Divine Insight wrote:So in other words, you believe in Hinduism. Good for you. But that doesn't make it true, right?
It is not truth by itself. I do not accept anything as truth unless I can experience it for myself. I encourage everyone else to do the same.
Divine Insight wrote:Calling large groups of people foolish only suggest arrogance on your part.
I have spoken with many scientists at many universities. I can many are arrogant. They are too smart in their own eyes. The truth is they know too much about the wrong things. A truly smart person knows a lot about the right things.
Extra:
The most important to know is about the nature of self. They are studying based on a fundamental error by studying things in terms of matter.
Divine Insight wrote:
You are about to make a grave error in reasoning here:
Swami wrote:
Where do atoms and particles come from? Our experience of it.
<--Grave Error right here!
Where does experience come from? Our awareness.
And how do we obtain awareness without a living physical brain? Your idea of reductionism is grossly flawed. If your brain dies you are no longer aware of anything. In fact, it doesn't even need to die. Even brains that are still alive can be totally unconscious and potentially have no awareness at all.
The brain does not create consciousness. What neuroscientists are studying is how consciousness experiences through the brain. This does not mean that consciousness can not experience through or as part of anything else and that is the big picture that scientists are missing. They will only find interaction without causation and that is because consciousness is uncaused.
What you experience as consciousness is simply how consciousness works through a brain. But as part of any other matter, like a star or tree, you would experience differently. In fact, when you transcend your sense of self, you can experience yourself as part of everything.
There is no causation but only interaction. The brain is one medium that consciousness can experience through.
This type of consciousness you are referring to is simply how consciousness is expressed through a brain.
We are the consciousness that experiences through a brain.
The biggest error in Western thinking is not understanding the nature of consciousness. Eastern thought is a product of thousands of years of studying m experimenting with consciousness. Being a follower and thinker in such philosophy, I can say that I understand the nature of consciousness which has also led me to understand the nature of reality.
In Western thought, consciousness is seen as a product of the brain. The truth is consciousness exist as part of everything, and the brain is just one way that it is experienced. This shows that the brain is only a medium, and that consciousness can be experienced through other mediums. It can be experienced through all matter, whether it be as part of one thing (a brain, or a tree) or as part of everything, like the self-transcedent experience.
So let's ask again,
Swami wrote:
And finally, where does awareness come from? You can not get beyond awareness and existence.
The fact is that you do not know the answer to the very questions you ask. Scientists are still looking at how awareness comes into being. Those who study the neural sciences have very good reason that awareness is a product of a brain.
Swami wrote:
For discussion:
Can we go beyond consciousness?
How can you know this, when you need consciousness to know?
If that's the case then consciousness cannot be fundamental because it would require that it first exists before it could exist. So you've just demonstrated why consciousness cannot be the ground of all being.
Swami wrote:
Quantum physicist provides the answer:
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.
- Max Planck (father of quantum theory)
We don't need to postulate consciousness. That's actually wrong. We can only think about ideas because we are conscious, but we can certainly imagine and propose a universe existing without containing any consciousness at all.
It's far more reasonable to conclude that consciousness arose from complexity than to propose that the universe was always conscious. Why should we think the universe was conscious in the first few nanoseconds of the Big Bang? It wouldn't even make sense to postulate that the universe was conscious at that time.
Consciousness and an ability to be aware is something we have only seen on Planet earth. And even that awareness was very slow to evolve over billions of years.
So what are your questions again:
Swami wrote:
For discussion:
Can we go beyond consciousness?
How can you know this, when you need consciousness to know?
Yes we can indeed go beyond consciousness. We can imagine a universe without consciousness and explain how it would still behave according to the purely mechanical behavior of material matter and forced.
In short, physicists have already gone beyond consciousness in their theories and explanations. So you are quite a bit behind the times on that one.
And of course we need to have consciousness to know these things. But we have absolutely no reason to think that our consciousness is required for the things we do know.
In fact, we actually expect that at some time in the future our very own sun will expand and devour the earth vaporizing us completely. We will no longer be conscious after that event. But do we have any reason to think that this would then mean that the sun would suddenly disappear and no longer exist just because we are no longer conscious of it?
No. To the contrary we have ever rational reason to believe that the sun will continue to exist after we are all dead.
So your proposals aren't even making any sense. Consciousness wasn't needed in the universe before humans evolved, and it won't need consciousness after humans are gone.
There's nothing in the laws of physics that require consciousness to exist at all. But it's very reasonable to conclude that a physical universe must exist before consciousness beings could evolve and come into being.
So if your OP is intended as a debate against materialism I don't think it's going to get very far.[/quote][/quote]