Originally posted by Empty Dragon
There is the idea in eastern thought that all of this universe is one consiousness. A universal consiousness if you will. Is there any acctual evidence to support this?
Firstly apologies for the length of this - but it's the most important subject there is (IMO) so...
There seems to be a lot of evidence, but it's all circumstantial (although much of it comes from science). Like some of you other contemplatives here I have some experience of this state - and you will know that once you experience it you just know that reality is a self-creation, that cosmic consciousness is a fact and that (at the deepest level) we are all one thing which is not physical. (Not being a proper Buddhist I don't like to call it Buddha nature - but I imagine it's the same thing).
The best evidence is that there seems to be no other logical explanation of why anything physical exists rather than just nothing.
Further evidence is that other than the complete illogicality (in metaphysical terms) of its beginning the world seems to be completely rational and logical to us. This strange coincidence is otherwise inexplicable.
Further evidence is our own consciousness, which is equally inexplicable (despite the hopeful and sophistic wrigglings of epiphenominalists etc).
It is also odd that the existence of cosmic consciousness (and ourselves as being part of it) has been the monotonously re-occuring conclusion of introspective philosphers for thousands of years. These were not all stupid or credulous people.
One of the problems about the idea is that it is in principle not scientifically falsfiable, thus it is therefore not a scientific proposition. However as the true and final explanation of existence must also be in principle unfalsifiable by science then the fact that it is unfalsifiable actually counts in its favour.
I like - "“This brings us to…the claim of materialistic science that matter is the only reality and that consciouness is its product. This thesis has often been presented with great authority as a scientific fact that has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. However, when it is subjected to closer scrutiny it becomes obvious that it is not and never was a serious scientific statement, but a metaphysical assertion maquerading as one. It is an assertion that cannot be proved and thus lacks the basic requirements for a scientific hypothesis, namely testability.” P240 Staislav Grof – The Cosmic Game – 1998 State University of New York
Also - "“Plato described knowledge of the divine as being implicit in every soul, but forgotten. The soul, immortal, experiences direct and intimate contact with the eternal realities prior to birth, but the postnatal human condition of bodily imprisonment causes the soul to forget the true state of affairs. The goal of philosophy is to free the soul from this deluded condition in which it is deceived by the finite imitation and veiling of the eternal. The philosopher’s task is to ‘recollect’ the transcendent ideas, to recover a direct knowledge of the true causes and sources of all things.” Richard Tarnas “The Passion of the Western Mind” Pimlico, London 1996 p10
