Posted inReality Religions

For me, “getting real” means getting rid of religion

What are you doing when you feel the most real? What makes you exclaim, "Wow, that was real!" What circumstances lead you to feel, If I were to die now, I'd die content? Obviously only you can answer those questions. All I want to do is raise them,  because I think they're well worth pondering. If life isn't filled with really real moments, are we truly living? For me, reality seems most vibrant, clear, energetic, and alluring when I'm engaged in a physical activity that has an edgy aspect to it. "Edgy" is a term that's hard to pin down.…
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Posted inReality Science

Mathematics is both invented and discovered

I'm fascinated by the question of whether the laws of nature are "out there" in an objective external world, or "in here" within the subjective confines of the human brain. A recent post on my other blog about male/female conversation styles mentions how I'd talk about this topic with another philosophically-minded man. When men talk, most of the time they aren't trying to either reveal, or gain access to, inner feelings. My wife and I used to get another with another couple. The other guy and I would converse in one corner of our living room, while the wives huddled…
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Posted inReality Taoism/Tai Chi

Independence is impossible

So here we are in the United States, celebrating Independence Day this July 4, and my philosophical mind is thinking independence is impossible. And who would want it, anyway? But lest my fellow citizens accuse me of wishing that the colonies had never broken away from Britain (ugh! what a horrible idea; I'd have to watch boring soccer rather than exciting football), I'm talking about a much more cosmic level of reality than political. Religions are big on independence, though the concept almost always is expressed using different terms, such as salvation and liberation. Whether Eastern or Western, dualistic sorts…
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Posted inReality

Objective reality isn’t for us to unravel

I only want to devote a half hour or so to writing a blog post tonight, so I'll tackle a simple subject: what is reality? I'm not being facetious. It actually is easier to talk about the Big Questions of life rather than the small ones. I feel like I've got a pretty good understanding of the basic elements of reality. But how my computer's operating system works behind the scenes... that's a huge mystery to me. What are those elements? Subjectivity and objectivity. Meaning, basically: my subjective experience is mine alone. As is yours. As is our dog's. Nobody…
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Posted inReality Science

We are to the brain as the cosmos is to us

What's our biggest problem in life? Us. Ourselves. If there wasn't any me, I wouldn't be dissatisfied, unhappy, or feeling that a situation should be different from how it is. Of course, I also wouldn't exist. For most people, not being anything isn't an attractive solution to the irritating somethings that are part and parcel of our daily existence. But perhaps there is an in between, a middle ground which comfortably avoids the extremes of too little me (personal non-existence) and too much me (ego-encapsulated anxiety). This is the promise of many forms of spirituality, philosophy, psychotherapy, mysticism, meditation, religion,…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Yes, us churchless folks are searching for truth

Ooh, I love good questions. Here's four. Nice! Marina offered them up in a comment to a recent blog post. Is there anyone here on this blog who is looking to realise the truth or are we more interested in realising how right we are, how wrong others are?Are we into defending our beliefs and condemning others for theirs?Are we more interested in getting 'facts' about others then finding out 'facts' about ourselves?Are we so much enjoying the 'dramas' that we don't care about the truth, the real truth about ourselves and realising that?Just wondering........ I found these thoughts fascinating,…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

The profundity — or not — of “it is what it is”

An Urban Dictionary entry for it is what it is shows that this phrase is deeply irritating to some people. A trite, overused and infuriatingly meaningless cliche that is utilized by provincials who think they are adding some deep, meaningful insight during a discussion when all they are offering is senseless, unwarranted repetitiveness to what would otherwise be a far better conversation had they not shown the shallowness of the gene pool they spawned from by using this asininely useless and redundant phrase to begin with. An interesting conversation is being had, when quite suddenly: Robin: My house burned down…
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Posted inReality Science

If we’re an alien computer simulation, could we ever know this?

Religions turn me off. Science turns me on. And in the science books I read, the notion that we could be living as artificial intelligences within a computer simulation keeps popping up. I'm fascinated by this possibility (see previous blog posts here and here). I've finished physicist Brian Greene's new book, "The Hidden Reality." He talks about simulated universes in a Universes, Computers, and Mathematical Reality chapter. My interest here is in those who would be drawn by the purity of electrical impulses to program simulated environments populated by simulated beings that would exist within a computer's hardware; instead of…
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Posted inReality Science

Know when reality should look fuzzy or sharp

People are strange, and I certainly include moi in this overarching statement. Here's one of the weird things that we do: Trying our best to make inherently fuzzy aspects of reality all crisp, clear, and coherent, while blurring up inherently sharp facts about the way things are. Now, I realize that what I've just said is open to challenge. And I'll agree that "What's up with this inherently business?" is an entirely appropriate question. Am I justified in viewing reality in such a black and white (or rather, fuzzy and sharp) manner? Sure, I answer. It seems obvious that we…
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Posted inMystics Reality Science

Physicists are becoming mystics (sort of)

Unseen dimensions of reality. Trillion year cycles of cosmic birth and rebirth. Laws of nature utterly unlike ours. Mysterious connections between the physical universe and other realms. These sound like the airy-fairy notions of mystics who have been smoking something stronger than tobacco in their hookas. But they're all serious hypotheses of modern physics. Their cosmological implications are described by noted physicist Brian Greene, author of "The Hidden Reality," in a Hovering Universes in Nearby Dimensions chapter I read this morning before meditating. Inspirational stuff for my churchless non-soul. Having written (plug alert!) a book about mysticism and the new…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Reality Universe

If the universe is infinite, we’re immortal (sort of)

Wow, I got some great news after reading only two chapters in physicist Brian Greene's new book, "The Hidden Reality." I'm immortal! Only catch is, the "me" who exists forever isn't really the same me who is typing out these words. Though maybe it is. Just depends on how I look upon myself: (1) as a being with a unique essence peculiar to myself (I don't mean a smell, but a non-physical identity), or (2) as a configuration of atoms which could be almost exactly duplicated in another corner of the cosmos. I've read Greene's previous books, enjoying them, but…
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Posted inReality

Does “Being” exist?

I suspect that churchless skeptics who are drawn to question traditional belief systems also enjoy the feeling of an elevator suddenly descending, when it seems like the floor has fallen away from under your feet. At least, this is a sensation I frequently have now that I've stopped being a True Believer. It isn't disconcerting, because after an initial jolt of finding that one more unquestioned assumption needs to be closely examined, it feels good to have discarded an additional piece of conceptual junk which doesn't deserve the prominent positioning it used to have in my Philosophical Display Case. For…
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Posted inBooks Reality Spiritual practice/meditation

A religious or spiritual path is a metaphor — not reality

Metaphors are fun to play around with. Over on my other blog, I recently called the Oregon city where I live "a blandburger sandwiched between spicy Portland and Eugene." But Salem isn't really food. It's what it is: people, places, buildings, roads, parks, culture (and the lack thereof), plus so much else immediately cognizable stuff. Metaphors are a big step removed from the sort of reality that doesn't depend upon mentally connecting this, such as Salem, with that, such as the innards of a sandwich. I'm plugging away on reading a big thick book, "Philosophy in the Flesh," that I've…
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Posted inReality Science

Reality isn’t what we imagine, or remember

Most forms of religion, mysticism, spirituality, and philosophizing have a big drawback: they're wildly out of touch with reality. Of course, for those who don't care about living a truthful life, imagining an illusory world where Jesus saves, a guru enlightens, karma bites you in the butt during your next incarnation, or whatever, can be appealing -- since a believer can substitute warm and fuzzy concepts for whatever hard realities he or she wishes to deny. Those of us who are committed to experiencing life as honestly as possible have our own sources of solace, though. Since I'm a long-time…
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Posted inReality

Reality is what works for us

What is real? This is one of the toughest questions. Ordinarily we don't pay much attention to it. We just go on with our lives. But sometimes it's necessary to ponder whether something is really there -- a human-like shadowy shape moving in the woods as we take an evening walk, say (if a serial killer is on the loose, we'll be seriously motivated to ponder that question). Philosophers are interested in this issue for other less concrete reasons. They wonder about topics such as "Realism and Truth," the title of a chapter in Philosophy in the Flesh, a thick…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Get real: give up religious and mystical concepts

Religious believers who make a pilgrimage to this blog often amuse me. They'll say, "Brian, you live in your head; you need to give up your concepts about reality and embrace God's truth." Ha ha ha. What a joke. These guys and gals are deluded. They've got things completely backward. I just rode my Burgman 650 maxi-scooter to a coffeehouse in downtown Salem. It's 45 degrees here in Oregon. I was cold, but comfortably not freezing, thanks to warm gloves/gear and a large cozy windscreen. I didn't think about anything supernatural once on my 25 minute drive. Here and now…
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Posted inReality

Live like this is your last moment (because it is)

Most of my life I've been searching for What Life is All About. A poem I wrote when I was thirteen is my earliest recorded pondering about the cosmos, but I'm sure my pre-teen mind also was looking for answer's to life's big questions. Having come to an age when my first Social Security payment is due to be deposited in our checking account this month, I can report that some fifty years of philosophical, religious, mystical, scientific, and spiritual inquiring has led me to a simple three word conclusion: This is it. You're free to disagree. I can understand…
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Posted inReality Science

Unconscious zombies and conscious thermostats

Comments on my previous post about David Chalmers' consciousness theories got me doing more pondering about zombies -- the philosophical variety. Personally, I resonate with Chalmers' notion that it is logically possible to conceive of beings who are identical to us down to the most minute subatomic particle, and behave exactly like us in even the most subtle fashion. The only difference betweeen zombie and human would be this: humans experience what it is like to be what we are; zombies don't. Admittedly this is a strange notion to wrap our minds around. For each of us, our entire life…
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Posted inReality Science

David Chalmer’s view of consciousness: naturalistic dualism

Consciousness. It's what we are and know, since reality doesn't exist for us if we can't experience it. Yet it's also the most mysterious thing in the cosmos. So mysterious, it can't really be called a "thing." Consciousness is utterly subjective. But without consciousness we wouldn't be aware of objective reality. So go figure... David Chalmers has done a lot of figuring on this subject. He's an Australian philosopher who specializes in the philosophy of mind/consciousness. I've had his book, "The Conscious Mind," sitting unread on my bookshelf for over a decade. A few days ago I picked it up,…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Enlightenment made simple: it’s reality

Back in my true-believing religious days I looked upon enlightenment as something special, difficult to achieve, and rare. Now, I see it pretty much opposite: not unique, easy to attain, and commonplace. When you read descriptions of enlightenment in the world's spiritual, mystical, and philosophical literature -- and I've read lots of them -- some commonalities start to become apparent beneath all of the bewildering idiosyncratic descriptions. The basic one is this: loss or lessening of self-hood, egotism, sense of separateness. Supposedly enlightened people, such as the Buddha, talk about how "I-ness" isn't truly real. We humans aren't ego-encapsulated entities…
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