Excerpt from 'jeannie's post above:

'... Its hard to explain that, but I have had experiences that lead me to believe these things. Experience is my best authority...'

Hey 'jeannie',

Don't turn 'feral' on us now!!! (just kidding!!!)

Actually I partly agree, and partly disagree with statements of your post.

IMO, we probably are no more than this most imperfect (perfectible maybe over billions of years) 'self-aware-meaning-making-thing' which our neo cortex generates. Just saying this based on the current evidence.

However, when you point to the source, well now we're talking. Doesn't change our very limited 'self-aware' exclusive status mind you, but ...

... it opens up a whole other 'connection'!!!

Neuro Thermal Imaging has clearly demonstrated one of the most fascinating distinctions about the whole understanding of the 'brain' thing.

Activity, as measured through thermal imaging of different sectors of the brain, catching electro-thermic synapses activty, and the bits of information generated, came out as follows :

reptilian part of the brain, vital functions: breathing, etc., instinct: fight or flight reactions,
.. and lymbic areas of the brain,
would be bombarded with 400 billion bits of information second!!!

The neo cortex, or lower-frontal lobe, only treats 2 000 bits second, an insignificant fraction of that which 'percolates up' from the 'lower brains'.

2 000 bits second of non-stop treatment, while quite a mass of info, is an absurdly small portion of the 400billion generated every second by the 'lower brains', which we unconsciously and subconsciously 'feel', and yet can't grasp, eventhough it is all happening WITHIN.

So, two hypothesis' here:

FIRST HYPOTHESIS:
The 2 000 bits/second (neocortex) self-awareness vs the 400billion bits/second (lower brains) subconcious and unconscious activity, is enough to create within our own 'self-aware-experience' this whole 'self' generated world of intuition, dreams, half sense of 'connectedness'.

SECOND HYPOTHESIS:
the source of the 400billion bits IS NOT our own brain. Eventhough there is a lot of interesting hypothesis' around touching with the Quantum field and particle (energy) flow, no one has an answer for the source as of now. Observed activity within, but no answers on the source.

So, I don't have an aswer for it either, but I agree that the source of that stuff (400 billion bits),
... eventhough WE may be nothing other than JUST the product of our imperfect 'self-aware' brain,
... HAS TO FASCINATE!!!

So, before the fundamentalists claim it for their 'god' - I.D. - BS camp, I'd rather think that 'Abra' could articulate better than I ever could, that this 400billion bits of brain activity, is nothing other than the product of some sort of continuous wave or 'Quantum Flow', what the heck!!! within the infamous unified Q. field that we are wholly, eventhough unconsciously, part of !!!

If Quantum mechanics is just a theory (as spoken in the non-scientific world), then brace yourselves 'cause this other theory is about to throw us all into hyperspace.

You know, this 'glued' to the ground theory?!?!?

Anyhow, the joke going around, is that the fundamentalists pushing I.D. against 'evolution' as 'just' a theory, are claiming there are flaws with the theory of gravity, and insist on replacing it by the 'THEORY OF INTELLIGENT FALLING' !!!

Hummm???

That's what I meant by ...

... 'You're absolutely right about that 'yellowrose' ,

... right along with 99,997% of all christians on the planet!!! ...'

... it is a very small number of fundamentalists, whom insist on imposing a bible inerrant, or litterate bible interpretation of evil evolution dogma on all, that makes up the other 0,00267% of christians.

Brilliant 'Madisonman' !!!

Love the soulful music!!!

Not sure about the lyrics?!?!

But those 3 jumping, laughing, prisoners in shackles, are a perfect modern day representation of SISYPHUS.

'Seize the day', through embracing our condition in ALL its circumstances!!!

A 'mountain of life' metaphor that has profoundly marked my life, was Albert Camus' essay on the Greek Myth, Sisyphus!!!

I was 15 at the time, and thought the subject was way too nebulous and fatalistic for my taste.

Until I got this part, don't remember which part in the book, where it instantly all made sense, in an absurd but brilliant kind of way.

Sisyphus ultimately deals with our obsessive and compulsive behavior to escape our human condition, this 'having to go somewhere' or 'do something' ALL THE TIME to avoid dealing with 'JUST' that! 'JUST' this! 'JUST' here!

'Go somewhere!' all the time, implies, 'NEVER HERE'!!! (all the time)

Sisyphus got enlightened, found profound and eternal peace, the moment he totally embraced his condition, and all the circumstances that came with it.

Don't even hope to find eternal peace on this planet. It is not part of the human condition, and certainly not an earthly circumstance.

Whether one climbs a mountain, or sips wine in the valley, embracing one's true and whole condition, and all its circumstances, might very well be our singular and only journey on this planet.

You're absolutely right about that 'yellowrose',

... just like 99,997% of all christians on the planet whom do not see the theory of evolution as a threat to their personal faith and beliefs.

Exactly 'Jeannie',

And given the nature of the visual cortex, that is much closer to the truth than whatever he thought he was seeing!!!

I would also disagree with that statement,

'... Consciousness requires self-awareness, however, simply having awareness does not constitute having consciousness...'

As stated, it subordinates 'consciousness' to 'self-awareness'. 'self-awareness' if anything, is THE short circuit 'par excellence' of any form of 'consciousness'.

Given that human beings are but 'self-aware': 'I think, therefore I am', is as far as humans go.

We can talk a good game 'ABOUT' consciousness,
... but accessing it ain't go'in to happen in this human form.

Our 'self-aware', mimicking neo/visual cortexes exclusive functions, can only generate 'pictures of the thing', and never the thing. All internal, all pretend external, and all self-referential.

'Concsciousness' is a perfect human paradox.

Self-awareness would somehow have to be turned off, to 'experience' (only through self-awareness) 'consciousness'.

While the disconnection of 'self-awareness' may not necessarily imply death per say, it certainly implies the end of that subtle connection between visual and neo cortexes which produce this 'self-aware' exclusive phenemenon.

Just to be clear: cutting this connection: coherence of neo-visual cortexes activities, kills all access to 'knowing' that we are aware at all (self-aware) or 'apparently' partially conscious at all (self-conscious).

We may create a powerful illusion of being conscious, but 'being conscious'!?!?!?

... Dream on !!!

Our fundamental human design is founded on self-awareness, and only on self-awareness, where no 'consciousness' can ever be accessed.

Evoking consciousness, free of self-awareness, is possible for humans. But that is far from 'being conscious', or 'having consciousness' (oxymoron) (Heidegger).

Love the picture 'MahanMahan'!!!

And while I suspect we're on the 'same page', I'd like to take this opportunity to take a look at this 'blind faith' statement from the 'blind sheeps' perspective, and toss it around a bit.

'... Faith can only be blind!!! ...'
... let's say!

It is when it transgresses that 'blind' state, that faith is no longer faith (based on beliefs for which there exists no evidence, nor fact, no reality as we imply 'consensus for material reality).

When faith is stricly 'blind' from that which we call 'real', and the 'faithful' responsibly distinguishes his faith from what we refer to as this shared 'reality', life flows.

However, when the 'real' factor kicks in, and confuses the unsubstantiatable nature of faith, where for example, 'My god is real', 'The word of MY bible is without error', than we are no longer dealing with 'blind faith' or 'faith' as it is intended to be, and are no longer dealing with faith at all, but a serious perversion of faith.

Maybe 'BLIND FAITH' is exactly what faith ought to be!!!

Just love it!!!

So crisp! So grounded!

Hi! right back 'Redy', good to read your refreshing, rich and grounded words.

Imagining, or 'scenario role play', might be nothing other than memory work with a certain 'distance'.

I think you might be more in agreement with 'Abra' than you suspect (IMO of course).

The actual discussion to which you refer, or 'action', in that context, may be nothing other than 'memory work' (imagining) in action, 'live' as you will, which in turn might just mean 'LESS DISTANCE', but imaginary just the same.

What, or whom decides that the 'actual discussion', or 'action', isn't also part of the bigger 'imaginary scenario'.

Nothing is really delivered 'cold', without any 'scenario' or memory work. If there is no playing it out, practicing it, or preparing it, before the 'elected action', the so-called 'cold' delivery still rests entirely on a mass of previous 'memories' or 'knowledge'.

Our neocortex, the reasoning, or thinking machine we are equipped with, is nothing other than a 'mirroring' or 'mimicking' machine.

It is coupled with the visual cortex which is even more so, a 'representing machine' of that which 'WE THINK' we see 'out there'.

The visual cortex only creates the most effective 'illusion' consisting of confusing perfectly that which we only imagine, as 'being out there 'as 'seen''!!!

As I think 'Abra' might be evoking, it has been demonstrated clearly the the visual cortex has no means of distinguishing what it imagines from what it apparently sees out there. If you imagine enough ('let go' enough) the 'out there' the 'illusion of 'out there'' dissipates, and the imagined is the only reality you are left with.

If not through voluntary means (shamanic practice), drugs or hypnosis will get you there.

There might only be the imagined; the picture of the picture, for all we know. Certainly, neither what we know about our visual cortex, or neocortex could lead us today to claim anything else.

Maybe there is nothing other than 'memory work' visiting different contexts; imagined perspectives as 'Abra' shared his 'owl flight'!!!

Our 'brain' (visual-neo cortexes here) do not distinguish the imagined experience from what we call the 'real' experience.

What say you 'Redy'?!?!?

Sorry!

'... Reason is inadequate to understanding the world ...' (I assume 'universe and our place in it' is impied by 'world')

This whole 'affirmation' might imply:

'... given that reason IS inadequate, since we don't understand the world yet, should we turn to something else, ... to understand the world ('universe')?!?!? ...'

And thus the eternal struggle between the natural (reason) and supranatural (spirit or soul).

A sort of abdication of our imperfect condition, implying that we should get to the end of our quest one day, and understand it all!!!
'... Enough with this human mystery already!!! ...' We all seem to be struggling with throughout life!

Reason, or reasoning, is our only tool to support our understanding of the world. I think 'Bushidobillyclub' already wrote something to that effect.

Furthermore, good reasoning recognises its own shortcomings. It doesn't address a question with the 'silver bullit' attitude, in spite of our emotional condition that might suggest otherwise, like a constant distraction to straight reasoning.

If we ponder with serenity, the wise words of Tao Li Ching's :

'... the more you know, the less you understand ...',

... our reason, if used in a optimal fashion, will provide more knowledge of the infinity we shall never know as humans.

Maybe true understanding of the world, is being intensely searching and reasoning, while being at peace with 'knowing' more, about that which we shall 'understand less'!!!

In that context, 'reason' has no purpose whatsoever in providing a definitive understanding of the world ('universe'), as the affirmation seems to imply.

Reason's function is simply to keep distinguish new, or more human knowledge from observation and rational deduction.

Distinct from that relatively simple function, the result of more knowledge causes more, not less understanding of the world.

In that respect, Quantum physics is a good example.
It has created a 'quantum leap' in new questions raised (more of that 'less understanding'), while generating and providing a 'little bit' of additional knowledge.

Seeking to understand, while recognizing the paradoxe that we never will 'understand it all', is probably what keeps human spirit alive. Probably what makes being human the fascinating, yet humbling experience that it is!!! The liberating teachings of the Greek myth 'Sisyphus'!!!

Desperately seeking to break, or figure out this paradox, takes all the fun (naivety, mystery) out of life.

Walking around, thinking that we have the answer (fundamentalists), or that we hold the 'right' path to enventually gaining it, is unqualifiably giving into the delusional.

So reason/reasoning is fine.

Understanding the world (all of it) IS BUT A VAIN PURSUIT!!!

We are in agreement on the part of your statement 'funches' .

...an imaginary friend that one realizes is imaginary, cannot be real...

It is not 'real' from the material-natural perspective of real.

But it is a 'real' (for emphasis only, as in real form of imaginary))-imaginary-friend, from the dimension of a real (true to form)-abstractions, real (true to form)-metaphors, real (true to form)-allegories, and REAL (TRUE TO FORM)-FANTASIES.

And if you wish, we could trace the reality of a belief, imaginary-friend, fantasy, delusion, and all of it to a very simple neuro-biologico-chemical chain reaction 'fart' of the human organism.

Very scientifically 'real'.

The words delusion, real, material, imaginary, etc., simply attempt to distinguish the particular nature of the chain reaction 'fart'. But they are all real 'farts'. What exact kind of 'brain-body-fart' chain reactio is the question.




Here I differ from your interpretation.

If one distinguishes the 'friend' as really (for emphasis) being imaginary, than it is a 'real (for emphasis)-imaginary-friend', ...

... and thereby not a 'real' friend.

If however, the 'imaginary' is not distinguished, an one insists that what is imagined for anyone else, is real for this one, others will be in a position to point out the delusion.



I wholeheartedly agree!

IMO, adding 'real' or 'true' to the concept of 'belief' is rarely done in a pleonastic redundant form, or for emphasis as done above.

When real is used to suggest that the inaginary friend is real, it rather transgresses the nature of imaginary, belief (not founded on evidence or fact), to lend it a delusional or deceitful taste of materialistic 'real', which is always as far as true as can be.

Sorry 'Bushidobillyclub' (not 'abra' here.)

Just couldn't resist this one.

To your question, a plausible answer might be '... I don't know, but I know that I don't know ...'.

In other words, it is very different from something we don't even know (aware) of not knowing, ... on this one, there is lots we do know, about not knowing it!!! :)

There is a large consensus, and a solid 'ontological' school of thought which claims that NOTHING 'EXISTS' for humans, without 'languaging'.

If you cannot conceive it in 'languaging' (a frontier less amalgam of images, structures; logic and order, and language; abstractions), it is deemed non-existent, from the human perspective.

But that gets tricky!!!

Put the 'room' aside for a moment and take the context of the universe.

We already have
... languaging for the known universe (defined enough to be real),
... Languaging for the universe '... that we know we don't know (defined enough to be hypothesized about, but not enough to be known as real),

and even,

... languaging for the universe that we don't even know that we don't know (we don't even have a clue about this dimension of the universe, beyound and distinct from the known-unknown to which belongs Einstein evoked 'background-intelligence' languaging, ... beyond that.)

So, from that ontological, very much human perspective, the room definitively exists in several human represented dimensions.

Beyond that, 'does the room exist', outside of the self-aware exclusive experience of 'human beings', that would belong in the intermediate stage of 'knowing that we don't know that one!' (the Quantum world would suggest that all these potentialities exist at once: no present, past or future, where time is but a 'direction' of all the different elements which cross each other within an orderly (system) yet random (unit) perpendicalar pattern).

Faith is faith:
... 'belief not substantiated by proof, spiritual acceptance not certified by one's own reason...'

One can deny faith! (one whom wouldn't believe in anything. One whom would only know what one I knows, period)

One can delude in faith! (act as though one had proof for one's faith)

One can deal with the subtly inspirational and poetic dimensions that faith holds, while distinguishing it from material fact! (consciously juggling between the natural and supranatural dimensions of our life)

If one doesn't deny the power of artistic liscense, or the power of abstraction at large, one cannot logically deny the reality of proofless and evidence less faith.

Faith does not mean faith in 'god', faith in 'Jesus', faith in 'buddha', or faith in religious dogma of any type, or theist this or that.

Whichever relationsship one has with faith, faith is just faith!!!

So,

'... what is reality??? ...'

Don't know dor sure.

But it sure sometimes feels like a dual, a fight within, something you have the impression of knowing only to 'realize' you don't,
... maybe nothing other than a subtle, half intuitive, half logical dance, between the

... 'abstract- immaterial', and the

... 'tangible-'materiality'' ... dimensions of the possible, 'whole' human experience.

A 'REAL' journney to be sure.

Reading this exchange between you 'funches', and you 'abra', gives me insight into the difficulty I've been having on these threads to communicate the legitimate 'existence' or 'reality' of both FAITH and FACT.

Meaning, FAITH exists and is real in as much as it remains FAITH: no fact, no evidence.
And likewise, FACT exists, and is real, as long as it remains FACT: only the observable and verifiable dimensions of life, from the 'human' perspective.

Taking this conversation here, an imaginary friend is 'REAL' in as much as 'he' be spoken from the perspective and context of an IMAGINARY FRIEND; an imaginary friend is a REAL-IMAGINARY-FRIEND!!! Not a REAL FRIEND, but surely and absolutely a REAL-IMAGINARY-FRIEND. And that is not a delusion when thought and spoken this way. One must cross the line, and represent t 'imaginary-friend' as a real-friend, to be considered delusional.

There is a world of difference between the two forms, without which poetry wouldn't be poetry, art wouldn't be art, and LOVE certainly woldn't be LOVE!!! Are those three concepts real?!!?! Just as it is with the product of our imagination, they are REAL ABSTRACTIONS. There is real universal consensus for the 'reality' OF ABSTRACTIONS.

When that distinction is made, it allows for the powerful coexistence of the natural and supranatural realities inside which, whether we acknowledge or deny them, we very much exist.

To speak responsibly of our imaginary world as such, will never be delusional, nor will it ever constitute a 'warping' in reality.

So it is with believing, or belief, or faith.

As long as they are spoken responsibly, from the context and perspective inside which they exist: 'BELIEF-FAITH': no facts, no evidence,
... faith as such is therefore 'not real': physical, material, but is certainly real from an imaginary, non-observable dimension.

That is what paradoxically, just as we have a 'real-imaginary' world that is not not REAL, from the evidence and material dimensions, but 'really-imaginary',
... there is 'real-faith', that is not real, from the evidence and material worlds, but 'really-faithful'!!!

Faith, beliefs, or imaginary friends are REAL, only for the one's for whom none of it is real from the material and observable consensus of 'real'. But REAL-abstractions, ... YOU BET!!!

'david',

'Bushidobillyclub' just gave you his answer to the first question you raised!

And since the wording of your question provides ample interpretive lattitude, I would say that 'Bushidobillyclub's answer is 'PI' on!!!

Proselytizers for the 'Cult of Reason'!!!

Papesse Krimsa, and bishop voileazur will 'convince you' of the supremacy of their dogma!!!

Join one, join all!!!

... NOW!!!

Believe in god, jesus the son of god, and the bible as the only word of the only god NOW!!!

Oh! and by the way,
... anything that is perceived as a threat,

or

... a contradiction of the word of god, by those whom believe in the word of god,

... like the theory of evolution for example,

IS FALSE, HERETIC AND EVIL!!!


We are to understand that this isn't, or maybe isn't proselityzing.

But, if you do not agree with the preposterous proposition above, if you dare point out its unsubstantiatable context, and ...

IF YOU POINT OUT AND SUBSTANTIATE WHAT YOU CONSIDER TO BE
... THE PROFOUND DECEIT OF THIS PROPOSITION,
... THE PROFOUND DELUSION OF THE PROPOSITION
AND
... THE ULTIMATE SINGLE PROSELYTIZING PURPOSE OF THE PROPOSITION

You get equated to be a proselytizer yourself!!!

This is delusional at best, insanity at worst.

If that were the case, every single human being with an opinion, a belief, a conviction, an idea, would be a proselytizer.

What kind of non sense must we be exposed to from fundamentalists, before dogmatic compulsiveness gets revealed, and some form of reason shows up.

To counteract preposterous statementS will never be equatable to PROSELYTIZING.

If so, close all debating forums on the the planet.
... Abdicate freedom of speach.
... Give-up on democratic principles.
... Close-up all labs, and cancel all science and philosophy teachings,

... and let's all get lobotomized back to the tyranny (imposed truth for all) of the only word of the right and only right god, claimed by fundamentalists, whom amount to 0,00262% of all christians in the world (and even that 0,00262% can't agree on the right god).

Preposterous!!!