Is Reality Merely a Projection of a Singular Mind?

[CJames]

Thank you for replying to my post lifegazer.

And since you give me no examples of what you mean...

? That's what the rest of the post was, wasn't it? I thought it was.

'You' are an individual aspect/perception within that Mind. Your ability to reason comes from the Mind. What you have reasoned, is related to what you perceive.

Yes, that is undoubtedly what your hypothesis says. But why? How can you prove that my ability to reason comes from "The Mind" (God) rather than simply my own mind. And how can you prove that my mind is not a function of the brain?

We can also say that since the Mind creates sensory-awareness upon itself, that it must have prior knowledge of what it is trying to represent.

Yes, but you can't prove the knowledge knowledge does not come from prior trial and error. Computers now built to learn operate in this manner. They need no knowledge of how the world works to be able to learn how it does. They start as a plain slate, and evolve from there.

Therefore, if the Mind is capable of creating 'awareness' of a universe even before it has 'sensed' this universe, we can only conclude that The Mind had universal-knowledge before it created its own sensory-awareness of the universe.

You cannot prove that the mind had an awarness of the universe before it sensed it. An infant has no idea what is going on when it is born. It doesn't even seem capable of understanding space and time.

A hugely-significant conclusion this is too, because it shows that fundamentally, our minds possessed universal-knowledge before that mind could ever come to 'sense' the universe.

Even if the conclusion was correct, you cannot disprove that this is due to the genetic information we are born with, unless you assume or prove that material doesn't exist first.

Aside from the fact that existence is reduced to singularity

On of my responses added that a singularity is by definition a point in spacetime. The universe contains a nonzero amount of spacetime, and therefore is not a singularity.

But why do you insist that the physical-laws apply to a reality beyond perception?

I do not. I insist that relativity is entirely consistent and does not require the statement that:

each observer distorts spacetime with his mind.

Nor does it imply that this is the case, unless you again assume or prove that the mind creates it in the first place.

And if you don't, then why do you not see that the physical-laws can exist - as laws of perception.

I never said they couldn't. That's not the point. The point is, special relativity does not in any way imply your hypothesis. You have only shown that your hypothesis can be consistent with the laws of special relativity. That's fine for somebody who wants to know if their ideas fit with reality, but not for somebody who wants to prove their idea is a necessary part of reality.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by CJames
Thank you for replying to my post lifegazer.

? That's what the rest of the post was, wasn't it? I thought it was.

Yes, that is undoubtedly what your hypothesis says. But why? How can you prove that my ability to reason comes from "The Mind" (God) rather than simply my own mind. And how can you prove that my mind is not a function of the brain?

Yes, but you can't prove the knowledge knowledge does not come from prior trial and error. Computers now built to learn operate in this manner. They need no knowledge of how the world works to be able to learn how it does. They start as a plain slate, and evolve from there.

You cannot prove that the mind had an awarness of the universe before it sensed it. An infant has no idea what is going on when it is born. It doesn't even seem capable of understanding space and time.

The statement of LG in sentences as "Therefore, if the Mind is capable of creating 'awareness' of a universe even before it has 'sensed' this universe, we can only conclude that The Mind had universal-knowledge before it created its own sensory-awareness of the universe." just sound utterly blasphemic and non-sensical to me, but in trying to remove the blasphemic and non-sensical part, I think he wants to make the point that a new born individual, or even before it is born, has as first experience of his/her mind that "he/she is there", and that experience might reside before any actual experience with the sensory system.
In that way the self-epxerience of mind comes before the experience of the outer world.
Wether or not this is correct, is something that perhaps never can be tested directly, because we don't know what goes on in the minds of babies before they are even born.
But in some ways it is likely that the growing foetus, which has grown from one cell, in it's formation and becoming a fully equipped human being, at some point of it's evolution starts to be aware of itself, and of it's surrounding environment. And it could well be that the awareness starts with self-awareness "me being there" before awareness of the sensory system.

Nevertheless it is utterly non-sense what he claims about universal-knowledge (where would that 'knowledge' reside then, other then in the matter itself?) being there, before it 'creates' (does he mean the evolutionary development of sensory perceptions?) it's own sensory-awareness of the universe.

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
I haven't presented myself as a materialistic-scientist. I'm not here to make predictions about matter.

You said that your ideas are verifiable by the laws of physics. If your ideas make no predictions about or comment on matter or spacetime, then the first statement is not true.

No Tom. The only conclusion which can be derived from your reasoning, is that we all share the perception of a singular-reality. At what point, from this axiom, do you find the bridge which takes your reasoning to an external reality? There is no such bridge of logic.

At that point, one has to make an assumption. I assume that whatever it is that provides the stimulus to my mind is a material entity whose mechanical properties give rise to that stimulus.

You, on the other hand, assume that it is a figment of God's imagination.

I take the first one because I do not have to assume the existence of something for which there is zero evidence.

It is as easy to comprehend that each 'thing' is an espect of a singular-mind, as it is to attribute this understanding to an external reality.

Only if one is completely ignorant of cognitive science. If not, then it is not so easy to conceive of a mind without a material brain.

Your reasoning just exhibits material bias. Mine however, acknowledges the possibility of an alternative. That's why I explore it, continually. If you can't drop the absolute-belief in this materialism, then how can you explore the alternative possibility?

My bias against The Mind, God, Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and the Tooth Fairy all come from the same reason: total lack of evidence. When that changes, then so will I.

Therefore, the very sense of this pain is evidence that at some-level, and somehow, the mind[/color] itself has ~painted this portrait~ of reality upon its awareness.
And that's all we can know. We certainly cannot know that what we sense within ourselves, is actually existent beyond the Mind[/color] which ~painted this picture~.

You are very subtle about making the transition from the mind (as in my mind) to The Mind (as in god) here.

It is true, I know of things only through my senses. Given only that, I might be able to reasonably reach the conclusion that it is all happening in my own head. However, there are other people who I can talk to, and who can confirm that they, too, have the same experiences. So it most definitely is not all going on in my own head (unless I assume that the other people only exist in my head, which is absurd).

So, I now have two choices:

Assume an external, objective reality of material existence that is consistent with the stimuli I recieve.

or

Assume an external, objective reality of spiritual existence for which there is no evidence.

I choose the first.

 

[Kerrie]

not sure this thread is going anywhere...

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Tom
You said that your ideas are verifiable by the laws of physics. If your ideas make no predictions about or comment on matter or spacetime, then the first statement is not true.

At that point, one has to make an assumption. I assume that whatever it is that provides the stimulus to my mind is a material entity whose mechanical properties give rise to that stimulus.

You, on the other hand, assume that it is a figment of God's imagination.

I take the first one because I do not have to assume the existence of something for which there is zero evidence.

Only if one is completely ignorant of cognitive science. If not, then it is not so easy to conceive of a mind without a material brain.

My bias against The Mind, God, Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and the Tooth Fairy all come from the same reason: total lack of evidence. When that changes, then so will I.

You are very subtle about making the transition from the mind (as in my mind) to The Mind (as in god) here.

It is true, I know of things only through my senses. Given only that, I might be able to reasonably reach the conclusion that it is all happening in my own head. However, there are other people who I can talk to, and who can confirm that they, too, have the same experiences. So it most definitely is not all going on in my own head (unless I assume that the other people only exist in my head, which is absurd).

So, I now have two choices:

Assume an external, objective reality of material existence that is consistent with the stimuli I recieve.

or

Assume an external, objective reality of spiritual existence for which there is no evidence.

I choose the first.

Very excellent post!