Just who and what ARE we?

Have you ever really asked that question of yourself - self, who and what are you? and then drawn a kind of blank?

Oh of course, we could go on and on in terms of our specific traits, or roles, our background, education, etc, even our very NAME, but that just doesn't cut it, none of these things seem to satisfactorily answer the fundamental question, at all.

Who and what ARE we and just WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!!! Like WHY are we here? Is there any ryme or reason to it..?

I've heard one description, which just might come close, which states that "we" are nothing but meaning making machines, and, although highly complex machines, nothing but machines nevertheless ie: all we do is make distinctions, differentiations, and judgements or evaluations, and asign various meaninga to the people, places and things arounds us. But to presume that there can be anything more to it than that, as if there is a more fundamental "self" beyond the self, like some sort of spiritual "ghost in the machine", is nothing but another meaning assigned by the meaning making machine...

And then there's the problem of subjective experience occuring exclusively through the filter of our own senses along with a whole host of other meaning and value filters, which add, subtract or delete subjective experience, in order so that what we THINK we are seeing, being, or experiencing can be made "REAL" (when correlated via PAST experience) ... when all the while the objective reality or the REAL reality is probably so far removed from our everyday experience, that to even begin to percieve it would immediately overload the curcuits of our meaning making machines.

Thus, perhaps it is a meaningless question to even ask?

Perhaps we are better left a complete mystery, which can only be explored through a process of mutual inquiry..?

Is it just me or do you and others also have an intuition about the utter absurdity of our position as subjective observers, and I don't know about you, but to me, the notion that I am NOTHING but a "meaning making machine" is the most INSULTING thing I've ever heard! Nevertheless I am having a hard time refuting it, rationally.

Help..?



Just who and what the heck ARE we and what's really going here?

Thanks in advance for at least making the attempt to shed some light on this problem.

Regards,

NAM

I remember one point when I was 5 years old when I looked up to the sky and asked, "What am I?"

I remember getting really scared as I had no idea to the answer to that question. I still don't... It bothers me for sure.

I know this life is a learning experience and all that, but sometimes this all feels like a giant computer simulation or a dream.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Just who and what the heck ARE we and what's really going here?

We're the people who make things happen.

What's going on - is change.

Realize it - Embrace it- It is what it is

Why?

Because that's you're lot.

Hey man, you bring up a good question. And I think your right. You don't see a star, a planet, a tree or a mouse assigning meaning or attempting to explain the workings of the universe. We are an example of the universe coming to life and attempting to understand itself. 'Meaning making machines' are what we are, although is that really why we are so successful as species or is it merely bi-product of our intelligence? It seems as though by pure accident we have come to be aware of what is going even if its just for a brief moment while alive.

there is so much about our existence we will never understand. EVER

Simply put, we are all that is, everything that has ever existed. Our purpose is to move up the existential ladder, experiencing differing levels of consciousness as we go. Currently I/We are experiencing a relatively adolescent level of consciousness, the third dimension physical reality. Our goal is to move closer to Unity/Love until we become 'One' again. This would entail levels of consciousness we cannot even fathom from the confines of our primate machine minds. I am having trouble putting my thoughts into words tonight for some reason, if you would like a more detailed answer I would suggest looking into the Law of One/Ra Material. Its truly the closest to the 'truth' I have gotten, or at least the information presented in the material resonates the deepest within me.

reply to post by NewAgeMan
[more.
This sounds a bit like a good fictional book we all should have read. In which we, and the planet earth are a computer buit by another computer and others to determin the unltimate Question( meaning of life). We where also the off spring of homoerectis and the insurence and car sales men that had been discarded from another planet.
jokes aside though, the idea we are only here for some other peoples reasons is interesting.
first post sorry cant spell real well

Originally posted by In nothing we trust

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Just who and what the heck ARE we and what's really going here?

We're the people who make things happen.

What's going on - is change.

Realize it - Embrace it- It is what it is

Why?

Because that's you're lot.

edit on 2-11-2010 by In nothing we trust because: (no reason given)

But itsn't "change" just something that is better than, or different from, what went BEFORE? Doesn't the "self" as some sort of classical machine-like recording device, and, as the rambling egoic "voice ine head" with its unrelenting distinctions, not try to bury us, in it's attempt to have certainty, in the face of an unknown uknown (the future) by always and forever linking us, to the past (the known, sort of..) out of nothing but the FEAR, not of "change" per se (different from), but of an unknown quantum leap, in transformation? Our "self" is up for inquiry, and yeah, as another poster pointed out, that, in and of itself, is a rather "scary" proposition, and thus all the more reason to inquire into it, because on the other side of our fear, may reside something entirely novel and therefore creative, something not yet seen in the universe - man, taking responsibility for being at cause in a transformative historical process of bridging the gap between what is, and, what OUGHT TO BE.

So yeah, I'd have to agree with you. We are people, who are the very change we've been seeking in the world. It's up to us, and if not us then who and if not now then when, eh?

(I'm Canadian eh)
Let's start with a beer and sit down and get this thing figure out, eh?

I have asked that question.

I have also asked the question, if we have a cycle of life, (we are born and then we die), does
this mean that everything in the universe is the same, and, does the space we exist in
(the universe) have some kind of end or boundry to it or not.

And will it end also?

There is so much about everything that we don't understand.

Great Thread

Peace

Originally posted by FutureThinker

There is so much about everything that we don't understand.

Well the woman seems to want security and luxury.

Should we not do what we need to do to provide such?

reply to post by NewAgeMan

Somehow part of the package of being a living, thinking being is that you get a universe inside of you. You get a galaxy sized object inside you that you can access.

And there there are the mountains, the rivers, the jungles, the dynastic families, the ruins, the planets, the works of arts, the poetry, the sciences, the magics, of millions upon millions upon millions of worlds.

And this is apparently who we each are. We’re a little bit of eternity sticking into three-dimensional space and, for some reason, occupying time in a monkey body.

But when you turn your eyes then inward you discover the birth right. The existential facts out of which this particular existence emerged.

And it’s a great secret. A great secret and a great comfort. Because it means mystery didn’t die with the fall of Arthur or the fall of Atlantis or the fall of anything. Mystery is alive in the moment, in the here and now. It just simply lies on the other side of a barrier of courage. And it isn’t even that high of barrier, it’s just is a barrier high enough to keep out the insincere and the misdirected. But for those who will claim it, in midst of the historical chaos in the late 20th century they become the archaic pioneers. They become the first people to carry the ouroboric serpent around to its own tail, and to make a closer. And to the degree that anyone of us has this connection back to the archaic in our life, it makes were we have been make a lot more sense and it makes were we’re going seem a lot more inviting.

Which it really is I think.

-Terence McKenna

Originally posted by In nothing we trust

Originally posted by FutureThinker

There is so much about everything that we don't understand.

Well the woman seems to want security and luxury.

Should we not do what we need to do to provide such?

Thank GOD you gave us something to DO. I was started to get worried there for a second!

Edit: said something stupid, don't want to kill the thread!

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Originally posted by In nothing we trust

Originally posted by FutureThinker

There is so much about everything that we don't understand.

Well the woman seems to want security and luxury.

Should we not do what we need to do to provide such?

Thank GOD you gave us something to DO. I was started to get worried there for a second!

Nothing wrong with it.

Honestly I worry about the people who don't want better.

What are they gonna get?

reply to post by OnceReturned


OMG

that's fantastic, thank you so much for sharing that.. appreciate it, BIG TIME!

don't be afraid to tell us what you really think about this question, it's not THAT scary.. is it?

reply to post by NewAgeMan


I would like to think that we are little nuggets of consciousness of a universal supreme being that is everything that has existed, does exist, and will exist. In the smaller picture, we have our own existence, our own purpose, our own "story." In the larger picture, we are all individual "cells" of a macro-spiritual organism. This is not to say that we are not complete in ourselves, but together we form the fuel of a spiritual engine far beyond our comprehension right now.

We are this universe.

Originally posted by In nothing we trust

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Originally posted by In nothing we trust

Originally posted by FutureThinker

There is so much about everything that we don't understand.

Well the woman seems to want security and luxury.

Should we not do what we need to do to provide such?

Thank GOD you gave us something to DO. I was started to get worried there for a second!

Nothing wrong with it.

Honestly I worry about the people who don't want better.

What are they gonna get?

Of course not, and it even sounds like fun! Companionship, serving another, having a marraige union, and for some of us propogating with continuity, the very human race itself! Awesome responsibility that is, me I have a hard enough time adequately caring for myself, let along multiple dependant human beings!

Nothing wrong with it, at all. What you're suggesting is that it's a "Family Framework" and that's what I've come to believe, which would mean that the imperative for change may involve something rather touchie-feelie the love of family, re-united.

Are "we" friends the virtual community of ATS? In a way we are, since we're shaing IDEAS.

I guess what I'm saying is that if there's a failure in the world, it's a failure of love, and it begins and ends within a family framework, so if we want "change" and transformation, that's probably the first place to look then eh?

For some of us, there's a LOT of pain in that work.

But we ARE in Psychology and Metaphysics, right? So this thread's in the right place anyway. I really hope it goes somewhere.

I am now hereafter on a self imposed thread ban

Thanks again, After all it's all you, all "us" all "we".

Luv,

NAM

Originally posted by In nothing we trust

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Just who and what the heck ARE we and what's really going here?

We're the people who make things happen.

What's going on - is change.

Realize it - Embrace it- It is what it is

Why?

Because that's you're lot.

edit on 2-11-2010 by In nothing we trust because: (no reason given)

Sorry just one more point to further baffle our brains..

If we are in fact, what you say, agents of causative historical change for the better (hopefully) or in other words "realms of possibility" relative to an as yet unborn realm of infinite possibility, leaving the past behind, to boldly chart a new course, then we most definitely don't know who and what we REALLY are.. since who we REALLY are, cannot be who we once WERE, but instead, who we are BECOMING, which still resides in the realm of an unknown unknown...! [darn, still can't figure it out.]

I would suggest (sorry I had to add just one more thought on this strange subject) then that maybe THIS is who and what we are - the supreme mystery, of who we are becoming, and discovering that, as we go along, that's the purpose and meaning of life, and so maybe, in response to Einstein's plea about QM, this is why "God plays dice with the universe", so that there might be an opportunity for something truly novel or creative to arise, and we are that thing in potentia.. the aim of the arrow of a long longgg history of cosmic evolutionary progression, now sandwiched between two eternities, in the here and now, inhabiting this body, typing to you.

This is it, it's all there is, BUT, there is STILL something MORE, and what it is precisely and what it will look like or BE like, we cannot quite yet say, since the future's still, presumably, open, it's history not yet written.

SANSKRIT PROVERB (Prayer)

Look to this day
This very life of life
In its brief course lie all
The realities and verities of existence
The bliss of growth
The splendor of action
the glory of power

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision

But today, well lived
Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore to this day.

---------------------------

thread open for discussion

/NAM out.

Most basically and provably - we're the result of sex.
We're an STD!
Most scandalously we all come from a place we can't mention in graceful society.
Well done straight people.
You rock!

Just keep it up and see where that gets us.