If "everything is energy" then what does this mean?

[godnotgod]

If something is illusory, then there must be a stimuli which is creating the illusory effect. An illusion is a distortion of the senses in the presence of a stimuli. Dreams are often times affected by external stimuli...sounds, smells, physical contact with objects...etc. If all is nothingness, then there is no stimuli and therefore can be no illusion. Maya means illusion as far as I am aware, it doesn't mean the same as nonexistent or nothingness

An illusion is to see one thing as something else; that 'something else' is non-existent. There is no snake.

The stimulus, which is a preconditioning, is in the mind. It is an image of a snake which is then superimposed over the rope.

 

[godnotgod]

You don't too? Then how we take you seriously?

OTOH some have experienced:

The whole universe is the syllable Om. Following is the exposition of Om. Everything that was, is, or will be is, in truth Om. All else which transcends time, space, and causation is also Om.

'I' do not exist, and neither do you. Only consciousness is real. godnotgod and atanu are concoctions of consciousness.

There is no experiencer of the experience; there is only the experience itself.

There are no things. Show me one.

 

[godnotgod]

Godnotgod, 'non-material' does not mean 'nothing'. Gravity is non-material, electricity is non-material, magnetism is non-material. In short, energy may appear as non-material, but it does not mean that it is nothing. Brahman, as 'Advaita' goes, can be material or non-material; but as far as present knowledge goes, it is not 'nothing'. That is why I wait. Let science decide. Sitting here on my chair before a computer and knowing hardly of any Maths and Physics, I will not jump to a conclusion.

For one, a thing can be contained. It is finite, possesses form, materiality and solidity. You cannot contain gravity, electricity, consciousness, magnetism. They are not things, yet we label them as such.

Both Hinduism and Quantum Physics say that what is called 'the material world' is not material at all. Hindusim calls that non-material condition 'maya', while Quantum Physics calls it 'possibility' and 'virtual'.

Secondly, what we call 'things' have no independent self-nature. All such 'things' are interconnected to and arise with everything else. This is known in Buddhism as The Law of Dependent Origination. Because there are no things, but only forms, they are called 'empty'. This is Sunyata. And so it is said:

'form is emptiness;
emptiness is form'

Show me 'things'

 

[Aupmanyav]

Is there any possibility that you (or Aup) to pause and consider whether a waking state description of dream or sleep states constitutes a true description of the dream or sleep state consciousnesses?

Let us parse it. 1. waking state description of dream: Not true. Because we add things to hazy portions of the dream later. 2. waking state description of sleep state: We, I mean science has done a lot of work on that and we know quite a lot about that. The various stages of dream state and the spurts of real deep sleep which last only minutes (as per the latest information and not for half-an-hour or so as was previously believed).

 

[atanu]

There is no experiencer of the experience; there is only the experience itself.
There are no things. Show me one.

Here. I am responding to you for one time. I experienced your post and responded. You will experience mine and will respond.

(It is inane and actually "Casting Pearls Before the ...", when one talks and talks endlessly about 'non-dual' consciousness, while situated and experiencing duality oneself. )

 

[idav]

What? Mystics have no preferences regarding QM. They are saying the same thing they have said for thousands of years, long before QM was developed.

It sounds to me that YOU want QM to be material, when it says this world is virtual and possibility only.

I don't have a preference, I'm just of the mind that reality is made of something rather than nothing, thats all. I don't believe in something from nothing, makes little sense.

 

[godnotgod]

"....Materialism is simply true in some obvious and intuitive way. There have been no real breakthroughs in thought with this. It is simply fallout from the general nihilism and carelessness that has overtaken modern academia in general. Meanwhile, ironically, it is matter itself that has fallen apart in several very profound ways.

First of all, the materialist used to be comforted by the evident solidity, and hence reality, of matter. Dr. Johnson refutes Berkeley by kicking the table (or something). Yet now the physicists have delivered up atoms that, but for a few subatomic particles, are empty space. Indeed, although this is rarely stated openly and flatly, atoms are entirely empty place, since the fundamental subatomic particles (quarks and leptons) are "Dirac Point Particles" which have no extension. Popular "string theory" doesn't help this, since the strings are one dimensional objects which do not fill space any more than the point particles. This means that all that actually fills space are fields, and there is no agreement in physics about what a field is (with different versions in Relativity and Quantum Mechanics). So all the comforting solidity of matter has evaporated into thin, nebulous, and uncertain alternatives.

More seriously than this, we have the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. According to Niels Bohr, nothing exists until it is observed. This isn't exactly the suspended judgment of the Positivist, since Bohr does reference an empirical or phenomenal realism of the observed world. It is the unobserved world that dissolves into a "probability cloud," which reflects the nature of our knowledge rather than the nature of the external world. The result, consquently, is something that looks very much like the opposite of Materialism. Existence only occurs in consciousness. This is traditionally called "Idealism," and it stands Materialism completely on its head."

http://www.friesian.com/nothing.htm

 

[VioletVortex]

If everything isn't made of energy, then tell me how atomic bombs work? Also, tell me how neutron bombs work.

 

[Aupmanyav]

They are not things, yet we label them as such. Both Hinduism and Quantum Physics say that what is called 'the material world' is not material at all. Hindusim calls that non-material condition 'maya', while Quantum Physics calls it 'possibility' and 'virtual'.

Secondly, what we call 'things' have no independent self-nature. All such 'things' are interconnected to and arise with everything else. This is known in Buddhism as The Law of Dependent Origination. Because there are no things, but only forms, they are called 'empty'. This is Sunyata. And so it is said:

Show me 'things'

But is not electricity, being energy, any force, equivalent to mass? Does not mass change into energy in a nuclear reactor. At the moment I differ with that. No. Hinduism does not say that the material world is non-existent. Brahman exists everywhere. Maya acts on material and makes it to be perceived in a form which is not true (rope and snake). Hinduism also does not subscribe to the Buddhist 'dependent origination'. It also does not agree to 'anatta' or 'sunyata'. You are mixing up things. Things are everywhere around, just open your eyes, material and non-material.

 

[godnotgod]

Here. I am responding to you for one time. I experienced your post and responded. You will experience mine and will respond.

(It is inane and actually "Casting Pearls Before the ...", when one talks and talks endlessly about 'non-dual' consciousness, while situated and experiencing duality oneself. )

Tell me, then: Who is it that is experiencing duality?

You, like Descartes, only assume the 'I' exists apriori, eg; 'I think, therefore I exist', a flawed logic.

 

[idav]

According to Niels Bohr, nothing exists until it is observed.

This simply is not true and a standard misinterpretation of what QM is saying. Thats why I keep calling this interpretation mystical. Quantum states have been observed which was a crucial step in getting quantum computations.

 

[godnotgod]

I don't have a preference, I'm just of the mind that reality is made of something rather than nothing, thats all. I don't believe in something from nothing, makes little sense.

But the 'something' you refer to has no actual 'somethingness' to it; we only assume that it does.

 

[idav]

But the 'something' you refer to has no actual 'somethingness' to it; we only assume that it does.

No we only assume evidence of something is being observed. No matter the nature of reality something is being observed that gives off evidence or it couldn't be observed.

 

[Runewolf1973]

An illusion is to see one thing as something else; that 'something else' is non-existent. There is no snake.

The stimulus, which is a preconditioning, is in the mind. It is an image of a snake which is then superimposed over the rope.

A lot of things can bring about the illusion of a snake. It can be the shape of the rope, it's texture, some unexpected movement, or dim lighting causing a false visual perception. Either way there is some sort of stimulus resulting in the appeance of the snake illusion. It is not just all in the mind, it is the result of some real and existing external stimuli. You are misrepresenting the term "illusion" in order for it to fit your mystic views. We all know you are just hallucinating if you are seeing things in the absence of a stimuli.

 

[godnotgod]

I don't have a preference, I'm just of the mind that reality is made of something rather than nothing, thats all. I don't believe in something from nothing, makes little sense.

Is it not obvious to you that the moment you think 'something', you MUST, by default, also include 'nothing'?

Why do you assume that reality MUST be made of 'something', especially in light of the findings of QM?

Maybe it makes little sense to the rational mind, simply because nature is not patterned after Reason. Surely you must have seen enough of what QM has revealed to know that by now.

 

[godnotgod]

A lot of things can bring about the illusion of a snake. It can be the shape of the rope, it's texture, some unexpected movement, or dim lighting causing a false visual perception. Either way there is some sort of stimulus resulting in the appeance of the snake illusion. It is not just all in the mind, it is the result of some real and existing external stimuli. You are misrepresenting the term "illusion" in order for it to fit your mystic views. We all know you are just hallucinating if you are seeing things in the absence of a stimuli.

There is a stimulus, but it is not in the rope. YOU are the one reading stuff into the illusion here. Why is it that the rope is not seen for what it actually is? You see? It is an archetype already embedded in the mind, one superimposed ON TO the rope. There is no signal whatsoever coming from the rope that says 'snake'. You have things backwards. The mind is bouncing the image of the rope back to itself and trying to understand what it is seeing. What it has in memory that comes close to what it sees is the image of a snake, amongst others, but it projects that first because danger may be involved. All of this occurs in a millisecond. The original metaphor has one walking down a road at dusk, and catching the rope moving in the wind out of the corner of one's eye. So the lighting is poor, and the rope is not in front of the observer. So one recoils instantly thinking he is close to a real snake, and then realizing in the very next split second that it was only a rope undulating in the wind.

"In order to explain this relative unreality the theory of superimposition is meticulously worked out by Shankara. While the snake is superimposed on the rope, the rope undergoes no aberration or modification in the process. It is the same rope all the time. What appears to you is only in your mind. The visible universe is just a perishable (akshara) superimposition on Brahman. Brahman does not undergo any change in the process. All the time Brahman remains as Brahman, [ie; The Changeless] the imperishable (akshara) substratum. This is where the nirguna (attributeless) character of Brahman is effectively applied by Shankara to his explanation of this mysterious relationship."

http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/maya_profvk.htm

 

[atanu]

Tell me, then: Who is it that is experiencing duality?

You, like Descartes, only assume the 'I' exists apriori, eg; 'I think, therefore I exist', a flawed logic.

You are actually intolerable. While you are assuming Descartes, 'me', 'you' etc. etc, you unceasingly preach, teach, and berate so-called others for their so called ignorance.

 

[Runewolf1973]

There is a stimulus, but it is not in the rope. YOU are the one reading stuff into the illusion here. Why is it that the rope is not seen for what it actually is? You see? It is an archetype already embedded in the mind, one superimposed ON TO the rope. There is no signal whatsoever coming from the rope that says 'snake'. You have things backwards. The mind is bouncing the image of the rope back to itself and trying to understand what it is seeing. What it has in memory is the image of a snake, amongst others, but it projects that first because danger may be involved. All of this occurs in a millisecond.

"In order to explain this relative unreality the theory of superimposition is meticulously worked out by Shankara. While the snake is superimposed on the rope, the rope undergoes no aberration or modification in the process. It is the same rope all the time. What appears to you is only in your mind. The visible universe is just a perishable (akshara) superimposition on Brahman. Brahman does not undergo any change in the process. All the time Brahman remains as Brahman, [ie; The Changeless] the imperishable (akshara) substratum. This is where the nirguna (attributeless) character of Brahman is effectively applied by Shankara to his explanation of this mysterious relationship."

http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/maya_profvk.htm

I disagree. The illusion and the snake is in the mind, but the stimuli and the rope is external of the mind. The rope by itself can be a stimuli.

 

[godnotgod]

No we only assume evidence of something is being observed. No matter the nature of reality something is being observed that gives off evidence or it couldn't be observed.

This is what you said earlier:

I don't have a preference, I'm just of the mind that reality is made of something rather than nothing, thats all. I don't believe in something from nothing, makes little sense.

That, sir, is an assumption.

 

[godnotgod]

I disagree. The illusion and the snake is in the mind, but the stimuli and the rope is external of the mind. The rope by itself can be a stimuli.

If there is no snake in the mind, do you see only the rope?