Part 3/3 Click here for: part I

Determinism

We can look at quantum mechanics to shed some light on this. In danger of going in to too much depth, it is important to outline current theory and gain a basic understanding.

The multi-verse theory allows us to instigate free will back in to the equation albeit in an illusory feedback loop, since a reality will exist for every choice made. Since we can already demonstrate that free will is an illusion, we are talking about choices made unconsciously. We are talking about different neurological states and synaptic firings, which cause actions to be taken (or not) on the level of an organism.

If we are talking about a multi-verse, that would have to mean by virtue that another branch of reality co – exists simultaneously. In each parallel universe, every outcome would play out and each 'quantum decoherence' causes a different branch of a reality to start, which would have to contain the Hubble volume (observable universe) and would be a real physical universe like this one. Heavy stuff I know but two things spring to mind. Firstly, it would be closed minded of us to assume that this was the only universe and secondly this accounts for our determined reality, when we take in to account the fact that free will is illusory.

The main problem with this theory, seems to be the fact that if this was the case, then something like the radioactive decay of an atom, could start a different branch of reality and hence every sub atomic interaction, could occur, or not, causing a separate universe. Stephen Hawkings conjectured that the quantum indeterminancy of particles averages out in large numbers of particles and quantum effects do not tend to affect classical mechanics. Hence, here there appears to be a solution to this problem, in the fact that the decoherence is unaffected by macroscopic events.

As any actions are generated from the accumulation of experience or reflex propagated by the environment in an organism, we can see how outcomes of these actions have causal consequences and will perpetuate changes in experience for other people down the line.

So if I had an interaction with someone for instance and we imagine that it was a meaningful conversation about thinking about things in a different way, with their new knowledge from the interaction, their planning faculty would take on board these new variables and factor these into their future decision making processes. In this case, the thought process is free to play out with these changeable variables influencing different outcomes, depending on the acquired knowledge of a particular organism.

Of course, the possibilities of potential outcomes could be seen to be finite but the number would be pushing beyond trillions upon trillions, or infinity minus 11.24, to be precise! This ensures that two people could never have the same experience. In this respect, to have a determined reality, the number of causal interactions from neurons firing in specific sequences and the knock-on effects throughout history, are not even worth contemplating, nor is the number of parallel universes required.

When we go back to Schrödinger’s cat, we can see that mathematically both possibilities of experience exist in this experiment, until we open the box and the wave function collapses. This gives us a paradox in terms of our Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, since we can demonstrate that both possibilities exist simultaneously. Demonstrating this for the totality of reality would be rather a hard task but what we could conjecture here, is that there are almost infinite opportunities for experience and we are just subject to the experience of the evolution of form as it plays out in the Hubble volume we appear to occupy, whether there are other parallel universes or not.

We can see that life evolves, thought evolves, the earth's geography evolves and the universe is itself in constant flux. Even the molecules and cells we are made of are not the same ones we were born with. In that respect, we know that nothing is static or permanent in nature. It would also be a mere assumption that the universe cannot replicate.

There are many interpretations of quantum theory, I quite like Von Neumann's idea that consciousness is required to collapse the wave function. That ties in nicely to the idea that consciousness is fundamental aspect of reality, although that is out of our scope for now.

Compatibility?

Anything like this can never be known to us in the phenomenal world anyway, I was never to keen on the deterministic explanation personally and I was sitting on the fence as a compatibilist for a while but without free will, it is inevitable that determinism would seem to offer the best explanation. It is not a bad thing to discover you have no free will, because the illusion of free will still exists after liberation, it doesn't just disappear!

So nothing is taken away from experience, if anything, experience is enhanced immensely. It may seem strange to say that but there again, believing in no free will through the false self would of course be detrimental to ones outlook on life.

The way I see it currently, life feels as though it is free to play out in its own way, yet 'we' as a causal agent do not exist. The universe contains almost infinite opportunities for experience and our illusory feedback cycle of free will on the level of the organism holds true, in the ability for an organism to experience choice because of its ever changing experience, even though that experience and the consequent choices are determined anyway.

We are merely aware of concepts regarding a choice that has already been made.

The anxiety from our choice, is a result of dissonance. When people say 'follow your heart', or 'go with your gut', it simply means the decision has already been made below your awareness. We are simply aware of the conceptualisations that result from this process and quite often, they are weighing up of the pros or cons. Yet at no point can we decide what our 'gut' or heart 'says'.

The influence that an organism can exert within our conceptual decoherence branch or point in space time is determined by the physical world and the experience we are subject to, which gives an appearance of free will. The quantum decoherence, as a fundamental aspect of reality, would allow this illusion to be possible, in the sense that another decoherence branch could appear when ruminating over some thoughts. Also in our other interpretations, both probabilities can simultaneously exist.

In that respect the compatibilist argument seems to play nicely in to this and proponents of this, will claim there is free will but it seems more likely that after looking at our feedback cycle, that really this free will is illusory and the hard determinist position looks stronger. Simply because when we take our causal self out of the equation, our libetarian free will disappears anyway and it seems that when we talk about compatibilism, we are just being apologists to these libetarians, or as Kant termed compatibilism; “a wretched subterfuge”.

We just have some homo sapiens running more sophisticated software and hardware than the other creatures on this substrate, to boil it down as simply as I can. Quite a reductionist stance to take but there again, we are evolved from animals. We are simply at the mercy of the environment and our acquired tool set of experience to draw from.

Here, our indeterminism enters the fray to makes quite a strong case too. Indeterminism suggests that the quantum world comes about through pure chance and thus there is no determinism or free will. Since there is no free will, we could simply assume there was no determinism either and our variables could be related to the fact that thought is free to play out but there is no one choosing these thoughts. An interesting proposition but that is going to have to be for another article, since we are only skimming the determinist/ free will positions.

Life lives itself

Upon seeing no self, we can verify experientially that self is an illusion and free will to boot. From here we can look at current theory and see how this insight connects up with it and it seems to dovetail nicely here. The exciting thing is, on the level of experience we can validate that self is illusory and this has blown this area wide open, among others. Western philosophers such as Sam Harris, Thomas Metzinger and Julian Baggini have come to the conclusion that self is illusory. RT has found a way to validate this experientially. Upon seeing no self, you are able to witness the self as an illusory feedback cycle that comprises the core mechanism of human suffering. The question is; which quantum decoherence branch do you want to occupy? Sorry I had to drop that in :) On a serious note, you can either be at the whims of your thoughts and emotions, or you can see them for what they really are and look upon them with open eyes.

Simply put, your internal dialogue is merely an abstracted commentary relating to the processing of the brain. It gives the illusion of free will, because it feeds back as a tertiary input to the brain, when in reality, life lives itself as it always has. There is awareness of thought that says there is a 'you' that is in control and labels these actions that arise as being caused by an entity that you call yourself.

It implies that there is an entity who is running the operations, but when we actually look in real life...

When we actually drop our façade for a minute and look with honesty...

It is plain to see that there is nothing there. 'You' do not exist in any shape or form; you never did and were never necessary for life to happen. Life lives itself - it is only an illusion that creates the belief that you exist as an entity who is responsible for making decisions and thinking. The plane is flying but it is on autopilot, the pilot was never there.

This can be demonstrated on an experiential level. It is nothing more than running commentary abstracted from an individual's unique experience. The thoughts that arise perpetuate the illusion of self through belief and this feedback loop of illusory free will.

This has massive implications but testing the hypothesis is pretty simple. Simply do the thought experiments on this blog (go to L@@K first and read the section on honesty and courage before you do the experiments) and then email me about your findings and tell me if there is a 'you'. Then you can take on the task of removing your conditioning of framing the world through the concept of self.

Could it be true that there is no 'you' and 'you' are nothing more than a thought; an illusion?

Part 2/3 - Click here for: Part I

Causal implications

This abstraction of our relevant experience can be analysed by our brain and cross referenced with previous experiences and our accumulated values, beliefs and ideas. In that respect, our unique experience of existence determines the possible outcomes of our future and we are aware of thoughts about such decisions, that can affect other people's futures as well as our own. The abstraction of the false self therefore, is updated constantly as new things are experienced. This is indeed what gives our abstraction the dynamic qualities that we perceive as a 'changing self', which enhances the quality of this illusion.

However, these thoughts have no causal properties in of themselves; they are abstract representations of a course of action that has already been decided unconsciously. We need only look at Benjamin Libet's experiments and the ones conducted by his successors. For instance, a clear pattern is emerging that the readiness potential for movement occurs before the subject is conscious of the decision to move. This negates free will or a separate agency to be responsible for these actions. Rather the illusion of separate agency is nothing more than an abstract formed from experience, that is telling the brain via this feedback loop that there is an external causal agent there. If you like, it is merely the running commentary of your internal dialogue which is buttressing the illusion of your existence as an agent of free will.

It is entirely illusory, just look in real life, there is no self there.

Free won't

We can illustrate how free will plays out in the real world using a “what if” scenario. I will have to use an example we can relate to and we are all familiar with. Let's say, for example, you had a choice to go on holiday. What factors would influence you to apparently 'choose' the destination? If I offered you a choice between Tajikistan or Ibiza, which would you choose? This conversation came up as I was chatting about free will with a mate. In my case, I have been to Ibiza and loved it. I have not really heard much about Tajikistan. I am quite open minded (luckily, I have been conditioned that way!) so I would be tempted to go and explore Tajikistan, but in this case, Ibiza is more appealing to me.

So I am in a position to look at what made me have this preference. In this situation, it is simply knowledge. Where lack of knowledge is involved, we can show that free will becomes redundant. I have only an approximate knowledge of where Tajikistan is located; I don't know what the capital is, what the terrain is like, what currency they use, what the weather is like – or, in fact, anything at all. I know merely the name of the place and it is near Kazakhstan. If the thought it was necessary to look arose, so the brain could perform a comparative analysis of the two places; there would have to be something special in the information for the brain to see Tajikistan as a more appealing destination than the party island of Ibiza. This, in turn, may or may not influence the feeling of wanting to go somewhere specifically.

In that respect the feedback loop of knowledge obtained would increase my pool of knowledge and then through the tertiary input of the brain, it would be factored in to making a decision below the level of my awareness.

The truth is, in no way can I decide which place I feel like going to.

You could check out the Wikipedia entry on Tajikistan, if your brain thought it would be of some benefit to increase your knowledge. What I know for sure, is the choice available to me is illusory, in the sense that the choice is an abstract representation, of a decision that has already been made below the level of my awareness. It could be influenced by increasing my knowledge on the other destination but what I would simply be doing, is increasing my knowledge and causing a feedback loop that gives the appearance of free will.

You may be thinking now that you have just chosen Tajikistan. Well if we start to look at why, you may find that you are not the party type, you are adventurous, or you have always been interested in go to Eurasia for instance. You may have decided just to assert your free will and choose Tajikistan as the place you would choose for arguments sake. The thing is, you always believed you had free will but beliefs can literally warp our reality, as we have discussed in other posts.

Literally the product of your experience now, is a belief generating thoughts, trying to assert that you have free will. In actual fact it is just a knee jerk response as a belief has been threatened. We have discussed the dynamics of belief before and we have demonstrated how these fixed positions will cause us to try and defend them, as the brain perceives a threat, when its model of reality is threatened.

If you really had free will, you would not have chosen which one you felt like going to, without actually making a conscious decision to do so. If you really had free will, you would not have automatically thrown up resistance to the challenge, when your free will was called in to question. I can see people now thinking this is crazy and this is all built on a supposition of 'no you' but all I have to say is; if you don't believe me, that's great.

Go and l@@k in real life, the truth is there, look at it and see if you can falsify a theory. Use the falsification principle, be ruthless with honesty; is there a you in real life, could it be true that self is an illusion?

Now the current reader will take the action of not looking at Wikipedia or try and demonstrate their free will by actually going to look, thereby proving to themselves that their experience is purely a given of environmental stimuli and their neurological state. The readers knowledge is simply the product of experience as it continuously plays out.

Maybe you were about to go to Wikipedia, but by using 'free won't' decided not to. Sorry, but Benjamin Libet's successors showed that inhibitory decisions were also made unconsciously. You just witnessed a representation of agency in your awareness, when in reality the decision was arbitrarily delivered based upon the variables of the brain's acquired knowledge. Or even, you have actually been to Tajikistan already. Then, of course, this knowledge has influenced the brain's processing and your current representation of this process, which makes looking at Wikipedia seem a) redundant or b) a reason to reminisce about your time in Tajikistan.

There is no you in real life

Simply put, your internal dialogue is merely a commentary relating to the processing of the brain. It gives the illusion of free will, when, in reality, life lives itself as it always has. There is awareness of thought that says there is a 'you' that is in control and labels these actions that arise as being caused by an entity that you call yourself.

It implies that there is an entity who is running the operations, but when we actually look in real life...

When we actually drop our façade for a minute and look with honesty...

It is plain to see that there is nothing there. 'You' do not exist in any shape or form; you never did and were never necessary for life to happen. Life lives itself - it is only an illusion that creates the belief that you exist as an entity who is responsible for making decisions and thinking. The plane is flying but it is on autopilot, the pilot was never there.

This can be demonstrated on an experiential level. It is nothing more than running commentary abstracted from an individual's unique experience. The thoughts that arise perpetuate the illusion of self through belief and this feedback loop of illusory free will.

Click here for: Part III

Experiment 0.5

For those of you that believe we have free will, you might like to try this quick experiment to demonstrate this to yourself. Thanks to Sam Harris for this efficient demonstration.

What I want you to do is think of a person who you know personally, it can be anyone, just picture them, whoever it is that springs to mind. Now, with this person in mind, I want to tell you about what we can observe:

1. I told you to think of a person, you thought of a person, simply because you were instructed to do so. Had I not told you to think of the person, the brain would not have had the required stimulus to invoke the memory recall.

2. You thought of a person and who you became aware of was, in fact, completely random. You had no choice regarding who it was you chose, a person just randomly popped in to your mind on cue.

We have just demonstrated how thought is propagated by a given environmental stimulus (this experiment) and you are not, in fact, in control of the contents of your thoughts. In no way were you able to choose who the person was that popped in to your awareness. Try it again if you like, use another topic other than people. If you are honest with yourself, you will be able to observe this is the case every single time.

From this experiment we have given ourselves a whole new conundrum. Not only does this have implications for all our thought, this lack of free will implies determinism. The fact that we are aware of choice on an experiential level implies that nothing is determined; so how do we reconcile this? Particularly as most of you reading this believe you are a causal 'self' being responsible for the thoughts and actions that arise.

Cause & effect

So, if there is no free will, what caused me to write this?

If I had no choice, what was the exact cause of me writing this?

• Was it seeing no self? 
• Was it the time that I had discovered RT and began looking? 
• Was it the fact that I was in another country, that led me to be on the internet at the time to discover RT? 
• Was it the fact that I learnt to use the internet 12 years ago?

We can not really find an exact cause. We have already debunked cause and effect (here) as a mechanism on which the universe operates. When we look at cause and effect, it is apparent that it is actually the nature of the brain to divide reality in to manageable chunks.

When we scrutinise cause and effect, it does not stand up as a usable premise. We can say that there is causality but we can not attribute a single cause to a specific event in time. This is where cause and effect breaks down, as it simply becomes an infinite regress. Rather, reality is a continuous flow of events, the accumulated unfolding of existence as it transpired which has delivered this very moment right now to us, exactly as it is. It is important that we state this before we consider determinism.

Nyeeps and tatties

In our experiment, we already showed how we are not responsible for what we think, it is a given of the environment and other internal criterion, that we are unaware of at a conscious level. If we think of the image of the person you thought of as a “nyeep” (packet of subjective information), these come from below the level of awareness or to put in old school terminology “bubble up from the subconscious”. In that respect there is no control over which nyeep will appear in our awareness and that is what we can see clearly from the experiment.

Our false self actually comes from the illusion that this process of calling up a nyeep, is something we can actually control and also the narration (internal dialogue) which results from these nyeeps on the level of awareness, telling the brain through a tertiary input, that this abstraction refers to a real entity separate from the brain and thought itself.

In effect “you” is simply a feedback cycle in thought, that is in turn generated from a cycle of cognition. Essentially “you”, your “self” or, whatever you want to call it, is nothing more than a thought. “You” do not exist, the illusion of self is caused by a feedback loop of thought.

Of course if you have just stumbled across this on the internet, you may well be bewildered, so I will say that everything is real except for “self”. The body is real, thought is real, everything is real but there is no you in real life, life is actually living itself, it always has done and never required a self to control it, that self is entirely illusory. What you perceive of as “you” is nothing more than a thought.

Heavy stuff but hang in there, lets dig deeper.

We are free in the sense that our experience causes an evolution in our thought patterns and rather than being restricted to 'only' a set of pre - programmed routines, the brain is like an adaptive learning computer that can update its model of reality on the fly. Programmed routines such as conditioning can not be undone by conscious thought alone however, our ever expanding database of experience increases our nyeep pool and as the saying goes, “we learn something new everyday”.

The feedback cycle of free will

One thing that complicates this, and actually installs a feedback cycle of free will on the level of an organism, is the fact that our awareness of consciousness forms a tertiary input into the brain. Along with sense data and our feelings, we also have an abstraction process where the brain is analysing its own cognitions and state. Basically, what is in awareness forms an input into the brain and, as such, this thought influences the brain in its decision-making processes. So, whilst we have no control over what that input is, our accumulated experiences can make us react differently in the future to similar events, so in a sense, we create a positive feedback cycle where accumulated wisdom factors into the decision-making process.

Depending on the outcomes of our actions in the past, the consequent input stimuli in to our conscious stream of thought from past experiences, constantly gives a new set of variables for the brain to work with. Our experience actually dictates our future actions and decisions but in that sense, it does feel uninhibited on an experiential level. The truth is, we are simply operating within the confines of our knowledge of the world, which is the product of our experience and the environment we occupy. We are simply aware of these decision making processes, which has been falsely attributed to a “self” being responsible for it. In reality they just happen.

Click here for: Part II

Here is a discussion I had with an analytical philosopher. Well I say discussion, he reported me to the moderators and got me banned. I was flaming him but that is how to get people locked in to a dialogue. I guess rather than explain the holes in what he was saying and actually face the fact that he had spewed some very outlandish claims with no basis to back them up, he chose to make it disappear.

People don't like being proved to be wrong, of course there is an evolutionary function for this. However, there is a lot of common misconceptions that people cling to and I want to really highlight these as that is the purpose of this post.

(Note: The original transcript is coloured.)

“I disagree. Experience is a predication of a subject. There must be a thing that is experiencing experience for experience to exist. You saying that experience itself exists is the same as someone who is arguing that 'red' itself exists. But 'red' is not a thing, it is a property that things have (an attribute).”

“No there is just experience. You are simply contradicting yourself here. You are using exactly the same argument for a self to exist and a presupposition. Look.

There is the experience of an object perceived as red object but red itself is a conceptual label for the attributes of red.

There is experience of what exists but self is a conceptual label for the attributes of experience. That is all self is; a concept = a thought. Its not a thing it has no properties.”

So here I am saying that self is a conceptual label for the attributes of reality. Now this does sound strange on the face of it. How can self be a label for the attributes of experience?

Well lets start off by looking at what he said off the bat.

“Experience is a predication of a subject”

Actually experience is a predication of existence. Without existence there is no experience and vice versa. The two are inextricably linked, you can not have one without the other. There has to be a subject to experience existence, that subject is a human being, a lizard or whatever thing you wish to insert in to the equation.

“I” refers to a physical body as there is no self, therefore we still have a subject existing which is necessary for experiencing existence.

We can take this one thing as true from our direct experience of reality. The one thing we know for certain is that there is a body sitting right here right now reading this. That we can be sure of. The body exists, the computer and everything in the room exists. Thought exists, feelings exist, it is all very real.

“There must be a thing that is experiencing experience for experience to exist.”

So we have already outlined that there is a human body that is experiencing existence. We are now inserting this idea of a self in to the equation. Now here is where it gets interesting.

There can only be experience of existence.

How do you layer on another level of experience on top of experience itself? We can boil it down to there is experience of existence and that is as far as we can go.

The statement is misleading but in a logical capacity it sounds as though there is truth in it, so lets pick it apart. Reality usurps everything. If it is not in reality, it does not exist. There is existence of what is contained within reality and there is only the direct experience of what exists.

By virtue of his proposition here, it implies that there is something separate from experience, for experience to exist.

How can anything be separate from experience of existence? It would not exist.

This argument is now logically invalid but to show you how this would work, we can look in to the atomic realm.

Take an atom, what is its direct experience? It is subject to the strong nuclear force holding the nucleus together, It has electrons whizzing round it and it is attracted to other atoms to form stable configurations... molecules. It is subject to fluctuations in heat, energy, and even pressure. Imagine that as there is >99% of nothing in an atomic structure, the electron cloud may undergo compression as it is packed in to a dense space or has force exerted on it.

We know the argument where nothing actually touches, there is just repulsion. That is an atoms experience, which is never static. Now would the atom be experiencing the experience of this? Or would it be more precise to say that the atoms experience is dictated by existence.

Existence itself is the experience of the atom. On an atomic level there is no separation from experience or existence. An atoms direct experience, is of what exists in reality. Since we are made from matter, essentially the only way there can be any separation is by invoking this idea of dualism.

The proposition of experiencing experience itself, does not make any sense for starters but we can provide an analogy of what he is trying to say by looking at virtual reality. So when you are hooked up inside the VR world matrix style, we can look at the qualities of that experience.

Are you experiencing the experience of the virtual world, or are you in fact experiencing existence still?

The virtual world exists inside reality, there is no division in reality, it is contained within reality, or else it would not exist. It is a virtual world but it is a computerised manifestation that exists within reality. Inside the computer there are transistors and electricity running through the circuit boards. Code is being executed by the CPU, which is manifested as a computer world, through the VR feed.

This becomes the direct experience of existence, to the organism in the machine. However, this virtual world is a “mesa – reality”, contained inside of reality. We can take mesa - reality to simply mean the confines of which the organism is subject to.

 I.E a mesa - reality is one where an organism, is experiencing a limited segment of the totality of reality. They are unaware of what the full scope of reality is but they are experiencing existence, within these limited confines.

You can not be experiencing the experience of virtual reality, you are experiencing a facet of existence through a computer that manifests this virtual world. Now you can say that you are having the experience of virtual reality because you are separate from virtual reality but...

Virtual reality exists within reality and so do you. Everything exists inside of reality and you can not be separate from reality. If it did not exist in reality it would not exist, it is that simple.

There is no separation from experience or existence.

You could label it as a mesa – reality if you wanted to, because if someone was born and hooked up to this VR machine from birth and fed intravenously, then conceivably it would become the experience of existence for that particular organism.

However, mesa - reality is simply my term for a set of imposed limitations that prevents the organism from experiencing every attribute of existence in this particular instance. The mesa - reality does not actually exist because reality can not be divided at all. Mesa - reality is merely a conceptual label for the experience of this confined existence, that the organism was hooked in to since it was born.

There is a thought experiment where David Chalmers used the matrix metaphor to come to this conclusion.

“Consider a computer simulation in which the bodies of the creatures are controlled by their minds and the minds remain strictly external to the simulation. The creatures can do all the science they want in the world, but they will never be able to figure out where their minds are, for they do not exist in their observable universe”.

Here he has tried to use a mesa – reality to explain why we can not know where our minds are.

Whilst this is logically valid, this assumes that the duality has a physical property, or is commonly known as substance dualism. The only problem this has, is the fact that reality has to be divided in to a mesa reality. We are aware of the universe and what exists in the material world. For this line of thinking to be correct then we have to create a meta – reality, outside of our reality or accept that we are actually in a mesa - reality.

Now string theory indicates there are 6 – 7 dimensions that we are unaware of at present.

So you could argue that we are only aware of a mesa - reality but at no point can there actually be a division in reality. There can be certain facets that we are unaware of but then we would still be experiencing a limited section of reality, with only what we can perceive forming the constraints of our mesa – reality.

Mesa and meta – realities, are not real divisions in any way, they are simply a conceptual labelling for any apparent constraints in our perception. So whilst we could argue that there is a self beyond what we are aware of, if we actually take the time to look in reality we can see that this in fact totally false.

There is no you in real life. Actually have a look at this and see if there is any truth in the statement... We can argue about this all day and get nowhere but if you actually took the time to look in real life at what is true, then you would be able to see this as the truth. There is thought that occurs, there does not need to be an entity controlling it, life actually lives itself, it always has done.

Just look at this one thing; is there a you?

Whilst the argument is logically valid here, we can know by observing reality directly, that the self is totally illusory. For all the noise that anyone can make about logical arguments, we can simply prove this by looking in real life.

The self is false, it is completely illusory, you are only a thought. Yes it is logically possible for substance dualism but it does not prove in anyway that it is real. The whole non duality thing is real, there is no separation from experience or existence, you can prove it for yourself by actually looking in real life.

So you can make an informed choice here about which is more likely:

a) There is some magical spirit or transcendental soul that inhabits every human body, that is separate or exists beyond our reality.

b) The self is an illusory construct of thought that was necessary in evolution but actually causes thought to feedback in to itself, which can give rise to anxiety and depression in some cases.

Before you choose, use occams razor...

Footnote:

Take a feral child for instance, its mesa - reality is within the confines of being a pack animal. It can experience existence but that is it. There is no separation from experience and existence. The feral child IS directly experiencing existence. Its experience is limited to pack animals behaviour. Interestingly enough, if there was actually a self, then how would this self be hampered in its development? By virtue alone this process demonstrates that “you” can only be what you think you are and if self can only be what you can conceive it is, then self must only be a thought.

Then who is doing the conceiving? No one is, its the brain.

You could say that the child's experience is of the animals life and the experiencing of that mesa - reality indicates there is a quality to it that can be experienced but reality usurps everything, there can only be experience of what exists. There is no division between experience and existence.

So now we are ready for this:

“You saying that experience itself exists is the same as someone who is arguing that 'red' itself exists. But 'red' is not a thing, it is a property that things have (an attribute).”

Experience and existence are not mutually exclusive, they are one and the same. You can not have one without the other. It would be easier for us to say what can be perceived is direct experience of existence.

The OP actually only said “there is experience” but our friend here took it to mean it as an argument for a physical thing.

There is thought, feeling, incoming sense data and there is the direct experience of these things. That is all. There is only an illusionary reference to “I”.

Because of the chunk level programming of the brain, we have thought patterns. Through the “I” function, the brain labelled a false entity responsible for the generation of thought patterns. Tests show that any control you think you have is illusory. You can do these tests on the experiement pages here.

In fact what is happening is the body takes action and the corresponding thoughts are generated afterwards. Therefore self is a label for the properties of experience. Self is actually a belief, it is only a subjective map of reality.

We can experience the thought of “I” but it is not a real thing, it is a conceptual label and only a falsely perceived attribute of experience, caused by the brain being conditioned to believe it is real.

Since self does not exist, it is literally only a manifestation of thought. It has no properties other than a subjective label.

Much like the water in a mirage is perceived, it is not real and has no influence over reality, save those that believe the illusion is real.

Might sound far fetched but what if it was actually true in real life?

There is no you, you are an illusion. Actually have a L@@K in to this and see if there could be any truth in this statement.

“There must be an underlying thing for enlightenment to be achieved. Enlightenment is a state of being; it is understanding. There must be some being that exists to have a state of being. The state itself is not a being”.

“No enlightenment is not a state of being. It is not a state of being or else that would require a shift in the brains neuro – chemistry. A state of being is emotional and feeling. It is called a state because in that snapshot of time, there is a configuration of chemicals being on specific receptors and the corresponding nerve impulses. These things are goverened by the brains biochemistry, that is transient in itself.

There does not have to be a self to have understanding there is only the brain understanding. There is a being that exists, a human one. The state of being occurs within the human being. To “have” a state of being means to be separate from the human being, how can that be? You have created a dichotomy. How can you be separate from the human body to own the experience of it?”

In particular this section demonstrates a common misconception that people have about enlightenment. First of all, enlightenment is not a state of being, it is truth realisation. When we talk about a state of being, we are talking about an objective state. In any given snapshot of time, state refers to a physical configuration.

Now if a human being could reach an enlightened state, that would mean that there would be some kind of special configuration such as a change in neuro - chemistry. This obviously is not true. There is just direct experience of existence that is not filtered through an illusory entity of self.

That opens up the real clarity of seeing that liberated people have. It is not cosmic understanding, it is simply the lenses that blur reality are removed and there is clear seeing of what IS.

“I'm not a brain; brains aren't conscious temporal things like me, but they're material spatial things that 'exist' when they are perceived by conscious temporal things. This doesn't mean that brains don't exist in time, but they don't exist in time like I exist in time”.

“Bwahaaha!!!

So you are saying that the brain is not conscious? Here you are trying to say that the brain exists when it is perceived by you “ a conscious temporal thing”. How do you propose that you are separate from the brain? Would you have to exist outside of reality to interact from outside of the brain or would there be some kind of special division in reality for you to exist? You are talking absolute retarded shit here pal.

So how do you propose a brain exists in time, in any different way that you do?

I mean listen to yourself, you claim you are separate from the brain and your body and you claim that you don't even exist in time in the same way that it does?

WTF are you talking about you moron?

To be this, you would have to be outside of reality, how exactly do you propose this is possible?”

Here we have a classic delusion of what level the self operates on. As we know in order to have thought, you have to be separate from it. I can not have ice cream if I am ice cream.

There is a human being that experiences existence, that is as far as we can boil it down. To have thought or experience means to be separate from.

If this is the case where exactly are you then?

Which part of the brain is called self?

Would you have to be separate from the experience of existence to “have” thought?

Thought occurs within the human body, there is no separation from existence or experience. To “have” thought means to be separate from it. There is experience of existence, thought feelings and the sense data naturally occur within existence, there is no separation from this, it is logically impossible.

In this particular case the guy thinks he is separate from the brain but this is quite a common misconception and many people believe this until they actually begin to analyse what is happening in real life.

“I may have material causes to my existence, but my existence is not purely a process because I have temporality”.

“No you don't have temporality because there is just the impermanent nature of reality.

How can you own the impermanent nature of reality, how can you actually “have” temporality, that would mean you were separate from the temporality.

And what are the material causes to your existence then, what is the single thing that causes experience?”

Here again we have this magical thinking that many are unaware of. When we think in terms of “we have” it implies necessarily that we are separate from it. In this case the guy here thinks he is separate from temporality. It is so simple really, because we view everything through a separate sense of self it totally seems logical to say we have arms and legs.

 This is because there is the illusion of duality, the perceived nature of a self being responsible for the thought and actions that arise. To put it simply, as we are conditioned to this dualistic world view, it is none sensical to say that we don't have arms and legs. However, language is naturally dualistic in nature. There are arms and legs on a human being but they are not your arms and legs, there is no separate entity to do the owning.

 Many people have written about this topic so I shall leave it be for now but if you are not convinced then look and see if it is actually true; there is no you in real life, you are an illusion.

“My existence is not passive receiving the word, but I actively participate in the world as time flows”.

“Time is an illusory concept, much like your argument for the red being an actual thing. Yes there is the ever changing nature of reality, we have merely made a concept up about it we called time. It is a useful thing and we should keep it but it is a conception. Nothing exists outside of the present moment.

You do not actively or passively participate in the world because there is no you in real life, LOOK. Life lives itself it always has done.”

Makes sense really, there must be an entity actively participating in the world. There is. A human being. The human being exists, you and the self image that has been constructed is an illusory fantasy to put it simply.

The human interacts with the world and as it goes about its business of survival and replication, it generates corresponding thoughts that un - liberated people believe reference a real entity.

No

Quite simply you do not exist in any way shape or form, you never did, “you” is a thought, nothing more. Post liberation not a lot changes, there is still thought, things are the same but there is no attachment to outcome, and negative thoughts no longer spiral out of control. You have the freedom to live life with the full range of human experience, not get overwhelmed and have a degree of serenity of being. It requires NO belief whatsoever, in fact it is the opposite of belief. It is questioning what is really true in reality, so take this opportunity now to actually investigate what is real, that is my challenge to you.

Undertake an assessment of what you thought was true by starting to build up your conceptions from the ground up. Yes, this takes effort, courage and honesty. That is a small price to pay for the clear seeing and truth realisation; there is no you, you are an illusion. You can argue with me all day about this but.... but.... How about actually doing the looking required to see if it could be true.

All you have to do to disprove it, is actually look at it honestly. If you can do that and prove it wrong, then you will save me a great deal of time and effort. I have written hundred of thousands of words since I was liberated (not all on here) if not over a million. I would like to be able to zen out in peace but while the world is fucking itself up, I can not stand aside and watch. Take it on, see what is real, do the numbers and see if it figures, then actually see the truth in it; there is no “you”.

And finally:

“Either way, the argument in the OP is a terrible argument”.

“Then what is your argument? A total delusion. There is nothing in your argument that has a single shred of truth in it. Look at the dog shit that you have spewed here, it is absolute nonsense drivel”.

Enough said for now, so yeah have a look. Could it be true?

A few pertinent insights here, and clearly explained. The cause and effect thing is worth scrolling down for, and the ideas about time are, although there is only a very limited explanation. These are key aspects to investigating mental phenomena and I will produce a more full exposition on this aspect in due course. Ghost 2013



Hey
I read all of your other email and what a lot has happened to you! So you have come to the conclusion that everything that has happened to you is not happening to you but to something else? not really sure I get it! I did a philosophy module in second year and it was very interesting

No it didn't happen to me. Because there is no me per se. There was the experience of it happening, it was 100% experienced but there was no me to experience it, there was only the experience itself.

Ok there is a body, there is thought, there is the experience of life right now in the present moment. There are memories, there are desires. But the whole concept of a "you" behind the thinking or the actions is actually a fallacy. "you" do not actually exist.

You are experiencing life right now, you are sitting in front of a computer. What you see and hear is real. The body/ (bodies if your at uni) you can see are real. The thoughts that arise are real, the memories, the imagination, its all very real, its existing in reality right now. The only thing that isn't real is what you perceive as yourself, your life, your personality what you describe to others as "I" or your self etc..

It is not actually a real entity, it is actually only a thought, you do not actually exist whatsoever. No matter how incomprehensible this sounds, it can be demonstrated by looking in reality. It just simply isn't there whatsoever, it is an illusion. A very, very complex illusion that does not exist in any way shape or form.

Now you have had a whole life of thinking in this way and all your experience dictates that you are the thinker of thoughts or the doer of the actions that arise. For me it was 31 years worth, a long time. But the thing is, not once did we ever check to see if it was real. We just assumed we existed. It seems ridiculous to even test this premise because we are experiencing this life right now. Unfortunately we have been duped by a lie that there is an experiencer, thinker or doer behind the experiencing thinking and doing.

To put it simply your belief or frame reference you engage reality on is that "you" are having the experience of life. We even call it life experience to describe the experiences we have had. This in itself is dualistic, stating in language that there is actually a seperate entity from reality having this experience.

My new frame of reference is that "I" is the experience itself. I say "my new frame of reference" but there is no entity to have a frame of reference on reality.

There is no entity or "I" having the experience. The experience itself is all that there is in reality. There is only experience itself, there is nothing more than the experience itself.

Lets use a metaphor: Imagine if we objectify experience and we have an apple and label it EXPERIENCE. This would be the experience of life itself in the present moment.

Then suddenly you see me walk up and reach out and place my hand on the apple and look at it. I would have experience, the experience of having the apple in my hand and looking at it. I would own and would be observing or "having" the apple.

What I'm trying to communicate to you is that I am not there, this is an illusion. What there is, is only the apple itself, no "I" to lay a claim and own it. The apple is real, the me walking up to the apple and laying claim to it is not. The apple or EXPERIENCE is all that exists in reality.

This sounds like a load of new age clap trap and it would be nice to just suddenly decide to switch on this wavelength but it is not so difficult as you think. All you have to do is have an honest look in reality and you will discover this as truth.

but when it comes down to us as beings or time (time is very complicated) then I am a bit stumped! Like the idea of what you believe but not sure if I buy it, only because I think I am not as open minded as others are ): lol.

Ok there is a body, there is thought, there is the experience of life right now in the present moment. There are memories, there are desires that arise in certain moments but they are only experienced in the present moment. Nothing exists outside of the present moment, aboslutely nothing. 

The past is no more and the future has not happened yet.

They exist as a mental construct in the mind as there are projections of imagining the future and memories that have happened. But only the present moment can be experienced.

With me so far?

The image of a thought about the future is experienced in the present. This gives the illusion that we have a future that we own.

The paradox is how can we own something that doesn't exist? Time is merely a measurement used on earth. Physicists call it space time to describe measurements in the cosmos.

It has already been proven that space time is not constant and can be warped. The GPS satellites have to use the general theory of relativity to correct quantum time dilations (fluctuations in space time) or else the whole system would be a worthless and innacurate fail! These fluctuations arise because of quantum gravity.

All of this is a nice distraction about quantum space time dilation but we have strayed off topic.

The whole premise is, our concept of time is only a measurement. We can only exist in the present moment but we can use time to describe changes from moment to moment of any length we can conceive, be it billions of years or the time it takes to blink our eyes.

How do we get time perception then if we exist in the present?
This is where we get to cause and effect and show how in reality it actually fails as a premise:

CAUSE + EFFECT

Before you were even conscious of any memories, you have been primed through conditioning to live in a world in terms of cause and effect. If you drop the cup on the floor, that’s cause and effect. The cup is dropped and it breaks. Simple as it is. Do this = this happens. This is great, this is how we interact with the world on a base level.

We have a lens in place that allows us to interact with the world as we go about our lives.

“If I walk out in the road without looking, I will get run over”.

“If I don't do this, I will get shouted at”. 

This mechanism is necessary for survival and making judgements about the world as they arise from moment to moment.

Cause and effect is how we analyse the world but this is looking at cause and effect through a microscopic lens however. We are conditioned to look at cause and effect in terms of; this action now has this outcome, or x action generates y outcome. In other words that’s just how the mind sees things in reality. The mind makes a snapshot of reality dependent on external stimuli that is constantly being updated.

Take the first model presented:


The cup is dropped = cup smashes in to pieces

Cause ------------> Effect ----------------> Cause -------->

So how about this.... you complain about the smashed cup and get a bag to put the pieces in. You get down on your knees and pick up the shards. Whilst picking up the shards you cut yourself badly. you have to phone a friend who takes you to A+E. You are stuck at A+E for 2 hours waiting in the queue to get stitches in the wound.

You don't go to to the nightclub until later on and consequently you meet a different future spouse. You get married and have the son who became the prime minister in 40 years time.

This son caused the world to destruct as he started a nuclear war because he was consumed by a lie... All this because of a broken cup.

You could go backwards in time too if you like. I could say; what would have happened if my father beat me as a child, what if he caught the flu and didn't meet my mum, what if my Granddad had of been shot down in WW2? His plane got hit by flak but they made it home, what if the pilot was out on the heading by 0.00001 degrees? What if the plane took off a fraction of a second earlier. What if my great grandfather didn't narrowly avoid an accident, what if my mediaeval ancestors got burnt at the stake, what about if my caveman ancestors didn't find that injured mammoth to kill and narrowly avert starvation, what about my primate ancestors, the big bang? Would they have any effect on whether I was there to drop the cup or not?

As you can see, its difficult to draw a line and put a label on the cause and effect of each event. Of course there is causality but our minds simple method of cause and effect begins to break down as an objective model at this point. When you make a cup of tea, does it ever cross your mind that you are depleting the worlds fossil fuel reserves? Of course not, we are only ever operating on this basic level of cause and effect. I turn the kettle on = the water boils. Really, this model is inadequate to explain anything apart from labelling objective experience. So whilst it has a place and is useful to us, its not so good for relying on it as the explaination for things.

So there you go me preaching again. I'm going to blog this response to you anyway, don't worry I won't include your name or email lol!!! Some of it is from the book I'm writing thats why its so long! But take a look and tell me if you see a "you"? Does a "you" exist? If so describe it to me, tell me what you see when you look....