This was such an awesome thing to read, by the way.
Hi Rick - the answer is that, as ‘I’ don’t actually exist, and the only entities that can be said to exist are those entities that do indeed exist, ‘I’ am neither a physical entity nor a metaphysical entity.
This is one of the rare cases where language will get tricky. Note that the phrase “actually exist” is actually standard, which means truly, really existing in a full, completely standard sense of the word exist - as in to have existence.
In the way you are asking the question here, to say ‘I’ am a metaphysical entity would be to say that ’I’ actually exist, have true existence, as a metaphysical entity - which is false. Nothing metaphysical exists - the only things that exist are the physical - therefore ‘I’ cannot be a metaphysical entity (as there are no metaphysical entities).
And further, in the way you are asking the question here, to say ‘I’ am a physical entity would be to say that ‘I’ actually exist, have true existence, as a physical entity - which is also false. The body and the consciousness it generates exists, but ’I’ don’t actually exist (‘I’ am not that consciousness). So ‘I’ cannot be a physical entity, as only things that exist can be physical entities. ’I’ experience ’myself’ as actually existing, and this experience of ‘me’ existing is ultimately physically generated (as there is nothing that is not physical), but ‘I’ don’t actually exist.
Note that because the feeling of ‘me’ existing is so powerful and convincing – along with the feeling of other non-existent things existing for various feeling-beings (e.g. God for a few billion people) – for this purpose Richard created the distinction between ‘real’ and actual, so we could say that ‘I’ am ‘real’ (as in, ‘I’ ‘really’ exist) but ‘I’ am not actual (as in, ‘I’ don’t actually exist). But this usage in the phrase “‘I’ ‘really’ exist” is not standard – I don’t exist, actually… but it has good explanatory power once the distinction is firmly grasped. And note that in standard usage ‘real’ should be synonymous to actual, but because people have tainted the word (by saying e.g. God is ‘real’ when God does not exist), Richard created this special-usage vocabulary.
As a curiosity note that the word “exist” itself seems to have been tainted as well as the word ‘real’ – merriam-webster.com defines it as “to have real being whether material or spiritual”.
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In any case now that this is definitively stated I can go through the examples you posted to elucidate further.
What you are saying here is “‘I’ actually exist as a metaphysical entity.” And the response is no, ‘I’ don’t actually exist.
Now incidentally as ‘I’ don’t actually exist, and neither do metaphysical entities, in a certain sense of the use of the language I could say that ‘I’ am a metaphysical entity - as neither actually exist. But in the context of our conversation this would be ascribing actual existence to something metaphysical, which is false.
The experiential query I posted here was a prompt for you to be able to find out, for yourself, that emotions are extrasensory phenomena. And this includes any sense such as thinking, proprioception, hunger, thirst, any sensation of which way ‘north’ might be, any synesthetic combination of the senses, and any other sense that humans can be said to have.
Once you recognize this salient point - that emotions are not of-the-senses - then this is a wedge which can lead to you seeing that ‘you’ do not actually exist.
What you are saying here is “‘I’ actually exist as a metaphysical entity.” And the response is no, ‘I’ don’t actually exist.
Existence does, of course, exist. Therefore, as ‘I’ don’t exist, this illusion that is ‘me’ is indeed “separate” from the rest of existence. Note that even saying ‘I’ am separate from something, might imply that ‘I’ actually exist as something that is separate - but this (that ‘I’ actually exist) is what is false.
I re-inserted the context here as it looks like you mis-parsed the meaning of that (admittedly length) sentence. I was saying that any feeling that I am not separate from the rest of existence, is an inaccurate assessment of the situation.
What you are saying here is “‘I’ actually exist as a physical entity.” And the response is no, ‘I’ don’t actually exist.
What you are saying here is “‘I’ actually exist as a physical entity.” And the response is no, ‘I’ don’t actually exist. Just because the feeling of existence that ‘I’ experience has a physical cause, does not mean that ‘I’ actually exist as a physical entity.
And of course, the feeling of existence that ‘I’ have cannot have a metaphysical cause, as nothing metaphysical exists.
You might ask, how can something that doesn’t exist “experience” anything? And that is an excellent query to run through your head while you reflect and contemplate with great fascination.
What you are saying here is “‘I’ actually exist as a metaphysical entity.” But this is not what Richard meant. You surely don’t think that Richard believes that souls, spirits, atmans, etc., actually exist?
Now because neither do ‘I’ actually exist, nor do metaphysical entities exist, one could say ‘I’ am a metaphysical entity, as ‘I’ am certainly not a physical entity (as ‘I’ don’t actually exist)… but one has to be careful with the language here.
I have added the full context here. Richard here is denying, as he has consistently in other places, that ‘I’ am caused by/generated by something metaphysical. i.e. ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is not some metaphysical (i.e. actually existing outside of this physical realm) entity that is inhabiting the body and animating the brain’s neurons and the body etc. ‘I’ have a physical cause, ultimately.
But of course just because ‘I’ have a physical cause does not mean ‘I’ actually exist as a physical entity.
==========
Now that that thorough review is over, I look forward to your considered response.
Cheers,
Claudiu
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I appreciate the discussion, especially the clarification on the phrasing “a feeling is not a fact”
Very useful, and makes things much simpler when thinking through whatever drama is currently unfolding in life. 
Hi Adam - yes, it’s an undeniable fact that feelings exist in this body and that they are derived from physical processes, interact with physical processes, and induce physical processes.
The flames of a campfire will appear to flick and snap in an arbitrary and capricious manner. We understand however that the flame’s erratic maneuvers are due to a litany of surrounding, inherent, and underlying dynamic physical conditions.
Yes, the particular structure of the belief has a lot to do with the environment – that litany of surrounding, inherent, and underlying dynamic conditions – in which it was formed.
Yes, inherent in all belief is a lack of direct knowledge as to what is factually the case of something.
Perhaps you felt those particular ways because you were assembled by the universe in such a manner that left you compelled to retract from, say, a snarling pit bull by way of the fear response as opposed to being compelled to draw-in closer to a playful puppy by way of the nurture response.
Yes, emotions (and other attributes) do manipulate organisms upon response to stimuli. That is its function. Further, it may do so in a way that is suboptimal and unpleasant for sapient organisms.
Hi Claudiu - along with giving much thought to what you have written recently in posts 67, 69, & 73, I have been thinking of how to proceed with this topic to a satisfactory conclusion. The crux of the issue is that which was raised in my response to Srinath (above):
Your response that the cause of suffering is neither metaphysically inherent nor physically inherent (not merely physically inherited); that ‘I’ am neither a metaphysical entity nor a physical entity; that emotions can be factual but cannot be either metaphysically or physically existent, leaves very little room for proceeding forward.
That is not Rick who is saying that. Please look again carefully at what Richard is explicitly saying there. That not only is malice and sorrow physical, but that the instinctual passions which give rise to malice and sorrow are physical as well.
As ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’, then guess ‘who’ is physical after all.
Diverging from the crux of the issue for a moment, one thing that is becoming clear is that a strict reliance on what a PCE informs will produce divergent positions on key issues. For example, the clearest PCE that I can recall did not inform me that the emotions and self that preceded it were ever illusory or lacked substantial existence, only that they were not existent at the time of the PCE. In another example, Richard’s PCE and actual freedom informed him that all forms of mental visualization signified the presence of ‘self’; of course it transpired that that particular bit of PCE-derived information would be entirely incorrect. As far as an identity being accurately informed by its own PCE’s it is instructive to bear in mind that all religions presumably began at some point with some chap having one or more outstanding PCE’s where ‘self’ was completely absent, and who ex post facto interpreted the experience in either an idiosyncratic manner, appropriate to his culture and epoch, or piggy-backed on a pre-existing framework in such a way that it either led to or helped shape the formulation of yet another theology with all the attendant problems. How much can the identity be entrusted with conveying information faithfully from its PCE? Also bear in mind how the PCE informs different ‘self’-less bodies of different things. One actually free person’s PCE is currently informing them of the existence of God and angels, another actually free person’s PCE is informing them that their thoughts and mental images are not actual but virtual phenomena existing in a distinct idealistic realm of virtuality as elucidated by Gilles Deleuze, and yet another actually free person’s PCE is informing them that colors and sounds are not physical, while still another maintains that sensations are purely physical. There is thus a distinct possibility that both the suspension and immolation of ‘self’ does not, in of itself, resolve all the matters that the self-less condition professes to resolve. As Srinath recently remarked (post no. 50), “these ontological matters (…) may never be resolved to everyones satisfaction – even amongst actually free persons.”
At the end, it may well be that the only thing any human being can ever attest as being factual is the infinitude of the universe:
(2004)
RESPONDENT: … your mind would no longer be the universe experiencing itself as a mind. Instead, apart from being free from the human condition you are completely clueless about the universe.
RICHARD: If I may point out? Other than being apperceptively aware of infinitude I am already ‘clueless’ about the universe. Vis.:
• [Richard]: ‘… it did not occur to me it was a concept, and not a fact, that the sun was a giant ball of nuclear fusion until about five years ago.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do you, perchance, know what the sun actually is?
• [Richard]: ‘No, virtually the only thing regarding the properties of the universe that is readily apparent here in this actual world is its infinitude … matters such as what a star/planet/moon/comet is require observation and illation.
What happened was that, whilst browsing the internet in 1998-99 I came across a web-page proposing that the sun was plasma-only (as contrasted to the mainstream science proposition it had a nuclear-fusion interior which generated the surface plasma), and it dawned upon me that I had accepted – as a fact – what I had been taught in high-school last century … just as earlier generations had accepted as fact the then prevailing wisdom that it was a giant ball of fire (spectral analysis has shown the sun to have no oxygen so it is not that).
Nor is it a god/goddess, of course, but had I been born millennia ago I would (presumably) have accepted that to be fact.
‘Tis quite remarkable just how much is fed-in from an early age.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 49
In other words, its absoluteness:
(2005)
RICK: Richard, could you list as many characteristics as possible that you would ascribe to the universe, please. Such as benign, infinite, wonderful, marvellous, eternal, a veritable perpetuus mobilis etc. As many as possible would be neat to look see. I’m just curious to read what the universe is and therefore what it isn’t from a pure consciousness experiencer.
RICHARD: The fundamental characteristic, or nature, of the universe is its infinitude – specifically having the properties of being spatially infinite and temporally eternal and materially perdurable – or, to put that another way, its absoluteness
Mailing List 'AF' Rick
Hi Rick - that’s good news as for the conversation to proceed forward to a satisfactory conclusion it first had to make a sharp turn and start to head in a different direction. Now that it is stopped we are halfway there… the question now is if the sharp turn can be successfully accomplished and we can proceed in a beneficial direction.
The following gets to the real crux of the issue:
That is, even though you had a PCE in which emotions and the self were absent, you haven’t yet grasped that emotions and the self are in fact illusory and lack substantial existence – and as such the self cannot be an entity (as in something that actually exists) per se, be it a physical or a metaphysical one.
Now the illusion that the self actually exists, is an incredibly strong and persistent one… so strong that a “Man from Sydney”, for example, only fully grasped it shortly before becoming actually free [link]:
It is such a powerful, deeply-entrenched belief, that even though I have been actively interested in actualism for ~10 years now and have seen much success and have had bucketloads of PCEs lately, I still live most of my day-to-day life under the illusion that ‘I’ am tangible, substantial, real, that ‘I’ am threatened by this and that, that ‘my’ survival is paramount, etc.
And the illusion is not just that ‘I’ exist now, but that ‘I’ existed in the past as well… yet not only do ‘I’ not actually exist now, but ‘I’ never existed in the first place. On a phone call with Richard many years ago, he said how upon becoming actually free, the experience is such that he (actually free Richard) had been there all along, even in the “past” when feeling-being ‘Richard’ was felt to exist. When I remarked that that is very strange he fully affirmed that yes, it is very strange indeed!
The human condition is such a bizarre and weird thing that newly-free Vineeto, for whom the instinctual passions and the feeling being formed thereof were already extinct, still experienced confusion and disorientation in her process of becoming fully free [link]:
The issue is that you have spent much time debating and thinking about and reflecting on whether the self actually exists as a physical entity, or actually exists as a metaphysical entity. And as you have seen, correctly, that nothing metaphysical exists, you have concluded that you actually exist as a physical entity (are “physically inherent”), and therefore that the physical universe is “completely, entirely inseparable from ‘me’. No isolation, no separation, no division”.
Yet you have constructed and then fallen victim to a false dilemma, a false dichotomy, an either/or fallacy. The factual state of affairs is a third one - namely that ‘I’ don’t actually exist and never actually existed in the first place.
The problem is that as it stands now, you are completely closed off to this possibility, hence seeing “very little room for proceeding forward” when I denied both options as being the case. And instead of reading Richard’s words in the manner they were written - which is essentially as direct pointers and pin-pointed advice tailored to the specific feeling-being he was talking to to get them to see this extremely salient and critical point - you are using them to support your conclusion that has been derived from cogitation and thinking as opposed to direct experiences of actuality (i.e. PCEs). And unfortunately, if you proceed in this manner, you could read the entirety of his words three times over and still not see the point.
And yet, with regards to this critical point - that ‘I’ do not actually exist and never did actually exist - everybody, be it me, @Srinath, @geoffrey, Richard, Craig, Vineeto, Peter, etc. etc. is in complete agreement. The words we use might be different, and we might conceive of the surrounding ontological matters in different ways, but the key point is precisely the same.
And yet how, where everyone else has failed, will feeling-being ‘Rick’ succeed? How will ‘he’ see where others went wrong, without using the information from PCEs they had, which experiences show where the entirety of the billions of peoples of humankind not only alive today but that were alive in the past have gone wrong? How will ‘he’ succeed before undergoing the immolation of ‘self’, which it seems would be a prerequisite for thoroughly resolving these matters, since certainly experiencing first-hand the extinction of ‘self’ would be vital information as to the nature of said ‘self’? And if ‘he’ does want to undergo said immolation, how will ‘he’ succeed in doing so without seeing that his current position is in direct opposition to those people who have succeeded in undergoing said immolation?
I am keenly interested to see whether the conversation has successfully executed a sharp turn, and if so, whether it can start to take steps in a beneficial direction… the one leading to actuality 
.
Cheers,
Claudiu
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What an awesome post @claudiu, once more you put into words what I was thinking but could not explain as well as you. And guess what, contemplating your post along with some other correspondence I read earlier has just facilitated a PCE for me I was just sat in my car listening to Geoffreys recording of becoming free and contemplating the stuff you wrote. I then decided to go back into the office but right before going into my office building I sensed a familiar flavour, I shut the door and turned back round to look at the trees blowing in the wind and decided to walk in that direction. Before I knew it ‘I’ slipped away and the direct experience of the perfection of being here as a flesh and blood body was happening again.
‘I’ kept popping up and disappearing again but the experience was long enough, maybe 25min to soak in a lot of ramifications. It’s funny cos only the other day I was thinking that I haven’t had a PCE in a long time and wondering if I am going down the wrong path 
Also just to relate to this thread, in that experience the distinction is clear between ‘me’ along with ‘my’ reality and the earthly actuality of being here as a flesh and blood body, smelling the actual grass and looking at actual human beings walking around. It cannot be mistaken that the Actual is what genuinely exists and the ‘real’ is what is concocted and arises out of the affective faculty, that whole ‘reality’ along with ‘me’ is fundamentally an illusion so the conversation about whether it is physical or metaphysical will never arrive at a conclusion because what we are talking about arises out of calenture.
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That is awesome to hear and means this is all worthwhile indeed . And this discussion wouldn’t have been possible without the new forum format… looks like the change is already paying dividends!
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Hi Solvann - yes, members of this forum maintain that the instinctual passions are ‘nonmaterial/ immaterial’, as in lacking materiality or material existence, and on the AFT site the instinctual passions are generally held to be ‘nonmaterial/ immaterial’, while there are occasions when they are held to be ‘material’.
Yes, Richard split phenomena into two categories: ‘real’ and ‘actual’, which is all well and good. Typologies are useful conceptual models that humans craft for beneficial purposes.
You’ll find that Claudiu mentions the polar opposite of what you think he mentions.
Actualism has then stepped heavily into philosophy when it seeks to define or professes to know the nature of the existence of a unicorn in a dream, i.e., material vs immaterial, physical vs metaphysical, actual vs real, existent vs nonexistent, phenomena vs noumena. There is no avoiding it.
My position is rather simple: the fright that a horse experiences is not non-existent.
As to what Claudiu wrote: his position is that the fright that a horse experiences does not exist “in a physical way or otherwise”.
Very simply: the fright that a horse experiences is not non-existent. It exists.
And only the physical exists.
Richard (1998): The only singulative is this physical universe itself. Being infinite and eternal, it is obvious that there can be nothing else than this … thus it has no opposite.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 15
Okay, forgetting about actualism for a second, a dream is said to not be real because it occurs in one’s brain as if somehow that which occurs in the brain has a fundamentally different form of existence to that which occurs outside the brain. Likewise a Hollywood movie is said to not be real because it occurs with actors, and scripts, and appears on a screen as if somehow that which occurs on the screen has a fundamentally different form of existence to that which occurs outside the screen.
Richard crafted a typology wherein he split existence into two modes (or identified two modes of existence): ‘real’ and ‘actual’, not unlike biologists crafting a taxonomy to split mammals into categories such as ‘cat’ and ‘dog’, for example. Go further and remove those ascribed categories piecemeal and underlying categories reveal themselves: mammalia → chordata → animalia → eukarya → living things → (… and so on, including molecules, elements, atoms, quarks, kinetic energy, etc …) → matter (broadest category of existence). Four hundred years prior, Descartes, in a very human-centric maneuver, split all of existence into two broad categories: (human) mind and body (matter). Richard resolved the split – the separation – by eradicating the ‘real’, or Descartes’ ‘mind’, and then denied it ever existed in the first place.
But saying that emotions simply do not exist and have never existed, well …
“Try telling that to someone who has just been raped; try telling that to someone who is in a trench on the front-line; try telling that to someone being tortured; try telling that to the person on the receiving end of domestic violence; try telling that to the recipient of child abuse; try telling that to someone sliding down the slippery-slope of sadness to loneliness to melancholy to depression and then suicide. More specifically, try saying that to the Buddhist woman who is being raped by a Hindu soldier; try saying that to the Hindu mother whose son has been brutally tortured by Muslim terrorists; try saying that to a Jewish grandmother whose entire family has been wiped out by zealous Christians; try saying that to a Taoist girl whose life has been violated and ruined by Buddhist/ Shinto soldiers; try saying that a Zen monk whose whole city has been razed by an atomic explosion. If your wife and/or daughter and/or mother and/or grandmother and/or sister was being brutally raped, would you really stand by saying to her: [‘your feelings do not exist’]?”
I’m afraid we will have to simplify even further for me to understand your position because the fright that a horse experiences can involve a number of things.
What about this:
I will assume you agree with the following: If a surgeon were to cut open any given flesh and blood human body they will not find an entity within. Nothing physical at all. Still ‘I’ feel like ‘I’ am inside this body looking out.
Do you agree that feeling your self to be inside the body is not the same as physically being inside the body?
If so, you would then agree that ‘you’ then actually do not exist inside the body? In no way, shape or form, never has been never will be; having no existence whatsoever.
We all agree that brains, chemicals and nerve signals exists but how, or in what way does this feeling being exist in your opinion?
Yes, a horse’s fright, sexual arousal, appetite, aggression, vision, or sweat gland secretions can involve many things. However whether the fright that a horse experiences involves two things or two million things is beside our focus at the moment.
The matter to settle is this: does the fright that a horse experiences exist, or does it not exist?
Your assumption is correct. However the fact that a surgeon would be unable to locate anything that you experience does not prove its absence. When they open you up they wouldn’t find pain or thoughts or anything that you experience. This was touched on a little earlier:
Before proceeding, it would be helpful to the discussion if those two matters (addressed above) are settled.
Could you give your thoughts on this first? Because I think this could illuminate in what way you think something have existence or not. To me your reasoning sounds like “‘I’ feel ‘I’ exist therefore ‘I’ must exist”.
@rick
Hi Rick,
I was thinking about the movie analogy all night when i thought about this thread.
The key is in the notion of “time”. The movie exists in a certain format using technology and actual processes. But, the events depicted are not happening now.
This is the first point which makes the analogy work. The screen, projector, the light hitting the screen, the seats, etc etc are all actual.
However, the content of the movie, unless it is a live streaming type, is not actual as it doesn’t happen now. It may be a “one shot” unscripted documentary, yet, even then, it is not actual.
Content, which is what we are talking about when we consider the psyche, can be non actual.
It can be factually felt now, but in itself, it is not actual.
The difference between actual and real, is when it happens. The majority of the real, is not happening now. The feeling is felt now, but the content is very rarely anything about now.
I would agree that feeling one’s ‘self’ to be located at a specific place does not necessarily mean that one’s ‘self’ is physically located at that specific place. One may feel oneself to be located in one’s socks but that does not mean that one is physically located there. Out-of-body experiences or afflictions such as depersonalization disorder, which according to webmd.com is “marked by periods of feeling disconnected or detached from one’s body and thoughts (depersonalization) [and] is sometimes described as feeling like you are observing yourself from outside your body”, may cause feelings to be misaligned with the demonstrable fact that the instinctual passions (and the self formed thereby) physically generate – and therefore physically exist – within the body.
However, that the feeling misinforms or is misaligned with what is factually the case does not mean that the feeling itself is not factually – and therefore physically – occurring.
In that regard, I would say that feeling oneself to be inside the body is in alignment with, i.e., is the same as, the demonstrable fact that the instinctual passions physically generate – and therefore physically exist – within the body.
Conversely, feeling oneself to be outside or apart from the body, or anyplace not inside the body, would be in misalignment with, i.e., not the same as, the demonstrable fact that the instinctual passions physically generate – and therefore physically exist – within the body.
If ever you find yourself thinking or feeling that ‘you’ and your feelings are separate from the body, in other words, feeling that you are “disconnected or detached from [your] body and thoughts”, consider this: feeling in any way apart or separate or disconnected or detached from the physical body may indicate that some form of depersonalization and dissociation is at play.
Depersonalization disorder is one of a group of conditions called dissociative disorders. Dissociative disorders are mental illnesses that involve disruptions or breakdowns of memory, consciousness, awareness, identity, and/or perception. When one or more of these functions is disrupted, symptoms can result. These symptoms can interfere with a person’s general functioning, including social and work activities and relationships.
Mental Health: Depersonalization Disorder
Qualifier: in the same manner that it is conventionally admitted that kidneys exist inside the body without implication that they exist separate or in any way apart from the body, likewise the acknowledgement that feelings exist inside the body should not be construed as an implication that feelings exist in a separate dimension inside the body or in any way apart from the body; indeed, they are generated by the same calorific energy as all bodily activity, only that the precise location of their existence and activity can be narrowed down to some location within the skin barrier (and more specifically in the brain region) instead of in a location that protrudes outside the skin (like hair and lips).
So does the fright that a horse experiences exist?
Hmm… you might like to direct your query to Richard instead:
Of course Richard wouldn’t… just as neither you nor I would. We would not stand by watching this happen, we would presumably do something to try to stop it.
Which is precisely why Richard initially evoked this provocative image to Respondent No. 42 on Mailing List ‘B’ . Here it is in context:
That is, No. 42 was not seeing any harm in imposing this faculty that humans value onto the universe itself. And Richard countered that of course there is harm in it. The feeling-beings inhabiting human flesh-and-blood bodies are busy causing their hapless host bodies to perpetuate wars and murders and rapes and tortures and suicides etc., causing them to inflict these horrendous things on themselves and others. And it is possible to do something to stop it - it is possible to eliminate the human condition in oneself, to set one’s body free of the burden of ‘me’ and to stop senselessly perpetuating these nightmares on others, be it implicitly (simply via ‘my’ very ‘being’) or explicitly (by actually committing these horrible things).
Yet eliminating the human condition in oneself requires a sincere approach, and a recognition of ‘my’ nature and the nature of the universe itself. So to continue perpetuating the myth or belief that the universe is intelligent is to be opposed to that which will end the human condition - an actual freedom via self-immolation. While No. 42 might not see the harm in that, Richard certainly does.
Now as eliminating the human condition in oneself also requires seeing that ‘I’ do not actually exist, never have actually existed, and never will actually exist, and you are currently diametrically opposed to this fact – which Richard, Peter, Vineeto, along with other respondents archived on the Actual Freedom Trust website, as well as various forum-goers here who are having success with actualism can readily comprehend – just who is it who should be asking whom this provocative question?
I was quite taken aback by this as it seems so plainly obvious, but maybe it isn’t.
Say you make an audio/video recording of a dog running around and barking. While taking the video, an actually-existing dog is actually running around and actually barking. This is actually happening - there is actually a dog there doing these things.
Now say you are back at home watching this audio/video recording on your smart phone. When you are watching the video of the dog running around and barking, you see a dog on the screen, running around and barking, and you hear the sounds of the dog barking. But there is no dog actually barking there. There isn’t actually a dog there doing these things. Rather what you are watching is an illusion of a dog running around and barking.
The illusion is created by the smart phone. The smart phone actually exists. The pixels on its screen actually exist - each pixel is actually a combination of three LCDs that modulate the light emitted going through them to change its wavelength. The electricity that is coursing through the system power everything actually exists. The software that is running the video player exists, encoded as 0s and 1s on whatever storage medium is on the phone.
But when you see the dog running on the screen, there isn’t actually a dog running on the screen. Rather, the programming is causing the electricity to flow such that the LCDs modulate the light on and off in a coordinated fashion such as the give the illusion (to your eyes) that there is a dog running on the screen. And of course, when you hear the dog barking coming out of the speakers, there is no dog actually barking. Rather, the phone’s speaker is causing the air to vibrate in a similar manner as a dog actually barking, such that it gives the illusion (to your ears) that there is a dog barking.
The entire thing is an audio/visual reproduction, carefully constructed by humans and tailored to the human sensory system, to give an illusion that the things on the screen are actually happening, when in fact they’re not. Of course, the illusion is happening, in the sense that it is being generated - but the things the illusion purports to be happening (a dog running and barking) are not happening.
So of course the existence of the actual dog running around and barking is fundamentally different from the existence of the “dog” that is running around on the screen and barking. The actual dog running around actually exists… while the ‘dog’ on the screen does not actually exist. Saying the dog on the screen is an illusion doesn’t mean saying the phone doesn’t exist, or the LCDs don’t exist, or there is no experience of watching a dog on the screen - rather it is saying that there is no actual dog there.
A dog might be fooled by the illusion and mistakenly think there is an actual dog there – by getting excited and barking back, for example – but this doesn’t mean there actually is a dog there. It means they are experiencing an illusion that there is a dog there. The “dog” they are experiencing doesn’t actually exist. They are having an experience of seeing/hearing a dog that actually exists - but that dog they think they are seeing/hearing does not actually exist.
Note well that this physical universe is perfectly capable of generating this illusion. It is readily able to generate the illusion of there being a dog running and barking when no such thing is happening. And it’s capable of doing this without creating and destroying any matter – but rather just by reconfiguring matter. So yes, the universe can generate something that “doesn’t exist”. Of course nothing is actually being created - no actual dog is being generated spontaneously, to then run across the screen, only to die once the video ends. It is all an illusion. So even though only what is physical exists, this dog running on the screen, which the universe is physically manifesting, does not actually exist… and there’s no contradiction here.
Now that that is presumably settled, and it’s clear what it means that something is an illusion, we can go back to talking about whether ‘me’ and ‘my’ feelings exist.
This flesh and blood body actually exists. The brain inside the skull actually exists. The neurons of the brain actually exist. The neurons are actually firing in this and that pattern. The chemicals flowing through the body actually exist. The consciousness the body is generating actually exists (although it is not being directly experienced). The thoughts occurring in the body actually exist (though they are not directly experienced either). Yet ‘me’ the ‘entity’ that ‘I’ feel ‘myself’ to be is an illusion - ‘I’ do not actually exist.
This doesn’t mean that there is no experience of ‘me’ actually existing. ‘I’ certainly experience ‘myself’ to actually exist, and this is a very persistent and convincing experience… but just like the dog mistaking the video of the dog to be an actual dog doesn’t mean that the dog on the screen exists, so too ‘me’ experiencing ‘myself’ to actually exist does not mean that ‘I’ actually exist.
Note that the material/immaterial divide is a red herring. Thoughts do actually exist. Consciousness does actually exist. These things are not ‘material’ per se - in that they don’t have mass - but the universe is certainly reconfiguring itself to generate these. These things actually exist and are actually happening. Of course, how matter re-arranges itself to produce consciousness and thought, is not well understood, but for our purposes it’s sufficient simply to observe that it does happen.
Likewise, pure consciousness is the state of a flesh and blood body being conscious sans identity. And this consciousness doesn’t have ‘mass’ in the way that a dog or a tree does. It is something that is generated by the brain. But this consciousness actually exists. There is an actual entity that is this flesh and blood body being conscious, that exists in precisely the same way the dog running around exists. This is me, what I actually am. This is the thing that actually exists. This is what can be clearly apprehended during a PCE - that I actually exist and always have actually existed (ever since I was born and the body matured enough to generate this consciousness) and will always actually exist up until the moment the universe ends me… barring moments of sleep or anesthesia for example wherein there is no consciousness happening.
And by contrast, ‘I’ the feeling-being do not actually exist. ‘I’ feel ‘myself’ to exist – this is the experience during regular feeling-being ‘consciousness’ - but ‘I’ do not actually exist. ‘I’ mistake myself to be that actually-existing entity that does actually exist… yet ‘I’ do not actually exist. ‘I’ am an illusion.
Now it might be tempting to say that, as ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’, and “the instinctual passions form themselves into a ‘presence’, a ‘spirit’, a ‘being’” [link] – isn’t it the case that feelings are actual / i.e. actually exist, just like the LCD pixels on the screen do, and it is just ‘me’ existing as an ‘entity’ that is the illusion?
This is the position of the respondent here. I would say this is more on the right track than believing ‘myself’ to exist as an entity in my own right, as opposed to understanding ‘I’ am an illusion, but it isn’t quite there yet.
The analogy with the screen breaks down as there is no such thing as a ‘static’ feeling like there would be if the screen froze (where we would see a photo of a dog instead of a video of same). Maybe it can be said that a feeling is more like an apparent motion on a particular part of the screen. The dog running on the screen is the apparent motion, but the motion itself is illusory too - nothing is actually moving, rather it’s just lights changing wavelengths.
So you experience the motion which is the dog moving, but there is neither motion nor dog actually occurring. Similarly, the only feelings that happen, happen as a motion of affective ‘energy’. The feeling is the movement of the swirling passions, and this constant movement is what ‘I’ am. ‘I’ do not “exist” as anything other than this movement, and this “existence”, if it can be called that, is only an illusion – ‘I’ exist only in the same way that the dog running on the screen exists, i.e. not actually.
It’s critical to remember that only the feeling/intuitive/affective aspect of an emotion - ‘me’ in motion - is that which is illusory/doesn’t exist. This is that “extra-sensory” portion which I invited you to see for yourself experientially earlier in the thread. The physical sensations accompanying it, the bodily changes as a result of the hormones released into the bloodstream, these things all do exist and are actually happening. But the feeling proper – which is ‘me’ experiencing ‘myself’ as that feeling – does not actually exist. It is very real, and felt to be happening, but it is not actual.
What I can say with confidence at this point is that this is simply what is the case. I know this to be factually accurate from my PCEs, just like Richard knows it to be true from his PCEs and his experience of being actually free, Srinath knows it from his fascinated and reflective contemplation shortly prior to becoming actually free and his experience of being actually free, etc. I am not conveying my impression or belief or creating a dichotomy of actual and ‘real’ or using a concept that someone else created to explain things… I’m simply conveying what is factually the case. The ‘how’ or the ‘why’ or what best analogy to use, is not something I have a ready answer for. You are free to say that all of us including Richard are wrong, but that won’t change the fact of the matter, and it won’t serve you particularly well. Of course just believing we are right will not serve you much better, either – you have got to see it for yourself.
And as such it doesn’t matter that I don’t have the ready explanation yet, either, although it would be nicer if I did. But even with a perfect analogy, the experiential understanding wouldn’t transfer into your brain. Experiential understanding is derived from experience, after all. And ultimately the only answer that matters is the experiential one. You have enough to go on, with all the words written here and on the Actual Freedom Trust website, to investigate it and see for yourself. What I’ve written here was already enough for @Kub933 to have a PCE where ‘he’ saw that ‘he’ does not genuinely exist in the first place… will it be enough for you?
Cheers,
Claudiu
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Hi Andrew - thanks for giving this topic considerable thought. Your response here prompted me to consider this matter more deeply, not knowing in advance where it would go (nor where it will go from here).
This is true.
This is also true. The events depicted through technological processes have passed and are no longer. What remains is the depiction; fossils of what occurred. So while the events depicted have passed, the depiction of those events, via the display of its remains, have not.
Yes, so far so good.
I submit that the content of a movie – the ‘motion picture’ – are those moving pictures themselves (with sound accompaniment now’days). Pictures are nothing more and nothing less than man-made ‘preservations’ of past events as opposed to natural ‘preservations’. Fossilized remains, as it were, that are captured, stored, and put on display. Nothing non-actual about that.
For as long as the fossil is intact (the oldest surviving video reel is from the 1800’s) then regardless of its category (whether documentary or drama) it depicts what occurred in the past in the same way an exhibit of remains from the Pompeii disaster depict the activities the Pompeiians were engaged in at the time they were killed. Pompeii is a natural form of preservation, film is man-made. No fundamental difference at all.
Likewise the brain has the capacity to form and store impressions of events. As such it is capable of performing a natural (organic) method of preservation. Suitably intact remains can be observed in real-time (what we call ‘recollection’). Exactly like fossils, some past events are ‘preserved’ better than others, some events are not ‘preserved’ at all, or they degrade considerably over time. Naturally, the remains of past events are not those past events themselves, yet that which remains isn’t any less actual than anything else in this universe. In fact, the entire world around us right now is just the remains of past events anyway. And all of it is factually happening.
What is factual must be actual, no? So if a feeling is factually occurring now, couldn’t it be said to be actually occurring now? (Note we are using the term ‘actual’ here in its conventional usage which refers to that which is factual; existing in fact, undeniably so).
Back to the movies, i.e., the contents on display – the depiction itself – can only exist right now at this moment. Only this moment exists, so everything that happens, whether it’s a movie, or a brain’s recollection, or an ancient Egyptian exhibit, happens right now.
Feeling oneself to be inside the body (or anywhere) is not in alignment with anything because it is an illusion; the feeling being does not have a physical location. You are saying that feeling oneself to be outside the body or in one’s socks is misaligned and inside the body is aligned, but what part of the body are the feelings aligned with? The whole body minus the socks? The brain? How does it feel to be inside the brain? Is it warm and moist?
I was beginning to think your position was similar to the respondent @claudiu linked to:
RESPONDENT: So the feelings are innative to the human being, that means they are actual. Instead the feeler is a real entity, but not actual.
but it seems you view all affective realities, beliefs and illusions to be physically occurring? Be it gods, angels or santa claus?
I’m sorry for ignoring much of what you write but to me the interesting part is trying to hone in on what and where specifically your views diverge for others. It will be interesting to read your reply to @claudiu’s latest post and explain what parts you agree with and what parts you don’t agree with.
PS: I must say this thread has really reminded me on how effective contemplation can be in bringing one closer to the actual world 
yes I thoroughly enjoyed the contemplation that went into writing my last post. There is the thought-out portion, but then this hits a wall where the only way to proceed is to see it experientially – particularly where it got to the part about feelings themselves not being actual and how that “works”. The questions and matters at hand burned in my head for hours and this led to many wondrous experiences of being close to actuality and of slipping into and out of it.
I appreciate much more thoroughly now just what it means that ‘I’ am an illusion. It’s really amazing how fundamentally ‘I’ can be felt to exist and how nothing can be further from the truth… and of course as ‘I’ am an illusion in the first place then nothing will die when ‘I’ self-immolate. Just like the dog doesn’t die when the video stops playing, because that dog was never actual in the first place – so too nothing will die as ‘I’ never existed in the first place.
I for one am not content to remain “happening” as an illusion, whatever the nature of this illusion may be… not when so much is at stake with regards to peace-on-earth, and not when the actual world is so amazingly wondrous that it still amazes me each time I get closer to it, it still gives that impression of “Wow I again forgot just how amazing and wondrous this is”. From what I have read of others’ reports who have succeeded in becoming free, it seems that wonder never stops .
What is factual and actual are not synonymous.
It is a fact i experience life as a feeling being. However, the point of actualism isn’t classical actualism (pointing out facts), but the experience itself.
One is, as you say, able to experience the movie as a fossil. The movie itself, its screen, the photons hitting it, the actors depicted (as ‘time fossils’) are all happening now. The event, whether a fiction, or a historical documentary, is not, itself, happening.
This is the point of the analogy. When feeling is examined, much if it is triggered or anticipated by events (based on past hurts, fears, imagination of acquiring desires, and any number of the thousands of shades of emotional life).
It is an emotional fossil of the past, or a phantom of tje future. Very little, if anything, is a direct experience of what is actually happening.
The movie has other metaphorical use. We are always in some sort of self narrative. Self conscious. Actors in a world we imagine is a certain way, with other actors imagining their own world, whilst interacting in a shared reality which is interpreted sometimes similar, sometimes very differently.
The story, especially in a fictitious movie, is complete make believe. Even a documentary is not free from bias, or at the very best, an incomplete reconstruction of the events.
Richard doesn’t propose “factualism” as freedom from rhe human condition, but a fundamentally different experience of the world. One in which facts are more obvious, yet it is the experience itself, rather than facts, that is the point.
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I am encoded with instinctual passions in the DNA. ‘I’ emanates from that encoded programming.
The dynamics of the world is modelled into emotional reality for us by nature, just like how a compiler translates source code to machine language.
But it’s perceived in a PCE that the translation of reality by emotions is detrimental to this body (and arguably every body). AF practise is attempting to reach a state where actuality is 24x7.
“Reality” doesn’t exist in the actual world. It’s a phantom because it’s translated. The translation is factual and all its concomitant consequences are factual too. It doesn’t exist because it’s created by “I”. The translation has nothing to do with the actual but prevents us from living in the actual world.
@rick, if you agree with the above, I don’t see you have any disagreement with previous commenters.
It’s been a while since I read this thread last time. If it seems to you that I forgot any point(s) that you made that I didn’t take into account, or you were saying something different that my remark was a non sequitur, please link to them.
@claudiu Am I off the mark by any measure? Please correct if I do.