I think I’ve eventually arrived at “Everything is an illusion but it’s the only illusion we have, so it’s as real as anything else.” Everything we experience is a subjective response to a stimuli and no two people have that exact same response. It’s irrelevant whether we’re meat golems piloted by ghosts, dream figments, or NPCs in a massive simulation, because we live in a world with billions of others, and what we do matters to ourselves and those others.
I guess recognizing everyone else as real puts me in the Everything Is Real camp.
most people only have issues with stuff being real when it upsets them. and the response to hurt feelings, is ‘it must/should not exist’.
when they like it, they are totally on board with it’s reality.
but most folks are too big brained to admit that’s the motivating factor. and also, that a most of us are raging hypocrites about it and refuse to acknowledge things exist outside our knowledge of them.
I think I’ve eventually arrived at “Everything is an illusion but it’s the only illusion we have, so it’s as real as anything else.” Everything we experience is a subjective response to a stimuli and no two people have that exact same response. It’s irrelevant whether we’re meat golems piloted by ghosts, dream figments, or NPCs in a massive simulation, because we live in a world with billions of others, and what we do matters to ourselves and those others.
I guess recognizing everyone else as real puts me in the Everything Is Real camp.
Congratulations on your conversion to Buddhism.
most people only have issues with stuff being real when it upsets them. and the response to hurt feelings, is ‘it must/should not exist’.
when they like it, they are totally on board with it’s reality.
but most folks are too big brained to admit that’s the motivating factor. and also, that a most of us are raging hypocrites about it and refuse to acknowledge things exist outside our knowledge of them.