A Perspective on Existence

[Odin]

Re: A Perspective on Existence

Originally posted by beingofone
1-Are you real? Do you have thoughts, dreams, feelings, experiences?

2-Who is best able to determine the meaning of your life?

3-If you truly met the absolute God, supreme identity, or ultimate knowledge, who would you verify and validate your experience with?

4-If you have or had supernatural experiences, do those who don`t or never experienced it believe you?

5-How are you aware of thousands of details, like all the objects where you are sitting now in the same room, without being conscious of all of it?

6-Is the universe made of the same substance as you? Is the universe fractal?

7-If you ask yourself - Does my life have meaning? Who would be asking? And who would answer?

8-Have you ever been anywhere that you were not there?

9-If you lost 10 pounds of weight, would you be less of a person?

10-Can you define yourself? Where do your thoughts come from? Who experiences joy and sadness?

These are questions that most simply ignore, because they believe there is no answer to these questions. Yet you cherish your life, or you would not be here. So saying "I have no meaning" is avoidance and evasion.
Comparing yourself to others is also evasion, like "I am just one of many more". Many more what?

1. all yes

2. there is no "meaning of life", life's only purpose is to reproduce.

3. There is no higher power, so N/A

4. There is no such thing as "supernatural", so N/A

5. it is the way our brain works to make seeing the "big picture" easier

6. yes; it depends

7. See above, life has no meaning, it's only goal is to reproduce itself

8. no

9. no

10. I can define myself as an individual of the speciesHomo sapiens, my thoughts come from my brain, my brain experiences joy and sadness


Oh, and lay off the pot.

[Verres]

Re: A Perspective on Existence

Ok, ready to give some proper answers tonight:

1-Are you real? Do you have thoughts, dreams, feelings, experiences?
I don't 'know' if I'm real or not. I believe I exist, but that doesnt mean I do. I exist as much as it is possible for anyone or anything else to exist - ie in terms of my own and other people's perceptions. I have the 4 things listed - but that doesn't mean too much on its own.


2-Who is best able to determine the meaning of your life?
As it stands, I would say me as (despite what some may think) no one knows 'me' better than I know myself. The only meaning my life has is one I assign to it.


3-If you truly met the absolute God, supreme identity, or ultimate knowledge, who would you verify and validate your experience with?
I couldn't. It could be an hallucination. Even if others claimed to have had an identical experience, that doesn't mean it actually happened. Like the 'am I real' thing....the only way an 'experience' occurs and is remembered is via ppl's perceptions.


4-If you have or had supernatural experiences, do those who don`t or never experienced it believe you?
I wouldn't describe them as supernatural. Some call them hallucinations or symptoms or whatever...i call it having more imagination than the rest of the population. Either way..i appreciate its v hard for someone to 'believe' in something they havent experienced themselves.


5-How are you aware of thousands of details, like all the objects where you are sitting now in the same room, without being conscious of all of it?
I dont know. Memories I suppose...information my brain stores but doesnt need in its 'active' part perhaps. Like the difference between my pc's miniscule running memory (whatever the proper word for it is) and the masses of memory it has stored but doesnt noramlly use or access.

6-Is the universe made of the same substance as you? Is the universe fractal?
In a word, yes. The universe and I both exist in the same dimensions, if it is a figment of my imagination then I am too....and as I said anything can only ever exist in that capacity (imho)

7-If you ask yourself - Does my life have meaning? Who would be asking? And who would answer?
I could tie myself up in knots for hours with that one. I don't know.

8-Have you ever been anywhere that you were not there?
I dont think I can have been. I would have to 'be' there in order to be there. Yeah. That makes sense in my head.

9-If you lost 10 pounds of weight, would you be less of a person?
Yes - perhaps not 'less' mentally, but certainly different. Or I wouldnt look/'be' 10lbs lighter.

10-Can you define yourself? Where do your thoughts come from? Who experiences joy and sadness?
The word 'i' has far too many possible uses for my liking. In that, 'i' experience joy and happiness but not 'i' in the way ppl would probably assume. And I cannot explain it coherantly enough. I define myself differently every day.

I know this sounds mad and drug induced but its not. Well, not drug induced anyway.

[Solver]

1-Are you real? Do you have thoughts, dreams, feelings, experiences?

Yes to all.

2-Who is best able to determine the meaning of your life?

Me.

3-If you truly met the absolute God, supreme identity, or ultimate knowledge, who would you verify and validate your experience with?

Myself.

4-If you have or had supernatural experiences, do those who don`t or never experienced it believe you?

Haven't had anything I can't explain rationally, but if I had, others wouldn't believe me.

5-How are you aware of thousands of details, like all the objects where you are sitting now in the same room, without being conscious of all of it?

I am conscious of it. The brain knows that there's a wardrobe behind me now, although I don't see it.

6-Is the universe made of the same substance as you? Is the universe fractal?

Yes, yes.

7-If you ask yourself - Does my life have meaning? Who would be asking? And who would answer?

I asked myself and answered myself, and my life does have meaning, at least to me.

8-Have you ever been anywhere that you were not there?

No.

9-If you lost 10 pounds of weight, would you be less of a person?

I should say no. However, with my current health status, if I lost 10 pounds, I'd probably be on the verge of hospitalization.

10-Can you define yourself? Where do your thoughts come from? Who experiences joy and sadness?

I am a brain in a skull, and everything comes from there. Thoughts and emotions alike.

[Drogue]

One of the main ways I think of it is that the world exists in your head. All the world is to you is the way your senses interpret the information given to them. That way I start from the presumption that I'm real, as to me I am. I may be living in a machine/dream/whatever the next sci-fi comes up with, but as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter. To me, I and the world are real, and while other people are real, they're also in their own worlds, interpreting the information given to them.

What the objective, real, physical world is doesn't matter. In the typical example, if I see a colour and call it blue, and everyone else sees that colour and calls it blue, then it's called blue. We know it's the same thing, but people may see that colour differently, and so have a different view of what blue is. But that just highlights that what the world is to us is how our senses relay the objective world to us.

In this way, the meaning of my life and the world is just whatever I give it. Moreover, in that way - in my world - whether or not something is real does not matter, it's about whether it's real to me. If I dream that I'm somewhere and wake up in such a way that it feels like I've gone on holiday there rather than just dreamt and woken up, there is no difference to having gone there. The past only exists in my memory, so whatever I remember is what I've experienced. If there's no way of disproving it physically, then it passes into history as the truth, and it makes no difference whatsoever.

Anyways, I'll stop rambling, I'm never very good at expressing my point, and it seems to get worse the more I write

[Frozzy]

1-Are you real? Do you have thoughts, dreams, feelings, experiences? - Question One: Yes. Question Two: Yes.

2-Who is best able to determine the meaning of your life?

The meaning of life is life itself.

3-If you truly met the absolute God, supreme identity, or ultimate knowledge, who would you verify and validate your experience with?

I only need to validate it with myself.

4-If you have or had supernatural experiences, do those who don`t or never experienced it believe you?

I don't particularly care. All experiences are inherently natural, and the chance of an uncommon event occuring in my proximity is low. This chance, as deemed by the person, is relative to their belief in my story, and as such I have no influence on it.

5-How are you aware of thousands of details, like all the objects where you are sitting now in the same room, without being conscious of all of it?

One is conscious of everything one percieves to be true. I percieve there to be Big Ben in London, yet as I write this it may have been destroyed and as such no longer exist. In an unfamiliar room, differing wavelengths influence my sensitivity towards certain objects, such as the colour green.

6-Is the universe made of the same substance as you? Is the universe fractal?

The universe and I share common features.

7-If you ask yourself - Does my life have meaning? Who would be asking? And who would answer?

As previously said, the meaning of life is life itself, and we have no control over what is given to us, only how we deal with it.

8-Have you ever been anywhere that you were not there?

What is me? Are you referring to my conciousness, or my body. If the former, then yes. If the latter, no. My body has been unconscious (i.e. sleeping) in flight over the South China Sea, yet my conciousness was not there.

9-If you lost 10 pounds of weight, would you be less of a person?

What is a person? If conciousness, no. If bodily elements, yes.

10-Can you define yourself? Where do your thoughts come from? Who experiences joy and sadness?

My thoughts come from different information provided from nervous impulses, and are co-ordinated into a unform response, somewhat subconciously. The conciousness can override this subconcious thought process, but often the systematised processes of the subconcious brain is sufficient to provide an answer which is valid based on hitherto correct logic. Joy and sadness are emotions created by a response through this method.

[Dry]

Re: A Perspective on Existence

1-Are you real?
Only to myself. To others, I'm only a dream.

2-Who is best able to determine the meaning of your life?
Me. But question should come after 7.

3-If you truly met the absolute God, supreme identity, or ultimate knowledge, who would you verify and validate your experience with?
If God is life, and life being movement, change, reaction, evolution, then life is not ultimate and thus neither is God.
If God is ultimate, God does not (need to) evolve, change anymore, so He is no more 'alive'. Neither does ultimate knowledge or experience.
Ultimate knowledge = dead knowledge.
So my answer is: No, no need 'validate' my living experience with a dead one.

4-If you have or had supernatural experiences, do those who don`t or never experienced it believe you?
For what purpose? How is it important they believe me? It's not important for me and I don't see why it could/should be?
I don't really understand the question.

5-How are you aware of thousands of details, like all the objects where you are sitting now in the same room, without being conscious of all of it?
I'm no english native, so I do not fully understand the difference between 'aware' and 'conscious'.
Me, my body is/are aware of things that my brain do not need to process at a conscious level. Is that what you mean?
I can walk without the need of my brain controlling every step I make at the conscious level.
Being able to walk AND talk with my friends is not the kind of problem that keeps me awaken at night...

6-Is the universe made of the same substance as you? Is the universe fractal?
uh?

7-If you ask yourself - Does my life have meaning? Who would be asking? And who would answer?
The old me would be asking, because today it's no more a question for me.
Life has no meaning, and that's what wonderfull. Life having no meaning, I am free to give it the meaning I want.
No destiny to be achieved, no right place to find, no God to please/obey. Only freedom.
No Aragorn to become king, no Frodo to bear a ring, no orcs to be evil, no elves to be good. Only humans to be free.

8-Have you ever been anywhere that you were not there?
uh? Could you please rephrase?

9-If you lost 10 pounds of weight, would you be less of a person?
No?!? why ?!?
I really must be stupid here...

10-Can you define yourself? Where do your thoughts come from? Who experiences joy and sadness?
No. Not important. Me.

These are questions that most simply ignore, because they believe there is no answer to these questions.
No, because some of them are irrelevant. They are intellectual masturbations that need no answer.
Sometimes wisdom is to say : That question is stupid, or irrelevant.

Yet you cherish your life, or you would not be here. So saying "I have no meaning" is avoidance and evasion.
'I have no meaning' is a deliverance, the - sorry, I mean my - key to freedom.

Comparing yourself to others is also evasion, like "I am just one of many more". Many more what?
It's not.
It is being what you are: a human being, only an animal who needs to eat, to drink, to defecate, to socialise, to compete, to mate.
Forgetting or denying one of those (and many others human needs) would be a crime against your own humanity.

[beingofone]

Many interesting observations, very cool.
Thanks everyone