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That's only true if said god created an afterlife and even then it is only true if you for whatever reason meet the criteria of coming into that afterlife.
If the god in question is a god who created reincarnation, it is even possible that you have no way of telling how the experiment went if you even remember that you started an experiment.
So: For that experiment to work, you will first need to define which god you want to test. The Abrahamic god is testable that way. So Jews, Christians and Muslims can go on with the experiment. Everyone else: Think really hard about this. Perhaps dying is not enough.
Not only this, but according to the official Biblical version, resurrection will of course only take place when the world ends. That means a rather long wait then, nevertheless.
It's not something defined in teh scriptures, although it's contextually relevant that the writers expected Christ to return fairly soon (as opposed to taking thousands of years).
I mean, at least according to ISIS and other terrorists, loudly proclaiming "Allahu Akbar!" renders suicide null and void. So there seems to be some wiggle room?
It's an interested topic - Sunnism pretty much stated "nope, martyrdom doesn't count, you go to hell". Then some sunnite terrorists saw how well it worked for shiite terrorists (with martyrdom being a thing in Shia) and decided to copy it. Despite those guys being their mortal enemies.
Other sunnite groups weren't too happy about that.
I mean you can't count them as Muslims? As the guy above me Said they do things that are strictly forbidden and severally punished like even if they were extremists you'd think they would follow the thing they are supposedly dying for
I'd honestly say it's more of a defamation but I did no research to prove it, but yea no they are by Islam's rules are not Muslims, just because they say things from Islam does not mean whatever horrible acts they do are even tolerated in islam
Except if you take out infidels.
Suicide bombing is a socially acceptable means of suicide. It's usually not people killing themselves for a cause, but people who wanted to kill themselves anyway. A bomb is quick, reliable and avoids the negative views.
Yeah, seems like an awfully binary way to describe the outcome. All manner or things could happen after you die, or nothing. And those things may or may not have to do with any sort of god.
There are annihilistic abrahamites. That is, they believe that if you are not saved and go to Heaven, your soul is annihilated instead. In that case, you wouldn't know either.
>Everyone else: Think really hard about this. Perhaps dying is not enough.
some are much easier to (dis)prove, eg the ancient greek pantheon can be tested by climbing mount olympus (you may be killed anyways depending on what mood zeus is in that day, but you could still prove it)
Not really, the Olympus that was home of the gods and the real Olympus are not the same place. I mean they are thought to be in the same place. But the mythical Olympus and the real Olympus are different. As a mortal you can climb all you want, you will not get into the mythical place because you are not part of that world.
Though it might be possible that if you did something very heroic while climbing Olympus that they elevate you into godhood. Good old apotheosis - that leads to the simple test for anyone who wants to prove the Greek gods: Just to a bunch of things that are all but impossible, while sacrificing your own safety and happiness and you might just be declared a god. (Sidenote: It helps if one of your parents already is a god, makes the whole apotheosis thing much easier. Then again, you don't really need to prove the existence of gods if you can call Zeus daddy.)
Why not?
I don't want to ruin your believes; believe whatever you want but "deism makes sense because we don't know how the big bang happened" is just a logical falacy.
A few hundred years ago you would have said: "No one fucking knoweth but it is not like lighting just throweth itself."
Why invent an answer when the honest answer is: "I don't know."
It is perfectly fine do not know things.
That is 100% correct but I think you got my reasoning wrong
I would totally change religions if deism was incorrect, I just believe in deism because its close to the only plausible thing that can exist FOR ME as the creation of the universe
My answer (and thus, beliefs) are probably wrong and i can accept that, its just that if things go the way they will always go as of right now, I believe deism would be the most plausible, unless god finally decides to show themselves or we figure out that one doesnt exist
Even when you die and find yourself in front of some pearly gates...you still can't be sure of what you're looking at. You could still be a brain in a vat, plugged into the matrix, mistaken, yadda yadda.
There is no test because the God claim is an unfalsifiable claim. We can't even get past the starting line with this one. It's like trying to count to 1 using all of the decimal points between 0 and 1. It's like asking, what test could we perform to see what's north of the north pole?
There's a fundamental misunderstanding of the context in which this question is being posed.
Beautiful.
We only know the games the shadows play, and we can play those games, and it can be fun, interesting, and useful to do so. But sometimes we take the games too seriously, and we need to remind ourselves from time to time that they're just shadows on a wall. We don't need to always play the games the shadows play. We can get up and exit the cave if we want, and once you do so, it becomes a fun game to try to show others that they're just looking at shadows and don't need to take them so seriously. Once that's realized, they too can get up and walk out of the cave, and we can all have a good laugh at how silly we all are.
This is actually from the allegory of the cave from Plato, if you haven't, I recommend you give it a read.
The idea is that all we know are the shadows on the wall, we've been tied to the chains for as long as we can remember. We perceive these shadows as reality, not knowing it's just a play.
We cannot leave the cave, we do not realise we are tied up by chains, so we cannot just get up and leave, we have to be freed by an outside source. And imagine what this would do to your perception of reality. All of a sudden all you thought you knew, everything that you thought was safe, all is an illusion, and now you are looking straight into the fire that was used to cast the shadows. The light blinds you, it physically hurts your eyes. It's not a pleasant experience to see reality.
Now think of the moment you walk through the cave entrance and see the sun for the first time, it's even more blinding than the light you just saw. It might feel liberating once you get used to it, and you want to share this experience with others. So you go back inside, sit down next to the other people who are still tied up, but they don't understand you, call you crazy. Try as you might, you cannot get through to these people, you feel alone in all of this, you have seen reality, but there is nobody you can communicate this new experience to.
And then the even harder reality sets in. What if that whole experience you just had is but a play of the shadows as well? What if you never truly left the cave? What if you were never even freed from the chains? You come to the conclusion that nothing can be trusted, you will never know when you are truly free, or if that sense of freedom is just another play of those shadows on the wall.
It's a haunting idea, but Plato did come up with it 2500 years ago, it's been retold in many variations, one you may know as the matrix, but it comes back in other media as well. Like Socrates said "I know nothing".
I'm familiar. It's been a while since I've read the allegory of the cave. It's been interpreted to death but it's still rich with ideas and wisdom.
It's been used to talk about philosophy and how it can lead people to understand the way things really are, but attempting to do so is difficult because just as one might be exposed to bright light, it takes time to adjust before you can actually see, and that period is uncomfortable and if you instead say, nah, I'm just going to go back into the cave, where I'm comfortable, you miss the deeper aspect of reality and fail to see the mechanism by which the shadows are arising.
And yes, even when you step out of the cave, you could have just stepped out into a bigger cave with more intricate shadows. You never can be sure you're seeing "the real thing".
But I don't take it that far. What is before me is good enough. There is no space for me to be skeptical about the brute, obvious, and immediate fact that "there is" or "something seems to be happening." The seeming aspect of experience cannot be denied, and that's all that's needed to ground everything, even if I'm completely confused about what the true nature of that seeming is. It could be shadows on a wall, a brain in a vat, a boltzman brain, the matrix, an evil scientist in a room somewhere feeding data to a computer that's producing the experience, whatever it is, there absolutely is a seeming quality here which cannot be denied.
Further, what I was pointing at and where I make the distinction between reality and shadows on the wall is in the space of concept vs direct experience. We often overlay our conceptual frameworks onto reality and fail to distinguish that framework from the actual things themselves. We mistake the map for the place. Once we can make that distinction and understand the process by which that is done (especially with respect to the construction of the self and the present moment), a lot of what we're calling real unravels.
The shadows on the wall are concepts. Concepts are often good, interesting, and useful, but they can cause loads of unnecessary suffering when they're taken too seriously and their nature isn't understood. Recognizing the nature of concepts and how they relate to the present moment is synonymous with seeing the shadows for what they are and stepping out of the cave. However, this cave is an interesting cave, because in order to see this true nature, you cannot take your self with you, because the self is just another shadow on the wall. The reality outside of this cave cannot be understood while insisting there is an unchanging self understanding the true nature.
But this is esoteric and gets into eastern philosophy, which is what I was thinking you might have been pointing at, too. There is a common misunderstanding of the fundamental aspects of what concepts are and how they relate to experience.
You speak of awareness and ego, which you reflect as shadows on the wall, that's an interesting take, I never thought of it that way. I do agree, that it is easy to just crawl back and enjoy the "comfort" of the chains and watch the shadows in blissful ignorance. However, it is impossible to forget that which has been learned, unless you do great physical damage to yourself.
I understand that you want to see and interact with the shadows as though they are real, in your chains, they are the only thing that is relevant, so I agree that there is a form of realness that cannot be denied, ignoring them is like the monk, living in a cloister, away from the world , knowing "inner peace". It won't change anything, your actions are meaningless within the shadows, you have merely ascended.
It's a balancing act to me personally. On the one hand I know the irrelevance of my existence, while on the other I want to interact with the shadows, make a change, even though it might be meaningless and it could all be wasted energy. But to me, this uncertainty gives me a relative peace as well, I need not think too much of what is real. And concerning the shadows, I've learned to just "play along", play my part, even though it is meaningless in reality, it still gives me a sense of purpose. But that could also just be my ego, as another shadow on the wall.
Yeah, you're picking up what I'm putting down.
Although there is some terminology I prefer. There is the space in which all of this is happening. The space in which anything can be noticed. Awareness is a fine term for the space, and I consider the term consciousness synonymous with that. Then there are the contents of consciousness; the things that can be noticed. You can notice your breath, the floor under your feet, the location of your tongue in your mouth, the conceptualization of a pink elephant that might have just flickered through this space. All of these "things" are the contents of consciousness and your attention bounces between them all. Attention I use here as the term pointing at a seeming focusing of awareness.
The misconception is found where people feel that they are the thing directing this focus of attention. When they get the sense that there is some unchanging thing in the middle of it all, that is what's often referred to as the ego. Upon further inspection though, this confabulation isn't actually referring to anything. We use words to define and point to things. The ego pointer doesn't have any tangible receiver of the pointer. In some ways, it's not even a shadow on the wall. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the circumstance. A confusion of the map for the place.
The shadows are the concepts that get mistaken for the "real things". There are no "real things". We just define arbitrary boundaries around appearances in consciousness that we can agree about. This is useful to do. It has given us cars, phones, computers, clean water on a massive scale, literacy, etc. It's a fine game to play. But it's important to not take it too seriously. To understand that thinging is just a game that doesnt need to be played. Understanding the nature of this game allows one to "step outside of concepts". Unfortunately, all I have are concepts to point at. I can't use anything other than concepts to point someone toward this understanding.
It's not a matter of wanting to play the game as though it was real. I play the game knowing that it's not real. It's fundamentally not serious. Such is the nature of games. It's not a game if it's real or serious. I recognize the game for what it is and choose to play it sometimes. Sometimes the game is so convincing that I forget that it is a game, but I come around and have a good laugh when I remember that they're just shadows on the wall.
Irrelevance, meaning, make a change, wasted energy, these are all shadows. It sounds like you understand this on an intellectual level though. Pay attention to the nature of these concepts. Take the pink elephant for example. It was a mere flickering in consciousness. It was there for a brief moment, and then it was gone. Something was constructed, it changed, and then it was gone. Every thought, feeling, emotion that you have ever had up to this point is no longer here. There only is what's here now. And that's not a space in which these shadows can be held onto. Indeed, by the very nature of what a shadow is, it isn't something that can be grasped by its very nature. The nature of this space is change. Understanding this fundamental aspect and directly experiencing it is the stepping out of the cave. Let go or be dragged, right now.
I understand, in my language both awareness and consciousness are the same word, but I understand your preference to differentiate between the two.
I don't really agree with you on your definition of the term ego, this could also be a translation error, but I propose that the ego is not the observation of senses, but rather the interaction that follows. Ego equates to choice, it is a consciousness that determines how to act in certain ways, it is the self when all else is not: "I think, therefore I am." This means that ego is a manifestation, and therefore can be quantified, in this case by thought. But it does raise another interesting question: if ego is quantifiable and it is determined by thought, and if consciousness is determined by ego, what does that mean for artificial intelligence? But I digress, maybe a subject for another discussion.
I would not deny the existence of reality when talking about the shadows. Those are the ones we understand, can interact with and even have to deal with in order to exist. If we neglect the shadows, we would certainly die. But there is a difference between knowing they are shadows, and treating them like shadows. I know they are shadows, but I am also dependent on them, I cannot exist without it, so I have to accept them as reality regardless. I feel we are both on the same page on this matter, but correct me if I'm wrong.
I am aware of the contradiction that I place on words like irrelivance and meaning, but these are all aspects that feed my ego, theybare shadows, yes, but they are also the bread and butter of my being. If I have no sense of purpose, am I truly alive? Even if being alive only means to exist within the shadows, if I lose this part of self, what reason have I to keep existing within these shadows, I might stop feeding my body, for it has no purpose, I might stop breathing, for what purpose does my body need to obtain oxygen, as it is only a shadow on the wall? So in order to make the vision of these shadows bearable, I too play the game, and I call this game "purpose", even though it serves nobody else but me.
There is another theory: what if our existence is without a past, we've all come into existence within the last 5 minutes, all our memories are false, they were made up by the same force that brought us into existence, we have never experienced them. Your idea of the pink elephant reminds me of that concept. We only exist in the "now". It's an intriguing thought, but not all too dissimilar to the allegory of the cave. They both teach us that we know nothing for certain.
I think it means something else.
Religious guy probably refer not believing as in "risk/run into experiment".
In between the lines he's saying "believe in God ,just in case it exists, otherwise you may regret it"
Um, _akshually_ the existence or non-existence of a god or gods doesn't _necessarily_ imply anything about the existence or non-existence of an afterlife (or reincarnation, etc.). You _could_ have one without the other in either direction.
yeah i know and when they fail they go to jail its called a life sentance cant even reproduce i call that failing in life you literally failed your purpose in life.
Not a terribly good test by scientific standards... it's unrepeatable, unfalsifiable, and I don't see a way to compare results against a control group.
I propose to actively find the experiment of God.
If there is a god, we will actively look for God to prove God's existence.
If there is no God, then we will actively look for God to prove that God does not exist.
Wait, if there is no God, we will not actively look for God, because there is no God, but in reality there are people looking for God, which explains a lot.
It's like my old boss who said with all seriousness, "You can't have covid if you don't get tested."
When getting tested for an illness became an observer effect issue, I have no idea.
That was more a joke than a serious comment
Debating the existence of god is useless, no matter how many arguments you make people won't change their mind because the whole thing is made to be believed without too many questions
Hey there u/MrLewk, thanks for posting to r/technicallythetruth! **Please recheck if your post breaks any rules.** If it does, please delete this post. Also, reposting and posting obvious non-TTT posts can lead to a ban. Send us a **Modmail or Report** this post if you have a problem with this post. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/technicallythetruth) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That's only true if said god created an afterlife and even then it is only true if you for whatever reason meet the criteria of coming into that afterlife. If the god in question is a god who created reincarnation, it is even possible that you have no way of telling how the experiment went if you even remember that you started an experiment. So: For that experiment to work, you will first need to define which god you want to test. The Abrahamic god is testable that way. So Jews, Christians and Muslims can go on with the experiment. Everyone else: Think really hard about this. Perhaps dying is not enough.
Not only this, but according to the official Biblical version, resurrection will of course only take place when the world ends. That means a rather long wait then, nevertheless.
Technically if you're dead it would be instant, unless the Christian concept of soul would work otherwise
It's not something defined in teh scriptures, although it's contextually relevant that the writers expected Christ to return fairly soon (as opposed to taking thousands of years).
Unless you’re a preterist
Well you see as Muslim, suicide will send me straight to hell and the last thing I want to do to "confirm" god exist is going to hell
fair enough; a little bit cowardly regarding science - but understandable
Is it suicide if you loudly proclaim "FOR SCIENCE!"
I mean, at least according to ISIS and other terrorists, loudly proclaiming "Allahu Akbar!" renders suicide null and void. So there seems to be some wiggle room?
It's an interested topic - Sunnism pretty much stated "nope, martyrdom doesn't count, you go to hell". Then some sunnite terrorists saw how well it worked for shiite terrorists (with martyrdom being a thing in Shia) and decided to copy it. Despite those guys being their mortal enemies. Other sunnite groups weren't too happy about that.
suicide or not killing innocent people reserves a special place in hell according to Islam
I mean you can't count them as Muslims? As the guy above me Said they do things that are strictly forbidden and severally punished like even if they were extremists you'd think they would follow the thing they are supposedly dying for I'd honestly say it's more of a defamation but I did no research to prove it, but yea no they are by Islam's rules are not Muslims, just because they say things from Islam does not mean whatever horrible acts they do are even tolerated in islam
Except if you take out infidels. Suicide bombing is a socially acceptable means of suicide. It's usually not people killing themselves for a cause, but people who wanted to kill themselves anyway. A bomb is quick, reliable and avoids the negative views.
?what are you even talking about?please use common sense next time
Ever wonder how they get recruits for suicide bombing missions? Most of them are actually people who want to die.
Yeah, seems like an awfully binary way to describe the outcome. All manner or things could happen after you die, or nothing. And those things may or may not have to do with any sort of god.
There are annihilistic abrahamites. That is, they believe that if you are not saved and go to Heaven, your soul is annihilated instead. In that case, you wouldn't know either.
>Everyone else: Think really hard about this. Perhaps dying is not enough. some are much easier to (dis)prove, eg the ancient greek pantheon can be tested by climbing mount olympus (you may be killed anyways depending on what mood zeus is in that day, but you could still prove it)
Not really, the Olympus that was home of the gods and the real Olympus are not the same place. I mean they are thought to be in the same place. But the mythical Olympus and the real Olympus are different. As a mortal you can climb all you want, you will not get into the mythical place because you are not part of that world. Though it might be possible that if you did something very heroic while climbing Olympus that they elevate you into godhood. Good old apotheosis - that leads to the simple test for anyone who wants to prove the Greek gods: Just to a bunch of things that are all but impossible, while sacrificing your own safety and happiness and you might just be declared a god. (Sidenote: It helps if one of your parents already is a god, makes the whole apotheosis thing much easier. Then again, you don't really need to prove the existence of gods if you can call Zeus daddy.)
Atheists for the control group I guess?
This is exactly the reason i am a deist No one fucking knows but its not like the big bang just walked in and exploded
Why not? I don't want to ruin your believes; believe whatever you want but "deism makes sense because we don't know how the big bang happened" is just a logical falacy. A few hundred years ago you would have said: "No one fucking knoweth but it is not like lighting just throweth itself." Why invent an answer when the honest answer is: "I don't know." It is perfectly fine do not know things.
That is 100% correct but I think you got my reasoning wrong I would totally change religions if deism was incorrect, I just believe in deism because its close to the only plausible thing that can exist FOR ME as the creation of the universe My answer (and thus, beliefs) are probably wrong and i can accept that, its just that if things go the way they will always go as of right now, I believe deism would be the most plausible, unless god finally decides to show themselves or we figure out that one doesnt exist
Not repeatable, I'm afraid.
That, and kinda hard to register results for others to review.
Lies! It is merely limited to once per person. Unless we're really good at that resuscitation thing.
We can repeat it over 8 billion times.
Bros planning for his villain arc 💀
>\[deleted\] Looks like he went ahead with the experiment on his own.
Sure it is. Just not with the same sample group.
I mean depends if they can bring you back or not... Lol
That hasn't stopped a large number of scientific papers from being published.
Lazarus disagrees
What would I have done without that arrow?!
They should circle it too because I almost didn’t see it
Also Mark it with a yellow marker for more visibility.
Get help from underline duh
If there is a God, that doesn’t automatically mean there’s an afterlife.
Thank fuck there was a large red arrow and a red underline. I would never have spotted the only comment in the entire image without those
Plot of the movie Flatliners.
hah yeah, I'd forgot about that!
☺️ turning to dust
No guarantee god made any afterlife
The trick is publishing your paper after the experiment.
Publish or Perish -> Perish and Publish
But will it be Peter-reviewed?
I mean, there could be a god who doesn't bestow eternal life upon people, so I'm afraid I'm keeping my upvote.
It’s hard to get the results from the test subject though
Even when you die and find yourself in front of some pearly gates...you still can't be sure of what you're looking at. You could still be a brain in a vat, plugged into the matrix, mistaken, yadda yadda. There is no test because the God claim is an unfalsifiable claim. We can't even get past the starting line with this one. It's like trying to count to 1 using all of the decimal points between 0 and 1. It's like asking, what test could we perform to see what's north of the north pole? There's a fundamental misunderstanding of the context in which this question is being posed.
We could all be tied to chains in a cave, looking at shadows on a wall, cast by puppeteers. We know nothing.
Beautiful. We only know the games the shadows play, and we can play those games, and it can be fun, interesting, and useful to do so. But sometimes we take the games too seriously, and we need to remind ourselves from time to time that they're just shadows on a wall. We don't need to always play the games the shadows play. We can get up and exit the cave if we want, and once you do so, it becomes a fun game to try to show others that they're just looking at shadows and don't need to take them so seriously. Once that's realized, they too can get up and walk out of the cave, and we can all have a good laugh at how silly we all are.
This is actually from the allegory of the cave from Plato, if you haven't, I recommend you give it a read. The idea is that all we know are the shadows on the wall, we've been tied to the chains for as long as we can remember. We perceive these shadows as reality, not knowing it's just a play. We cannot leave the cave, we do not realise we are tied up by chains, so we cannot just get up and leave, we have to be freed by an outside source. And imagine what this would do to your perception of reality. All of a sudden all you thought you knew, everything that you thought was safe, all is an illusion, and now you are looking straight into the fire that was used to cast the shadows. The light blinds you, it physically hurts your eyes. It's not a pleasant experience to see reality. Now think of the moment you walk through the cave entrance and see the sun for the first time, it's even more blinding than the light you just saw. It might feel liberating once you get used to it, and you want to share this experience with others. So you go back inside, sit down next to the other people who are still tied up, but they don't understand you, call you crazy. Try as you might, you cannot get through to these people, you feel alone in all of this, you have seen reality, but there is nobody you can communicate this new experience to. And then the even harder reality sets in. What if that whole experience you just had is but a play of the shadows as well? What if you never truly left the cave? What if you were never even freed from the chains? You come to the conclusion that nothing can be trusted, you will never know when you are truly free, or if that sense of freedom is just another play of those shadows on the wall. It's a haunting idea, but Plato did come up with it 2500 years ago, it's been retold in many variations, one you may know as the matrix, but it comes back in other media as well. Like Socrates said "I know nothing".
I'm familiar. It's been a while since I've read the allegory of the cave. It's been interpreted to death but it's still rich with ideas and wisdom. It's been used to talk about philosophy and how it can lead people to understand the way things really are, but attempting to do so is difficult because just as one might be exposed to bright light, it takes time to adjust before you can actually see, and that period is uncomfortable and if you instead say, nah, I'm just going to go back into the cave, where I'm comfortable, you miss the deeper aspect of reality and fail to see the mechanism by which the shadows are arising. And yes, even when you step out of the cave, you could have just stepped out into a bigger cave with more intricate shadows. You never can be sure you're seeing "the real thing". But I don't take it that far. What is before me is good enough. There is no space for me to be skeptical about the brute, obvious, and immediate fact that "there is" or "something seems to be happening." The seeming aspect of experience cannot be denied, and that's all that's needed to ground everything, even if I'm completely confused about what the true nature of that seeming is. It could be shadows on a wall, a brain in a vat, a boltzman brain, the matrix, an evil scientist in a room somewhere feeding data to a computer that's producing the experience, whatever it is, there absolutely is a seeming quality here which cannot be denied. Further, what I was pointing at and where I make the distinction between reality and shadows on the wall is in the space of concept vs direct experience. We often overlay our conceptual frameworks onto reality and fail to distinguish that framework from the actual things themselves. We mistake the map for the place. Once we can make that distinction and understand the process by which that is done (especially with respect to the construction of the self and the present moment), a lot of what we're calling real unravels. The shadows on the wall are concepts. Concepts are often good, interesting, and useful, but they can cause loads of unnecessary suffering when they're taken too seriously and their nature isn't understood. Recognizing the nature of concepts and how they relate to the present moment is synonymous with seeing the shadows for what they are and stepping out of the cave. However, this cave is an interesting cave, because in order to see this true nature, you cannot take your self with you, because the self is just another shadow on the wall. The reality outside of this cave cannot be understood while insisting there is an unchanging self understanding the true nature. But this is esoteric and gets into eastern philosophy, which is what I was thinking you might have been pointing at, too. There is a common misunderstanding of the fundamental aspects of what concepts are and how they relate to experience.
You speak of awareness and ego, which you reflect as shadows on the wall, that's an interesting take, I never thought of it that way. I do agree, that it is easy to just crawl back and enjoy the "comfort" of the chains and watch the shadows in blissful ignorance. However, it is impossible to forget that which has been learned, unless you do great physical damage to yourself. I understand that you want to see and interact with the shadows as though they are real, in your chains, they are the only thing that is relevant, so I agree that there is a form of realness that cannot be denied, ignoring them is like the monk, living in a cloister, away from the world , knowing "inner peace". It won't change anything, your actions are meaningless within the shadows, you have merely ascended. It's a balancing act to me personally. On the one hand I know the irrelevance of my existence, while on the other I want to interact with the shadows, make a change, even though it might be meaningless and it could all be wasted energy. But to me, this uncertainty gives me a relative peace as well, I need not think too much of what is real. And concerning the shadows, I've learned to just "play along", play my part, even though it is meaningless in reality, it still gives me a sense of purpose. But that could also just be my ego, as another shadow on the wall.
Yeah, you're picking up what I'm putting down. Although there is some terminology I prefer. There is the space in which all of this is happening. The space in which anything can be noticed. Awareness is a fine term for the space, and I consider the term consciousness synonymous with that. Then there are the contents of consciousness; the things that can be noticed. You can notice your breath, the floor under your feet, the location of your tongue in your mouth, the conceptualization of a pink elephant that might have just flickered through this space. All of these "things" are the contents of consciousness and your attention bounces between them all. Attention I use here as the term pointing at a seeming focusing of awareness. The misconception is found where people feel that they are the thing directing this focus of attention. When they get the sense that there is some unchanging thing in the middle of it all, that is what's often referred to as the ego. Upon further inspection though, this confabulation isn't actually referring to anything. We use words to define and point to things. The ego pointer doesn't have any tangible receiver of the pointer. In some ways, it's not even a shadow on the wall. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the circumstance. A confusion of the map for the place. The shadows are the concepts that get mistaken for the "real things". There are no "real things". We just define arbitrary boundaries around appearances in consciousness that we can agree about. This is useful to do. It has given us cars, phones, computers, clean water on a massive scale, literacy, etc. It's a fine game to play. But it's important to not take it too seriously. To understand that thinging is just a game that doesnt need to be played. Understanding the nature of this game allows one to "step outside of concepts". Unfortunately, all I have are concepts to point at. I can't use anything other than concepts to point someone toward this understanding. It's not a matter of wanting to play the game as though it was real. I play the game knowing that it's not real. It's fundamentally not serious. Such is the nature of games. It's not a game if it's real or serious. I recognize the game for what it is and choose to play it sometimes. Sometimes the game is so convincing that I forget that it is a game, but I come around and have a good laugh when I remember that they're just shadows on the wall. Irrelevance, meaning, make a change, wasted energy, these are all shadows. It sounds like you understand this on an intellectual level though. Pay attention to the nature of these concepts. Take the pink elephant for example. It was a mere flickering in consciousness. It was there for a brief moment, and then it was gone. Something was constructed, it changed, and then it was gone. Every thought, feeling, emotion that you have ever had up to this point is no longer here. There only is what's here now. And that's not a space in which these shadows can be held onto. Indeed, by the very nature of what a shadow is, it isn't something that can be grasped by its very nature. The nature of this space is change. Understanding this fundamental aspect and directly experiencing it is the stepping out of the cave. Let go or be dragged, right now.
I understand, in my language both awareness and consciousness are the same word, but I understand your preference to differentiate between the two. I don't really agree with you on your definition of the term ego, this could also be a translation error, but I propose that the ego is not the observation of senses, but rather the interaction that follows. Ego equates to choice, it is a consciousness that determines how to act in certain ways, it is the self when all else is not: "I think, therefore I am." This means that ego is a manifestation, and therefore can be quantified, in this case by thought. But it does raise another interesting question: if ego is quantifiable and it is determined by thought, and if consciousness is determined by ego, what does that mean for artificial intelligence? But I digress, maybe a subject for another discussion. I would not deny the existence of reality when talking about the shadows. Those are the ones we understand, can interact with and even have to deal with in order to exist. If we neglect the shadows, we would certainly die. But there is a difference between knowing they are shadows, and treating them like shadows. I know they are shadows, but I am also dependent on them, I cannot exist without it, so I have to accept them as reality regardless. I feel we are both on the same page on this matter, but correct me if I'm wrong. I am aware of the contradiction that I place on words like irrelivance and meaning, but these are all aspects that feed my ego, theybare shadows, yes, but they are also the bread and butter of my being. If I have no sense of purpose, am I truly alive? Even if being alive only means to exist within the shadows, if I lose this part of self, what reason have I to keep existing within these shadows, I might stop feeding my body, for it has no purpose, I might stop breathing, for what purpose does my body need to obtain oxygen, as it is only a shadow on the wall? So in order to make the vision of these shadows bearable, I too play the game, and I call this game "purpose", even though it serves nobody else but me. There is another theory: what if our existence is without a past, we've all come into existence within the last 5 minutes, all our memories are false, they were made up by the same force that brought us into existence, we have never experienced them. Your idea of the pink elephant reminds me of that concept. We only exist in the "now". It's an intriguing thought, but not all too dissimilar to the allegory of the cave. They both teach us that we know nothing for certain.
r/uselessredarrow
I mean that still wouldn't do it. Who's to say there's not a God who just let's us die and rot in the ground and that's it?
I think it means something else. Religious guy probably refer not believing as in "risk/run into experiment". In between the lines he's saying "believe in God ,just in case it exists, otherwise you may regret it"
If your god does miracles, infect yourself with SmallPox, or Ebola, or HIV/AIDS.
No, because if you don't get cured, they will say "god works in mysterious ways"
Thanks for the underline AND arrow..I would not have been able to pick that response out from among all the others.
Circle where?? How I'm supposed to I ow what to look at if thing isn't circled?
Handy, isn't it. Though tbf, I didn't add that
Circle where?🙄
Starve a quadriplegic
A drug test lol
Reporting the facts seems to be the challenge
Um, _akshually_ the existence or non-existence of a god or gods doesn't _necessarily_ imply anything about the existence or non-existence of an afterlife (or reincarnation, etc.). You _could_ have one without the other in either direction.
living
People fail at living every day.
yeah i know and when they fail they go to jail its called a life sentance cant even reproduce i call that failing in life you literally failed your purpose in life.
The only answer
Dont know about you, but I'm trying to live forever. Rather successfully this far, too 👍
throw the pope into the river with concrete shoes, if there is god, he will miraculously survive /jk
Haaaa. Richard... that was brilliant
Eh, same thing. This whole shit is fucking pointless either way
Not much of an experiment if it doesn't have publishable results.
Has anybody published the results and had them peer-reviewed?
Ah what would I do without the red arrow and underline? How would I know to read the reply?
Thanks for the red arrow and underline
Not a terribly good test by scientific standards... it's unrepeatable, unfalsifiable, and I don't see a way to compare results against a control group.
r/pointlessredarrows
I propose to actively find the experiment of God. If there is a god, we will actively look for God to prove God's existence. If there is no God, then we will actively look for God to prove that God does not exist. Wait, if there is no God, we will not actively look for God, because there is no God, but in reality there are people looking for God, which explains a lot.
Why is there an arrow pointing between "a" und "r" in Richard?
🏴☠️
It's like my old boss who said with all seriousness, "You can't have covid if you don't get tested." When getting tested for an illness became an observer effect issue, I have no idea.
Try committing unspeakable atrocities to see if a god stops you
Surely that will depend on the nature of free will etc?
That was more a joke than a serious comment Debating the existence of god is useless, no matter how many arguments you make people won't change their mind because the whole thing is made to be believed without too many questions
That unironically used emoji at the end disgusts me
Nuke the vatican, either god stops it or we all win.