In what sense are "we" all one?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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just in what way exactly are “we” all one? The phrase gets thrown around a lot these days, but few people explain precisely what they mean by it. Can you give me some examples of how “we” are all one? I suppose I can think of a few myself. We all exist. We all have the potential to interact with one another. What happens in one part of the universe, can affect another part of the universe. Am I on the right track? Many things in the universe have the potential to transform into other things. Nothing in our universe seems wholly black, or wholly white, but some shade of gray. Everything may contain a little of everything else. Nothing is perfectly rough or perfectly smooth. Perfectly crooked or perfectly straight. The same thing can become something else when taken out it’s former context and placed into a different context.

I’ve heard some people say that from the point of view of the body and the mind, we’re all different, disconected, but from the point of view of consciousness, we’re all similar, connected. People have likened the body to a computer and computer software. Consciousness is likened to the user of the computer. We all think and feel different things at different times. When your having a bad day, I may be having a good day. One mans treasure is another mans trash. You have dark colored skin, I have light colored skin, you have blonde hair, I have red. Obvisously we all look different too. However, what we may all have in common is, we’re all conscious beings and though the body and mind may die, consciousness itself is immortal and the same for all times and places.

I have my doubts though. Consciousness seems to differ between people and species. I am more conscious than a worm or an idiot. It’s arguable that a worm isn’t even conscious, it doesn’t have a brain, it reacts to changes in it’s environment predictably, reflexively. It doesn’t seem to learn, or think, it just acts. Some people even argue that we’re an extremely complex machine, that our thoughts and feelings are in some sense an illusion, a byproduct of chemistry and mechanisms. Scientists may one day build a machine that’s capable of thinking and feeling like us. It’s arguable that our consciousness is not immortal. The physical world seems to affect our consciousness. When i drink alcohol, my consciousness gets distored. When I get kicked in my head, my consciousness can be permanently damaged. So it’s arguable that when I get shot in the head, my consciousness will be destroyed.

But then there’s all those near death experiences. People report having outer body experiences when doctors say they showed no signs of brain activity. I’m sure you’ve heard about them, so I won’t bother explaining them in detail. There’s been studies on esp suggesting that they’re may be some truth to the phenomenon.

So the question remains, does consciousness live on after mental and physical death? Is consciousness the essence of who we are? is it in that sense that we’re all one? Or is it another sense? Are we all one omniscient, omnipresent being when decarnated, only to become finite beings when incarnated?

What about this? Some of the smallest things in the known universe (Atoms) appear in some respects to be very similar to some of the biggest things in the known universe (solar systems). Are atoms tiny solar systems? Do presently undetectable quantum beings live there. If so, than I can say that not only am I a human being, but I am solar systems and trillions upon trillions of living beings. If atoms are solar systems than solar systems may be atoms. All these solar systems and galaxies may be part of giant watermelon, or something, which in turn, may be part of something else, which may be part of something else.

Nevermind worms, I’ve even heard people say (Boyan) that matter itself may be conscious. If true, than we’re all conscious beings. Don’t ask me, I have no idea how. When I kick a rock, it just moves. The rock has given me no indication that it thought to move. If true, subject would be indistinguishable from object. Panconsciousness or Pansciousness.

So there you have it. In which of these sense are we all one, or is it in another sense?

By the way, if everything is material, than in some sense subject becomes difficult to distinguish from object again. We would all be in some sense, objects. Only to the dualist would everything be truely separate, disconnected.

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We all came from the same ultimate origin, are composed of the same stuff i.e. stardust, evolved from the same one celled organism and have the same ultimate end.

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Ok, but then if we came from stardust, where did stardust come from… us? If so, then we are no more stardust than stardust is us? Therefore, our origin is just as much in ourselves as it is in stardust. So yes, in that sense, everything is the origin of everything and we are all related, but in another sense, we are also unrelated.

Whatever our origins may be, we are currently not stardust and stardust is currently not us.

What do these facts, if anything, have to say about how we should treat stardust? If nothing, then these facts are interesting but irrelevant. If something, what? Should we change our relationship with stardust? Should we treat stardust with more respect, since we (subject) will become stardust (object)? Should we treat ourselves with less respect since stardust (object) will become us (subject)? If everything is part order/animate/subject and part chaos/inanimate/object, than perhaps we should feel partly compassionate to all things. For how could you have compassion for an object? As humans, we tend to have compassion for subjects. If us subjects will become objects, does it follow all subjects are in part objects and objects in part subjects? Or are we merely whatever we are right now?

Should/does knowing what we were/will be have any bearing on the way we percieve and feel about the world? I suppose when I add up all these facts, I feel a greater sense of apathy and tranquility about things, albeit temporarily. Is that why people believe we’re all one? Nevertheless, I’m still going to feed myself, not content with knowledge that parts of me will live on as plant food and stardust.

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No. It came from the Big Bang

The elements we are composed of came from star bursts. We are more in the sense that we are are complex evolved conscious organisms.

Right

True. It’s not an either/or situation. The world is at once one and many.

True

It has more to do with understanding our place in the universe then a direct ethical implications. Ethically there is the matter of what to do with precious and limited resources and espeically sentient beings.

It has to do with our relative sense of estrangment or belonging to the world. It doesn’t negate the practical need to act in one’s own interests.

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I like this angle. To quote U2, “we’re one, but we’re not the same”…

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I too think we should worry more about the environment, but for more down to earth reasons. I guess it doesn’t matter what reason you care, so long as you care. After all, we are part of the environment and the environment is part of us.

Yeah, I’m somewhere in the middle on this issue too.

Curious, are you a panpsychist?

Do you think panpsychism is more conducive to environmentalism than physicalism, or dualism?

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Ha! Nice save Churro. That one was so obvious it went right by me. :blush: Stardust is the rarest material in the universe. Hydrogen makes up only 1/10th our body weight the rest is stardust. Iron came from exploding white dwarf stars. Oxygen came from exploding supernovas. Carbon came from planetary nebulae. This stuff traveled tremendous distance over millions or billions of years to become part of our cosmic history.

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No but obviously inanimate matter has the potential to become animate or it would not have happened.

Maybe. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it is correct or necessary for it.

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Non-division or non-duality, epistemologically has little in common with philosophical systems regarding the illusoriness of the world. And it’s not so much a matter of “pure consciousness” or “witness-consciousness”. And yet it’s permeated by a spirit of negation of all division and fragmentation. It’s based on a physical and physiological mode of description. Nature is a single unit and the body cannot be separated from the totality of nature. There are actually no separate individual bodies. This is a naturalistic or physicalistic form of non-dualism in contrast to metaphysical or transcendental.

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To Churro and Felix.

When the atoms that make up our bodies explode, they become particles and waves, the stuff that everything in the universe is apparently made of. So it is in this sense, that stars are no more/less our parents than we are their parents. For what it’s worth, everything is the origin of everything. Admittedly, I’m not an expert in physics, so correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m not really following you Churro. Could you explain yourself in simpler terms? You’re throwing a lot of different concepts around.

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Oops, my mistake again. I think it’s time for bed. Goodnight.

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What mean finishedman?

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All of us are the same. That’s what I’m saying.

Nature is in control, but we believe that we are acting. If you function that way, as a creature whose actions are governed by nature, then the complications in living are more simple to deal with. But we have superimposed on that the idea of a `person’ who is doing the controlling.

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According to Felix, Anon and Saint Bono…

I Disagree with you, I think we’re both in control. Sometimes nature overcomes us (hurricanes, earthquakes, aids, cancer, death), sometimes we overcome nature (deforestation, agriculture, houses, pollution, plastic). Humanity isn’t all bad, to himself or to nature. We may one day save the planet from an imminent threat from space (comets, meteors, alien invasion). We may one day terraform another planet with seeds from our own planet. We may function as the equivalent of the brain/male and nature as the equivalent of the body/female. Right now we are quarreling with our body. We have to learn we (brain/heaven) can’t survive without our body/earth and our body/earth may not be able to survive without us. We treat our literal bodies with disrespect too, everytime we choose pleasure (beer, chocolate, refined sugar/carbs) over the health and well-being of our body.

Aristotle taught us that virtue is usually in the middle between two vices. I think he was right. Nothing in excess or deficiency. Imbalance often leads to disease and death. If things are too hot, we perish, too cold, we perish. Likewise, we shouldn’t be imblanced in our ideology. We should find a balance between; nature and I are one vs; I am separate from nature. That will lead to balanced behaviour. We ought to avoid the excesses of the industrial revolution and the deficiencies of Jain monks and bushmen. A Hegelian synthesis between thesis (modernism) and antithesis (primitivism).

Or not. I’m a minimalist myself. Maybe we should go back to living like bushmen.

I understand this better now, I was tired last night.

So basically you’re a monist materialist as opposed to a pluralist idealist, right?

I’m a shades of gray. I believe we needn’t choose one of two opposing concepts. I’m a monist and a pluralist.

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The ‘one’ does not specifically refer to humans, or even all the life on Earth. ‘One’ is all. Everything. Every particle is part of the whole. So we as human beings are part of that whole. The One. The total equation, as an equal. Everywhere. No less or more than the stardust we’ll never see.

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Of course, that was the way I was originally using The One, but then we got stuck on how The One helps us better relate to our ecosystems. I think that’s the primary reason why some moderns adopt the concept of Oneness.

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When an example of Oneness is offered, it will always be secondary to the real meaning behind this idea of oneness. In fact the idea in itself is a negation of oneness. In thought, oneness cannot be realized. Even if I single one thing out, there is still that which I am singling or extrapolating from. Thought references, in which case there cannot be just one.

Most individuals understand thought to be a by product or something separate and imposed upon what life is, implying that before thought, reality was or is something else. If so, then it is only thought that can make what is a naturally cohesive whole (all one) into many. Things are only separate because of our ability to consider them that way.

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We are all one in the sense that thousands and millions and billions of weak minded people crowd around The One Mind. This One Mind is God. He is a genius thinker who actually is smarter than the millions and even billions of other pepole. It is like a flock of sheep circling and spinning around the shepherd. The shepherd uses his pack of loyal doggies to shape the direction of this flock. So sheep and wolves are both useful to the shepherd who guides the whole mass of billions of idiots. I am talking about Christians by the way.

Basically it is nihilism. Stupid people need strong and smart people in order to survive, in order to live and think, and in order to delude themselves into a euphoria of bliss and happiness. Most people, not excluding people on philosophy websites, are included into this mass. You reading this, for example, may consider yourself not a sheep. But, statistically speaking, 99.9999% chance you are. You want to become the shepherd, you want to be him, but you are not. Fact is, you don’t have what it takes. You don’t have the STUFF for it, the correct alignment of genetic code, the right ascendency.

So in this sence, we are all ONE, LOL!

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So, what does one gain from knowing all this? Nothing, except that he might not live any more with illusions.