The Mind-Reality Loop: A Topological Paradox and the Dissolution of the Boundary

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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As an Occam’s razor user, I go further and say that this is actually a fact, not a hypothesis. This is the nondual / Advaita / Zen view of the self, as the AI also mentioned.

The hypothesis is actually our Western view, that the subject and the object are separate. I’ve been pestering people on philosophy forums to try to come up with just one convincing evidence for this hypothesis, and imply that nondualism is wrong, but I don’t think anyone has been able to do so.

A few minor issues:

This is (probably) a rather futile exercise though, as we can never directly experience the external world. We are always limited to our minds, our perception is indirect, we only experience the representations of the external world, in addition to experiencing imagination.

The self is part of the stream, but imo we should also be cautious with going with Buddhism all the way. Because the human self is not just any kind of self, the human self is self-aware. A handful of species show signs of self-awareness on this planet, while the overwhelming majority do not.

I don’t think Buddhism addresses the issue of self-awareness very well. Humans DO have an additional psychological “identification/control mechanism”, that then generates the ego. The ego does exist, but it isn’t what it seems to be. The ego is illusory. And unless we cut out a sufficiently large chunk of our brain, the ego will always resurface.

They aren’t separate, they are continous. This is extreme speculation territory, but maybe some kind of higher-dimensional quasi-seperation could still be possible though, but it would be imperceptible to our 4-dimensional perception. Quantum mechanics raises questions, “our end” of the world always seems to behave one way, and then elsewhere that always changes.

But in that case the separation could be dynamic. The boundary could be inside the mind. The boundary could be at the edge of the mind. The boundary could extend outside the mind. This could change all the time.

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Oh man thank you for this. I’m going to give a better response but I just wanted to pop in and say thank you very much for a well thought response that has now given me an opportunity to take a new view…

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I have found the boundary to be undefinable. What I mean is for me and I know this is not how the mind works for everyone but for me there’s like a space where things happen that is in a sense separate from the world around us and in that space things like thoughts arise. Memories, words, ideas, pictures… it’s a space of imagination I guess and it’s something I see not with my eyes in a traditional sense… that space I have not found a boundary nor has it ever stopped producing things like thoughts which themselves can have a limit less boundary other than the amount of observation put forth to examine them… I’m not sure if any of that is making sense but for It does to me lol.

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I explained all of this already. Stick to your religious hokum. I grow tired of repeating to myself to those who prefer the doctrine of religious hokum.

Are you saying that when you look at a room, you are the room? That you are actually the actual atoms of the room? Is that what you are saying? WTF. Of course there’s a fucking boundary between you and the room. Of course there is dualism.

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I have found the boundary to be undefinable.

The boundary is things which you are conscious of (inside your mind) and external objects (like molecules of the room) which you are unconscious of.

What I mean is for me and I know this is not how the mind works for everyone but for me there’s like a space where things happen that is in a sense separate from the world around us and in that space things like thoughts arise. Memories, words, ideas, pictures… it’s a space of imagination I guess and it’s something I see not with my eyes in a traditional sense… that space I have not found a boundary nor has it ever stopped producing things like thoughts which themselves can have a limit less boundary other than the amount of observation put forth to examine them… I’m not sure if any of that is making sense but for It does to me lol.

Isn’t this how the mind works for everyone? Not just you?

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I said absolutely nothing like that. Damn are you stupid.

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No it is not some people don’t have anything going on in that mind space

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The hypothesis is actually our Western view, that the subject and the object are separate. I’ve been pestering people on philosophy forums to try to come up with just one convincing evidence for this hypothesis, and imply that nondualism is wrong, but I don’t think anyone has been able to do so.

Hur dur we r wetaded. Idiocracy reveals itself again. You are looking at a VR videogame thinking it is reality. What a moron.

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You are looking at an artificial, fake construct inside your mind and then saying “no sepawation.” “no sepawation”. what a bunch of low iq moronic drivel. Dunning kruger moron calling me “stupid”.

I said absolutely nothing like that. Damn are you stupid.

Then what are you saying? Sounds like low iq moronic drivel about nondualism and that the world and mind are one.

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Sure, then prove that your mental experiences exist outside the physical universe.

Of course someone like you wouldn’t understand that we are talking about nondualism AND indirect realism here.

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There’s really no reason to call anyone a moron. The ideas are not to be taking as truth just to be thought about. I wasn’t talking about an actual room in the original post. The issue that you presented was understandable but it was a little short of missing the mark. Either way… the insults are unwarranted. Please do your best to express yourself without them as it is a tell of what is in control of your life experience and a display of the level of intellect you are “in possession” of. Further more I will chose not to engage with you to explore ideas of mind if your position is to be a superior authority on the matter. I would not nor could I believe you would have a complete undemanding of what this whole existence thing is all about. I don’t believe that truth is understood until the midnight hour… as in time of death.

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I’m sorry that you are being attacked for your response. This the world we have to endure and again since I brought this thread to life I feel I should express my deepest apologies for the negative interaction. Your response was wonderful.

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I’d also like to talk about the last part of your response if we could

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“don’t think Buddhism addresses the issue of self-awareness very well. Humans DO have an additional psychological “identification/control mechanism”, that then generates the ego. The ego does exist, but it isn’t what it seems to be. The ego is illusory. And unless we cut out a sufficiently large chunk of our brain, the ego will always resurface.” - this part

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Nah don’t worry about that. :slight_smile: I think I’ve only ever seen one other person on philosophy forums who was both a nondualist and an indirect realist, like me. I’m perfectly used to not being understood. And this guy seems so fragile, it would be cruel to insult him back more.

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I agree… so the part about the ego…. You don’t get to toss it…. That’s why when I experienced ego death after a few hours it all slowly came back. It’s there wether you like it or not but it’s not about escaping it… it’s about living with it completely instead of letting it run your like and do shit like insult people it feels are inferior for example

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be the observer and strengthen that ability… take thoughts for instance…. You can’t be a better thinker because that’s not how it works…. If you had control of your thoughts then you could stop them Whenever you want and just be…. But we can’t without work and they wouldn’t stop anyway they just wouldn’t be so important unless they are to whatever the experience your having…. So you don’t become a better thinker you become a better observer of thought…. Like when you think your smarter or better than someone you can observe that thought as not a fact because you may immediately have another thought observed that reminds you that there is always another smarter person to your wit ….. how do you establish your being as the smartest one in a room of intellect?….. stay quite and observe. Does that sound good? I mean I’m a knower of nothing so I just like to put ideas out into the void lol… the void is a funny term lol

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I had “intentional” ego death maybe 2 or 3 times. Then soon after, I reappeared. But am I really the same I, that I was before? Or a new one? I’m not sure.

Before the first one, I didn’t know what would happen. I thought that I could be gone forever. But now here I am again.

There is the bliss after ego death (for most people, but there are a few counterexamples) that Eastern philosophies talk about. I experiences bliss too but it wasn’t overwhelming. It faded after a few weeks, but I still settled on a higher “baseline bliss level” than before.

I came to believe that bliss is not actually something additional. We had that kind of bliss in very early childhood too, before our ego first formed. Maybe before 2-3 years old. That’s the natural state. Animals are in that state too. We lost that state when the ego first formed and we became trapped in the illusion of the ego. The more blissful state is the normal state, the illusion of the ego creates a constant suffering.

Why does the ego come back? I now think that there is natural self-awareness that underlies the ego. A few species seems to have natural self-awareness, like humans, great apes, elephants, dolphines, whales, corvids, maybe 1-2 more. And that’s about it. The strength of the self-awareness varies between species and between individuals. In humans this self-awareness then gives rise to the ego.

Even if you have ego death, the natural self-awareness remains. And it will usually generate another ego. maybe not in everyone, but most people.

Eventually I chose to keep the ego, but it is psychologically a much smaller, simpler ego than before. Maybe a one-third or a one-fourth of what it was before? And of course I now permanently see through the illusion of the ego. Imo it’s sort of the best of both worlds: we can participate in everyday life where everything is ego-based, perhaps even participate more succesfully than before because we got rid of so much psychological crap; and we also permanently see the true nondual nature of reality.

Nonduality also applies to the physical and the mental: these two are one and the same. Western culture always hallucinates at least one duality that isn’t there, usually more than one. So I also know how to solve the Hard problem of consciousness.

I can still totally insult people if I want, the above undestanding of ego isn’t about such things. Even a psychopath can have a nondual awakening too, but remains a psychopath. But yeah people who had this awakening (and the whole process of change can take years, that’s how long it can take until we fully figure out how to handle this completely different way of experiencing life, but you know this too I think), usually end up becoming better people.

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Yea man… it took me 4 years and I came here to do exactly what I’m doing. Find people like you who have also had the experience to see if I can learn more. That underlying self awareness I think is pointed to in this Tibetan book of the dead copy I got with cometary from the lama. I’ve learned to take it all with a huge spoon full of salt but what spiritual practice shouldn’t be lol. It’s tough living with the experience when you see so many just fully locked into the self…

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Certainly the world would be a much more peaceful and cooperative place if people weren’t trapped in the ego illusion..

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Yea I feel that could be true too. I often think about ram dass and his saying about everyone here on their “own journey” and “we are here helping each other home.”I was heavily vested in reaching people in that deeper sense of being but i felt like no one could understand what the fuck i was talking about and looked at me like i was nuts. They labeled me off and pointed to the mushrooms as the cause. It was extremely disheartening. A lot of it came from my “family”