Solipsism as a hallmark of consciousness

[Carl-Richard]

Teachers who talk very little (while initially having the heart in the right place, end up thinking very little and perhaps not making things clear enough, giving out clues but not carrying the students through the clues to the end and leaving them confused) are ironically complicit in spreading the solipsism bug.

A student will ask a question "what is consciousness? What is the Absolute truth?", the teacher will say "This!" and just lift their hands and look around. Then the student asks "but what is this?". And the teacher answers "just this" and smiles. And the student might conclude that "this" is just their sensory experience, and hence solipsism might arise, but the teacher actually refers to the recognition of your true nature as pure ever-lasting presence.

The thing about your true nature is it has existed since before you were born. Now, imagine how ridiculous it is realizing you were never actually born and then you start talking about that the human experience you have now is actually what is the most real thing. It's like you're experiencing the most extreme form of amnesia, forgetting completely where you came from before all these human stories, perceptions, thoughts, ideas about minds and other minds.

It's not just that you saw the Sun and now you retreated back to the cave of shadows. It's that you were a Supernova, but you forgot all about it.

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Nemra]

@Carl-Richard, if the absolute is beyond death, doesn't that make it the only thing that has ever been, thus making the absolute solipsistic?

[Carl-Richard]

28 minutes ago, Nemra said:

@Carl-Richard, if the absolute is beyond death, doesn't that make it the only thing that has ever been, thus making the absolute solipsistic?

I'm specifically saying the solipsism of taking your finite limited experience as a human (and only it) as Absolute, is what doesn't work. If you want to say that the aloneness of the great beyond or perfect ultimate presence is solipsistic, that's fine, but that is usually not what solipsists want to do. They want to pull it into the human realm. They want to talk about "other human minds" and such topics.

Their focus is interestingly very human, perhaps because that is where their identification (and attachments and fears) lies. What strikes me is you will (to my knowledge) never find an Enlightened (not merely awakened) person obsessing about the ontological status of other human minds. It's only those who are awakened (or parroting those awakened or enlightened) who are still (most of the time) identified with their finite mind that go into these weird obsessions and neuroses.

If you ask an Enlightened person "do you think other minds exist?", they will be like "what? Not even your own mind exists. What are you so concerned about? See that you were always dead, nobody was alive, it was all a show, including you and your story".

Edited 12 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Nemra]

@Carl-Richard, isn't the human experience actual?

I agree that the human experience is limited in the sense that it will end someday and it has a structure.

When people say that this experience is all there is, I think they are trying to say that whatever exists is. It would be false to say otherwise.

31 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

If you ask an Enlightened person "do you think other minds exist?", they will be like "what? Not even your own mind exists. What are you so concerned about? See that you were always dead, nobody was alive, it was all a show, including you and your story".

Do you know what they mean by "mind".

Edited 12 hours ago by Nemra

[Carl-Richard]

9 hours ago, Nemra said:

@Carl-Richard, isn't the human experience actual?

I agree that the human experience is limited in the sense that it will end someday and it has a structure.

When people say that this experience is all there is, I think they are trying to say that whatever exists is. It would be false to say otherwise.

I think when somebody tries to say "no other minds exist", that is what they're trying to say. And when they point to the limited human experience being the reason for that, they can't be talking about the Absolute. And when they keep referring to limited objects of their experience, e.g. "what you're reading right now", that becomes even more clear.

If they then at some point concede "ok, no in fact, no objects are absolute, I'm actually not talking about my limited experience but the unlimited experience or recognition of the totality of everything", them we can talk about the Absolute again. But then they are either contradicting themselves or they are simply confused or unable to make proper distinctions that convey their understanding more or less accurately.

 

9 hours ago, Nemra said:

Do you know what they mean by "mind".

That's the crux of the issue. If they were to study what the "mind" is in a Western psychology sense (e.g. mostly human perceptions, sensations, feelings, experiences) and contrast this with the mind in a Hindu Advaita Vedanta sense or Buddhist sense (unlimited consciousness beyond all human experience, emptiness), they would maybe see that what they're trying to deny the existence of is other human minds in the Western sense while they actually are having intuitive insights into the Hindu/Buddhist mind, which is an unfortunate conflation.

Imagine going into a food store and you run into apples in the fruit section (and the oranges are hidden behind a stack of crates) and you say "there are only apples here, that means oranges can't exist, because only the store exists". That's the level of confusion of a solipsist who declares that their human limited experience is absolute (and that other human minds don't exist), while grounding their reasoning in insights into unlimited consciousness.

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Osaid]

I think in the end only existence will do it.

Notice the wonkiness when focus goes to what doesn't exist. It's like focusing on the shadow of the mind, but then the light is ignored, which is the source of it all.

Mind can conjure up 10000 things that don't exist and then act like it's profound or something. Solipsism, Last Thursdayism, yadda yadda.

[Willy Phallicus]

There is only the One.  Source is source and "other minds" are conveniences made up (like time and space) to express something that can't be expressed logically.

There isn't any source+1 material out there.  What comes from source can't have non source patterns in it, because there isn't any source2 entity to derive them from.  There are no other minds.  Solipsism is just a very convenient way to explain what cannot otherwise be explained.

So what we end up with is a bunch of people who doubt gods infinite power and if that's where your at you still got plenty of work to do. 

[Willy Phallicus]

23 hours ago, GodisOne said:

That's where you're wrong. Everything is relative. You cannot define "up" without "down".

Everything is relative and dualistic when that's the level of consciousness you're looking out from.

Look again if and when you go beyond Choronzon.

Edited 3 hours ago by Willy Phallicus

[UnbornTao]

2 hours ago, Osaid said:

Last Thursdayism.

Don't you dare invalidate my direct experience of Last Thursdayism.

Pick another belief system.

[Osaid]

17 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Don't you dare invalidate my direct experience of Last Thursdayism.

Pick another belief system.

Sorry to invalidate your Absolute Last Thursday awakening. Please don't send your mob of angry Last Thursdayists after me. 

[Nemra]

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

I think when somebody tries to say "no other minds exist", that is what they're trying to say. And when they point to the limited human experience being the reason for that, they can't be talking about the Absolute. And when they keep referring to limited objects of their experience, e.g. "what you're reading right now", that becomes even more clear.

I think if anyone thinks that reality only prefers human experience, they are limiting reality.

However, wouldn't it be wrong for you to say that other human experiences are actual if you know that only your human experience has ever been actual?

Edited 37 minutes ago by Nemra

[Osaid]

Direct experience never has any distinctions or objects. 

Seeing isn't an object. You can't point at seeing.

Hearing, touching, feeling, etc. They're in the same boat. Experience is just too whole.

Mind is so funny that it tries to hijack perception with its many objects, which there aren't. My mind, your mind.  

Only being aware will do. There is no not-awareness.

Edited 36 minutes ago by Osaid

[Natasha Tori Maru]

2 hours ago, Willy Phallicus said:

Solipsism is just a very convenient way to explain what cannot otherwise be explained.

I think you very fundamentally confuse the absolute with the relative and speak as if they are synonymous. 

Solipsism is just a limit. It can never explain reality. It is a concept that relies on other presuppositions to hold up. You can use it to describe your experience, but not reality as whole.

There's nothing direct about solipsism. It's just mind chatter with no relationship to what Is.

[Loveeee]