The horror! The horror!

Robin,You summed up my position quite nicely I think, thank you. In this context I would like to point you to this interview with Daniel Dennett. I thought it might interest you too. It's about his latest book, titled "Freedom Evolves", which I plan on buying soon. He makes some very interesting points about determinism, self, and free will.Although the link points to Reason.com, I found the article somewhere else, namely here. Check out this guy's web files, they're really amazing. Be warned however: it's probably going to involve some serious sleep deprivation.Enjoy.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Hifi, (meaning "Hello 1.61803") Do you realise that by using the qualifier 'largely', you in effect allow - at least to some degree - the existence of an objective reality? I don't mind that you do, but I wonder if that is really what you want to say. I'm not sure I understand this. I don't think it's mumbo jumbo, but I would ask you to elaborate this point a bit further.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Thanks, Para.

Para,I didn't think you sounded upset but I had been imprecise and wanted to clear that up.My personal exploration of consciousness can be described roughly as a two pronged investigation. One "prong" is the various Eastern and Western non dual teachings. The other "prong" is more contemporary western science and such fields as General Semantics. I can't state with certainty that consciousness is primordial and not emergent, yet I've great interest in the Eastern traditions that assert something equivalent to that while at the same time I'm interested in the growing understanding of how the brain functions. I will note that in my personal life the eastern investigation of consciousness recieves the greater emphasis.Much of my posting activity in this forum grows out of this interest of mine so further exploration suits me just fine.lfen

Robin,Years ago I read a Zen story that I think bears on this. In that story instead of nihilism the subject of the story for some reason looking in a mirror at some angle failed to see her face and grew disconsolate and upset. The story has all sorts of people arguing with her to convince her she had a head but in the end it was the Zen master to the rescue who through the direct expedient of whacking her on her noggin convinced her that she indeed had a head.Nihilism is a nightmare. What is the solution to nightmares? Wake up!lfen

Hi Parasomnium,
I do believe in a objective reality. (on a macroscopic scale).
BUT......when you get down to the "nitty gritty" (lol) of what actually makes up reality I am not so sure there is anything except energy. And what exactly IS energy? I dunno.What I meant by "The man who says the square on the computer is blue, is the final realization of that instant in time."Is that our observations and perspective make up our reality. Or We realize our own reality by our interactions with the universe and vice versa. IMO.If one is a nihlist and believes that there is no 'reason de entre'
that reality and existance is arbitrary and absurd, then that will become a self fulfilling prophesy so to speak.There is alot to be said for the power of positive thinking do you agree? .

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"One is punished most for ones virtues" Fredrick Neitzche

I get your point. But I think that there can be multiple descriptions of objective reality, all different, but all equally valid.It's no use talking about the computerscreen in front of me as being just a jumble of energy fields and mostly empty space, unless I'm entertaining the thought of sticking my head inside it, just because that too is mostly empty space and there's an infinitely small chance that it might just work.A more useful description is that there really is an entity in front of me that has the real properties one might expect a computerscreen to have. I say "more useful" because the energy field description has little or no impact on my perception of the screen, whereas the computerscreen description does. So far so good, as long as the emphasis is on "our" - i.e. subjective - reality ... ... but I'm a bit misty about the "vice versa" bit. The word 'interaction' already implies reciprocity, so I wonder if your use of "vice versa" is simply superfluous, or that you meant something else.Forgive my pedantry with regard to your way of saying things, but I think that it is important to be precise in these matters. It is very easy to fall into the trap of saying things that are devoid of meaning. Yes, but only from a personal point of view. There's no absolute sense in which this follows. If a booming voice from the sky would say: "Your raison d'tre is to worship me", that would surely change things, wouldn't it? I agree, but, again, only insofar as it impacts your own inner feelings. Positive thinking can make you happy and negativity can make you sad, but either cannot change reality if you do not act upon it.I am sorry if I seem to be downplaying each and every brilliant thought of yours.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Back when he was still Major Semantics, you might have got away with calling him a "prong", but I would be careful around grumpy ol' General Semantics nowadays. It's that Buckminster quote you used that got my attention: "I seem to be a verb". The first thing that popped up in my mind was a paraphrase of it: "I seem to be an idea". I had been thinking about the nature of consciousness a lot lately and the subject of memes was never far away. Suddenly it clicked: consiousness is a huge complex of memes.But it's hardly an original thought, because it turns out that just those portions of Dennett that I hadn't read yet, state precisely that.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Para,I've not much time this morning so this is just a dashed off response.
I'm investigating the Eastern claim that there is something prior to and underlying our consciousness. I'll use a translation of a Tibetan term and refer to it as primordial consciousness. This primordial consciousness is in effect obscured by the contents of consciousness, our ideas, memes etc. In Zen Buddhism this is also called "your original face before your father and mother were born."more later,
lfen