VincentRJ

16 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

They tell you the truth about climate change. Up to you if it's scary or not.

 

The first truth about climate change one should learn, is that climate has always been changing throughout the history of our planet, due to a myriad of interconnected natural processes.

Those natural processes do not suddenly stop as a result of human development. The effect of recent human activity on our climate represents the addition of yet another of the many, complex, contributing factors that continue to cause the climate to change.

However, accurately measuring the significance of that human contribution to climate change is very challenging (if not impossible), due to the complexity of the issue.

The satellite-based graph you have shown looks very scary because the Y axis represents a temperature change of just 1/10th of a degree for each full year that is represented on the X axis.
One tenth of one degree is insignificant. We live in a world where the temperature changes by tens of degrees from day to night and from summer to winter. A change in temperature of 1/10th of a degree would be undetectable by any living creature.

Imagine if that same graph had a Y axis where each step represented one whole degree. You would see an approximately straight horizontal line with just a few small wiggles. 

Another issue is the 'margin of error' when measuring temperature changes of 1/10th of a degree.
Here's an interesting article from NASA addressing the issue.
https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/which-measurement-is-more-accurate-taking-earths-surface-temperature-from-the-ground-or-from-space/

"Satellites don't directly measure temperature or the surface where people live. Instead, they measure the brightness of Earth's atmosphere. Scientists then use computer models to convert this brightness data into temperature information.
To make matters more challenging, scientists gather brightness data from more than 16 different satellites. Think of it like receiving a box of puzzle pieces without a picture to guide you on how to complete the puzzle." 

17 minutes ago, Korat Kiwi said:

I think thats urea... 

Urine contains urea as well as potassium, sulphates, ammonium, phosphate and nitrogen, which is why it's a natural fertilizer. The rest is water, which plants also love. 

1 hour ago, brianthainess said:

 

Mmm that doesn't sound much like health promotion to me.

 Urine is a fertilizer. Plants love it. 

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Luckily for all the medical staff on the planet, a broken bone, a heart attack, a stroke etc can't be cured with the placebo effect.

The placebo effect alone will not fix a broken bone or a heart attack, but there is evidence it will help the recovery process, and reduce the pain and anxiety.

The placebo effect in heart failure
"Many patients who are enrolled in controlled clinical trials of new drugs for the treatment of heart failure show favorable hemodynamic and clinical responses to placebo therapy. This "placebo effect" results from both the creation of a supportive therapeutic environment and the spontaneous improvement that is commonly seen when measurements of symptoms and cardiac function are repeated frequently over long intervals of time.

Three months of treatment with a placebo produces a reduction in symptoms in 25% to 35% of patients, an increase in cardiac output and a decrease in pulmonary wedge pressure, and an increase in exercise tolerance of up to 90 to 120 seconds. Physicians commonly seek to maximize the "placebo effect," since the goal of treatment in the clinical setting is to improve the quality of the patient's life. On the other hand, clinical investigators seek to minimize the "placebo effect, since the goal of a research study is to test the hypothesis that the new drug is superior to a placebo."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2248215/

On 2/25/2024 at 3:39 AM, save the frogs said:

I just watched this guy's video.

He claims he had a mystical experience while meditating and left he left his body for 3 days.

Then he says people started coming to him to perform miracles. He claims he cured a woman of cancer and cured another guy of blindness.

Let's suppose for argument's sake that you could cure cancer just by putting your hand on someone's forehead. Then wouldn't everyone in India who has cancer coming looking for you? How many people have cancer in India? 100 million? You'd have to fight off 100 million people. 

 

 

In such circumstances, any cure, or reduction of symptons, is due to the belief of the individual. Such belief is a pre-condition for any cure. It's known as the placebo effect.

The following quote from the Bible, is an example of this placebo effect.

"Luke 8:43-48:
“Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. She came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. Then Jesus asked, ‘Who touched me?’ 
 

When all denied it, Peter said, ‘Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you.’ But Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from me.’ 
 

When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.’”

Science is still trying to understand the processes of the placebo effect, but there's no denying that the effect exists.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/306437#clinical-usage-of-placebos

Robert Buckman, clinical oncologist and professor of medicine, concludes that:
“Placebos are extraordinary drugs. They seem to have some effect on almost every symptom known to mankind, and work in at least a third of patients and sometimes in up to 60 percent. They have no serious side-effects and cannot be given in overdose. In short, they hold the prize for the most adaptable, protean, effective, safe and cheap drugs in the world’s pharmacopeia.”
 

5 hours ago, ChrisY1 said:

In the times of hand cutting in Australia...the cane was always burnt and even with the advent of machinery, continued into the 80s....now stopped.

I don't believe it has stopped, but it does seem to have been significantly reduced.

"Now around 70% of Queensland’s crop is harvested without burning. But wherever you are through our vast sugarcane regions, there is still the possibility that the dusk or dawn sky will be lit up with a cane burn – a big, bright whoosh and then it’s done."

https://www.canegrowers.com.au/page/media/latest-news/why-pre-harvest-cane-fires-still-light-up-the-sky#:~:text=Now around 70% of Queensland's,whoosh and then it's done

"Any cane grower can still apply to burn cane under the authority of a Permit to Light Fire."

https://www.qfes.qld.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-04/QFES-InfoSheet-CaneBurningNotification.pdf

2 hours ago, Callmeishmael said:

A large percentage of sugar cane is fermented to make alcohol that is then mixed with gasoline to make gasohol.

 

Burnt sugar cane cannot be eaten, but it can be used to make gasohol.  While gasohol is theoretically cheaper and cleaner burning than gasoline, it has less energy, so it negatively impacts both fuel economy and engine lifespan.  So both the production of gasohol and its use go against the purported need for it!

Thanks for the explanation. I'm learning something new today. 

I did an internet search to find out more information, and was surprised to find that pre-harvest burning of sugar cane is also done in parts of Australia and the USA, because of the economic benefits.

However, I'm still a bit puzzled why the stems (or the stalks) of the sugar cane plant are resistant to burning. 
"Farmers burn sugarcane crops before harvest to remove the leaves and tops of the sugarcane plant leaving only the sugar-bearing stalk to be harvested."

For those interested, the following article explains some of the benefits of pre-harvest burning.
https://www.bdbcanegrowers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Reasons-for-Burning.pdf

"With large lodged crops it can be difficult to harvest due to the tangle of cane in the paddock. This lodged crop  can increase the cost of harvesting to the growers if cut green, as the harvester may only be able to cut one way and or at a reduced rate. 
This increases the amount of diesel used to harvest the crop. By burning the crop the harvester is able to reduce fuel use, decreasing the cost to growers. The burning also enables the harvester operator to see the rows in the lodged cane and enables them to follow the rows. This reduces the damage to the cane improving its ability to ratoon for the following year." (Ratoon is the part of cane left underground after harvesting, and a loged crop is a crop where the stems have been displaced from their vertical position  as a result of buckling).
 

"Another benefit of the burning in this situation is the improved quality of the billets sent to the mill (less dirt, extraneous matter) that increase the return to the grower and miller (there is less wear and tear on the mill machinery from improved billet quality). Burning also has the ability to improve the quality of the sugar that is made at the mill."
 

How can anyone harvest sugar cane after burning it? 

5 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

Your points are valid on some level, but I think you are overthinking it. The point is not to find some alternative explanation to what is being described, but to examine the explanation given by those who are studying the phenomena and more importantly, those who are actually doing it. In this case it is mastering a specific mediation technique that, as a byproduct, allows for a remarkable control over the body and the senses.

Would this explanation be really so preposterous that other even less likely scenarios have to be conjured up?

I mean, you could think of a hundred different explanations, but why not focus on the one given? Instead of investigating 100 different explanations, investigate the one offered and come to your own conclusion whether it is true or not. That's just common sense really.

 

Did you miss the following point I made in the post you are responding to?

"As I mentioned in a previous post, the mind/body often over-reacts to experiences  which are interpreted as some sort of threat to our well-being, such as various types of stress, loss, discomfort, anxiety, pain, feelings of extreme cold or heat, and so on. I believe that control of the mind through meditation and mindful practices does help to reduce such over-reactions."

The results of this experiment are interesting, as I mentioned, but not surprising.
Science is a continuous process of experimentation and enquiry, in order to improve our understanding.
To continue this experiemnt and increase our understanding of the potential power of meditation, I would suggest comparing the reactions of experienced Thai monks, who are used to warm weather, with the reaction of non-meditating Eskimos who are used to cold weather, both sleeping with the same type of clothing in the same cold weather.

If it was discovered that the Thai monks were able to sleep as peacfully as the Eskimos, or even more peacefully, in those same conditions, that would be remarkable, and surprising for me.

11 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

You'd be surprised at what the mind is capable of doing when trained properly:
Meditation changes temperatures — Harvard Gazette

That's an interesting article, Sunmaster, but the subject does need more research.

As I understand, the human body adapts to cold temperatures, given a sufficient amount of time. The monks in the study you linked, appear to be used to cold weather, but not the scientists doing the study. From the article: "Working in isolated monasteries in the foothills of the Himalayas proved extremely difficult." 

As I mentioned in a previous post, the mind/body often over-reacts to experiences  which are interpreted as some sort of threat to our well-being, such as various types of stress, loss, discomfort, anxiety, pain, feelings of extreme cold or heat, and so on. I believe that control of the mind through meditation and mindful practices does help to reduce such over-reactions.

I would expect anyone who has been living in a cold climate in the Himalayas for a significant period would be able to withstand the cold weather much better than someone who is used to a warm climate. If they are well-practised meditators who have also acclimatised to the cold weather, as in this study, they should be able to increase that acclimatisation when meditating.

I'll address a couple of quotes from the Harvard Gazette artticle.
(1) "In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit."

40 degrees F is above the freezing point, and 'thinly clad' is a rather imprecise term for a scientific study. I imagine a 'thinly clad' Eskimo, who is used to much colder temperatures, would feel very comfortable  at 40 degrees F, without engaging in any meditation.

(2) "They also documented monks spending a winter night on a rocky ledge 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas. The sleep-out took place in February on the night of the winter full moon when temperatures reached zero degrees F. Wearing only woolen or cotton shawls, the monks promptly fell asleep on the rocky ledge, They did not huddle together and the video shows no evidence of shivering."

Now zero degrees F is certainly cold. That's around minus 17 degrees C. But note, 'temperatures reached zero degrees F'. That suggests the minimum temperature was zero degrees F. But for how long? 10 minutes? Perhaps most of the night was much warmer.

Also, 'wearing only woolen or cotton shawls'? One shawl, or perhaps two or three per monk? A woolen shawl can be used like a blanket.

The scientists engaged in this study, should have compared the Tibetan monks' reaction to the cold weather, with some Thai monks' reaction to the same weather. They would then be able measure the difference between normal adaption to extreme cold, and the controlled effect resulting from meditation.

10 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

However, people more advanced than me have mastered this "shutting down" the outer senses that they are not perturbed by external inputs. Some people can meditate on the snow in the Himalayas, for example.

I bet they are not naked when meditating in the snow. They surely must rely upon external, material clothing to prevent frostbite. Are you suggesting that deep meditation can prevent frostbite?

Frostbite can cause permanent damage to the limbs. I don't believe even the most experienced guru or meditator can prevent frostbite occurring in an extremely cold environment without the material protection of clothing.

The suffering that Buddhism addresses is the unnecessary suffering resulting from the mental exaggeration of the basic processes of pain. The basic feeling of pain is an essential biological process for our survival. It's a message which informs the mind that something is wrong with the body. If one is able to completely ignore such messages of pain, and one does so in certain circumstances, then one could die.

"It might sound extreme, but I think that if you are not the master of your mind, then you are its slave. If you believe you are the mind/body, then you are its slave. There is only one way to find out whether this is true or not. Practice looking within regularly. "

I completely agree that we should strive to be in control our mind, thoughts, and desires, as much as possible. Most people seem unable to have sufficient control of their thoughts and desires, which is the cause of many (if not all) of the problems in the world.

An obvious example is the prevalence of obesity. It should be obvious to anyone with basic intelligence, that overweight and obesity is not healthy and is caused by eating too much. The solution is very simple. Eat less and exercise more.
When I see a politician, or religious leader, who is significantly overweight, I tend to think 'this is crazy'. Here's a man (or woman) who is seeking a position of control over other people, yet they don't even have a basic control over their own eating habits.

2 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

But the mind can also be turned inwards. To do this, we don't need the 5 external senses. Actually, when we do this, we try to "switch off" the 5 senses (sitting still, eyes closed, in a silent room), and only focus our attention on a mantra or the breath or a personal God (whatever the personal preference is). We become a detached observer of the breath. We learn to observe the mind itself. That's why we can say "We are not the mind". If we can observe it, it logically means that we are not it.
 

Even if you are meditating in a cave, focussing on your breath, you are still totally dependent upon an accommodating environment. If there's no atmosphere, there's no breath to concentrate on, and you die.

If one meditates in a quiet and safe forest where the atmosphere is not polluted and the temperature is not too cold or too hot, and your seating position is comfortable, you are more likely to experience calmness and happiness. However, you cannot completely separate such experiences from the environment, although, with a strongly developed 'observing' mind you can reduce the negative effects of a disturbing environment.

This concept of 'observing the mind' is problematic, because it's also the mind that does the oberving. What makes sense is that one part of the mind can observes other parts of the mind, such as arising thoughts. In other words, there are two main aspects of the mind, a 'thinking mind' full of chatter, and an 'observing mind'. I would suggest that separating the 'oberving mind' from the 'thinking mind' is the process of meditation.

"You haven't answered the first question though. What is your source of happiness?"

There are many sources. Here are some of them.

I'm retired with an adequate pension, so I no longer have to do uninteresting work to sustain myself, or follow the orders of others. I feel free and independent. I take care of my own health by eating nutritious food and exercising regularly. I have a 5 acre property outside the city area where I can enjoy the quietude of the countryside and can often get close-up to the wild wallabies that freely jump around as I do my gardening.

I'm surrounded by beautiful mountains, forests and landscapes which I enjoy hiking through, and taking photos, and I've trained my mind not to worry about anything. Reading about Buddhism has helped.

5 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

Maybe it would be even more precise to say that the source of happiness is in the mind first, which then translates into physical effects such as the release of endorphins, serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. The brain doesn't release these hormones by itself but needs an input from the mind. 
I'm sure you'll agree to this. Science does.

Take sport for example. Practicing sport can be a source of happiness for some and a source of pain for others. We can't say it is a universal source of happiness. It's a variable. 
Or fishing, or mountain climbing. It makes some people happy and leave others completely unfazed. Some brains produce happiness hormones, some don't. Why? Different temperaments, different expectations. Where are these expectations formed? In the mind. The mind then interprets which activity gives pleasure and which doesn't. In this process, the brain is the last one in line, producing the physical results we can measure. 

So be careful....the brain and the mind are not the same thing. 

Red Phoenix's quote of M Aurelius is relevant because it highlights exactly this. Thoughts are formed in the mind.
The mind uses the brain, and the brain responds to the mind. The mind also changes the brain. People choose their actions—their brains do not force them to do anything. There would be no conscious experience without the brain, but experience cannot be reduced to the brain's actions.

I agree that the brain needs an input from the mind to trigger the release of endorphins and so on, which result in happiness, but the mind, through perception from the five senses, also needs an input. 

I think it's more precise to say, 'the conditions which allow happiness to occur are in the mind and the brain, in the form of past events and experiences which are stored in the brain'.

For example, it's known that the developed fetus in a woman's womb, prior to birth, can hear music and experience the mother's pleasure or displeasure, and associate that pleasure or displeasure with the type of music the mother is listening to.
If the mother experiences great pleasure when listening to Mozart, whilst pregnant, and that same music is later played to the child after birth, the child will show great joy. 

However, if the music of Mozart is never played, the joy related to Mozart will not arise.
The mind and the brain are essential for all knowledge and all experience, but so is the external environment. However, the mind and brain cannot exist without an accommodating environment. But the environment can exist without a human mind and brain, so what is the true source of all experiences?
 

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Sadly the good times never last and there was always a goodbye to the beach, my GF and LOS.

 

If the good times never last, shouldn't the 'bad times' also never last?

3 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

Interestingly, neurologylive.com states the following:

 

1. Happiness activates several areas of the brain, including the right frontal cortex, the precuneus, the left amygdala, and the left insula. This activity involves connections between awareness (frontal cortex and insula) and the “feeling center” (amygdala) of the brain.

Apparently, happiness activates areas of the brain. It doesn't say that the brain produces happiness.
So where does happiness come from??

I sense a certain imprecision in the language used in your above quote. I would rephrase it as follows.

"Happiness results from activities in several areas of the brain, including the right frontal cortex, the precuneus, the left amygdala, and the left insula. This activity involves connections between awareness (frontal cortex and insula) and the “feeling center” (amygdala) of the brain."

The external sources that often stimulate those feelings of happiness in the brain, vary enormously, and are related to each individual's background, lifestyle, and genetic characteristics.

The Marcus Aurelius quote from Red Pheonix is very relevant in this context.
 

3 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

Sure. The difference is where one expects to find happiness.
Where do you find it?

Within my brain. 

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

The difference between knowing and realizing....
 

 

Wow! Everyone is searching for happiness. Who would have known? How profound! 

The guy also looks overweight. Probably due to the happiness he feels when eating delicious food. 

It doesn't seem sensible to build a home on land which is susceptible to flooding during the monsoon periods. 
Following is a quote from the 'Businessinsider' article, which describes the cause of the delay in building the house.

"Our whole land was flooded, which meant the builders had no access to the site. When the water subsided, it took a lot of the access road with it," Ben said. "It was another two months before the government rebuilt the road so the builders could get back to the house."

5 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

There is no moral of the story. People are, and some attempt to understand why they are, and most don't. Humans stand on the edge of extinction likely caused by themselves. After we are gone, another species will rise to prominence and all that we are will be as nothing. Perhaps like the walls in Sth America some trace will remain that the next dominant species will wonder about, or perhaps not.

 

What will history say about us? Will we be a barbaric species that gloried in killing each other, or a species that strove for the stars and fell short.

IMO the jury is out on that.

As I've mentioned before, a fundamental characteristic of all life involves a competition for resources, in order to survive and replicate. There are no exceptions that I'm aware of.

Whist we are very much aware of the many examples of our own competition, as in football and cricket matches, commercial activities, political elections, theft and corruption, and the slaughter of our fellow citizens during wars and armed conflicts, the competition that other life-forms engage in is usually under the radar of most people.

Here's an example of the competition that ants engage in.

"Ants are also aggressive toward each other, fighting to the death over their tree territories. The consequences for losing colonies are stark: loss of territory or colony death. After a fight, victorious colonies have to defend their newly gained territory with a workforce heavily depleted by fighting. In a new study, researchers found that victorious colonies might offset this challenge by recruiting members of the losing colonies to help."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160318181610.htm
 

Perhaps the main threat of human extinction is a full-scale, world-wide atomic war, but I doubt that would cause extinction. There would be at least a few remote areas where the populations would survive. Also, the potential devastation of an atomic war is so obvious, that I doubt that any government could be so stupid as to start one.

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The question is surely "what designed nature", which to me is "God".

 

Nothing that has been created by man happened by "magic", so why is it that people that don't believe in God must believe that the universe happened from nothing ie "magic"?

That's an interesting question. I personally do not believe in God, but I also do not believe that the universe was created from nothing.

The hypothesis that the current universe began with a 'Big Bang' is no more than an extrapolation of our current scientific theories, which are always open to questioning, and many theories have eventually proven to be at least partially wrong, throughout the history of scientific enquiry.

For example, a theory might be well-established within the limited scope of human activity, at a particular time, and might seem to work perfectly well in practice. However, there is usually a margin of error in our calculations. If that margin of error is too small to quantify, and/or too complex to quantify, then we cannot know if the error exists.

An error which is too tiny to measure on a human scale, and is therefore considered to be non-existent, might be very significant on a cosmic scale where huge distances, huge quantities of energy and mass, and huge time-scales are involved.

I should also add that the hypothesis of the Big Bang does not state that the universe was created from nothing. A 'singularity' is not nothing.
From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity

"Although there is no direct evidence for a singularity of infinite density, the cosmic microwave background is evidence that the universe expanded from a very hot, dense state."
 

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

I use the word "object" not just for material objects.
Take the sentence "I have a thought." for example. "I" is the subject, "thought" is the object in this sentence. There is a duality here of subject possessing an object. Subject and object are not the same, that's why you say "I have a thought" and not "I am the thought."...or "I have this memory" and not "I am this memory." Just like when you say "I have a car." it means you are not the car.
So anything that can be juxtaposed to the I is not the I. The subject can not be the object. The car is not the I. The body is not the I. The feelings are not the I. The thoughts are not the I.

What is the I then?

What you've just expressed is one of the many examples of the imprecision in the normal use of language. Another example is describing a leaf as green or yellow. We have to simplify our use of language in order to be brief. It would be more perecise to say, 'I'm experiencing a sensation of greenness when I observe that leaf,' but that is not as brief as 'the leaf is green'.
However, such imprecision does cause confusion when one expands upon the topic. I wonder how many people actually believe that the leaf itself has the property of being green, and don't understand that the leaf appears green because it has the property of reflecting a particular wave length of light that the normal human brain interprets as green. The leaf itself is devoid of color.

All your thoughts are part of you, just as your arm, and your leg, and your heart, and your brain with billions of neurons, are all a part of you. We don't say 'I am the thought', because we understand that we are more than just the thought, just as we don't say 'I am the hand, or 'I am a big toe'.

So to answer the question, 'What is the "I"?, I would suggest that the "I" is a conbination of all the parts that are required for the human body to exist and function. However, not all parts are of equal significance. Probably the most significant part of the human body related to the concept of "I", is the  Cerebral Cortex in the brain, which is possibly the 'seat of consciousness', although it is also reliant upon other factors for consciousness to flourish.

Hope I have enlightened you. 
 

2 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

 

I think you are the one who is confused as evidenced in your post. 
You got one thing right, though. The example with the house is a good one. Attachment to things that are not you. The same way some people are attached to their bodies. The body decays, but does that affect the real you? I'm almost 50 but inside I still feel like a young man and sometimes a little boy.
Other people are attached to their minds and how brilliant it seems to be. But the mind is also an object. You are the observer of that object. "I have a mind. I have memories, I have thoughts." Mind, memories, thoughts are objects just like the house and the body. Who is this I that possesses and experiences these objects? 
That's the question that you've failed to understand and answer.

 

Okay. I'll try to answer it for you, to dispel your confusion. 

Mind, memory and thoughts are not objects like a house or any other inanimate object, but they are related to, and dependent upon the body. 'No body' equates to 'no mind', and 'no mind' equates to 'no thoughts'.

What science reveals is the enormous complexity within all the objects and life-forms that we observe. Such complexity can only be addressed by specific scientific disciplines directed at specific aspects of an object or subject.
The normal description of all objects and subjects that the average person is aware of, involves simple and basic labels to identify the object or subject. Most people understand what a car is, or a house is, or a tree is, and even what consciousness is, at a basic level. If they don't, because they are a bit illiterate, all they have to do is search a dictionary for the meaning of the word. 

Consciousness is awareness, which everyone experiences when they wake up after a sleep.
However, if one wishes to go into the details, within and related to, each 'labelled' object, one could spend a lifetime discovering more and more information.

Consider the simple example of 'what is a car?' Most people understand what a car looks like, and what its purpose is. They can identify the model, if it's printed on the car, and its identity in terms of the number plate. However, if they wanted to know the full details related to the car, they would have to ask thousands of questions, such as 'how was the car manufactured', 'what are the materials used', 'where were the materials sourced', 'who designed the car and who designed the individual components, and how do those individual components work and contribute the the functionality of the car, and so on, and so on.
 

9 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

If we can accept that consciousness is at the basis of all things, including us, and that consciousness, in its most fundamental definition, is "All That Is", it follows that we are always part of this consciousness, right now.... on the physical level, on the level of the mind and on the "super-mental" level (the level that transcends and includes the mind and the body). 

This point of awareness that we call "I"....where is it?
The first reaction of most people is "Here, this body. That's me."
Where exactly in your body?
Well...here, in my eyes...in my brain!
Can you pinpoint the exact location?
Ok, maybe it's not the brain but the mind. That's where the "I" is. Memories, thoughts, feelings, likes and dislikes....that's me.

But when you were born, you didn't have any of those. Was it still you?
Well, of course it was me, but.... errr, I don't know....

If I take away all your memories right now, will there still be a "you"? Or will you slump down dead like a sack of potatoes? Feelings come and go. You see them rising, you see them falling away. They appear on the screen of your consciousness. The same with thoughts. You are the "I" that observes them all.

 

Now it gets interesting.

So where is this "I" that comes before the first memories, thoughts, feelings?

 

In meditation I strive to first relax the body, then the mind. The mind is then prepared like a horse. I put the mouthpiece on, the blinders and hold the reins. Everyone can do it. You train your mind to stay focused on one thing and not fall pray to the wild monkey thoughts. Every time a monkey takes hold of you, you simply come back to your anchor, which in my case is a mantra, but can be a multitude of other things. And so, the monkeys will come less frequently and finally leave you alone. What you're left with is a calm, open mind...and silence. This state of mind is the best conductor towards revealing the true "I". The rational mind is not at work here. The true "I" lies beneath the mind, behind our thoughts, memories and feelings. This must be practiced and experienced first-hand. It can not be understood on an intellectual level, because the mind is the very thing that covers the observer behind it. When the mind subsides, the observer becomes stronger and we are able to widen our perspective (climb the tree trunk). 

For those rare people that have taken this to the final stage, a radically different world becomes evident. They may appear the same on the outside, but their "I" identification is no longer in the body-mind, they are now speaking from the perspective of the One Consciousness. "I" is for them the One Consciousness. 

To come back to enlightenment. What is meant by enlightenment is simply that first moment when consciousness realizes (remembers) itself completely and permanently. You can have several mystical experiences, many insights and awakenings before, but those are not permanent. You cannot be "un-enlightened" however. And why would you? You can still chop wood and carry water, while effortlessly resting as that One Consciousness.

 

I don't know if this is how Vedanta or any other philosophy or religion explains it. This is how I explain it.
 

What an amazing amount of confusion over a simple concept of 'what and where' is the "I". Do we have such confusion about 'what is a car', or 'what is a house', or 'what is a tree'?

The quality of consciousness in humans, and our capacity for abstract thought, gives us the ability to name both objects and subjects, and make distinctions between them, which is a necessity for all scientific enquiry and all human activity.
Can you imagine anyone being able to function and survive if they were not able to distinguish between a house and a car, or a rock and a tree, or their arm and their leg, or themselves and someone else, and so on?

The reason why this issue of 'who am I?' becomes a problem, is due to greed, and attachment to things which or not "I". Because people usually 'feel' attached to their beautiful house, for example, they consider it a part of themselves. They are the owner. When the house is destroyed during a flood or cyclone, the owner will probably suffer emotionally, even though they themselves have not been injured in any way. If they are not the owner, and are just renting the house, they will probably not suffer nearly as much, unless their material possessions (which are not them) were left in the house when it was destroyed.

What's the point of suffering because a material object has been damaged or destroyed? Oh! I see! You think material objects have consciousness, just like you do.