Ripples of thought

I began thinking about thought. Religion and philosophy and science have something in common. When you go deep enough, what some people don't understand or realize is that the world is an illusion. All the world is human imagination. Some of my previous posts say these things. I am pretty sure this sounds outrageous to you, the reader. Imagine an object, like a chair. What is a chair? Describe it for me, please.

A chair is something you sit on. You can feel it with your skin, and you can sense its weight if you lift it by hand. Your mind senses the existence of the chair through the skin and muscles. Your mind feels the chair. You can see the chair with your eyes: It's black or brown, made of wood and is hard and has legs and a backrest, etc. You describe what you see. Sight through the eyes reaches your mind. Your mind sees the chair. If the chair smells like something, you can even say your mind smells the chair. If you hit the chair, you can hear it being hit. Your mind hears the existence of the chair. What is the fifth remaining sense? Oh, the sense of taste! I am pretty sure that, if you lick the wooden chair, you can taste the chair :) Your mind tastes the chair. I keep using the word mind instead of the brain, because the brain is just a physical object. I refer to the mental concept behind the brain, the mind.

Having your mind sensed the chair with all your five senses, can you still imagine a chair even if the chair doesn't exist? Yes, you can. So, it means that the chair need not exist in reality for you to imagine it. What the human mind needs to imagine a chair, is an a priori concept of a chair. But, I find it hard to believe it. That needs memory. Where does memory come from? This is where I get stuck. Having discussed this, if you extend this discussion, I think you can see that the world doesn't exist outside the human imagination.

Wiki says this is the mind-body problem. This is the dualism in nature. Energy and matter, mind and body. Dualism everywhere, balance everywhere. I need to take a further step into monism. It seems intuitive to me that there is only thought in the world, and there is no physical world. Don't ask me why. I can't answer that question. Because I don't know why. I only think it's true. Maybe that's what God means. I hence question the existence of God. I try not to believe in God, for the purpose of finding and realizing God. That's the best way to do it. Reasoning and logic can take you only that far. Philosophy and religion go beyond reasoning. That's why the general public look at philosophers and religious people as crazy people without a purpose in life. That's because these crazy people question the purpose of life, and move the masses and disrupt their routine life. The government doesn't want the public's life to be disturbed. They are against philosophers and religion. I think this is where the concept of "separation of church and state" comes in.

Life is questionable. Philosophy says life and death are two sides of the same coin. Thus far, it's obvious. The Hindu god Brahma creates life and the Hindu god Siva destroys life. There is the third god in the trio, Vishnu, the God of preservation and sustenance. You can call the forces of life and death by any name. Names are not explanations. Selfish people make advantage of the fear of death. As long as humans remain humans, that is, the need for food, shelter and clothing exists, humans will fight among each other. Differences will exist. The world will remain like this. You cannot change it. Practice your principles instead of preaching them. Even if you preach them without practicing them, you will be a hypocrite.

I begin to think about hypocrisy. Most people think hypocrisy is bad. Hypocrisy is when the person does not practice the idea he supports. Should he follow a principle he states for the principle to be true? That's definitely a big NO. Gravitation exists whether or not Newton discovered it. For an idea or principle to be true, the person stating it need not be the one following it. See the idea, not the person. Lobbyists and reporters make a living based on the fact that people think hypocrisy is bad and hypocrites are questionable creatures. Perhaps they are right, because it's more impressive for a person to preach something when he follows it, because people will not question him: Why don't you follow it when you say it's true? Actually that question is unnecessary, because that's where it gets personal. People get personal instead of helping each other out towards achieving a common goal.

The identification of a common goal is important for people not to fight with each other. It all comes back to the same question again: The purpose of life. Since nobody knows the right answer (there is no right or wrong), people can't pursue that goal, and they set their own goals in life and pursue it. If it conflicts with the goal of another person, they fight.