The information of the Universe is already in us

[Swami]

In this discussion, I wanted to provide scientific evidence for the view that we are all omniscient but don't "realize" it. Under my worldview, the world is just a dream. It is constructed and maintained by our mind. If the Universe is a mental construct, then all of the information contained in it is already in the mind. This is precisely what science is pointing to. In the articles I will post, the researchers openly admit that 'savant' level abilities may lie dormant in all of us and that is because of the condition known as acquired savant syndrome.

What is acquired savant syndrome?

Acquired Savant Syndrome refers to cases in which savant-level skills emerge after a brain injury or disease in previously healthy individuals where no such prodigious skills were evident beforehand.

https://smartdrugsmarts.com/episodes/ac ... -syndrome/

What are some of the known savant-level skills?

Considering all the abilities in the human repertoire, it is interesting that savant skills generally narrow to five general categories: music, usually performance, most often piano, with perfect pitch, although composing in the absence of performing has been reported as has been playing multiple instruments (as many as 22); art, usually drawing, painting or sculpting; calendar calculating (curiously an obscure skill in most persons); mathematics, including lightning calculating or the ability to compute prime numbers, for example, in the absence of other simple arithmetic abilities; and mechanical or spatial skills, including the capacity to measure distances precisely without benefit of instruments, the ability to construct complex models or structures with painstaking accuracy or the mastery of map making and direction finding.

Other skills have been reported less often, including: prodigious language (poly-glot) facility; unusual sensory discrimination in smell, touch or vision including synaesthesia; perfect appreciation of passing time without benefit of a clock; and outstanding knowledge in specific fields such as neurophysiology, statistics or navigation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677584/

For Discussion..
1. What is your experience or understanding of this ability? Do you accept that it proves that we are omniscient?

I'll answer first.

I've already explained how this fits into my worldview but let me also explain experiences of omniscience and how to acquire it. I know when many have meditated on a deity, that they had momentary experiences of omniscience. All that they thought on - the information or answers for it would just rush in naturally. But then it would not last long and some of the information is not remembered. However, where some would say the information was not "remembered", I would rather say the information is no longer "realized". This is because the person is no longer in the meditative state that allows access to omniscience.

Let me explain further for the skeptics. All of the information of your life experience is contained in your memory even if you can't recall it. What is not readily accepted is that your memory or mind also contains all of the information and experiences contained in the Universe and not just that of your own experiences. As I hinted to earlier, meditation can be used to access this level of our memory or mind. Science already proves that meditation can expand your field of consciousness when it makes you more aware of the unconscious level of your mind. And we also see here that scientists already accept that an omniscient mind exists, but they are not yet open on using meditation to unlock it.

Do you see why I believe that Western materialist science is holding back mankind from their real potential?

[Divine Insight]

Let us go over one myth about savants. The myth that they can't find or do anything new which basically reduces them to nothing more but tape recorders. What does the one of the foremost experts on savantism has to say?

I never made a claim that savants cannot be creative. So you'll need to address that issue with someone else.

What do scientific journals say about this.. Regarding savants:

Quote:
The skill has an abrupt onset with no prior interest in or talent for the newly acquired ability.

—The new skill is automatically coupled with a detailed, epiphany-type knowledge of the underlying rules of music, art or math, for example—none of which the person has studied. They know things without ever having learned them.

This is actually a fallacy that is caused by these scientist's misunderstanding where the "rules" of our formalism came from.

You don't need to understand the rules of mathematics to see how quantities are related. All you need to do is recognize how quantities are related. Once you do that it will appear that you know the rules. But actually you don't need to know the rules at all.

For example. You can have a rule that square peg won't go into a round hole. But a lot of people can just see that fact automatically. They'll simply say, "Of course a square peg won't go into a round hole. I can see that."

And what do the scientists then say? "Oh, he must understand the rules".

Nope, no rules required. He can simply see that square pegs won't go into round holes. That fact that we made up a "rule" about this is irrelevant.

Take music for example. Most people can hear an octave. They naturally recognize that a given note is the same note except it's either higher in pitch or lower in pitch. But they didn't need to know anything about the rule of octaves to be able to recognize this fact.

Understanding how things work and knowing the formal rules are two entirely different things.

Again, there are tons of examples of great musicians who never learned a lick of music theory in their entire lives. And they aren't even savants. They just play what sounds good to them, and of course the music they produce is going to "fit" into the rules of music theory because those rules were created based on what sounds good to a human ear.

If you grab a musical instrument and start fiddling around on it until you can play something that sounds good to you. Then you can be guaranteed that music theorists can find rules that explain why what you've just played sounds good. Yet you didn't need to know a single solitary rule to create that music.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 8 by Divine Insight]
Coincidentally I posted my last post around the same time you replied to me. My last post answers some of your questions.

No your reply did not address the points I've made. Once again you are quick to jump to conclusions that simply aren't true.

One problem I have with your view is that you claim to be a Buddhists but yet you refuse to acknowledge the error of materialism.

Buddhism means something entirely different to me that it does to you. Also, I never claimed that Buddhism is my "religion". I simply agree with many of the teachings attributed to the Buddha. Most of which can be understand from a purely secular perspective.

Something you may not be aware of is that "Buddhism" is not unlike many other philosophies. There are many disagreeing Buddhist sects. Including Taoist Buddhists which many secularists see as atheists.

Are we "one" with the universe? Absolutely. Even a pure materialist has to agree with this unless the materialist wants to claim that we are something other than a product of this universe. But this doesn't mean that the universe needs to represent a cosmic consciousness. We are this universe being conscious of itself in a very limited way. Not unlike as humans we are conscious of our human form in a very limited way. We don't need to know how our brains work in order to use them, as an example.

So yes, we are all part of a much larger whole. Even materialists recognize this. But that doesn't imply that the larger whole needs to have an omniscient consciousness.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 4 by Swami]

Yoga philosophy provides the answer:

I don't see anything in that quote that even addresses the question, much less answers it. The planet we live on was present and teeming with life long before human beings came along (for a few billion years). It has been physically orbiting the sun for some 4.6 billion years. The yoga quote seems to meaningless gibberish of the type you'd expect from a carnival psychic.

The view that consciousness is limited to a mind or a brain nothing more than Western nonsense.

If anything can be classified as nonsense it is the idea that consciousness can exist without a brain. This has never been demonstrated, while there is copious evidence that consciousness is in fact the product of a functioning brain. Imagining that it is something beyond that is just wishful thinking. I have no doubt that you sincerely believe that consciousness is something special and magical, but there is simply no evidence for it, or reason to believe that this is the case.

If consciousness can exist without a body and mind, then it goes beyond "life" forms.

Yes, but there is no reason to believe that it can exist without a body and a mind. This has never been demonstrated.

Since you keep insisting on the materialist faith then let me quote again from Hindu philosophy:

More gibberish in that quote. The sky appears blue to us because of Rayleigh scattering. It isn't an optical illusion. We can measure the wavelengths of light entering the eye from the sky and prove that they are in the blue region of the visible spectrum (or red in certain cases, such as when the sun is near the horizon and that is well understood as well).

Have you ever perceived reality without the filter of your mind and senses?

Since our mind and its processing of input signals is what creates perception, it is not possible to perceive without the "filter of the mind and senses." It is simply not biologically possible, for humans or any other animal.

[Swami]

The audience should know that I've presented plenty of evidence, references, and reasoning, but yet you still deny. The problem is not the evidence but rather it's that you're unwilling to do the field research that I suggested you do since our first discussion on this site. You dismissed meditation as being nothing more than a means for "calming the mind", despite all the evidence even from your own Western scientists. Some of the evidence shows that it changes brain structure, expands the field of consciousness (example increases awareness of the unconscious mind), leads to different states of consciousness, etc.

All of this debate is just a cover up.

Have you ever perceived reality without the filter of your mind and senses?

Since our mind and its processing of input signals is what creates perception, it is not possible to perceive without the "filter of the mind and senses." It is simply not biologically possible, for humans or any other animal.

This again shows the problem of not knowing the nature of consciousness. If you reduce or breakdown matter to its most fundamental nature, you'll find consciousness. If all of matter and the laws governing it are based on consciousness then they are not fixed - they don't have to be the way they are now. All of these laws can be changed or eliminated on a whim just as you can change things in your imagination. You have to go beyond the condition and filter of your mind and senses to realize this.

This insight reveals that consciousness can experience in every way and it can do so as anything. It can have visual perceptions without eyes. Use human experience as an analogy. We dream without needing eyes to perceive. Whatever you can imagine is also possible for God to do.

Yoga philosophy provides the answer:

I don't see anything in that quote that even addresses the question, much less answers it. The planet we live on was present and teeming with life long before human beings came along (for a few billion years). It has been physically orbiting the sun for some 4.6 billion years. The yoga quote seems to meaningless gibberish of the type you'd expect from a carnival psychic.

This problem comes from not knowing the nature of consciousness. Consciousness has always existed. The human and the human mind did not always exist.

The view that consciousness is limited to a mind or a brain nothing more than Western nonsense.

If anything can be classified as nonsense it is the idea that consciousness can exist without a brain. This has never been demonstrated, while there is copious evidence that consciousness is in fact the product of a functioning brain. Imagining that it is something beyond that is just wishful thinking. I have no doubt that you sincerely believe that consciousness is something special and magical, but there is simply no evidence for it, or reason to believe that this is the case.

We have been down this road. I've given you plenty of evidence and insight. When I recommend for you to do field research and go through experiences, it is not because I want to shift the burden of proof on you. But rather it's because the experience itself is evidence, and that's why many atheists who go through it end up realizing the error of materialism.

Since you keep insisting on the materialist faith then let me quote again from Hindu philosophy:

More gibberish in that quote. The sky appears blue to us because of Rayleigh scattering. It isn't an optical illusion. We can measure the wavelengths of light entering the eye from the sky and prove that they are in the blue region of the visible spectrum (or red in certain cases, such as when the sun is near the horizon and that is well understood as well).

Even your scientists would say that there is no "color" in the real world. Color is how our brain interprets visible light. Color does not exist outside of our brain.

Even if color existed in the world that scientists call "real", it would still not be real under my worldview. This is because of the nature of these objects if you go down to their most fundamental level. They are nothing but part of a dream - a manifestation of consciousness. Therefore, only consciousness is real.

[Diagoras]

The view that consciousness is limited to a mind or a brain nothing more than Western nonsense. Your error is simply the result of not knowing the nature of consciousness. If consciousness can exist without a body and mind, then it goes beyond "life" forms. Consciousness is tied to the most fundamental level of reality, and life is only one small aspect of reality.

<bolding mine>

Given the bolded premise, then can we draw the conclusion that consciousness can exist after death? This would seem to be describing what many religious people would claim is a ‘soul’.

Further, if that conclusion is valid, then there ought to exist ‘free consciousnesses’ (souls) and anyone with the ability to reach the level of consciousness you’ve described (here and in other threads) should be aware of them (implied by claims of ‘omniscience’, if nothing else).

The logical conclusion from this is that it is at least theoretically possible for someone in a ‘higher level of consciousness’ to communicate with souls of the dead. This would be a monumentally important ability - if true.

My conclusion obviously stands or falls on whether consciousness can exist after death or not. So, is that a reasonable statement?

[EarthScienceguy]

This "meditation" is nothing more than overactive imagination. Or it is simply replaying an event in your mind so that your memory is triggered by what you remember. And that is the best case scenario.

Any knowledge that does come from "meditation" the act of clearing your mind would come from demonic spirits that will eventually drag your soul to hell, to put it in Carmon's terms.



Any knowledge acquired through meditation will be acquired because of one of those two reasons.

[Swami]

The view that consciousness is limited to a mind or a brain nothing more than Western nonsense. Your error is simply the result of not knowing the nature of consciousness. If consciousness can exist without a body and mind, then it goes beyond "life" forms. Consciousness is tied to the most fundamental level of reality, and life is only one small aspect of reality.

<bolding mine>

Given the bolded premise, then can we draw the conclusion that consciousness can exist after death? This would seem to be describing what many religious people would claim is a ‘soul’.

My view of consciousness involves the soul but it also goes beyond that. There's a individual expression of consciousness. This expression is limited in that it identifies and experiences itself as being a mind and body system. The soul is also a limited expression in that it is consciousness that identifies itself as being a disembodied mind. This means that parts of the human mind can exist without the body, just like computer software and memory can exist without hardware or be shared and transferred to different hardware. But then there is the fullest and highest expression of consciousness which is God. This consciousness is not limited since it identifies itself as everything - it exists in everything.

Further, if that conclusion is valid, then there ought to exist ‘free consciousnesses’ (souls) and anyone with the ability to reach the level of consciousness you’ve described (here and in other threads) should be aware of them (implied by claims of ‘omniscience’, if nothing else).

The logical conclusion from this is that it is at least theoretically possible for someone in a ‘higher level of consciousness’ to communicate with souls of the dead. This would be a monumentally important ability - if true.

My conclusion obviously stands or falls on whether consciousness can exist after death or not. So, is that a reasonable statement?

It is possible to communicate with someone in their disembodied state since they still exist. Many report doing this during the out-of-body experiences. I stopped pursuing such experiences once I realized the nature of consciousness.

This truth about consciousness that I keep alluding to is that only consciousness exist as "real". Everything else is an illusion - it exists as a "dream". Once you realize this you'll see that chasing after someone's soul is like chasing someone in your imagination.

[Diagoras]

My view of consciousness involves the soul but it also goes beyond that. There's a individual expression of consciousness. This expression is limited in that it identifies and experiences itself as being a mind and body system. The soul is also a limited expression in that it is consciousness that identifies itself as being a disembodied mind. This means that parts of the human mind can exist without the body, just like computer software and memory can exist without hardware or be shared and transferred to different hardware. But then there is the fullest and highest expression of consciousness which is God. This consciousness is not limited since it identifies itself as everything - it exists in everything.

Would I be then reading this right if I said that there’s a distinction between an individual free consciousness, and an unlimited one? And that the latter is in, some respects, equivalent to ‘connecting to god’?

It is possible to communicate with someone in their disembodied state since they still exist. Many report doing this during the out-of-body experiences. I stopped pursuing such experiences once I realized the nature of consciousness.

Just to be as clear as possible: you are claiming that you, while in a meditative state (elevated consciousness), can communicate clearly with another person’s ‘free consciousness’ because such a state is connected to everything (‘only consciousness is real’)? And said communication could go beyond just a ‘sense of connection’ and transfer detailed information such as “my body is in Chicago�, for example?

[Swami]

Would I be then reading this right if I said that there’s a distinction between an individual free consciousness, and an unlimited one? And that the latter is in, some respects, equivalent to ‘connecting to god’?

This is a correct view.

Just to be as clear as possible: you are claiming that you, while in a meditative state (elevated consciousness), can communicate clearly with another person’s ‘free consciousness’ because such a state is connected to everything (‘only consciousness is real’)? And said communication could go beyond just a ‘sense of connection’ and transfer detailed information such as “my body is in Chicago�, for example?

This is correct. You don't even need to go through the pure conscious state (the highest level accessed through meditation) to communicate. People have communicated with spirits using various means during NDEs and rituals.

[Diagoras]

Thanks for the response and clarification - that’s all a lot to take in (for me), so I might need a bit of time to digest the implications.