You know those moments in dreams that don't make any sense, like when you encounter someone long-dead... and you consciously register, "is this real"?
I feel like we're approaching that with math and science. The more we discover, the less sense it all makes.
Fractions of infinity and quantum entanglement are like the dead uncle in our dreams.
Except, with science, we can't say: "is this real?"
Developments in science seem to suggest that our understanding of what constitues reality is amiss. I don't think there is an implication that nothing is real.
You raised some great points 4EVa
Journyman16 said:
One is that for a brain to exist as it is, we need the body and the body needs the world and physics tells us the world isn't really there. Maybe physics is totally wrong but currently it looks reasonably solid (I like puns) on the idea that nothing is solid. If there is no evidence for anything other than brain, there is also no evidence for brain itself. When we get down to it we could easily just be awareness, fed a scenario directly (or creating it) that shows only appearance of reality with no substance at all except in our perceptions.
That could be so. Brain in a tank or whathaveyou...
But I don't think physics is telling us that the world isn't here. I think it is telling us that our ideas or here/there/everywhere are in need of changing. Most matter is empty space, but if someone asks me if I wear clothes, I tend to answer "yes", not "no, I wear a quantum possibility which is comprised mainly of empty space".
There's also biology counting against the brain as sole arbiter of reality. Cells all work in one specific way - a signal comes in and the cell does stuff.. The problem is, ALL cells work this way. So... that begs the question - how do we decide to do anything? Move an arm, have a thought, consider the brain - all these need initiation and cells can't do it.
I'm not sure I follow. The input is, what, biochemical, mediated by electrical current. The impetus is thought/intent, or so it feels, and it is convincing enough. I think you are descending into the fractal madness, like filming yourself, on a screen, filming yourself. How does the primary cell get told what to do, if it is the cell that does the telling....? Where does the first impulse come from?
I consider the idea that our 'true' existence is elsewhere and we are "projected" into this reality to be quite appealing.
There's also the field we can see in action when the brain is functioning. It is multilayered and quite complex and responsive - if the brain is paramount, what is the field doing?
The field?
Also, where do we go when unconscious? The brain shuts right down under anaesthetic but people still sometimes recall what has occurred in the theatre.
Not true, the brain does not shut down under anaesthesia. Activity (metabolic/electrical/biochemical) is massively muted but thats it. A shut down brain is called a dead brain.
Why would we go anywhere? That doesn't make sense to me. :D
Why would a brain need to dream?
If you don't use your car ever, it is still a great idea to turn it on and off from time to time, even take it for a drive, to try and keep it running. Perhaps the physical brain needs to run 'screen-saver' type programs to stretch/flex lesser used parts of the brain. It could explain why dreams are often unusual, and give rise to feelings and sensations we normally do not experience. Like stretching a little used muscle...
It seems to me the senses we use are limiters, ways to reduce what we perceive, and the brain is a part of that system. To me that offers a possible explanation for the glimpses and clues we get of a vaster world, a beyond-reality realness where connections happen and some can be overwhelmed by the inflow. It may be that hallucinogenics can take us there and the entities we meet while so engaged are consciousnesses beyond the limited world we are working our way through.
I think of the brain as the organiser, and the sense-of-self is the outcome of this organisation. No amount of drugs will change the physical capabilities of your senses, but they will dramatically change the way that the brain organises sensory input, to the extent that the entire world appears different. The fact that most psychedelics agonise neuronal transmission gives me an idea that the brain is actually deleting or delaying information when on psychedelics. This goes against the idea that psychedelics inhibit this normal sensory limitation.
Doesn'tt it seem simpler and more elegant that the brain can create incredible illusions, rather then that drugs can literally take us somewhere else?
We are on the same path. The "Mind" is something more than the molecular structure of the brain. Most of us accept this as an unproven / as of yet non provable truth.
I an on a path that is leading toward whatever DMT does as the inner workings of a lock that keeps us from knowing what the answer is. [/COLOR]N,N-Dimethyltryptamine is (to me) the clue to the solution of our very core. What we are in effect.
The ancients knew this. The current peoples know this. My question that I seek an answer for is what is inside the core?
What fuels our mind? N,N-Dimethyltryptamine is there but why? Is that the fuel that creates us?
It opens new doors of thought... Are we the God that we seek?
It's like a puzzle where the solution is in plain sight. Just my thoughts on the topic.
Have you used DMT extensively? What if it doesn't do anything endogenously, like acetone? Why do we have an enzyme system that destroys it almost instantly?
I've used DMT hundreds of times now, from smoked/IM'ed/IV'ed crystal, smoked changa, ayahuasca, pharmahuasca and have spent a lot of that time navigating the space and trying to examine what is really happenning. I have experienced direct entity contact under both aya and changa, but the entities were unable to convey anything to me that I didn't already know; in fact, the main thrust of their interaction was tautologically telling me that they were here... That doesn't seem important or profound. The experience of 5-MeO-DMT is a lot more powerful to me; there's not a lot of dressing up and dancing, but there is an apparently direct, non-visual confrontation with god when using it.
However, it is the drug salvia divinorum that has shaken me up the most. I have never experienced such complete replacement of reality. I've emerged into a world as someone not me with the full knoweldge of this places history. This I will never be able to explain, though I could share some of the history I managed to retain...! :D
I'm starting to believe that absolutely everything you wish to believe is actually real. Everything is real
