Subjective Reality

[SecretSeven]

It's true that you can never prove another's existence, yet does that mean only you exist? Do you believe that consciousness centers on one person, and one person alone? Or do you just have faith that other's are conscious like yourself.

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by SecretSeven

It's true that you can never prove another's existence, yet does that mean only you exist? Do you believe that consciousness centers on one person, and one person alone? Or do you just have faith that other's are conscious like yourself.

I'm quite certain that I did not write your above quote... if not... someone else did... now, that may not be scientific truth... but it sure is good enough for me...
.

[Anagogy]

Originally Posted by Shamou

I'm quite certain that I did not write your above quote... if not... someone else did... now, that may not be scientific truth... but it sure is good enough for me...
.

What about when you are dreaming Shamou? When asleep, we think we're awake, but does that mean the personalities you meet in your dreams are not you? I realize you are addressing the question from an objective, and maybe even reductionist (correct me if I'm wrong) point of view, but metaphysically speaking, who are we to say what is real and what is not? Maybe we just think we are awake...

Originally Posted by SecretSeven

It's true that you can never prove another's existence, yet does that mean only you exist? Do you believe that consciousness centers on one person, and one person alone? Or do you just have faith that other's are conscious like yourself.

In my opinion, the question is moot. Call me crazy, but there is no difference between the "imaginary" and the "real". The difference is agreed upon by convention because we occupy a particular reality. I believe all realities exist. The worlds you dream up when you sleep exist. The idle day dreams you have about a different play out of a certain event in your life exist. The strange creatures you imagine exist. You could be occupying a completely different universe right now, with completely different physical laws, or none at all. Consciousness is one, big, seemless, continuum of existence.

Until we develop the capacity to perceive others thoughts, we can never truly know if they have them. After all, most people can only see behavior. They could be nothing but sophisticated androids for all you know. But that doesn't mean there is justification for treating anyone or anything like they don't have consciousness. That's right, I'm advocating dream morality! Be nice to the people in your dreams. They could be real.....they might even hold a grudge....

[Plato]

Originally Posted by SecretSeven

It's true that you can never prove another's existence, yet does that mean only you exist? Do you believe that consciousness centers on one person, and one person alone? Or do you just have faith that other's are conscious like yourself.

Consciousness doesn't center around one person in subjective reality. Rather, you don't identify the body and mind you view the world through as you. You are everything, you are consciousness.

That's what I understand of it anyway.

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by Anagogy

What about when you are dreaming Shamou? When asleep, we think we're awake, but does that mean the personalities you meet in your dreams are not you? I realize you are addressing the question from an objective, and maybe even reductionist (correct me if I'm wrong) point of view, but metaphysically speaking, who are we to say what is real and what is not? Maybe we just think we are awake...

It took years for Descartes (who is much smarter than I ) to prove that "he" existed... therefore, I will not even going to attempt to philosophically prove that anyone else does exist...

Exit left for me on the subject...
.

[ExploringTheMatrix]

There is just one consciousness - yours. The problem most people have is that they identify with their body/mind and assume it's located in their head. They assume there is a divide between "in here" and "out there". That divide only exists in your head.

The way I figured it out was to try believing two totally different things and realizing that depending on what I believed, that both beliefs would turn out to be true. If that's the case, what is your reference point or absolute truth? It must be you - what you believe is true is what you will find to be true.

So I already picture you asking the question - why don't I always find things working out the way I expect? There are beliefs that you may not be aware of, working 24 hrs a day underneath your conscious awareness. Start becoming more deliberate, uncover those hidden beliefs, and you will start to see things indeed working the way you expect.

Just because you are the only one, doesn't mean that other people aren't important. When you focus on the body/mind you get into the ego trap, loneliness, separation, etc. You are the trees, the people in your world, the words and sounds, and so on. Turn your attention outward and you become more selfless, more connected. Just as a person wouldn't just pay attention to just their brain and ignore their body, don't just pay attention to your avatar.

[Rosie]

Exploring Matrix, you said that there is only one consciousness - mine. Don't you mean that it belongs to you? By saying that it belongs to me, you are denying your own consciousness. You are infact conscious?

[ExploringTheMatrix]

That's a bad habit I seem to get myself into. It's probably more accurate to say there's just one consciousness. We are all aspects of that consciousness. It just happens that from my perspective that consciousness is seeing the view from ETM's eyes

[absvan]

The definition of "I" in SR is very important and this is what creates the confusion. Stop identifying yourself as this body with a mind. You are not the person with this body. Instead you are everything. You are all there is.

So people with human bodies are not what they think they are as in separate from everything else. Your mind creates the separation.

As far as I know, mere knowledge of SR wont clear the illusion. You can know your true nature when you stop identifying yourself with the mind.

If you really interested, I highly recommend the book "I am that".

[juicemcnewton]

Ok, now I must admit I don't understand this SR business at all. I get alot of the other stuff people go on about, but this makes absolutely no sense to me.

How is it that I can't prove someone elses existence? Other people existing is the proof, it's not even comparable to a dream or having an imaginary friend. I prove other people exist through input (my senses). Anything I have in a dream or I imagine is constructed from existed data.

Perhaps I'm insane, but it seems quite obvious to me that I'm a body with a mind, consciously separate from your consciousness.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't understand what would make someone think that we all are a single consciousness? Probably if someone could explain that single point, I'd understand just what's going here.

Perhaps I can even make it simpler to answer. Do you SR believers think the universe is here just for us/because of us humans? Like if the world was destroyed and no humans were left, would the universe still exist? Yeah, I think that would help me out alot to know.

[juicemcnewton]

*Double post, keep it moving, nothing to see here*

[Max Power]

Originally Posted by juicemcnewton

Ok, now I must admit I don't understand this SR business at all. I get alot of the other stuff people go on about, but this makes absolutely no sense to me.

How is it that I can't prove someone elses existence? Other people existing is the proof, it's not even comparable to a dream or having an imaginary friend. I prove other people exist through input (my senses). Anything I have in a dream or I imagine is constructed from existed data.

Perhaps I'm insane, but it seems quite obvious to me that I'm a body with a mind, consciously separate from your consciousness.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't understand what would make someone think that we all are a single consciousness? Probably if someone could explain that single point, I'd understand just what's going here.

Perhaps I can even make it simpler to answer. Do you SR believers think the universe is here just for us/because of us humans? Like if the world was destroyed and no humans were left, would the universe still exist? Yeah, I think that would help me out alot to know.

What do you know for sure???.......Two things.

1. You exist.
2. You exist right now.

Everything else could be an illusion, including that there are 6 billion people on the planet and that there's even a planet at all.

If you want to grasp SR, you have to understand that there is no universe unless.........consciousness is there to be aware of it. Think about everything you know of that you think exists, it doesn't all have to exist right in front of you now, that would be too hard to pull off without baking your noodle

No, consciousness only ever has to build reality right here, right now and no where else. The real big sticking point for SR is people.........if I'm consciousness, then who are you? Are you consciousness?.....No.....Why?

Because consciousness isn't human.

People seperate and label themselves as human beans, but you are no more a human bean than you are a chair. You can control a chair, interact with it and you do the same with your human bean. Your human bean is a tool for observation and physical mainfestation. People identify with their human bean because it's the central observation point for consciousness, but it's not consciousness, it's an observation point.

Also from the SR POV, when you want something (love/money) you don't find someone to give it to you. You give it to yourself and observe that gift through your human bean. To grasp SR, you have to shift your identity and stop seeing your human bean as what you are.

When you're sitting in a chair, you are as much the chair as your own body. Every person in your present moment awareness (and no one outside) is you, not human you - observation point, but a part of your consciousness. When you dream, you're human bean is unconscious, because it lacks your consciousness, that you have shifted from the human bean observation point to somewhere else to enjoy that different less dense reality.

The best part of this, is if you're not there to be aware of it......not only does it not exist, but it doesn't matter......things only affect us when we create them, love, money, pain, poverty, etc. Once we create something we then have to deal with it, good, bad and ugly.

SR is a way to stop worrying and start creating, once you know you are the creator of everything, then you can start creating (on purpose) exactly what you want, no more victim mentality, because the whole thing is of your creation.

Another important part of SR is that thought can output directly and instantly into dense physical reality and this is happening all day, every day, but we're just not observing it, we're actually denying we are creating the whole thing and then when things get ugly, we play victim and usually blame someone else.

If you're sitting in the bathroom, you're creating everything in that room and the observation point (human you) to observe it. If you're at a football game and there's 50,000 people in a huge stadium, you're creating that right now and placing you the observer there to enjoy the creation.

Consciousness is so very amazingly powerful, but it only ever has to create anything in awareness and nothing else. It doesn't have to maintain the entire universe all at once, only what's in present moment awareness.

Who is consciousness.............you are, consciousness creates human beans, not the other way around.

Max

[juicemcnewton]

Thanks Max, that actually helped me out alot with the whole concept.