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There is no death, life is only a dream, and we *are* the imagination of ourselves.
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I have always believed exactly this, and I was very happy to find venerable traditions of this teaching in Tibetan and Hindu Shaivite Tantra. Made my life very happy for a few years. Now I eat meat and am generally a gross American who feels like crap. But I still believe this.
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:)
I've read some Alan Watts and other such things. It is a nice idea, but it is folly. More a Nietzschean over here. The mass is not all, greatness and uniqueness is not all either.
Sociology, ethnography, culture studies, you can realise how divided people are, the societal stratifications and the less pleasant ways in which they are often united. I am not everyone, everyone is not me. The oneness is false. Some people really stick out, they aren't part of the general will, the general consciousness. A friend of mine is like that. Another friend remarked he had a "Mongol soul". Guy is without fear with a very abnormal mentally (which I think is just great, good on him). Having said that, he isn't a tough guy, so he doesn't compare well to other tough guys either, he isn't a part of their class or the class in which he was born into (rich Asians).
Ah labels. They provide so much comfort.
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So, the Dalai Lama walks into Pizza Hut and says, "Can you make me one with everything?"
Nietzsche gets up from his table angrily and starts to rant about Zoroaster.
Here's Tom with the weather!
[bubble bubble bubble]
EDIT: Changed hat. Bill Hicks was certainly part of the Trolling Philosophers Club.
Too...... intellectual........
<brain explodes>
Bill Hicks... the creepy... goat-boy?
I read a thing about this recently, though I can't remember where; thought it an interesting idea for a story but little more. The idea was basically "there are only two entities existing in this universe - all of humanity and God; because the entity making up all of humanity is a 'baby God' and once it has lived out all earthly lifetimes it will have matured enough to become a divine entity in full and will move on with its parent to raise the next such entity in the line".
Orthos, I've had a very similar thought - save, god doesn't exist yet (as all human lifetimes have not come to pass; at which point god will "evolve" into existence).
The shit you think of while showering.
If this is true then we are all ... FIRED, effective immediately.
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3.5 loyalist, nothing in the worldview implies that oneness should mean peace or respect. We each of us rage against ourselves daily.
Other than the sensation of ego, there is nothing cutting us off from other people-- indeed, from the inanimate world, as there is no difference between us and inanimate things other than the names we have given them. Names derived from our sensation of self-ness, a peculiar pattern that has developed in some clumps of cells on this planet.
3.5 loyalist, nothing in the worldview implies that oneness should mean peace or respect. We each of us rage against ourselves daily.
Other than the sensation of ego, there is nothing cutting us off from other people-- indeed, from the inanimate world, as there is no difference between us and inanimate things other than the names we have given them. Names derived from our sensation of self-ness, a peculiar pattern that has developed in some clumps of cells on this planet.
"there is nothing cutting us off from other people"
What about distance? Time? Climate?
There is plenty separating us from inanimate things. Are you a brick? Do you function like a brick? Careful you don't buy into this oneness idea too hard, or that animals are just like people too, which are just everything else. There are many connections between people, things and their environment, but not everything is the same without difference "there is no difference between us and inanimate things".
Naming can lead to folly, but naming can also be simply truth. One place is not the same as another and people are not identical seeds. Transcendent religious ideas make us feel good if we buy into them, but their poetic simplifications are always flawed, as convincingly as they might be stated.
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What is distance? A measure. Not entirely accurate, subject to paradoxes, and warping that our egoistic definitions were not primed for when we created the concept.
Time is also immensely problematic and poorly understood. Merely because we perceive the arrow of time running in one direction does not make that the only possibility. Or so the physicists on TV told me.
Climate shapes our various differences on the level of matter, but of all that is matter there is some matter which has developed into cells, some which have become eukaryotic, some which have nervous systems... and a very small subset of that matter has developed a sense of self. The rest of it "instinctively knows" (but really knows nothing) that it is no different than the next thing.
I am not claiming that your perceptions of the world are wrong, merely that you are mistaking your perceptions as persisting outside yourself. Everything you've said is true, in a sense that is much easier to grasp (and I do not use the word pejoratively)... to hold in your hands, because you are you. But you're not. You're a process, and all of those distinctions are just your sense of self, drawing lines, so that this process can preserve one form of matter (your bodily health) over another (your inevitable conversion into dirt).
Transcendent religious ideas make us feel good if we buy into them, but their poetic simplifications are always flawed, as convincingly as they might be stated.
Incidentally, I am an athiest. And 8:30 in the morning is not too early for this stuff it seems.
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I learned all the philosophy I need from Babylon 5 and Kung Fu Panda.
I dunno, Uncle Iroh has a pretty sound grasp of the universe, too.
Evil, I'm glad you made that distinction, I can see why skeptics think the idea of oneness sounds like a naive ideology with blinders on for the strife in the world. I wanted to say something but wasn't sure what to say so I decided to choose my battles.
Loyalist:
You left something out.
"Other then the sensation of Ego
there is nothing cutting us off from other people"
What about Distance? Time? Climate?
Products of the sensation of ego.
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I learned all the philosophy I need from Babylon 5 and Kung Fu Panda.I dunno, Uncle Iroh has a pretty sound grasp of the universe, too.
"Delicious tea... or deadly poison...?"
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RIP, Bill.
I don't buy it for a second, but I'd trip with the guy if I could.
I like when he explained why he doesn't do drugs anymore.
"After you've been brought onto a UFO..."
Hee hee!
I am not just a process, although if you want to take that argument then you are going to get a bit stuck. This process is not the same as every process. It is not linked to all the other processes and while it bears similarities to some, it is not the same as any before or after it. We can talk metaphysics, we can get into oneness, but it falls down in that people who like that idea want you to go with it, but there is but a partial oneness, with frequent dim connections. I do not interact with everyone, I do not know all others and everything. Or to draw in gaming terms, there are a lot of npcs out there, that I don't interact with, impact or experience the perspectives and richness of their lives/processes.
There are grounds for separation.
The distinctions are not just my senses of self struggling to stay separate, distance and time exists outside of one person's observations. There is some science to fall back on here, and if you want, standards of measurement (beyond one person's "views") to talk of distance, precise calculations to talk of time, locations to talk of geography and climate.
Having moved across a few cultures and acutely felt the rural and urban divide I can say with simple objectivity, different lives are led, whole different value sets can be compared and the people created by the landscape and culture of their origin are not the same, not one. There is no oneness, it is false. Asian philosophical preachings on the ego have a point, love what they say about fixation, but there are great barriers and demarcations that are beyond a person's naming and have such real strength. When a real urban and a rural sit down and have a chat, it isn't just egos fighting, they can be as unassertive as limp cucumbers, calm as anything, high as kites, and they are still different in character, direction, views, capacities.
No one can be the whole and the one, but it is a nice dream. A dream which is a form of ultimate excelling and a total negation of self in one. If you are all, and all are you, you are no longer you. Some go for that I suppose.
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My link was more on point than you might realize. This world is not the result of my (or anyone's) imagination, because I can imagine things much different from reality. Since I can imagine them, regardless of who's imagination it is, those things would have to be inherently possible within reality. There isn't much evidence that anything is possible, in fact, quite the opposite.
You could argue that the imaginer is imagining certain rules, but then you'd need to answer why.
HOLY CRAP!!! I went to the leading RPG company's messageboard for RPG discussions and a philosophy debate broke out. Awesome!!!
My take, there is truth to both perspectives everything is one and everything is itself separate from everything else. Call it universal diversity.
Hm. I'm not countermanding many of those claims, 3.5-L. There are grounds for separation, and the differences that you express are real.
But my left hand is different from my right, they are both part of the same greater being.
You and I are different, but we are both part of the same reality.
Within that reality, there are some clumps of cells that show a pattern of cohesion, and a tendency to act in a way such as to preserve their current form (against inevitable deterioration). We are each one such clump of cells.
To preserve the pattern, those cells necessarily developed a control mechanism, and a sense of demarcation — where I end and the ground begins. Only these cells are "me".
Every single thing we think or perceive is through the lens of that mechanism. Even when someone drops acid and their ego is suspended, they are still looking through the lens — it's just that they are more prone to accept that their lens exists.
You see, I'm not claiming that your view is wrong. These things are as you say they are. It's just a matter of trying to consider things existing without egos to perceive them.
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I think that taking this quote out of context and then subjecting it to lengthy deconstruction does a dis-service to Bill Hicks.
Bill was talking about the perils of seeing the world through the perspective presented by television, he suggested that there were many different ways to perceive the world that might be more valid than the TV news point-of-view.
TO illuminate this in an entertaining way, he contrasted it with a perspective based upon his experiences with hallucinogenic drugs.
So, the person who crafted the OP's quote did not claim to accuratley reflect the world, he merely suggested that it was probably more interesting, and no less valid, than the TV news version.
It could be argued that his real point is that no perspective really gets us to the absolute truth and thus we should all simultaneously be more sceptical, open-minded, questioning and opinionated.
Mmm, and there is more than just the ego separating us. We can break out the sociology and talk shop. Draw up clear divisions and blurry ones, compare and contrast classes and whole societies. We can use terms entirely uncreated by our ego, but which have been verified and observed to be in existence.
The idea of oneness is a dream, we can never merge into one consciousness while we are alive, although some religions offer it after death. Welcome to the cereal bowl, you are now the one piece of cereal with the many. Probably can be traced back to a human wish for submission and the fear of individuality and breaking from others/traditions.
@GeraintElberion: Or he was just making a funny.
Mmm, and there is more than just the ego separating us. We can break out the sociology and talk shop. Draw up clear divisions and blurry ones, compare and contrast classes and whole societies. We can use terms entirely uncreated by our ego, but which have been verified and observed to be in existence.
But they're all just words and language. We cannot define the world except in terms of our sense of self. No-self does not define things. Things just are, and even that is suspect.
The idea of oneness is a dream, we can never merge into one consciousness while we are alive, although some religions offer it after death.
You seem to think I am supporting some kind of silly psychic business. There's no magical technique in what I am saying, no promises are made. You can't read other people's minds, or alter their behavior. I think if I were connecting with you on this, you'd see that I don't regard that as a goal, or even as germane to the discussion as I understand it. But I'm not connecting with you, through no fault of yours or mine.
Welcome to the cereal bowl, you are now the one piece of cereal with the many. Probably can be traced back to a human wish for submission and the fear of individuality and breaking from others/traditions.
I don't understand what you're responding to there. What can be traced back? Please elaborate.
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All this mamby pamby 'binds us all together' stuff is way cooler if you give in to your hatred. And free cookies!
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3.5, think about a wave. It rises, forms, crests, breaks, falls back into the sea and it's no longer a wave. While its a wave it is different from other waves. There are big waves, little waves, gentle waves, waves that crash violently into each other.
None of that means the ocean is not real, or that those different waves are not part of the same thing.
Keep in mind I am not out to convert you to thinking like me, I just hope you will understand the way I think.
I would hate for you to imagine I don't realize that existence is full of diverse and splendid and terrible manifestations.
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I am an atheist, but I take a Zen approach to it and I do enjoy reading / delving into metaphysics as there is always new insight to be gained even when one wants to remain beholden to a rationalist perspective.
ʾehyeh ʾašer ʾehyeh a/k/a I AM THAT I AM a/k/a Exodus 3:12. But I loathe / disagree with that being a noun. I blame the Greek translation, ego eimi ho on, because it translates to I AM THE BEING.
It is more profound when you read it as a verb, because from Hebrew, it literally translates to I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE (or I prefer to replace BE with BECOMING). It brings out a lot of speculative mystical implications.
People clutch to old wineskins. Old books. Old symbols. They fear the change. The unknowing. Predestination and being on the winning side is preferential because there's safety in hedging bets. They want in the present what was once in the past to be in the future.
But that isn't how 'becoming' works. From a literary standpoint, certain deities seem so schizophrenic when read in chronological order based on how the redactor / editor "threw it together." In the past, they were waltzing around the planet and the solar system like a cosmic Billy Burke. Today, they seem mute; beyond the stars.
I remember an incident fourteen years ago when I was attending a Lutheran pastor's Wednesday evening bible study semi-regularly. It wasn't a hostile venture; it was very civil, actually (or initially). I enjoy discussing literature, parables, textual criticisms, etc. There was a brief round table talk one evening about 'What does the Bible tell you?' The usual answers unfold as one would expect. But when it got to me, I took my turn to stand up with the book in hand.
I dropped it on the floor with a resounding 'thud'. I crouched down to pick it up, then returned to my seat without speaking a word. The looks were priceless.
Of course, these are the same type of individuals who take to quick offense with remarks like If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him. You replace The Buddha with The Christ or Mohammed, then "s@#t is gonna get real" with the literatzis.
Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:21-22; Luke 5:33-39. Heck, throw in Sayings 47 from the (Gnostic) Gospel of Thomas. If one really wants to gain some introspection, then one has to leap into the 21st century. Toss aside the ten thousand things and take a leap of faith. People are allegedly familiar with the concept, but they tend to remain steadfast to the present tense of I AM and not the future tense of I WILL BECOME.
Does this mean that I'm telling people to abandon their religion and accept atheism? If you came to this conclusion, it is incorrect. You only confirmed to yourself what you wanted to read. I have a healthy fascination and awe with regard to parables found in comparative religions. My disdain lies in their exegetical codification resulting in its overt application to oppress others to conform to a rigid orthodoxy. It doesn't take much effort to draw conclusions and witness how well that's been working out.
I don't have the answers. But I can't remain static believing that I will have them and cease to become.
It's not a matter of how you reached your answer, but how you continue to approach the question. The answer has already been given.
This concludes my rare moment of Zen. I will now return to my regular Internet programming: reductio ad thirtyfourum.
It's definitely good food for thought.
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I defer to Conan. Conan said,
"Queen of the Black Coast" (1934)
He shrugged his shoulders. "I have known many gods. He who denies
them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond
death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or
Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of
the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep
while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine
on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle
when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers
and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and
illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an
illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with
life, I love, I slay, and am content."
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** spoiler omitted **
+1
I've also seen it more simply translated as:
** spoiler omitted **
Vowels are an obstacle.
While I am 100% with Conan on the afterlife, what I was discussing was this life.
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I am an atheist, but I take a Zen approach to it and I do enjoy reading / delving into metaphysics as there is always new insight to be gained even when one wants to remain beholden to a rationalist perspective.
ʾehyeh ʾašer ʾehyeh a/k/a I AM THAT I AM a/k/a Exodus 3:12. But I loathe / disagree with that being a noun. I blame the Greek translation, ego eimi ho on, because it translates to I AM THE BEING.
It is more profound when you read it as a verb, because from Hebrew, it literally translates to I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE (or I prefer to replace BE with BECOMING). It brings out a lot of speculative mystical implications.
** spoiler omitted **...
Which means that another translation can be, "He is who He is." Or, "He was that He was." Or, several variations thereof.
I too blame the Greek translations.
Bah. We are actually three consciousnesses experiencing ourselves and each other in a random mix of subjective and objective bits. The name of the second consciousness is Dave.
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Bah. We are actually three consciousnesses experiencing ourselves and each other in a random mix of subjective and objective bits. The name of the second consciousness is Dave.
Dave is sacked. HAL is Dave's replacement.
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There is no death, life is only a dream, and we *are* the imagination of ourselves.
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But when I tell them String theory invalidates religion and evolution because all life is the same life at superposition they think I'm just crazy yellowdingo at it again. Knowing the answers isn't going to get you anything but ridicule from the Bunny Worshipers.