What a brilliant post, Joedirt. I mean we all know in some sense the illusion of the ego but even in the way you hashed it out "I" get a novel perspective. I say it to myself day in day out, that things just are happenings but it's so easy to draw into the clutches of that mask we put on, not least when those around us have a ravenous thirst for theirs!
As regards the codependent arising, this is a well-explored topic in physics actually. There is no need to gibber around philosophical drivel and questions of "What is IT? It is IT but then... if IT is IT then why IT?". Not to say any of the stuff in this thread is drivel in the least!
My objection is that a significant number of our spiritual questions are
directly and indisputably answered by physics. It seems that these findings are not even entertained by some people who prefer their own fancy magical constructs; they are dismissed as "meh, science can't explain God" and an imaginary rabbit hole is kept up. Again, not in reference to anyone in this thread. You guys are good, hehe.
Now, let's get to the crux of the point. In an expanding universe the question of codependent arising is very easily solved.
Each effect becomes a cause. Each cause spawns numerous effects, which we can quantify using the entropy of that energy change. Now the crucial point is that a single cause always spawns many effects. Going back in time, we observe fewer and fewer causes until we are left with a single cause, which had an infinite number of effects.
Now if you guys are aware of causal sets, then this will make a lot more sense. But failing that, just think of a family tree. A family has mommy and daddy but mommy and daddy can have 300 kids, who each have 300 of their own etc ad nauseum.
The fact that a cause creates multiple effects is also directly connected to the expansion of the universe. It
must expand to preserve this rule. Entropy
must increase to preserve this rule. The unified force
must break symmetry (read!) to preserve this rule. In fact I would go as far as to say that every single cause/movement of information is a fundamental force in its own right. We hold that there are four basic forces but in all due honesty: who really decided that? In what way are we limited to gravity, strong, weak and EM alone; when each of these interactions breaks symmetry into myriad forms!
So just for a fleeting second, forget about souls, spirits, demons, "dude what if matrix", and so on. Just realise that the answer to this is very very simple, as simple as the statement that water is a liquid at room temperature. Without keeping awareness and giving credence to the inherent nature of the physical reality, we are literally stumbling around blindfolded in the dark room of metaphysics.
So imagination and neurochemicals are one and the same thing. Spirit, matter, energy, information, knowledge, mind, logic: all of these things are one and the same substance, that substance being God, or Light.
Now let us clarify. When you say "what came first, imagination or the neurochemicals" you are missing the most incredible nuance regarding the nature of God. God/consciousness encompasses everything. Everything occurs within it. It is not the case that the universe is distinct from qualia, to say that humans could have eyes yet not see, ears yet not hear. and so on. To say there is one reality experiencing/containing "imagination" and another machine reality where eyes and ears transmit signals is to create a rift in the Absolute. In fact this is a hidden form of ego, look carefully.
Rather we may consider that the mind of God contains all novelty within it. So let's rewind back to a certain point in time: the first creature developed the sense of sight. Now, tell me. Is a new consciousness suddenly more existent, of equal standing to the Absolute? Does the fact that there is sight being seen, mean that there is a second being besides God? By no means! In such a case we would have to contend that every single living entity is an Absolute in its own accord, and that nullifies its Absoluteness by its own nature.
Anthropocentrically there is the arrogant desire to assume that as we have sight and hearing that this sight and hearing exists of its own accord: thus we say "MY consciousness", "MY life". Whose life? Who is it that gives life and death? A minor slash to your throat from a stray thorn and "MY" life is extinguished. It belongs to the Absolute which encompasses all things. There is no escaping this, and in directing our full thought and attention to the actual nature of the Absolute, all of our philosophical dilemmas find their long-awaited conclusions. And all such dilemmas are found to have been entirely illusory, constructed on a web of half-truths and fanciful imaginations.
The sight and hearing, both in the machinistic sense and in the qualia sense occur within a mind that can simulate ANYTHING. Colours that are not in the spectrum. Sounds beyond sound, sensations beyond sensation, logic beyond logic. We could whip up a hundred new senses in the same vein as hearing, sight, sentience and so on. The crucial link between all of them: they are all conduits for information to flow. All our senses are "merely" tubes that carry information from A to B. Let us extend this. You may think of your thoughts as coming and going: they appear in the now, they disappear in the now. NOPE, CHUCK TESTA!
You have traced a human shaped path through spacetime; it originated as a sperm joining an egg and along the time dimension you observe it growing larger to a specific point and eventually decaying away. All of your thoughts are not transient in any way shape or form, no more or less transient than the fact that I have five fingers on each hand right now. That fact will be true for eternity, as will be your actions and thoughts: fixed points in spacetime. That is the inescapable nature of a worldline.
So you see, your brain runs thoughts, yes. But your entire existence including your thoughts is itself a thought. Just as the thought "Let me eat lunch" is a flow of information from A to B in a defined interval of time, your entire physical body is also a thought: a flow of information from A (womb) to B (grave) in a defined interval of time (lifespan). We are thus confounded in a sense by the idea that our thoughts belong to "Me". They are sub-thoughts of something which is already a thought to begin with!
Now here is the key conclusion I have come to from meditating on this: I am the same spark of life that originated four billion years ago. I am the same being. This physical vessel is not Me. As the fingers on its hands are to itself, such is the nature of every physical vessel I inhabit: they are all my appendages, rather noodly appendages at that. Here is a crude sketch of myself that I drew with one of my fingerlets -
The base of the tree is not my birth. I am birthless and deathless. Rather, the base of the tree represents the day I decided to wear a face.Well, looks like I've accidentally derailed my own thread
