seeds wrote: ↑Tue Sep 14, 2021 10:27 pm I have often experienced vivid (highly detailed) dreams in which I am wandering through slightly altered versions of the medical office buildings I used to work at.
Had I never been born, or, in other words, if my subjectively-based "self"...
(as in the self-aware "agent" or "I Am-ness" who sits at the throne of consciousness in the closed arena of my mind, which is represented by the centralized "EYE" [icon] that I use in my illustrations)...
...had never awakened into existence, then those particular dreams that I experienced...
(which were literally created from the mental fabric of my very own being)
...would, likewise, have never come into existence.
So, no, Belinda, thoughts and dreams would not (cannot) exist if the "selfs" to whom the thoughts and dreams belong, did not exist.
(Unfortunately, due to resolution issues, the dialogue in the illustrations is blurry and hard to read. So if anyone is actually interested in what the captions are saying, then here are the links to clearer versions of the two illustrations on my website:
http://theultimateseeds.com/Images/4%20 ... e%2063.jpg
...and...
http://theultimateseeds.com/Images/4%20 ... e%2064.jpg)
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I don't know what the "selfs" consist of, B.
You might as well be asking me what does "dark matter" and "dark energy" consist of?
Yet those two mysterious (unmeasurable by any direct means) phenomena...
(which are said to make up approximately 95 percent of the universe)
...do allegedly exist by reason of the observed affect they have on matter.
And the point is that the fact that we cannot literally see or measure some proposed existent aspect of reality (as in the inner "self" or "I Am-ness"), is not without scientific precedent.
And if you think that sounds silly, then realize that the simple act of raising your arm, or clinching your hand into a fist, is an example of your inner "self" having an observable affect on matter (never mind the "God-like" control it has over your infinitely malleable thought and dream substances).
Yes.
I like the mythology of "Indra's Net."Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 10:58 am I therefore don't object too much to your vision of the central eye , as you say "as in the self-aware "agent" or "I Am-ness" who sits at the throne of consciousness in the closed arena of my mind" . For me, I prefer to not describe the nexus as an eye but as a nexus of experiences. A nexus of experiences like in Indra's Net.
According to Wiki...
Indeed, "Indra's Net" has often been used as a novel (anecdotal) way of visualizing the possible interconnectedness of all of the universe's material phenomena by reason of the universe's informational underpinning possibly existing in a "superpositioned" state at the quantum level (in the form of the theorized "Universal Wavefunction").Wiki wrote: "Indra's net" is an infinitely large net of cords owned by the Vedic deva Indra, which hangs over his palace on Mount Meru, the axis mundi of Buddhist and Hindu cosmology. In this metaphor, Indra's net has a multifaceted jewel at each vertex, and each jewel is reflected in all of the other jewels.
In the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism, which follows the Avatamsaka Sutra, the image of "Indra's net" is used to describe the interconnectedness of the universe.
It has also been used when trying to describe the interpenetrating patterns of information in the photographic plate of the laser hologram, as is demonstrated in yet another of my illustrations...
However, getting back to your statement,...
...I couldn't help but notice that your theory doesn't seem to offer any accounting for exactly "what" it is that experiences the experiences.
Describe for me an example of an experience that can be had without the existence of the "experiencer."
Belinda, it is one thing to use words like "nexuses" in your theory. However, it is something else altogether to explain what you mean by "nexuses."Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 10:58 am I think that the 'EYE' metaphor gives the self aware agent a solitary thingness that can exist without any environment to relate to. By contrast the nexuses in Indra's Net depend on relationships to other nexuses in order to exist. Our difference is about which is the truer metaphor.
So give me an example of one of these "nexuses" of which you speak.
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