Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

AmirHosseinHmd t1_j372582 wrote

Why is that so-called "epiphany" presumed to be the canonical, authoritative experience, somehow informative of some deep truth as opposed to merely a momentary illusion?

Why is it assumed to be any more "valid" than the ordinary kind of conscious experience?

Sure, the former is rarer, and it's often accompanied by a sense of awe and profundity, but none of that gives any credence to it, really.

25

kittnnn t1_j377cal wrote

We want to believe there's some meaning to all of this, so we grasp on to whatever we can.

We might consider that human brains become more susceptible to superstition when damaged, and we might also consider that cosmic rays impact and damage our bodies with much more energy outside of low earth orbit. But that is a sad and scary thing to contemplate, so we choose the narrative that lets us sleep at night.

3

who519 t1_j37p57u wrote

I think there is a counter argument that many hope there is no meaning at all. The very idea of meaning scares the shit out of them, because if they have wasted their lives, they will not just enter a dreamless sleep when their biological life is over, but instead wake up face to face with the choices they have made.

4

aesu t1_j38opvz wrote

I've yet to meet any of these people. Also, the people who seem most sure the meaning of life is some sort of testing ground to see who gets to hang out with god, are the most arrogant, morally repugnant people I know. I get the strong impression they don't actually believe it, else they'd probably spend more time helping the needy, and less time policing other peoples sex lives.

−1

who519 t1_j38sg7k wrote

They are all over Reddit, many Atheists are horrified by the possibility of an afterlife. As for who is morally repugnant, unfortunately there are some on both sides of the argument. As for your assertion about Earth being a testing ground for those who hang out with God, I suggest you look into some eastern religions, or even better look at the accounts from those who have had near death experiences. What they come back with is very similar to Mitchell's epiphany, a sense of oneness and love and there is judgement, but it is only of the self and does not come from a higher authority.

2

aesu t1_j3903b0 wrote

My point was that it is an admission of insincerity of belief if someone claims to believe they are going to suffer for eternity as a result of transgressions in this life, and then willfully and persistently commits those transgressions.

Taking your point of a more abstract sense of an afterlife, why would there be a judgment mechanism? What would that even mean. In this context of everything being conscious and connected, why would there be a judgment mechanism? Judgment is an evolved trait of some tiny fraction of highly evolved biomass on one of quadrillions of quadrillions of planets. Literally a heuristic procedure for regulating interaction between social group members along lines of reproductive advantage for the group.

What would an amoebas, or a trees essential consciousness be judging itself for in the afterlife, for example? It has no context outside of regulating prosocial behavior among highly intelligent lifeforms.

1

who519 t1_j39gg0x wrote

You missed my point entirely, there is no judgement but your own. You view your life and you see both the good and bad you have done. There is no score, only the realization that you could have done better or worse. The people who experience this, express it more as a learning experience than a judgement. You express disdain for amoebas and trees without knowing a single thing about their experience as beings. It is arrogant to determine because those two examples aren't like us that they could not have a conscious life.

0

aesu t1_j39j9pk wrote

How does this apply to any of our ancestors? Beyond some more intelligent and prosocial birds, and prosocial mammals, what possible context could there be to this for most animals? What does this mean for matter which has not been consumed by self replicating carbon chains?

I have not expressed disdain for anything. I'm trying to understand the context of such a mechanism outside of highly developed pro-social animal behavior. And why does the brain even exist, if it can apparently function without itself?

2

who519 t1_j39myzd wrote

In non-local consciousness theory the brain is a receiver. So without the brain the body would not be able to function any better than a radio with no signal.

Why wouldn't the same consciousness apply to our ancestors, or dogs, or lizards or anything else? Why is the only conscious experience you can conceive that of modern humans? Several different species have shown all kinds of conscious indicators.

1

kfpswf t1_j37oo6g wrote

>Why is that so-called "epiphany" presumed to be the canonical, authoritative experience, somehow informative of some deep truth as opposed to merely a momentary illusion?

These experiences can literally change your entire persona and course of life. And you think they don't deserve some form of respect?...

>Why is it assumed to be any more "valid" than the ordinary kind of conscious experience?

This epiphany you are talking about are called direct experiences in spirituality. That means, you are observing something without the added distortions of the mind. For example, a picture of a mixed race couple can invoke different reactions based on who you show the picture to. So what do you think is the difference between a racist bigot who froths at his mouth in anger looking at the picture, and let's say someone who merely wishes the couple well in life?... The difference is that the mind of the bigot is conditioned to react with hatred and bile. This added judgement by the mind is not what you would call a direct experience.

Although the example of bigotry is an extreme one, this is the reality of all our ordinary experiences. They are colored by our learned judgements, misconceptions, and identity. This is exactly what the astronaut lost in that moment. A complete dissolution of his judgements and identities. In that moment he saw how all our differences are made up, how our existence is interconnected, and how we are all children of Earth. You'll shed tears if you ever end up having such an experience. Perhaps you should then ask yourself this very question you pose in this thread.

>Sure, the former is rarer, and it's often accompanied by a sense of awe and profundity, but none of that gives any credence to it, really.

None of your experiences are real, but whatever changes they bring about in you are very much real. You can either learn to appreciate such experiences as being glimpses of unfiltered truth, or continue to wonder why such experiences are spoken with reverence.

3

AmirHosseinHmd t1_j3al4lz wrote

>That means, you are observing something without the added distortions of the mind.

That is an unfounded assumption. There's no reason to suppose that. Why couldn't such an "observation" be the result of yet another distortion that actually evokes the feeling that there are no distortions?

Sounds like a more plausible hypothesis to me, given the profound susceptibility of the human mind to error at every level of cognition.

​

>You can either learn to appreciate such experiences as being glimpses of unfiltered truth

Once again, you've failed to substantiate why such experiences are "glimpses of unfiltered truth", and that thus remains a mere claim and nothing more.

​

>You'll shed tears if you ever end up having such an experience.

Sure, I might very well end up having a similar experience at some point, one that I would describe as life-changing, and might ultimately be compelled to conclude that they are in fact informative of some deeper reality, but that won't mean anything either, I'm just another person, with the same mental and intellectual deficits that plague everyone else.

There are people, on this planet, right at this moment, who are having what they would describe as profound spiritual experiences which are actually suggestive of mutually-exclusive worldviews.

Someone right now is likely talking to Jesus (or so they imagine), or Muhammad, or Mahdi if they happen to be a Shia Muslim say. I've actually met some of these people firsthand and they are 100% convinced of what they saw, and what they think what they saw meant, yet as a matter of pure logic, at least some of these people have to be experiencing some form of delusion, they can't all be right.

Therefore, you can't look at this phenomenon (of spiritual experience) that manifests itself in radically different ways, and lazily conclude that whatever an individual instance seems to suggest on the surface must be true because it simply felt profound, or that you ended up crying because of how intense it was.

2

fixprettyy t1_j37iek7 wrote

Your comment is one way to interpret this writing. It is highly pessimistic and reads like you lack comprehension skills... I say this as an English major.

It is not that the writer is invalidating the average human experience, it is actually highlighting just HOW connected the average and rare consciousness are. Each experience you have is "valid" even when you take a shit on the toilet that no one knows about, but it's up to the conscious mind (i.e., the reader) to interpret each of these experiences to give them validity... If you read this article and only took away your above comments/questions. I suggest you reread it or dive deeper into Alan Watts or Carl Sagan, both of which are mentioned in the writing. They each have wonderful outlooks on life and the human experience.

I wondered, how many links to understand we are missing in readings like this. We know that the writers had to have recognized so many connections in their minds in order to have these "new" epiphanies and we just get to read what they were able to put into words... If only we could see into their minds.

−1

AmirHosseinHmd t1_j3aohn3 wrote

>Your comment is one way to interpret this writing. It is highly pessimistic and reads like you lack comprehension skills... I say this as an English major.

Thank you for beginning your response with an unnecessary, meaningless personal attack. I've been on the receiving end of a rather surprising amount of hostility and overly condescending comments after I posted mine; which I find pretty ironic, given that it's coming from people who purport to be enlightened, which in large part is supposed to make one's mind more or less immune to all-too-human emotional attachment to schools of thought and tribalistic thinking. The irony is palpable.

​

>I suggest you reread it or dive deeper into Alan Watts or Carl Sagan, both of which are mentioned in the writing. They each have wonderful outlooks on life and the human experience.

I have actually listened to a fair bit of those guys' material; and although they don't really belong in the same category, they did share this poetic view about the cosmos and reality in some ways, but their metaphysical convictions actually differed greatly, as Carl Sagan was an atheist, naturalist, scientist and Alan Watts was effectively a Buddhist; and in a hypothetical debate where the two get to the nitty-gritty of their respective philosophies, I'm sure they would end up disagreeing with one another strenuously on a fair amount of crucial points, but nonetheless, I do appreciate both.

But once again, regardless of the aesthetic qualities of these ideas and these "spiritual" experiences, I happen to believe they are highly dubious and not to be relied upon for discerning the nature of consciousness or whatever.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I've yet to be presented with a clear argument, or anything for that matter that isn't just another way of saying "You just don't understand it you lowly stupid peasant! You lack the capacity to even begin to fathom the sheer profundity in all of this!"; which I would say is indicative of a superiority complex more than anything.

1