Philosophy discussion

To understand the ONENESS referred to in Eastern and other philosophies, we need to look at what has been going on in the universe for the last fifteen billion years. "Oh no!" is what you're probably thinking. "How can I understand the trillions of events that have taken place over the last fifteen billion years?" The answer is simple: time and space do not exist. There is only the now, which endlessly sees itself as constantly changing. Once we accept that there is only the now, we can discard all thoughts of there being billions of this and trillions of that. If we never recognised change we would never have known anything at all.

The last paragraph might seem hard to understand. That's because the human mind can only think of one thing at a time, which makes existence appear to be composed of seperate bits. Actually the 'bits' are there all the time and cannot be put into compartments on their own.

Let's take a look at what these 'bits' actually are. If we think about planet Earth we imagine it as a blob of something floating around in a void we call space. I would like to put forward a different perspective with regard to what the Earth is. I think of it as a situation rather than a solid lump and the situation can be summed up like this: what we think of as a planet is actually a centre of self awareness.

The brain, so scientists tell us, is the most complicated thing in the universe. Actually, the brain has no seperate existence from the rest of the universe, it being connected to a body, which, in turn, is connected to planet Earth by way of its food, water and air intake. If we go a stage further with this logic we can see that what we are looking at when we observe everything that is outside of ourselves is, in fact, merely an extension of our own being.

This thing we call a brain is a situation where the evolution of consciousness is at a point where it experiences things which appear to be outside of its own existence. I think of the brain as a small version of the entire universe - a mind situation that is a version of the whole. It's when we start thinking of existence as a build up of awareness, rather than a collection of seperate, solid bits that we begin to see ourselves as being about mind rather than matter. In other words, consciousness is all there is. When we think about what was going on millions of years ago, we are actually thinking about the evolution of awareness.

If we continue to use the same logic as the above, we will come to the conclusion that everything we see around us is equal to everything else. For example, a piece of wood experiences nothing, therefore it knows no joy or pain. A small creature such as a mouse will feel pleasure when it finds the food that it has been searching for, then fear when it is being pursued by a predator. We all know that everything comes at a price.

An objection to the above might be that human life is never fair and equal. That certainly appears to be the case when viewed in the short term. However, before our present awareness came into being it was obviously 'in the system' otherwise we would never have known life at all. Everything we experience is a result of actions and reactions that are beyond our control. The balance of pleasant and unpleasant is inevitable, in the same way that an object that is put into water will always displace an exact amount of fluid down to the last atom. Everything we experience goes in cycles, including the birth and death of experience itself, which is what we are. Remember, each of us is the totallity of existence and not a seperate 'bit' of it. It might be that when our next life experience re-emerges, it will be better than the unfair and unequal one we think we are going through at the moment!

I'm not familiar with Eastern philosophies, but what you're saying sounds close in many ways to Hegel, except that, for Hegel, Time is the agent of the necessary change that validates philosophical conceputualization. I've recently been reading Phenomenology of Spirit.

It is Hegel's position, as you've written, that reality is mind dependent. In a break from the more theologically oriented idealisms, he further expounded what you've said here on your own, that the mind that constucts our world is our own, not an external one.

I think you might be in disagreement with Hegel over the status of time and space, and perhaps the implications of a mind-over-matter outlook. But I think you might like the overall thrust of Hegelian idealism. Either way, you have interesting ideas in your post.

Thanks for your informative response.
I feel that words like 'inevitable' and 'experience' are key words here. It might appear that I'm hinting at reincarnation, or some kind of religious view, but that is not what I'm driving at. In fact, I would go as far as to say that 'experience' is the single word that best describes what we are. Experience cannot be until an 'outer' world becomes apparent. We can perceive that experience goes in cycles. Existence knows itself in this way and, in knowing itself, alters the pattern of so called 'future' experience. With this in mind, all thoughts of past, present and future can be seen to be constructs of previous patterns of experience, which gives rise to the concept of time. Clearly, this logic can affect our view of birth and death, which are both concepts that have confused the human, thinking mind for thousands of years. Rather than reincarnation, I would say that re-emergence of inevitable experience is a more likely scenario.

A few remarks:
(a) If consciousness is all there is, you might have a problem. Consciousness is, in fact, always about something else. But what else is there to be conscious about? ‘thinking of existence as a buildup of awareness’ is a rare sentence if there is nothing to be aware about.
(b) Also you claim that ‘The answer is simple: time and space do not exist.’ But still recognize change. However, time is regularly defined as change. How can there be change, even only ‘the now, which endlessly sees itself as constantly changing’, without time? Also, without time and all that stuff, why does the now even change at all? Or why does it see itself as changing?
(c) You conclude ‘If we go a stage further with this logic we can see that what we are looking at when we observe everything that is outside of ourselves is, in fact, merely an extension of our own being.’ From the fact that our brain is connected with our body, and body with the world. First, brain can be seen as your body, and second this seems to only prove the obvious fact that every material thing is connected. Or do you see brain as equal to the mind?
(d) What do you mean with ‘everything we see around us is equal to everything else’? It is only equal in the sense that is it all awareness. That doesn’t say it is all the same, or equally valuable, etc ….
(e) What is ‘in the system’? Everything is consciousness, so how can there be something else at the same time. As you put it before, time does not exist, how can there be something 'before our present awareness came into being'.
(f) Perhaps you’re not claiming that there is only consciousness, but only we, humans are consciousness. If that is the case, it’s not clear how we interact with the world (mind-body problem).
(g) What is your intention with this idea? I think that seeing the world in such an idealist way is problematic in the way that is doesn't explain many things. Why are there these, seemingly material things like the world and space, and on the other hand natural human occupations like eating, drinking, making love, etc.. It is unclear to me, why these things exist within such a world, portrayed by you.
I don't know whether these remarks are real problems, or just things that aren’t clear to me.

I would say that the world has produced its own self awareness. I say consciousness is all there is because there is only one existence, not many. Perhaps the word 'existence' would be better used in this context rather than 'consciousness'.

Also, time has no reality other than as a concept of the human mind. We talk of time when we measure one change against another. It is only an idea in our heads.

If a raindrop were to develop awareness as it fell from a cloud, it would see the cloud as something other than itself even though both are water. Consciousness and that from which it evolved all come from the same source.

I say that everything is equal to everything else because existence continues regardless of life and death. All creatures live and all die so where is the inequality in the end?

As to why there seems to be material things I would say that the question 'why?' is not applicable to existence, which I would say is merely a series of inevitable actions and reactions. When you look at stars and planets you are seeing the large, slow moving end of the spectrum of existence, but when scientists witness molecules and atoms etc. they are seeing the small, quickly changing end. The thinking mind, which is a recall of previous experience, then judges the two ends of the spectrum to be separate.
In conclusion, I would say that every apparently seperate life form has been produced by the entire universe and not merely a small part of it. If we assume that time and space do not exist the universe can then be thought of as having endless patterns of experience, which are actually connected to the one big pattern. This pattern constantly gives rise to opposites such as: success and failure, good and bad, life and death etc. with each opposite giving way to the other end of the spectrum of experience. Good deeds arise and fall along with bad ones.
Everything we do is driven by the desire to escape suffering in all its many forms. However, suffering is bound to occur because it is the opposite of joy. As the old saying goes, "You cannot have your cake and eat it." Maybe that is only something that is said in the U.K.. Perhaps someone could let me know? There is an old Jewish saying, "Take your suffering and eat it" which is also saying that suffering is unavoidable. By the way, I'm not Jewish although it makes no difference. Perhaps I'm obsessed with eating at the moment?

I'd just go back to Maurice Merleau-Ponty and say that "Consciousness is the conscious becoming conscious of itself."

Mark wrote: "I'd just go back to Maurice Merleau-Ponty and say that "Consciousness is the conscious becoming conscious of itself.""

A short but excellent summary.

What does it matter what I am as long as I am.