Maybe "Is" is all there really is

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.

Excerpt from "The Ego Tunnel," by Thomas Metzinger (pp. 146-148)

Imagine that while in the dream tunnel, you suddenly become lucid and find yourself at a major interdisciplinary conference, where dream scientists and dream philosophers are discussing the future of consciousness:

While they're standing around during the coffee break, one of them claims that you do not really exist, because you're just a dream figure in your own lucid-dream tunnel, a mere possibility. Amused, you reply, "No, you are all figures in my dream -- just figments of my imagination."

This response is greeted with laughter, and you notice, too, that colleagues at other tables are grinning and turning their heads in your direction. "All of this is happening in my brain!" you insist. "I own the hardware, and you are all just simulated dream characters in a simulated environment, processed and created by my central nervous system. It would be easy for me..."

Here, more laughter interrupts you -- roars of laughter. A young PhD student arrogantly starts explaining the basic assumptions about the nature of reality shared by this particular scientific  community.

No such things as brains or physical objects ever existed. The contents of consciousness are all there is. So all phenomenal selves are equal. There is no such thing as an individual "tunnel" in which one self-model represents the true subject of experience and all other person-models are just dream figures.

The strange philosophical concept this dream community of scientists has developed as their background assumption is known as eliminative phenomenalism.

As the slightly overambitious PhD student explains: "Eliminative phenomenalism is the thesis that physics and the neuroscientific image of man constitute a radically false theory, a theory so fundamentally defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced, rather than smoothly reduced, by a completed science of pure consciousness."

All reality, accordingly, is phenomenal reality. The only way you can drop out of this reality is by making the grandiose (but fundamentally false) assumption that there actually is an outside world and that you are the subject -- that is, the experiencer -- of this phenomenal reality, that there actually is a consciousness tunnel (a wormhole, as they ironically call it), and that it is your own tunnel.

By entertaining this belief, however, you would suddenly become unreal and turn into something even less than a mere dream figure yourself: a possible person -- exactly what your opponent claimed at the beginning of the discussion.

"Listen, guys," you say, in a slightly irritated voice, "I can demonstrate to you that this is my consciousness tunnel, because I can end this state, and your very existence, at any point in time. A well-known technique for terminating lucid dreams is to hold one's hands up in front of one's eyes and fix one's visual attention on them.

If I do this, it will interrupt the rapid eye movements in my physical body and thus end the dream state in my physical brain. I will wake up in the Waking Tunnel. You will simply cease to exist. Do you want me to show you?"

You note that your tone of voice sounds triumphant, but you also note that the amusement in the eyes of the other scientists and philosophers has changed to pity. The arrogant PhD student blurts out again:

"But don't you see that simply falling back into what you call 'waking up' doesn't prove anything to anybody? You must demonstrate the truth of your ontological assumptions to this scientific community, on this level of reality. You cannot decide the question by simply degrading yourself to a virtual person and disappearing from our level. By waking up, you will learn nothing new. And you cannot prove anything at all -- certainly not to us, but not to yourself, either. If you want to humiliate yourself by vanishing into your waking wormhole, then just go ahead. But the serious pursuit of consciousness research and of philosophical theory of science is something entirely different!"

How would you react? If I had not made the right decision at this point, I might never have finished this book. But enough tunnel epistemology for now.
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Comments

[George]

This idea of consciousness being all and resulting in some sort of illusory reality (or virtual holographic universe) is also claimed by David Icke.

Unfortunately while Metzingers seems to arrive at his conclusions from a philsophical slant, David used to be a professional footballer and believes our virtual world is controlled by human-lizard hybrids and we need to take back the power.

Speaking of Holy Fuck movies, this man's theory is not dissimilar to the Matrix and David is clearly absolutely and completely fucking insane.

What is interesting however is the clear analogies he has formed in his mind to explain his theory (recognition) of reality. It seems all is only different manifestations of consciousness (even matter) and where our human forms are akin to biological computers having WIFI antennas that are able to decode or tune into this ultimate consciousness and do marvelous things like Neo.

Its all on youtube. Great mystery.

[Obed]

Dear George,
Talking of consciousness there is an English author R.D.Pearson who has very original ideas on the intelligence behind the universe.I am reading his book now. It is called "the intelligence behind the universe".A google search will bring you more material on his ideas.
Enjoy
Obed

[tucson]

What 'is'? Again, just this 'no-thing' that irritates some when I mention it. Just 'is' is and it can't be found. Is is ising. Where there is no extension in space and no duration in time there can be no self. A self is an imagined subject imagining itself as an object. And while thus pretending to be an object it is posing as its own subject. And this mythical monster is extended in space and is dependent on duration.

But nothing spatial or temporal can have any but a mythical existence. What 'we' are could not possibly be limited to any conceptual notion, spatial or temporal.

In transcendence we are infinite and inherently intemporal.

IS

[George]

Obed,

Very kind of you. I'll keep an eye out.

If that interests you, am sure you've read the young american author michael talbot too (died young, real shame)?

Cheers
George

[Obed]

Dear All,
The question of "self" is nicely illustrated by a
short extract from the article I took it from.You may enjoy reading the article.The link is at the end of the extract

"Two-year-olds Tatiana and Krista Hogan are craniopagus conjoined twins. They are one of only 6 sets of twins in the world who were born conjoined at the head. Only 2% of conjoined twin births are craniopagus.They are joined at the thalamus.Observation about the thalamus have indicated that these neurons may be crucially linked to the rest of the brain in a way that allows for self-awareness. In the case of Tatiana and Krista, there is the question of how far their co-consciousness goes
Their unique situation presents many more questions. For Tatiana and Krista there is an implication that they are constantly perceiving and reacting for one another. The question remains, however, whether each of them has agency to actually “tune in or out” to one another’s signals, or whether this process happens involuntarily. If they register information from one another involuntarily, is the process conscious or unconscious. Are they aware that they are communicating with one another, retaining a sense of dual agency, or do their two bodies operate more as one?
Exploring these questions for Tatiana and Krista’s situation has implications for a single person’s sense of self and agency as well. Their ability to relay information back and forth to one through a shared thalamus reaffirms observations that suggest that the majority of what we perceive is just that, a perception created in our mind. Tatiana and Krista suggests that the brain is extremely adaptable and it literalizes the idea that our sense of self is dynamic, a constant dialogue that is always blurring its boundaries."

The entire article is at
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/4158
All the best
Obed