As Ramana Maharshi used to say: once you are caught by the Lions teeth, you can no longer escape. When you truly embark on this journey, you can never come back to the point of departure.

@@foolishwatcher beautifully true

The blind “faith” in the fundamental nature of “matter” without mind and consciousness is analogous to the belief in Ghosts. This may come across as an absurd and irrational hypothesis to adopt regarding the whole of existence and reality and many will claim but surely this is a straw man in relation to materialists . However, it is actually analogous to the problem many materialists have put themselves in. “Materialism is unparsimonious because, in addition to or instead of mentality which is all we ultimately know it posits another category of ‘substance’ or ‘existent’ fundamentally beyond direct empirical verification: namely, “matter”. Under materialism, matter is literally transcendent, more inaccessible than any ostensive spiritual world posited by the world’s religions.” (Bernardo Kastrup). The fact is that “matter” is a theoretical abstraction of the human mind. So when materialists insist that all of reality including the qualitative experience of love, altruism, bravery, self sacrifice, meaning, purpose and experience, that is mind and consciousness is an illusion because it can be reduced to “matter” and “just brain chemicals” and “just survival,” they are unwittingly trying to reduce mind to one of mind’s own conceptual creations. We cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. It’s similar to a painter who, having painted a self-portrait of himself outside his own home, points at it and proclaims the world, reality, his home and himself to be the portrait. The misguided painter then has to continually explain his internal subject experience and inner life, even love, family, bravery, self sacrifice and purpose in terms of patterns, brush strokes and colour distribution on the canvas of the painting. Mind boggling and you may logically ask but how come no ones noticed that all we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived. Ironically if you read the popular fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” there lies the answer to this strange phenomenon that has developed since the rise of the new quasi religion (scientism). “Cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) - Rene Descartes. ❤️

@@georgedoyle7971 thank you George, great comment. Are you Irish by any chance?

@@goodsirknight Yes well spotted. The land of saints and scholars including the Bronte sisters, C.S.Lewis, Cilian Murphy, Collin Farrell and river dance. ❤️

Materialism isn't a scientific theory. It's a Metaphysical Ontology.

Joshua Nicholls - Exactly right. Yet this man and many others take it to be theory backed by science - the likes of Lawrence Krauss ,etc..

Scientific theory based on Newtonian Physics in conflict with the theories of Einstein & Heisenberg.

Illusion vs truth

@Ulitarism “Spaghetti monster” “Metaphysics is not science” Fallacy of false analogy lol (Spaghetti Monster) in an intelligent debate about mind. Also materialism isn’t “science” either because as someone already pointed out in the comments section here materialism is a metaphysical ontology. Ironically, you can’t even carry out basic scientific experiments without metaphysical concepts such as truth, knowledge, (conscious observers), being, identity, time and space including mathematics. If you explain away consciousness, that is the (observer) then you’ve just undermined all knowledge including science.This is clearly a “self” refuting and circular hypothesis. The fact is that science is founded on “faith” in something that “cannot be proven wrong or right” (metaphysics)... “we cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. All we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived.” (Bernardo Kastrup) All the best to you and your family and keep safe during this Corona virus crisis ❤️

Wilma hey Wilma, the texts on witch this is based, Advaita, have that quality i suppose. The variaty of concepts and ‘states’ all have their specific word. But as many ‘gurus’ say, the true teaching is in silence. Arguments drop, loving exeptance can do wonders. Sometimes it lasts, more often its temporaly.

I think Rupert would agree with you too. He is constantly modifying his meaning in the context of his discourse, to avoid precisely your very good point.

There's a kind of language that is present even before words which still makes understanding possible even when words have different meanings and people speak different languages, the only advantage of speaking the same language would be in the urgency of understanding, it can be reached faster. If I meet another body that speaks only German I will eventually understand what it needs if the need is basic, through miming, for instance. If I am only reading German, well, if I am lucky, which apparently I am, I have access to google translate which is still not perfect, but gives me the basic. The main use for achieving higher levels of understanding a specific language and its nuances is to be able to catch the jokes... that's my opinion...for instance, I understood what you meant by "quiet senseless" only because I learned how to identify a typo which saves me time, otherwise I would still be wondering what on earth did you mean by that, was it a freudian slip perhaps? Does is it matter the volume in which a senseless thing shows up? I guess it depends... If it's a song I like and it is the right time of day it really doesn't matter the volume, although, I'm noticing I am getting more and more sensitive to louder sounds as time goes by, which is also a song, but which actually does make sense, for now, at least...the real question is: what is the sound of an emoji clapping?

I think there are two main definitions of consciousness, that which is pure subjective experience, and that which is intellectual awareness. If a layman and a software engineer both look at a piece of code they might share the same subjective visual experience, but their awareness of what the code does, what style it was written in, if it's good or bad etc. is completely different.

or maybe we shall not speak to understand each other :)

🙏🙏

I doubt many of them would be impressed.

Totally agree! this quote from Bernardo Kastrup speaks volumes... “Materialism represents an astonishing failure of the human intellect to see what’s right under its nose. It hides nature’s marvelous simplicity behind a veil of contrivance. Its continuing survival in face of the mounting odds of reason, evidence and direct experience requires constant and deliberate maintenance. Indeed, materialism serves powerful economic and political interests” (Bernardo Kastrup). All the best to you ❤️

But you're not separate

You are correct. I was trying to say I became aware of myself as an individual.

The guy is hilarious 😂

But...Rupert is going further and interprets that experience into non-dualism and all that that implies.

It would actually appear that illusion lies in belief as opposed to perception. You could then call it, if you so choose, as misperception or misconception.

Well said! This is the point Rene Descartes was trying to make about “sense perception” versus “conscious experience” but a lot of materialists are oblivious. The only thing we can ever really know is the qualitative subjective experience of love, family, altruism, existence, meaning, purpose, knowledge and truth, that is consciousness. “Cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) -Rene Descartes.

They don't trust their experiences, just what their mind has them believing.

Bernardo is a fly in Rupert salad.

I like Bernardo Kastrup too and only came across him accidentally quite recently when reading about the Children’s author and Oxford lecturer CS Lewis’s challenge to materialism. “Nobody in science or philosophy has ever managed to explain, even in principle how presumably unconscious matter could possibly give rise to subjective experience. This is known as the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ or ‘explanatory gap’ in philosophy of mind” - B Kastrup. Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.” (C.S. Lewis).

You can feel, in your experience every single moment, if you simply take a moment to reflect, that you are not the body or the mind. You Awareness comes before any thought, perception, feeling, etc. Try to learn how to lucid dream. When you wake up in your dream and realize all of the apparent separate selves, objects, perceptions, etc, are You, you’ll feel the sense of Oneness. Then, via meditations, self inquiry, psychedelics, etc, you can experience this in the “Real world”. 😃

About 65 mg of Dimethyltryptamine should do the trick. 😉

Honestly, once you realize the nature of perception itself (which you seem to grasp), belief in the "truth" of a physical world takes at least as much faith as that of infinite consciousness. I find myself in a kind of limbo at the moment. At the very least, there is no going back "to sleep" as a pure materialist.

@@garycunningham5014 💗

LL

I feel that 😭

As he should be,,, we all are.

Sushil Rupert regularly offers live webinars. Information about them is on his website, rupertspira.com

Andrew thank you so much Andrew.

Every 'wakeup' brings back the memories and life continues. Slipping into Deep sleep and from there into dreams could be sensed hardly, but disturbances could confirm (Post facto). Previous dreams couldn't continue - short New experience everytime. Life continues anyways round the clock. Strength of memories decided at the wake up that I didn't die yet. The set of rules for life in the same Body were different in states of dreaming, waking, sleeping. Yesterdays never repeated, change was the only constant except me !!! When everything is going to end except me, Why shouldn't I be the everlasting light leaving aside all those soil shapes!!!? Somebody said with beautiful smile: You are That !!!! I don't want to believe it but love to BE IT. Om Namah Shivaya

I see myself hearing you understanding you believing in you accepting your point of view & still not becoming what I accepted and believed in 🤔 when will this knowledge become my belief / wisdom 😩

Don't pay attention... Ignore it....it will pass. It's part of the Mind Field of Consciousness.

Markus Hultqvist all is experience that is known, even thoughts and emotions are known. And if you truly look for "the I" behind it all, you will find that it is this knowing that is "the I" and all descriptions you try to put on the "knowing/awareness" is objective qualities that are themselves known. The knowing/awareness/ the I are therefore indescribable.

I think only in experience, maybe in some deep meditative state, at some higher level of consciousness can you know which one you are. But to reach there, you have to start with your body mind, then end body, then end mind, and then become the knowing itself to experience the real nature of I. The finite body mind made up of dead inert matter can never know the infinite living consciousness. It's not there. But when you return back to the body mind, things will be changed. You will experience the world more intimately, feel more connected, and so on.

Markus Hultqvist I see that person Rupet Spira is a body mind but the "substance" he is made of awarness, conciousness, knowing etc!

Markus ...this way of looking at reality is literally back to front. Literally.

lauri leinonen Rupert adopts a particular method of teaching which on the surface may appear cold, rational and logical. (As he himself has said, he tailors his answers to suit the questioner, and in this video he is responding to a particularly intellectual question.) However his analytical way of reasoning is merely (as he says) an “approach”, one of many possible approaches. He has spoken often about the limitations of language, which is a property of mind. Love is something which cannot be spoken about, only experienced. (You will note he rarely uses the word “God”, either, though he does speak of “infinite consciousness”.) Quite often he answers questions about the nature of pure Awareness, and the implications for our lives if this is what we essentially are, and in that context I believe he speaks implicitly about morality, right living, indeed love. He would say that pure consciousness IS love. Finally, if you want to see him talk about love, don’t listen to what he says, but watch how he says it. He doesn’t need to talk about love; he’s living it.

You are right , when i hear most of these talks , i agree in everything , He is the most intelligent as is Deepak , it is difficult to talk about pure Love , because that word has ower populated sound , i Love to listen Rupert , and i still dont belive in dream world , let us continue with Masters and trying to understand our selves as it is possible OM SAI RAM

True, spiritual realization is pragmatic, which is the main point. And it will eventually show that our curious nature to understand and search is merely an illusion to stay out of the present Now.

I understand your point, yet to briefly touch on your example of the orange glasses and the experience of perceiving the whole world as being orange in color. That very perception of the whole world being orange is just that, a perception. Rupert does not state that every perception is real or has a fundamental truth to it, he simply states that because all perception comes and goes on the "screen" of awareness/consciousness, there is no reason to assume that any perception has its own nature, or in other words: that every perception is a separate thing. To assume that the sun exists separate from our knowing/awareness/consciousness is like saying that the clouds are separate from the sky-it's just an idea. We can believe in this idea, and there is nothing wrong with it, yet why believe in something that we cannot verify in our immediate experience?

"Orange glasses" is not the best example as colors are made by our mind/brain. We can belive that our brain creates colors according to frequencies of the light wave reflected from a particular object. But overall you are right. Rupert Spira doesn't and can't prove that creation of our subjective world doesn't happen according to independent external source (and internal processes of brain). Opossite point of view also can't be proved. Therefore that conversation is valid only to point that is different model and that model has the same validity to belive in as common materialistic model.

Yes, and in fact, none of this philosophizing would even be possible were one's brain sufficiently degraded (Dementia, Alzheimer's etc.). It's an interesting view that I plan to explore more but it doesn't align with Occam's Razor. It's not predictive or testable in the same way as scientific models. People believed all kinds of demonstrable nonsense in ancient times. That's the easy part but actually matching one's beliefs as best as possible to reality is something we've only learned somewhat recently and still not entirely successfully. If you function outside of the realm in which truth can be established to any degree, what are you really providing? Is it knowledge or just a demonstration of our infinite capacity to rationalize, explain and be creative? It's superfluous - as if I said right now that while I type this, I'm actually getting my thoughts from a well of infinite consciousness. This could just as easily be God or an invisible telepathic superhero. Or maybe I can say that everything, including any reader here, is simply a projection of my mind. What does it mean? What does it accomplish? Where is the utility? Just because I can say such things and no one can 100% disprove these claims does not mean that they have equal validity.

Who's Rubert?

Nobody actually thinks it is a mere illusion. The actual argument is that consciouseness is more of a byproduct of complex thinking, which happens to come from a material brain. I am conscious but neither "I" nor the consciousness are non-material. It isnt self-defeating. Calling it an Illusion is more or less rethoric. Nobody denies they are experiencing what we would call consciousness.

@@Sculman7 Based on what do you call it material, there is absolutely no evidence of that, there is also no evidence that the said material exists, all you know is that you are conscious and you experience qualia, all of science is based on that experience, it comes before it not after. There is no way any level of computational complexity can produce qualia from what you call matter unless you claim that the matter itself is conscious, which defeats the point of calling it matter. We know that a computer can only manipulate something like a motor to create more complex movements, without the motor it can't do anything, it's just information, likewise the brain can't produce consciousness or anything really, it can only manipulate what already exists. You can't explain what yellow looks like to a colourblind person, since experience is fundamental, and fundamental things can't be explained since explanation requires you to explain the whole in terms of its parts, which it doesn't have since it's fundamental... Sorry but the hard problem only exists for materialism, materialism is dead.

@@Pietrosavr ofc I can't call anything "material" or "non-material" before an epistemology has been established. Once we do have an epistemology we can reason about the origin of our perceptions and even call thought a product of the material. Nobody does that apriori. Lmao Now that I do have an epistemology I have determined that there is no need for my mind to be immaterial. Once proof for the immaterial has been presented, I would change my worldview. So why don't you take a few days off. Maybe study some formal logic and write down your brilliant proof that consciousness can't be material. You will blow the minds of many smart people. Right now you are just arguing from feelings.

@@Pietrosavr Well said Truslav! “Materialism is unparsimonious because, in addition to or instead of mentality which is all we ultimately know it posits another category of ‘substance’ or ‘existent’ fundamentally beyond direct empirical verification: namely, “matter”. Under materialism, matter is literally transcendent, more inaccessible than any ostensive spiritual world posited by the world’s religions.” (Bernardo Kastrup). ❤️

@@Sculman7 The blind “faith” in the fundamental nature of “matter” without mind and consciousness is analogous to the belief in Ghosts. This may come across as an absurd and irrational hypothesis to adopt regarding the whole of existence and reality and many will claim but surely this is a straw man in relation to materialists . However, it is actually analogous to the problem many materialists have put themselves in. “Materialism is unparsimonious because, in addition to or instead of mentality which is all we ultimately know it posits another category of ‘substance’ or ‘existent’ fundamentally beyond direct empirical verification: namely, “matter”. Under materialism, matter is literally transcendent, more inaccessible than any ostensive spiritual world posited by the world’s religions.” (Bernardo Kastrup). The fact is that “matter” is a theoretical abstraction of the human mind. So when materialists insist that all of reality including the qualitative experience of love, altruism, bravery, self sacrifice, meaning, purpose and experience, that is mind and consciousness is an illusion because it can be reduced to “matter” and “just brain chemicals” and “just survival,” they are unwittingly trying to reduce mind to one of mind’s own conceptual creations. We cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. It’s similar to a painter who, having painted a self-portrait of himself outside his own home, points at it and proclaims the world, reality, his home and himself to be the portrait. The misguided painter then has to continually explain his internal subject experience and inner life, even love, family, bravery, self sacrifice and purpose in terms of patterns, brush strokes and colour distribution on the canvas of the painting. Mind boggling and you may logically ask but how come no ones noticed that all we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived. Ironically if you read the popular fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” there lies the answer to this strange phenomenon that has developed since the rise of the new quasi religion (scientism). “Cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) - Rene Descartes. ❤️

A conceptual answer won't truly satisfy this question - I would invite you to verify this awareness for yourself over and over until this question is answered (or no longer exists!) :)

@@HaxUK Thanks for replying. I've listened to Rupert's talk "Consciousness is not produced by the brain". It has helped me to revise my perspective. However, experiential knowledge is required to sustain this "new" point of view.

Thinking is conditioned, limited. Can you think without sinking into other concepts, assumptions, past? Where do thoughts appear in? Is validating an effort? So beautiful (-; Enjoy your thinking, but know its limits. Words are pointers; even if I validate to you, you still need to make it your own. Don't be afraid, Rupert makes it so easy and gentle.

experiencing is also conditioned and limited, can you experience without being alive, can you experience my legs and arms? where does you experience apper in?, does apper by me? and i dont think I'm right, I'm sceptical, I try to analyze stuff, and so on... I dont understand it, and his explanations aren without flaws, but that does not mean that rupert or non duality is wrong, he is a teacher that i admire the most, but i am still sceptical and I dont see the logic in everything that he or nonduality says... he didnt disprove reality or materialism by disproving a tought, a opinion, a concept and so on, of course that are all relative, and have flaws and are not apsolute, but that does not automatically mean that the body, brain, or amterial world does not exist, nor does personal experience disprove that counciousness is in the brain... i hope its not, but first person experience does not prove anything and its not valid at all, its 100% subjective and relative, or is it not...

Rupert invites you to explore your self. You need to discover. Thinking is a great shortcut in the mechanical world, but not a replacement for your own Being Aware. Be gentle; it's okay to say "I don't know". It's a gift to take a fresh look, in real-time, live; not through the recordings of the mind. The "goal" is not an explanation but your undistorted seeing. Am I aware? Is a great pointer. Love.

+medwaca _" but first person experience does not prove anything and its not valid at all, its 100% subjective and relative, or is it not..."_ ...have you or anyone else ever experienced your world any other way besides first person??...exactly when was that??...

Glyne Martin when i use the brain that i have, your question has an answer in it... if i only experienced my first person, so only that, and if you experienced only your first person reality, so there are obviously two experiences=duality... i can see two dogs, and every dog can only have the experience of the world trough his bodymind, also the other dog experiences only his reality, but i see two dogs... your question goes, have you or anyone else... i mean that questiin and logic is predeterminated and cant be answered without going all the way beyond the question... its like asking, did a dog ever fly with a body of a bird, he didnt, conclusion there are no birds... if i didnt experienced bothing besides my first person exoerience that does not by it self prove that there is no matarial world and bilions of other experiencer, things and what not, if my perceptive abilityes are limited that is not the prove thah all reallity is equal to my perception and abilities...

Did you watch the video?

The moon and earth are in the universal mind, idiot

What you're saying is the exact same distinction that Advaita Vedanta makes - between buddhi/manas (mind) and Chit (Consciousness). Nothing to explain, you got it exacatly right.

jeez

the quest is on you to prove it's mental reality.....you are the one claiming it is, so the burden is on you to show evidence......so far not you not Rupert provided evidence.....

is it not proof of it already from you replying to my comment ? did this occur in some Abstract realm outside of Experience?

No it's not proof

on what basis do we live in a Material universe ? did this exchange happen outside of Experience? in a Material universe everything is in your skull and all the matter we observe is not real matter that its just are brains interpretations of it for there to be A material universe is has to be pure Abstraction not even an empty black void is out side of Awareness the metaphysics of Materialism believes that real matter has no shape color sound size or any attributes that can be observed its a world that only leads to solipsism and Nihilistic relativism

science is trying to understand what this universe is, we might never know the answer, but it doesn't make sense to say if we don't know then we have to create or come up with a teaching that has no evidence....and only based on experience. at the end of the day we really don't know......logically we have to look at evidence/ proof.......to each their own. good luck with your search.......

No, radically different. It is neither skepticism - there is absolute confidence that Awareness exists - nor Baconian materialism - by definition, we can never have any kind of evidence that pure matter exists. It is merely an abstract concept. There is no empirical evidence for it, there never can be, and there is no logical reason to believe in it.

Treeless Branch Hello. Your house in New York is there because awareness is not only a process of the physical senses. Once aware of the object it will always be in the conciousness. Other than that, the house will still be there even if you turn away your awareness from it because others are aware of it as well and because every particle of the all is aware of itself at different levels. Regards

When the questioner says, "the sun exists even if I am not aware of it," Rupert did continue on to inquire as to why the questioner views the world appearing with regularity as having some contradiction to the truth that everything appears in awareness and with the statement that there is no outside of awareness.

In a dream, you can still dream that you are in California, and there is a house in New York. You can even in your dream go to New York and check it's there then come back to California. But after you wake up, you know both California and New York are from one indivisible mind of yours. How can you tell that this waking reality is not a dream too? Also Rupert did addressed that the regularity (House in New York is there when you do not perceive it) is because parts of our minds are all shared in this one infinite consciousness. It doesn't go against "there is no outside world apart from consciousness". Both you and your friend see the house in New York shows that you two's mind are from same origin. But it doesn't mean the house exist apart from your awareness. How can it be possible, when YOU have to be there to even know the house is there or even not there. Both world and no-world are in YOU. This kind of explanation can be argued endlessly..because it's all starts from the point of view of the mind (believing it's a separate identity)..this is what give rise to logic thinking, etc. .Rupert encourage people to go with the direct experience. Love

That's already in awareness. Your looking from your own mind. Consciousness is everything and nothing simultaneously. So it isn't located inside your brain like your suggesting. How could it be located? Once you locate the source of awareness it is already not there and aware of it. You can't find awareness because it isn't an object.

Rusking Tavarez this is suggesting "your awareness" meaning turning away from an object depends on consciousness being produced in your brain. It isnt. It cannot be located.

Why insist of putting the cart before the horse? Especially when it then gets you tangled up in the hard problem.

A belated response... Do you mean Mindfulness practice, or do you mean mindfulness studies? Or scientific observations of mindfulness practice in so-called adhd 'patients'?

Because there are parts of a person that might be resistant to the effects of the meditation. Teal Swan has the best understanding of consciousness and the problem we all face. It's that so many of us are actually fragmented and its a coping mechanism. This is what makes us all essentially 'two-faced' and explains that we ALL have 'multiple personalities'. Those underlying parts of our 'self' is what rules our behaviors/feelings and can contribute to the detriment of any and all meditative practices. I would argue meditation is actually pointless for almost everyone. Without understanding and intimately getting to know these parts within us then we won't actually achieve much.

It's only a metaphor, and all metaphors are imperfect. I think Rupert's point was that while there is a sense of regularity and consistency in our waking experience, this is not evidence that materialism is true. Dreams are admittedly only thought, yet during the dream there is also regularity and consistency. Maybe not identical to our waking state, but undeniably present. When I dream, I "see" through my eyes...yet there are no eyes there beyond the stuff of mind. The metaphor Rupert is using isn't intended to convert your entire belief system from materialism to consciousness only. (That would be asking an awful lot.) It's just a tiny step towards thinking outside our conditioning. After all, even Newton and Einstein took decades of thinking and studying to arrive at their conclusions. A single metaphor can only go so far.

I understand everything you have said. My issue is that nothing rupert has ever put forward regarding consciousness is anything beyond a belief grounded is mere human experience. He makes statements about how science will never find consciousness. Unknowable. Regarding existence as fundamental and unlimited, I see that as a fact. But his theories about consciousness are just concepts. Maybe hes right maybe not. All the metaphors in the world cant change the fact that he is operating out of belief

@@darrenfromla I'm not aware of any method of discovery that isn't based on belief. There is no method, technique or tradition of exploring truth that doesn't require its own assumptions or axioms. This has to be true because we are incapable of infinite knowledge - if for no other reason than the problem of infinite regression. Look, we accept a LOT of stupid assumptions in science. How can a series of points of zero dimension create a line? And yet Euclidean geometry depends on it. How can instantaneous speed exist? If zero time passes, and speed is distance over time...then we are dividing by zero, which is undefined. But we accept this in Calculus without batting an eye. Superposition of subatomic particles existing in multiple states simultaneously. Time dilation. Gravity. Singlarities. The Big Bang itself is based on interpretations guided by beliefs. Yet few decry these as useless theories. I don't see Rupert asking anyone to believe anything outside of what is verifiable by personal experience. I just don't see why that could be considered dubious.

@@garycunningham5014 It's the idea that personal experience can verify anything that I have a problem with. I don't see how a human being can verify beyond all doubt that consciousness doesn't originate from the brain. I'm not saying it does but I'm open to it. Rupert seems not to be. He seems sure.

@@darrenfromla He'd be a pretty awful teacher if he really didn't believe it, wouldn't he? 😉 I see your point, and I don't argue its validity. How can we REALLY be sure ANY explanation is correct? If there were really any way of irrefutably proving ANY belief system, we'd all be following it. Right? We each have to make our own determination regarding how to accept or reject ideas. For me, it's pretty simple: I want to be happy. That which helps me attain happiness is that which is most helpful. As a primary example, I tend to be very emotionally reactive. I have spent a lot of time being offended, with hurt feelings and simmering animosity. Combined with feelings of insecurity and vulnerability...it wasn't a happy existence. These ancient teachings, and they are extremely ancient - avaida vendanta goes back thousands of years - have significantly improved my daily experience. And there is reasonable evidence to suggest that much greater peace and happiness is possible. In short I FEEL better. I treat others better. I am much less emotionally reactive. I have decreased previous self destructive behaviors. And these beliefs are consistent and simple. They help me be happy. It's not that I stopped believing in science. It's that I stopped believing that science defines the limits of reality. Some may think it naive to chose a belief system because it brings you happiness...but I'm ok with that.

I completely understand where your coming from. We are all searching and we all want certainty. However, all of our physical theories and metaphors to describe the world of “matter” have been progressively falsified and replaced by quantum mechanics/string theory and what appears to be immaterial probability waves that are invisible, bi locational, timeless, unmeasurable and collapse at the wave function during the observer effect suggesting that consciousness not “matter” is fundamental. Materialism seems to have crumbled under the weight of evidence from quantum mechanics. Equally, evolution, survival and selection are just metaphors to describe what the physical world does from the observer perspective and philosophical naturalists point of view. “What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning” (Werner Heisenberg). There’s no empirical science without (observers), that is consciousness. All language is metaphor as nature does not literally select as this suggests intention and choice. Only sentient beings do this, hence the metaphor, as only conscious beings attempt to describe subjective experience. From a philosophical/deductive perspective there is absolutely no evidence that the world of “matter” is the only world that matters. The fact is that “evolutionary naturalism implies that we shouldn’t take any of our convictions seriously including the scientific world picture on which evolutionary naturalism itself depends.” (Thomas Nagel). Materialism as beautiful and useful a theory as it is, especially in areas such as medicine is incoherent as a complete theory of reality. The fact is that “matter” is a theoretical abstraction of the human mind. So when materialists insist that all of reality including the qualitative experience of love, family. altruism, bravery, self sacrifice, meaning, purpose and experience, that is mind and consciousness can be reduced to “matter” and “just brain chemicals” and “just survival,” they are unwittingly trying to reduce mind to one of mind’s own conceptual creations. Its hardly surprising that the brilliant physicist Werner Heisenberg said.... “What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning,” Materialism has parallels with the emperors new clothes in that people believed anything because it was hidden behind the cloak of the emperors authority, in this case its “scientific” authority. It’s similar to a painter who, having painted a self-portrait of himself outside his own home, points at it and proclaims the world, reality, his home and himself to be the portrait. The misguided painter then has to continually explain his internal subject experience and inner life, even love, family, bravery, self sacrifice and purpose in terms of patterns, brush strokes and colour distribution on the canvas of the painting. This may come across as an absurd hypothesis to adopt regarding existence and reality and many will claim but surely this is a straw man. However, it is actually analogous to the problem many materialists have put themselves in. Materialism is unparsimonious because, in addition to or instead of mentality which is all we ultimately know it posits another category of ‘substance’ or ‘existent’ fundamentally beyond direct empirical verification: namely, “matter”. Under materialism, matter is literally transcendent, more inaccessible than any ostensive spiritual world posited by the world’s religions. This quote by Werner Heisenberg speaks volumes regarding the hubris of materialists who try to reduce existence, reality love subjective experience and consciousness to “matter”... “Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables” “There is a fundamental error in separating the parts from the whole, the mistake of atomizing what should not be atomized.” (Werner Heisenberg). There’s no foundation for empirical science without metaphysics not to mention a conscious observer. We cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. All we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived. Interestingly, according to the expert on consciousness Professor David Chalmers who is the Director of The Centre for Mind, Brain and Consciousness, and does not come from a religious/spiritual perspective ..... “Materialism is a beautiful and compelling view of the world, but to account for consciousness, we have to go beyond the resources it provides.” (David Chalmers) Fascinating subject! All the best to you and your family and keep safe during this Corona virus crisis ❤️

@@georgedoyle7971 very generous, for you to have left so thorough and cogent a reply buried deeply here in some sub-basement of the internet. I followed this well and found it quite helpful. Wherever possible you allowed for some value or beauty in materialism even if, of course, it doesn't help us to adopt it as a tool for final explanations.

Yeah, it really works best in an (early) Cartesian way - this type of reasoning only allows you to make a negative claim about some kind of knowledge. From there, once you acknowledge that you do not know with certainty that the material world exists, you have to use other types of evidence or reasoning to make claims beyond this. People will make arguments from parsimony, at this point, and so on.

Good point. The key here is that you're not unconscious, you're conscious without a mind, therefore the pure silence state, when mind is not essential to existence.

​@@axetroll Thank you for the response, but I believe you're making unfalsifiable statements. There is no indication that a sleeping man is really conscious in some sense, and continuing to generate reality around him. This is an assumption based on faith, which I can respect in private, but not in a discussion. From my purely materialist perspective, I'm not very convinced by the idea that we are constantly and unthinkingly shaping reality. This seems to be a position that one adopts out of how attractive it is, rather than how likely or accurate it is

@@user-ld9sl9ko7g take note that Godel incompletude theorem smashes any materialistic view of reality or any falseable truth. Reality can't be known by this way.

The realist/materialist makes the assumption that since there appears to be a regularity/rules in how things are experienced, that this somehow warrants a proof that there exists a physical world where these apparent objects exist as themselves. It's a very convincing belief due to our evolutionary and cultural dispositions, but it does not stand as a coherent arguments on its own. That's why it's called an axiom, - a philosophical assumption that serves as a starting point to creating scientific models, but they're by definition not proven to be true. If they were proven to be true, they wouldn't be called assumptions or axioms, because then you would simply call it scientific knowledge, but that simply isn't how it is. How does rules/regularity not prove physicality? Let's assume you're inside a dream. You look around and you see what looks like objects (cars, people, birds), and you conclude that these objects are made out of matter. Inside the dream, you can measure the seeming physical properties of these objects (their chemical composition, mass, size etc.), but that doesn't reveal the fact that all that is taking place inside your dream, and that essentially, everything is made out of mind, not matter. This demonstrates what science does: You can only know how things "work", not what they really "are". The laws of physics that seem to operate in the dream are identical to how they seem to operate in the real world, but that is simply a rule set of a non-physical dream world. At which stage does the content of the dream become physical? It doesn't. And how does this dream differ from reality? It doesn't. It's a total red herring to say that rules = physical. If all these points are granted, you can safely say that you've never experienced a lamp in your entire life. You've only experienced a perception of a lamp. You don't really need to grant these points, because it only requires a bit of rigourous investigation and self-honesty, but I guess that is too much to ask from a materialist/realist.

Okay, let me guide you through it. You are right. Experience happens wherever you happen to be, but your mind is present everywhere you happen to be. Here's what I mean: let's say that you fly to Spain and spend a few nights there. You visit places there, listen to local music, experience emotions and taste new food. Then, you come back home. But, pay an extremely close attention to what actually happened. It might be useful here to replace yourself with another hypothetical person who went on the same exact trip and did the same exact things. At the most raw level there is, if you were to track PRECISELY what happened to the person moment by moment from his first-person experience, you will find that what happened was simply a succession of visions, sounds, smells, Bodily sensations, and thoughts. That's it. That was literally all that truly happened. It's the combination of all of that that you call experience. Let's say you put on a pair of VR glasses. While wearing them, you see yourself walking in a street. Once you take them off, you realize that no real "distance" was crossed. At the most raw level, there was succession of images and sounds. Those images and sounds aroused the thought "I am walking." and "I am moving through space." If you look closely, the same exact thing happens when you take off your VR glasses. In Spain, when you walk past shops in Madrid, your experience consists of nothing but visions and sounds and smells, and the accompanying thoughts that you are at the center of such visions, smells and sounds. In other words, you have lived your whole life assuming that you have a mind that, along with the rest of you, resides in an outside world. The truth is, however, that the world resides in your mind.