Is it possible that reality is not what you think?...yes?/no?...lol

[coconutree]

mamabudz, will you be my guru? we can go round chanting prayers in the morning and get some free milk from the milkman and food from everyone else,

then sit watching tv, meditating or washing clothes, or cleaning up around a temple around us, as u teach me zen bhuddists true-est secrets of clarity and infinite wisdom of the soul, that you know so well, oh mama buds, will you take my hand and marry me

 

[MamaBudz]

No




... have a cookie

 

[HempKat]

your comparisons are anachronistic and born of ignorance. when one compares something to something he knows nothing about... and then is dismissive, he has left the path of wisdom.

good day to you sir

Whatever There is nothing anachronistic about the example I gave, I didn't misplace anything chronologically (the definition of anachronistic) I gave an example of a practice that dates back 2000 years that was an accepted medical practice which proved to be wrong. Thereby supporting my arguement that just because it's old doesn't make it right. I even provided a link giving a more detailed explaination. You really should learn the meanings of a big word like that before you go trying to throw it around, otherwise you come off like a buffoon trying to act like he's smart.

Nor was I dismissive. Proving someone wrong doesn't qualify as dismissive. What does qualify as dismissive is someone incorrectly judging a comment and then accussing a person of being ignorant and leaving the path of wisdom. After they just proved your arguement wrong.

 

[southflorida]

i wouldnt bunch science and religion together like that. science is trying to find out how the world, the universe and everything actually works - and some of the theories like relativity are being confirmed by a lot of new findings. i wouldnt call science 'hearsay'

...the main word is "trying"

well here is a little experiment for you - get someone to hit you round the head with an iron bar, and then come back and tell me if the fact that it was 99.9% nothing was significant.

...lol...this shows that the distinctions that we make are what create
our reality. So in this case an iron bar would be a distinction, my
head would be a distinction, the pain I would feel would be a
distinction.

The funny thing is that this is what scientists ARE saying about the
atoms, it is not what I know or believe. From my perspective it is
100% nothing manifesting 100% something, and that the objective
reality out there in the world is REAL.

...but this is only because of a function of consciousness that is
distinction, and if you stopped making a distinction "pain" you would
not feel any pain, even if you were hit on the head with an iron bar.

 

[HempKat]

What has belief or failure to believe in a deity -- as a basis of spirituality or not -- to do with whether Reality is a malleable entity?

Reality is effected by perception ~ ergo, Reality is maleable.

Case closed.

Only philosophically, the reality is that what you percieve doesn't change the nature of the thing you're having a perception about, only how you the perciever will react to it. For example if you are walking in the desert and you see an oasis where there is a pile of sand, if you try to dive in, that sand will not refresh you and rehydrate your body, it will not flow around you or behave like water in any way shape of form. It'll still be a pile of sand even though you're seeing it as an oasis.

 

[HempKat]

...but this is only because of a function of consciousness that is
distinction, and if you stopped making a distinction "pain" you would
not feel any pain, even if you were hit on the head with an iron bar.

Now how do you figure on not doing something that you're not conciously doing? Pain isn't something that happens after you think about it and decide you're having pain. It's the brain recieving a signal from a nerve ending that's been traumatized alerting the person to an injury they've recieved. It's not like you sit there and think, "Okay that guy just hit me with what appears to be an iron bar and since I know the bar is hard and heavy it probably caused me harm and so I should be feeling pain".

 

[southflorida]

When you make a specific statement about why someone does something as opposed to asking if what you think is why they do something you're making a distinction about that person and their actions. If your wrong, if it turns out what you thought isn't why the person was doing what they were doing then that distinction you made about their motives is false. So you're wrong when you say a distinction can't be true or false.
I mean come on, lets stop playing word games here, nobody here in this thread is stupid, we all know and see that distinction = opinion.

A distinction is a distinction, if you used a distinction "judgement"
or a distinction "assumption" then it is possible you made an
incorrect judgement or assumption, but the distinction is what
something is, and points to a difference between one thing and
another. So, a distinction CAN'T be right or wrong, because it is
what it is. And it is difference between one thing and another. And
it obviously is not an opinion. Opinion itself is a distinction. Since
you don't know what a distinction is, you are the one who is totally
confused with what I'm trying to writein this thread, because this
thread is about making distinctions, and not about right or wrong.

dis·tinc·tion definition:
   /dɪˈstɪŋkʃən/ Show Spelled[dih-stingk-shuhn] Show IPA
–noun
1. a marking off or distinguishing as different: His distinction of sounds is excellent.
2. the recognizing or noting of differences; discrimination: to make a distinction between right and wrong.
3. a discrimination made between things as different; special regard or favoritism: Death comes to all without distinction.
4. condition of being different; difference: There is a distinction between what he says and what he does.
5. a distinguishing quality or characteristic: It has the distinction of being the oldest house in the town.
6. a distinguishing or treating with special honor, attention, or favor.
7. an act of bestowing, or a mark of, honor or favor.
8. marked superiority; note; eminence.
9. distinguished appearance.
10. Obsolete . division; separation.

The real deal is there is reality and then subjective reality. What you're wanting to do is strip away the subjectiveness which stems from your ego (see definition in a previous post) in the hopes of becoming more in touch with the non subjective reality. I say it's impossible one because while you say it can be done, you haven't really provided proof and two because to be aware of reality you have to percieve it but as soon as you do, it becomes subjective.

I said right from the beginning of this thread that being/consciousness
can't be proven that it can only be directly experienced. Subjective
reality is perception of objective reality through our limited senses.
We can't perceive objective reality as it truly is, we can only experience
it directly, and this is the distinction you are not grasping, and are seriously
resisting. We can only perceive objective reality as something that is limited
because our sense are limited.

I'm not trying to perceive objective reality or being/consciousness
because this is impossible, and I have been saying this from the
first post in this thread.

I am asserting that objective reality and being/consciousness can
be directly experienced right now at this moment by almost every
human being. The reason that I am aware of this, is because we
are this objective reality and being/consciousness at this very
moment...and the only thing that is standing in the way of the
majority of people experiencing this is ego.

And ego is the false-self, that culture/society has helped us to create
from the time we were born.

The two false assumptions we all grow up with is #1...that we can
KNOW something, and #2...there is a "self" that is the real us, and
we KNOW what this self is, and if we don't know then our parents,
friends, teachers, preachers, politicians, media WILL explain to us
exactly what this "self" is -- and we can live happily ever after
defending this self and making sure that it survives.

...the facts are that we CAN'T "know" anything as it is for-itself
and as-itself. We can only perceive it as it relates to us, and this
is NOT knowing, this is believing and assuming.

...so basically, everything we humans think we know are simply
beliefs and assumptions...including what we consider as our "selves."

 

[southflorida]

Interesting when it works against you science is all assumptions and bs but when it fits what you want to believe suddenly it proves you 99.9% right, which is an incorrect interpretation of the data you're using by the way.

...doesn't science confirm that 99.9% of the atom is empty space?

...and I'm saying that from my perspective that it is 100% empty
space, or to be more correct nothing/infinity, and that even science
is only 0.01% from proving this themselves.

...how is this a wrong interpretation?

 

[southflorida]

Now how do you figure on not doing something that you're not conciously doing? Pain isn't something that happens after you think about it and decide you're having pain. It's the brain recieving a signal from a nerve ending that's been traumatized alerting the person to an injury they've recieved. It's not like you sit there and think, "Okay that guy just hit me with what appears to be an iron bar and since I know the bar is hard and heavy it probably caused me harm and so I should be feeling pain".

...pain IS a distinction like everything else. Yes your nerve endings
will feel a sensation, but the "pain" that one feels happens only
because there is a distinction of pain being made.

...if you are knocked out, your body will still feel a sensation if
someone is doing something painful to you, but since you are not
making a distinction at the time you don't feel "pain" you feel
no-pain, there are only sensations that your nerve endings feel,
but pain itself is conceptual, and if you don't make a distinction "pain"
you will not be able to feel it.

 

[HempKat]

A distinction is a distinction, if you used a distinction "judgement"
or a distinction "assumption" then it is possible you made an
incorrect judgement or assumption, but the distinction is what
something is, and points to a difference between one thing and
another. So, a distinction CAN'T be right or wrong, because it is
what it is. And it is difference between one thing and another. And
it obviously is not an opinion. Opinion itself is a distinction. Since
you don't know what a distinction is, you are the one who is totally
confused with what I'm trying to writein this thread, because this
thread is about making distinctions, and not about right or wrong.

dis·tinc·tion definition:
   /dɪˈstɪŋkʃən/ Show Spelled[dih-stingk-shuhn] Show IPA
–noun
1. a marking off or distinguishing as different: His distinction of sounds is excellent.
2. the recognizing or noting of differences; discrimination: to make a distinction between right and wrong.
3. a discrimination made between things as different; special regard or favoritism: Death comes to all without distinction.
4. condition of being different; difference: There is a distinction between what he says and what he does.
5. a distinguishing quality or characteristic: It has the distinction of being the oldest house in the town.
6. a distinguishing or treating with special honor, attention, or favor.
7. an act of bestowing, or a mark of, honor or favor.
8. marked superiority; note; eminence.
9. distinguished appearance.
10. Obsolete . division; separation.

I'm not confused at all your the one that's been saying that everything we percieve is a distinction (I don't agree with that but I've been playing along with your terminology). So I was just applying your rules. The problem with how you're now trying to describe distinction is that you make it like a catagory now, like distinction assumption or distinction opinion as if all assumptions and all opinions can be classified under the appropriate catagory. Which they can't because each one has the distinction of being distinctly unique because each one is born of a unique and distinctly different perception. Each one is a distinction the perciever makes about what they percieve. Like you, you percieved that I've been participating in the thread and made the assumption or expressed the opinion that I was doing so out of interest in the topic and a desire to know more about it. That made your perception distinctly different then mine. Now me being the one that knows why I participate here rather then having to make assumptions told you that you were wrong and why. To which you replied that a distinction can't be true or false (so see, there even you were saying the assumption you made or opinion you expressed was a distinction).

Now you're here responding to that and based on the way I percieve your actions I'd have to make the assumption or express the opinion that you seem to have difficulty in admitting when you're wrong and are now trying to redefine things to avoid admitting you were wrong.

I said right from the beginning of this thread that being/consciousness
can't be proven that it can only be directly experienced. Subjective
reality is perception of objective reality through our limited senses.
We can't perceive objective reality, we can only experience it directly,
and this is the distinction you are not grasping, and are seriously
resisting.

I'm not trying to perceive objective reality or being/consciousness
because this is impossible, and I have been saying this from the
first post in this thread.

I am asserting that objective reality and being/consciousness can
be directly experienced right now at this moment by almost every
human being. The reason that I am aware of this, is because we
are this objective reality and being/consciousness at this very
moment...and the only thing that is standing in the way of the
majority of people experiencing this is ego.

And ego is the false-self, that culture/society has helped us to create
from the time we were born.

The two false assumptions we all grow up with is #1...that we can
KNOW something, and #2...there is a "self" that is the real us, and
we KNOW what this self is, and if we don't know then our parents,
friends, teachers, preachers, politicians, media WILL explain to us
exactly what this "self" is -- and we can live happily ever after
defending this self and making sure that it survives.

...the facts are that we CAN'T "know" anything as it is for-itself
and as-itself. We can only perceive it as it relates to us, and this
is NOT knowing, this is believing and assuming.

...so basically, everything we humans think we know are simply
beliefs and assumptions...including what we consider as our "selves."

Also incuding your whole theory here and your belief about self and knowing and being and conciousness, etc. As it all comes from your self/ego/mind and it is impossible to seperate because it is also the self/ego/mind that percieves and experiences.

As for proof I was talking about your claim that virtually everyone can experience what you're talking about. If this were true you would be able to describe a clear, step by step way guarenteed to cause the person following it to percieve/experince it the same way and form the same assumption/opinion/distinction.

Also your wrong in saying we can't percieve objective reality. We do it constantly. What we can't do is relay objective reality to anyone else by describing our perception of it. When it's just us individually and the objective reality then that's what we percieve objective reality. As soon as we try to share it or express it or involve others in it, it becomes subjective.

 

[HempKat]

...doesn't science confirm that 99.9% of the atom is empty space?

...and I'm saying that from my perspective that it is 100% empty
space, or to be more correct nothing/infinity, and that even science
is only 0.01% from proving this themselves.

...how is this a wrong interpretation?

I didn't say it was wrong, but I'm not saying it's right either. I'm merely saying when it suits you science is accurate (or in this case near accurate) but when it doesn't it's all assumptions and bs.

I'll also throw in that you're not applying your rules evenly. Based on what you're saying science can't confirm anything because it's impossible to know anything, therefore what science claims to confirm is irrelevent, by your standards. As is your perspective since that's just your subjective version of objective reality and as such is just assumptions and opinions and not something that can be known.

 

[HempKat]

...pain IS a distinction like everything else. Yes your nerve endings
will feel a sensation, but the "pain" that one feels happens only
because there is a distinction of pain being made.

...if you are knocked out, your body will still feel a sensation if
someone is doing something painful to you, but since you are not
making a distinction at the time you don't feel "pain" you feel
no-pain, there are only sensations that your nerve endings feel,
but pain itself is conceptual, and if you don't make a distinction "pain"
you will not be able to feel it.

I guess you've never experienced pain when you're unconcious or seen someone experience pain while unconcious because people most definately feel it and there is physical evidence of it even though you or the person you're watching are unconcious. Pain is not conceptual, the amount is conceptual what is alot, what is a little? What constitutes stabbing pain vs throbbing vs a twinge of pain?

 

[southflorida]

I'm not confused at all your the one that's been saying that everything we percieve is a distinction (I don't agree with that but I've been playing along with your terminology). So I was just applying your rules. The problem with how you're now trying to describe distinction is that you make it like a catagory now, like distinction assumption or distinction opinion as if all assumptions and all opinions can be classified under the appropriate catagory. Which they can't because each one has the distinction of being distinctly unique because each one is born of a unique and distinctly different perception. Each one is a distinction the perciever makes about what they percieve. Like you, you percieved that I've been participating in the thread and made the assumption or expressed the opinion that I was doing so out of interest in the topic and a desire to know more about it. That made your perception distinctly different then mine. Now me being the one that knows why I participate here rather then having to make assumptions told you that you were wrong and why. To which you replied that a distinction can't be true or false (so see, there even you were saying the assumption you made or opinion you expressed was a distinction).

Now you're here responding to that and based on the way I percieve your actions I'd have to make the assumption or express the opinion that you seem to have difficulty in admitting when you're wrong and are now trying to redefine things to avoid admitting you were wrong.

...if you look around the room where you are right now, or look
outside, or think inside your mind, the differences between physical
objects in the outside world or the differences between the
thoughts, emotions, feelings that are inside of you are the only
reason that these things exist, and the only reason that you can
perceive them. If there was no difference between them you
wouldn't be able to perceive them.

...this is MORE than obvious, and evrything you see is an example
of this function/element of consciousness/being.

...a distinction is not right or wrong...it is difference, right and wrong
are two different distinctions themselves!!!

Also incuding your whole theory here and your belief about self and knowing and being and conciousness, etc. As it all comes from your self/ego/mind and it is impossible to seperate because it is also the self/ego/mind that percieves and experiences.

As for proof I was talking about your claim that virtually everyone can experience what you're talking about. If this were true you would be able to describe a clear, step by step way guarenteed to cause the person following it to percieve/experince it the same way and form the same assumption/opinion/distinction.

Also your wrong in saying we can't percieve objective reality. We do it constantly. What we can't do is relay objective reality to anyone else by describing our perception of it. When it's just us individually and the objective reality then that's what we percieve objective reality. As soon as we try to share it or express it or involve others in it, it becomes subjective.

true, the things I'm writing are being written by a conceptual-self,
which is ego, but egos are different and what makes them distinct
is what they are attached to and identified with. Egos are not the
same, each ego is a distinction.

...and as far as not being able to perceive objective reality, that
was a typo on my part, and what I meant was that we can't
perceive objective reality as it is as-itself, meaning that our
perception is limited. What we see is not objective reality,
but an interpretation of objective reality.

...even our eyes are only able to see light bouncing of the object
that we are perceiving. It is an amazing sense, but it is still limited.
And this is how the rest of our senses are...limited.

...this is why we only see a "limited part" of objective reality, and
this means we don't perceive objective reality as it is.

...you are directly experiencing being/consciousness right now, but
you are only paying attention to your perceptions, and they are
taking up all of your attention.

...if you use the principles of authentic experience, honesty, grounded
openness, and questioning you can directly experience what
being/consciousness is, but you will not understand it with you
self-mind or be able to explain it to someone else.

...this is a solo-activity and can't be systemized.

 

[southflorida]

I didn't say it was wrong, but I'm not saying it's right either. I'm merely saying when it suits you science is accurate (or in this case near accurate) but when it doesn't it's all assumptions and bs.

I'll also throw in that you're not applying your rules evenly. Based on what you're saying science can't confirm anything because it's impossible to know anything, therefore what science claims to confirm is irrelevent, by your standards. As is your perspective since that's just your subjective version of objective reality and as such is just assumptions and opinions and not something that can be known.

...this is true...what I'm saying can't be known, it can only be
directly experienced, but it is still something I can try to talk about
and explain, even if it is all relative.

...I use the example of science since people that believe in science
forget that scientists have confirmed that atoms are 99.9%
empty space. And if you believe in science, doesn't that make
you wonder a bit? Do you believe scientists by the way?

 

[southflorida]

I guess you've never experienced pain when you're unconcious or seen someone experience pain while unconcious because people most definately feel it and there is physical evidence of it even though you or the person you're watching are unconcious. Pain is not conceptual, the amount is conceptual what is alot, what is a little? What constitutes stabbing pain vs throbbing vs a twinge of pain?

...all these are separate distinctions of pain, distinction stabbing
pain, distinction throbbing, distinction twinge of pain.

...and if you stop making the distinction "pain" you will not feel it. There
will be sensations in your objective reality, but your self-mind will not
register this pain, and thus will not feel it as pain.

...but, as everything else I'm explaining this can only be experienced
directly, so don't try this in real life, just in case you can't eliminate
the distinction of pain

 

[MamaBudz]

Hi Hempkat ~ good to see you here (passes a cookie)

You make an excellent arguement but you bypass the original Question:

Is it possible that reality is not what you think?...yes?/no?...lol ...

The question is not is reality in fact real ...but is there a possibility that at any time what you think (and think is a variable term) is in fact reality or more specifically YOUR reality, is not in fact true, verifiable by scientific proof, reality in fact?

My response is -- of course!

Because individual reality (perception of reality by the individual as in "what you think is reality" as asked in this question) is always open to personal perception...

So... How's every lil thing Nice place you got here!

 

[HempKat]

...if you look around the room where you are right now, or look
outside, or think inside your mind, the differences between physical
objects in the outside world or the differences between the
thoughts, emotions, feelings that are inside of you are the only
reason that these things exist

I disagree things exist whether they are percieved or not. If they didn't nobody would be able to sneak up on or do anything to someone unaware of them. This is just an opinion you have that is not supported by any measurable evidence.

true, the things I'm writing are being written by a conceptual-self,
which is ego, but egos are different and what makes them distinct
is what they are attached to and identified with. Egos are not the
same, each ego is a distinction.

I never said they were, in fact the points I made in reference to ego and perceptions is based on the individuality of each person.

...and as far as not being able to perceive objective reality, that
was a typo on my part, and what I meant was that we can't
perceive objective reality as it is as-itself, meaning that our
perception is limited. What we see is not objective reality,
but an interpretation of objective reality.

...even our eyes are only able to see light bouncing of the object
that we are perceiving. It is an amazing sense, but it is still limited.
And this is how the rest of our senses are...limited.

...this is why we only see a "limited part" of objective reality, and
this means we don't perceive objective reality as it is.

Yes each individual sense is limited but combined they are less so, that's probably why we have more then one source of sensory perception? When we come to know something we don't do it by just sight, or sound or touch alone. We use all 5 of our major senses and we also use other senses which are less obvious and not traditionally thought of as a sense. Often we write such things off as fantasy or paranormal but we all experience intuition and I believe this is a sense we all have and use to further our understanding of what we percieve.

Now intuition is an interesting topic one worthy of exploring just by itself in my opinion. In the context of this discussion however I would say that intuition is probably as close as we can come to experiencing pure objective reality because intuition is knowledge that comes to us seemingly from nowhere or outside what we think of as the self. I can't really say how this works but rather only speculate on possibilities. Perhaps we just simply pick up some energy given off by objective reality that can't be detected by our other senses? Perhaps all experiences from each individual forms into some sort of collective understanding of objective reality that this "intuition" taps into? Who knows? All I know is that I've never met anyone that has not experienced the sensation of just intuitively knowing something and they end up being correct about it.

...you are directly experiencing being/consciousness right now, but
you are only paying attention to your perceptions, and they are
taking up all of your attention.

...if you use the principles of authentic experience, honesty, grounded
openness, and questioning you can directly experience what
being/consciousness is, but you will not understand it with you
self-mind or be able to explain it to someone else.

...this is a solo-activity and can't be systemized.

Okay well that's pretty much saying what I said but in a different way accept you throw in assumptions about the levels of people's attention.

The thing I have to ask though is that if we live in the self mind and our perceptions are therefore limited by it as you believe and you accept that the self mind can't explain or understand objective reality then why are you endeavoring to understand it, dissect it and explain it to others? By your own definitions you can't possibly do what you are wanting to do here. The only possible way you might achieve what you want to achieve is if you are entirely wrong in your theory. In which case you'll never succeed because you're looking in the wrong direction.

 

[HempKat]

Hi Hempkat ~ good to see you here (passes a cookie)

You make an excellent arguement but you bypass the original Question:

Is it possible that reality is not what you think?...yes?/no?...lol ...

The question is not is reality in fact real ...but is there a possibility that at any time what you think (and think is a variable term) is in fact reality or more specifically YOUR reality, is not in fact true, verifiable by scientific proof, reality in fact?

My response is -- of course!

Because individual reality (perception of reality by the individual as in "what you think is reality" as asked in this question) is always open to personal perception...

So... How's every lil thing Nice place you got here!

This isn't my place, I'm just a participant here like anywhere else. I'm not debating whether reality is real or not. As to the original question it's not quite as simple as a yes or a no. At a given moment in time what each of us thinks is reality is in fact reality to us at that moment. For the most part these things do prove out to be exactly what we percieve them to be but in some cases what we believe to be real can change. For example, many people are raised within the religion of their family and believe the things of that religion to be true while they are young. This would fall into the catagory of that societal programming South Florida was talking about. However as people grow older and develope a greater perception/understanding of things thru collective perceptual experiences, they might change their religious belief. Usually because what they were taught and what they percieve just don't fit together. So I would disagree with South Florida's implication that we are all necessarily limited by this programming. Some might be but many rise above it. Now he would probably say this is the programing our self does to ourself which I would agree but I don't agree that it's necessarily flawed.

So ultimately I would say that while most of what people think is reality is in fact reality, some of what they think might not be reality, especially when their reality overlaps someone else's reality.

Oh and good to see you too. Also thanks but no thanks on the cookie, I'm trying to watch my weight.

 

[303hydro]

Deep topic, from my little point of view I can agree or disagree w/ both of you I suppose:

I personally can entertain the idea,(as some believe) that reality is exactly in fact what we think because the collective consciousness is what is creating it as we speak.

Nice posts guys, I always see you in some sick threads hempkat-

 

[HempKat]

Deep topic, from my little point of view I can agree or disagree w/ both of you I suppose:

I personally can entertain the idea,(as some believe) that reality is exactly in fact what we think because the collective consciousness is what is creating it as we speak.

Nice posts guys, I always see you in some sick threads hempkat-

Ehh what can I say, I get high, log on here, see some sort of interesting discussion and BAM I'm in another sick thread