The self/I is not ego-mind. The ego-mind is not the sense of I/self.

[snowyowl]

Originally Posted by MikeS80

This is a very important point you made here. Unicorns do not exist in neither physical reality nor ultimate reality (the spiritual world, for lack of a better term). thus you will never directly experience unicorns.
.....
Physical reality and ultimate reality (the spiritual world, for lack of a better term) are the same existence, thus non-existence does not exist, and non-existence is an oxymoron, because of this, favoring or focusing on ultimate/absolute reality (the spiritual world, for lack of a better term), in a spiritual sense/context over physical reality is a contradiction and conflict where non exist in the first place.

But then again, you are right, it depends on how you define unicorn. By unicorn I mean the fictional/mythical animal unicorn :). For all I know, you could mean unicorn to be an average person, which would be weird, but hey, you never know lol

Thanks for this and other folks' replies. I've been a bit slow replying sorry. I am contemplating the existence/non-existence of unicorns etc as a warm up to your point (mentioned earlier somewhere) that " thus non-existence does not exist, and non-existence is an oxymoron".

At least I can picture a unicorn in my imagination, or look at pictures etc of them. Non-existence, as a general notion, is harder to hold as a concept in mind and think about it. Or emptiness, voidness, which are at the heart of some spiritual traditions.

If, as you say, physical and spiritual (mental) reality are the same, then what's the difference between my imagined unicorn and a physical one? And yet it seems absurd to say there is no difference. If non-existence doesn't exist, then does that mean everything exists, reality is infinite? I'm probably misunderstanding your post :( It was easier when I believed in the naive dualism of physical matter vs consciousness!

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by snowyowl

Thanks for this and other folks' replies. I've been a bit slow replying sorry. I am contemplating the existence/non-existence of unicorns etc as a warm up to your point (mentioned earlier somewhere) that " thus non-existence does not exist, and non-existence is an oxymoron".

At least I can picture a unicorn in my imagination, or look at pictures etc of them. Non-existence, as a general notion, is harder to hold as a concept in mind and think about it. Or emptiness, voidness, which are at the heart of some spiritual traditions.

If, as you say, physical and spiritual (mental) reality are the same, then what's the difference between my imagined unicorn and a physical one? And yet it seems absurd to say there is no difference. If non-existence doesn't exist, then does that mean everything exists, reality is infinite? I'm probably misunderstanding your post :( It was easier when I believed in the naive dualism of physical matter vs consciousness!

It's ok. Have you ever seen, met or obsrved a physical unicorn in person, that is not a work of fiction, while not dreaming, watching a cartoon/movie etc etc? lol

[snowyowl]

Originally Posted by MikeS80

It's ok. Have you ever seen, met or obsrved a physical unicorn in person, that is not a work of fiction, while not dreaming, watching a cartoon/movie etc etc? lol

Ha ha, the trouble is, that the more I look into this (perhaps childish) question, the deeper it goes. Prior to answering it, I need to know what 'physical' means, as distinct from 'imaginary'. As well as understanding the process of 'me seeing something'. No I haven't met a living unicorn outside facsimiles like cuddly toys, but unicorns are only an analogy. I haven't met 'nothing' either, but then perhaps 'I' only exist in relation to 'something'. Nothingness / non-existence is maybe in relation to 'not-I'.

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by snowyowl

Ha ha, the trouble is, that the more I look into this (perhaps childish) question, the deeper it goes. Prior to answering it, I need to know what 'physical' means, as distinct from 'imaginary'. As well as understanding the process of 'me seeing something'. No I haven't met a living unicorn outside facsimiles like cuddly toys, but unicorns are only an analogy. I haven't met 'nothing' either, but then perhaps 'I' only exist in relation to 'something'. Nothingness / non-existence is maybe in relation to 'not-I'.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/physical

Definition of physical (Entry 1 of 2)
1a: of or relating to natural science
b(1): of or relating to physics
(2): characterized or produced by the forces and operations of physics
2a: having material existence : perceptible especially through the senses and subject to the laws of nature
everything physical is measurable by weight, motion, and resistance
— Thomas De Quincey

[snowyowl]

Thanks Mike, that's helpful for a start but what happens when I follow this up with looking up the definitions again to try and get to the ground? This is an exercise I've heard about from Alan Watts but not actually tried till just now. Going through the Merriam Webster dictionary, I end up going round in circles and heading in a more abstract direction:

Physical: "2a: having material existence"
Material: "relating to, derived from, or consisting of matter"
Matter: "the substance of which a physical object is composed" & "material substance that occupies space, has mass, and is composed predominantly of atoms"
Mass: "the property of a body that is a measure of its inertia and that is commonly taken as a measure of the amount of material it contains and causes it to have weight in a gravitational field"
Inertia: "a property of matter by which it remains at rest or in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force"
Motion: "an act, process, or instance of changing place"
Place: "physical environment : SPACE"
Space: "a limited extent in one, two, or three dimensions"
Extent: "the amount of space or surface that something occupies or the distance over which it extends"
Dimension: "measure in one direction"
Measure: "the dimensions, capacity, or amount of something ascertained by measuring"

I get a similar process with exploring consciousness and imagination - so I need to do the actual work to see the difference. I don't agree with either materialists or idealists that either matter or consciousness are the ground of reality but I can see how this is such a debatable topic among philosophers.

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by snowyowl

Thanks Mike, that's helpful for a start but what happens when I follow this up with looking up the definitions again to try and get to the ground? This is an exercise I've heard about from Alan Watts but not actually tried till just now. Going through the Merriam Webster dictionary, I end up going round in circles and heading in a more abstract direction:

Physical: "2a: having material existence"
Material: "relating to, derived from, or consisting of matter"
Matter: "the substance of which a physical object is composed" & "material substance that occupies space, has mass, and is composed predominantly of atoms"
Mass: "the property of a body that is a measure of its inertia and that is commonly taken as a measure of the amount of material it contains and causes it to have weight in a gravitational field"
Inertia: "a property of matter by which it remains at rest or in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force"
Motion: "an act, process, or instance of changing place"
Place: "physical environment : SPACE"
Space: "a limited extent in one, two, or three dimensions"
Extent: "the amount of space or surface that something occupies or the distance over which it extends"
Dimension: "measure in one direction"
Measure: "the dimensions, capacity, or amount of something ascertained by measuring"

I get a similar process with exploring consciousness and imagination - so I need to do the actual work to see the difference. I don't agree with either materialists or idealists that either matter or consciousness are the ground of reality but I can see how this is such a debatable topic among philosophers.

I do not know why you are going around in circles heading in a more abstract direction. Those definitions are clear to me. The only thing I can think of why you are going in circles is that you are separating, compartmentalizing, and/or are pitting the seen material existence against the unseen (but not separate) non-material spiritual existence. Both the seen and unseen existences are spiritual in nature and are one and the same, because the unseen created the seen physical material existence, and the seen is an aspect, part or extension of the unseen existence. These 2 existences is what makes up reality as one/whole or is the ground, as you say.

Consciousness, by itself is not the ground. Consciousness is just a tool or instrument of the unseen to be seen/conscious of itself.

Someone believing consciousness is the ground is the same thing for someone to believe only a hammer built a house, and it misses the whole entire big picture.

Originally Posted by snowyowl

I get a similar process with exploring consciousness and imagination - so I need to do the actual work to see the difference. I don't agree with either materialists or idealists that either matter or consciousness are the ground of reality but I can see how this is such a debatable topic among philosophers.

David Chalmers, a leading philosopher of mind who coined the phrase "The Hard Problem of Consciousness", posits consciousness is fundamental alongside space, time and matter. So to your point he would say both are the ground-stuff of reality. Call it panpsychism. Advaita would say he's almost there and only need drop time, space and matter.

It's my opinion that if physics could delve down to the deepest foundation of reality, call it the Unified Field, that would be what Advaita labels Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss). I don't think that can ever be accomplished. It's beyond reach of intellect, theory and physical experiment. It's the Ineffable. It's like the eye trying to see itself. The subject cannot be its own object.

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

David Chalmers, a leading philosopher of mind who coined the phrase "The Hard Problem of Consciousness", posits consciousness is fundamental alongside space, time and matter. So to your point he would say both are the ground-stuff of reality. Call it panpsychism. Advaita would say he's almost there and only need drop time, space and matter.

It's my opinion that if physics could delve down to the deepest foundation of reality, call it the Unified Field, that would be what Advaita labels Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss). I don't think that can ever be accomplished. It's beyond reach of intellect, theory and physical experiment. It's the Ineffable. It's like the eye trying to see itself. The subject cannot be its own object.

Consciousness is just conscious of space and time, nothing more and nothing less. To say anything else is the imagination at work.

Edit: To say "the subject cannot be its own object", is nothing more than playing a mind game and is conditioning/manipulation at its finest. All concepts, ideas, metaphors, analogies create thoughts and images in one's head and these images, concepts, ideas, metaphors, analogies etc etc in one's head become/are things/objects in one's head as an image.

[PsyKeys]

Ego requires active interpretation so it needs a source material to interpret.
While the Self is a state in which things arise from the internal into external expressions.
The reason I think some people, and I've fallen for this game too, talk about time/space and finitude and fixed locations as Identities is that theyre trying to describe happenings/events in the language of physics.. but funnily enough what transcend time and space is motion... That's Transcendent.. rather than thinking about others, which is the objective view and based on statistics, which sets up the framework of a universal field of probability we just look inwards from a self to self basis. Self to self is never subjective... the degree of shareable thoughts we all have within our basin of likeminded behaviors and language, thoughts, ideas, mediums of creativity, and job types.. it's actually very easy to relate to others. It's only in competition and conflict that people have negative views about the self, negative emotions.

Theres something about Motion and Emotion. And that would be Drive, Strife and Transcendence. To step out of an environment, or step out of the habitual nature of Self, it might be based on fear/shame of being stuck in the same loops or environment forever.

[MikeS80]

Edit: I posted in the wrong thread.