Religion Vs. Philisophy

One of the obvious problems I see if we say mind is the origin of everything is the question - where did reality originate before mind evolved on earth? Before there was any life here? Will the universe cease to exist when there are no more humans? Science talks about billions of years of existence before mental beings appeared. Or were there always such beings, maybe on other planets?

Unless we think of mind as some pre-existent cosmic reality, anterior to the evolution of living forms. Unless there were some idea like that, then the whole of cosmic existence prior to the evolution of mind would have to be an illusion, called into being only so that we can have some false idea of the past.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but to me it seems like a contradiction.

I'm not saying that once mind exists it doesn't play a big role in shaping our experience of existence, but that seems to me a long way from saying everything has come from mind. Or from the human mind at least.

 

I think maybe you aren't aware of how huge of a whopper this is. Are you sure that this is what you think? It's perfectly ok to say "You know what, I take that back".

What if I said "I don't think hindus have spiritual experiences", lol. I'm familiar with Brahman, and I have experienced this. Really, I have. To the point of being moved to tears. I can sit down right now and with some effort come into real contact with this reality, this experience, and truly feel it in my bones, like a gong resounding throughout the cosmos, celebrating the unity of all things and the infinite shining jewel of sacred beauty that is the root of all. Thing is, I experienced it in my mind, where all experiences happen. That's one of the definitions of mind though, this shouldn't be a controversial point; experiences happen in the mind.

So unless I speak in terms of your own dogma, Brahmanism, I cannot speak of spiritual experiences?

But I did recognize it as such. I told you I have had many profound spiritual experiences. I just don't believe in a "ghost inside the machine". You chose to believe in Atman, that's fine. I don't believe in that, I see AnAtman as more true from my own experiences. But for me to say "because you believe in this proposition, you must be forever barred from spiritual experiences" would be absurd, just as you saying "unless you believe this one concept, you could not possibly have a spiritual experience".

Remember, beliefs are a mental state, in the mind. They are a cognitive attitude towards a set of propositions; yet you say spiritual experiences don't happen in the mind. So how could a mental formation in the mind, like a belief, have anything to do with whether or not I have a spiritual experience at all? Do you think Brahman also does not reveal itself to those who say, don't like curry? There's another mental formation. Or how about those who daydream too much? Are they too barred from a spiritual experience of unity with the underlying field of existence and ultimate truth of the universe?

I hope you see this is not a sensical position

Atheism has nothing to do with spiritual experiences. Some atheists do not care for any such thing, of course. But then I can find you some muslims and christians and jews who look upon transformative, transcendental personal experiences as heresy, witchcraft, or possession by evil spirits. These very religious people, with faith, who believe in god, and the soul, would tell you that you are mistaken about your spiritual experiences.

So beliefs have little to do with coming into touch with Brahman; one is a much deeper reality and experience than the other.

 

One possibility is that there has always been mind, or some aspect of being. One of the most promising theories on consciousness is IIT theory which integrates panpsychism into its theory, the idea that everything possesses mind.

It's really a problem of time, though. To say mind originated is to organize it into a framework of time, a framework that is dependent upon the mind to exist. There is no reason whatsoever to presuppose that time exists independently of a mind that structures events in chronological order. To organize the universe into before and after in the first place is a product of mind. So to say there was a "time" "before" mind evolved on earth is really a contradiction in terms. Why does it seem like such a long time stretches back before humans began to exist may just be that there is a lot of information to digest. All the fourteen billion "years" the universe has existed is really just a whole lot of information outside of a mind to organize it into a framework of time.

This also brings into mind the question of order vs. chaos. People trick themselves into believing they're being orderly, when there is nothing about anything in the universe to suggest it's happening in an orderly rather than arbitrary, chaotic fashion. Sleep and unconscious states are really the dividing line here. When you are unconscious, there is nothing about the universe going on around you that defines it as orderly. It's all just random chaotic events. Mind gives meaning to these events that they don't, strictly materialistically, have. So, in a sense, mind is responsible for everything anyway, in that it is solely responsible for everything that has meaning.

In the end, even if the waveform collapse is the fault of decoherence, you're still left, at least, not knowing to what degree mind shapes reality. With the inability to eradicate life and simultaneously measure what is left when you do so, the question of how mind really interacts with physical reality may always be a mystery.

 

A closely related question is whether or not it matters what's going on in the universe when and where there are no self-aware beings to contemplate it. After all, the statements "it matters" and "this is significant" can only be created and processed by a sentient mind, as far as we know.

Music, art, nature, and love can be spiritual experiences for anyone, regardless of belief system, or lack thereof.

 

You interact with the world every single day. Are you saying that your experience of eating food is nothing more than in your own mind? If this is true, then you must be arguing that all of the entire world and Universe is inside some sort of Mind. Please elaborate if this is not the case.

Why not just say that all experiences happen in the body? Afterall, the brain is in the body. You may need the brain to process sensory information, but you need the body just as equally. Your brain couldn't process sensory information all by itself. I'm just trying to pinpoint why you think that the mind is the most essential aspect of experience.

 

Interesting ideas, so going back to something that I was seeking clarification for much earlier in the discussion, which got derailed, you think a spiritual experience brings one to an awareness of an immaterial domain that precedes mind in some way. Is that accurate?

How does this notion of immaterial "spirit" inform your understanding of the physical universe the billions of years prior to the existence of living things on Earth?

 

Maybe you should clarify what you mean by atheism. If you say there is no spirit, then I can't see how you can claim that and at the same time say you have experienced it.

You say you experienced Brahman, but then that there's no Atman. To me this does seem a little bit of a confused position, as they are really one and the same thing seen from a slightly different angle according to the very philosophy from which the term 'Brahman' comes

 

I think the question goes further - if there were no sentient beings to experience it, would the universe exist at all. I'd say it would exist, and if science is anywhere near correct with the big bang theory etc, it must have existed for long ages prior to the advent of sentient beings. That is, sentient beings embodied within the universe.
Are there any other sentient or conscious beings than those living here on earth or possibly other planets? That's the question.

My opinion is that unless one believes in spirit, it's hard to say any experience is spiritual in the strict sense. But it's a word people use lightly and loosely.

 

If you look at the etymology of the word, atheist literally means "no god", and does not speak to the possible existence of lesser spirits.

 

Short answer to the first part - yes.

I'm not really sure what you're asking in the second part.

 

Why are you insisting that such a thing as "prior" exists in the absence of a mind? There is no evidence for that.

 

OK. But how many atheists believe there are lesser spirits? And if they do believe in them , how do they define them. Do they for instance believe such spirits can exist independently of a physical body.

But the word spirit gets used in different connotations. People in the UK used to talk about the 'spirit of the Blitz' by which they meant the attitude that they had during WWII. They don't mean spirit in the same way a tribal shaman or an occultist use the word.

 

We're not talking about the absence of mind. Because we have minds, we can develop science. We are told by science that prior to the appearance of humans, there were many other forms of life on earth going back millions of years. I'd say that's pretty good evidence that prior to mind, many billions of years passed.

 

It's not a homogeneous group. Militant atheists are the most vocal, so their spin on everything is what most people know about.

 

I think it's fairly similar to the question you pose to Writer regarding mind, if there are no beings around to have spiritual experiences and possess spirit, how does spirit account for the presumably billions of years the universe was around prior to life?

 

Transcendent consciousness existed before the cosmic manifestation. As the universe evolves, beings who are capable of realizing this consciousness evolve within it.
Thus the Brahman creates forms for it's progressive self manifestation.

 

I think you may have missed the science that tells us that the past, present, and future exist simultaneously. There is no "before". There just "is" all that ever was, is, and shall be. Mind has always been a part of it and always will be. Or the functioning brain is a part of that and always has been and always will be. The whole thing is just one whole thing, from beginning to end. There are even theories that someday time will reverse.

And we are talking about the absence of mind, because there is no evidence that the chronological order of time can exist without mind. So your evidence isn't evidence at all; it's just an assumption you're making about the universe in the absence of mind, thinking that without mind it flows from beginning to end in the only way it can.

As everything does exist with mind, I see no reason to presuppose that it could possibly exist without it.

 

Theoretically on one level it may be true that past present and future are simultaneous. However, in our normal consciousness that's markedly not the case. We experience the body's gradual deterioration for instance. We watch children grow up. Plant a seed and watch it grow.
Instead of saying 'science' lets say evolutionary biology.There is a timeline. From simple single celled life forms to complex higher animals. Before the complex higher animals, where was mind? Or do you think the existence of mind now creates the past in some sense?

Maybe there are creatures with mind on other planets. If not, if we were to eradicate all life on earth and therefore mind, does the universe cease to exist?.

 

Then I presume it's just taken on faith that transcendent consciousness has always existed and is not subject to an even 'higher' or more fundamental order?

 

I think you've got the question backwards. It's "Where were the ancestors of the complex higher animals before there was mind?" I don't think they existed in a past that exists independently of mind. In order for there to be a past requires the eternal now that is synonymous with having a mind. But within the framework of the mind and therefore time, where mind was is where it's always been, which is right here. I don't believe that, were we to somehow eradicate the existence of mind from the universe, that one event would ever precede the next. I don't know if the mind produces the essential existence of the events it perceives to have happened "before." I definitely think that they only seem to have happened at a time before because of the mind. And what they really exist as independently of the mind (if they can exist independently of the mind) I don't know. Maybe they exist only as possibilities, without real physicality, before mind.

Maybe we've got it all wrong and time started with an alien scientist in a lab. Everything was just so. He happened to be brilliant and created everything else. Maybe it just happened to have begun with infinite complexity.

I don't think the universe would cease to exist. I think you have to go a step further and consider what would happen if you could erase mind from the entire timeline of the universe. Not just the mind that exists now. Then I personally don't think the universe would exist anymore. Or I think it would be an assumption to say that it could.