Are there any reason for the creation of the universe?

On the issue of dualism may I use a mirror as an example?

Years ago I was fixated by the notion of reflection in a mirror, in the main I thought this was because my health was so bad that I was too sick to look at anything else. [ mirror therapy I have since called it ]

I observed that as usual a source of reflection appeared in a mirror as a reflection...duhh!! no big deal hey?. However after many days siting in a hospital chair, of this observing a commonly held idea I started to think about how reducing the distance between source and reflection would effect things, and then in an abstract sense what would happen if the distance between the source of the reflection and the reflection was made infinitely small.

imagine a source and it´s reflection with an infinitely short distance between them.

Conceptualy this lead to an understanding of self awareness and how an organism has an innate self reflection of itself. Also how the universe is essentialy a 3 dimensional rendition of something that is actually pseudo 2 dimensional. Certainly understanding the nature of self awareness helped me considerably as this was what I lost the awareness of the most because of my illness. It also meant that the univesre must be by default self aware in every possible "pixel" of space time.

Then apply this to matter, then to vacuum, and realise that potentially if one attempts by effort to separate a piece of self reflective nothingness one would create energy....and so on.....because the distance between reflection and source desires to be maintained as infinitely small. Increasing the distance generates an increase in the desire to reduce thus dualism is created that maintains the distance yet simultaneously maintains the desire for oneness.

So when dualism [ separation ] is increaed desire to reduce the separation is increased [ human emotive anaolgue can be described as loneliness ] . Therfore dualistic nature is universal in everything. Even if it has an infinitely small distance between reflection and source.

The reason why gravity attracts objects could be then speculated on that it is matter and nothingness desire to become one again that generates the attraction Matter {something ] being the reflection of nothingness but because the reflection can never be one with the source [ infinitely small distance and not zero distance ] the obejct will be constantly falling and never stop falling [ black hole time distortions etc] and the universe is self perpetuating.
sorry if I have rambled....not a planned post.....

 

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Quantum Quack:

So basically the self acts as a mirror turned on itself, for to reference itself is as, in many ways, as to look outwards?

How do you figure here in regards to self-awareness in the "pixels" of space-time? Also in the pseudo-two dimensionalness?

How would one be able to place this on a vacuum?

Here's something interesting to ponder: In order for there to be infinity, there must be an infinite series of finite parts. This then implies that seperation is necessary for wholeness and vice-versa. The same with time.

Hmmmmm. I'll have to consider this for a bit.

 

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well breifly, it occured to me that every single component of my body was self aware, in other words innately self reflective. That even though I had lost a conscious percpetion of a significant part of this self awareness we take for granted it must still hold true that I was self aware but not conscious of being so. Some consolation indeed!!

However if every chemical substance in my body was self reflective then the chair I was sitting on was also and so to were the walls of the hospital etc etc..... the whole universe was self reflective thus if intelligent it could be considered as self aware.....in other words I am defining the dstinction between self aware and self reflective.

In my current definition self reflective would be innate and non-self -animated. Were as self aware would be a self- animated form of self reflection or in other words an animated form that could act based on the knowledge of that self awareness or reflection.

Now if we reason that matter is only space with time then it could be extended to say that space [ vacuum ] must also be self reflective. Time providing the animation but not necessarilly the violition to act on that awareness...

I must admit I haven´t considered this area of interest for many years so please excuse all the bad expressing.

However it was the understanding that eventually allowed me to sort of re-engineer my self awareness to what it is today...

Working on the belief and then knowledge that all illnesses were essentially psycho somatic in nature I found that by unravelling the psychological obstacles I was able to restore my self awareness almost to what it was prior to the stroke in fact in many cases much superior to what it was.

So with this evidence of validity in the notion of self reflective self awareness due to evidence of my healing methods I am confident that it in some way will prove to be correct or truth universally.

 

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Quantum Quack:

Yet how is the universe capable of presenting a non-conscious self-reflectivity? This is where I stumble. What aspect allows this?

 

We shall discuss that tonight, as I am off to bed at the moment.

 

Possibly the definition of what being conscious is, needs thrashing out. [ big ask hey?]

A rock that is self reflective may very well turn out to be simple form of in-animated reflective unconsciousness.

Pondering:

A human is only conscious when animated [ awake ] but when asleep it could be said...at a stretch that the unconscious person is only self reflective not unlike the rock.

Actually come to think on it this can make a lot of sense because as with most inanimated matter it only exists in a zero duration moment of time [NOW] and moves without inhibiting that time or change or put it this way a rock is totally and absolutely passive to change [ as is an unconscious person], it does what it needs to do as per physics and inertia etc. Where as animated life plays with change a lot more and can resist change as per will.....hmmmmm....interesting....

consciousness is therefore associated with the suffering generated by this resistance to passive change [ desire].....thus when the Buddha talks of loosing desire he may be right. And when someone becomes entirely passive to change [ time] he no longer suffers and becomes purely self reflective....existing only in the NOW just like a rock does....

hey this is turning out really interesting....

 

Quantum Quack:

Yet how is this non-animated thing "self-reflective"? What would that entail for a thing without life?

 

PJ, if one takes a photogragh of a street scape with buildings and people and cars etc.....one can see in the photogragh nothing is animated [still photo] yet everything is reflective. The only distinction I am attempting to draw here is that it is self reflective innately as well.

It would mean as much as does to the objects in the photogragh, It is I think only the degree of willed self animation that determines the relative worth of this self reflectiveness or self awareness.
If you keep taking snapshots of a street scene say 1 every 2 seconds the same applies except the self animated have utilised their awareness where as the inanimated have no capacity to do so.

An innate self reflectiveness has no other quality and just is a simple self reflection, that only aquires meaning when a self animated entity can untilise it, thus self aware.

The use of the photo analogy is to emphasise the ongoing zero duration event that makes up reality.

any way that is in part the idea that I am attempting to express...

 

Quantum Quack:

But what does it mean to be "self-reflective" without consciousness? To simply be?

 

Unfortunately I think I have screwed up in my use of words and I am not sure it is possible to unravel the problem.

I am thinking along the lines that for a self aware person being only self -reflective is an absolute state of passivity to that which he observes or is aware of.

self reflective = passivity [similar to my state immediately after the onset of my illness]
self awareness = not so passive]
sort of thing, but this of course is work in progress [ learning how to express the idea properly.]

 

Quantum Quack:

Do you mean, perhaps, that the self is undifferentiated in the reflective state? That there is no point where there is a core from which things can be related?

 

Hate to jump in abruptly here but... this is my realm....

This of course leads to only two possibilities:

A contradiction (being undifferentiated in a reflective state implies being differentiated in a non-reflective state, thus, the dis-continuous, schizo self...).

The infinite regress problem (what self is it that the reflective self reflects upon?, ad infinitum...).

ibid

 

a hard question to answer....hmmmm let´s see......

in a pure passive state one is merely a reflection [ no identity other than what is reflected]. This leads to the notion that in a pure passive reflective state one becomes the truth of that reflection , not only in a self reflective which would be nothingness [ internally unconscious], but also an absolutely passive reflection of the universe at large [externally conscious]. Thus existing only in that infinitley small duration event called the NOW. Not stuggling with anything. pure passive flow. So internally we could consider oursleves to be nothingness [God] yet externally we could consider ourselves as the identity "Universe". Nothing <> everything. Thus pure dualism with only the universe existing as in this duality nothingness no-exists. A one sided duality. Thus God is the reflection of the universe and the universe as well.

However as soon as one looses that passivity by using will [ thinking and dreaming etc] the reflection of the universe is now compromised with memory and pre-conception. And the reflector is now a human and no longer the universe.

A bit like particle entanglement that is destroyed as soon as one attempts to influence it´s reflected particle

Any way thats what I am currenty thinking about.

 

I am not sure but I think PJ was refering ot the two forms I have expressed that being self reflective and self aware [ awareness of that self reflection], and suggesting that the self iis unable to be differentiated in the pure self reflective state....when compared to the self aware state...or thats what I was responding to any way....and agree with...

aww!! pure crapolla...

try again

I interpreted PJ question as in the self reflective state there is no concept of self identity where as in the self aware state there is. IN the pure passive self reflective state one can only say that they are nothing and everything simultaneously. But of course if they could say such a thing then they have done so by use of self awareness and thus no longer purely passsive.

The key I would imagine is to be able to say or rmore importantly be "I am nothing and everything simultaneously " and no longer would you say you are who you were. That way the Buddha´s teaching makes full sense for when you eliminate desire one becomes purely passive, and in doing so becomes everything and nothing

 

Right, but these two purported forms are incompatible.
A pure, undifferentiated self-reflective state would imply the absence of self, which leads to 2 problems: first, how would one possibly move to that state (assuming you could even then call it a state, given that the self would be eliminated thereby..) ? and second, how could one ever recover from such a state (which would require some sort of reconstitution of self..)?

 

right on...exactly....reconstruction of self...hmmmmm certainly sounds familiar to me.....

of course while I was fixated on the mirror I had no thoughts.....it is only in hindsight that i thought about how sick I must have been.

" I couldn´t recognise that it was my reflection....."

 

Aaah... but what then is it that does the reconstitution? And what 'material' does it work with?

The trick with the mirror metaphor is this however: when viewing yourself in a mirror, you cannot see yourself. The image is not true; it's reversed.

 

Quantum Quack:

How would that make one conscious?

How is nothingness "God"?

This I agree with.

That I am not seeing. Where do you link that?

Yet how can it be compromised, if those conceptions and memories are true?

Yes, this is what I was refering to.

Yes, this is what I had meant.

Glaucon:

I had meant more in line with "there is Self than there is Other" rather than several personalities in one thing. Whereas in the "unreflective state" the default position is no distinction between "Self and Other". In essence, non-consciousness.

To make a Zen-sounding analogy: The non-reflective non-self is the ocean, the reflective real self is the drop of water.

I do not see how this is an infinite regress? Would one need only reflect on the self and have no reflection here?

 

I understand and appreciate the distinction. I just think it's not a tenable position.
To my mind, the non-reflective self cannot qualify as a self. Moreover, I'd say that this state is practically unachievable. Regardless, I think it all depends on how one goes about deriving the 'self'. I hold that the self has no meaning beyond its opposition to 'other'. To minimize, or eliminate this opposition, is to destroy the self. (a la Zen...

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Infinite regress par excellence.
To reflect is to observe oneself. But to do this, there must be that part of oneself that observes. This means that the observed self is incomplete, ergo, not the self. There must be another observer self observing the observing self that observes the self..... etc., etc., etc.

 

Glaucon:

I would agree. I was just using Quantum Quack's terminology in order to not trip over semantics.

WOuld not all non-beings essentially have this "non-reflective self", I.E. "non-self" categorization? That is, without the "I think", there is no "I am"?

This becomes quite the issue when discussing whether a purposed omnipresent being would be able to being conscious. For if one is everything, then there is no self to reference, as there is no non-self to be opposed to.

Ah, I see where you are going here. But what if one takes into consideration one's own perception of one's self? For instance, it seems like we can manage introspection, precisely -because- we have that knowledge of what it is for us to think. The mind's eye "taking into account itself" doesn't seem to be difficult. Once one set's one's mind to it, that is.