Varying levels of reality

[Ganeshprasad]

Pranam

Such is the play of Vak, i guess i should not have entered the highly complex subject, i was looking at from different angle, anyway thanks for the lesson in geometry.

Square: A convex quadrilateral with equal sides and angle between adjacent sides 90 degrees.

Circle: The set of points equidistant from a given point.

Pranams

Jai Shree Krishna

[wundermonk]

It's because it defies logic and experience but the same logic can't be used across other entities even in dreams. Dreams defy logic even space time construct. Just because it wasn't there and no one saw doesn't qualify as unreal.

I am not arguing that a dream is completely unreal. But for sure, its reality is less as compared to waking life, would you agree? My point is, the only way we can test for reality of an entity is when the entity gives rise to a valid cognition. If it IS a valid cognition, it would indeed be real. My point is, a "square circle" or a "barren woman's son" can NOT form any part of a valid cognition be it in waking life OR in a dream.

If you disagree, you may perhaps want to attempt to explain the nature of the cognition you have when you hear the term "square circle".

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namasté

I am not arguing that a dream is completely unreal. But for sure, its reality is less as compared to waking life, would you agree?

Within kaśmir śaivism as one recedes from waking state ( in ignorance) then one comes closer to the undifferentiated state of awareness.
So in waking, the diversity of multiplicity is the highest, complete differentiated awareness of thoughts, touch, site, smell, etc. all coming to the awareness at once. Then as one recedes from here, we pass though the dream state, then finally deep sleep state. During this ~march~ differentiation becomes less and less.

Hence if we buy into this view, then that state with the highest level of differentiation is the one that is furthest from the silience of reality.

I am of this opinion and find this to be true via observation, experience and what is written.

praṇām

[realdemigod]

I am not arguing that a dream is completely unreal. But for sure, its reality is less as compared to waking life, would you agree? My point is, the only way we can test for reality of an entity is when the entity gives rise to a valid cognition. If it IS a valid cognition, it would indeed be real. My point is, a "square circle" or a "barren woman's son" can NOT form any part of a valid cognition be it in waking life OR in a dream.

If you disagree, you may perhaps want to attempt to explain the nature of the cognition you have when you hear the term "square circle".

Then the idea of Brahman or Ultimate Truth doesn't evoke any cognition in any normal person .. we can't even imagine what it looks like, smells like etc., but people who are on the path of liberation through ardent meditation can slowly but surely experience Brahman. People who have experienced have told the world what it feels like but still normal people like me can't even comprehend what it would be. It's the same with "square circle" or "a barren woman's son".

On the side note you should read Brains and Realities by Jay Alfred. There the author gives the significance of right brain which readily grasps spatial things without logical processing.. so my point people with highly evolved right brains might imagine what a "square circle" might look like.

[Seeker]

Namaste Wundermonk Ji,

I would order these in the following descending order of reality perception

1- So rare that the events can not be believed (hares horn , pink unicorn – these are possible with genetic mutation . genetic engineering is advanced enough that scientists can create this in today's world)
2- Changed state in due course (time) (dream , water-ice etc..)
3- Not perceptible by available senses (karmendriyas) (God)
4- Illusions (either created by artists or ones own mind (drugs?))
5- Lies pure and simple , or imagination (FSM)
6- Oxymoron (play of words - square circle etc..)

[silence_speaks]

व्रतानि मिथ्या भुवनानि मिथ्या
भावादि मिथ्या भवनानि मिथ्या।
भयँ च मिथ्या भरणादि मिथ्या
भुक्तँ च मिथ्या बहुबन्ध मिथ्या॥

--- Siva To Kumara, Ribhu Gita chapter 6

[JaiMaaDurga]

Namaste,

Although my last post, a reply to a thread in the Shakta section,
addresses this topic in a manner of speaking, this discussion has the potential
for touching upon such seemingly disparate concepts as Anekantavada and
Godel's incompleteness theorems... as I have said before on HDF,
a thought-provoking thread or post is never a bad thing in my book.

wundermonk- the difference in the unrealities of (PU) and (FSM) are:
the first (also known as Invisible Pink Unicorn) is a satirical construct based
on a creature described for centuries, but of unknowable constitution (horse?/deer?/antelope? etc)-

the second is a satirical construct based on an Americanized variation of
an Italian recipe (and correspondingly modern and non-historical), but of known constitution (spaghetti, meatballs and tomato sauce).

JAI MATA DI

[JayaRadhe]

Namaste, wundermonk!
'Reality', from my perspective, is drawn from what is existent to what is non-existent.
Personally, based on my own definition of 'reality', I would rank what you have suggested, in a scale from reality to non-reality, as:

6) "God"
I think that God is the ultimate reality. God is what continues to exist after/if the things of reality stop existing. God also existed before the things of reality existed.

5) "A pot before it is produced when it is as clay, ice when it is in the form of water."
I think that clay has the potential to produce a pot, and an artist can see varying reflections of the pot in the clay before they start working on it. I can see the ice in water when I put an ice-tray in the freezer. On a more spiritual level, I can see God (the source) progressively working through me when I pray and/or when I am helping others.

4) "a barren woman's son, etc."
I think that this (depending on if the barren woman in question is living or dead) is a possibility. Many women have thought they were infertile, been declared infertile by doctors, and yet have been able to conceive in spite of this. Some women have even been able to conceive after reaching an advanced, 'menopausal' age.

3) "A dream that one wakes up from."
I place this as an 'in-between' state. My dreams sometimes affect my own, and others', reality. Pain or pleasure in a dream can give me insight into my waking life, which in turn affects my waking life.

2) "A square circle [...]"*
In one way, I can see how a 'circle' of a different geometrical shape can exist. After all, isn't a circle formed from innumerable angles? In another way, I can see how one would say that, since a circle is formed by innumerable angles, it can never be a square (formed by four angles), octagon (formed by eight angles), dodegagon (formed by twelve angles), etc...

1) "A hare's horn, a pink unicorn [...]"
These obviously do not exist. Not many have observed these things, even in dreams, and most never will.

0) "Flying spaghetti monster"
The "flying spaghetti monster" is just a way for atheists to criticize theists. It is a hateful term, devised by militant atheists, to criticize what theists believe based on their own personal observations, interior observations of various people, and the literary works of saints from centuries past. It (and other terms like it) are the ultimate basis of non-reality, as even those who profess it are merely professing it to show that something else is not real.

*Please realize that you are not working with someone with a mathematics qualification past what most people learn in the seventh grade, therefore, my understanding of geometry may not be precise.

[Adhvagat]

I am not arguing that a dream is completely unreal. But for sure, its reality is less as compared to waking life, would you agree? My point is, the only way we can test for reality of an entity is when the entity gives rise to a valid cognition. If it IS a valid cognition, it would indeed be real. My point is, a "square circle" or a "barren woman's son" can NOT form any part of a valid cognition be it in waking life OR in a dream.

If you disagree, you may perhaps want to attempt to explain the nature of the cognition you have when you hear the term "square circle".

Wet dreams produce orgasms. Nightmares make you tremble in terror. Dreams cause chemical changes in your body just like waking life does.

"But the dream is not permanent, you wake up from it!"

Waking life is not permanent either... One could even argue it's so artificial we get tired of it by the simple act of being awaken to this level of reality. Therefore we need to dive again into sleep and dreams.

And like in a dream, we started this life out of nothing, we cannot think about before our birth just like we cannot think about before the dream started. It's a spontaneous creation, like ourselves or the cosmos.

[silence_speaks]

Hee Hee ... IF one wants to see a "Square" as equal to "Circle" ... one simply has to move from Geometry to Topology

Basically, when we say two objects are equivalent ... we mean equivalent in what sense ? What is equivalence of two objects ?

It just means I have an equivalence relation... a Relation that satisfies the three norms :
a) Every object in the list of all objects under consideration is equivalent to itself.
b) if a is equivalent to b, then b is equivalent to a.
c) if a is equivalent to b and b is equivalent to c then a is equivalent to c.

This is basic math of equivalence-relationships.
And then we can divide the set of objects into equivalent classes. if C is an equivalence class, then all its object are equivalent by an equivalence relationships and the set of all such classes partitions the whole set.

With this .... with circle and square, we saw that if we move from geometry to topology they become equivalent. so ... in what sense is a dream and waking state equivalent and w.r.t what relation are they different? plz inquire.