Hacker News Reader

Comment by monktastic1 | Hacker News Reader

The idea that consciousness must arise out of "something" also needs to be demonstrated, even though it looks obvious on the surface. The best analogy I can give is a dream. If you see a red flower in the dream, you will assume that the experience of redness is caused by something in the dream, whereas its real cause lies beyond any "somethings" in the dream. It is possible to know this by waking up from the dream.

I could try and convince you that it's possible to know the same thing about this particular dream, but without being able to offer you evidence it might not be very useful.

View on HN

Ok, but if you keep digging, eventually you are going to stumble into the concept of the dream itself, and then the question then becomes what properties and qualities of the process of dreaming gave birth to a red flower in the mind.

I will concede that how consciousness really arises may look nothing like what we can imagine or picture today, but we have yet to come across something that is both real and escapes scientific observation, and I don't think we should approach consciousness as such.

The idea here would be that consciousness isn't a "thing" at all, and so doesn't abide by the same constraints as things. Instead, consciousness is the very luminosity that arises as the experience called "seeing a red flower" (as well as all sights, sounds, thoughts, etc. that constitute your experience of the world). Space, matter, energy, etc. are then mental categories convenient for describing the shape and behavior of consciousness.

The two questions are then (1) what is the cause of this luminosity itself, and (2) why is it taking this particular form (red flower).

The mystical claim is that it is possible to know firsthand that time, space, etc. are illusions constrained to this dream, and that the luminosity itself is beyond them (and therefore not meaningfully "caused"). And the answer to why the dream is taking this particular shape can be known because "you" are, ultimately, the luminosity itself (aka "God").

Proving this to others is a different matter. In fact, in general the problem of intersubjectivity (to avoid the whole thing collapsing into solipsism) is the hardest aspect to communicate.

For those who are interested, I add that the idea that monktastic1 shares is present in different mystical traditions. I find it at least curious. I copy some quotes I once found in the web about this.

---------------------------------

He is the Eternal among things that pass away, pure Consciousness of conscious beings. —Upanishads (Hindu)

All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, besides which nothing exists. —Huang Po (Buddhist)

The light by which the soul is illumined, in order that it may see and truly understand everything...is God himself. —St. Augustine (Christian)

He is the spirit of the cosmos, its hearing, its sight, and its hand. Through Him the cosmos hears, through Him it sees, through Him it speaks, through Him it grasps, through Him it runs. —Ibn 'Arabi (Muslim)

Mind comes from this sublime and completely unified source above; it is divided only as it enters into the universe of distinctions. —Menahem Nahum (Jewish)

---------------------------------

The quotes are from https://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/index.php/Articles/t...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com