Great post! These sentences sure got my attention: "The only reality is the one that exists in my mind. I don’t know if there’s an objective reality independent of my mind, and I don’t care. That’s another thing beyond human understanding." There's a great deal of overlap between the reality my mind presents me with and the realities which the people I'm close to claim (at least in my reality) they experience. Do you think our perceived realities influence how people near us perceive their realities? Do our realities bleed into one another? This is very crudely put, but I think you can see what I'm really asking.
Unrelated question: this post of yours can be read in its entirety without having a paid subscription to "From the Pure Land." Is it a one off, and/or might there be more free posts?
I'm aiming to write one post a week that's also a podcast and to make that one available to all subscribers.
I'm glad you like this one. I chose the subject to be available to all because of its importance and wide appeal (regardless of faith). I believe my thoughts affect people near me. Also, we consider things real because of how we see them and how others describe what they see. But how that process works is beyond me.
The subject of whether the tree outside my window exists pretty much as I see it, or exists in various forms, or doesn't exist outside my mind and the minds of others is a fascinating philosophical question, but in a practical sense, I'm only interested in the world my mind creates.
I think you're right on the mark n terms of what's truly important. But to stay impractical for a moment, do you think scientific findings and theories are effectively approximating what might be an objective reality common to all sentient beings in this universe?
I think the opposite. Quantum science suggests that nothing can be confirmed as real without its being observed. Physicists argue over whether the basic unit of everything is a wave, a particle, or an energy field.
Don't feel you have to respond to this if you've had enough of this issue. I agree quantum science has a lot of indeterminacy built into it, but quantum mechanics exists as a science (along with general relativity and other theories) because a lot of evidence suggests they are closing in on accurately describing something that might be called objective reality. Not all of reality, but a part of it a whole lot of sentient beings share, and the more experiments that get done, the more the theories get refined and close in better and better on understanding this shared reality.
Great post! These sentences sure got my attention: "The only reality is the one that exists in my mind. I don’t know if there’s an objective reality independent of my mind, and I don’t care. That’s another thing beyond human understanding." There's a great deal of overlap between the reality my mind presents me with and the realities which the people I'm close to claim (at least in my reality) they experience. Do you think our perceived realities influence how people near us perceive their realities? Do our realities bleed into one another? This is very crudely put, but I think you can see what I'm really asking.
Unrelated question: this post of yours can be read in its entirety without having a paid subscription to "From the Pure Land." Is it a one off, and/or might there be more free posts?
I'm aiming to write one post a week that's also a podcast and to make that one available to all subscribers.
I'm glad you like this one. I chose the subject to be available to all because of its importance and wide appeal (regardless of faith). I believe my thoughts affect people near me. Also, we consider things real because of how we see them and how others describe what they see. But how that process works is beyond me.
The subject of whether the tree outside my window exists pretty much as I see it, or exists in various forms, or doesn't exist outside my mind and the minds of others is a fascinating philosophical question, but in a practical sense, I'm only interested in the world my mind creates.
I think you're right on the mark n terms of what's truly important. But to stay impractical for a moment, do you think scientific findings and theories are effectively approximating what might be an objective reality common to all sentient beings in this universe?
I think the opposite. Quantum science suggests that nothing can be confirmed as real without its being observed. Physicists argue over whether the basic unit of everything is a wave, a particle, or an energy field.
Don't feel you have to respond to this if you've had enough of this issue. I agree quantum science has a lot of indeterminacy built into it, but quantum mechanics exists as a science (along with general relativity and other theories) because a lot of evidence suggests they are closing in on accurately describing something that might be called objective reality. Not all of reality, but a part of it a whole lot of sentient beings share, and the more experiments that get done, the more the theories get refined and close in better and better on understanding this shared reality.