Thread: Consensus Reality

UM, you don't seem to be listening anymore. We'd appreciate if you also put more effort into your responses, and explain or elaborate like we have.

Originally Posted by Singularity125

Okay, I will admit to being rather confused right now. What exactly is it that we're debating here? I certainly understand that we're relatively insignificant compared to the rest of the universe, by sheer amount of volume and range of effect. Nothing we do can physically effect what goes on halfway across the universe, at least with current technology. I understand this. Yes, the universe was around before us, and will go on after us.

However, if you believe, as I do, that all consciousness is somehow intertwined at a base level -- that consciousness may, in fact, be one of the basis factors for our universe -- then suddenly we do have some importance on a grand scale. Our existence, or lack thereof, as a species has some effect on the other conscious, living beings in our universe, whether here on earth, or in distant galaxies. Perhaps minute, or even unmeasurable, but it's an effect nonetheless.

And meaning is a subjective, and entirely human, quality to project on to things. There is no objective meaning in anything. Personally, any universe, no matter how fascinating and complex, is rather meaningless if there are no conscious beings to be aware of its existence. From our perspective, with no observers it might as well have never existed. Would you agree with this? Whether or not the universe goes on without us is relatively unimportant, and indeed, impossible to say for sure. I couldn't care less what happens to the universe after all consciousness is gone... because I won't be around to see it.

Nice post - Exactly, there is no objective meaning. I think that's one of the issues we're debating. There is no independent objective universe either. It's really about coming to acknowledge the prevailing importance of subjectivity and consciousness; the subtler qualities of life.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

No, I do not think the hallucination would persist. The universe would. Our fuzzy understanding and questionable observation of it would be gone. IT would not.

It's not a matter of "fuzzy understanding"--what we take for reality, particularly our experience of time, is founded upon and driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on here. Independent of our delusion of time and specific, exclusive events, the universe is complete and nothing is happening.

Originally Posted by really

UM, you don't seem to be listening anymore. We'd appreciate if you also put more effort into your responses, and explain or elaborate like we have.

That's an awesome post that gets us really far, but could you be a little more vague?

Originally Posted by Taosaur

It's not a matter of "fuzzy understanding"--what we take for reality, particularly our experience of time, is founded upon and driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on here. Independent of our delusion of time and specific, exclusive events, the universe is complete and nothing is happening.

A delusion, huh? When did you leave that post?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind;

A delusion, huh? When did you leave that post?

Concurrent with all possible happenings in the ground lumonosity of being.

Perhaps we can look at this another way. The materialist model of reality is grounded in observation, is it not? One must observe a phenomenon in order to study it scientifically. Therefore, this perspective is fundamentally tied to the act of observation. How then do you propose to study "the universe" defined by a lack of observation? To say, "I am going to scientifically study the universe as it is in the absense of an observer" is absurd. It can't be done.

Instead maybe, you would like to deduce the state of the universe in the absense of an observer using logic and math. This isn't viable either, since here you are, still observing, just with different tools. Not only that, but whatever it is you come up with is even more of an illusion than what you might observe in the present since all of the logic and math exists only in your own mind, and I think with a little introspection anyone can come to realize that fact.

When all of your knowledge of 'what is' is dependent on not only "the thing" but also yourself, removing yourself obliterates the knowledge. The illusion is the perceived ability to know "the thing" when in reality, all you know is your knowledge of "the thing". The thing, which is all of the universe, is fundamentally outside of you, and yet your perceptions of the universe are fundamentally inside of you. They are forever seperate.

You can say that without an observer the universe persists, but this perspective is not compatible with the scientific method since science requires an observer in order to study phenomena. Scientists do not speculate about the existence of something that they cannot observe, so why then would a philosophical position based on science choose to speculate?

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Concurrent with all possible happenings in the ground lumonosity of being.

What time was that? Please be specific.

Do you ever try to find out what time it is? Why?

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

You can say that without an observer the universe persists, but this perspective is not compatible with the scientific method since science requires an observer in order to study phenomena. Scientists do not speculate about the existence of something that they cannot observe, so why then would a philosophical position based on science choose to speculate?

What about evolution and the big bang? Through observations, scientists learn how the universe/reality works and then deduce what happened in the past.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Do you ever try to find out what time it is? Why?

What about evolution and the big bang? Through observations, scientists learn how the universe/reality works and then deduce what happened in the past.

That question is a great one, because it illustrates the point perfectly. Why try to find out what time it is? The only reason is because it is useful when operating in a consensus reality. Knowing the time is useless unless it is a time that is accepted by other people.

What about evolution and the big bang? These are just ideas. Evolution, less so because it is a much broader idea that still applies to phenomena that we observe in the present. Even the model for the big bang accepts that it is just a model. Even from the evidence we have, the theory admits that we can only deduce up to a certain point after the big bang supposedly happened and that before that there were no laws of reality to make sense of whatever it was that existed with.

Even still though, these concepts are based on the assumption that our perception of reality is synonymous with absolute reality, which I showed to be untrue. We can model the world very usefully, but we can never hope to know how it actually is.

A theory is not just an idea. Scientists have very strong and supported theories about what things were like before there were humans and before there were any organisms.

We ask what time it is or look it up because it is not something we just make up. It is objective reality. Time does not matter to anybody if there is nobody, but it still exists.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Time does not matter to anybody if there is nobody, but it still exists.

Prove it.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Prove it.

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html

http://www.extremescience.com/zoom/i...-earth-history

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html

http://www.extremescience.com/zoom/i...-earth-history

Do you exist when you read those websites?

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Do you exist when you read those websites?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Yes.

So how does that have anything to do with "if there is nobody, it still exists"?

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

So how does that have anything to do with "if there is nobody, it still exists"?

Was anybody around for the big bang or the events between the big bang and the formations of the first observers? There is strong evidence that those events happened in time and that no observers existed yet. The big bang happened about 13.5 billion years ago.

Perhaps you could dream that scientists have figured out that the big bang happened 3.5 million years ago but that 'objective' reality is dependent on the dreamer who dreams it up.

What we call reality is a small range of frequencies in an infinite spectrum of frequencies of energy. There are infinite frequencies of energy and we cannot ever know them all.

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

What we call reality is a small range of frequencies in an infinite spectrum of frequencies of energy. There are infinite frequencies of energy and we cannot ever know them all.

Wow. That just really tripped me out. I don't know how much I agree with it, but I love it.

I am glad I finally tripped you out! Lol

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." -Einstein

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Was anybody around for the big bang or the events between the big bang and the formations of the first observers? There is strong evidence that those events happened in time and that no observers existed yet. The big bang happened about 13.5 billion years ago.

If there are no observers, the "the big bang happened about 13.5 billion years ago" relative to what?

Haha! "If there are no observers, the "big bang happened abput 13.5 billion years ago!" Very good!

You see, we WERE the big bang! I am the big bang, you are the big bang, we all were the big bang. And all time is foreplay to another Big Bang.

And our growing understanding of the universe is actually creating the knowledge that we understand. The universe was created long ago, but it is still being created, even in our mind.
At first, all energy exploded and then a half second later it condensed into heat and plasma and then a fraction of a second later it became hydrogen. And then helium, etc. Stars were born, the ambient temperature cooled and stars created heavier elements, matter formed, living beings formed, minds formed, knowledge formed, now minds create. Mind is a force of nature now and now mind is evolving. Objective reality is giving birth to subjective realities. Subjective realities form consensus realities and consensus realities are evolving back to absolute reality. What next? Spirit? And then another Big Bang? Maybe the moment all consensus realities unite with Absolute reality there is an orgasmic Big Bang again.

Originally Posted by really

If there are no observers, the "the big bang happened about 13.5 billion years ago" relative to what?

You asked that question relative to what?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

You asked that question relative to what?

Relative to an observer who presumes the existence of time. It doesn't look like you have answered the question. Do you know what I mean?

Originally Posted by really

Relative to an observer who presumes the existence of time. It doesn't look like you have answered the question.

You didn't ask your question until I read it? I think you posted it while I was at Wal-Mart.

It doesn't look like I have answered the question? What if I answer it next week? Wouldn't that mean, according to you, that my answer to your question is real now?

Originally Posted by really

Do you know what I mean?

Do I know what you mean relative to what?

I don't think your issue of "relative to what" is valid. The particles involved moved relative to each other. They didn't have to collectively move relative to another thing.