intothedreaming

An interesting theory that randomly popped in my head today. I have no idea if this is an idea already expressed, although I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it.

It is the idea that I am but a lone figure in this world, that all of existence is simply a creation of my own mind. The idea that I am the only one living and the rest of life, human or otherwise, is only a figment or a contrived force that has no real definitive reason for thriving, let alone existing, in such a state.

What if the one who feels this way is, indeed, God? An undoubtedly pretentious belief but interesting nonetheless. Is it possible to be the only thing that actually exists or has the ability to exist? Could it be that a consciousness could develop its own world entirely inside its own thought process and by its' thought process? This brings about many questions when dealing with the meaning of loss and the idea of meaning itself. The one who feels this way, the one who is its own creator, could likely abandon all affirmations made by the ideas brought forth from everyday life. When dealing with death and loss it would only take convincing itself that such things are empty, they are only a part of the void that is existence because the only thing that exists is the consciousness of the being in question. So, fundamentally, that being needs nothing in life because there is no life. There is only the being and its thoughts.

This idea is based loosely around the notion of pantheism, "referring to philosophical and metaphysical theories of the divine as existing and acting within the mind or the world," the only difference being that it is strictly existence within the mind. A world completely designed, structured, and inhabited by a single thought-form that is only living, and surviving, in a subconscious state.


Another interesting idea is the possibility that God is insane. If we are created in his image then won't he too have the faults we've been "blessed" with? This is clearly taking the idea of us being ants and God being the kid with the magnifying glass to a new level.


Thoughts?

levite

This kind of sounds like a fusion of solipsism and monism. Extreme pantheism, if you will. Certainly not a new idea in theology. I believe there have been a couple of Christian mystics who believed that nothing existed save for God; a similar notion was taught by the Alter Rebbe (Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liady, 18th century, the founding rebbe of the Lubavitcher Hasidim, an ecstatic sect of Judaism): he said "Alles ist Gott, un Gott ist alles." ("un" not "und," as he was speaking Yiddish, not German). I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Sufi mystics have a similar teaching. And I know some Hindus teach that all Creation is but the dream of Brahman while he sleeps.

Personally, although I admit that-- as with most theological postulations-- one cannot disprove this hypothesis; nonetheless, I find it deeply ineffective. It leaves little room for the support of meaning or ethicality in interpersonal relationships, and provides neither support nor motivation for humans to relate to God.

I think theology/religion is only useful if one presumes A) a sane God, and B) the existence of Creation as Other than the Creator. If God is insane, we might as well be atheists, because nothing matters or makes sense anyhow, spiritually speaking, so we might as well make Reason our Master. If only God exists, and our lives and our universe are merely illusion, then what's the point? This whole world is just God playing with Himself, and it's all one thing, and nothing really happens or changes or is destroyed.

Both A and B are as unprovable as any other postulations or hypotheses about God; but they are necessary, I think, if one wishes to operate in the theistic context.

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

thankyousir

thinking sucks doesn't it ;p

I like your thoughts but I tend to stay away from solipsism and stuff myself. Though it is interesting to think about and ponder I don't like assuming it is true, it makes everything feel empty. Rather, I prefer to think of myself and my conciousness as a fragment of something greater. As if we are all pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle as our life passes we complete the puzzle a little bit further until the whole picture of the universe can be seen clearer and clearer.

as for God being insane... I don't even think that we are insane. it seems we do what it is in our nature to do, our chaos appears too natural to be chaos. But again, this is my own philosophy, it is our subjective truths that make us who we are after all. I guess thats my two cents, what my philosophy is.

intothedreaming

I thank you for putting a few names to the feelings I have. Solipsism and Monism are two very new terms to me but not new experiences. I do have mixed views with this, however. It is, at face value, a rather far fetched notion to me. But I have always been the type of person to delve into those ideas and understand what I can. This subject is a little different though, there isn't a real way to understand it.

And rather one believes it or dismisses it entirely doesn't remove the mystery. The way I see it, either way, it is food for thought.



The following video was inspired by Mark Twain's "Mysterious Stranger". It was adapted to a short scene in the 1985 claymation film The Adventures of Mark Twain, in which the children meet an angel named Satan. He claims to be incapable of performing an evil act as he does not understand the concept of evil.

http://


A quote from the book:

"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities."

mixedsubstance

oh my goodness, I could go off on this..which I may- so excuse me if I do. With all of my philosophical and spiritual delving, this is what has made sense to me:
God is Everything. Us. Nature. Energy. Alll existence. We all tie in together. God is what drive us- it's our subconscious, but we can tap into it to live by it 'consciously'. Our thoughts do control our lives. That's why- even at my deepest depths of struggle, I find myself just knowing that things will be well. That I am in control of my life. I tune myself into nature and the little things that can easily and typically be ignored- like a song that comes on the radio, something some stranger says next to me, a sign along the road, the stars- once I focus and quiet my mind, I see that my ' subconscious' is telling me something. There's always an answer. There's always a higher road. Even if there's a mountain to climb, a sea to swim, a wall to break through, there's something that propells me to keep going. But I know that if I don't do anything about it, I won't see the light. Nature guides us. Energy guides us. Bottom line is (may become a completely seperate subject) is- God is energy. Energy guides everything. Energy IS everything. If not for energy, we couldn't move....period. Backwards, forwards, up, down...the energy is there for us to use and manipulate- in any way we choose. Subconscious is what we have learned to seperate from our conscious living. The silence is what brings the full conscious together.

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Well, isn't that just kick-you-in-the-crotch, spit-on-your-neck fantastic?!?

*Without energy, there would be nothing.*

Halx

Of course, if you don't believe in god, then its all quite simple. It just IS.

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[Don't Feed The Animals]

mixedsubstance

It is what it is.....as they say....

__________________
Well, isn't that just kick-you-in-the-crotch, spit-on-your-neck fantastic?!?

*Without energy, there would be nothing.*

thankyousir

I think even with believing in God, you can say things just are. There is no way to possibly understand everything so I think perhaps the best stance to take on many existential questions is just to say that things are what they are and leave it at that.

Cynosure

Why should you be the only one living, and the rest of life, human or otherwise, be only a figment or a contrived force, presumably of your subconscious?
-----Added 10/8/2008 at 10 : 14 : 28-----
Ah, but even purely scientific atheists are not satisified with "it just IS".

Vigilante

I'll try to keep religious and even spiritual opinions out of this.
God, for me, is beyond definition. I try valiantly to understand what God may be, but then I come up with more questions. From this perspective, God may be infinite in all aspects, including the numbers of questions you may raise trying to understand such a presence, if you could define God as a presence to begin with.

Here is one that slapped me in the face a little. I dive into these things sometimes mentally, intentional or not.
We are made up of what we perceive as atoms. From organism to animal to organ to tissue to cell to organelles to molecules to atoms. From there we have a vague notion of what is going on (or none at all). Electrons...I don't know. Protons supposedly are made up of quarks, if I remember right. We can study a proton I think, but we can't study an electron due to the heisenberg uncertainty principle. You can know where it is but not its' speed, or you can know its' speed but not where it is. They are mutually exclusive.

Ok past that, let's get weird. Let's say a quark is the smallest measurable particle we can muster. It probably isn't, but that's as far as my knowledge goes. Now think about the our universe and the number of quarks it must hold. Not the earth, because it's small. 1 million earths fit into the sun. Probably a billion or more suns are in our galaxy, and there are probably a billion galaxies. Yet the number of quarks are still finite.

I start imploding here. Some questions are rhetorical.
What if each quark is its own universe, with set laws of physics and life scattered randomly throughout it? What if each of those quarks in those universes has it's own scale, all the way down to more quarks? What if we, as an entire universal realm, are a quark in another universe? what if we are the middle-man in this, going larger and smaller in opposite directions? Could there be a middle man? Perhaps not. Maybe it's even a circle, traversing outside of space and time to make an infinite loop of existence. If so, how many could there be to make the loop? What about alternate realities? Would the loop be one plane to an infinite number of realities on another level of existence? If each reality made a circle, could the circles make a sphere of infinite loops of alternate universes and create an immeasurable ...electron orbital?

And then, what if that is but one electron orbital.....in another universe.

That is how far I do not understand God. I don't go further than that. I don't even know if I could.

This leads me to alot of differing ideas on how anyone on this measly spec of dust could say "God cares if you cuss". I laugh at the thought. But then I wonder...."could God care?" If God is truly this undefinable infiniteness, and each universe (as an infinite number of them, dying and recycling on a timeless scale) contains an apsect of God, could he bring himself down to our level? My answer would be yes. If he can make a quark, he can care. But does he? I guess it's relative, based on what you feel is right, or on what you believe. Sometimes it feels right at the time and wrong later. Sometimes vice versa. If IF! the universe recycles, do we, both here and on a universal scale? This is not exactly on topic though, but a digression. I said I'd try to keep my spiritual thoughts out of it.

For me, God is what you make God out to be. Allah is no more right or wrong than God, and neither is Jehovah. Do you believe God is a man, limited to one heaven? That works. Do you believe God is part of several entities? That works too. God, being infinite cannot, to me, be one being for a universal truth, when truth is the relative factor. I can try to define what I think is the truth, but then it is relative to me and irrelevant to another.

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-Winston Churchill

Halx

Probably not satisfied, no. They keep looking for an explanation and never claim that they have the correct answer quite yet.

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You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

Johnny Rotten

I recall the Bill Hicks quote: "We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively."

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"The idea that money doesn't buy you happiness is a lie put about by the rich, to stop the poor from killing them." -- Michael Caine