Just What is the Universe, Really?

Tomotvos said:

"I know I am going to regret this, but I need to wade into this because, every time I take out my telescope and look up...well...there is a whole lot of stuff going on quite nicely without me. I may be a "part" of it, and there may not even be a distinct "I", but this I-thing didn't cause it. The universe was there long before me, and will be there long after me. Furthermore, it is not a construct of my mind, because you can see it too and if I got hit by a car tomorrow, you would still see it.

Am I taking something too literally?

Garyh replied:

Except with consciousness the universe is not there as it presents to you. Colours, shapes, stars whatever is percieved or thought of does not and can not exist of itself. When others "see it", "it" is not a "thing". Every - "thing" must be only an appearence. The same is true of movement, space and time perception. When you look through your telescope there is a lot going on only as an appearence, and nothing can be said of reality except as it appears. No "thing" exists without consciousness, to consider something as existing after your gone only comes about by firstly attributing reality with some-thing where there is nothing.

Telcaster then asked:

Garyth:
I'm still trying to understand your POV. Are you saying that the universe exists in some sense, but , in the exact way we perceive it only exists in our own indiviual minds because our brain and senses construct an object's appearnce anew moment by moment?

Gary, you're up!

It sounds to me like Gary is describing something akin to what Western Philosophers call "Subjective Idealism"...

"Subjective idealism is a theory in the philosophy of perception. The theory describes a relationship between human experience of the external world, and that world itself, in which objects are nothing more than collections (or bundles) of sense data in those who perceive them. This theory has much in common with phenomenalism, the view that physical objects, properties, events, etc. (whatever is physical) are reducible to mental objects, properties, events, etc. Thus reality is ultimately made up of only Mind and mental objects, properties, events, etc.

Subjective idealism is monist, because it states that only the Mind exists (matter is then empirically unprovable as an independently objective reality external to subjective perceptions)."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_idealism

Though this entry refers to subjective idealism as "monist", we could easily insert the more common term - "non-dual".

This line of thinking is also very much in line with certain brands of philosophical empericism.

Anyways, just thought I'd throw that in there.

~Jackson

P.S. I think this is a wonderful exercise for discovering how coming to conculsions about this stuff is more or less impossible. We know that we don't know. Everything else is just poetry.

gary's point seems reminiscent of the Kantian distinction between noumena and phenomena:

www.thatphilosophywebsite.com/Articles/T...na_noumena_kant.html

or more recently, the distinction between direct and indirect perception, e.g.:

cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/epist/epist.html
cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/cartoonepist/cartoonepist.html

I'm inclined to agree with this view. In fact, for full disclosure, it never quite sits right with me when I hear phrases connected with Buddhist or other contemplative practice like "seeing things as they are." I'm not sure if there is such a thing as "seeing things as they are."

There are certainly different ways of seeing things, though, some of which make for a more satisfying existence than others. That's the sense in which I think contemplative practice has its ultimate value. Like Buddha said, forgot about who shot the arrow and just fix the wound.

"I'm still trying to understand your POV. Are you saying that the universe exists in some sense, but , in the exact way we perceive it only exists in our own indiviual minds because our brain and senses construct an object's appearnce anew moment by moment?
"

Hi Mike,

To answer your question, I would have to assume what you are meaning by "mind", the function of the "brain" and what an "object" is. Then I am uncertain of the moment by moment relationship in the question. To take a concrete example, to show an aspect of my POV that may conflict with yours; I will say to you the colour blue does not exist. I am suspecting you might try and tell me it does exist in some manner. Yes / no?

"It sounds to me like Gary is describing something akin to what Western Philosophers call "Subjective Idealism"...

"Subjective idealism is a theory in the philosophy of perception. The theory describes a relationship between human experience of the external world, and that world itself, in which objects are nothing more than collections (or bundles) of sense data in those who perceive them. This theory has much in common with phenomenalism, the view that physical objects, properties, events, etc. (whatever is physical) are reducible to mental objects, properties, events, etc. Thus reality is ultimately made up of only Mind and mental objects, properties, events, etc.

Subjective idealism is monist, because it states that only the Mind exists (matter is then empirically unprovable as an independently objective reality external to subjective perceptions)."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_idealism

Though this entry refers to subjective idealism as "monist", we could easily insert the more common term - "non-dual".

This line of thinking is also very much in line with certain brands of philosophical empericism.

Anyways, just thought I'd throw that in there.

~Jackson

P.S. I think this is a wonderful exercise for discovering how coming to conculsions about this stuff is more or less impossible. We know that we don't know. Everything else is just poetry."

Having never heard of subjective idealism until now I only know what it is by the links you gave.

The difference seems to be that I am not venturing here into the question of whether only the mind exists, rather with regards to the reality that is perceived or appears it does not matter and we can know nothing of it.

"gary's point seems reminiscent of the Kantian distinction between noumena and phenomena:

www.thatphilosophywebsite.com/Articles/T...na_noumena_kant.html

or more recently, the distinction between direct and indirect perception, e.g.:

cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/epist/epist.html
cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/cartoonepist/cartoonepist.html

I'm inclined to agree with this view. In fact, for full disclosure, it never quite sits right with me when I hear phrases connected with Buddhist or other contemplative practice like "seeing things as they are." I'm not sure if there is such a thing as "seeing things as they are."

There are certainly different ways of seeing things, though, some of which make for a more satisfying existence than others. That's the sense in which I think contemplative practice has its ultimate value. Like Buddha said, forgot about who shot the arrow and just fix the wound."

I have never heard of "Kantian distinction between noumena and phenomena" until now. I need to come to grips with the theory before I can say much.
So more later ...

"Hi Mike,

To answer your question, I would have to assume what you are meaning by "mind", the function of the "brain" and what an "object" is. Then I am uncertain of the moment by moment relationship in the question. To take a concrete example, to show an aspect of my POV that may conflict with yours; I will say to you the colour blue does not exist. I am suspecting you might try and tell me it does exist in some manner. Yes / no?
"

Well, things can look "blue" or bluish but there is no "BLUE."

"Well, things can look "blue" or bluish but there is no "BLUE." "

Thanks, Mike. I was going to jump in on that. I would even refine that to say that since we are all wired up in a biologically similar fashion, we can agree that a certain visual property that we both can see and distinguish is given the name "blue". The benefit is that when we see something else that looks the same, we can each look at each other and say "that is blue" or, more precisely, "that has the blue visual property".

But attributes such as this are not "things" in my world view, and does not really bear any relevance to the question at hand.

"Thanks, Mike. I was going to jump in on that. I would even refine that to say that since we are all wired up in a biologically similar fashion, we can agree that a certain visual property that we both can see and distinguish is given the name "blue". The benefit is that when we see something else that looks the same, we can each look at each other and say "that is blue" or, more precisely, "that has the blue visual property".

But attributes such as this are not "things" in my world view, and does not really bear any relevance to the question at hand."

When I was a child I used to think that there were lines in the earth to border between states, counties, countries, etc. -- just like on a map.

"Well, things can look "blue" or bluish but there is no "BLUE." "

So things looking blue or bluish is an appearance only of consciousness.
So the realness or reality of blue, is of consciousness not blue in and of itself. So a good question now to ask is, what makes anything real? It is only consciousness that can makes a thing real. All things are only an appearance, in and of themselves they have no reality. There is no true out there we can know of. If you call appearences "things" then everything is the same essence and that essence is the same as "no thing".

A snake appears from a rope because of reification, likewise in exactly the same manner the rope is also reified (and therefore a rope) because of reification, it is only a group of attributes and not because the object exists.

Above there are attempts to label what I am saying, so I'll throw one in; Kensho is to know reality as an only this appearence.

I CANNOT keep up.
I'll look at all this again in a couple of days and see if it makes any sense to me.

"I CANNOT keep up.
I'll look at all this again in a couple of days and see if it makes any sense to me. "

Hey Mike,

Don't worry about keeping up. For most people, these types of philosophical conversations do little to help further their practice. I'd even say that spending too much time trying "figure it out" is time that may have been more effectively used by engaging reality through good practice.

Whoa, I sounded a bit like Dan Ingram there, didn't I?

~Jackson

Convention is important, IMHO. We agree that a certain color, when perceived through our eye sense, is to be called "blue." That pretty well describes the entirety of our experience with things, especially as we communicate with each other. We live in a universe that is a convention, or rather a trillion trillion shared conventions. There's no way for me to see through your eyes, so there's no way to achieve an identity where blue-for-me equals blue-for-you. And it doesn't matter, really, that there's no identity like that. There's not a canonical model for reality other than what we agree on (a hint!). So that's the world we all grow up in, work in, play in, deal with on a moment to moment basis. That is reality for most people. To deny the existence of it, to say "that world is completely false, wrong," strikes me as being an oversimplification.

There is another reality that is One, Absolute, Unity, Ultimate, Everything, a reality that I call "is." It's the ground of being. It's the simplest thing. We can't live our everyday lives in that reality, though. So there's what the Buddha called the Middle Way. Nagarjuna, when he wrote about this and described it, called his work "The Fundamental Wisdom of The Middle Way." This Middle Way is defined best by the word "empty," wherein we acknowledge the existence of conventions like "blue," or "car," or "Chris," but we realize the impermanence of them. They are concepts or constructs we carry around so we can survive. It's the way our minds work. But to say "Ultimate reality is all there is" strikes me as being wrong, and similarly an oversimplification.

I think relative and absolute are both correct, in context. This makes things hard to grok, yes, but that's the way I see it.

YMMV

I'm back.
There is something about "emptiness," at least as I understand it, that I find infinitely beautiful.
Things are just things arising and vanishing -- how could there be anything INSIDE them/us? And, if there was something inside, then that thing inside would be .... empty.

"I'm back.
There is something about "emptiness," at least as I understand it, that I find infinitely beautiful.
Things are just things arising and vanishing -- how could there be anything INSIDE them/us? And, if there was something inside, then that thing inside would be .... empty. "

Can we treat this as a conversation, I'll say stuff you don't get, along with confusion and misunderstandings on both sides and that's okay. We are not doing a test and we do not need to be technically perfect. If you are interested keep posting!

What you have said here about no inside, to me sounds awfully close to what I am saying except the "arising and vanishing" puts it from the view of the object - "things" or objects are arising and vanishing. If the objects are known to not be separate ( perfectly empty) and therefore of the same essence of that from which they appear to come and go I think you will be on to what I am saying.

The senario Jackson describes is not me, I kept looking at this because it bugged the **** out of me and it paid dividends big time. But I gotta acknowledge by responses on this thread it seems he has some wise advice - cause I cannot seem to convey what I know. But I'll keep trying while ever you ask. Of course what I say may just reflect the way I put things together more than anything else.

For the wider audience, if what I write causes problems take Jacksons advice, but if your intuition tells you there is something to this I would say keep investigating.

[edit] This web site changes s h i t to ****

I am neither a philosopher, nor a scientist. And I am not enlightened. But since I indirectly started this thread, I'll just say (and please forgive the bluntness), that I cannot understand nor accept any argument that has as its basis that absolutely nothing exists outside of consciousness, that "it is only consciousness that can makes a thing real". Sorry.

"I am neither a philosopher, nor a scientist. And I am not enlightened. But since I indirectly started this thread, I'll just say (and please forgive the bluntness), that I cannot understand nor accept any argument that has as its basis that absolutely nothing exists outside of consciousness, that "it is only consciousness that can makes a thing real". Sorry."

It bothers me that you stated "absolutely nothing" implying there is something to be known outside consciousness . Okay I will not go there!

Yeah; if it does not make sense I think Jackson's advice to leave it alone is good. No need to apologise, I think if it were put to the vote the view I put would loose.

"The senario Jackson describes is not me, I kept looking at this because it bugged the **** out of me and it paid dividends big time. But I gotta acknowledge by responses on this thread it seems he has some wise advice - cause I cannot seem to convey what I know. But I'll keep trying while ever you ask. Of course what I say may just reflect the way I put things together more than anything else."

Gary,

I hope I didn't offend you. I specifically said "it sounds like" in my first comment, implying that I didn't know for sure what you were saying. I think you've explained yourself a bit more clearly now, and I wouldn't peg you as a subjective idealist. I wouldn't peg you as anything, really, as I don't think it is helpful to do so.

Again, no hard feelings. I didn't mean to bug the s**t out of you.

~Jackson

Hi Jackson.

No offence at all. It was the confusion I faced to know what I am trying to explain that bugged the s**t out of me. Nothing you said. Precisely the opposite and as I have said, I see the wisdom in your statement!

Gary

"There is another reality that is One, Absolute, Unity, Ultimate, Everything, a reality that I call "is." It's the ground of being."

But how can you ever know that this 'other reality' is outside of mind? What if every mindstream has their own "absolute" strata of mind and its in no way connected to another mindstream's absolute strata except in nature. By nature I mean the fundamental essence, not a substance.. for example if you take two identical paintings they are not the same yet they have the same essence.

Is there really anyway to 'get out of your mind'? maybe I lack experience but I don't think so..It seems from what I've heard that even the non-dual 'Rigpa' or Absolute strata of mind (per se) is perspectival, though there is no longer the illusion of a separate watcher from that being watched.

"But how can you ever know that this 'other reality' is outside of mind?"

You can't experience anything outside of your mind, Mikael. I hope I haven't left a different impression.

Tomo, this is, I think, what Gary is saying, although I don't want to presume to speak for Gary. No matter what you see through your telescope, read on these message boards, feel as you sit in your chair, hear as you listen to the radio.... it's all processed through your mind, which is consciousness.

"The difference seems to be that I am not venturing here into the question of whether only the mind exists, rather with regards to the reality that is perceived or appears it does not matter and we can know nothing of it.
"

This is a distinction between what we perceive and what those perceptions represent in the external world. Our default, unreflective experience is that we directly perceive objects in the world, a view called "naive realism." Your insight seems to be that naive realism is false; we don't perceive the world directly. The contents of consciousness are not things in the world, but rather things in the mind that represent things in the world. This can be demonstrated by various phenomena of consciousness like perceptual hallucinations and dreaming, as well as through thought experiments like the inverted spectrum (i.e. there's no reason why we shouldn't experience light of a certain wavelength as "red" rather than "blue" or even as a loud noise or as an itch; the mapping of physical phenomena onto contents of consciousness is arbitrary).

Kant named things in the mind "phenomena" and things in the world "noumena." Like you, Kant argued that we can never really know noumena; we can only know phenomena and make indirect inferences about noumena. More generally, this view allows one to be radically skeptical about the nature of noumena, which seems to be what you are expressing. This distinction between appearance and reality is what allowed Descartes to be skeptical of all knowledge except "I think therefore I am", perhaps not too dissimilar from Chris's notion of "is."

Anyway, there is a rich history of this line of thought in Western philosophy if this is what you're into.

"... not too dissimilar from Chris's notion of "is."

Hey, Brian! My notion of "is" is very simply the experience of One-ness, Unity, the ground of being, Truth, or whatever we might agree to call the non-dual baseline un-coverable in our practice. I make no claims about "is" beyond that. How "is" manifests phenomenologically and what "is" really means philosophically doesn't really matter much to me

"Kant named things in the mind "phenomena" and things in the world "noumena." Like you, Kant argued that we can never really know noumena; we can only know phenomena and make indirect inferences about noumena. More generally, this view allows one to be radically skeptical about the nature of noumena, which seems to be what you are expressing. This distinction between appearance and reality is what allowed Descartes to be skeptical of all knowledge except "I think therefore I am", perhaps not too dissimilar from Chris's notion of "is.""

What's interesting to me is that if we take Kant seriously that one may only know phenomena, than the pre-supposition of noumena is unfounded. What we have are preferences of consciousness and our ideas (which are also phenomena of consciousness) about some hypothetical "out there" where so-called separate objects exist.

The philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce attempted to counter this with what he called "abductive reasoning", which presupposes that "(1) the objects of knowledge are real things, (2) the characters (properties) of real things do not depend on our perceptions of them, and (3) everyone who has sufficient experience of real things will agree on the truth about them." This obviously preceded our modern day scientific method. As long as enough of the manifestations of consciousness which we call "other people" give the same explanations about the other manifestations of consciousness which we call "things out there", we can believe the manifestations of consciousness (ideas/concepts) that suggest there are real things outside of consciousness. Round and round we go.

This is but one example of how our beliefs (or views) shape our experience. Shift the perspective just a hair, and you're in another world entirely. This is why I both love and hate philosophy.

~Jackson