New Civilization News: Reality    
 Reality9 comments
14 Apr 2004 @ 10:13, by Flemming Funch

Via Quotes of the Day:

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
- Philip K. Dick

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

That would exclude, oh, how about governments and countries? If we don't believe in boundaries and in the power of certain groups of people to govern us, then there really isn't anything there. There are continents and land and people. But no borders and no power over us. No laws either. They aren't really real. People are real. What they do is real. Their thoughts and feelings and actions are real.

Goodbye to religions too. If you don't believe in them, there's really not much there. A lot of church buildings and some books. Good deeds are real.

Scientific laws and theories go away as well when we stop believing in them. Nature and life doesn't go away. The flowers keep blooming and the planets keep rotating around their stars. And there's a system to that, which keeps working. But it is the theoretical models of how we think that works that drop away.

There's a lot of things our theories say don't exist or can't exist. If we stop believing in those theories, those things will still be there. Extraterrestrials, other dimensions, paranormal perceptions, miraculous events. Except that they won't be miraculous or paranormal unless you have some kind of belief about how unlikely they're supposed to be.

Dreams exist whether you believe in them or not. You'll be zipping around in fantastic realities every day, at least when you sleep.

Failure and success, loyalty and betrayal, mistakes, lies, obligations, promises, shoulds - none of it means much if one stops believing. What matters is what is there, and what you actually do. Good constructive actions last longer than destructive actions. They're more real. Good and bad feelings exist. The reasons for them do not.

Life exists. Consciousness exists. I exist. I'm probably more real the more I get over my beliefs about why and how.

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9 comments

14 Apr 2004 @ 14:39 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : The Dreaming Universe
It is not how we do it that is important but what we do ;-)
 
Following up on Bart Kosko's statement—your Imagining the year 3000 entry—I don't know much about Heaven, but I know about Hell. In Paradise Lost, Milton describes Hell as a place where "hope never comes." Another way to look at it is to think of Hell as a "closed system." I prefer to think of life as an "open system"—a chess analogy (a poor one, but it will do for my purpose.) An obvious benefit of open systems is that they introduce an enormous variety of tactical ideas. In chess, open positions are fundamental because an open position can never become closed (myself, I don't care much for the so-called "Prophecies of Old." I feel more confortable with the idea that "God" does play dice), fortunately many closed positions can be forced open and "Dreams exist wheter you believe in them or not."

Thank you for the inspiring post, Ming.  

14 Apr 2004 @ 22:25 by Sellitman @209.178.161.115 : Fantastic Realities:
"Then tell me some things. I have heard daysiders say that the core of the world is a molten demon, that the temperature increases as one descends toward it, that if the crust of the world be pierced then fires leap forth and melted minerals build volcanoes. Yet I know that volcanoes are the doings of fire elementals who if disturbed, melt the ground about them and hurl it upward. They exist in small pockets. One may descend far past them without the temperature increasing. Traveling far enough, one comes to the center of the world, which is not molten---which contains the Machine, with great springs, as in a clock, and gears and pulleys and counterbalances. I know this to be true, for I have journeyed that way and been near to the Machine itself. Still, the daysiders have ways of demonstrating that their view is the correct one. I was almost convinced by the way one man explained it, though I knew better. How can this be?"

"You were both correct," said Morningstar. "It is the same thing that you both describe, although neither of you sees it as it really is. Each of you colors reality in keeping with your means of controlling it. For if it is uncontrollable, you fear it. Sometimes then, you color it incomprehensible. In your case, a machine; in theirs, a demon."

"The stars I know to be the houses of spirits and deities---some friendly, some unfriendly and many not caring. All are near at hand and can be reached. They will respond when properly invoked. Yet the daysiders say that they are vast distances away and that there is no intelligence there. Again...?"

"It is again but two ways of regarding reality, both of them correct."

"If there can be two ways, may there not be a third? Or a fourth? Or as many as there are people, for that matter?"

"Yes," said Morningstar.

"Then which one is correct?"

"They all are."

"But to see it all as it is, beneath it all! Is this possible?"

Morningstar did not reply.

"Why is it," he asked, "that the Fallen-Star who brought us knowledge of the Art, did not extend it to the daysiders as well?"

"Perhaps," said Morningstar, "the more theologically inclined among the lightlanders ask why he did not grant the boon of science to the darksiders. What difference does it make? I have heard the story that neither was the gift of the Fallen One, but both the inventions of man; that his gift, rather, was that of consciousness, which creates its own systems."

---Roger Zelazny, "Jack of Shadows"  

15 Apr 2004 @ 08:32 by swanny : Mutual Reality
What you say can perhaps apply
but it has no "effect" until it applies mutually
by that I mean that there are seperate realities
but there is also like a mass hyponosis about a
consentual reality. If we stop believing in communication
for instance.....
then what happens.... We would have 7 billion different
realities but I would argue that there are
some "necessary truths" for us to live
in a constructive and mutual way.
What they would be are somewhat
close to what your enlightening prose
suggests.

swanny  

15 Apr 2004 @ 17:25 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : What is real?
"Mutual Reality", "Effects", "Necessary Truth", "There are", "There is"... I hear what you are trying to say, swanny (' reminds me of Joseph chilton Pierce's book, The crack in the cosmic Egg), what you say is interesting but it all sound like more theoretical modeling to me (if I may be so bold) and I think the point of Ming' s "enlightening prose," as you put it, was precisely that theoretical models are just theoretical models:

"There's a lot of things our theories say don't exist or can't exist" but "the flowers keep blooming and the planets keep rotating around their stars."

"Life exists. Consciousness exists. I exist." "What matters is what is there and what you actually do."  

20 Apr 2004 @ 20:14 by John Abbe @220.247.241.147 : Stimulating...
That quote's been in my quote file for a while, but it wasn't til i read your post that i pondered this: if i stop believing in belief does it go away?

(ducks)  

21 Apr 2004 @ 05:28 by ming : Beliefs
Hahah, got me there. ...Actually there's a lot of wisdom in that. Specific rules and laws and understandings of the world around us might drop away, as they're merely maps of the territory. But the mechanism that allows us to believe and that allows us to find that which we believe in - that remains, whether we realize it or not.  

8 May 2004 @ 13:40 by Tony @213.122.92.116 : consciousness assuming
Anything one assumes or thinks or see's ,at least for those of us who are not yet awake,is bound to be distorted by the conditoning that we carry..What we seem to be (as many have suggested) is pure consciousness, which has for most of us,identified with our psychological content, from which we generate our thoughts/views as egocentric and fear based motivations for the violence of this world...We appear not (yet) to have learnt how to use thought...  

6 Jun 2004 @ 13:38 by aainaacom : De-Conditioning Is Crtical To Evolution
Yes, Reality Exists. All else are just mere cosmetics... words that write a paragraph of experiences, whether "real" or otherwise. To embrace the Absolute Reality, discard the form, and find your non-duality existence, on the Rainbow Bridge that connects your essence within the Essence of "Life".  

13 Aug 2004 @ 21:07 by Quantum Mechanic at Large @24.98.1.76 : Reality - Perception
Reality- A construct of our brains perception.
Engendered by conception time is only real because of recolection. When reality rocks its clear that life itself is keeper of the clock.
Quantum Mechanic at Large  

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