The Myth of Objective Reality

[southflorida]

I think you might have it a bit wrong there.

The secondary reality is a subset of the primary, that is it exists within it; the primary can exist without the secondary but that the secondary reality could not exist outside of the primary (as far as we know). Due to this we can only assume that the secondary is a product of the primary; some element within the primary must be a basis from which the secondary comes.

I'm not sure how relevant it is, but I always found facts like it when discussing things like this:

The wavelengths of light to which our photo-receptors are sensitive covers less than 1% of the total spectrum. This is not to say that these other wavelengths are not present or any less common however. We are constantly surrounded and subject to a practically infinite amount of electromagnetic radiation, 1% of which is enough to create everything we see, know and base our consciousness on. Whether or not that is an illusion is immaterial once you consider what a tiny proportion of actual reality it is.

What's up BullDog?

Did I write somewhere that the primary is a subset of the secondary? If I did then it was a mistake and yes, it is obviously the other way around. Something primary can't be a subset of something secondary.

Yes, we live in a world of practicality, not fact, and we ignore so much that is "known" in this secondary world.

Just think about how many beliefs and assumptions are the truth for us, when we have never directly experienced these things ourselves.

Take atoms for example. Have any of us ever directly observed an atom? Only as a model, maybe. That model is obviously NOT the atom, but we start to believe that an atom is like that model.

This happens to too many things to mention and this gets us into a lot of trouble.

 

[BullDogUK]

No I think I understand that point, and I do agree that it gets us into a lot of trouble. Obviously this is just an impression, I'm not psychic, but you seem to be implying that truth resides in consciousness or in the secondary reality, whereas if the secondary's being is reliant on the primary then truth must reside within the primary reality. As I mentioned earlier, this makes true knowledge impossible as the data must at some point enter into the secondary reality (maybe perceptive reality might be a good name actually do you think?) whereupon it is influenced and is not truly "experienced" by virtue of its originating from the outside.

It might just be a misinterpretation on my part, I just want to clear that point up. If you think different I would really love to hear your explanation

 

[southflorida]

No I think I understand that point, and I do agree that it gets us into a lot of trouble. Obviously this is just an impression, I'm not psychic, but you seem to be implying that truth resides in consciousness or in the secondary reality, whereas if the secondary's being is reliant on the primary then truth must reside within the primary reality.

The Absolute Truth is what something IS. Is-Is. It is what something is as-itself and for-itself, and NOT what it means to our self-mind

It obviously can't be a concept that ONLY "refers" to what something IS and is NEVER the thing itself.

Beliefs and assumptions about anything are representations or mis-representations about something, they are concepts and CAN'T BE what something IS.

They at best, point toward what something IS, and at worst point toward what something IS-NOT.

This is what makes this topic so difficult. We are trying to talk about something that can't be talked about or understood or grasped, since communicating in conceptual labels are part of the secondary reality, and have nothing to do with what the Primary Reality IS as-itself.

We are talking about a domain (primary reality) that is outside of our perceptions, and this means we will not be able to make any distinctions about it, since a distinction is made in our field of awareness in the secondary reality.

Anything we are aware of in our moment-to-moment experience in the secondary reality is a distinction. I believe I already wrote about this in a past post. This includes both objective (objects) and subjective (conceptual) "stuff."

We are the ones creating these distinctions in our awareness, and until we make a distinction we cannot be aware of it or know it in any way. As soon as we make a distinction, we can be aware of it, perceive it, and know it in some way.

Here is a simple example of what a distinctions is and how it is made in your awareness.

Focus on what you are experiencing in your reality right now, and then go the end of this post where the P.S. is, and read the words written there, visualizing the image I wrote about. Once you read it, you will grasp what making a distinction means and also what "nothing" means. You will notice that before you made a distinction there was nothing there in your awareness in relation to that distinction, and after making a distinction you will have something there.

As I mentioned earlier, this makes true knowledge impossible as the data must at some point enter into the secondary reality (maybe perceptive reality might be a good name actually do you think?) whereupon it is influenced and is not truly "experienced" by virtue of its originating from the outside.

It might just be a misinterpretation on my part, I just want to clear that point up. If you think different I would really love to hear your explanation.

True knowledge, or the Absolute Truth can be directly made conscious. It is this way right now, and it can't NOT be, since Consciousness, Being, Absolute Truth, The Present Moment are what IS.

The secondary reality is a virtual reality trainer running inside of the Bigger Consciousness. We, as humans ARE elements of this Bigger Consciousness, but we are individuated consciousness. Like cells inside the body are individuated, but they are still the body, still parts of ONE STRUCTURE.

As individuated consciousness we are evolving our intent, the motivation behind what we do, the "WHY-we-do" what we do.

If you pay attention you will notice that your "intent" is always a reflection of the actual "quality" of your current consciousness. And it is by making choices based on your intent that you increase or de-crease the quality of your consciousness.

Basically we have two directions to choose from.

We can either take action using "fear-based-intent" or "love-based-intent."

And since, as I described earlier, fear is an emotion we ourselves ARE 100% producing, it shows that we are evolving ourselves. There is no one that can evolve us, we have to do it all on our own.

We either grow-up (evolve) and become LOVE, by making choices and taking action based on love-based intent, or we de-evolve and remain in FEAR by making choices and taking action based on fear-based intent.

The free will choice is always OURS.



==============================

P.S. a purple elephant flying around in the air singing "Gangnam Style"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

...by the way, watching that video is a very good example of how our "self" is at the effect of our perceptions, and if one pays attention he will notice how many emotions pass through our body as our "self-mind" is interpreting and trying to give meaning to this video. Mine can't stop paying attention to those fine Korean women

...first listen to the video WITHOUT watching the video, and then watch the video while also listening to it.

You will notice at how different and powerful the effects of watching it in comparison to just listening.

In fact, I get "massive shivers down my spine" watching it every time, and I am sure that it is these "emotional charges" that are the reason this ONE clip has been watched almost 1.8 billion times on Youtube.

This is an excellent example that shows our Being in this secondary reality is "affected" by "effects" on a moment-to-moment basis.

And this is what I'm calling self-survival. The self-mind interpreting every perception to let us know if this experience we are having right now positive or negative in relation to who we are as a "self."

If we believe and assume that we ARE this self-mind, then we are caught in a constant and never-ending process of surviving as a "false-self." It does end obviously, we don't survive, but this is for another thread

==============================

 

[BullDogUK]

The secondary reality is a virtual reality trainer running inside of the Bigger Consciousness. We, as humans ARE elements of this Bigger Consciousness, but we are individuated consciousness. Like cells inside the body are individuated, but they are still the body, still parts of ONE STRUCTURE.

As individuated consciousness we are evolving our intent, the motivation behind what we do, the "WHY-we-do" what we do.

If you pay attention you will notice that your "intent" is always a reflection of the actual "quality" of your current consciousness. And it is by making choices based on your intent that you increase or de-crease the quality of your consciousness.

Yep I completely agree! The emotional and perception biases that we have within our consciousness vary greatly from moment to moment and vary greatly with context, I think that's pretty simple to grasp. It's interesting that a feedback mechanism makes itself very apparent in that, as you say, your actions are affected by your conscious state and your conscious state is affected by your actions.

Basically we have two directions to choose from.

We can either take action using "fear-based-intent" or "love-based-intent."

And since, as I described earlier, fear is an emotion we ourselves ARE 100% producing, it shows that we are evolving ourselves. There is no one that can evolve us, we have to do it all on our own.

We either grow-up (evolve) and become LOVE, by making choices and taking action based on love-based intent, or we de-evolve and remain in FEAR by making choices and taking action based on fear-based intent.

The free will choice is always OURS.

Well I'm not actually sure if that dichotomy is the full picture. Obviously we should guide our thoughts on the basis of love and thus let our actions also be guided by the same force, but what of rationality? Is that love or fear? I think we need more rationality rather than emotion in many, many areas. What do I mean by rationality? Just this, the ability to take ourselves out of the picture for a few seconds. It's hard, and it's not easy to remain free of contamination but I feel discussions like this, where we can analyze these deep questions, are a good example of a 'rational' over emotional mindset. That's just a personal distinction though, I recognize more people understand the concepts of love and fear. Just remember that you're doing to die someday and that everything will continue after your emotional aspect is gone (from it's current form at least, if that's what you want to believe).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

...by the way, watching that video is a very good example of how our "self" is at the effect of our perceptions, and if one pays attention he will notice how many emotions pass through our body as our "self-mind" is interpreting and trying to give meaning to this video. Mine can't stop paying attention to those fine Korean women

...first listen to the video WITHOUT watching the video, and then watch the video while also listening to it.

You will notice at how different and powerful the effects of watching it in comparison to just listening.

That is a pretty cool exercise, it just goes to show how reliant on all senses we are to get a full picture and elicit a full comprehension or understanding (or as full as we can get).

On a similar vein to your exercise:

Listen to this with and without visual input. The effect with another source of data input than audio is just straight out fantastic.

edit: [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACpXZyHOA8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACpXZyHOA8 Basically anything with an emotional context can do this really. The Menin Gate always gets me tearing up when I see all the names

 

[bombadil.360]

If everything is Consciousness, it is us and we are it, then it is Consciousness designing everything.

It actually all occurs through evolution.

Consciousness + Evolution = Father and Mother of all secondary realities, that are evolving realities.

hello southflorida,

wait, you cannot just toss in evolution in the mix; afterall, evolution is a process concerning the secondary reality, since the primary reality is as it is, and according to you, absolute, hence has always been the same as will always be the same; mainly, untouchable by any changes, so evolution as the gradual change into higher organizational structures is out of the question.

if you say evolution in and of itself is contained within consciousness in the primary reality, then you'd make this organizational force of progressive higher structures to be some sort of eternal archetype in the nature of consciousness; being a deterministic force of all manifested things in the secondary reality.

also, it begs the question of whether this hypothesis has been verified through personal "experience" (experience per definition is of the senses, hence any "experience" of the primary reality must be through a higher non-sensual awareness).

basically, I'm a bit dissatisfied with the answer you provided to my question.

did you get the reading on the Eneads yet btw?

peace

 

[BullDogUK]

so evolution as the gradual change into higher organizational structures is out of the question.

Evolution is just change. It doesn't have to be in any given direction, let alone towards some idea of 'higher' or 'better' organisms or being. If we're going to be technical it is the change in allele frequency in a given population over time...

 

[southflorida]

wait, you cannot just toss in evolution in the mix; afterall, evolution is a process concerning the secondary reality, since the primary reality is as it is, and according to you, absolute, hence has always been the same as will always be the same; mainly, untouchable by any changes, so evolution as the gradual change into higher organizational structures is out of the question.

Hi bombadil.360. Evolution, from my point of view is simply the decreasing of entropy, the movement from high disorder in the direction of higher order.

Consciousness is the substance from which everything is created in the secondary reality, but in order for this "substance" to become organized, there has to be a force organizing this "potential."

I mean, you don't have flour turn into a cake all by itself. The flour is the potential, the baker is the one who adds eggs, salt, etc and creates the cake.

But, the cake is still flour, even though it changes it does not disappear, and is not separated from the cake, it IS the cake.

The flour is primary, the cake is secondary.

But, with Consciousness, all the ingredients ARE this One Consciousness. And evolution is the baker that comes along and organizes all the 1's and all the 0's.

Fundamentally, Consciousness is simply DATE, simply unorganized information. This is what we are really perceiving; DATA. Our mind is simply like a computer that perceives this data and provides us with an image.

The majority of the stuff that we all see that looks, sounds, tastes, and feels the same, is simply programmed by Consciousness, and these things are NOT important.

What IS important is the evolution of our own personal INTENT, our motivation behind the actions we take, the WHY that our decisions are based on, and the WHY behind the actions that are taken based on these decisions.

if you say evolution in and of itself is contained within consciousness in the primary reality, then you'd make this organizational force of progressive higher structures to be some sort of eternal archetype in the nature of consciousness; being a deterministic force of all manifested things in the secondary reality.

I never said that evolution is contained within consciousness, evolution is a dynamic, Consciousness is the substance this dynamic forces uses for organizing.

Evolution is the force behind self-survival. It pushes all sentient beings into making choices that will help these beings to survive and evolve.

How? Through free will choices.

What else are we doing on a moment to moment basis in our life?

Making choices, over and over. Sometimes taking action based on these choices, sometimes not.

But, even if we don't choose, or don't take action, we still have made a choice. We basically have no way out.

We either evolve or die, through de-evolution.

And, I'm talking NOT only about physical death, even though this is included obviously, but more about our individuated Consciousness. If we continue to de-evolve on the level of Consciousness, we might be taken out of the game all together.

This is very unlikely, since we are Consciousness, but, if an element continues to de-evolve, then it is taken out of the game. Just like 99.9% of the biological life on earth in the last millions of years.

also, it begs the question of whether this hypothesis has been verified through personal "experience" (experience per definition is of the senses, hence any "experience" of the primary reality must be through a higher non-sensual awareness.)

This has been my personal experience in this secondary reality.

Everything concerning Consciousness and Evolution, and their real nature, this is outside of perception and anything we say about them will be concepts and NOT what they are.

basically, I'm a bit dissatisfied with the answer you provided to my question.

did you get the reading on the Eneads yet btw?

no, at this moment in my life I'm not into collecting more hearsay, i'm more into being in the present moment, not-knowing who or what I am.

This state is more honest, original, and authentic than collecting knowledge that is conceptual in nature.

I guess I'm more into what something really IS nowadays, than concentrating on the "fingers" pointing at what something IS. I have made the distinction between these two things a while back, and I'm into being directly conscious, rather than in-direct interpretations.

I like these writings, but I know what we are doing is only referring to the truth, it is NOT the truth-itself.

peace

 

[southflorida]

@BullDog: I'm gonna take a rest from posting in this thread, mostly because I am aware that we are comparing our beliefs and assumptions, and this will never lead us toward the truth. The truth can't be grasped through concepts, it is a direct consciousness of what something IS. This is why all this talk can prepare us and provide us with a springboard, but, eventually we actually have to run and jump into the pool (direct consciousness), and not just talk about doing it.

 

[trichrider]

excuse, but did you say that the extinct 99.9% of life de-evolved and went that direction because they didn't have free will?

i didn't think so.

i've held for over forty years that truth is energy...or that truth=energy.

this energy we can't feel or see (currently) is the construct of our secondary but is primary in nature. our distinction of this does not change the primary's nature.

in my opinion we are but antennaes capturing the daytaday data of this existence for the conciousness. in other words we are conciousness' senses.

the hand of Voltaire is just another hand...

hey SouthFlorida! thanks for the banter. it's refreshing for a change.

 

[BullDogUK]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9fC3flXY5g

This was quite interesting. Essentially E=MC^2 means that mass is energy and energy is mass. We are all just energy.

And again, evolution has nothing to do with increasing complexity or order

@SF No worries my friend, I hope you'll share any nuggets of wisdom you find in the pool

 

[southflorida]

excuse, but did you say that the extinct 99.9% of life de-evolved and went that direction because they didn't have free will?

No...I said they are instinct because they had free will, but made choices that were not optimum in the circumstances that they existed in.

i've held for over forty years that truth is energy...or that truth=energy.

this energy we can't feel or see (currently) is the construct of our secondary but is primary in nature. our distinction of this does not change the primary's nature.

in my opinion we are but antennaes capturing the daytaday data of this existence for the conciousness. in other words we are conciousness' senses.

the hand of Voltaire is just another hand...

yes, this is what this thread has been about

hey SouthFlorida! thanks for the banter. it's refreshing for a change.

 

[southflorida]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9fC3flXY5g

This was quite interesting. Essentially E=MC^2 means that mass is energy and energy is mass. We are all just energy.

And again, evolution has nothing to do with increasing complexity or order

@SF No worries my friend, I hope you'll share any nuggets of wisdom you find in the pool

this site is VERY addictive for me

takes a few days to stop the desire to keep writing, but eventually I accomplish it for a few months at a time. Good to have a small rest and actually contemplate all the stuff we talked about in here.

btw...the evolution of consciousness means decreasing the entropy of our consciousness, or in other words, organizing the information, the data, that itself IS our consciousness.

simply change is not evolution, it is change.

if we are de-evolving, as many politicians are, for example

...then they are changing, but are NOT evolving their consciousness

going from being fear-based to being love-based is evolution

going from love-based to fear-based or from fear-based to being even MORE fear based is de-evolution.

 

[bombadil.360]

But, with Consciousness, all the ingredients ARE this One Consciousness. And evolution is the baker that comes along and organizes all the 1's and all the 0's.
.........


I guess I'm more into what something really IS nowadays, than concentrating on the "fingers" pointing at what something IS. I have made the distinction between these two things a while back, and I'm into being directly conscious, rather than in-direct interpretations.

the first quoted paragraph is basically Plato's Demiurge, and in this case you are using Consciousness instead of The Universe, and Evolution as the Demiurge itself.

this means that the Demiurge takes the Universal elements that have been always there and gives them order and thus creates.

the second quoted paragraph, well, when you are following a map to a place where you have never been before, it is wise to look at the map every now and then, get a sense of direction.

be good.

peace

 

[HempKat]

yes, HK, there are always exceptions to everything, and absolute truths are without a doubt outside of our ability to communicate.

the "survival" that I'm talking about in this thread, is NOT the regular survival that we usually think about when this word is mentioned, there is really no word that can exactly describe this self-survival-process.

self-survival includes creating, maintaining, and promoting the "self" that we believe and assume ourselves to "be."

what is important to grasp is that it is NOT a choice, but a drive.

all of our perceptions and all of our interpretation abilities are built around this self-survival principle. Whatever we identify as the "self" in our awareness and whatever we are attached to conceptually as a "self" is what our mind works on creating, maintaining, and promoting. This is all self-survival, and it is basically all we do.

See there you go talking in absolutes and I also disagree with the suggestion it's all as unconscious as you want to believe. Yes we all do create idealize images of ourselves and loved ones and yes wee try to maintain those images but we choose to do it and we are aware of it if we are honest with ourselves. It is fair to compare it to a drive though I guess because at it's core it's all connected to our sexuality and our sexual relationships. Therefore men and women in general behave in ways they feel good for attracting the kind of partner they want. Kind of our variation of a peacock showing off it's feathers. We are still aware however of the true reality and so when we see our idealize versions of things put to the test we are able to make choices about if we should continue or change. Whereas the peacock just knows to show off it's feathers and that's it.

We can step outside of this self-survival-principle by observing our perceptions from the "for-itself" point of view, and this will definitely stop the effects from all the interpretations that our mind is making on a moment-to-moment basis in relation to everything that we perceive, but this is hard work, and won't have the support of the self-mind because it can't do its job of interpreting everything our senses perceive and dividing these perceptions into dangerous or not-dangerous for-us emotional orientations.

This division fundamentally includes many different positive/negative charges, and this is how our self-mind actually pushes us toward self-survival.

If we view anything in our perception for-itself, this will occur BEFORE our mind makes the interpretation and performs the division of whatever our senses perceive into something that is negative or positive in relation to our "self."

But, this will obviously seem "useless" and "meaningless" to our mind since there is no value in it, plus it will be "itching" to make the interpretation of what your senses just perceived since that is what the mind has been designed for.

This self-survival drive is NOT something that happens once in a while, it is happening ALWAYS, because the self-mind is always working away, interpreting all our perceptions on a moment-to-moment basis and providing us with the meaning of what all of this means "for-me?"

I don't know, maybe people are just naturally oriented a certain way and not all people share that orientation? Maybe for "You" this "for-me" approach to reality is what orders/prioritizes your thinking but not everyone is that way. Believe it or not there are people and I like to think of myself in this group, that give things and people a chance to be themselves for themselves first and then after observing that then begin to consider what things or people also mean for them. If you approach from a for me perspective you kind of have to force your reality on something or someone else and in so doing you're more likely to run into conflicts or have things go badly in some way. If you let things be what they are, study them and them focus on the things compatible with your idealized reality then it's more likely there will be no conflicts, nothing will go badly.

yes, of course, it has meaning for us, for the plant itself, and for everything that the apple interacts with while it's being an apple.

But, fundamentally, without relating to something else, in other words, simply for-itself, the apple is simply an apple, it is without meaning and value, because meaning and value are always added to something, they are never what something IS, as-itself and for-itself.

Meaning and value are secondary, the apple as-itself is primary.

I disagree, first and foremost and primarily the apple for itself has meaning as itself to be the method by which the life represented by the apple tree continues on and thrives. Now man has discovered that it smells good and works well in enhancing foods as well as can be an excellent food in and of itself. So to man an apple is mainly food. To a child an apple is roughly round and works good as something to throw, so for him/her an apple may also be something to throw. If you take them from what they're supposed to be primarily that route of being is lost with the exception of you intervening, such as in the case of the apple by man getting the seed into good soil. Once it's been denied it's primary purpose it is dead and like all dead things will rot and spoil given enough time, as the base elements are slowly released to be reused elsewhere.

We are very interconnected, which points at all of us being elements of one structure, and it is very interesting to observe how nature evolves and grows through optimum mutual benefit for all that are involved.

As humans, most of the time we ignore the fact that we are a part of this nature, for some reason we believe and assume that we are somehow separated from it. Not all obviously, but many.

This can be seen at how we treat nature on a global scale.



Yes, this point of view "for-me" has done a lot of damage.

Mutually beneficial interaction and co-operation between sentient beings, or what we call "true love" is something that we are evolving toward. But, this is occuring slowly.

Well it will continue to occur slowly as long as the most powerful and/or the majority of the people view things in the "for me" mind. Think of the tremendous stride forward mankind could make if crime stopped because people no longer look at one another and see something they can use with no regard for that person's wishes. Which I feel occurs every time some commits, rape, murder, theft, assault, and so on.

 

[HempKat]

Take atoms for example. Have any of us ever directly observed an atom? Only as a model, maybe. That model is obviously NOT the atom, but we start to believe that an atom is like that model.

This happens to too many things to mention and this gets us into a lot of trouble.

Yes that I agree with but I think it's mainly just a failure in our education system to make clear that some things are just abstracts to facilitate visualization of things for discussion. Also and this may be a bit controversial, a failure in our religious systems to acknowledge that holy books also use a lot of abstracts to convey various principles and concepts to a wide range of people. Rather then a literal accounting of history.

 

[HempKat]

No...I said they are instinct because they had free will, but made choices that were not optimum in the circumstances that they existed in.




yes, this is what this thread has been about

Is that what your extincts tell you?

 

[Stoner4Life]

and so soflo, do you really still consider objective reality just a 'myth' when you've spent 85+ posts in this thread alone trying to define it or at least explaining where we 'others' fall short of knowing so???

 

[BudToaster]

... it's that ontology thing that limits the possibilities. been there, done that ... it just doesn't get deep enough (for me) into the real issues ... kind of a 2-d description of a 3-d world/reality.

 

[offthehook]

Whatever next to pop up in your head, It prolly won't seize to intrigue me SF.

Good stuff, I hope you keep it comming mate. Thanks for your efforts SF.

 

[southflorida]

I think the first step toward making a distinction between true knowledge (truth) and pseudo-knowledge (false assumption) we must cover belief. We must cover it deeply, to actually grasp what a belief IS, and what it is used FOR.

In the long run and in the Big Picture, if you are not trying to manipulate others and your ego is small, ignorance has little to no value.

If the issues are significant, the stakes high, or the outcome important to you, then ignorance and belief will leave you vulnerable and looking like an ostrich with its head in the sand

in major matters of long-term significance, there is no good belief.

The main use and function of belief or pseudo-knowledge is to deny the existence of ignorance, of not-knowing, of sugar-coat fear, and to manipulate others.

True knowledge that is grounded in the truth, on the other hand, provides you with the opportunity to optimize your given potential in any situation.

A head in the sand may make you feel better in the short-term, but it prevents you from going anywhere actually helpful or productive, and it lets your you-know-what (butt) stick out unprotected.