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