What is real?

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  • #17924
    atreestump
    Keymaster

      Are religious or spiritual experiences real? How can something be real if there is only one person experiencing it? If we look at this question in western scientific terms, it is only a stimulation and does not reflect reality at all, but if we look towards the east or to a shaman for example, they might have a very different view.

      Let’s say we ingest a mushroom, even though a state is caused by the mushroom, we might be seeing the spiritual realm as it is, rather than a false state.

      Wearing glasses might offer an important analogy here. Without glasses the world is blurry, put the glasses on and the world becomes clear. They change the way the brain responds to the world. Are we seeing the world in a false way, or in a more accurate way?

      Can we apply this analogy to different drugs or induced states from prayer and meditation, say?

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    • #19229
      kFoyauextlH
      Participant

        Great points. One area of particular interest to me is how shapes and the designs and flows of cities influence the way people think and speak and relate to their thoughts and one another. I don’t have too relaxed a view on any sort of intoxicants because I have seen too many people harmed by them, also in the sense of many women being made vulnerable by them or making themselves vulnerable with them and led into very unpleasant things that are then somewhat difficult to get out of, or falsely convinced of things by them like some genuine sense of profound connection with irresponsible or dangerous people.
        [hr]
        There is nothing “more real” than anything else though in my view, I think there is no “waking up”.

        #19236
        Rubsy
        Participant

          I would really like to say I am relaxed about such things as drugs and alcohol,  but from experience I know they can consume too much of peoples life.  I think if one is to drink then one should be able to be dry for a month at least from time to time. Wine is a useful pain killer especially for cramps, I would prescribe it over ibuprofen. I think mushrooms can be taken once in a while and outside, not in a box room in the middle of the city. Mushrooms show you a different perspective and perhaps highlight things that have been annoying you that have kept in the background, for me it is straight lines, everything  in the city is made of straight lines as if the lines are herding you in certain directions. Whereas in nature eveything is very fluid and curved. I suppose that is a truth that I felt already, but it was uncovered by the mushroom experience. Meditation can also bring about new or clearer realisations, I would say yoga corrects postures and the way you feel and move in the world. As to things being real or not ? I suspect a false or too rigid dichotomy caused by our ontological realist assumed metaphysics, also the divisions we create with categories and words like objective and subjective. Is a rainbow real ?

          #19237
          kFoyauextlH
          Participant

            This is excellent, a really wonderful question and brings to light some great points. There is a great deal of focus on “the real” as more important or preferable or relevant as a qualifier. People want to insist things are real because of the prestige it gives those things to have the vague notion of “real” attached to it because of it meaning valid, worthy, and other things now.

            In my view, everything is “real” in some way if it exists at all, and problems tend to occur regarding language and how things are described or should be described in the view of various factions.

            I have a particular hatred for the flavors associated with people describing their religious experiences or love, I really get angry when anyone is too lovey dovey or ecstatic in their hippy descriptions of things. It comes down to being threatened by the whole thing and what that sort of stuff is associated with or represents to me.

            I also have a particularly strong aversion to drug users, and ultimately this likely is due to feeling threatened by these things as well. I could make all sorts of apologetics and excuses about it. One of the best is that certain drugs may be responsible not only for deteriorating the body and causing dependency, but may change the way people normally function or act, leading to potential consequences or miscalculations or inaccurate assesdments which otherwise can’t be sustained without the drug continually being used.

            The truth is, I just want to control people and make them most preferable to me or what I might call “healthy” which means no substance addictions or dependencies and to be able to simulate imagination or mind altered states in a way which does not require inducing drugs from outside. Other excuses could be about taking risks.

            I am completely against any form of non-sobriety and I am very much a “square”, finding opiates or stimulants to be more harmful than good and not being relaxed about any form of “trying” either. When people “try” anything I really actually want them to suffer and die so that I can further prove that I am right and they were wrong.

            I’ve known addicts of various sorts all my life, and people who experiment with all sorts of things and also fully seem to come out unscathed. I have generally never been able to successfully control or stop anyone. They always seem to do whatever they crave.

            I am against permanent body markings, artificially induced pleasures like having happy sex with a physically abusive person while drugging oneself in order to seem to enjoy it while pursuing something I think is wrong or bad, and any forms of sharing sex or polyamory or anything the least bit threatening or anxiety inducing.

            For me, the ideal person is sober, patient, stable, loyal, ethical, taking care of their health and body, having no tattoos, no fetishes, and no particular religious fanatacism or ecstatic type psychosis seeming states. I want them to be like me, but even more boring and straight edged than me in some ways, but also lax about some things, so not health fanatics either or extremists or dogmatics in any way, regardless how I may be. I want them to genuinely agree with me and hold or come to holding my sorts of views and ideas and mentalities. I want the total abolition of alchohol from the world or at least it being treated with extreme prejudice due to it being involved in so much domestic abuse, harm, and violence.

            My stern views are usually seen to be far from endearing and further separate me from relating to most people, which also includes my strict views regarding loyalty, responsibility, and sex, as well as hygiene
            [hr]
            Such is my “religious experience”

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