h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes.

how many people are right?

In believing that everyone lives the 'perfect' life for themselves, because that life gives them the experiences they have chosen to participate in, everyone must be right.

Definition of perfect here, is not the unchipped crystal, but the 'right' path to learn what you want to learn in life.
Therefore as an example, everybodies parents are the perfect parents for the experience laid out before them.
Without the parents you had and the place and time you were born into, you would not be having the experience of life you are having now, which is a perfect experience because you chose it. !
You chose it before you were born, just as you might choose a particular 'ride' in a theme park. You might select the gentle tea cup ride or the exhilaration of the roller coaster. Perhaps the haunted house !
While you ride in a theme park you are aware that the fear you feel , the adrenalin surge you experience is not 'real' (and yet, paradoxically, it feels real !) it will be over soon and you are safe. This is what life can feel like too.
and if you recognise this safety then the world does not have so much control over you.
I choose to believe that masters, such as Jesus knew this, and that when he understood the crucifixion to be an illusion it caused no pain.
When however he 'lost it ' for a moment and began to believe in the illusion as we mere mortals do, he felt it as we do.
When one is in dire agony and mortal pain, that neurobiological facilitator can be used for escape.
I used it myself once and I'm not entirely certain I ever fully 'came back'

The Jesus bit is just a story to illustrate my meaning and used because the story of Jesus is a commonality of our combined experience.

annie-
you wrote
Without the parents you had and the place and time you were born into, you would not be having the experience of life you are having now, which is a perfect experience because you chose it. !

ME--WHY WOULD I CHOOSE SUCH A CRAPPY LIFE?
MY CHILDHOOD SUCKED
happiness has been fleeting for me for the past 15 yrs

you wrote
You chose it before you were born, just as you might choose a particular 'ride' in a theme park. You might select the gentle tea cup ride or the exhilaration of the roller coaster. Perhaps the haunted house !

ME---GEEZ! I MUST'VE BEEN A TOTAL DUMB F**K IN MY PREVIOUS LIFE! how could i choose THIS life that i'm living right now?!

way to go, previous self!



PeteY out

%-| ?

I just knew you'd say that !

First previous self isn't quite right
Real self is nearer the description. made up of the total experiences of all selves.
Like I said you chose the roller coater/haunted ride, not the Dumbo Ride.
You chose it when you were in a level of consciousness that understands that ALL experience is valid.
you chose it when you were aware that what happens here in the physical plane is merely 'play acting' in the illusion
imagine yourself before birth, asking other souls to play the role of parents and you ask them to be the sort of parents that would make you feel really angry.
Imagine that you wished to experience being murdered, another soul would have to help you achieve this by being the murderer.
Next time round you can swop roles.
So as an illusion, your parents are also part of that and we've already established that you can choose to be sad or happy in this life.

so, peteY fell into annie's trap, eh?

so, there is a "universal consciousness"? isn't that what Carl Jung thought?

but, why doesn't everybody choose to live a life of luxury?

why would anybody choose to be murdered?

Because as I've said, we're here for the experience. All of them.
to fully appreciate luxury, you have to have the non luxury.
to appreciate being alive and surviving you have the experience of death.
As I said, to the collective consciousness, ALL experience is valid
The wonderful thing about pain is when it goes away !
you can choose to stop banging your head against the wall and it feels wonderful.

It wasn't a trap . honest.
and when you can believe that we ARE all part of a collective consciousness, you can appreciate that we are all the same , on another level we are all one thing and that thing is what we call God.Allah, Jehovah etc etc.
If you want to tap into God, all you have to do is listen to your conscious.

interesting

maybe, the purpose of life for me is to endure tons of pain and misery so that in my next life, i can enjoy pleasure

%-| ?

This maybe so, if you choose it to be so.
We choose a life,as we choose the ride, but we can also choose to get of it when we realise that
1 We choose it
2 We have the power to choose again.

We forget how powerful our minds can be.
for instance I believe that all medicines alternative or contemporary work more efficiently if the mind believes that they will work.
This has some logic and isn't as fantastical as it appears.
The mind can heal.
It's also the reason that some people swear by alternative medicines and others say they are are purple potions without any valid reason for working.
What you believe is true and the mind makes it real.

Your pain and misery is real to you.
Another person might think you have it easy compared to their life.
Everything is relative.

"Everything is relative"

AGREED

btw, i must say that talking to you, i feel like i'm in the Matrix!
what is real?

am i really just a brain sitting next to you in a gigantic incubation facility , hooked up to electrical wires and stuff?

"Am I really just a brain sitting next to you in a gigantic incubation facility , hooked up to electrical wires and stuff? "

No
You're a soul/ spirit /essence inhabiting a physical form in a physical universe, which is made from thought. To experience the all that there is because you want to.
You have to forget who/what you REALLY are to get the whole experience.

Think of the Matrix as a parable or metaphor, not the exact replication of things.
In this virtual reality 'game' called life, you get to lose your memory too, to make it more of a 'reality.'
When we die we wake up.

And you're not sitting next to me in a lab
You are me.

ANNIE-

you-And you're not sitting next to me in a lab
You are me.

me-when you post this stuff, are you usually on an acid trip?
just kidding!

so, you're saying that 'thought' creates physical matter/energy?
interesting. i cannot refute it. just quite unconventional thinking.

%-| ?

peteY out!

Unconventional thinking is the way forward.
Acid trip? moi?

do you think that drugs can enhance one's ability to think laterally?
i would imagine that one could create a certain neurochemical milieu that was conducive to increased creativity [eg, hypomanic states]

No
I don't think drugs are very good for anything really, but I think people who have shut down, build barriers to feelings, use them to feel something. Anything.
They are just another part of the whole experience thing.
I don't use them, was born warped and lateral.

ANNIE-
you're lucky to have intrinsically warped lateral thinking

i think that certain drugs CAN help to increase cognitive processing sophistication.

i, for example, feel that i can think better on celexa. this might be because celexa as helped my depression, thereby removing my depresion-induced lack of concentration.

Yes medication can remove the feeling of depression, but does not 'cure' that depression.
Something caused it.
Drugs can be a 'holiday' from depression, but unless the root cause is identified and delt with it remains.
An anaelgesic does not mend a broken leg, but makes it more comfortable as long as you keep taking them.
I don't think my lateral thinking is warped because it is different to other people's way of thinking. It is merely that, different.

what if the "Cause" of my depression is a biologically determined lower hedonic set point? and celexa raised it back so it's closer to normal? would that not be kind of "correcting" it? and not just treating the symptoms?