I practice spirituality but I don't believe in it (and that's the point)

[Lucasxp64]

 

 

She's doing Leo Gura-level analysis here: s-tier spiritual content. Her point: consciousness and the story-building overlay on top of it are separate. It doesn't matter what metaphysics you hold, as long as you're not the materialist criticizing the finger pointing at the moon, or the blind believer staring at the finger thinking it's the moon.

Personally, I'm agnostic about "mind over matter" vs. "matter over mind," as well as Leo's "you're God dreaming yourself." I see the physical universe generating my consciousness, and my consciousness generating the idea of a physical universe, as equally valid co-arising aspects. I don't know if they co-arise, if one is primary, or if the question is malformed. This is close to Pyrrhonian epoché or Kant's phenomenon/noumenon split; I'm not claiming novelty.

And does holding any position here actually change moment-to-moment experience or ethics? If not, why do idealists and materialists fight so hard? The stakes seem mostly tribal.

It's impossible to ascertain the nature of consciousness *from within* consciousness, because it can generate infinite layers of stories. The substrate, whatever it is, can never pierce through to prove itself as the absolute bottom, because any such "proof" would only arise as more thoughts, objects, and experiences. These are simply more figments of consciousness. Any attempt to perceive outside is mediated by the very same mind doing the looking.

So I don't take Leo's word on faith that I'm God imagining the universe. The mind/brain is stuck inside whatever this universe or substrate is, and my view of that universe/substrate is stuck inside this mind/brain. (I use "mind," "brain," "universe," and "substrate" flippantly; they're concepts arising within the very field I'm trying to describe. The whole argument is built with tools that can't escape the problem. That's a hard limit of language, not a defect of the argument.)

By the same logic, a hardcore materialist can't bend my words toward the primacy of the physical universe either. The mind is stuck in itself and can't perceive outside itself. By "physical universe" I mean the whole bundle: theories, brains, common sense, all of it.

The situation might as well be:

1) A computer simulation
2) A Boltzmann brain, which is a mind that popped out of quantum vacuum fluctuations in an empty timeless universe
3) A dog struck by lightning, in whose mind arose the exact thoughts I'm having this millisecond, including the sense of time and self
4) A boundless, all-permissive god carving distinctions
5) An empty void where everything is built from axiomatic truths upward into a cohesive cosmos with emergent phenomena: the big bang, the multiverse, or whichever fad theory is current

Even these skeptical hypotheses are made of concepts arising in consciousness.

Anticipated objection: "But you look both ways before crossing the street; therefore, you functionally believe in physical reality." Sure. Functional engagement with appearances isn't a metaphysical commitment about their substrate. You can navigate the dream without claiming to know what generates it.

What remains after all this uncertainty? The bare fact of experiencing-now, without commitment to what it is or what produces it. That's the floor.

The materialist-vs-spiritualist problem gets dissolved by people who see the spiritual point without collapsing into blind belief. The moment it turns into dogma, even for "intellectually advanced" Christians who claim they don't hold blind belief because of some technicality (Jesus existed, resurrection is historical) but then in the same breath push specific doctrine, that is the failure mode. Same shape, different flag.

Edited 6 hours ago by Lucasxp64
OBS: I edited my original text with Claude Opus 4.7 for the sake of grammatical clarity, the ideas are mine.

[Breakingthewall]

37 minutes ago, Lucasxp64 said:

It's impossible to ascertain the nature of consciousness *from within* consciousness, because it can generate infinite layers of stories

The nature of consciousness is very simple. Consciousness is a process that links two other virtually separate processes that exchange information: the living organism and the universe.

This seems like a "materialist" definition, but materialism today is no longer materialism. Physics states that reality is a rupture of the symmetry of the void from which a coherent, viable equation emerges and unfolds. Or, put another way, reality unfolds given the absence of limits, the lack of absolute restriction, and consciousness is a possibility that implies reality observing itself.

[oOo]

Keep the middle ground.

Some get caught in theory.

Some get caught in experience.

Some get caught in the delusion in between.

Best.

[Inliytened1]

1 hour ago, Lucasxp64 said:

 

 

I see the physical universe generating my consciousness, and my consciousness generating the idea of a physical universe 

 

 

This is silly because you would have to find a cause for the physical universe. 

[Inliytened1]

1 hour ago, Lucasxp64 said:

 

 

 

It's impossible to ascertain the nature of consciousness *from within* consciousness,

But thats what Infinity is. It makes everything possible.

[Razard86]

Anyone that doesn't reach the Truth never wanted it in the first place. Which is weird because why even discuss it or ponder about it when you can become Conscious of it. There literally is no excuse at this point.