lol I'm a Dr.Math. .... -.-

It is the case as far as you are concerned.

My or your reality is not everyones reality either. You and/or I may have the majority with us, but that doesn't mean a whole lot in my view.

What is life when when you go back to basics? Strip away 'progress' and you are left with inhabitants on a planet. How those who dwell begin to explain their own existance, begins the myths we start to live by. Math is man-made. Science is our form of understanding which is merely a replacement of a generally accepted older form of religion which no longer applies to todays perception. It does not necessarily explain anything beyond what we choose to perceive our surroundings of being.

Hypothesis: if I use the knife that is sitting on my desk to stab myself in the hand (with the pointy end) in 10 seconds time without modifying any part of myself or the knife, it will not hurt.
*stab*
Result: It hurts.
Conclusion: Hypothesis has been disproved.

I'm a little confused - this sounds like you have a rather nihilistic outlook on life. However, you also seem to be saying that the universe holds some kind of greater meaning that you have come to understand through expanding your mind. How do you reconcile these two viewpoints?

Then you've probably had a bit more math training than I (in some areas, at least), and less science. The point is I am very familiar with the 'a theory cannot be proven only disproven' construct.

How do you know whether it hurt? How can you *prove* it hurt? Perhaps you were hallunicating. Perhaps later you will discover that someone hypnotized you such that you would be convinced it hurt when it did not. What don't you know? And what don't you know about what you don't know?

I don't need to prove it, it's my own personal experience.

my areas of expertise are economics and calculus of probability (belongs together) as a economy scientist.

Incorrect. In disproving something we do not prove it untrue, we only show the hypothesis as invalid or the truth is not yet attained.

And I don't remember saying how logical I am, just that logic and reason are two things I strive for.

Causality does not exist? I beg to differ. Did these words not appear on this forum as a direct effect of my typing them? I caused them to be here.

My peer-reviewed journals? What? When did I claim them?

And at the "quantum level", we are only yet fit to deal with electron clouds, as the movement of individual electrons is still not fully understood. They likely do not "disappear" and "reappear" but rather move faster than our capabilites can process. That's why we have theories, not laws governing this.

Where did this come from anyway?

As I stated before, causality clearly exists, and to deny it is utterly ridiculous. Do something for me, press the power button on your monitor and see if it turns off. Now, what caused that? Was it your finger pushing the button, or the illusion of your finger? If your finger is an illusion, than you are not a material being, and if this is the case, how did you manage to invade the internet?

Your arguments are not based on anything but abstract thought, and as a result do not hold water (real water that is, not imaginary water, of which I'm sure they hold plenty). To debate in circles like this is inane and juvenile, as in the end, if I just claim "you'll never understand" or "you have not experienced it so how could you know?" I do nothing for my cause. If you are in complete denial of causality, so be it, but to claim that it does not exist to people who can CLEARLY SEE THAT IT DOES (as every action has a reaction - from tying a shoelace to typing words to eating) is preposterous.

I don't believe only what I see and hear, but also what I smell, taste and touch. I do not believe in ghosts, angels, God, or any other presence whose form cannot take that of a physical object, be it an atom or larger. A "soul" I can fathom as the entirety of a person's consciousness but does this make it anything more than a series of electrochemical reactions? No, it does not. Conscience is one of those funny things that we can't put in a box, as it is so dynamic. We can, however, find it in a skull.

No, I ignored that because it's insipid. I know when my car's going to break down because it starts sputtering smoke from under the hood. It did not communicate that to me, failing engine parts did. If the car told me "Brian, I'm going to break down", that would be one thing. If it then asked me "how's your day going?", it would be another. If it then said "stop smoking the Sherm", I figure that's the time I'd actually be talking to a car, and would likely have myself admitted to care.

Quoting Carl Jung? Seriously? I guess since everything Freud did has been scrutinized to death we should start focussing on his star pupils. Jung was out there, or maybe "in there", either way, I'm not taking anything he says with less than a pound of salt.

The truth does not need anything, I agree. Perhaps I should have phrased it, "we just need to (or have not yet) discovered it. Semantics.

This would be a much easier debate in person, because a simple slap or pinch would answer the question of whose reality is real. You would instantly know how real my reality is.

It's funny, but I'm reminded now of the potentiality/actuality debates between Aristotle and his students. Aristotle said potentiality is actuality not yet actualized, and I agree with this. If any of your claims are true, they will be actualized; but until they are, they are simply potential, and therefore, there is no proof.

That's an excellent question. It shows you are truly 'getting' it, because you are beginning to feel it.

When people first encounter the 'reality' that everything in their lives, including their identity, is an impermanent illusion, they find the thought depressing. I myself did. As the illusion becomes apparent (and it does), and as you begin to perceive that QM is right, and that all possibilities already exist, and you are merely choosing which to hold as real and experience, it can deepen this feeling of loss.

After a period of adjustment, a mourning, you begin to realize that this loss is really a gain. So, everything is an illusion - appearance. Well, if you find yourself living in an illusion, what kind of illusion do you want to live in? Do you want to live in the illusion of pain, or joy? Do you want to live in the illusion of a beautiful earth, with loving people, or the illusion of a destroyed earth, with hateful people?

It is up to you what you call forth for yourself. You are the master carpenter of your experience. This is very liberating. You begin to modify the illusions, because your understanding that it is illusion gives you insight into how the illusions are created. We are all magicians who have forgotten how we created the trick we're experiencing. As you begin to remember that, you are able to control it consciously. Consciously using the tools of creation is mastery. Jesus is the most famous example of such a person, but there are many people, past and present, who have reached an equally high level of mastery.

Also, knowing (truly and deeply) that life is an illusion makes it more enjoyable. The only reason people perceive things as sorrowful and painful is because they believe it is real. The belief in absolute reality is what creates suffering. As you release this belief and perceive the larger picture, you realize there is no need to create suffering (a mental condition). You may still experience pain, but you won't need to make suffering out of that.

When you watch a movie, you laugh and cry, but you rarely truly suffer, because you know it is an illusion. You enjoy it as such, for what it is, as well as what it appears to be.

There are other benefits. You realize that you live many lives, in many parallels. It is hard to create a new manifestation out of thin air. But if you become aware that it already exists in a 'parallel universe', it is much easier to simply shift to that parallel, and add onto what already exists. This is much easier than creating aspects of your life out of thin air.

You also realize that you don't have to worry about time. You'll get as many chances as you need, because you realize that your existence really is eternal. Not only can you live many lives (which are all happening NOW - the only "time" there is), but you may live one life more than once. (You can go through the same time tunnel called a "life" repeatedly, experiencing it again, with whatever variations you choose. This is what causes the experience of "deja vu" - you are remembering a larger reality of which you are a part. You really were there before.)

And that is just the beginning of the wonders. Beyond the initial depression and feeling of loss, there is a whole big universe out there, and you begin to explore it in ways you never dreamed possible. The common human condition, in which life is believed to be "real", and which you think gives you promise, is actually filled with artificial limitations and constraints, as well as suffering due to the false belief it is "real". Waking up to a larger truth is in fact extremely liberating.

That sounds like you think of suffocation as something bad rather than an experience. I simply don't believe there is only this one truth, everyone is the centre of his own level of reality and of his own universe.
Like in the teachings of Buddha is explained that there is not only one single enlightenment but rather everyone has to find his own, his personal truth.

I don't think you have the right to value things.

You do need to prove it if you are to disprove your hypothesis. The disproof requires the proof.

Even to yourself, how do you prove it? Maybe you remember it hurting, but maybe this is an artificial memory planted by a hypnotist. How can you know?

You can't. And that is the point. Disproving a hypothesis requires proving something (in this case that it hurt). You can't prove it.

You may convince yourself of it, or prove it to yourself as a working conclusion. But that is subject to change as you learn more.

You claim we can't know things, how do you know this? It's an inherent contradiction.

If we can know nothing, how can we possibly "learn more", as you suggest?

I should have inserted sarcasm tags around the post you were responding to.

As far as the "world is an illusion" thing goes, okay, I agree that everyone's world is different. We all have different perceptions of the same events and different experiences. But saying that the entire world is an illusion that you can modify? That's just ridiculous. Why do you care so much about eating animals if you can just imagine up another one? They're not really there anyway.

I'm glad you can distinguish between a movie and reality. Sure, shit happens in a movie, someone gets kills, molested, cheated on, etc. Sometimes it makes me laugh, sometimes it makes me cry. Sometimes it keeps me up all night with crazy imagery flashing in my mind, but I know that these things are different from the real world. Can you truly say that the real world is just another movie? Do you honestly not really suffer when you see pain? If you get in a fight with your significant other, do you grab a bag of chips and wait for the "good part"?

You still didn't answer my question of how the universe can be an illusion while at the same time having some greater meaning that only those with super mind-expanding higher thought capacities can understand.

I've had all the calc Carnegie Mellon had to offer. I have a degree in computer and electrical engineering from there, so I had a lot of voodoo math (the kind engineers use to work in the frequency domain, etc), probability and statistics, as well as a lot of physics, EM wave theory, QM (as it applies to substrates and such in semiconductor design), chemistry, etc. From there I've studied a lot on my own - into relativity theory and QM.

Please, you're giving me painful flashbacks! EM waves I and II (and III?)... *shudder* That was a HARD class, and the professor was one of the brightest people I've known. He thought I understood what was going on because I would nod at him when he needed reassurance, whereas everyone else had that glassed-over look. I would also watch his algebra when I couldn't follow the physics, then find theory errors at the end based on his algebra errors. So he thought I really knew what was going on... until the exams.

Frequency domain is voodoo?

You believe you prove the hypothesis untrue. Put it this way, you can't disprove something unless you think you absolutely know something else.

They do indeed APPEAR to be there. I am not saying that causality cannot be experienced. I am saying that causality does not exist. You are merely experiencing an illusion of causality.

Consider a cartoon. A brick is thrown through a window. The window breaks. Did the window break beCAUSE the brick went through it? No, it is merely a series of images (which appear and disappear to create an illusion of movement). I APPEARS that the brick broke the window. REALLY, the images are just drawn. The artist could just as easily make the window not break as the brick went through it. Witnesses to this event would have called it a miracle.

You did not. It was a reference to another comment in this thread. "Your" was collective.

Movement in generally is not fully understood in QM theory, but experiments have indicated that particles appear and reappear. This in fact is the case (which I know through other perceptive means.)

You and others will in fact discover they do not move at all, they do appear and reappear. Mark my words.

See the cartoon analogy above.

Causality is experienced. That doesn't mean it exists.

Ridicule is your substantiation?

The illusion operates in "normal" ways, until it does not. It all depends on perspective. Perspective creates perception (experience). For others, the illusion operates in ways that defy causality. I realize this is something which conventional science rejects, but it does so through ignoring any evidence which it cannot explain, which is not true science.

I am not arguing. I am explaining.

I am not debating, and I agree it would be meaningless to debate.

I assume you mean consciousness. Consciousness is not located just in the skull. Your consciousness does not end at the physical boundaries of your body, but extends out into the universe infinitely. There is no place where you consciousness ends and another begins. It is all one consciousness. There are merely places where it assumes identity (ego), giving the illusion of separation.

I did not say you communicated with your car. I said many people do, that it is a common experience. You have quite a narrow filter through which you create your reality. It is very limited. (That is not a bad thing or a put-down, merely a relative observation.)

You would do well to think and talk less, and listen more. Not just to people, but to life itself. As you grow older and activity slows down, you will do so. Then you will understand more of what we are discussing. Until then, you are like a teenager - you know it all.

Not just semantics. You were communicating that the universe needed something - that apartment building included. So obviously you do see a conscious universe. Your only mistake was your belief that it needed your understanding. It does not. But it welcomes it.

Also, life is not a process of discovery. It is a process of creation.

If you believe that, then you have a poor perception of how varied experience and perceptions of reality are, even with physical contact.

That is correct, and is what I have been saying - there is no proof. Until you actualize, all of this is merely conjecture to you. As you expand your awareness, you will see why I am saying what I am saying. For now, you are merely holding it as potential (if that).

Just what it is commonly called (or was) - voodoo math. Unreal domains and a lot of math that is very far from common use, but is useful for various purposes, frequency analysis being one of them.

That a good observation - the similarities between science and religion. They operate very similarly and in tandem. Scientists are horrified at this prospect, yet they behave very much like the priests of religion. Also, beliefs inform much more of science than science fans are willing to admit.

Also, both deny inner experience in favor of outside authority.

To be complete, science will need to move into the domain of religion and mysticism (as QM is already doing), and religion will need to move into the domain of science (as new-age spirituality and metaphysics is doing).

On both sides, religion and science, we have the people of the old school who will stick to their dogmas and resist this change with great presumed authority. (Very evident in this discussion alone.)

Read above my discussion of a continuum of knowledge - hope-belief-know.

You can't absolutely know anything. You can form working conclusions.

Ultimately, we create our experienced reality, so all you really know is what you have created, if that. Many don't even know that, but have illusions about their illusory creation.

People ask the universe "how does this work???" The universe responds, "how would you like it to work???"