Close Your Eyes
I watched the movie “Memento” last night and was reminded of a common philosophical question: “If you close your eyes, does the world still exist?”. Of course, I would have laughed at the stupidity of this question for most of my life because I believed in absolute truth and reality. Now, as I lean more towards Buddhist views, I see that “reality” is only “reality” to you as you experience it. So, in a way, closing your eyes (and blocking your other senses) does make the world vanish. (I believe a Buddhist would say that the world doesn’t really ever exist).
It’s like the difficulty in trying to define “life” – it’s hard to find a definition that also includes somebody sleeping or in a coma. Or trying to differentiate between the “real” world, and the world you see when you are dreaming – is one more real than the other? The world exists really as an interrupted concept in our minds. In a very real way life IS different for each of us. What is more interesting to me is how can we use this information to our advantage?
“I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?”
Chuang Tzu quote
I think once this concept is grasped, it makes compassion and understanding all the more natural as we realize that reality is entirely based on perception and there are no absolutes, no right or wrong…only different versions of reality, determined by what different individuals experience.
Whenever I tell someone that there is no right or wrong I get a funny look…I know it may sound as if I’m some kind of sociopath… but I think there’s a lot more gray area than most people realize.
(This blog was written by me, with feedback from Chris and others)
Yep I like this question Glen, I think if you don’t mind I will use it as a spring board for a post here on the site
It will be more a long the lines of the whole reality question.
It’s time for mclovin again
But as for the good and bad. I agree I don’t think there is a set GOOD or BAD
Sure.. as a society we have through a process of evolving, decided to determine what is BENEFICIAL but we have done so through looking at the consequences of our actions.
I raise this a number of times with christians as they generally tend to get all upty and the last resort comes back to the whole moral issue
Being that God gives us morals, and without them we would just do whatever we liked
Well… we have done whatever we liked for centuries and we still do whatever we like.. We just ascribe it to whatever is our most dominant belief. ( i.e God, …. fit a religion or belief in there )
I believe that people can have morals without using the term God ( i think the whole term is a can of worms that takes us down a road of asking more questions… )
In fact I think the bible itself can be used for this it says ” Everything is permissable but not everything is beneficial”
Essentially.. God, Life whatever you want to call it.. Allows everything and anything to take place. Hence the reason we dont see a deity intervening and stopping people from doing all manner of crazy crap.
There is no set This is good, this is bad.. you can’t do this, you can’t do that.
We are the ones who determine that, and have determined that, through years of evolving
Thats why years ago, people would be tortued in the name of God, and they thought it was Good — even beneficial, yet over time we realized.. nope this is some crazy shit, lets stop this…
Anyway to make a long story short.. We play by the rules that society makes but we’re all just making it up as we go along