Has anyone here ever wondered if there is anything more real than this life? Maybe even thought that there had to be something more real? — TiredThinker

Reality isn’t a product you’ll find in a drugstore, a neuropsychology lab, or on netflix. From a psychological point of view , the feeling of reality is a function of meaningfulness , which is connected with significance and relevance. The more interconnected we make the elements of our experience the more real they will seem, which means ‘ultimate realty’ is as much about active invention as passive observation.

There must be so much to be perceived that we can't here? It feels like my mind can take in so much more than my senses ever gave me. And frankly after 35 life hasn't felt worth it. Eyesight became damage and more recently a neck injury that makes me dizzy and confused way too much of the time that I don't feel safe. I want to believe in an afterlife and I want to believe it can be so much better than this existence. These bodies weren't built to last as long as they often do.

The Art of Dreaming did it for me. The practice takes you into amazing mental worlds, far outshining everyday existence.

I don’t think its a question of something being more real than ‘this life’, but I think there’s a definite sense in which the way we live closes us off from a greater sense of reality. I mean, a lot of modern society has this aim specifically in mind - keeping us fed, entertained, ‘distracted from distraction by distraction’, as T S Elliot said. When you look at the deluge of fake news and delusional conspiracy theory nonsense that floods social media, you’re seeing into a completely unreal world. Conversely, alpine mountaineers often speak of the feeling of intense and total aliveness that comes with the most difficult climbs. Indeed that might be one of their strongest motivations. There’s an expression, ‘getting real’, which conveys that sense, although life being what it is, it’s easy to hide out from that command for your whole life.

Philosophically, I believe that the West has lost something crucial in abandoning the sense of there being ‘degrees of reality’. It is something that was conveyed by the ancient idea of the ‘great chain of being’, but it one of the beliefs that has fallen by the wayside in modern thought, in my opinion. Without it, there’s can’t be any sense of there being a vertical dimension which provides the scale along that which is better and best is conceived. That’s why modern society, again, tends to dwell in a valueless flatland.

Ditto for the explanation.

Conversely, alpine mountaineers often speak of the feeling of intense and total aliveness that comes with the most difficult climbs — Wayfarer

I recommend climbing in this regard.



Read Art of Dreaming for a practical technique.

I wish NDEs were a lot more convincing. Everything described is indescribable upon them waking back up, and often excludes the 3 less spacial senses. And generally is too consistent and logical as far as what one would likely write for themselves.

"More real reality"

One would need to analyze what it is that makes something real. Does it come on some kind of a scale with a dial which we can twist & turn, consciously or not, and experience "more real reality". I think the correct term here is hyperreal.

It seems there are two criterion for real (being real). One is the run-of-the-mill one; whatever it is, it's fixed. The other is somewhat subjective, malleable, flexible, and thus can be increased/decreased, the net effect being, inter alia hyperreal experiences.

Intriguingly, most thinkers have been reporting the opposite experience, the world as unreal (vide Buddhist Maya, Plato's allegory of the cave, to name two). Perhaps what we're looking at here are mirror images.

... more real than this life?
.
.. something more real?

... a more real reality. — TiredThinker

Describe what you mean by "more" – "more real (than) reality".

... ‘degrees of reality’.

... ‘great chain of being’, — Wayfarer

Please elaborate in your own words (i.e. translate in sum from your sources into ordinary language, no links). Thanks.

... a vertical dimension which provides the scale along that which is better and best is conceived.

Transcendent values (e.g. "the good" "the true" & "the beautiful")?

... a valueless flatland.

Like Deleuze's (Spinozist) plane of immanence?

NB: Spinoza titled his 'transcendence-free metaphysics' the Ethics, which is anything but "valueless".

More real than reality translates to more real than what there is. What's more real than what there is? You'd need a new approach to make this question intelligible.

You can say that there are different ways of experiencing the world, it is not inconceivable that an alien species could see aspects of the world we cannot experience.

Or you can ask what is it that grounds reality.

NDE's don't mean much if there's still activity in the brain, no different than a dream. What would be surprising is experiences once there is absolutely no brain activity left. But nobody's come back to say anything, so, don't hold your breathe.

NDE's don't mean much if there's still activity in the brain, no different than a dream. What would be surprising is experiences once there is absolutely no brain activity left. — Manuel

:100:

Maybe I don't mean more real so much as that the current apparent reality is more of a temporary simulation and not the main show. Hopefully.

Some people that study NDE claim brain activity has ceased. It really depends on what they say. They can create stuff from imagination shortly before fully waking up too. If they report information that even those in the room can't readily know that can be interesting.

Please elaborate in your words — 180 Proof

Very briefly, in various cultures, the 'great chain of being' was the assumed hierarchy of kinds of being(s). At the bottom level is minerals and what we would now call inorganic nature. Then it ascends through vegetative, animal, and rational - that's us. Above us are the angelic intelligences (I suppose in archaic cultures also the various demigods) and then above that is the Divine Intellect from which it cascades down through the different levels.

You do find remnants of the idea in 17th century philosophers Spinoza, Descartes and Liebniz. Most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the greater degree of reality it has. Given that there are only substances and modes, and that modes depend on substances for their existence, it follows that substances (ousia) are the real constituents of reality. It might also be added that at this time, it was still widely assumed by Christians and Jews alike that the soul insofar as it is a substance is created directly by God, and therefore is of a higher order than physical entities.

That does provide a response to the OP, insofar as it posits the idea of 'degrees of reality', which I think is generally extinct in the modern culture, which tends to see existence as univocal, i.e. it has only one meaning, and that things either exist or they don't.

Spinoza titled his 'transcendence-free metaphysics' the Ethics, which is anything but "valueless". — 180 Proof

Would you agree with this description?

The problem is that people normally desire “perishable things” which “can be reduced to these three headings: riches, honour, and sensual pleasure” (idem: para.3&9). As these things are “perishable”, they cannot afford lasting happiness; in fact, they worsen our existential situation, since their acquisition more often than not requires compromising behaviour and their consumptions makes us even more dependent on perishable goods. “But love towards a thing eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, unmixed with any sadness.” (Idem: para.10) Thus, in his mature masterpiece, the Ethics, Spinoza finds lasting happiness only in the “intellectual love of God”, which is the mystical, non-dual vision of the single “Substance” (ousia, Being) underlying everything and everyone.

which seems rather mystical to me.

A brain is necessary for experience, if you remove the brain, you can't have experience. People may claim that brain activity has ceased, but if people are reporting NDE, then clearly brain activity is still going on.

Unless they would be willing to say that experience does not depend on brain, but on something else, like blood circulation, or something like the soul of times gone by. But these ideas of soul don't hold up anymore, it was vitally united with the issue of God and all that context.

If they can report things other people in the room are doing, then a serious, medical/profesional account must be given, otherwise, to quote Hume:

"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish."

Yes I agree that Spinoza believed this. It's a mistake, however, to lump Spinoza in with Descartes & Leibniz, as is academic fashion, on the notion of "chain-of-being" if only because he is an acosmist (re: only (unmanifest, nondual) substance is real) and the other two are theists (re: creator > creation > creatures ...)

What about this "vertical dimension" in contrast to "a valueless flatland"? Tell me what you mean by these phrases.

Yes I've experienced it several times and it's 10x more real then this life

You've had multiple NDEs? Can you prove that?

A brain is needed for an experience, and an experience requires the brain. Full circle huh? How do we know the brain isn't the puppet that just keeps the body going? Suspend belief a little? I'm trying to not be depressed by chronic pain and disorientation all the time since my injury.

Well, it's kind of like saying eyes are required for vision, and vision requires eyes. How do we know that the eye isn't the puppet that keeps our sight going?

It's the simple observation, observed throughout all history, that a person whose brain is sliced in half, or pierced through with a bullet or arrow, or a head rolling from a guillotine, results in a bit of loss of awareness, and reports of experience cease coming from those (dead) persons.

There are many things we do not know about mind and how it relates to brain and the relationship between the world and the mind/brain, which is crucial, and is not well understood. And we can attempt to frame questions in terms of what types of experiences we can and cannot have, given that we are human beings, not gods.

We can also speak about "things in themselves" - negative noumena - which is as far deep as I think reason can go in terms of foundations for experience.

If you want "something more", then you can perfectly well adopt substance dualism and admit of the existence of the soul, in addition to body, adapted for modern times.

I think we have plenty to consider with what we have.

I'm sorry about your chronic pain, I hope it gets better.

The key to your dilemma is practice rather than philosophical babble.

How did you achieve your experiences?

What about this "vertical dimension" in contrast to "a valueless flatland"? Tell me what you mean by these phrases. — 180 Proof

I suppose you could find, in Spinoza, recommendations for the way in which the 'amor dei intellectualis' could be sought or cultivated, and alternatively the kinds of things which would thwart its relisation. So there's an ethical dimension implicit in that, isn't there? It's not that dissimilar to Vedanta, as I believe some have said - swap out God or Nature for the Self of All, and there are many convergences. It's a spiritual discipline culminating in a form of union (albeit expressed in a manner which was obviously very threatening to the proximate religious authorities of his day.) I think I remarked before, this would explain why he was abhorred by the Rabbis, in that he threatened (as many mystics do) the need for priestly intermediaries.

I recall you recommending Iris Murdoch's 'Sovereignity of the Good', which I believe recapitulates Platonist principles, inspired by Simone Weil, to argue that there is, as the title implies, a 'sovereign good'. Generally speaking the analytic philosophy of her day rejected any such principle on the basis of any such proposed good not being publically verifiable. (Somewhere in the last few weeks i read an article about Murdoch, Mary Midgley and one other -forgotten who - was it Anscombe? I'm meaning to read that Murdoch book, but as always, books are many and time is short.)

In any case the broad underlying idea is a real scale (scala = ladder) or a 'domain of values,' an actual good that is not a social construction or a matter of subjective conviction. It's also not objective - there's the difficulty. For moderns, only what is objective is taken seriously. But the general idea is that there are degrees of reality, such the higher degree of reality is what 'the philosopher' aspires to and which is therefore the ultimate source of ethics. I don't think that it too foreign to Spinoza, but there are other examples in Hadot.

I suppose you could find, in Spinoza, recommendations for the way in which the 'amor dei intellectualis' could be sought or cultivated, and alternatively the kinds of things which would thwart its relisation. — Wayfarer

I don't think so. Amor dei intellectualis is in what understanding (scientia inutiva) of substance (natura naturans) consists – wholly rational, impersonal and immanent (non-transcendent). The other term for this praxis – it's not a "goal" (re: Hadot) – is what Spinoza calls "blessedness". Read that most radical of anti-woo books, Wayf, the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP) for critical context to his Ethics (E).

For moderns, only what is objective is taken seriously.

More than objective – also, not yet falsified or soundly judged.

But the general idea is that there are degrees of reality, such the higher degree of reality is what 'the philosopher' aspires to and which is therefore the ultimate source of ethics.

If by "higher degree of reality" you mean transcendent (re (neo)Platonic forms, universals, essences, emanations...), such a notion merely begs the question (e.g. infinite regress) and fallaciously reifies abstractions. 'Natural goodness', as Philippa Foot, says is the immanent "source of the ethics" for natural beings – pursuing what is good for ((our) natural species') thriving and avoiding / reducing what is not good for ((our) natural species') thriving. A modern formulation of fundamental insight shared by Laozi, Kǒngzǐ, Buddha, Hillel the Elder, Epicurus-Lucretius, Diogenes the Kynic, Seneca-Epictetus, ... Spinoza, et al.

A modern formulation of fundamental insight shared by Laozi, Buddha, Hillel the Elder, Epicurus, Diogenes the Kynic, Epictetus, ... Spinoza, et al. — 180 Proof

The Buddha is 'lokuttara', it literally means 'world-transcending' or 'above the world', and also 'lokuviddu', knower of worlds (i.e. the six realms of existence). So leave him out of your procrustean naturalist bed.

My guess is that Theravādins would not agree with your latter-day syncretism. Besides, what could be more natualistic (even pragmatic!) than the Noble Eightfold Path? :smirk:

Those are Pali terms, universally accepted by the Theravada. The aim of the Buddhist path is not comfortable adjustment to life in the world or for that matter 'thriving'. Not that there's anything the matter with it, but it's not their aim.

And they probably wouldn’t appreciate my syncretism but I do hold the tradition in sufficient esteem to have passed Pali 101. (One of the most difficult exams I’ve ever sat.)

:cool:

I didn't say I experienced NDE I said I have experienced a higher level of life/reality

Sometimes I act in a way that isn't "real" to myself. In reality, nothing has changed about "me", at least not physically, but I carry a sentiment that i'm not true to my character. I would then suggest that when we perceive a realer reality, its not the reality thats changing, it's us.

I appreciate the sentiment. Age research gives me hope. NAD+, senolytics, stem cells, gene therapy. The future looks somewhat bright if I live long and well enough. Apparently they regenerated the optic nerve of a mouse using 3 Yamanaka Factors. It's an amazing concept.