Comments on: Hacking Reality

http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/ reality bizarres the standard Sat, 18 Aug 2012 16:45:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.3 By: Sothilde http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1663 Sothilde Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:51:20 +0000 http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1663 @illiterate hippie I feel obliged to respond to that. Please tell me, what, in it's pure essence, is the difference between a worldview created around the idea that there IS a god, and a worldview created around the idea that there IS NOT a god? Both are in exactly the same way founded in a certain belief, and therefore both are a certain belief system. Somehow people who proud themselves as atheists find that very hard to grasp... It's exactly that notion that I aim at with my first post here, the idea many atheists have that their worldview is somehow superior because it is based on a different set of assumptions. Why would you even want to make any assumptions about reality? That only places a limit on the range of what you can perceive or even think about... By: illiterate hippie http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1657 illiterate hippie Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:06:02 +0000 http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1657 I don't think atheism should be called a belief system. It's a dismissal of something unseeable and esoteric. By: Sothilde http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1655 Sothilde Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:16:17 +0000 http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1655 @ Psikiollion A bit of a late reply, not sure if you'll still read this, but here she goes: I don't "use" it, it has a (quite profound I must say) effect on how you view reality, and the opinions formed about it. By that last statement I mean that it becomes easier to evaluate or see the "truth" of statements about reality. All statements that are based upon a certain assumption must be viewed as only true within the context of these assumptions. A more difficult thing to describe is how it in a weird sense "sets you free". Your thinking becomes disconnected from any such contexts (or dogma, which I mean in the broadest sense possible). You can really think independent of any context about things or concepts. Therefore it is much more "absolute", it consists more out of the things that are there already and the things you put in there yourself. This is a difference in thinking that I only realised after I stopped making any assumptions about the nature of reality. There is a difference in thinking in concepts that really are "a part of reality", and concepts that are "manmade", or put into reality by tought. And those manmade concepts only have meaning within their context of creation, which is I think a very important point many people don't realise. Offcourse this is only a description of what I experience, it won't necessarily have the same effect on anyone else offcourse, altough I think you should experience similar things over time. Anyway, I do think this is one of the first steps anyone who is looking for the truth about reality should take. You could say that you shouldn't create your image of reality (always based on certain assumptions), let reality show it to you. It certainly put me on the right track again, and offcourse that's only the beginning. I'm really curious what will happen in the future because I can feel my insight in things and consciouness about what really happens rise more and more, altough that is something that's very difficult to express in words. By: Psikillion http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1628 Psikillion Tue, 19 May 2009 13:38:58 +0000 http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1628 @ Sothilde Very good metaphor with the glasses and how it relates to beliefs. May I ask, "How do you use your lack of beliefs in everyday life?" @ PotentiaL I agree that there must there must be something bigger than simple Atheistic loopholes, and any religious system for that matter. Religions and Atheism all try to confine that "something bigger" to something that everyone can understand and use. This can serve a purpose for a time, but if one stays there for too long then the "something bigger" becomes nothing more than an imaginary friend whose attributes anyone can determine. Once religions and Atheism are done serving their purpose in one's life then it is time to reach out and know this "something bigger" for who or what this is. By: PotentiaL http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1620 PotentiaL Sun, 10 May 2009 00:06:48 +0000 http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1620 The idea that consciousness is able to exploit certain loopholes in reality seems like an incomplete theory. A theory formed not due to the presence of evidence but a lack thereof. With that being said, my own, as well as others experiences tend to support the idea that our "specific system" can indeed be exploited. However I believe the truth is something bigger than simple Atheistic loopholes. My problem with Atheism has always had to do with our "specific system" itself. Look around you... see all that stuff? Where the hell did it come from? Something somewhere somehow had to have gave birth to substance... matter. Atheism is supposedly based on science, which specifically prohibits the creation of matter. Whether it was some flatulent inter dimensional frog or an old man in white robes is up for debate, but the fact that all this stuff came out of nowhere 15 billion years ago is undeniable. By: Raathuus http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1607 Raathuus Sun, 03 May 2009 23:15:28 +0000 http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1607 Hmmm... Atheism... changing your beliefs on the world based on what science says. Sounds like doublethink to me... That said, what do I believe? Whenever a question like that comes to mind, this phrase comes to mind: "Why do today what I can do hmmm..." By: Sothilde http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1599 Sothilde Fri, 01 May 2009 22:10:24 +0000 http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1599 All I can say about it is that you should stop believing everything you think you know about reality... It brings you in a completely "clean" state of mind, you get completely "in the center" so to say... These are things that can't be described in language, unfortunatly By: X-Master http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1598 X-Master Fri, 01 May 2009 19:26:08 +0000 http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1598 Very interesting Sothilde. It does make sense about undistoring your glasses. But then again, how do you know that they are undistorted? By: Sothilde http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1597 Sothilde Fri, 01 May 2009 11:11:12 +0000 http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1597 NeoPsychic - I'm sorry to have to disappoint you, but that's exactly what it is. It's just another way to viw the world, it makes just another pair of assumptions about how reality works. Those assumptions are only burried deeper than the assumptions that a christian makes for example, but in essence it's just the same thing. Sean - I was thinking about this again today, and there is something I maybe should add. It's basicly the same point I have been making, but formulated in a more accessible way. What it all boils down to when looking for the "true nature of reality" is the constant switching and refining of paradigms (or "glasses"). That really is the largest common denominator so to say. You find a new idea which offers a new entrance point for understanding reality, and you build a new paradigm around it. It all sounds great in the beginning, you're excited at discovering something new, but when you've worked it all out, filled in the details, you discovered you've created just another paradigm. And you get frustrated, look for new ideas, and start all over again. At least, that's what I've been doing for years, and I think that's what you're doing too. When you think about it, when you really break trough to it's essence, you know that you can never find truth in this way, you find just another pair of glasses to look at reality. What you really want to achieve is take off the glasses, and see reality for what it is. I have been struggling really long with this, I couldn't understand why I could not bypass this paradigm, it's the bottom of what it means to be human in one way or another. I have found that you can never take off the glasses, unfortunatly. That seems to be impossible, it's a vital part of what it means to be human. But what you can do is remove all it's coloring, make it a transparent, non-distorting glasses, trough which you can see reality as it really is. I accomplished this by throwing everything out that I ever put in my head myself. I just stopped believing everything that I ever believed to be the case. This was really depressing for a time, I threw away everything I ever worked at in my life, I was back at zero. But after that initial shock, when I got used to that way of viewing the world, it turned out to be the best decision I ever made. It took maybe a month or more before I realised that, but when you view the world with REALLY no beliefs, you can see what the world is really like, it's as simple as that. I'm not going to wrap that up in fluffy terms, the last thing I am is a fluff bunny, but that's simply how it is. At least, that's how it worked for me. I can move on now, so to say. I have learned a lot, really a lot, by going trough all these different paradigms. It really showed me how profound the influence of your paradigm is on what seems normal or logical, what seems possible or impossible, your whole way of thinking etc. That's what made me realise I should stop looking for "the perfect paradigm" (it made me realise that that is what I was doing actualy), because that doesn't exist. You have reality on the one hadn, and the paradigm on the other. You should be working on getting to know reality, not just another paradigm (as atheism is for example too, just another way to look at reality, not reality itsself). By: Sean http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1595 Sean Fri, 01 May 2009 09:13:15 +0000 http://alittleweird.com/2009/04/26/hacking-reality/#comment-1595 NeoPsychic - When I say "Atheism", I am almost always referring to "Scientific Naturalism". I realize that's not the EXACT definition. Technically speaking, someone who believes that little elves created the world is an Atheist... as long as they don't believe in God. But practically speaking, most Atheists believe in the Big Bang, Evolution, and whatever else Science says.