What exactly is going on "here"?

I feel like many people don't have the capacity to see this, yet it's also the only thing anyone should ever think about: What the fuarrrk is this realm we find ourselves in? What is this? Right now here we are.. how? What? Where? Shouldn't there just be nothing? Why is there anything at all? The question of where humans came from becomes irrelevant. Whether you believe in pure evolution, "ancient aliens" or a deity, it doesn't even approach answering the question of how/why this reality is here to begin with. Even the pure science "big bang" perspective doesn't attempt to answer this. This gives me chills down my spine every time i wake up for a moment and remember "wtf is this?". I have no answers, but I think a key related element is the question of "who is it that sees"? That set of eyes behind your face.. Where exactly are "you" located? The best approximation ive come across is our bodies are basically antennas, broadcasting the 5 senses (plus emotions, feelings) to "he who sees", who is in fact located "somewhere else" than "here". Speaking of the big bang, a related theory ive come across goes like this. Assume the big bang, evolution etc is correct (ignoring the question of what came before / why reality is here to begin with). In that case we are basically matter that has become aware of itself. So "he who sees" is .. the universe itself. All life is the universe experiencing itself from all perspectives. Thus we ARE the universe. Taking this one step further, I have started to toy with the idea that "he who sees" is in fact the same single entity, across all life forms. This actually lines up with various religions ideals of "all is one"; the importance of being kind to all, the notion of forgiving even the most terrible murderers etc yet also allowing murder etc in certain cases. This also lines up with the oracle at deplhi's inscription of "know thyself and you will know the universe and the gods". What do you all think about this topics? I would love to hear your thoughts or if you know of any forums/boards where this topic is discussed in depth. Shouldn't there just be nothingness? Why and how not?

infinitely expanding distance between elementary particles that still gain definition in an infinitely macroscopic scale...infinitely expanding inward cosmoses that still give birth to a sense of identity and self...

>>7788 We are the universe and vice versa. The answer as to why there is existence rather than pure nothingness is....It just is. It is whatever you want it to be. Whatever perspective you choose. You make it real because you are the universe and so is everyone else

As the other lain said, it just is. "Nothing" cannot give birth to "something", or else it would be "a thing that gives birth to something", hence not "nothing". In the same way, "something" cannot turn into "nothing". What even is "nothing"? I know I cannot imagine it. I can imagine a void. I can even imagine a void that is infinite in both time and space. However, the fact that I can perceive and name it must mean it isn't "nothing". Regarding consciousness, I'm of the opinion that it's just an emergent property of our brains. "He who sees", I usually call that "me", cannot be the universe, otherwise I would also see what goes through your eyes.

>>7792 Nah I would say that Nothing did in fact give birth to something. And I do think all is consciousness. Call it matter whatever you like it's all energy in the end.

>"He who sees", I usually call that "me", cannot be the universe, otherwise I would also see what goes through your eyes. Perhaps, but what if there is some kind of fragmentation or filtering going on? And perhaps there is a was to see from beyond this fragmented perspective. Reminds of the William Blake quote "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern." >It just is. this feels like a cop-out, yet at the same time it's the only explanation i can think of

The long and short of it is that I am God. Bow down before me.

Take a look at their texts, particularly the ones by Anzan Hoshin. https://wwzc.org/

>>7807 ah so, hajimemashite mike sama kun

>>7788 Nice thread, OP. I have struggled with similar issues and the same thoughts have occured to me. The idea that the senses are being broadcast upon some "observer" located "somewhere". The main issue with this is that it cannot really be tested for in any vaguely empirical manner, let alone conclusively proven. It cannot, however, be disproven either. So I feel like you in a way, wondering what "this" really is, where I actually am, and if physical location is in any way actually real or a mere artifact of the manner in which reality is processed. If the world were a computer, we would be experiencing the operating system while having no clue of the hardware lying underneath, and indeed no way to even conceive of this hardware. Our knowledge of the universe is limited by our limited perception. How do forces act at a distance? What is gravity? The bending of the fabric of space-time? And what is this fabric? How can it bend? How do magnets work? Why do the fields want to align with each other? What really are those invisible fields? Models of these phenomena have been developed and are reasonably accurate but we are still oblivious as to how it actually occurs. It is obvious that our perception is extremely limited. Some fish can sense electric fields and use this for navigation and other purposes. We can describe this phenomenon and build devices that can measure these fields, but can we truly understand what it is like to experience an electric field in the same way the fish does? I yearn for deeper understanding, but I don't really know where to go from here. Perhaps madmen experience reality in a manner that makes the experience of "sane" people incomprehensible to them. Perhaps a tree is a man "somewhere" else, and a man is a tree wherever that "place" may be.

>>7806 No but seriously, the only way I would ever believe in a god is if I were him. The universe itself is in a sense god-like, as it would appear to have the power to create itself. I am a part of said universe. Not just a cog in a great machine, but inseperably one with it. Therefore, I am god looking or experiencing itself/its creation, which is itself. This hearkens back to Hofstadter's I am a Strange Loop.

>>7811 Thanks for the reply. A few things that prompt further thoughts from me: >universe as a computer its funny, i feel like the further we get with computer science, particularly games, the more it seems like reality itself might be constructed similarly. >cannot really be tested for in any vaguely empirical manner, let alone conclusively proven True, but I wonder if it could be proven in a subjective manner. Wouldn't help prove things to other people, but I wonder if there is a way to get insights into this overall topic individually. Probably through "gnosis" or insights revealed in 'dreamland' (astral plane?) >Our knowledge of the universe is limited by our limited perception This brings up a whole other similar topic about what we experience as reality vs what "raw" reality actually is. That is, all of our senses are in fact created by our brain resulting in reality experience. E.g. for sight, the brain takes in basically electrical waves via the eye and those are translated to what we see as "sight". But that is just the translation of data by our brains into a sensory experience; so then what does "raw" or unadulterated "vision" "look like"? And then what exactly is the ultimate source of all these, for lack of a better term, electrical waves? God? Is "raw reality" a jumble of signals and waves, like trying to view a TV channel you dont have access to? And when we are dreaming, what is the "source" of the data that becomes sensory experience in that context? Ourselves? How are dreams oftentimes lifelike to a degree they are indistinguishable from waking life? People say dreams are basically memories but clearly there is much more to it than that. Sometimes as I'm falling asleep I try to "watch" for dreams. I will often get sight of the dreamworld for a split second. Like everything is black, then it switches to actual full vision (of whatever) for a second, but then i notice it too much and its back to blackness and awakeness. In our analogy it's like the source of the signal switching, that source which broadcasts the data to us as observers.

>>7788 It is a shock to me that so few people get this or wonder what is going on. You are really onto something by understanding how irrelevant most of the questions people ask are. I really think that Wittgenstein and Heidegger are the closest figures to what you are discussing. I can give a summary of either if you would like but I doubt I can put it into better words than they can.

>>7818 The thought of directly interfacing with the source of dreams via lucid dreaming is very exciting. Whether its reaching out to your "subconscious" (whatever that could possibly be), or something entirely different. I know that once I first have my share of hedonistic fun, Ill focus solely on training to stretch my understanding of everything; perceptions, conceptions, individual experience, etc etc... Having (what feels like) an untapped infinity in your own skull that you can actually tap into feels like what my entire life is leading up to. I want to dig deeper and deeper...

>>7788 There is nothing funnier or more fun than going up to people and being like "WHAT IS THIS?" and just looking at them really closely and curiously and confusedly. The best time to do it is when your in bed with someone, and just start poking and inspecting parts of them and saying "excuse me, what is this? whats going on here?" while you fondle and inspect them as if they were a completely foreign thing to you. This is the story of my entire life.

>Shouldn't there just be nothing? One thing is certain: there cannot be nothing, since there is obvioulsy something. Goobledy babbledy gobblegook <--- me trying to get around this weird anti-AI blockade

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-universe-ultimate.amp >The possibility that the entire universe is informational in nature and resembles a computational process is a popular theory among a number of well-known figures, including Elon Musk. The thinking comes from within a branch of science known as information physics, which suggests physical reality is actually made up of structured information. >In an article published in AIP Advances and included in the journal's "Editor's Picks," a physicist from the University of Portsmouth, Dr. Melvin Vopson, presents findings which indicate that gravity or gravitational force is the result of a computational process within the universe. >He suggests that gravity might actually be caused by how information about matter is organized in the universe. Using the second law of information dynamics, he indicates that matter and objects in space may be being pulled together because the universe is trying to keep information tidy and compressed. >Dr. Vopson said, "My findings in this study fit with the thought that the universe might work like a giant computer, or our reality is a simulated construct. Just like computers try to save space and run more efficiently, the universe might be doing the same. It's a new way to think about gravity—not just as a pull, but as something that happens when the universe is trying to stay organized." >Dr. Vopson has previously published research suggesting that information has mass and that all elementary particles—the smallest known building blocks of the universe—store information about themselves, similar to the way cells, the building blocks of biological entities, have DNA. >In this latest research, Dr. Vopson shows how space pixelation in elementary cells can act as a data storage medium, and demonstrates how the role of information stored in elementary cells is to provide the properties and the coordinates of matter in the space-time simulated construct. Each cell can register information in the form of binary data so if it is empty it registers a digital "0," and if matter is present in a cell it registers a digital "1." >Dr. Vopson added, "The process is identical to how a digital computer game, virtual reality application, or other advanced simulation would be designed." >He explains that as a cell can accommodate more than one particle, then the system will evolve itself by moving the particles in space to join them together into a single larger particle inside a single cell. >"This triggers the attracting force because of the rule set in the computational system, requiring the minimization of the information content, and by extension, a reduction of the computational power. Put simply, it is far more computationally effective to track and compute the location and momentum of a single object in space, than numerous objects. Therefore, it appears that the gravitational attraction is just another optimizing mechanism in a computational process that has the role to compress information." >This study presents a novel perspective on gravity, supporting the view that gravitational attraction arises due to a fundamental drive to reduce information entropy in the universe. >The results introduce distinct conceptual and methodological differences, and suggest that gravity serves as a computational optimization process, where matter self-organizes to minimize the complexity of information encoding within space-time.

>>7818 >True, but I wonder if it could be proven in a subjective manner. Probably can. If you read trip reports on erowid you will see a lot of people who feel like they're on their way to enlightenment or that they've uncovered some esoteric knowledge about the workings of the universe during their trips. What I wonder is if these experiences can be trusted. They do seem very interesting and worth experiencing, but how would you know whether those dreams truly do have some insight into what this raw reality is or how it works or whether it's just random like a fever dream? I am getting into lucid dreaming and have had lucid dreams before but so far they always end abruptly as soon as I attain lucidity. Since I cannot really find any other way to get answers, I do intend to go down the route of lucid dreaming but I can't help but wonder if anything meaningful can be attained this way. I'm wondering what the actual goal of all of this exploration would be. If we could just instantly have what we wanted, what would that thing be? If all of reality is mysterious and limited by our perception, if it is all shrouded in this sense of being illusory and subjective then whatever end goal we should aspire to must go beyond this reality completely. We would need to become completely insane from the average person's point of view to get anywhere it seems. And even then, how would we know that whatever stream of stimuli we would experience means anything? >what "raw" reality actually is I don't think that can really be answered in any meaningful way. Raw reality cannot be experienced objectively because everyone would experience it in a different manner, and who is to say which experience is correct? Or at the very least, it would not be possible to prove whether or not observers experience reality in the same way. A thought occured to me a while ago that people with remarkable innate talents or abilities may be experiencing reality in a slightly different manner that is conducive to using whatever talents they possess. And why stop there? Maybe everyone experiences this raw reality slightly differently. Maybe the only way to experience this raw reality properly would be to simultaneously see everything through the eyes of every conscious observer in existence. Then a complete picture of all the ways in which raw reality can be exerienced would be formed.

>>7831 Experiencing reality is tantamount to knowing everything that exists. This is obviously an impossibility, as the ability to experience is limited by the finite section of reality that allows for your experience. It would be as if you could fit all that there is inside your puny brain. Impossible. What people are doing is simply asking the wrong question. You shouldn't ask how you can know reality, knowing that logically this is impossible. You should simply ask a different question. What that better question is, I couldn't tell you. But when you realize you need to ask better questions, that is when you realize you are doing philosophy the right way.

Another interesting thing is thought itself and how it factors into the experience of the observer. Do thoughts even originate from the observer, or are they also separate, similar to how our digestive system consists not only of cells but also largely of bacteria, foreign entities that are symbiotically (i.e. not parasitically) part of us. Especially when you think of things like "intrusive thoughts" or when you have a thought that someone else nearby then expresses before you; aka the idea that "thoughts have wings". And perhaps there are entities that can direct or manipulate some or all of the thoughts that hit the observer. Possibly to feed on our energy. I came across this thesis document that is related. Some of it I don't necessarily agree with, but i still enjoyed it. Especially when you line this up with the notion that we as the observer ARE reality / ARE the universe, i found it to be thought provoking thinking of the idea that there could be a > nonhuman neighbor living in a parallel reality that can reach into our reality that is > using an advanced form of psychological warfare that’s terraforming our reality through the human mind

Got to be honest, I get the gist of what everyone is talking about in this thread, but most of the details are going over my head. Any reading recommendations I can do to better understand these concepts?

>>7844 "Life on earth" is a starting point: https://youtube.com/6WsuGDoRS8c It's about the Anthropic Principle and information warfare. Best recommendation I know of.

>>7792 the nothing you are referring to could be pure energy. after all sience has taught us that energy can not simply fade but has to go somewhere therefore becoming nothing in the process before turning into something again

There are no answers to that. What could be done is to seek cosmic justice. What I believe we should do is behave shamelessly like the virus we are and expand our wretched presence across the universe until we are smearing the whole cosmos with our own filth and stench, until it gets to the doorway of the responsible for this fuarrrkery when we'll simply inflict the whole pain humanity felt on it until answers starts pouring. If nothing, continue to overtake and fuarrrk all the rest, an act of glorious human impurity. We are not the universe. Humanity's psyche is imprinted with the knowledge of everything, because we were taken from the primordial chaos (which is full of the potential of all) and forced into this crappy world of forms to amuse tyrant deities with our suffering and inflicted retardation. So, there is no other real way of knowing anything other than to politely decline this form of existence (through disciplined spiritual craft) and maybe get to observe the game from outside or to get truly ape, embracing the extension of the trickery did against us by throwing a destructive cosmic tantrum of such gargantuan proportions that it would be impossible to be ignored by these fuarrrkers. Or we could continue to be modest, cautious and be eternal jesters for immaterial assholes.

>>7824 basically this. "nothing" cannot exist so something must exist. boom existential crisis solved

>>7824 >>7858 why is nothingness an impossibility? Surely there is "something" currently. But does that really imply there always was "something"? And if that's the case, that reality/existence has eternally existed - how did this come to be? Why would this come to be? Isnt it more logical that the default state of things would be, if not truly "nothingness" then.. essentially an empty void? Existing, but empty? Instead we find ourselves in this... realm. What is this realm? >>7857 This sounds kind of like the gnostic view where we are basically prisoners here. How did you arrive to this conclusion that we are basically entertainment for higher beings or similar? (And even so, it doesnt answer the key question of what these realms are (if including the higher beings' realm(s) as well, assuming not 3rd dimensional) - it only kicks the can up a level. I am also wondering if you could expand on the idea that >Humanity's psyche is imprinted with the knowledge of everything, because we were taken from the primordial chaos because i don't fully understand but it sounds intriguing. Completely separately but related to the topic, I have been thinking about emotions vis a vis consciousness and the "observer". I do think that emotions originate on the mind/body side of things and are entirely separate from the "observer". If you "watch" your emotions as they come up there are a couple telling things. Focusing on anger for example, two things are apparent: 1) You can feel it coming on, like an external force; including physical manifestation (somewhere in my head usually, vs. anxiety is in the pit of the stomach). 2) Most interesting to me - and curious if other have noticed this - there is some part of "you" that WANTS to be angry, when you feel it coming on, and that also wants to continue to feel angry / escalate it. Like in a way it feels fulfilling even though its negative. Some part of "you" wants more of it. I do wonder if this is related to the idea of spiritual entities feeding off of our negative energy and that's where the "craving for more" aspect comes from. But either way i think much like sensory data and intelligence its on the physical side and is something that is broadcast to the observer (for lack of a better term(s))