What I'm asking is has there been other times in the history of life where a single species been able to evolve to such a level where other species are no longer even really competition for them?
I'm really confused on the topic of free will. Some people act like it's a physics thing, other people act like it's a neuroscience thing, and still others act like it's a spiritual thing. What exactly is it? Am I supposed to be depressed that I don't have it, they always show people being super depressed whenever they learn that they don't have free will but I don't even understand what I'm missing out on. What would a person have to be like to have true free will?
Is there any meditation technique that allows you to "detect" things beyond your five/six senses. If so how do you learn to do it?
My parents are in their sixties and seventies now, and every time I call them or visit they're watching westerns. They like those western tv shows like wagon train, and gunsmoke, and Bonanza. It wouldn't bother me, but it's like the only thing they watch from morning till night, and I don't even know if they know what's going on in the episode sometimes (it's kind of creepy).
If I try to turn it on something different or more modern my dad's the worst he won't even give it a chance if it's past 1980, and my mom acts like she doesn't understand what's going on. Is this normal behavior?
Has any one ever had their hemispheres split and then had them reconnected? I wonder if they would be able to tell which side they were conscious in. Maybe they were conscious in both sides but to a lesser extent whenever the brain is split. I know some animals like dolphins do this all the time. One side of the brain will be on and the other side will be asleep.
I've also seen split brain patients with them it seems like one side is completely quiet and the other side has language, I assume the conscious side would be the one with language. However my question is if you reattached the two sides what what would the person report feeling? Has an experiment like this ever been attempted?
Whenever I go outside and I look at a tree do I really see the tree, or am I just thinking that I see the tree? Like is my brain just thinking that it's conscious?
Relativity was a big one for me. The idea that time can vary from place to place really expands my view of the universe. Another example is whenever I conceived of how the fourth dimension would work, that really opened up all kinds of new possibilities and ways of thinking for me.
I'm just curious to see what other ideas or concepts have you come across that have given you whole new ways of thinking?
That seems like a task they would have really hated. They probably would rather be deleted then have to undergo that.
Did they draw straws or something?
The other day I was considering the theory that your entire conscious experience is a model happening inside your head, a controlled hallucination. I thought about that for a minute and I realized that the entire universe that I was observing at that moment was just a hallucination happening inside my head for me. After a minute I held my hand up in front of my head, and I saw my simulated hand inside my conscious simulation, but then it occurred to me that there must also be a real hand on the outside of the simulation, far beyond the stars that I can see that's bigger than the whole universe that I'm currently observing within my consciousness. Is this true?
Me and my friend were arguing about this. I said it would make the value go up, because if I can point to a hole in my wall and I could say
" Muhammad Ali did that back in 1975."I suppose most people would be impressed by that. My friend says you would still have to prove it, and I said well what if he signed it as well?
There is a scene in the original matrix film where Smith is interrogating Morpheus and he says something interesting. "And I say your civilization, because as soon as? we started thinking for you it really became our civilization.". Have we reached or even gone past the point that Smith referred to in the original film?
As far as I know Buddhism doesn't believe in any continuity of consciousness or any sort of observer. I believe they think that there is seeing but no sear, thinking but no thinker. Why do Buddhists believe this and why does vidanta think there is an observer?
In my mind I was thinking he uses it in a mocking way.
To me whenever he uses it against Homelander it's like he is saying for all your power resources and money, you're nothing but a glorified crowbar, just a thing to increase persons strength.
Sometimes the realization that I am going to die and not exist forever, and I have no choice in the matter it will happen, and I'm hurtling toward it with each passing second, that thought terrifies me. It seems so terrifying it feels like I'm going to lose my mind or do something stupid.
Can thoughts like this make you go insane, or will the terror always eventually subside?
Several times in my life I believe I have come extremely close, however every time it happens I become filled with existential terror and back out. To me it feels like I'm losing myself, and I don't know where to find it or even if it really ever existed. For me it feels like dying.
However I have heard from people who made it all the way through and they talk about it like it's pure Bliss. They say you feel like pure consciousness and you're full of love. They say you feel connected to everything in the universe whatever that means. I have even heard that whenever people start to feel their ego coming back it's a very sad experience for them, some people say coming back from an eager death is even harder than losing your ego.
I would really like to know what it's like. Has anyone here ever experienced this?
Odo went through a lot of things that the changelings have probably never experienced. He fell in love, he was a major player in the war for the alpha quadrant, he had a lot of close friends that would give their life for him, being on DS9 he had all kinds of crazy experiences, and met some very unique entities like Q (an entity that would see himself as superior to changelings.) he was friends with some of the most powerful people in the quadrant, and he was even a solid. Initially the female changeling was hell-bent on continuing the war but whenever Odo linked with her she immediately did a 180 and surrendered.
I wonder if he changed the changelings especially militaristic ways and fear of solids. What do you think?
From my own experiences with DMT and from what I hear from other people the best way I can think of to make sense of this is to say this life is some form of entertainment for these entities that people keep encountering. I don't think we're being forced into it either I think we agreed to it in a sense. We're like actors in some sort of higher dimensional movie.
This truth is liberating to me in a way. It gives me focus, makes things less of a big deal to me.
I'm curious to know whether others are getting the same vibe or not?
Recently I've come across the theory that every time we go to sleep our Consciousness dies and is replaced by a new one. This theory really disturbs me, also it doesn't really make a lot of sense for the brain to work that way in my opinion. Where would these consciousnesses be dying off to, and where will the new ones be coming from to replace the old ones, that seems bizarre to me. Also even if that was the case I don't think you can really make the argument that you're a COMPLETELY new person every time you wake up.
You might be in a different mood you might have different thoughts but to me you are still using the same brain, you're still running the software on the same hardware.
Also whenever these people make these arguments I don't know if they're talking about Consciousness or the self. I would be willing to admit you have a changing "self"but to me Consciousness seems like a more permanent thing the contents change, but the same structures in the brain are needed to generate it.
What is your thought on this? Depressing
What evidence is there from one belief of another? What made the Buddha reach that conclusion?
The way I view consciousness is like a computer. I see the subconscious and physical processes of the body as like the hardware of the computer, as we go through life parts of the hardware breakdown and arel replace. To me consciousness would be like the screen of a computer, with its thousands of pixels. Some of the pixels turn on, some turn off, patterns emerge, patterns disappear, patterns re-emerge. Memory knits together a perceived "continuity". Whenever you die that would be like the computer suffering irreversible damage and shutting down. Reincarnation would be like backing up your software and copying it to a new computer.
Would this analogy be accurate according to the Buddhist Cannon?