Ask HN: What do you think is all this? (this reality, existence, space-time, us)

I believe I can answer the question 'Why Anything'.

See my other post in thread outlining my 'Actualization Theory'. I think there's a 'ground state' of 'possible worlds' that must exist by virtue of logical necessity and some of these get 'Actualized' (become 'actual worlds') over time via the emergence of complexity (including minds and consciousness).

What I'd say is that "existence" is not binary, but rather a matter of degree, and reality is 'still under construction': the ultimate ends of the universe are the explanation as to why this universe: it's a teleological answer. The universe has to be such as allow for the existence of observers and is fine-tuned for life (because mind contributes to the ongoing 'actualization' of reality).

This hypothesis implies there is a God (our parent sim) and they have Gods meaning that they can interfere if they wanted and maybe they do pay attention to who is doing what or maybe not. But by all means the religion narrative is very compatible with it don't you think?

What is the meaning of life? Well unfortunately this one has to be tremendously mundane. Single Cell life still have a meaning. The meaning of life has to be very simple.

Is there a heaven? This is pretty exciting.

I am sure you have seen the carl sagan's probabilities of alien life. If it the chance of another alien is 1 in a trillion. There's a trillion trillion trillion stars. So there's trillions of different aliens all over the universe.

Now of those trillions of trillions of aliens. What's the probability 1 of them has been around for billions of years. They are tremendously advanced in technology and invented a universe scale machine to create a heaven for everyone?

The rules would have to be pretty simple and universal.

The Golden Rule: Treat Others the Way You Want to Be Treated

There would also be a mechanism to inform other aliens such a system exists. Meditation/Jahnas, near-death experiences, etc.

The buddha enlightened, Jesus as well, amongst others. Imagine what you discover there's aliens(angels) running a heaven. Then you're back on Earth. How do you explain it? Scifi wont be a thing for millennia. You rationalize it to explain to others the best you can. Thus religion is created.

I don’t know. However, I exist, and presumably you do too.

There was a time when we didn’t exist, then suddenly - life.

Should that happen again, I should hope that the experience is peaceful (as much so as possible).

And it is for this reason that we should treat every living (and potentially non living) being with kindness and consideration. A bug, a dog, a plant, a fellow human.

We don’t know what’s next, if anything. But it’s true that we came into being in a world not of our choosing. If that happens again, I hope it isn’t a misery.

Life didn’t have to be this good. The world we inhibit didn’t have to be so ordered. It could have resembled an extensive misery.

We must treat all beings who move in this realm as we would like ourselves to be treated moving through another.

I’m somewhat hopeful that even if something like a “hell” exists, so does this reality. And while it’s not perfect, there is always hope that while existence in one realm may end, we may move to a more tranquil one.

My preference would be that we die and nothing. Like a deep, dreamless sleep. But the fact we have emerged with the gift of experience from seemingly nothing, doesn’t bode well for a continuation of nothingness.

Yes, it's called Advaita Vedanta. Swami Sarvapriyananda's lectures are always a great source of knowledge about Advaita.

So Advaita is about you, that is, about consciousness. You are consciousness. And then it goes something like "you're not your body and you're not your mind, you are the "pure subjectivity" present in any qualia, you are Sakshi." Or Atman, also a popular term. Also there's that equation that Atman = Brahman (brahman being the universe/existence itself? [1] but I don't buy it, maybe I don't understand what that means yet) And all of this supposedly is ought to make you feel better about your own problems or suffering, idk? I'm not sure how tbh, I just have a metaphysical interest in this topic. It didn't help me with my problems.

So in every qualia there is the content of experience, and then there is the very first-personal givenness of whatever is subjectively given [2]. Experiential presence. But it's only a conceptual difference, not a real nomological/metaphysical one. There's just qualia. There cannot be qualia without an experiencer, an experiencing that is happening. We wouldn't even call that "qualia". Similarly, there cannot be just this abstract quality of first-personal givenness, mere subjectivity without contents. We wouldn't call that an experience.

So in Advaitic terms: consciousness = subjectivity = Sakshi (just a laconic term) [3] = experiential presence = immediacy of experience = mineness = for-me-ness = the first-personal givenness of experience = the real metaphysical "I". So contrary to popular nowadays philosophers of mind, quale is not consciousness. Qualia consist of 1) consciousness and 2) contents of consciousness. And these two are inseparable, I make only a difference in words to explain what it is, on the level of concepts. In nature there are only experiences going on.

Advaita says that you are that which experiences. Whatever you experience — that you are not. This is a useful phrase to remember. A distinction. You observe happenings of your mind just as you observe your body and the outside world and everything else. (the mind is even sometimes called as "the subtle body" by Advaitins)

You are singular, only one. Experiences - many

You - never change, but experiences come and go

You are very simple and propertyless, but your experiences and feelings are complex and can change

There is no seer and the seen, there is only a process of "seeing", and you are that. Also from this follows that I am you and every conscious person, animal or being is the very same subjectivity, instantiated in different contexts (locations, times). This is also sometimes called Open Individualism theory of personal identity (term coined by Daniel Kolak) [4] [5] [6], or sometimes Universalism by Arnold Zuboff [7] [8], or as in writings of Edralis [9] [10].

There's also that concept of self-luminosity (svaprakasatva), that self-consciousness is just consciousness. Light reveals many other objects but simultaneously reveals itself. You don't need another source of light to see light. For advaitins, light is a metaphor for you, for consciousness. [11]

Also the mistaken identification of yourself, as consciousness, with your mind is called Adhyāsa (superimposition) [12]. There's a technique for grasping this concept intuitively called Drig Drishya Viveka, Swami Sarvapriyananda often talks about it [13].

References:

1 // https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onab023

2 // The I: A dimensional account https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-020-09697-9

3 // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakshi_(Witness)

4 // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_individualism

5 // http://digitalphysics.ru/pdf/Kaminskii_A_V/Kolak_I_Am_You.pd...

6 // https://opentheory.net/2018/09/a-new-theory-of-open-individu...

7 // http://nsl.com/misc/zuboff/zuboff1.htm

8 // https://philpapers.org/rec/ZUBOST

9 // https://edralis.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/mineness-and-person...

10 // https://edralis.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/i-could-have-been-s...

11 // Consciousness in Advaita Vedanta, p.36 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3678791-consciousness-in...

12 // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhyāsa

13 // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dṛg-Dṛśya-Viveka

Further reading:

// Prakāśa. A few reflections on the Advaitic understanding of consciousness as presence and its relevance for philosophy of mind https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-020-09690-2

// Galen Strawson - What is the Relation Between an Experience, the Subject of the Experience, and the Content of the Experience? chapter 6 of https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6689029-real-materialism

// chapter 5 & chapter 10 of https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/33357091

Mario Montano's youtube videos:

// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WKqO16mkGE

// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF5dVjRgXeU

// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uz6anwm47g

// Complex Numbers - We, 22nd Century. Electronic opera (english version) https://youtu.be/zC1o9CjeefI?t=1025

// https://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/death/death-nothingnes...

// http://web.archive.org/web/20210121121148/https://vitrifyher...