Eugene I wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:25 pm
Adur Alkain wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 11:59 am
I feel the experience of absolute nothingness (which I've only reached in deep psychedelic states) is similar but not identical to that of deep sleep. Like I said in my reply to Eugene, it's not really an experience. I expressed myself inaccurately. When we encounter the absolute nothingness there is no experience. It's the cessation of all experience.
When you feel or experience nothingness, there is still feeling, knowledge (awareness) or some kind of experience of nothingness, no matter how subtle it may be. There is no way you can know, feel or experience the
ultimate nothingness, because in such ultimate nothingness there would be no knowledge, feeling, experience or awareness. You can definitely asymptotically approach nothingness by reducing your level of feeling,
thinking and perceptional activity, but that does not mean that the ultimate nothingness actually exists. Therefore, the existence of ultimate nothingness is unprovable, it is only your mind-made belief. It can be an unconscious mind-made belief, something your psyche wants to believe in, so that your unconscious manifests a "feeling" of that something it wants to believe in. The belief in the existence of nothingness is similar to the belief in the existence of matter - it is a belief in the existence of something that can never be directly experienced and experientially proven.
I discussed this direct knowing with Bernardo, in the old "Metaphysical Speculations" forum. He doesn't agree, for him there is only awareness (or experience), which is fundamental, and meta-cognition, which isn't (it is the product of dissociated minds). According to Almaas, awareness-experience and consciousness-knowing are equally fundamental. I believe he is right, and I find this has many deep implications. My own version of idealism is quite different from Bernardo's for this very reason.
If some property can appear and completely disappear, then (by philosophical definition) it is not fundamental, it is "emergent". For example, temperature is an emergent property, because in the vacuum there is no temperature whatsoever. If you claim that awareness can appear and disappear, then that means that awareness is an emergent property. Chalmers in his formulation of "hard problem of consciousness" pointed that awareness cannot be an emergent property, and any metaphysics claiming that awareness is an emergent property faces the "hard problem", which is unresolvable (as Chalmers proved). So, Almaas philosophy sounds very nice, but it is philosophically problematic and inconsistent.
Hello again Eugene,
I posted my answer to your previous post right before I saw this.
I think I answered your first objection on my previous reply. It's funny, because I use a similar (or identical) argument, the one you use to say it's impossible to prove the existence of absolute nothingness, to say it's impossible to prove that awareness is always present and never ceases. So, using that same reasoning, you will have to admit that the belief in the continuity of awareness is similar to the belief in the existence of matter. Whether awareness is continuous or not, any break in that continuity cannot be experienced, by definition. So, it's a circular reasoning.
On the other hand, if you recognize that there is a knowing (consciousness) independent from experience (awareness), it is possible to directly know the existence of something (like absolute nothingness) that exists outside awareness. This is not a logical argument. It is a description of the actual act of knowing. I know there is absolute nothingness, the infinite void. You don't know it. That's fine. We won't change this situation by using logic.
Your second objection only makes sense from the perspective of the "limited mind" (like Rupert calls it). I mean, it only makes sense if you believe that time is fundamental. Only if you take time to be fundamental will you believe that something needs to be there at all points in time to be fundamental.
From the perspective of true nature (or from the perspective of M@L, if you prefer), time is irrelevant. Things may appear and disappear in time. It doesn't change their fundamental nature.
I never said that awareness is an emergent property. There is no emergence. Almaas calls these dimensions (awareness, conciousness, nothingness) the "boundless dimensions". They are eternal and infinite, unbounded by time and space. You can't say that one is prior or more fundamental than the others. Again, only for the limited mind is it necessary to think that one thing has to come before or after another thing. When we talk about the eternal now, there are no "befores" and "afters".
I understand that in some schools of Buddhism it is said that the universe is destroyed and created every single moment. All things are annihilated at every moment, and the next instant they arise again, out of nothing. I believe this is a different way of expressing the sense of nothingness as a fundamental, absolute dimension.
I love these conversations because they make me look deeper into these questions. Today I've been reflecting about Rupert's final remarks in that video you showed me, saying that since we've never experienced
our own beginning, we can't assume that we ever began, and therefore we can conclude that we are eternal, and will never die. There is some truth in this, I'm sure, but I also think there is a "fear of the void" lurking underneath the apparently impeccable logic. I'm sure it must be comforting to think that there is no void, no death, and that awareness will go on forever, eternally. But I wonder if it really works. Does the belief that awareness is eternal and never ceases cure the fear of death? I imagine it helps, but I don't expect it to dissolve that fear completely. Because underneath that belief in eternal awareness the fear of nothingness, which is
our deepest fear, remains.
I invite you to make this thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that awaraness can cease. That there can be total nothingness, total cessation. If that is possible even for an instant, it must be possible also for an eternity. I find this thought simply terrifying... So I was
thinking about this, imagining the end of the universe and an eternity of nothingness, with no awareness, no consciousness, just an absolute void... (This is the bleak perspective most materialists have about the universe, by the way: the "death of the universe".) But then I realized the horror of that thought comes from adding the dimension of time to something that is fundamentally timeless, eternal. I realized that this Nothingness is not in the future, nor in the past. It is right here, in the eternal now. That's when I remembered that old Buddhist notion of the universe being annihilated and created anew at every instant. From this perspective, the Absolute Nothingness is no longer terrifying. It is
our true home. It is what we are.
Our true nature. In exactly the same way that awareness (and/or consciousness) is
our home,
our true nature, what we are.
This, for me, is the real cure for
our fear of death: to embrace the Nothingness as
our Mother (in ancient mythologies, this dimension is represented by the Dark Goddess, the Goddess of the Eternal Night, the Goddess of Chaos).
Anyway. I'm not sure any of this will make any sense to you. But for me it's very meaningful. Thank you for the "food for thought"!
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)