Reality

I don't need concepts like "religion," "spirituality," and "mysticism" to feel a sense of awe. All I need to do is contemplate the ultimate mystery these words point to.Existence. The fact that the cosmos is. And I am. As I've noted before, the primal mystery of existence is the black hole of all knowledge, experience, understanding, and whatever. It makes notions like enlightenment, theory of everything, self-realization, ultimate reality, perfect truth, and the like go zap! -- sucked into a cosmic void of not-knowing that erases false claims of knowing-it-all.How could it be possible to fathom the "it" of existence? Where is…

Thanks to Pharyngula, I got turned on to a "Science is Real" video by They Might be Giants. l love it when cartoonish characters make so much sense -- more than a lot of real people. "What's real?" is a terrific question. There's no end to possible answers. It seems to me, though, that some things almost certainly are really real about reality.For us human beings -- every species is different in this regard -- there's a shared reality. If there wasn't you woudn't be able to read these words that I've written, and I wouldn't be sitting in a…

Back in my true believing days, I figured that I knew both the questions to ask and what the answers were. For example:Q. How does one return to God?A. Get initiated by a perfect living guru, and follow his teachings about meditation and other matters.A Christian, on the other hand, would think along these lines:Q. How is one saved from sin?A. By accepting Jesus as his or her personal savior. Of course, the questions presume quite a bit. In my case, that there is a God. And it is possible (plus desirable) to return to God. In the Christian case,…

Here's one big change that churchlessness has produced in me: I no longer believe that this world -- where all of us are living now -- somehow is less real than an unseen theoretical heaven or higher realm of the cosmos.In fact, it's hard for me to accept that I ever believed this, because it doesn't make any sense. What would make someone turn away from what is right in front of them and try to embrace something imaginary that has no demonstrable evidence of its existence? Short answer: religion.Or, some sort of mental illness. In either case, the nature-denier…

I've been enjoying a comment conversation that's been happening on my "Mind in the Balance" post. The basic theme is whether nondualism is just another belief system, like any other philosophy or religion, or a genuinely unique direct realization of reality.Might as well throw some of my own ideas into the discussion stew. First off, though, I've got to admit that while I understand the notion of "dualism" pretty well, "nondualism" has never lodged in a comprehension niche within my mind.Of course, nondualists like Ramana and Nisargadatta -- whose teachings I'm familiar with via a number of books I've read…

I love books that lead me to look upon something familiar in a fresh way. Like, life's meaning. I've spent a lot of time pondering the meaning of life. And, searching for it.Now that I've read about half of Eric Maisel's "The Atheist's Way" (highly recommended), I realize that my pondering is on the right track. The searching, not so much. In fact, Maisel has done a good job of convincing me that viewing the meaning of one's life as something to be discovered leads nowhere. Unless you want to adopt someone else's values, rather than your own.Before you can…

Wow, this blog is rocketing upward in philosophical sophistication. After putting up a post where I used the word "deconstruction" as many times as I could, now I've got "logocentrism" in a title.My inspiration, as before, is a wonderful philosophy comic book by Jim Powell, "Deconstruction for Beginners" (which I surely am).The basic notion of logocentrism, which is a bad, bad, bad thing to Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, is sort of hard to pin down -- which is to be expected from a philosophical approach that dismantles the foundation of meaning.Here's a pretty good brief description.1. Belief that…

Nobody is directly in touch with reality. Every human digs his or her own ego tunnel through the experiential world. This is one of the central messages of Thomas Metzinger's fascinating book, "The Ego Tunnel." A blend of philosophy and neuroscience, I finished reading it a few days ago. Liked the book a lot. Haven't been able to blog much about anything else since I started it.Being a big Stephen Colbert fan, understanding how the ego tunnel works puts a new spin on "truthiness." Things that a person claims to know intuitively or "from the gut" without regard to evidence,…

If you could be hooked up to an "Experience Machine" that keeps you in a state of permanent happiness (or take a drug with the same effect) would you do it?I came across this intriguing question in Thomas Metzinger's "The Ego Tunnel," a book that I've been blogging about recently. This thought experiment was suggested by Robert Nozick.Metzinger says:Interestingly, Nozick found that most people would not opt to spend the rest of their lives hooked up to such a machine. The reason is that most of us do not value bliss as such, but want it grounded in truth, virtue,…

Everybody has a different idea about what reality is really like. Religions, philosophies, mystical teachings, belief systems — the only thing universally agreed upon is that something is real.

Yet what if every experience of reality, including every conception of reality, leads us in a direction that isn't real?

Like many people, I have a fondness for "Holy fuck!!!" movies. (Example: The Sixth Sense)

I call them that because this is what I say when the ending is so shocking, so upside down from what has come before, so mind-blowing, that the cozy world of understanding that I've created inside my brain is blown to bits.

My bet — and naturally this is all it is, an intuitive hunch — is that if humans are capable of comprehending ultimate reality, the realization would turn out to be a lot more like a wild Holy fuck!!! than a calm As I suspected.

I termed this "something else entirely" in a "You're religious, but are you right?" post. Lots of belief systems assert that final truth is mysterious, ineffable, beyond words, incapable of being captured by human cognition.

Yet I don't get from them that disorienting, yet strangely exhilarating, feeling that a genuine something else entirely experience blasts into my psyche.

The following excerpt from Thomas Metzinger's "The Ego Tunnel" had that quality for me. Of course, I'm me and you're you. (Or so it seems…) So you might yawn at what elicits a Wow! from me.

This is good writing. And good philosophizing. Metzinger's eliminative phenomenalism seemingly is akin, if not identical, to other similar notions in Eastern and Western philosophies.

But the way he expressed himself here gave me a fresh Holy fuck!!! experience of the notion that pure consciousness is all there is.

Which means that Is could be what really is.

Read on.

Take a guess: was the following written by (A) a Zen master, or (B) a philosopher of neuroscience?In this book, I will try to convince you that there is no such thing as a self. Contrary to what most people believe, nobody has ever been or had a self.Here's the answer. Thomas Metzinger has a great title, "Director of the Theoretical Philosophy Group at the Department of Philosophy of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany." He's also head of a Neurophilosophy Section there.Not surprisingly, Metzinger is capable of writing some pretty involved stuff -- such as this summary of…

This is Skeptical Inquirer news from 2004, but it's still interesting: A former leader in the New Age culture - author of nine titles on auras, chakras, "energy," and so on - chronicles her difficult and painful transition to skepticism. She thanks the skeptical community and agonizes over how the messages of scientific and critical thinking could be made more effective in communicating with her former New Age colleagues.Karla McLaren, the convert to skepticism, rambles on a bit in her essay (a writing quality that I have considerable personal experience with myself), but ends on a clear and convincing note.One…

Reading a recent issue of New Scientist last night, I came across a brief mention of Bernard d'Espagnat winning this year's Templeton Prize for "arguing that quantum physics implies that reality must be partially unknowable, or 'veiled.'"Sounded intriguing. And right up my interest alley, since I've done a lot of reading and writing about how quantum physics relates to mysticism and spirituality.Here's a longer New Scientist piece about d'Espagnat's views (he's a physicist and philosopher of science). Excerpt:So what is it, really, that is veiled? At times d'Espagnat calls it a Being or Independent Reality or even "a great, hypercosmic…

I've been thinking about some of the changes that have happened in my life. Starting with marriage, since it's our anniversary today. (Laurel and I were smart to get married on St. Patrick's Day; when green beer starts to be mentioned, I'm reminded of what I shouldn't forget).After being married for eighteen years to one woman, now I've been married for nineteen years to a different woman. Good change.After getting a Master's Degree in Social Work, I realized that I wasn't cut out for counseling and worked on a Ph.D. in Systems Science. Good change.After buying a Ford Fairmont in…

I've pondered the nature of reality for about five decades. Specifics aren't becoming much clearer, but I feel like I'm making progress on three basic questions and general answers.(1) Is it possible to learn about the universe? Yes. (2) Is it possible to learn about the ultimate origin of the universe? No.(3) Is it possible to marvel at the mystery of the "Yes" and "No" above? Yes.The two affirmations in 1 and 3 lead me to embrace science and mysticism. The negative in 2 causes me to reject religion. Pretty damn simple. This makes so much sense to me, it's…

Here's a thoughtful, well-written essay that was emailed to me recently by W. Kelly Lundrigan. I'm pleased to post it, as I like Kelly's style. That said, I can't resist adding my own comments (in blue italics). I found myself agreeing with Kelly up to a point, then, not so much. Add your own ideas to our bloggish conversation if you like.----------------------------The wonderful thing about life to me, at this point when we know so much, is that we actually still know so little.  We are still, essentially, living a mystery.  At least as to the big questions such as…

While it might look like Taoists are big on black and white, this yin-yang symbol actually speaks otherwise.  Yes, there are dualities in the universe. Lots of them: male/female, positive/negative, wave/particle, good/bad ... and on and on and on.But it's those little circles that tell the most meaningful part of the story -- how there's yin within yang, and yang within yin. The farthest reach of black blends with the beginning of white, and vice versa.If we think in terms of this or that, we're not seeing reality rightly. The world appears in shades of gray to eyes attuned to…

Thanks to the always-interesting Pharyngula, this morning I spent an enjoyable ten minutes listening (and reading, because the poor audio requires a video'ized transcription) to Tim Minchin's marvelous "Storm."[Update: there's now a replacement "video" with clear audio and no transcription, which I've embedded below.]Here's the You Tube video description:Tim Minchin's stunning performance of his beat poem 'Storm' Eloquently and wittily honouring reason, science and life appreciation and debunking homeopathy, psychics, alternative medicine, religion etc. Live performance at the 9 carols for a Godless Christmas Show, 21st December 2008, Hammersmith Apollo. I related to Minchin's relating of his encounter with an…

I ponder death a lot. The notion of me not existing any more isn't appealing, to say the least. It isn't my body that I'm afraid of losing. It's my awareness, or consciousness. I'd be cool with living on as a disembodied soul, so long as I was aware of it.But ...being extinguished completely ...forever ...not a trace of consciousness left. Yikes! Some say that it isn't possible for us to contemplate death, not in a realistic fashion. We know what life is like because it's being experienced as we envision death. Yet non-existence obviously can't be imagined, since imagining…