11-27-2017, 12:00 AM
Le_Regard wrote:
Julio Juliopolis wrote:
Le_Regard wrote:
It could also be a lot like sitting down to play a videogame and it turns out the videogame is so much fun you never get back up again.
If we change that a little bit, say add that you forget it's just a video game and start calling it "reality", and that you occasionally do get up and leave the game for a short time before returning to it but call that "dreaming" and say it isn't real, then it's a pretty fair analogy.
I also don't know if INTENT can be responsible for everything that "occurs", now that I think about it.
That's because you don't know that everything has consciousness and intent. When an apple falls off a tree, it's a result of the combined intents of the apple, tree, ground, earth, air, all the atoms and molecules that make up all those things, and the intents of whatever beings decided for the force of gravity to be at play in this dream-world, (aka reality).
I could also say responsible for everything we experience. "occurs" seems to give it some measure of reality, like it occurred "for real" and not in an MMORPG.
Defining reality as what "we experience" seems to be very human-centric. Other animals have experiences which includes colors we don't see, and sounds that are too high-pitched for us to hear. Ever try to combine hundreds of images into 1? Insects with compound eyes do this. Their experiences are no less real than ours, and their reality probably looks considerably different. As Don Juan told Carlos, what people call reality is just a description. When you see, (and I hope someday you do), that everything has consciousness and it's own perceptions you'll realize just how much these descriptions can vary.
This is very substantial.
What you're describing as the combined intent of apple, tree, earth, etc., etc., Schopenhauer called "will". He wrote a book about it, in German, called "The World as Will and Idea" or "The World as Will and Representation". Or whatever the German for that is, I don't really know.
Two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule combine in true love and ecstasy because it is their will to be water. I'm assuming the Carlos Castaneda books have been translated into German, but I don't know the word they use for Intent, so I don't know... maybe it's the same thing.
But Schopenhauer's "Will" doesn't just inspire hydrogen and oxygen to be water. Will is "the thing-in-itself", "das ding an sich" if you like. Schopenhauer writes this way because in the philosophy of KANT, we only know our own experiences. We definitely know that a world is out there a real one, at least ONE real thing or maybe real THINGS, because we don't know. We can't know. But we know it as a brute fact because otherwise it would be like seeing a shadow cast by a tree but not believing in trees and not believing in the Sun. That's what Kant says. We know it's there because we infer from its effects, which is the fact we experience ANYTHING AT ALL. And blahblahblah Space is just the absolute form of geometry and Time is just the absolute form of arithmetic and blahblahblah, but what's relevant here is that Schopenhauer was a bit more optimistic and thought that, in a certain sense, we COULD know the the thing-in-itself, quite directly, because it is Will, and we have that. We are that.
Very interesting. I haven't read Schopenhauer or Kant but I find it curious that they were still into imagined shapes being more "real" than the approximations of them we actually find in the world. I'd have guessed that idea, (although once a popular notion), would have died not long after Plato. That aside, the idea of will as a thing-in-itself needs a bit more explanation for me to get it though as I can imagine several different ways that could be interpreted. I've never thought of will that way myself before.
However, Schopenhauer's project is generally considered pessimistic. The only way to realize the Will of the universe is to basically suspend the individual Will that animates our own lives only.
If that means what I think it does than I don't see why it would be pessimistic. Perhaps people should try taking it in chunks. Instead of dropping one's will entirely, just take a short vacation from it. Take a few days and let your decisions be governed by authentic desires only. That's how the universe communicates it's will to us, (maybe xD). If you feel a genuine desire to eat, then eat. If you feel a specific craving eat that, if not find something. If you want to watch TV, watch TV. If you find you no longer have a desire to keep watching TV, (even if it's right in the middle of a show!), then stop. Don't continue doing stuff from habit, that just leads to dullness and boredom. When you find someone is going to interact with you don't approach it with your assumptions about how they'll behave, trying to manipulate the situation to encourage or avoid certain actions by them, instead just see what your authentic desire says when you see them and go with that. It may be scary to think about trying to live your life like that, but it should be okay for a weekend. In fact, it would make that weekend both interesting and entertaining.
We know the world by "willing it" to appearance or representation. So if we just DON'T... if we just suspend all appearance and representation, "stop the world" if you like, stop THINKING the world into appearance, WILL shines out as self-illuminated. But that doesn't leave us anywhere.
I'll have to take your word for it, as I haven't stopped the world enough times to know and my memories of the events tend to go up to the point where I stopped the world and pick up immediately after I "started" a world.
Related... I heard this on the radio this morning.
Julio Juliopolis wrote:
Le_Regard wrote:
It could also be a lot like sitting down to play a videogame and it turns out the videogame is so much fun you never get back up again.
If we change that a little bit, say add that you forget it's just a video game and start calling it "reality", and that you occasionally do get up and leave the game for a short time before returning to it but call that "dreaming" and say it isn't real, then it's a pretty fair analogy.
I also don't know if INTENT can be responsible for everything that "occurs", now that I think about it.
That's because you don't know that everything has consciousness and intent. When an apple falls off a tree, it's a result of the combined intents of the apple, tree, ground, earth, air, all the atoms and molecules that make up all those things, and the intents of whatever beings decided for the force of gravity to be at play in this dream-world, (aka reality).
I could also say responsible for everything we experience. "occurs" seems to give it some measure of reality, like it occurred "for real" and not in an MMORPG.
Defining reality as what "we experience" seems to be very human-centric. Other animals have experiences which includes colors we don't see, and sounds that are too high-pitched for us to hear. Ever try to combine hundreds of images into 1? Insects with compound eyes do this. Their experiences are no less real than ours, and their reality probably looks considerably different. As Don Juan told Carlos, what people call reality is just a description. When you see, (and I hope someday you do), that everything has consciousness and it's own perceptions you'll realize just how much these descriptions can vary.
This is very substantial.
What you're describing as the combined intent of apple, tree, earth, etc., etc., Schopenhauer called "will". He wrote a book about it, in German, called "The World as Will and Idea" or "The World as Will and Representation". Or whatever the German for that is, I don't really know.
Two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule combine in true love and ecstasy because it is their will to be water. I'm assuming the Carlos Castaneda books have been translated into German, but I don't know the word they use for Intent, so I don't know... maybe it's the same thing.
But Schopenhauer's "Will" doesn't just inspire hydrogen and oxygen to be water. Will is "the thing-in-itself", "das ding an sich" if you like. Schopenhauer writes this way because in the philosophy of KANT, we only know our own experiences. We definitely know that a world is out there a real one, at least ONE real thing or maybe real THINGS, because we don't know. We can't know. But we know it as a brute fact because otherwise it would be like seeing a shadow cast by a tree but not believing in trees and not believing in the Sun. That's what Kant says. We know it's there because we infer from its effects, which is the fact we experience ANYTHING AT ALL. And blahblahblah Space is just the absolute form of geometry and Time is just the absolute form of arithmetic and blahblahblah, but what's relevant here is that Schopenhauer was a bit more optimistic and thought that, in a certain sense, we COULD know the the thing-in-itself, quite directly, because it is Will, and we have that. We are that.
Very interesting. I haven't read Schopenhauer or Kant but I find it curious that they were still into imagined shapes being more "real" than the approximations of them we actually find in the world. I'd have guessed that idea, (although once a popular notion), would have died not long after Plato. That aside, the idea of will as a thing-in-itself needs a bit more explanation for me to get it though as I can imagine several different ways that could be interpreted. I've never thought of will that way myself before.
However, Schopenhauer's project is generally considered pessimistic. The only way to realize the Will of the universe is to basically suspend the individual Will that animates our own lives only.
If that means what I think it does than I don't see why it would be pessimistic. Perhaps people should try taking it in chunks. Instead of dropping one's will entirely, just take a short vacation from it. Take a few days and let your decisions be governed by authentic desires only. That's how the universe communicates it's will to us, (maybe xD). If you feel a genuine desire to eat, then eat. If you feel a specific craving eat that, if not find something. If you want to watch TV, watch TV. If you find you no longer have a desire to keep watching TV, (even if it's right in the middle of a show!), then stop. Don't continue doing stuff from habit, that just leads to dullness and boredom. When you find someone is going to interact with you don't approach it with your assumptions about how they'll behave, trying to manipulate the situation to encourage or avoid certain actions by them, instead just see what your authentic desire says when you see them and go with that. It may be scary to think about trying to live your life like that, but it should be okay for a weekend. In fact, it would make that weekend both interesting and entertaining.
We know the world by "willing it" to appearance or representation. So if we just DON'T... if we just suspend all appearance and representation, "stop the world" if you like, stop THINKING the world into appearance, WILL shines out as self-illuminated. But that doesn't leave us anywhere.
I'll have to take your word for it, as I haven't stopped the world enough times to know and my memories of the events tend to go up to the point where I stopped the world and pick up immediately after I "started" a world.
Related... I heard this on the radio this morning.