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Another thread regarding consciousness
ThailandTom
Veteran
I will keep this short. Going back to what I heard a physicist say, that we create our world within our own minds. This is a given and fits into buddhism. But then he said that if there was no consciousness at all, then there would be nothing. This got me thinking, before the human race existed, before creatures and basic walks of life existed on earth, before earth existed, did anything exist?? Where was the consciousness..? I know this won't help me with my path down the dharma line, but it is intriguing and got the noggin ticking over a little .. Anybody care to jump in with their opinions or facts?
Tom
Tom
0
Comments
Who is the physicist you're talking about?
Why is that true? Because the argument for the opposite (materialism) really sucks in comparison.
Here ya go, you'll like this: very "Buddhist!" Objects are merely ***collections*of*qualities*** available to the senses and have no substance!
Link and excerpt:
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/distance/berkeley/comment4.html
Berkeley's Positive Doctrines: Immaterialism
Having taken up all this time in examining Berkeley's attacks on the mechanical philosophers, materialists and dualists, we should consider Berkeley's own account of things in the external world. It is plain that Berkeley does not belive that there is any such thing as matter or material substance existing indpendently of us. What then is a thing? The answer is largely contained in Berkeley's definition of sensible things, given earlier. "It seems then that by sensible things you mean those only which can be perceived immediately by sense." He then goes on to note that we immediately perceive by sight light, colours, and figures; by hearing, sounds; by the palate, tastes; by the smell, odours; and by the touch, tangible qualities. So, a thing for Berkeley is simply a collection of sensible qualities which are mind dependent. So to be a sensible thing is to be a collection of sensible qualities perceived by some mind.
More? Go to link. Easy to understand.
Perceived and not perceived are dependently (upon their notions) arisen constructs. Experience just is.
[14] Just as pleasure and pain depending on an object in a dream do not have [a real] object, so neither that which arises dependently nor that which it arises in dependence on exists.
[26] If a definite cessation did abide, it would be independent of being. It does not exist without being, nor does it exist without non-being.
[16] Reply: If own-being were established, dependently arising things would not occur. If [they were] unconditioned, how could own-being be lacking? True being also does not vanish.
~Nagarjuna
Does the dark interior space stop existing after you become conscious of the dark interior space?
My answer would have to be No, when I am conscious of it, it exists.
I would have to touch the interior walls of the closet to know it was a bounded space (inside of a closet). Otherwise, with no sense of touch, for all intents and purposes, it is infinite dark space. No wait: I'm standing and feeling gravity, right?
Should I assume the dark inside of a closet exists when I am not conscious of it? WHY should I?
I have a few such closets in my house but I don't consider them in existence until I see their doors and open them. Of course I'd have to get inside and close the door to perceive the darkened closet.
Is "the inside of a closet" literally what's you are referred to or is "the inside of a closet" it a *****metaphor***** for something else?
If so WHAT IS that something else?
I can grasp what the inside of a closet "is." It's a bounded space which is dark. One has no awareness of the boundaries until one touches them.
If you want me to "Go Poetic" on this I can try that too. I'm just trying to understand what is being communicated.
Seriously.
No big deal. It's just for fun.
The physicist I cannot recall, but it was a documentary on quantum physics, it had a variety of notorious and highly acclaimed physicists, I have seen them in different documentaries and related programs, one of them in is asian if that helps ....
Anyway, the fabric of the universe is consciousness according to them, so without any consciousness there would be nothing. This is all theory of course.
There is a theory that our universe is a small bubble of sorts where gravity and everything streams into it from a far greater universe. There is the theory of multiverses and the big bang was where our universe collided with another one, the membranes causing everything to come into being as it is today. For all of this to happen, there must have been consciousness before hand.
I go back to a time when I was meditating on the roof of a building, there was many noises going on around me including a loud construction site. When I was deeply focused I didn't actually acknowledge that the sound was there, it literally disappeared, but when I lost my focus a little, the noise came back and thus existed, well existed to me at least. Obviously it was there all of the time, but to me it did not exist for a short space of time.
Let's try learning always have someone looking at an object, more than one so nobody blinks at the same time, and see if we can get it to stop existing.
My point of this thread was that if there was no consciousness at all, every walk of life in our universe gone, would anything exist... According to these scientists no, no it would not
Yet another thread that needs moving!
Forget looking at consciousness and being Mindful - what hope have you of that, if you can't even be bothered to ensure that you're posting in the CORRECT FORUM - ?!? :rant: :aol:
It's not a question of whether it has a Buddhist theme.
it's a question of considering what the thread is about, and where its appropriate place would be....
The "Buddhism for Beginners" seems to be the general dumping ground for people who can't be bothered to think about what they're posting, which unfortunately amounts often to drivel, given that topics meander so quickly into other areas.
I would say a good 50% of threads put into that forum should be elsewhere.
And I would say a high proportion of them shouldn't exist at all.
But I don't delete threads on a whim, I don't close them for no reason, and I move them because they need moving.
Chiefly because people fail to think.
I actually did not even realise where I was posting this thread to be honest, but I do believe it has potential for discussion in a buddhist sense... Sorry for the feed back prior to this post,
Tom