• JayDee@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 day ago

    It funny, this concept communicates how personal conciousness is an illusion… but the personification and active voice when describing the universe in this fashion is also an illusion.

    • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.world
      2·
      18 hours ago

      Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence - Alan Watts

      And then there’s another one about trying to separate the waves from the ocean, but I can’t find it. So here’s another Watts.

      You didn’t come into this world You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean.

    • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
      51·
      3 days ago

      It’s amazing how popular this ancient philosophical metaphysical perspective is. Even Stephen Colbert, a devout Catholic, responded with a similar concept when asked in his questionnaire what happens when we die?

      Moksha (Hinduism), Nirvana (Buddhism), returning to the Tao (Taoism), Neoplatonism (ancient Greece), Fanaa (Sufism/Mystical Islam) - over millenia, so many traditions have been captivated by the idea of rejoining with “the One”.

      Within Hinduism is the nonthestic framework promoted by Adi Shankara known as Advaita Vedanta which is Sanskrit for nonduality. This takes the concept even further, positing that we are one eternally and that individuality / self are spiritual Maya or illusion.

  • radiofreebc@lemmy.world
    121·
    2 days ago

    This. So…much…this.

    Our egos are a frequency, a perspective…but we are part of something much larger than we are capable of understanding.

    We are all just a radio station, broadcasting into infinity, into a receiver capable of receiving infinite frequencies.

    We are the bacteria on our own fingernails, but we are everything…all at the same time.

    The universe is as old as it takes for us to be everything.

    I am he

    As you are he

    As you are me

    And we are all together

  • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
    25·
    3 days ago

    I love this kind of philosophy. I wish it were possible to access it on a tangible level, but sadly it seems consciousness is local phenomena

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
        5·
        3 days ago

        Yeah they can make you feel that way especially if you do them with a tight friend, but in reality you’re still locked into your own perspective.

        Maybe if more people believed we could kind of willingly feel it by proxy. Kind of like how mirror neurons let you simulate the other on your own equipment.

      • scathliath@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        1·
        2 days ago

        There’s actually a shocking variety that induce this, as an amateur psychonaut. Personally, I enjoy LSA for a “lite” version. One can brew it from a particular yellow flower native to the Southwest, but particularly called “mormon tea”.

    • pptiny@lemmy.world
      2·
      3 days ago

      You could just work on “first shift”, or what in Buddhism is called Fetters 1 and 2. Seeing through the self delusion. No woo-woo required and it’s the first stepping stone. But a big one.Just realizing there is no “me” here, and never has been, helps a lot.

  • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
    8·
    3 days ago

    It’s amazing how popular this ancient philosophical metaphysical perspective is. Even Stephen Colbert, a devout Catholic, in his final episode responded with a similar concept when asked in his questionnaire what happens when we die?

    Moksha (Hinduism), Nirvana (Buddhism), returning to the Tao (Taoism), Neoplatonism (ancient Greece), Fanaa (Sufism/Mystical Islam) - over millenia, so many traditions have been captivated by the idea of rejoining with “the One”.

    Within Hinduism is the nonthestic framework promoted by Adi Shankara known as Advaita Vedanta which is Sanskrit for nonduality. This takes the concept even further, positing that we are one eternally and that individuality / self are spiritual Maya or illusion.

  • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
    13·
    3 days ago

    My thought recently has been:

    1. The universe is physical, ie made of material stuff. There is just stuff and the forces between stuff

    2. Stuff is governed by physical laws

    3. The interractions between things are relatively simple, but get much more complex and seemingly ramdom the more stuff you add

    4. This seeming randomness is not true randomness because the interractions between things are governed by predictable rules

    5. We are made of stuff, down to the neurons in our brains

    6. Our actions and thoughts are ultimately directly caused by neuronal activity that is (in theory) predictable and governed by laws

    7. Free will and individuality aren’t “real” in the way people typically mean. Our actions are determined entirely by the particles in our system interracting with the constituent parts of other systems.

    My conclusion: this doesn’t matter on a practical level. We still experience free will and individuality. But those things are illusions caused by the interractions of many complex systems.