How Am I Not The Brain?

[Nahm]

@Wes Thoughts nothing is missing, the whole thing is you. Keep looking into science. You may be in a matter paradigm. 

[Wes Thoughts]

@Nahm I definitely am in a matter paradigm. I was born and raised into it. But I believe quantum physics and this consciousness work is my key out.  Quantum superposition says that particles exist in all possible states until observed. That is science admitting / proving that consciousness is the creator!

I really hope @Leo Gura does a quantum physics episode to help so many of us in this matter paradigm get out!

[Girzo]

@Wes Thoughts Hey, maybe you will like this video:

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Joe Rogan talks to Sean Carroll who is a cosmologist and physicist. Carroll explains quantum mechanics to Rogan and explains that electrons are actually best thought about as a cloud rather than an individual particle within an atom.

 

[Azrael]

On 2.10.2017 at 3:43 PM, MM1988 said:

It seems like we need our brain to be enlightened, how are we not the brain then?  How does this work? Someone explain this to me please.

How are we not the brain. That is - especially for us scientific, western ppl - probably one of the hardest things to get over. Because it just seems so self-evident that we are the brain. The normal unenlightened man feels himself mostly to be in the head (although this varies in cultures).

Firstly, we have to realize that the brain itself is a relative symptom of the human-alike 3D perspective. That means, that by having the senses you have, you are able to experience a brain. Imagine you'd have another sense that would be "as real" as seeing, hearing, touching etc. but would be in its function completely distinct from all the other senses. Now, look at the brain again. What would you perceive? You'd perceive something completely different and you'd make sense of the brain completely differently. Now consider, that there is not only one other sense to perceive the brain but an infinite amount and that you are just given these few finite senses out of an infinite set to perceive the world. That'll loosen the self-evidence of just being a head a little bit up.

Now, I would make the argument that we have a sense that we don't even now of because we only are aware of this sense when we are born and when we die. Everyone who had an real ego death on a psychedelic experience, will know what I mean. And that sense is the contraction of the finite reality we perceive - that stuff seems literally finite. This is a very fundamental perspective that underlies every other sense that we have. Imagine how it would be if everything "opened up" and your normal reality would actually seem like a colourful projection in empty dark nothing-like space. I would also make the argument that you can show to yourself that this is actually the case and that you can empirically prove that to you.

These two points can be your start in discovering that the head is not what you thought it to be and that there might be more to it.

[Wes Thoughts]

@Girzo Interesting video. I am interested in reading his lastest book "The Big Picture" now. I read the preview on amazon and I found this quote from Sean Carroll very interesting:

'At a fundamental level, there aren't separate "living things" and "nonliving things," "things here on Earth" and "things up in the sky," "matter" and "spirit." There is just the basic stuff of reality, appearing to us in many different forms.' 

I am really interested to learn his views on consciousness. It appears he tackles really existential questions based on his table of contents.

 

[Wind]

The analogy of the brain being a radio and consciousness a radio waves that the radio tunes into, always made sense to me.

Edited October 5, 2017 by Wind

[Leo Gura]

On 10/3/2017 at 9:14 AM, Wes Thoughts said:

A concept is an impulse in the brain, so a concept about the concept about an impulse in the brain is also an impulse. Its circular and a strange loop.

Actually, it's stranger than that.

"The brain" and "an impulse in the brain" are concepts! Not impulses!

Concepts do not occur inside a brain. That's backwards. Rather brains are concepts occurring in consciousness.

Reality is not a hardware system, it's more like a software system. The software is NOT running on hardware!

Stop thinking about reality physically. There's nothing physical about physics.

A self-consistent hallucination has the quality of appearing solid and material. Materiality is an illusion created by the consistency of ordinary consciousness. It has lulled you into a false sense of materiality because you haven't yet experienced the consistency break down.

[Wes Thoughts]

13 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Materiality is an illusion created by the consistency of ordinary consciousness. It has lulled you into a false sense of materiality because you haven't yet experienced the consistency break down.

How do we experience the consistency break down? Psychedelics?

I could see how that would be a break in consistency. Except my materialist paradigm has a justification for that too: I am just altering the chemicals in my brain that create my experience of consciousness. 

 

[Joseph Maynor]

Notice that your question is nothing more than images and sensed thoughts being picked up in your awareness.  And reading answers is nothing more than images and sensed thoughts being picked up in your awareness.   That's all that is real.  Everything else is thought-story -- pure fantasy.

Edited October 5, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Forestluv]

On 10/3/2017 at 5:34 AM, Leo Gura said:

@MM1988 It cannot be created or destroyed, because it's the absence of all dualities. It sits before the distinction of existence vs non-existence, or self vs reality.

@Leo Gura To me, the term dualism suggests bimodal distinctions. Yet, wouldn’t continuums also be considered dualistic distinctions? E.g. “He drives a LARGE truck” includes dualism (The truck he drives is seperate from other smaller  trucks he does not drive). If so, wouldn’t most adjectives in language be dualistic since they compare seperate items? 

[Wes Thoughts]

I think Rupert Spira does an excellent job of tackling this question in this video! I have watched it multiple times and I try to allow it to sink in.

 

[Leo Gura]

15 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

@Leo Gura To me, the term dualism suggests bimodal distinctions. Yet, wouldn’t continuums also be considered dualistic distinctions? E.g. “He drives a LARGE truck” includes dualism (The truck he drives is seperate from other smaller  trucks he does not drive). If so, wouldn’t most adjectives in language be dualistic since they compare seperate items? 

Of course all human discourse is dualistic. Language nor the mind cannot be trusted when it comes to understanding the fundamental nature of nature.

The solution is very simple, yet infuriating and deeply unpalatable: stop talking & stop thinking.

[Leo Gura]

15 hours ago, Wes Thoughts said:

How do we experience the consistency break down? Psychedelics?

Psychedelics, yoga, meditation, self-inquiry, dark room retreats, etc. Don't matter how. It all leads to the same basic place.

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I could see how that would be a break in consistency. Except my materialist paradigm has a justification for that too: I am just altering the chemicals in my brain that create my experience of consciousness.

Yes, of course. Don't expect a tyrant to agree to being deposed.

Your paradigm's job is to maintain power over you at all costs.

You see how it's circular logic? You don't actually know whether materialism is true. That is the issue at question. So you have to investigate whether it's actually true before you can just assume that you have a brain.

Try not having a brain. Then see which feels more true.

What you have to be interested in, is genuinely exploring alternative paradigms.

Notice, the only difference between an Islamic fundamentalist and you is that he calls god "Allah", and you call it "brain".

[egoless]

15 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Actually, it's stranger than that.

"The brain" and "an impulse in the brain" are concepts! Not impulses!

Concepts do not occur inside a brain. That's backwards. Rather brains are concepts occurring in consciousness.

Reality is not a hardware system, it's more like a software system. The software is NOT running on hardware!

Stop thinking about reality physically. There's nothing physical about physics.

A self-consistent hallucination has the quality of appearing solid and material. Materiality is an illusion created by the consistency of ordinary consciousness. It has lulled you into a false sense of materiality because you haven't yet experienced the consistency break down.

When we speak about non physicality of reality one question arises. If the reality is infinite it should also contain physicality right? It seems like these two counteract each other - or I am missing something.

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, egoless said:

When we speak about non physicality of reality one question arises. If the reality is infinite it should also contain physicality right? It seems like these two counteract each other - or I am missing something.

The substance of reality is undefined, and undefinable. That's literally what it is.

What you call it doesn't matter. Calling it "physical" is just a label. Calling it "nonphysical" is also just a label. The real thing is neither. It really has no name. The label you're using is itself identical to the thing you're trying to use it to define. So this whole language game is a never-ending tail-chase.

The only reason labels like "physical" or "nonphysical" have meaning is relative to themselves. The meaning is constructed within a network of ideas in the mind. This entire network of ideas is dualistic and finite, so it's no good for our purposes here.

You must go beneath language.

[egoless]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

The substance of reality is undefined, and undefinable. That's is literally what it is.

What you call it doesn't matter. Calling it "physical" is just a label. Calling it "nonphysical" is also just a label. The real thing is neither. The label you're using is itself identical to the thing you're trying to use it to define. So this whole language game is a never-ending tail-chase.

You must go beneath language.

Ok I think I understand what you mean. I remember that you describe it as: there is no ending in the substance of reality no matter if you zoom in or zoom out. So basically you mean that there is no base building block element of reality?

[Leo Gura]

@egoless There IS a base building block element of reality. And it is nothing.

Imagine Lego blocks made out of pure nothingness. It's like that. Except anything you imagine is wrong.

The world is made out of differences, and behind these differences there is nothing.

[egoless]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@egoless There IS a base building block element of reality. And it is nothing.

Do you think full realization can be achieved with only being present? Always trying to 100% concentrate on NOW - No self inquiry, no meditations (however, that could in itself be considered as form of meditation), no psychedelics. 

Edited October 6, 2017 by egoless

[Leo Gura]

@egoless That IS meditation. That IS self-inquiry.

[egoless]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

@egoless That IS meditation. That IS self-inquiry.

But during self-inquiry you try and ask yourself questions and look to experience those answers is not it so? So basically you are still trying to do something.