but I happen to be working on a field ontology, which affirms your intuition:

 

I’ll take a look at your draft. The idea that patterns emerge from underlying fields or states is pretty close to what I was trying to point at.

 

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, zurew said:

By Mystery you mean it is something that doesnt have an explanation is principle and or it cannot be known?

To the best of my current understanding, a human mind is not ever going to know why your life is exactly the way it is and not otherwise.

Like, why aren't you are chimpanzee right now? I think there is an answer to that question but it is way beyond even Awakened consciousness.

That's why I call it a Mystery.

Even extremely deep Awakening is not going to give you a full accounting of experience. I still can't explain why I'm not a chimpanzee right now.

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[Monster Energy]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Consciousness is one continuous flow. Like a river. This river has a structure.

Why this structure vs some other is too complex for a human mind to comprehend.

But saying it’s too complex for the human mind feels less like an explanation and more like where explanation stops.

 

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Monster Energy said:

But saying it’s too complex for the human mind feels less like an explanation and more like where explanation stops.

Yes, explanation is a finite notion and Reality is Infinity. So you can't explain it ultimately, you have to just marvel at the Mystery of it.

The deeper you Awaken, the more not-knowing dawns. It's counter-intuitive. It is not like science where you get more and more explanations for everything.

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[zurew]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That's why I call it a Mystery.

Okay thanks, thats slightly different from saying that it cannot be known in principle, its is just that we fail to grasp whats the potential answer is given our limited cognition and capabilities.

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, zurew said:

Okay thanks, thats slightly different from saying that it cannot be known in principle, its is just that we fail to grasp whats the potential answer is given our limited cognition and capabilities.

Infinity cannot be known in principle. It is a Mystery.

Even God does not fully know God. That's what it means to be God.

But you can gain insight into aspects of Infinity. It is piece-meal. Not everything is explained all at once like a child might expect.

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[Monster Energy]

2 hours ago, Cred said:

The reason why reality is structured, is because it is not. There exists plenty of chaos, but these chaotic waves lead to destructive interference, and therefore annihilate each other, such that the only lasting waves are standing waves which are those who are in resonance with the respective systems.

I’m not sure that gets us any closer to an explanation

 

 

[Wilhelm44]

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

To the best of my current understanding, a human mind is not ever going to know why your life is exactly the way it is and not otherwise.

Like, why aren't you are chimpanzee right now? I think there is an answer to that question but it is way beyond even Awakened consciousness.

That's why I call it a Mystery.

Even extremely deep Awakening is not going to give you a full accounting of experience. I still can't explain why I'm not a chimpanzee right now.

That would be a great title for a book: I still cant explain why im not a chimpanzee right now.

[Monster Energy]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, explanation is a finite notion and Reality is Infinity. So you can't explain it ultimately, you have to just marvel at the Mystery of it.

The deeper you Awaken, the more not-knowing dawns. It's counter-intuitive. It is not like science where you get more and more explanations for everything.

When you say it’s a Mystery, do you mean it’s in principle unknowable, or just beyond our current ways of explaining? And if reality is fundamentally a Mystery, how do you distinguish that from simply not having an explanation yet?

 

[Leo Gura]

17 minutes ago, Monster Energy said:

When you say it’s a Mystery, do you mean it’s in principle unknowable,

Yes.

Infinity is literally unknowable.

It is too profound to be known. If it could be known, it would be finite, which by definition it isn't.

That's why mysticism is technically true. If it could be known then it wouldn't be mystical.

All explanations are conceptual and finite. You need duality for explanation to exist. So nonduality cannot have an explanation.

That's why the sage sits in silence.

Stunned silence is the final answer.

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

25 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

That would be a great title for a book: I still cant explain why im not a chimpanzee right now.

Maybe I will have an explanation by the time I finish writing the book. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[Monster Energy]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes.

Infinity is literally unknowable.

It is too profound to be known. If it could be known, it would be finite, which by definition it isn't.

That's why mysticism is technically true. If it could be known then it wouldn't be mystical.

All explanations are conceptual and finite. You need duality for explanation to exist. So nonduality cannot have an explanation.

Right, but there’s a small tension there. If infinity is in principle unknowable, then saying that reality is infinite already sounds like a claim to knowledge about it. We’re describing the very thing we’re saying can’t be described.

It’s kind of like saying no one can know how deep the ocean is, and then turning around and saying it’s infinitely deep.

 

 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Monster Energy said:

Right, but there’s a small tension there. If infinity is in principle unknowable, then saying that reality is infinite already sounds like a claim to knowledge about it. We’re describing the very thing we’re saying can’t be described.

That's not a problem. You can easily know it is Infinite. But that doesn't explain any of the detailed structure or experience.

It doesn't tell you why chimpanzees are made of atoms rather than cubes of cheese.

Quote

It’s kind of like saying no one can know how deep the ocean is, and then turning around and saying it’s infinitely deep.

No, it's like knowing numbers go infinitely long but not being able to do complex math.

A child who barely knows math can tell you that numbers go forever.

Knowing a thing in general is a lot easier than knowing it in fine detail.

You know for sure the moon is round but you don't know how many rocks are on the moon or how they all got there.

Edited 58 minutes ago by Leo Gura

[zurew]

47 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

To the best of my current understanding, a human mind is not ever going to know why your life is exactly the way it is and not otherwise.

by "why the way it is and not otherwise" you are not implying some kind of teleology right? You are just saying that there might be a descriptive answer to that question,right?

Like when it comes to the Conway's Game of Life, you can get very interesting structures if you run it long enough and you can in principle know the initial conditions of the game, but there isn't any teleology built into it.

Edited 55 minutes ago by zurew