External Reality

I don’t believe in an “external reality”. What we have is only a constant act of measurements between items, of atoms between themselves. These items and atoms can be instantaneous will powers, emotional states, pain/pleasure states, judgements, thoughts, and memory accesses in minds/brains/bodies. Each item measures another item and instantaneously decides what program to execute: whether it is further analysis, further judgements, further logic paths and memory accesses, further pattern recognitions and or forced patternizations of that which has no pattern, etc.

So this creates a totally arbitrary reality - universe - situation of existence which does not depend on any possible denotation or metaphysical entity such as religions, values, laws, or anything that is assumed to last or be lasting or be somehow eternal or platonic. There is no outside, there are only relationships, constant measurements, constant interactions that then become memories and our mind tries to find logic and patterns in these recorded events, but they are all essentially dead events, events that no longer exist, that have essentially never really (what is really ?) existed but only in our minds, only in our assignment of forcing them to exist by memorizing them and creating their reality. In fact the real struggle is between what reality is, and that is only measurements and events and instantaneous reactions and actions, and our necessity to find some stable ground, to convert and translate them into some kinds of fundamentals: but there are no fundamentals, no stable ground, only measurements, actions - reactions, events, instantaneous pain/pleasure circuits that are activated.

There are no flags or symbols or denotations, no religions or metaphysical entities, in essence no real external reality: only relationships, only reciprocal measurements, each item measuring another item, each interacting with another item be it man, mind or atom. Information relationships, social behaviors based on imaginary and invented patterns are the only thing that really exists (but “really” doesn’t exist), if even the word existence has any substance to it.

Hence, this is the reason why there are never ending debates on everything, never ending conflicts, left versus right, rich vs poor, any opinion or idea vs any other reciprocal or opposite or confronting opinion and idea: [b]BECAUSE THERE IS NO FUNDAMENTAL REALITY OR TRUTH, THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTES. AND BEING THAT THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTES OF ANY KIND, EVERYTHING IS TOTALLY RELATIVE, EVERYTHING IS AN INVENTION, IS FAKE, EVERYTHING IS ONLY WHAT THE STRONGEST PARTY AT HAND FORCES IT TO BE (and it must always be forced into something or another, no matter what).

ABSOLUTES ARE FORCED, BY BRUTE FORCE AND POWER SINCE THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTES: END OF STORY.
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Can we have relations without those from which relations are drawn and to which they are applied? Can we speak of actions without that which acts?

The end of a black and white view of universal absolutes and strict objectivity does not imply an absolute (and absolutely ubiquitous) relativity. Gradiation and change exist, as you know; but furthermore concepts of greater or lesser than apply only in limited conditional situations and have no absolute meaning, they obtain of perspectives. So we get A is absolutely greater than B, but this fact is meaningful only relatively so (conditionally/temporally so).

Perspectivism is the correct view in the absence of absolutism and objectivism. Everything that is is so in a subjective and relative manner; but we may only speak of relations obtaining within such parameters, and within these parameters, absolutes can and indeed often do arise. They are just not absolutely absolute.

Further refinement of method is called for. The first step is not the last.

How are there relationships if there is no external reality? Anyways, for the rest of your post,… You’re on to something but not quite there. Simply because we don’t understand something like gravity doesn’t mean we are going to disagree on our ideals. It doesn’t mean we aren’t going to agree either. I think your terms are probably misused as well… such as reality. I don’t speak your personal language, it probably makes more sense in your head I’m sure.

Life is aware of itself, if we can put it that way - it is conscious of itself. You don’t have to know, knowing and not knowing exist in the same frame. Knowledge only comes into the picture when there is a demand for it. Once the demand is met, then you are back again in a state of not knowing.

On the one hand, we cannot experience a union with reality, for to experience it is to recognize it; and that can only be possible when there is a duality or division. On the other hand, to say that there is unity is to know it. And to say that unity (or life) is conscious of itself seems to be inconsistent with the previous statement. How can we understand this paradox?

I think that when a person is freed from the stranglehold of thought, in some sense the person (or the subject) does not exist as a continuing entity any longer. Not that the entity ever really existed before – only the illusion of it was there. Now that the illusion is not there, knowledge operates for a moment, answers the demands of the situation, and immediately and automatically slips back into the background. When you answer questions, you responds in words. Others tend to make sense and meaning out of these words and are tempted to apply the same rules of logic that are normally applied to discourse. But as there is no person, there is no division (or sense of separation) within you; and whatever unity is there is expressing itself without the normal logic of consciousness or experience. Even your responses to questions have no meaning for you. It is not that they are meaningless. There is no consciousness of separation or of anything (or anyone) as being separate from you. Hence, it would not be appropriate to call your statements expressions of knowledge, at least in the ordinary sense of knowing. Words, meanings, sounds, objects, etc., appear for a moment and then in the next moment (or in the same frame) recede into the background and become mere noise, two dimensional space, irritations or blobs. Others interpret the sounds coming from you as meaningful and try to apply truth values to the statements. But these ideas do not have meaning, or truth or falsehood.

You appear to be a person like any other, living, and carrying on in this world. When, however, you have no sense of who you are, you have no concept or image of yourself, and hence even the question of whether you consciously exist or not doesn’t arise. You may momentarily answer questions with counter-sounds or utterances. The problem of making sense, attributing truth and falsehood, or looking for the facts behind the words, is the problem of others, not yours.

If such is the life of a person free from thought or the self, we could call it a state of unity, but there is no one to realize or experience that unity, nor is there any knowledge or experience of it in the usual sense of the terms. You try to express your life in a fashion peculiar to yourself. To those who try to measure whatever they hear with their normal yardsticks of subject-object, meaning-object dichotomies, however, such a life must remain a mystery.

Can there be a thoughtless state where you experience the unity of the universe? As you, in some sense do not exist as a continuing person (subject, self), there can be no knowledge (which is a temporal state of mind) of such unity; and in such a person there is no awareness of either unity or its opposite, viz., disunity or division. Unity and division are concepts which presuppose a continuity in consciousness. For others any such unity must remain a concept, for as far as they are concerned, they will never know what is in you except as a concept, which always necessitates its own opposite. For instance, others might be tempted to theorize that when you are in a thoughtless state you are experiencing unity and that when that state is temporarily disturbed, then there is disunity or division. But how can the truth value of such statements be ascertained?

We can’t be certain all life is aware of itself, scientific indications point that this isn’t the case.

All we can do scientifically is analyze parts of it, experiences of it, yet never capture the expression of life.

Without being self conscious, life goes on. Even the self of the scientist is an interpretation of his thoughts. In the absence of interpreting, he lives in a state of not interpreting or not knowing.

I don’t know what you mean by “the expression of life”.

“Relative” is the poor relation of “absolute”.

“Relative” is the poor relation of “absolute”.

Let me give an analogy. We can take a bucket, lower it into a flowing river, take the water to the lab and analyze its constituent parts but never capture (the expression of) the flow of the river. We can talk about the experiences of happiness, but how do you explain the expression of happiness?

We might assume a reality because there are supposed (invented) answers pertaining to aspects of it, but to convert an assumption of an experience to actual experience of the entirety, a definitive quality to the knowledge we have of it is needed in order to experience true reality. Can you give an absolute depiction of true reality?

Of course we take a kind of reality for granted in our goings about living sanely amongst ourselves; and even if we do not subscribe to that ‘reality’ it doesn’t mean we are not sane. It’s relative. By virtue of being an individual, free from the restraints of imposed reality, new discoveries have been made. Even the discovery that, to be yourself, you don’t have to do or know anything.

The physical/biological life of the organism is not asking, ’how am I functioning?’ That life is expressing itself by means of its own intelligence and does its work regardless of the questions asked in the realm of thought. Thought is being used by a separate entity to maintain and protect its identity. An entity that is far removed from the autonomous activities of the life and the energy that goes with it. That energy is an expression that cannot be captured by typical means of understanding things.

Maybe you mean essence, not expression?

The essence or main quality of what an experience is may change or be modified when, in the actual way it is expressed again, takes on new or unusual qualities or traits not found in past analyzation of the experience.

Happiness is expressed in laughter or a smile… a river flowing is expressed in its movement that is visible and through the sound it makes. Thus, I don’t follow you.

…understood … let me rephrase. The experience of happiness is captured by the frame of knowledge you have of it. That’s how you know you are experiencing happiness specifically as opposed to some other emotion. It’s also how you know you are having even an experience at all. The knowledge creates the experience, but the knowledge cannot capture the real time living expression.