Maharishi Effect - Group Meditations Lower City Crime Rate By 16% On Average

[zazed]

31 minutes ago, Dodo said:

When I see an image and add no thought to the perception, the image is self aware/there is absolutely nothing on the other side perceiving it, there is nothing except the present image.

Interestingly, they have been able to restore sight to people who were born blind. These people can see perfectly, but cannot make any sense of it. Their brain cannot distinguish people from objects. Or even where one object begins and another ends in his vision. Its just a whole mess of visual stuff. The reason for this is that their brain has never learned how to see, it cannot make sense of this sudden new data.

So even the simple act of seeing without thinking, involves a whole lot of labeling and processing in the mind.
Similar to how certain optical illusions work for us. But an optical illusion would mean nothing to these people even.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/feature-giving-blind-people-sight-illuminates-brain-s-secrets

[Dodo]

39 minutes ago, Maxx said:

@Dodo I basically agree. I would just add one word to what you are saying. There is no "inherent" enlightened mind. The perceiver is what is perceived. "Everything" is looking. Agree?

Well there seems to be no looking either, there seems to be just the isness of it  But I guess it can be seen/expressed in different ways

Edited January 1, 2018 by Dodo

[zazed]

41 minutes ago, Maxx said:

@Dodo I basically agree. I would just add one word to what you are saying. There is no "inherent" enlightened mind. The perceiver is what is perceived. "Everything" is looking. Agree?

I agree, the perceiver is what is perceived. Like a strange loop.

I would even say there is no enlightened mind, as enlightenment and mind are contradictory terms in my experience.
Enlightenment is something that is, not something you really can understand. It is not something you really do, it is rather more a lot of things you do not do. It is definitively not a state of mind, nor is it achieved by knowledge or thinking. 

[Guest Annetta]

@Maxx I'm still not quite sure I understand what you mean.

[snowleopard]

Still perceive nothing by emptifullness ... Ain't no more room for all these add-ons  

[zazed]

6 minutes ago, snowleopard said:

Ain't no more room for all these add-ons

Yeah, Enlightenment is about unlearning how to be unenlightened.

Depending on how good we have trained ourselves in being unenlightened, this can be a lot of work to unlearn.

[snowleopard]

@zazed  Yeah, I guess I was shit at the schools of indoctrination. Always felt like a sorry sham somehow, wondering how folks were really buying into this. But what's one gonna do at 5 years old? Questioning it usually got me a 'go away kid, ya bother me' sort of rebuke. So maybe I started inquiry very young. Reminds me of Picasso's quote,  "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." 

Edited January 1, 2018 by snowleopard

[Timotheus]

 @Leo Gura

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Maxx  Reality is so empty, there isn't even consciousness.

I'd like to know if existence is completely random from the point of view of this bullshit machine, since purpose can only be invented by this bullshit machine(?).

I'm also asking this referring to all the different opinions. New Age: You create your own reality, you chose your dream and therefore your suffering and reality is not there to escape from.

The Buddha: This lifetime as a human being is precious as fuck since it's one of the few opportunities to liberate yourself.

If existence is completely random and infinite... I don't even want to imagine what kind of suffering the universe is (randomly) creating for itself.

For me I better listen to Buddha's advice...

 

[WaveInTheOcean]

18 hours ago, Nexeternity said:

@Leo Gura  maybe then we get to reincarnate as one of the robots 

Who or what has the possibility of reincarnating as something, exactly?

Nothing reincarnates as everything which reincarates as nothing.

It's happening right now ... and you are that.

18 hours ago, snowleopard said:

 

But I don't buy into the materialist notion that AI will become subjectively aware, for the same reason that awareness isn't an epiphenomenon of brain activity, so won't fret over it.

You are also an artificial intelligence.  Artificial in the sense that it's simulated and illusory, which life is, everything is.

You are subjectively aware. So of course AI can become subjectively aware. Just a matter of time.

[WaveInTheOcean]

15 hours ago, Maxx said:

A robot is not "organically created and developed by consciousness" and the "will to live". It is some hardware, "artificially" put together, and software, i.e. a language nature doesn't understand.

The distinction you're making between natural and unnatural is arbitrary.

If the planet Earth is natural, and bacteria are natural, and monkeys are natural, and humans are natural, then surely, 'stuff' that humans create could also be considered natural, right? 

Let's say that humans are 'organically created and developed by consciousness'. If that is so, then humans must be governed by consciousness, and thus everything humans make (eg. AI/hardware/software/) must also be organically created andd developed by consciousness.

Edited January 1, 2018 by WaveInTheOcean

[snowleopard]

@WaveInTheOcean  Well, panpsychism posits that rocks are aware, so if that's the mythos, then sure why not robots?

[WaveInTheOcean]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

So the task for computer scientists isn't to spawn awareness or consciousness, it's to create a digital mind which can fool itself into thinking it exists when it really doesn't.

Exactly. Now, how do we do that?  

Also note that human minds are also digital, it's also all 1's and 0's, neurons firing or not firing.

How does the human mind convince itself it exist?

Survival?

The sensation of having free will?

Emotions?

but how.

[WaveInTheOcean]

12 hours ago, Maxx said:

You cannot take some pieces of metal you cobble together, some computer-chips, which you program in a certain programming language (like DOS for example) to execute certain things by differently conducting electricity, and expect it to be the way nature develops consciousness, believing that the so called AI will become conscious

Well, what you call 'nature' seems to have done that. Just slightly different. Nature took some carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, cobbled it together, got some cells, cobbled them together, got a body and a brain, programmed it with some DNA - genetics - which is also just biomolecules of C H N O and set it to execute certain things by conducting electricity through ion-flow in neurons, and boom bam, a conscious animal is born.

Edited January 1, 2018 by WaveInTheOcean

[snowleopard]

@WaveInTheOcean

14 minutes ago, WaveInTheOcean said:

and boom bam, a conscious animal is born.

So your mythos is materialism ... Let me know when you find some matter, and I'll reconsider your theory  

[Nahm]

I think the ‘sides’ of this thread are experienced it intellectually & physiologically, compared to experienced it as what I am. A lot of “true” or accurate philosophy etc can unveil our own beliefs & paradigms revealing a more “true” perspective, but without experiencing it directly, we’re left with the perspective that nothing is something other than “God” or “Infinite” - that it’s not what we actuality are. Like getting to the emptying of the illusion, but not being the reality of the absolute.  

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Maxx said:

Stating that Nagarjuna's philosophy is dualistic, that's what you are implying, is wrong. The Buddhist masters of the last 2000 years know more than you.

I never said Nagarjuna's philosophy is dualistic. You are misinterpreting Buddhism to fit what you want to be true.

Indeed, 2000 years of Buddhist masters know more than you. The key is knowing how to understand what they are pointing to.

When they say Mu, they mean utter nothingness, nothingness is beyond awareness, beyond consciousness, beyond all words, beyond all forms, beyond anything. Emptiness so empty to call it empty is too much.

I'm not saying anything original here. This is as orthodox and pure Buddhism as it gets.

[WaveInTheOcean]

1 hour ago, snowleopard said:

@WaveInTheOcean

So your mythos is materialism ... Let me know when you find some matter, and I'll reconsider your theory  

even though materialism is fundamentally wrong, you can still talk about 'stuff' like carbon and oxygen etc if it makes sense to do so.

Awareness/Consciousness/Being/Nothingness is everything, but you still need some special arrangement of 'stuff' to create self-aware beings...i.e. illusory selfs. 

[snowleopard]

28 minutes ago, WaveInTheOcean said:

if it makes sense to do so

Well, therein is the big 'if' ... Does it make sense to talk about arrangements of molecules becoming conscious, when there are only such apparent 'things' by virtue of that which is conscious of them?

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Maxx said:

@Leo Gura

No Leo, I'm sorry, you are wrong. It is exactly the other way round. It is you who is misinterpreting Buddhism. I'm not saying anything original here. This is as orthodox and pure Buddhism as it gets.

But no matter what I say, you obviously refuse to be open minded about this. You are apparently very convinced that what you think about this topic is true. So have fun with your "enlightenment". Truth will catch up with you sooner or later.

Lol

Oh the delicious, delicious irony. Relativity at its finest. How sweet Maya is

[Joseph Maynor]

2 hours ago, Nahm said:

I think the ‘sides’ of this thread are experienced it intellectually & physiologically, compared to experienced it as what I am. A lot of “true” or accurate philosophy etc can unveil our own beliefs & paradigms revealing a more “true” perspective, but without experiencing it directly, we’re left with the perspective that nothing is something other than “God” or “Infinite” - that it’s not what we actuality are. Like getting to the emptying of the illusion, but not being the reality of the absolute.  

Yep.  Doing psychedelics taught me this too.  There is what is, and then there is what is said about what is.  The difficulty is in getting what is said about reality working for you instead of working against you.  That takes a shit-load of awareness, exposure, and experience to manage.  The Mind can be (but is not always) a tricky, greedy, Egoic bastard.

Watch this video and do the worksheet.  It will be worth it!  The worksheet is linked as the first comment in the YouTube video.

 

Edited January 1, 2018 by Joseph Maynor