Riz Virk, The Simulation Hypothesis Beyond Materialism |442|

That's very much like asking how we can have any thought, right here, right now, which isn't driven by the immediate demands of our body. Or similarly, how can we meditate and lose awareness of our body and environment. Does our consciousness cease to exist in these cases?
Personally never lost awareness of my body meditating, if I'm not mistaken didn't researchers find where thought is influenced in the brain? I do remember the research being weak. But that makes me curious about being a child before you have thoughts forced in to your head by images, parents, TV music. You're essentially conscious but your memory is almost non existent and you act not from memory but what exactly? Instinct?
 
The term 'meditation' includes many different types. I first began with some general advice from a book, many decades ago now, and was more or less self-taught, feeling my way by trial and error. My goal at that time was to find some relief from inner pain. The surface levels may include worries and anxieties, these can be distressing. However I had a pain which didn't seem physical, nor did it have any particular anxiety associated with it. I found meditation could ease, to some extent, these things, and an extension of the same technique led to a lack of awareness of the body and was a starting-point for exploring out-of-body experiences.

Finding time in a busy life to set aside for this process may be difficult, other things seem to demand priority - such as earning a living and getting the bills paid. Nevertheless, I consider there are benefits with no downside to this type of meditation.
 
The term 'meditation' includes many different types. I first began with some general advice from a book, many decades ago now, and was more or less self-taught, feeling my way by trial and error. My goal at that time was to find some relief from inner pain. The surface levels may include worries and anxieties, these can be distressing. However I had a pain which didn't seem physical, nor did it have any particular anxiety associated with it. I found meditation could ease, to some extent, these things, and an extension of the same technique led to a lack of awareness of the body and was a starting-point for exploring out-of-body experiences.

Finding time in a busy life to set aside for this process may be difficult, other things seem to demand priority - such as earning a living and getting the bills paid. Nevertheless, I consider there are benefits with no downside to this type of meditation.
It definitely helped take the edge off and I was doing it sporadically, some "masters" say meditation is culmination. Haven't had an obe yet and not planning to, it's helps for relaxation
 
But based on NDEs and some good channeled/medium info, it seems that we may be virtually the same identify and roughly of the same consciousness after death with some basic alterations.
I am curious as to where you go for the channeled information - Seth?

David
 
would love to get this guy on skeptiko. if you'd like to reach out with them I'll handle the details. I don't think this nonsense with withstand even a gentle push back... same old atheistic Echo chamber
Those were random articles I read, I'll email the author, I'm really curious about atheistic spiritual philosophies, I personally think they could provide a key perspective. I'll get on it tonight, going to meet up with a yoga group and enjoy our company will get back to you
 
Buddhism emphasises perception over speculation. It doesn't care much about things that we don't know about. It is only concerned with getting rid of suffering in this life, in this world and is wholly uninterested in empty curiosity about metaphysical aspects like creation of the universe and transmigration of the soul. It believes that everything is transient and ever-changing (kshanika vada). The ultimate goal is to seek release (nirvana) from suffering.

TThis is where I'm at right now and makes the most sense to me
 
would love to get this guy on skeptiko. if you'd like to reach out with them I'll handle the details. I don't think this nonsense with withstand even a gentle push back... same old atheistic Echo chamber
Rich guy from the first or 2nd article?
 
Interesting the laykota philosophy from India sounds and parallels the "satanic" philosophy is the states by the way its described
 
Those were random articles I read, I'll email the author, I'm really curious about atheistic spiritual philosophies, I personally think they could provide a key perspective. I'll get on it tonight, going to meet up with a yoga group and enjoy our company will get back to you

If you define atheist as "does not believe in a 'third party god thingie'" I would say, count me in... with a caveat. There is known the ability for an individual to create a relationship with that which is sometimes referred to as "one's personal God" but I would never call that "God." I understand how those who see (as I do) that (likely) consciousness is fundamental like to call that "God" and it seems reasonable to allow people that metaphor. What I reject is "consciousness" acting as a third party. What I embrace is what Hoffman calls 'conscious agency' which, of course, acts... and those actions can impact other conscious agents. I can see within all possibility a conscious agent arising that appears to other conscious agents as so vastly superior, they may wish to decide that is "God." I don't, I won't.

So am I an atheist? Consciousness is fundamental and I am "that" consciousness (as you are, as all conscious agents are), I am "a conscious agent" and I am that conscious agent that is experiencing this life. That's how I view it... a triality of identity where the first encompasses all and where the first can't know that.
 
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I get ya. Though I’m not sure how much that our experience is actually mediated through the brain and nervous system. Clearly there’s some sort
of important relationship between our consciousness and our nervous system. But based on NDEs and some good channeled/medium info, it seems that we may be virtually the same identify and roughly of the same consciousness after death with some basic alterations.

But I think ultimately we are talking about word definitions and subjective understandings of definitions and meanings about words like “simulation” all while probably holding the same rough idea in our heads. I think the differences, as often happens in conversation, might be more related to differences in word interpretation rather than differences in reality interpretation.

Sure, I get Rez's point. He is saying that 'reality' is like a computer generated 'world' - and that's a good thing to argue. I agree with it. But the point I am making by being somewhat pedantic is that he doesn't go far enough - and so does not really close the analogical loop. He doesn't finally say "simulation" is the same is "creation" and that "artificial intelligence" is the same as "intelligence". He infers this by his imagery - and that is good in terms of shifting the mindsets of the materialistic tech-heads.

However that language is not useful if others want to make a usefully breakthrough in terms of personal understanding. We do live in a reality created by an intelligence that has no spatial or temporal ground.
 
Well the trouble with that, is that lots of people don't believe in Idealism because they see no obvious evidence. Heck, none of us should believe it 100%, otherwise we aren't sceptics! Finding a new angle to search for evidence really it important.

David

As a crude animist I haven't bothered learning what Idealism is. There's a lot of terminology that isn't useful if you don't need it. I don't think you believe anything you can't stub your toe on. You gotta believe in rocks because failing to do is painful.

However I prefer the notion of finding a working hypothesis that you treat as if it is true - while not believing it is. When it ceases to deliver return on investment you can chuck it.

Most of us are not sceptics in any case. We use the tag of course. but not much beyond that.
 
As a crude animist I haven't bothered learning what Idealism is. There's a lot of terminology that isn't useful if you don't need it. I don't think you believe anything you can't stub your toe on. You gotta believe in rocks because failing to do is painful.

However I prefer the notion of finding a working hypothesis that you treat as if it is true - while not believing it is. When it ceases to deliver return on investment you can chuck it.

Most of us are not sceptics in any case. We use the tag of course. but not much beyond that.
Well I think most of us are sceptics in its real sense - we value actual evidence of phenomena. The word has , of course, been abused.

Idealism is the idea that ultimately there is no reality except consciousness. That consciousness may include some very specialised types, such as that which controls how matter appears to us, but ultimately matter as such is an illusion.

I think my working hypothesis - if you like - is that Riz's computer games obviously simulate a nonexistent reality, but the fact that they work so well, suggests that our reality may be created somehow. It doesn't make sense to imagine another supercomputer creating it all, because then you need conscious aliens to make the computers, and their conscious experience needs explaining, and so on ad infinitum. However, it makes more sense if you replace the supercomputer with one or more conscious entities that do not themselves need material support to exist.

David
 
Idealism is the idea that ultimately there is no reality except consciousness. That consciousness may include some very specialised types, such as that which controls how matter appears to us, but ultimately matter as such is an illusion.

Matter isn't an illusion at all. Our notion that it constitutes reality is. Matter is an aspect of reality - just not foundational or absolute.
 
Idealism is the idea that ultimately there is no reality except consciousness. That consciousness may include some very specialised types, such as that which controls how matter appears to us, but ultimately matter as such is an illusion.

Matter isn't an illusion at all. Our notion that it constitutes reality is. Matter is an aspect of reality - just not foundational or absolute.
The idealist would say that the experience of matter is real. But that this matter doesn’t exist in a tangible way outside of conscious experience. Which is to say that if all consciousness disappeared, there would be no material world left. Consciousness creates and sustains experiences. But none of this experience is external to itself, nor does it exist within its own right. But that doesn’t make the material world the same as an illusion. It just means that we misunderstand it’s nature.
 
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I am curious as to where you go for the channeled information - Seth?

David

I like Anthony Borgias stuff, Seth is brilliant, Swedenborg etc. There’s a good multi source book I’ll link below. There was a ton of good channeled stuff that came out of the spiritualist movement of the 1800s. I do place some value on channeled stuff but I’m also cautious. While I have no doubt that certain people have mediumistic and channeling capabilities, I’m pretty convinced that it’s an imprecise science/practice, and nothing like to somebody on a telephone. But that some are far better at it than others.

My reading with a highly lauded psychic in the community circle convinced me (even though I already believed) that people have psychic abilities. What happened though (and maybe I’ll make a thread about it) was that she conflated information from living friends to that of dead friends. So that brought up another potential problem in my head. It might be hard for some mediums to separate psychic information taken from the sitters head with that taken from the departed. I tried doing this personal study in a careful way and hid my identify until immediately before the reading.

But I’m going off track a hair. Lots of this channeled information doesn’t involve a sitter (a person being read for) but rather is just a channeler channeling a conscious entity/persona who is not of this universe. But I still think there’s potential problems obviously. None the less, when the material is strikingly brilliant and consistent with other things learned in “spiritual” and “consciousness” studies, it’s hard me to ignore.


https://www.amazon.com/Afterlife-Mo...7dfbfceac8d80de587f466660ddbab&language=en_US
 
I like Anthony Borgias stuff, Seth is brilliant, Swedenborg etc. There’s a good multi source book I’ll link below. There was a ton of good channeled stuff that came out of the spiritualist movement of the 1800s. I do place some value on channeled stuff but I’m also cautious. While I have no doubt that certain people have mediumistic and channeling capabilities, I’m pretty convinced that it’s an imprecise science/practice, and nothing like to somebody on a telephone. But that some are far better at it than others.

My reading with a highly lauded psychic in the community circle convinced me (even though I already believed) that people have psychic abilities. What happened though (and maybe I’ll make a thread about it) was that she conflated information from living friends to that of dead friends. So that brought up another potential problem in my head. It might be hard for some mediums to separate psychic information taken from the sitters head with that taken from the departed. I tried doing this personal study in a careful way and hid my identify until immediately before the reading.

But I’m going off track a hair. Lots of this channeled information doesn’t involve a sitter (a person being read for) but rather is just a channeler channeling a conscious entity/persona who is not of this universe. But I still think there’s potential problems obviously. None the less, when the material is strikingly brilliant and consistent with other things learned in “spiritual” and “consciousness” studies, it’s hard me to ignore.


https://www.amazon.com/Afterlife-Mo...7dfbfceac8d80de587f466660ddbab&language=en_US

Hey Wormwood

Good to come across another fam of channelled material. I like Frank DeMarco [Rita's World and Awakening from the 3D World etc] as a modern and Stewart Edward White [The Betty Book and The Unobstructed Universe] from the 1930s and 1940s.

Other than Jane Robert's Seth books do you have any other favourites?
 
Hey Wormwood

Good to come across another fam of channelled material. I like Frank DeMarco [Rita's World and Awakening from the 3D World etc] as a modern and Stewart Edward White [The Betty Book and The Unobstructed Universe] from the 1930s and 1940s.

Other than Jane Robert's Seth books do you have any other favourites?

Im listening to “The Law of One” currently on Audio. “Channeling Ra.” Have you ever read it? It’s strikingly brilliant, like the Seth material. Supposedly, Ra is a “social memory complex” of a far off advanced alien species. A collective thoughtform if you will. Whatever it is, it’s very smart. I actually recently had a friend recommend the Frank Demarco book to me. I’m planning on getting to it sooner than later. I’ve also just discovered Swedenborg, which I’m really liking. It’s interesting how he (like most men of the time) where Christian, but he also (generally) describes the afterlife as a physical place/experience.
 
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