Experience of I

I exist and therefore I experience the outside physical world. If I do not exist the world does not exist. But before anyone can jump in to interrupt my sentence as being “subjective” I ‘ll put them the following questions:

1. How do you know a physical thing is separate from you or another thing?
2. What makes you believe that you are not the rock or pebble, dog or tree, or mud or sand or whatever which you think you are not?
3. Does a dead man experience the things which are not him?

To feel that you exist automatically means the following characteristics of “I”

1. ·You are not so many other things.
2. You know what you are not.
3. You have the capacity to “experience” these “so many other things” which for some reason you know you are not. Let me make these statements more clear with some analogies. If there is only one single entity and no other thing, can this single thing experience the world? The answer is very obvious it can’t.

Some may ask why can’t this single entity experience the world. Answer to this lies in the question which implies that there is no world other than the single entity. The single entity is all that exists and all that encompasses and all that is. Imagine a situation where there is nothing but you alone..to the extreme point. To the point where there is no space, no vacuum, no object other than you. In this case, you will not “experience” anything as you are the only thing that exist and you are everything .(like in a bus with capacity of 20 seats if you are the only passenger, then you are not only the only passenger but also everyone who is a passenger in the bus at the time).

The theory of non duality is exactly the non existence of second entity other than you. Here people who read science cannot imagine a situation where there exists nothing. Because to them there is always something like a vacuum or space if there is no “thing”. Advaita says that to feel and experience the world is consciousness or the feeling of “I” (other names include “ego”, identity of self etc). For no reason humans know what they are not. To identify and differentiate all things which you are not with what you are is first characteristic of a living thing.Now, I do not know if animals can experience and see things differently. And it does not matter here since I know at least one thing…I know what I am and what I am not.

What am i? I do not know exactly. But it is easy for me to know what I am not. I simply know (apriori knowledge) that I am not a phone, glass or shoe or shirt or cat or crow or whatever. So my nature (or the nature of I or consciousness or feeling of existence) tells me what I am not but it does not tell me what I am. But for some reason I am interested in experiencing the world that is not me (as told to me by my conscious or to put in better way I told myself ). Or in knowing what other things are (in the domain of modern science).

Then there is another dimension to this theory. If you know what you are not does your body is included among the list of “things which you are not”? Yes I am not the body. People may ask how do you know you are not your body? My answer is “the same way I know that I am not a crow.” But don’t I feel there is some thing different from your body and other things which you are not? Yes, certainly there is a huge difference between my body and other things which I am not. I can feel and experience immediately which touch or affect my body. You pinch me I ‘ll feel the pain of it immediately. But if you pinch my cat I can only think that my cat will feel pain. I can utmost empathize with the feeling another living being when it is pinched or hurt. 

But this is based on my own experience and not based on what other being or thing experiences. This makes me feel that my body is unique to me and my self. It lets me experience the world. Do I exist if the body is destroyed or has become incapacitated in some of its senses? I am not hundred percent certain of the statement I am going to make because I have not experienced death till date. But I feel on death of the body I cease to exist because I no more “experience” the world with my body (senses of the body). 

But does feeling of “I” let you experience the world through body or is it body that lets you experience “I” by feeding you with images and experiences of the world? This question also raises the point if the body is essential for experiencing “I” are you not the body?

Quotable Quotes of Aristotle

Experience

Now from memory experience is produced in men; for the several memories of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a single experience.

--Metaphysics, Aristotle

If, then, a man has the theory without the experience, and recognizes the universal but does not know the individual included in this, he will often fail to cure; for it is the individual that is to be cured.

But yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience, and we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience
(which implies that Wisdom depends in all cases rather on knowledge); and this because the former know the cause, but the latter do not. For men of experience know that the thing is so,but do not know why, while the others know the ‘why’ and the cause.

--Metaphysics, Aristotle

Senses And Experience

Again, we do not regard any of the senses as Wisdom; yet surely these give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they do not tell us the ‘why’ of anything.Eg. why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot.

--Metaphysics, Aristotle

Superiority of Art over Science

that he who can learn things that are difficult, and not easy for man to know, is wise (sense-perception is common to all, and therefore easy and no mark of Wisdom). Also, that which is desirable on its own account and for the sake of knowing it is more of the nature of Wisdom than that which is desirable on account of its results, and the superior science is more of the nature of Knowledge

--Metaphysics, Aristotle.

Knowing the Objective from the Subjective

For learning proceeds for all in this way-through that which is less knowable by nature to that which is more knowable; and just as in conduct our task is to start from what is good for each and make what is without qualification good good for each, so it is our task to start from what is more knowable to oneself and make what is knowable by nature knowable to oneself. Now what is knowable and primary for particular sets of people is often knowable to a very small extent, and has little or nothing of reality. But yet one must start from that which is barely knowable but knowable to oneself, and try to know what is knowable without qualification, passing, as has been said, by way of those very things which one does know.

--Metaphysics, Aristotle

Ways of knowing a thing (so and so and not so not so)

But if there are several sciences of the causes, and a different science for each different principle, which of these sciences should be said to be that which we seek, or which of the people who possess them has the most scientific knowledge of the object in question?

For since men may know the same thing in many ways, we say that former class itself one knows more fully than another, and he knows most fully who knows what a thing is, not he who knows its quantity or quality or what it can by nature do or have done to it. And further in all cases also we think that the knowledge of each even of the things of which demonstration is possible is present only when we know what the thing is, e.g. what squaring a rectangle is, viz. that it is the finding of a mean; and similarly in all other cases. And we know about becomings and actions and about every change when we know the source of the movement; and this is other than and opposed to the end.

--Metaphysics, Aristotle

Science and Axioms

If there is a demonstrative science which deals with them, there will have to be an underlying kind, and some of them must be demonstrable attributes and others must be axioms (for it is impossible that there should be demonstration about all of them); for the demonstration must start from certain premisses and be about a certain subject and prove certain attributes. Therefore it follows that all attributes that are proved must belong to a single class; for all demonstrative sciences use the axioms.

--Metaphysics, Aristotle

Job of philosopher

But if the science of substance and the science which deals with the axioms are different, which of them is by nature more authoritative and prior? The axioms are most universal and are principles of all things. And if it is not the business of the philosopher, to whom else will it belong to inquire what is true and what is untrue about them

--Metaphysics, Aristotle

Axiom
Eg: One is the maxim of Thucydides

that the strong do as they wish while the weak suffer as they must.

Is matter the truth of a thing?

The word 'substance' is applied, if not in more senses, still at least to four main objects; for both the essence and the universal and the genus, are thought to be the substance of each thing, and fourthly the substratum. Now the substratum is that of which everything else is predicated, while it is itself not predicated of anything else. And so we must first determine the nature of this; for that which underlies a thing primarily is thought to be in the truest sense its substance. And in one sense matter is said to be of the nature of substratum, in another, shape, and in a third, the compound of these.

--Metaphysics, Aristotle

Can matter be perceived?

For if this is not substance, it baffles us to say what else is. When all else is stripped off evidently nothing but matter remains. For while the rest are affections, products, and potencies of bodies, length, breadth, and depth are quantities and not substances (for a quantity is not a substance), but the substance is rather that to which these belong primarily. But when length and breadth and depth are taken away we see nothing left unless there is something that is bounded by these; so that to those who consider the question thus matter alone must seem to be substance. By matter I mean that which in itself is neither a particular thing nor of a certain quantity nor assigned to any other of the categories by which being is determined.

--Metaphysics, Aristotle

Do words describe things in whole?

We must no doubt inquire how we should express ourselves on each point, but certainly not more than how the facts actually stand. the truth being that we use the word neither ambiguously nor in the same sense, but just as we apply the word 'medical' by virtue of a reference to one and the same thing, not meaning one and the same thing, nor yet speaking ambiguously; for a patient and an operation and an instrument are called medical neither by an ambiguity nor with a single meaning, but with reference to a common end.

-Metaphysics, Aristotle

Infinity of Physical World

Is there any place where there is no physical world? To understand my question let me tell you what i think the physical world is made up of.It includes everything the five human senses can perceive. It includes vaccum orspace etc also. Physical world in terms of this defintion exists at the smallest sub atomic particle known to humans to the biggest cosmic being or thing.(strictly physical and not virtual or imaginary)

If we consider two directions to view the physical world, One being the bigger and biggest and the other the smaller and the smallest;can there be a stage or point where the physical world stops or comes to end? Or is it Infinity in both directions? One finds smaller and smaller particles or other physical things by whatever name they are called as one goes looking deeper and deeper into the physical structure of a being. If we take humans, we are made up of skin, bones blood etc; the things which are apparent to normal eye and within the immediate grasp of humans. But then if we take blood and what it is made up of..there is no end how far you can go deeper. Blood is made up of x,y,z components. These X,Y.Z components are made of xy,yz,xy componets. And these are made up of further components etc. I believe the list can go to infinity. Similarly, if we examine the bigger bodies..like say human beings are part of Earth's environment. Earth's environment in turn is part of Earth. Earth is part of cosmic bodies....to infinity.

If this is the case what makes humans discriminate between things? To be more specific how can humans discriminate between one thing and another? Or how can human know if x is human and y is tree and x and y are not the same or if x is not part of y? or y is not part of x?

Knowledge and Information

If knowledge is to know what a thing is then i propose that “only that which has been experienced and understood is knowledge”. The above meaning of what constitutes knowledge is not the wordly perception of “knowledge”. How do you know a thing is something? In usual course of living, people many times believe in what the majority view a thing to be. In keeping in line with my earlier proposition that humans cannot verify the “objectiveness” of a thing by empirical evidence, i propose that the only way humans can verify if a thing is what it is told to be is to experience it and understand it. Humans believe a rope to be rope because they have been told in their childhood and have been brainwashed by “education” to believe a rope is a rope. But did the humans ever tried to find out if a rope is actually a rope? If i reject the so called knowledge of the physical world as mere “information” being perpetuated as truths by many for many years because i could not verify it independently is this a right approach?

The information i referred to includes two types of information. One is the information which is conveyed to you by others (education or told by others)but not experienced by your senses. To give you an example : “We have been told by our school books and day to day drilling by media and others that Earth is somewhat spherical in shape. Now, i decide to believe this statement and accept it is a legitimate statement of the fact which it represents. But this i have not perceived through my senses. This is because observation of such complex phenomena as checking the shape of earth is ordinarily not within the reach of layman for lack of resources. But i anyway accepted this as truth keeping faith in science and the method followed by science. But can i say this blind faith of mine that earth is spherical in shape is knowledge of shape of earth?

In other words, can i call information of something is knowledge of the thing when i have not personally experienced or understood it? Is not personal experience sine qua non of knowledge? If this is the case can i call the statement “earth is spherical in shape” true if i had not personally experienced or understood it?”

It is one thing to read it from books, draw observations of things around you and arrive at logical conclusions and is another thing to believe in a thing absolutely. Although people tend to use words like belief, faith as if they are different from empirical evidence in truth there cannot be objectivity or independent verification or evidence which is empirical and objective. This is because no doubt what results evidence may give you, it is you who connects the results, try logic and arrive at conclusions. Evidence or for the matter any kind of empirical results obtained through observation do not tell you truth of something. It is the human who chooses to believe that if x is the evidence then y ought to be the truth of a thing. It is human mind which chooses to believe that if x, y,z are properties then the thing to which these properties may be attributed to belong to a specific thing. It is unnecessary to go into the name of a thing.

An unknown thing could be named anything until the name is accepted by other humans. Evidence or empiricism, observations, scientific methods are only helpful in cross verifying what we had already chosen to believe. Had we not believed in the first place how much ever evidence or result is put before you they may mean nothing to you. This is because as i said before evidence does not talk, it is does not reveal anything. It is human mind which chooses to believe that something stands for something, something is the reason and cause for another, and if one thing is there then there should be something else which connects it.

There is another set of information which is verified by your day to day senses. These are information like the air you breathe, the blood you see, the pain you suffer, the pleasure you enjoy. These things are experienced by you and somewhat understood by you in person. You do not need scientific results, or observations or you need to be educated to gain knowledge of these things. This is information is experienced and also understood through the medium of senses. But i am still wary of calling this second type information knowledge. This is because i doubt my experiences perceived through my senses. I do not 100% believe in them. But i do neither believe in evidence and empiricism as arbiter of truth of things.

Based on my above statements and my other posts on this blog it is clear that i do not believe in existence of empirical evidence, a posteriori knowledge in truth in real life. Therefore in order to decide which information is knowledge and which is not the missing link is absolute belief. The first type of information i referred to is the most uncertain since i cannot know what other thinks they know until i feel it. But neither the second type of information is so certain since senses are capable of deception (read Rene Des Cartes “Mediations of First Philosophy”).

If this is case i am not certain if all the information floating around me some verified by my own personal experience (senses) and some widely believed by other humans and propagated by institutions like universities, media etc is knowledge. Is there anything which i do not experience through senses? Is there anything which i have reason to be believe without proof? I think it is “I exist”. I may not know what i am but i know i exist. This belief of mine is absolute because this experience does not come to me from outside but rather i am this experience. I do not need any proof in the physical world to corroborate this fact (for which i have to again depend on senses). At this stage in my life i am sure of only one thing in life viz “I exist”. Rest all I choose to call information and not knowledge because I cannot verify it independently.

Dream Argument and Reality

Des cartes puts a proposition that human mind cannot be certain of reality and falsehood. He begins his proposition by stating that he will accept only that which is absolutely certain. He defines himself as the mind which is thinking. He is absolutely certain of existence of his self. However, he says that he does not know what he is. He makes a suggestion that he could be a thinking mind. He also points out that imagination of human mind is always about corporeal things and shapes. Human mind cannot stop thinking whether in sleep or awake. He proposes that he does not exist if his mind stops thinking(which he suggests to be highly improbable scenario).

He goes on to say that since mind is capable of perception of external things including his own body only through the five senses and the senses being deceptive at times are not absolutely reliable, our experience of the external world is not absolutely certain. He rejects senses since they are not reliable. He also says that since senses are the only way of perceiving the world human mind could as well be dreaming.He explains the difficulty involved in his argument by referring to the fact that it is hard to reject what we see, hear, or feel and accept something like we are thinking human mind.

Whole and Separation

How do you differentiate a thing from another thing? In other words, how do you know a thing exists separate from another?

A thing or being is sum total of its constituents. When one refers to the thing he refers to the whole of such constituents. Human body is sum total of its body parts, the cells or atoms or molecules or acids which make it up. But are not all these parts and atoms and molecules separate things? The tiniest possible (relatively) thing is a constituent of a human body. Here, human body encompasses a bigger function which includes smaller individual parts and subparts and atoms and molecules.

We have been naming human parts like nose, ear, eyes etc and also things like cells etc. This is because we consider each of these things an independent being or thing. Each of these things is an individual thing but also part of bigger function called “human body”. So how did humans define human body to include some things and not other things? This is because there are lots of things at sub atomic level and at cosmic level. Each of these things are individual things existing independently and at the same time part of a bigger thing. A bigger thing is sum total of its smaller constituents parts (things). But it should be observed that when we refer to a thing we are including certain set of smaller things in it and also at the same time excluding lot of other things. The question posed is “is there a reason why human mind considers sum set of things as a specific bigger thing to the exclusion of others?” To cite examples; How did human mind arrive at the conclusion that a human body is sum total of eyes, ears, nose etc and all the sub particles of all such parts but not sand, stone, leaves, dog shit etc? Is it arbitrary or is there a reason for defining certain set of things as certain thing?

The question is important since it questions human perception of beings or things. This is because as we have seen a thing is basically a set of things which are included in the set and also a constituent of a bigger set where the bigger set is another thing. Is there a reason for such classification or is it simply axiomatic?

Is world a thing? Is Universe a thing? If they are things then they are one of the biggest set of things. But humans perceive only some things with their senses or rather were able to identify. I can identify another human body or being, a tree, a stone without much effort. But i find it hard perceive or identify a microscopic thing with human mind for which I would be requiring some scientific apparatus. I am not able to perceive universe or world also because this set is far too big for my size and reach of my senses. So human being can perceive things which are reachable to his senses. Although he might know that universe might be having certain set of things.

To put this in the form of an analogy for better understanding:
Suppose there is one lenovo laptop. We say lenovo laptop exists when we see it and perceive it through our senses. But we also say lenovo laptop has lan card, usb port, wifi card, dvd writer, monitor etc. Each of these are also things which exist. Lenovo laptop also exists as a thing. Then there are microscopic things. Like the lan card of lenovo laptop has xyz chip embedded in it. if we go on and on with better sense perception or with the help of technology we can find smaller and smaller things inside the lan card laptop. One might give very obvious answer that lenovo as a thing exists because humans defined it to inlcude certain set of parts. This being analytic truth lenovo exists only if humans who made it define lenovo. When i define lenovo laptop to include sum set of parts and it is manufactured and assembled with all this parts i say lenovo laptop exists.But what if do not define lenovo laptop and people had this practice of buying “assembly of !+2+3+4 parts” and using it for various purposes. Does the thing called lenovo laptop exists in such a situation? Some might answer smartly to say lenovo laptop exists whether you call it a thing or not as long as there exists “assembly of !+2+3+4 parts”.

But if we say a thing exists as something (not identified as a thing) whether we call it or define it as a specific thing then is it not true to say a thing is mere human practice of identifying certain set of things? So is it like saying a thing exists but not as a thing? This is because we concluded that calling a ‘something’ a ‘thing’ (identity) is purely based on human perception. The physical existence of this something is not in dispute here.

It might be concluded that a thing exists but it does not exist separately from another. This is because if something is the only one then it has no name or form. The purpose of giving identity is to distinguish one from another each being separate from another. When there is no another then there is no purpose of name. By going into the purpose and meaning of identity of a physical being we found that it is mere axiomatic grouping or defining of sets. Separation exists when you think something is separate. When I look at a piece of clock i see clock as a whole. Some might not see clock. He may be looking only at needles, numbers, plastic and battery and each of them separately. Our own way of looking at things is limited by our limitation of senses like our own size, strength of eyes etc.

In the movie The Matrix ‘Link’ the operator for Morpheus’s ship monitors all people who are plugged into the matrix. He does this with the help of a computer screen which has numbers (Matrix debugged) all over it. During a conversation between Neo and Link, Neo asks Link what he actually sees on the computer screen. We are shown a computer monitor full of falling and moving numbers. But Link reveals that he sees people (Matrix encoded) on the screen as they appear inside the matrix. Link looks at decoded program but is able to see encoded images and actions which are the result of the numbers.

"Neo: ls that. . .?
Neo: The Matrix?
Neo: Do you always look at it encoded?
Link: Well, you have to.
Link: The image translators work for the construct program.
Link: But there's way too much information|to decode the Matrix.
Link: You get used to it.l don't even see the code.
Link: All l see is blonde, brunette, redhead."

So it is up to the human mind whether to look at the whole thing or millions of subsets of things which make the whole. One cannot look at both the same time. If you are looking at the whole you cannot look at the parts. If you are looking at the parts you cannot look at the whole.

Science and Apriori knowledge

How do humans know if a rope their eyes see is actually a rope?

Because the experience they get from watching a rope with eyes matches with their earlier experience they felt when they saw the rope in the past.

But why do they call a rope a rope? How do they actually know if the name of the thing they call 'rope' is actually a 'rope'?

Humans need not know the actual name of the thing. It is immaterial to them if its actual name is rope. This is because only humans give names to things in order to identify and distinguish the various experiences they perceive through senses.

But why science may say that a rope humans perceive may not be actually a rope?

This is because science apparently does not 100% believe in senses to determine the existence of something.

How can science back up its argument that what evidence tells you is the only truth?

science cannot prove if what the evidence tells you is the truth. This is because evidence as labelled by scientists is also 'existence of something' which humans can understand/experience only through the medium of senses. And science denies the accuracy of the senses in terms of conveying or transporting the truth of the outside world to the human mind.

How can science say evidence conveys truth but deny the accuracy of senses to convey the truth?

Yes science is self contradiction because it believes in evidence (object) but denies the accuracy of the senses(medium/interface). It does not realise that if senses are not accurate always it also means evidence also may not be true always. The object may be yellow. But suppose if humans eyes can see things only in white then the human mind perceives evidence in incorrectly. The evidence is as good as human sense. When scientists agree that sense could be wrong but evidence is always true they are self contradicting themselves. Evidence can be sensed, understood only through the medium of senses. So evidence is only as good as the senses.

Science and the people who follow it are very modest in their claims to “knowledge of reality”. Science does not claim it knows reality of anything science dabbles with at any point of time. Science only sticks to "an approximation of reality". Science makes predictions, and these predictions are tested by experiments. Newton's Theories have been tested and found to be accurate to one part in 10 million, Einstein's scientific predictions have been proved by observation and experiment to be accurate to one part in 10,000,000,000,000,000. Newton himself knew that his theory was true to one part in a thousand. (Penrose, 2000: page 26) Modern technologies and methods, especially in clocks and other instrumentation, are the reason for the improvements. A little bit of digging, and one can find many examples of how accurate scientific predictions can be.


But then close to truth is not the truth. It is mere mathematical way of describing 'risk or chances or probability'. You know it or you do not know it. I can give credibility to science if science can tell me the chances of something being true. But i am not sure if the probability number itself is true because one can give approximation of something to something only when one knows what that something actually looks like, or feels like etc. In this case, science confesses that it does not know truth.(its own knowledge based is built on aposterori activities). If it does not know the truth how can it even say that it is very close to truth? There is something fundamentally very wrong in this claim of science.

Some might argue for science (to be truth) because it has practical applications unlike philosophy which is abstract in nature. But does a thing is true if it is useful and has practical applications. Production of engineering products does not tell me the truth. It would help me in driving home, communication etc. I do not call a thing true simply because it has practical applications.

Science is not true since the claim that evidence proves something is dubious. Evidence in real world does not identify a being or thing. It identifies only a property. It never tells you if the orange juice is orange juice. For you to know i should know the essence of thing which is not its properties.

My idea says empirical evidence does not bestow me with the knowledge of a thing. It only tells me the properties of unknown entity. And the evidence in practice is actually claiming apriori knowledge of things as aposterori since it declares liquid to be orange juice by merely looking at the properties of orange juice. Or it does not know what the thing is.

The process of knowing a thing or being (once known it becomes knowledge) is of two types i.e apriori or aposterori. Apriori knowledge basically refers to knowledge of a thing by default. It does not need any experiment or empirical evidence to acquire the knowledge. In other words, such process of knowing a thing does not call for evidence. A person in possession of such knowledge claims the knowledge of the thing. On the other hand, aposterori knowledge is knowledge which is gained through proving something by evidence. But in true sense, there cannot be aposterori knowledge. The properties of orange juice does not tell me it is orange juice. This is because one cannot know properties of thing or being without knowing the thing or being. Properties of a thing or being do not exist independent of the thing or being.

Therefore when science claims it does not have apriori knowledge of orange juice it is an acknowledgment that it does not know orange juice. It might gain knowledge of properties of orange juice like its colour, acidity etc. But all of these are properties of orange juice and not orange juice. When you do not know what orange juice is how will you know the properties of something belong to orange juice? If this is the case, there can be only two plausible explanations to the claim of science that orange juice is proved by evidence of its properties:-

1) Science does not know if certain properties belong to orange juice since it does not know orange juice (aposterori knowledge). In other words, its claim is false.
2) Science already knows orange juice and also identifies properties of orange juice. But it falsely claims that it is proving if something is orange juice. In other words, science is merely apriori knowledge under false veil of aposterori, evidence etc.(Read "knowing knowledge" for a detail analysis of knowledge).

Dreams and Matrix

As we have seen in our previous posts on “Dream in Dream” (Lucid Dream) people who experienced dreams with the knowledge of being in dream were able to control the contents and happenings of the dream. When one is 'realized' (of the nature of their world in dream) in one's dream but continues to dream he can control the dream. He can do impossible things in the dream merely by merely 'willing' it to happen.

In normal dreams, the dreamer believes in dream 100% while inside of it. It is only when he wakes out of it realization dawns on him. The above awakening where you know you are in dream while in dream happens few times, not all the times. It is only after you wake out of dream you can decide if it is some delusion or sleep. To dreamer as long as he is in dream his real world is the dream world and his dream experiences are his real experiences. Any sort of realization as to his true state comes to his knowledge only when the dreamer wakes out of his dream.

To explain further the point I made in the first paragraph I would like to draw to attention the movie Matrix. In the movie, Matrix is the program world and not the natural world. It has no physical existence living only in the minds of the people plugged in. However, if you had watched the movie, you'll know that the people (including Neo) wake up on uplugging from Matrix. However, this time whenever they plugin into the matrix they are able to partly control the matrix except for the entry and exit points into the matrix for which they need a physical phone line. The things the 'realised matrix people' do are incredible. They can fly, dodge bullets, jump high and across roof tops etc.

On the other hand, people who have not been unplugged from the Matrix software are in truth lying in a factory floor and being fed through tubes. These people have been dreaming since their birth. They have never experienced true world nor had they made use of any of their limbs. These plugged in humans are used by machines to generate power. The people so plugged in believe 100% in the reality of Matrix world. Very often, the dream state created by Matrix is so overwhelming on the minds of the humans so as to cause them crave for it despite the knowledge of the reality. If you are dreaming something very sensual and wake out of it one experiences lot of disappointment. The cause of this emotion is that the dreamer believed the dream and had rich experience of something which in his wakeful state he knew he would have never done it. This also leaves a wish to stay in the dream and continue feeling the dream despite the realisation that it is only a dream and not the truth. This wish to stay inside the dream state despite the realization of falsity of Matrix is highlighted from the following scene in the Movie.

“In the first film of the trilogy, Cypher is one of the rebels from Morpheus' hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar. Cypher has grown tired of the Man/Machine war within the Matrix. Harshly disillusioned by the grim existence living on a hovercraft and tired of following Morpheus and his blind faith of the Prophecy, he soon starts to wish that he never learned the truth and left the Matrix in the first place. This prompts him to strike a deal with the Agents. At the beginning of the movie, he nearly has Trinity killed by Agent Smith in successfully proving to the Agents that he, "the informant", was legitimate.

Cypher secretly meets with Agent Smith once more, agreeing to turn Morpheus over to them if the Agents will return Cypher's body, rich and famous, to the Matrix power plant with no knowledge of the Matrix's true nature. How he is able to contact the Agents is not clear. Cypher helps the Agents mount an ambush at their safe location, where Mouse is killed, and then murders Apoc, Switch, and Dozer, and wounds Tank. Before he can kill Neo or Trinity, Tank recovers and kills Cypher.

One of Cypher's most famous quotes from the movie is "Ignorance is bliss", which he utters while speaking with Agent Smith, referring to the state of people inside the Matrix.”
Source

So taking the Matrix concept of reality of our living life and then if we apply monist philosophy things would be different. If we all are currently living in dream like state (akin to matrix but not machine controlled but nevertheless living in dream state) where we are bound to accept our limitations because our minds believe the dream is true and not illusion. Once we know true nature of our dream like world (like neo realizes after taking the pill) can we humans do impossible things in the world by mere will? Things like defying rules of physics? This is because you know the laws of physics in dream are not real and they are simply faking your mind by making you believe they are true. Just like you can control your dreams when you are awake in dream without actually awakening you can do the impossible things in physical world because real world is only an illusion and its laws are only true as long as you believe the physical world is true.

Hindu Monism refers to the life of swan to identify the relationship of a realized soul to the physical world. Just as a swan lives in water but its feathers are not soiled by water, similarly a liberated human being lives in this world full of illusion but is untouched by its illusion (Read: what is illusion?).

Dream in Dream

I suppose the best way to begin this is by asking the question:

Did you know (were you aware) while you are in a dream that you are dreaming? To put this in other words, did the realization that you are in dream occurred to you when you are still in a dream? I believe the normal case is the dreamer becomes aware of the dream state only when he is awake and not while he is still in dream. Dreaming while knowing you are dreaming is a very rare experience...but it may happen in almost all humans.

This is my own personal experience of strange dream:

"I was taking afternoon nap after a tiring day of study. I was mentally occupied with all study stuff for the next day's exam. I was sleeping with my face up and back down. After a while I suddenly knew that i was dreaming and I could see myself (hereinafter called "the one") on the floor sleeping beside my brother. I could hear the noise of the fan and i could see the door of the room wide open. The dreamer (the one) in my dream had seen something spooky trying choke his throat. The one in the dream in my dream wanted to wake up to escape the choking sensation since he already knew that this is only a dream and he could escape this if he wakes out of it. I felt I had woken out of sleep. 

The one tried to wake up and found his body is not responding to the will of the mind. The one tried moving with all his force only to find his body is not responding and with choking sensation and the fear of death imminent. He felt the body is paralyzed. All of sudden, I open my eyes and check if my body is moving and responding. It is after all moving and responding to my will. This experience I felt was very profound and disturbing and this happened some 5 years back."

I think the two highlights of the dream are:

1) I knew I was dreaming and could see myself on the floor dreaming feeling both dream of me on the floor and the experience of seeing myself on the floor dreaming.

2) I felt I woke out of dream which I knew I didn't only after I actually woke up. I experienced both dream experience in the dream in the dream and wakeful experience in the dream.

I googled this experience online to find the following: Lucid dreaming


I will now relate this dream as it progresses with the feeling of awareness, illusion and reality. 

The sensual experience is verified by your senses in your Dream. We accept the fact that the things which we feel with our senses are true (so called evidence and verifiability). Can you agree with anything which you cannot experience (perceive with any of your senses)? You label such things false. The wetting of sheets is actual physical consequence which happened in real world as a consequence of the experience you have gone through in the Dream world (another proof that the experience is true). 

Having accepted the truth of dream in the above manner, you wake out of the dream only to find these things do not exist at all. But then, you have experienced them in the Dream world with all your senses (and felt in the dream to be absolutely happening). The same senses cannot perceive the things you have seen in the dream world in the real world once you wake out of the dream. So, how do you know which one of these is the truth?
(Read Dream Argument)

By definition Truth is something which can always be perceived and experienced through the medium of senses. But now you feel these very senses seem to be playing tricks on you when you switch from dream state to waking state.

The following are the conclusions drawn as per this philosophy:

1) Things which happened in the Dream world are not false since you experienced them with your senses. But it is not the truth which is your actual wakeful state. So these 'Dream things' which are neither true nor false is 'Maya' or Illusion.  

2) Secondly, the happenings in the Dream World are purely born out your memories (read Freud and others).out of your mind which has its base in the physical brain (this mass of flesh is true). The mind and memories are the cause of the happenings in the dream. You also know that if your physical brain (true object in real world) is damaged or crushed the happenings in the dream also come to a stop. So we can conclude that these dreams cannot exist independent of the physical brain and the terra bytes of memory stored in it (the cause of the dreams). Therefore, Dreams are subjective (illusionary).

3) In wakeful state you know that Brain is the source of happenings in the world. These happenings happen whether you exist bodily or not. So in wakeful state happenings happen independently on their own without any sort of cause.This is objectivity and the truth.

The above dream in dream is often called “Lucid Dreaming”. Many lucid dreamers reported that they were able to control the direction of their dreams. The dreamer knows of inherent the fakeness of the dream and so was even able to control it to some extent. So if we become lucid dreamers in the world we live in we can continue dreaming but with the knowledge that it is a dream after all. This concept beomes more clear when you read my post on Dreams and Matrix.

Whole and Part

A piece of wood in a boat is only a part of the Boat. If the Boat is describing itself it will never say i am the specific piece of wood. The Boat would say i am the sum total of all woods + nails and whatever . So my analogy is description from point of view the describer in relation things around him.

Whole = Sum total of all parts or Union of all parts like W= pUpUp. Whole by definition is complete and not parts and bits. The describer ( say it is a tree) will never say this branch is mine (unless it has fallen down and separated). As long as the 'part' is part of the whole it will not say part is mine. This is because while 'part' is part of the whole it has no individual self in relation to the whole. The part and the whole are the same. So we automatically deduce that when words which say to the effect that it belongs to me or it is mine...object is separate and different from the 'I' (describer).

Suppose the individual 'I' knows what he is. He is sum total of x+y+z. Then 'I' would never say X is mine because x is part of I and I is sum total and not individual part. I is one complete set and not parts. Since it involves self contradiction whenever I says x is mine it ought to imply that x is not part of I.

At personal level. human body is not hair, hands, legs etc..it is sum total of everything. Even if it has less than a piece of hair then it is not human body.The truth in its purest form..a thing by itself it exists for the sake of existence.

One makes logical fallacy here when you say human body is composed of..x, y,z organs etc and at the same time they belong to the body. When human body is sum total of organs and more how can you say that parts belong to the body? organs are part of the body. So they do not belong to the body. They constitute the body. When you define whole as sum total of parts whole already includes parts. So when you say part belongs to the whole it is like saying whole (including part)+additional same part.

'This part belongs to the whole.' What is whole? whole is sum total of all parts including the part referred in the previous section. So when whole already includes part, how can you say it again is part of whole. A particular part once it merges with the whole does not exist outside the whole.

This same concept of existence of 'i' or 'whole' is referred to in logic as law of identity. Aristotle in his book on Metaphysics explains the nature of a thing. He concludes that a thing is primarily its essence. Essence is attributeless. There would be a separate post to understand the 'essence' of thing.

Understanding Reality- Dialogue

What is the purpose of naming things?

Among other things to distinguish 'one from another.'

So do you agree that if you call out two different names they refer to different identities?

Yes, they ought to be separate things. One is not the other even if it is identical.

So, do you agree that when you call two names of twin boys [t1 and t2] Are they different?

yes of course. They are not the same even if one is exact carbon copy of the other.

If you call 'something' or 'state' as true what does it mean?

It means..." the something or state is real. it is not false”.

What is real? explain me?

Reality is the truth. 

What is false?

The one which is not real, untruth.

What is truth and untruth?

Truth is the one which exists. Untruth is something which does not exist.

What do you mean by existence and non existence?

Existence is ...the one which you know exists.

How do you usually know if something exists. Do you come to know if something exists if someone tells you it exists?

No..no i know something exists when i know it exists.

But, how do you know if something exists?

I know it when i see it with my eyes.

So you don't know if it exists when you hear it, smell it or taste it or feel it on your skin?

No, i know if it exists even if i feel, experience any of the things mentioned above.

So, say if you hear something but do not see it do you know if something exists?

i Will know that it exists but i may not know how it looks like.

How do you know if something is not existing?

When i don't see it, hear it, smell it, taste it.

So if you don't experience something with your senses you will not know if something exists?

Yes without experience i cannot know if something exists or not.

From what we discussed until now do you agree that Truth is what you experience through your senses?

Yes i am perfectly fine with it..because truth is existence and existence can be experienced through senses.

So do you agree that untruth cannot be experienced through human senses?

Yes.

So Untruth cannot be experienced?

Yes it cannot be. it is false. it does not exist.

Coming back to your first question do you know think if you two things are different and carry different names one is not the other?

yes one is not the other. If they are one and the same why would i call them by two different names. Unless of course if two become one. Then there exists only one with one name. He cannot have two names because two names indicate two different identities.

Suppose, you stare at your mirror what do you see on it?

I see myself.

Are you sure you see yourself?

No it is the image of myself. 

You and the image in the mirror are not one?

No..how could it be? It is called my image. It is not me.

So you are only one?

Yes I cannot be many. If there are more of me they are copies of me, they are not me. i alone can be real me.

Are you the only truth of you?

How can there be many truths? It does not make any sense.

What about the image of yourself in the mirror? Do you think it is real? 

No it is not real..it is only an image of me ...it is not me.

Is the image false?

Yes......it is false ...it is not me.

So you agree that you cannot experience the image through your senses?

No..no i can see it but it is not the real|truth.

But just few minutes back you said reality/truth can be experienced through human senses?

Yes..

So your statement that the image in the mirror is not real is incorrect?

Yes it is real.my statement is incorrect.

But you told me real can only be one but not many?

yes it is true. There is only one me. it is real. The image of me in the mirror is real. It is not me. 

But image in the mirror...it looks so much like you. He moves exactly as you move?

Yes that is his nature..he is a reflection of me.

Do you agree that you and the image in the mirror are separate realities?

yes we have different names..if i am 'I' then the my image is 'im'. 

Do you agree that both of you exist?

yes

Both of you are Truths?

Yes we are Truths representing two different things i.e to say i represent the truth of myself which is only one. the image represents only the truth about my image.

This image of you in the mirror is so identical to you..he can almost do everthing you do. Don't you think people may mistake the image of you to be you?

Oh yes there is a good chance that they might think the image to be me.

This image of you, he looks like you, he acts like you and may misrepresent himself to be you. is there anyway how people could identify you..other than by name?

let me think..yes he does not exist with out me.

What do you mean he does not exist with out you?

People cannot experience him through their senses if i move out of the mirror range.

How is it possible?

The image is a reflection of me who cannot exist with out me standing infront of the mirror. I continue to exist without the image of me whreas the image cannot exist with out me.

So for the people who are looking for you inorder to come to you they should check if the image does not exist with out you?

Yes 

Is it not this image lot of trouble to the people who want you and not the image. They are unable to look at you because the image is so much like you..almost you?

Yes but the people must realise that for choosing me between me and the image i am the truth and not the image. 

But the image of you is also true?

Yes but between him and me i am the absolute truth for the people who seek me.

What about the image? is he not true?

He is not true (illusion) to the people who want to look at me because he tends to confuse their minds.