Time will collaspe it is just a matter of time No, seriously the illusion of seperation can only hold definition because of time. The definition fades away when the unkown reveals itself in the collective conciousness of all that we currently know. The collaspe of time, the unknown becomes knowable..
What we're really debating is how it is that we "know". I would say that how we know defines what it means to know. We know of the existence of stuff only by means of the changing of the stuff. That includes the changing of the stuff we call mind. We also measure time by means of change. But whether or not stuff actually constantly changes is unknowable, because we can't know about things without change. Physical science explains physical objects/events in terms of other physical objects/events -- and that's all it does. The mind is just another physical object/event, understanding physical objects/events in terms of other physical objects/events (including the mind itself). As a particular mind changes, I have no doubt that its comprehension (for example, it's concepts) also change. That is because the reference points are all changing. We don't know that the "stuff" is actually changing, we only know that the relationships of some stuff to other stuff is changing. Here is an interesting philosophical viewpoint about consciousness. [h=1][/h]
For me, the "debate" is how is it we know that we don't know. The missing or the unknowable is because of our present state of consciousness. When we consider things like dream time, teleportation, and shape shifting as plausible constructs of reality we are challenged to support it with currently accepted science. For example my place in an infinite universe can only be described with present science as time and separation. Without the illusion of time there is no separation and my place is no longer a place but an ever present connection to always.
I understand that in epistemology the knowledge is justified-true-belief. I was wondering, how do you know that you know something, based on this definition? You only know that something is true if you have justification to believe that it is true. So this seems to reduce knowledge to merely justified-belief, since only by justifying a belief do you come to the conclusion that it is true. A situation where two observers observing two events A and B, may observe them even in reverse order . That is; while one observer observes A before B the other one may observe B before A. So while the first observer is observing A in his “present” the second event B is exists in his future. A case of present and future existing simultaneously; but he can observe event B only when it arrives at his “present”. For the future event B to arrive at his present something has to flow. What is flowing? Are the events flowing? or gap between the events flowing? or the observer (his mind) is flowing? Events and gaps cannot flow. So logically it must be the observer’s mind that is flowing, as an illusion. . However that is just one of many current interpretations of time flow. Go through the following link which gives a very good description of all existing time theories and judge for yourself. Our sense of time also is caused by the way we sense the world with our 5 senses. When the senses are not working the sense of time also disappears. Theory of relativity and later experiments, have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that time is not absolute but depends on the inertial frame of the observer. Evidently our sense of time also cannot be trusted. Our ideas of beginning and end, past and future etc are based on our sense of time which cannot be trusted. The universe exists certainly, as it has existed ever. But we can observe and remember events only as cause and effect in that order where as in reality events of both past and future are laid out on the fabric of Space-Time. Let me clarify on the reliability of our psychological time as that was the point of contention in this discussion. An event is described by a time and a location. But both the time and space coordinates are not absolute and can vary relative to the observer. Two observers in two different inertial positions will assign two different space and time coordinates for the same event. So if they observe two events A and B, depending upon their inertial position relative to the events, one observer may conclude A occurred before B while the second observer may conclude B occurred before A and both are right. We cannot assign a universally acceptable time or position for any event and the time that we feel has only a local and subjective validity. Time does exist outside of the observer, but its true nature is not what we observe. Again I say the universe never came in to existence; it just is, was and will be. It is just like the concept of god. It is our way of perceiving change that makes us think of a beginning. During my present, the set of events I perceive constitute my universe. Change is the act of perceiving events in a temporal order and time flow is the act of experiencing the temporal distance between events. Every event has its set of space coordinates and a time coordinate. The event and its space-time location are sewed together and cannot be separated. . . Imagine a situation where a person has lost his ability to recall anything from his memory; both long term and short term. Every sensory input will be new and unknown and it will not be possible to interconnect them. Obviously perception becomes impossible and that person cannot be aware of even his own existence. So consciousness is linked to memory. I think man’s superior consciousness was due to his increased and increasing ability to store and recall memory. This was made possible by our language I think. We tag every sensory image with a name so that it becomes easy to recall. So our language helped in the development of higher level of consciousness. In case of other specie they may be storing and recalling memory in a cumbersome manner. Hence their consciousness is of a lower order. Please check the link that may be interesting for you on consciousness .
You can be aware of SELF, just by shutting your mind off. It's very easy to say, but difficult to realize, but still doable. The SELF is not math, physics or any quantifiable object. As I said: you're trying the impossible: comprehend the SELF thru the mind. No matter how many questions you can ask and in how many ways you like to put those questions, you won't have an answer to satisfy the mind. Mind is NOISE, but SELF is STILLNESS.
That person will be the happiest on Earth, because THE SELF is FULLY EXPRESSED. No, SELF has nothing to do with memory. Memory is just a tool, and nothing more. Memory will give that man a name [label] and store that in a box somewhere and then labels will keep coming and then "the history" will appear which will cloud the expression of the SELF and man will fall in disgrace of SELF and reduced to a SINGLE LINE: the line between the birth date and death date on a gravestone in a cemetery.
This is a really great sentence and expresses the attributes of the mind: Illusionary and tricky and it seems that the illusion wants to protect itself, supported by nescience which is the buddy of the ego. (I mean 'the' ego not your ego, personally...) Ken Wilber: Again, to say that ‘things’ don’t exist is not to say that the world is really a uniform mush. The ’Void’ means ‘seamless’, not ‘featureless’. At any rate, it is only by habitually narrowing attention to only particular facets of the seamless field of awareness that thought presents us with the convincing illusion that the world is a multiple of separate and independent ‘things’ existing ‘out there’. Now the only way that thought can handle these small bits of narrowed attention is to arrange them in a linear order. Obviously, once the world is sliced into vast number of small chunks, these chunks cannot be swallowed all at once-they must be taken in successively, bit by bit by bit, just as you must now read this material word by word.. As everybody knows, you can’t think of even two or three things at once without being thrown into paralyzing confusion, and so, to introduce some measure of coherence and order, the thought process, with the help of memory, strings out these separate bits of attention along a line which it creates for that very purpose, in almost the same manner that these words are arranged into ‘lines of print’. This ‘line’ of successive bits of narrowed attention, this ‘line’ upon which thought strings out its objects-concepts, this ‘line’ which thought itself conjures up, is nothing other than time. In other words, time is nothing more, nothing less, than thought’s successive way of viewing the world.. But by habitually viewing nature in this linear, successive, temporal fashion, we soon arrive at the ‘obvious’ conclusion that nature herself proceeds in a line, from the past to the future, from cause to effect, from before to after, from yesterday to tomorrow-completely ignoring the fact that this supposed linearity of nature is entirely a product of the way we view it. But then, to a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. Nature, however, does not proceed in a line-it happens simultaneously-everywhere at once. And the evidence of this simultaneity is right at hand-simply stop reading and look up, where you will discover an infinite number of processes all happening at once: sun shining, heart beating, birds singing, kids playing, lungs breathing, dogs barking, wind blowing, crickets chirping, eyes seeing, ears hearing-need we continue?” -END of Wilber's quote- My own experience. Time is not linear and is not real. 15 minutes, determined by a linear watch: When waiting until exams will begin then these 15 minutes before feel like some hours. When sitting next to a beautiful girl while waiting for the bus they are like seconds. In meditation when there are only a few thoughts in the mind, they 'reach' eternity. When totally being IN the present where ‘now’ is the only thing that is aware, where all moments are at once, then you experience your true nature, which is bliss. (That what SOCRATE_MMXII means with 'that person will be the happiest on Earth, because THE SELF is FULLY EXPRESSED.') Time is no rigid strap with linear clusters, it is an elastic band. To have a watch around our wrist supports the illusion of a linear time.
From what I perceived of the expressions of Tolle and other previous like minded writers the experience of the 'self' is not governed by scientific or empirical rules. It is even interesting how one is able to actualize these 'events' with our existing philosophical constructs since it appears to be a realm of nothingness and everything at the same point. Is it possible for this self to be a 'shared' experience. If collective humanity came to understand this SELF what are the implications for our existence for terms like self-actualization. Some say the only constant in life is change. If time is an inference of change then do all the attributes of time apply to change. If time is elastic, is change elastic , if time ceases to exist or collapses will change be the same. In an existence of stillness, wherein there is no time, no paradigms, does it imply that no changes exist, no constants. Is our existence a circular argument?? Thanks for this thread, has been a thought provoking read for me.
Big Bang is a load of nonsense, let them deploy a more powerful telescope than Hubble and the first Galaxy they see that is over 13.7 billion years old will cause massive confusion. But then again they will just say it was a Bigger Big Bang. String Theory is the future not Big Bang !
One could argue that in the face of eternity all becomes knowable, all conflict has resolution, all disharmony becomes harmonious, all misperception becomes correct perception. The difference between misperception and correct perception becomes not a matter of individual perspective but a collective shift in awareness. Such things have been predicted for example Source: http://awakeningasone.com/seek-the-truth/the-quickening-transcript/ Let me point out that there are some things that I agree with and some things I don't from this source. It is not my intention to direct the debate in a certain direction but maybe only to broaden it.. I like this example somewhat to illustrate the point.. http://bigthink.com/ideas/24429 So without getting into the weeds to much on what is plausible currently, do you think that collectively all can shift in consciousness? I am of the mind that in the face of eternity it is inevitable.
Yes the idea is to inspire and to share thoughts. My posts are never written to teach. The fact that one can say I am 'proves' the existence. When you say : 'I am' do you feel the need to doubt this sentence? I am is pure being = the Self. Had there ever been a time where you were not? When you say I am not existing. Then there is 'one' existing who says I am not. The Self is the only thing that is Real. There can't be even one argument for it. IT simply is. The Self cannot prove the Self. To prove something there must be one who proves something This is the idea of 'I' that tries to think about if the (I) idea exists. So your question " Is our existence a circular argument??" No it simply IS. And if there is an answer, then it answers the question about your idea about who you are, but not about the 'one' who has this idea. You are the observer (that what is looking out of your eyes) and hence you exist. But everything you are perceiving cannot be you (the observer). When you look into the mirror you actually say I see myself in the mirror. This is an illusion. You see the idea of yourself only. Confused? Lol. The existence of subject-object dualism? Yes. But that what is left is pure being. One subject. The Reality, the Self. There is one state in sleep, deep sleep where no mind and hence no time exists. It are the stages between REM sleep where's the dream world. So there is 'something' that survives (exists) without the mind. It is the Self. I can say from my own experience: In deep meditation there is no mind. And you experience eternity. And you exist. Meditation is no state of psychosis like some might say. These are people who do not know what meditation actually is. To meditate simply means to be, to be without any distractions, of thoughts. Life is nothing than meditation with more or less effort. The goal of meditation is simply to calm the mind by reducing thoughts. When you talk to a person who is upset and say, come on, have a look...its like this and like that and it's actually not that bad. Then you actually ask him to meditate. To reduce the thoughts about. You know the expression "to be beside oneself", meditation reverses this condition. Not to be beside of the Self. As long as there are thoughts, there is the mind which creates a illusionary world, our awake dream. We are basically upset everyday, some day more, some day less. When we settle down until there is nothing more left to settle then we awake from our daydream. We stop then to be somebody (an idea) we start to be ourSelf. It is quite simple. To determine time you need thoughts, thoughts create the idea of 'I' an non 'I', this 'I' is perceiving the world 'non-I'. And when perceiving, the mind creates that mentioned ‘line’ of successive bits of narrowed attention, which is time. Ergo, when the amount of thoughts become less the mind becomes small and finally disappears, the subject-object dualism does not exist anymore. So the idea of 'I' and non 'I' disappears as well. There is no more a perceiver (idea of 'I'), no objects that are perceived (things around us). Hence no perception and hence no time. Are you dead now? The idea of 'I' is dead, but its cause, the Self is eternally left. It has its relative truth, hence its relative meaning. When it's nothing uselful to one's mind then it is for this person 'senseless'. My intention at the other thread had been to add to the BBT more sense.
Yen sir, what exactly is 'real'? Do we have any reliable way to distinguish it from what is 'not real'? In this topic I read many posts start with the premise that universe is the totality of everything(= space/time/matter/energy God/ singularity etc). Because of this, it makes no sense in asking "what cause the universe to appear". It is like asking "why is red, red?" It is meaningless. Premise: The universe is the totality of everything( Where everything is space/god/singularity time/ matter/energy) Conclusion: The universe is uncaused, because of p. We can never establish p with absolute certainty, because all we have are dates, and conjunctures which seems to be in the favor of p. The fact that we never found anything 'outside' the physical universe( our space-time) are merely empirical evidences. No amount of empirical evidences ever establish an indefeasible truth( or absolute certainty). We can never believe p with absolute certainty. Where is this "space/time/matter/energy/god/singularity " come from? So, I guess the standard question is/may be "why is there something rather than nothing"? I got the reply that since the universe is all there is, it makes no sense to ask what causes it. for example: It is like asking "why is red, red? ". It simply "is". If that is the reply I read, is not the statement "wrong", or the people just don't get it. If P implies Q, where Q is the physical universe. When one ask where Q come from? One can always retreat to an explanation like P to explain Q. By maintaining that Q is true no matter what, you avoid this problem. It is a logic trick. It is "wrong" to use logic in this way, because our human justification for Q( physical universe ) is necessary be based on a mathematical models. No justification of the physical universe can avoid the mathematical model that describe it. Your question should/would be: why our mathematical model is true of reality? The answer will be: we can never know, because we can never prove uniqueness between our model and reality. Only logical, and mathematical "statements" have truth values(t or f). mathematical models are not like logical statements. They do not have truth values that one can assign. In fact, nothing about a mathematical model of physical reality is ever "absolutely" certain, because all our model building would necessarily be based on empirical evidence( ie : induction on nature). No amount of indefeasible evidences can establish indefeasible truth.
What happened before the big bang? Did our cosmos exist before the big bang? ABHAY ASHTEKAR remembers his reaction the first time he saw the universe bounce. "I was taken aback," he says. He was watching a simulation of the universe rewind towards the big bang. Mostly the universe behaved as expected, becoming smaller and denser as the galaxies converged. But then, instead of reaching the big bang "singularity", the universe bounced and started expanding again. What on earth was happening? please see here
That's quite an old theory, simply saying that the Big Bang is cyclic in nature and it doesn't end. The fundamental question is whether the Big bang is really the whole expanding and contracting ?! Also people don't seem to be able to wrap their heads around the idea that something just "is", you look at everything in the Universe and it's cyclic so we naturally assume that the Universe itself is cyclic. But is that really true ? I support the String Theory view
@sid_16: your mind is really struggling to prove itself that's the master and not the servant, but it's useless. Mathematics is a tool of the mind to serve the mind. Just BE and then you'll see the truth.
This question is hard to answer because I don't know your idea of 'collectively all'. Is there a shift needed at all? Maharshi has said : All will end in the Self. But 'collectively all' is still an idea, an object as long there is one perceiving it. So when going into details I (we) always judge about 'all''s consciousness. So when only the 'Self' is that what is absolute real, then there can't be a shift at all. Who should shift from A to B? Somebody has said to me: Care about yourself and the world will care of itself. That means when I 'found' a away to 'realize' mySelf, then there is nobody apart (from me). So no collectivity I could think about. I am collectively all then and collectively all are me. (if I assume a shift is needed at all, means I and the others are not realized). So then 'collectively all' have shifted. When having a look at our individual beings (in the time), we can recognize a evolution of the mind spread all over different beings. There are beings away from the Self and beings close to it. Also there are animals. We say animals have a own consciousness and mind. To me the evolution is like this: Mind reflects pure instinct, the instinct to survive and to follow instincts to survive, to hunt for food. There is no recognition of 'others' as a own individual. Recognizing of 'I' as own individual. Recognizing of 'I' act. I am the actor. Recognizing of something other than 'I' Recognizing of 'I' am limited Recognizing of that something other has a higher power. Or can have a higher power. Recognizing of 'I' is just an idea Recognizing of that idea of 'I' and of the fact that 'I' and the higher power are only differentiated in the mind, have one source and this source is the only real 'thing' that eternally exists. Point one is the pure animal mind, point two to 5 are included in the ape's mind, the ape's consciousness. Of course if you go into details one can assign these points more differentiated to other animals. The other points are located at the human mind, human consciousness. The theory of rebirth says depending on the last state of mind when the mind dies, the next idea of the next 'I' is dependent on the last stage of the mind. So one's rebirth will be in that kingdom where his state of the mind belongs to. But what always IS is it's cause, the Self. To break out of the circle of rebirth one just need to be that what he really is, the 'self'. So from the aspect of Reality there is no rebirth, the Self is ever and will be. But related to time the Self's intention is to become aware. This is evolution in time and in species. And again, it actually doesn't matter to think about if rebirth exists, I wanted to explain the idea of it. The mind's affinity to have an idea of an 'I' is the power that is responsible for rebirth. But rebirth and death are just two sides of one medal and are happening all the time NOW. Real means always the same, unchangeable, with the same attribute, invulnerable, unarguable, eternal. Btw: Eternal means without time. It doesn't mean endless in time. This is very important. I support no particular model of the scientists, every model has some relative truth to project an relative aspect of the Reality. The sentence: There is only the Reality. Whatever you think it is, it looks like that. Has more truths in it as every theory. To say it direct: One is wasting time with them all. It's like to wear glasses which are very dirty. Instead of looking through them and to try to explore the world and to collect 'facts', to develop theories to have doubt abouts, to ague about, to find a reason why there are inconsistencies, one should simply take off the glasses. When I look into my bookshelf it's full of books of theories, real and only benefit of them: They are not able to tell me the absolute truth, because the truth can never be told, so why consult them when asking about it? Books are only useful regarding this matter when they instruct to stop thinking and using the mind (to instruct to take of the glasses). Others are written for relative truths with a relative benefit. I am is the absolute truth. It seems to be too simple.
There is no hiding that my perception is flawed and a continued courtship with ideas that have no consequence to the Self is a distraction and is my human condition. On occasion, however, the veil is lifted (shift). I believe others do experience this and when that experience occurs whether shared and simultaneous or otherwise, the we becomes One and the Self is, and the need for desriptions disappears.
I'm sorry to say that I find such blanket statements contradictory to the concept of freethinking. Freethinking is whatever you make of it, not what someone else makes out for you. If somebody doesn't believe in spiritual experiences, he's arrived at his conclusion by thinking openly about the concept so he's in effect a freethinker too. If you dismiss this notion then you aren't a freethinker, you are only pretending to be one. I've asked you to prove how mind is not responsible in creating the play as you like it or painting of Picasso but self and Daz loader needs a mind. But you're trying to thrust you mystic views on me again and again without any proof.
Have you ever find any time to check the links I provided about the consciousness or any other relating to that ? how can you be sure that memory has nothing to do with the self? how would you define the self / memory ? Just a thought suppose I ask you about the computer and your mind/memory visualise something similar to a computer (mouse/monitor/ cpu etc). But where was that visualisation in your mind/memory of a computer before I asked you to think about it? Anyway, I have always found it amusing that when a someone speaks of something outside his field he is considered an "expert". You don't see the amusement factor? Okay, lets try a hypothetical situation here... Would you let Mr Yen to perform open heart surgery on you? Why not? Oh, because he's a Mathematician and scientist and not a Cardiac Surgeon? Cool... Then why are you quoting Eckhart Tolly at me concerning science or the scientific theory? p.s-In no way I want to demean you Yen sir that's just an example.