Questions

[The Man in Black]

Bear with me here, this is gonna be long, please don't tl;dr.

I have some questions for everyone on this site. Before I go into them, let me mention a few things so you understand why I'm posting this thread. First of all, I am very interested in human psychology. Second of all, I am VERY interested in how psychology relates to reality and/or reality itself. If I could sum up life in one word at this point it would be "Why?"

First Question. Are you aware of your own existence?

Now your initial reaction may be "Oh of course!", but seriously take a moment and consider how much time you even spend completely aware that you are alive at any given moment. Don't just think about yourself, think about others you know as well. Are they so immersed in society and everyday doings that they don't even know they're alive? Do you even know? If you are, or have contemplated this idea before, how much or how often do you contemplate it? Do you even have a desire to contemplate it, or would you rather just go on without knowing? After all, ignorance is bliss.

How much time do you spend completely aware of the present?

Do you go through life thinking predominately about past experiences and future endeavors? How much does the "now" matter to you? I think this one is pretty self explanatory, so I'll stop there.

How much time do you spend detached from "reality?"

First of all, notice I put reality in quotation marks. This is due to the fact that the surrealist philosophy considers things outside of regular human consciousness to be "reality" as well. Would you say being on a computer or watching TV is detachment? When you feel detached, are your thoughts providing you positive energy, negative energy, or neither? An example of this question that I can easily provide is the fact that I can barely remember walking back from class because I was so deep in thought about posting this.

Does your thought ever transcend from the superficial level to deeper thought?

If so, how often? Have you ever reached a very long train of thought that ultimately ended in greater meaning in life? If so, how did this happen? What were you thinking about that led to such deep thought? Were you at all aware of your surroundings when this occurred? Were you under some third party influence that may have caused this type of thinking? Personally, I know a few people who I believe either do not have the capacity or choose not to think any deeper than what they see or the environment they were born into. Life's not worth living unless you've put some thought into why you're here in this reality, right?

How aware are you of your own mind?

This ties in somewhat to the first question. What I mean by this is the fact that there are many levels of the human mind. Have you ever become self-aware of multiple thought processes occurring at once? Are some types of thoughts say "louder" than others? How aware are you of things occurring in the "back" of your mind? Realistically, we can say that many emotions and such are just reactions to external stimuli. Honestly, do you personally believe that the human mind transcends mere chemical imbalances and reactionary trains of thought? I know there was an interesting thread about the idea that humans are "sentient beings", how sentient do you believe we really are, if at all?

Do you believe in the "duality" of this reality?

We've all heard of good vs. evil, etc... etc... but how much thought have you really put into this idea? Many things about our reality involve a "duality", so to speak. One part of this I would really like to point out is the personal duality of mind and body. How much separation do you think exists or should exist between your thoughts and your physical actions. Do you think the human could be the first being (at least on this planet) that transcends its own physical limitations? Or do you think humans should be more aware of their own body over their own mind?

Have you ever considered the idea of complete unity?

I think this is a good compliment to the previous question, so I'll end with this. Ever had a moment when you were "in the zone?" Everything worked together seamlessly, you didn't even really have to be aware of your own thoughts, you just were. Ironically, we hear about moments like this through athletics, do you think this could be due to the fact that in athletics the body and mind are forced to work together? I think complete unity applies to more than the human, however. How much consideration have you put into the idea that unity expresses some of the most fantastic things in this reality. For example, the current idea that the universe began from an infinitely small, infinitely dense particle wherein all of the "four forces" that we believe govern our universe were believed to have been combined into one. How much correlation do you think things like this really hold, if any correlation? And on that note, I'll end with this: Does anything really have any correlation, by this I mean, is reality a bunch of mere coincidences with the human illusion of correlation, or is there really something more?


For anyone posting after this, address this post however you like. Answer one question, answer 0 questions, answer them all, call me crazy, etc... I just wanted to put these thoughts out there, because I feel like they are all too often forgotten or just ignored. If you read this, I sincerely thank you and I hope it sparked some mental gymnastics for you . I also purposely did not post this in the debate thread because I didn't design this post for large-scale debate, and I know some people avoid that section altogether, so I was also hoping this would reach as many people as possible.