An invisible asterix in the universe, saying ”you are here”

[IsadoraBeauxdraps]

Your English is actually great. For some reason, I'm completely charmed by the phrasing of "the paradox of the cat of Schrödinger."

I'm actually loving this entire thread.

Oh thank you, you're really kind
Sometimes, science writes poetry.

 

[rata1]

Imagine you are lying in your bed and you somehow leave your body and float above yourself.

Now zoom out.
Zoom out past your house, your neighbourhood, your city.

And zoom out even more.
Look at your country from above, then make out the contours of your continent and go further still, untill you see the entire planet.

Imagine now that you are above the Earth's atmosphere and you float in space.
Zoom out past Mars, Jupiter, all the other planets, and go beyong the Oort cloud.

And go even further outside our solar system, till you see the arms of the Milky Way, and finally the entire galaxy.

Look at all those stars, and all the other galaxies around you!

And now ask yourself: can you still find our sun? Can you still see yourself laying in bed? Does your suffering still exist?

there is a video with a camera going above from earth till like 100000 lightyears. the video starts on earth in ny and after thousands of lightyears th small place in ny where it startet is still in the mitttle. don't remember the name. when i find it i will post it here. its a nice idea. to be so far away. but i'm a fraid my suffering will still be there, just forgotten for some time because the voyage was too interesting....

 

[Stan]

 

[irrelevant_string]

When I think about all this things, I'm going nuts

Same! Nothing makes me want to rip my brain out of my skull and shred it into pieces as an act of rebelion towards myself and the nature for making me so limited yet aware of it, than the good old consciousness and quantum mechanics debates. It's what got me to start labeling myself as an agnostic.
But then again, I guess there's some fun in not being omniscient and getting to experience the learning process.

I like to think that the moon is still there when I don't look at it »

I do believe that but without a solid ground, just as I believe that you are conscious without a solid ground.

Sorry if I misunderstood. I'm not good enough in english to understand the sophistication of what you meant

No... it might have something to do with the fact that I don't fully understand what I'm saying either.

But since we know that his theory of local hidden variables was wrong, that the observer has « a role to play » whatever it is, and that it became almost impossible to determine the nature of reality, right ?

That theory - yes, although I've found myself relating to his utter dissapointment in the universe and the dice-playing God in the past and wanting to dissprove it. It's like... what, I'm just thrown into existence and now they're telling me that determinism might be false and I can actually have free will and be responsible for my miserableness? Well no thank you, kindly take it away please.
Actually don't get me started on that, I don't think that determinism and free will are connected in the way I had previously believed them to be but I'm too tired to put it into words in a coherent way and it's going off topic.

The order in which I'm quoting you is completely random by the way.

By multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanic, you mean Everett theory

Yes. Some physicists describe it as a literal way of interpreting the math of quantum mechanics but one that doesn't really apply to the real world.
I'd rather introduce a whole bunch of universes into the picture and have one cat branch off into a different world and solve the issue that way than deal with the possibility of the universe somehow being fundamentally probablistic or dealing with the paradox of both and neither of two properties present at the same time in the same object, but that's simply because I find it counter intuitive.
Actually, it is just as weird as the consciousness theory.

Quantum physics in its current state of development is as much a problem for philosophers as it is for physicists just as the motion of planets was at Aristotle's time. Well, there might not have been such a strong distinction between the two actually, but you get what I mean hopefully. We have no idea in what way human understanding of the world will chsnge in the future. This problem might be different in the sense that its nature forbids knowledge about it but who knows... I certainly do not.
A philosphical point of view is where I stand on this issue as I lack the actual mathematical understanding of the theory.
But I'll still share some thoughts and feel free to correct to me as you seem more informed on this.

Here's my problem with the consciousness theory. If by consciousness bringing a particle into definite state we mean the measuring device colliding with the particle, it's less mystical but suffers from another problem. We seem to give a special role to the device, the device being just a bunch of particles itself, not much different than the environment surounding the particle prior to the measurement, well at least not in a way that should give it any kind of special properties or priority in this regard. So the question is what's so special about the act of measurement? We don't understand consciousness so we might say that it is consciousness that plays a role directly.
The problem is, well...what is consciousness? Is it a non-physical phenomenon? Well in that case the question of how a non-physical entity interacts with the physical world without having any physical properties remains a mistery.

But then the question is, so where does the splitting of the worlds occur in the Everett interpretation if we've just discarded the act of measurement as being special in any sense? And at this point parts of my brain just stopped collaborating so I'll stop here.

 

[IsadoraBeauxdraps]

But then the question is, so where does the splitting of the worlds occur in the Everett interpretation if we've just discarded the act of measurement as being special in any sense? And at this point parts of my brain just stopped collaborating so I'll stop here.

Hi irrelevant _string,

You noticed a real paradox ! I don't know what more to say

Like you, I find the idea of freewill absurd and disgraceful.

Personally, I have a feeling about the existence of a cosmic consciousness which would have its own will, and would grow like a tree (Please don't laugh at me )
This willingness would manifest in us, but we wouldn't own it. Each of us would be only a little branch.
So in this case, consciousness theory is not opposed to determinism.
I don't understand why in the idea of researchers the demonstration of this theory would conclude to free-will. Because it could just be an unconscious process for us, like all well-know brain mechanisms, before reaching what we called our consciousness.

So consciousness might be a full dimension. After all we could think about its expansion as time-space according to all the news experiences made continuously by conscious being in the entire universe. It could be interleaved with the others dimensions , like time with space, and as we consider quantum size, especially with hypothetical dimensions of superstring theory.
It's kind of like the Platon's world of ideas, that some mathematicians favours.

Or maybe our world doesn't exists, and there's only consciousness. The world would be a « mise en abîme » of cosmic consciousness, a sort of crystallization.

Consciousness theory seems to be the ugly duckling, although there are still scientist like Penrose that believe in it. It may be due to our common sense.
What I mean is that we had intuition about concrete matter, but the more we dive into infinitely small, the more it slip through our fingers. Quantum talks about potentiality, and superstring about a vibrating filament, what will be next ?
Laws of physics have no more sense beyond event horizon of black holes or earlier ages of universe. Expansion tell us that there will be a time when all particules and energy will desintegrate. So where would be our reality ?

For me, all is weird.
And sometimes my insight changes, like weather.
Because with only « if's », we could bring Einstein back and he would play Cuphead against King's Dice.

 

[irrelevant_string]

Wow, I am impressed!

Personally, I have a feeling about the existence of a cosmic consciousness which would have its own will, and would grow like a tree (Please don't laugh at me )

The fact that it is absolutely incomprehensible to me doesn't make it laughable. More like it testifies to my primitivity.



Guess I could try to make it slightly more comprehensible with some questions.

I'm having a struggle picturing the structural relations here. So the cosmic consciousness is something immaterial but it's at a scale of the universe?
Is the "cosmic consciousness" itself a conscious entity or just a name of something that's only manifested as consciousness in its lower constituent parts? And if it is, does the consciousness at that highest level differ in a qualitative manner to the one we get to experience?

So in this case, consciousness theory is not opposed to determinism.

But it's not opposed to determinism at the scale at which we get to experience consciousness, right? But what about the larger scale of the universe that gets its own will? That doesn't seem deterministic to me when coupled with the consciousness theory.

I don't understand why in the idea of researchers the demonstration of this theory would conclude to free-will. Because it could just be an unconscious process for us, like all well-know brain mechanisms, before reaching what we called our consciousness.

I don't quite understand it either. I'm not familiar with the actual people whose opinion you're talking about but might it be the case that they are saying that the theory simply allows for free will rather than necessarily implying its existence? Maybe by free will they mean the free will of the all encompasing consiousness which we pressuposed to be the case(if I understood it correctly)?

A thought I had at one point is that even though determinism might imply that there is no free will, indeterminism doesn't necessarily imply that there is free will and that's what I alluded to in the previous post, but I see that you've come to a similar realization. Also, that determinism and free will might be compatible in a sense but I don't really find Denett's arguments to be especially compelling, seems to me that he's evading the question.

I kind of like this idea actually, at least from my poor understanding of it. I like to think of consciousness as something that comes in degrees of manifestation. So I wouldn't ask "does this animal have it"? But "to what degree is it manifested in it"? And if it makes sense to go from a lower degree of an animal such as a monkey to a higher degree of an animal such as a human being, I don't see why we would stop there.
Now this might not be completely correlated with the cosmic consciousness idea because in that case the consciousness is manifested in the constutuent parts, but it seems somehow compatible at least.

It's kind of like the Platon's world of ideas, that some mathematicians favours.

Aah I sometimes find myself amazed by mathematical 'objects' such as groups, vector spaces, algebras... There's just something so beautiful about them that I cannot put into words for the life of me. The seemingly perfect structure and the way everything just makes sense once you've accepted the initial postulates and started building on top of them. So I can understand Plato's desire to have them exist in a way that is more absolute than the material world as we know it.
I actually listened to a discussion about phenomenalism and the train of thoughts that it set off somehow came at that moment as an epiphany of how beautiful mathematics(abstract algebra in particular) actually was.

And Roger Penrose is absolutely brilliant!
He's one of the people who got me interested in computer science(somewhat ironically given his opinions on compitation but I guess it's just a logical extension of Gödel's theorem so what you gonna do...).
Makes it hard not to side with him, but I guess I'll try to keep my integrity and explain his opinions as being pragmatically concerned with the future of science. You know, we don't want to deal with something beyond observation if we don't have to, so better explore other options. But then again, consciousness might fall into that category in a sense too if it isn't objectively observable and elligible for scientific method approach.

 

[IsadoraBeauxdraps]

Wow, I am impressed!


The fact that it is absolutely incomprehensible to me doesn't make it laughable. More like it testifies to my primitivity.



Guess I could try to make it slightly more comprehensible with some questions.

I'm having a struggle picturing the structural relations here. So the cosmic consciousness is something immaterial but it's at a scale of the universe?
Is the "cosmic consciousness" itself a conscious entity or just a name of something that's only manifested as consciousness in its lower constituent parts? And if it is, does the consciousness at that highest level differ in a qualitative manner to the one we get to experience?



But it's not opposed to determinism at the scale at which we get to experience consciousness, right? But what about the larger scale of the universe that gets its own will? That doesn't seem deterministic to me when coupled with the consciousness theory.


I don't quite understand it either. I'm not familiar with the actual people whose opinion you're talking about but might it be the case that they are saying that the theory simply allows for free will rather than necessarily implying its existence? Maybe by free will they mean the free will of the all encompasing consiousness which we pressuposed to be the case(if I understood it correctly)?

A thought I had at one point is that even though determinism might imply that there is no free will, indeterminism doesn't necessarily imply that there is free will and that's what I alluded to in the previous post, but I see that you've come to a similar realization. Also, that determinism and free will might be compatible in a sense but I don't really find Denett's arguments to be especially compelling, seems to me that he's evading the question.

I kind of like this idea actually, at least from my poor understanding of it. I like to think of consciousness as something that comes in degrees of manifestation. So I wouldn't ask "does this animal have it"? But "to what degree is it manifested in it"? And if it makes sense to go from a lower degree of an animal such as a monkey to a higher degree of an animal such as a human being, I don't see why we would stop there.
Now this might not be completely correlated with the cosmic consciousness idea because in that case the consciousness is manifested in the constutuent parts, but it seems somehow compatible at least.



Aah I sometimes find myself amazed by mathematical 'objects' such as groups, vector spaces, algebras... There's just something so beautiful about them that I cannot put into words for the life of me. The seemingly perfect structure and the way everything just makes sense once you've accepted the initial postulates and started building on top of them. So I can understand Plato's desire to have them exist in a way that is more absolute than the material world as we know it.
I actually listened to a discussion about phenomenalism and the train of thoughts that it set off somehow came at that moment as an epiphany of how beautiful mathematics(abstract algebra in particular) actually was.

And Roger Penrose is absolutely brilliant!
He's one of the people who got me interested in computer science(somewhat ironically given his opinions on compitation but I guess it's just a logical extension of Gödel's theorem so what you gonna do...).
Makes it hard not to side with him, but I guess I'll try to keep my integrity and explain his opinions as being pragmatically concerned with the future of science. You know, we don't want to deal with something beyond observation if we don't have to, so better explore other options. But then again, consciousness might fall into that category in a sense too if it isn't objectively observable and elligible for scientific method approach.

Hi irrelevant_string,

I'm happy to exchange with you even if it's difficult for me to focus due to my illness.
I see that you like a lot mathematics, I loved them too when I was teen, but I chose art later.

Your questions are really pertinent, all of the following is pure imagination.

Firstly, we have to distinguish two principles inherent in cosmic consciousness united in a single point before big bang. The sum of a presence and its world of ideas is what we call « god » We could of course add the potentiality of cristallisation, time and space, but let's think that they are just ideas in order to simplify.

In Zen soto buddhism, we experience during meditation what we call thought, non-thought, and hishiryo « beyond thought ». So when we use only our pure attention, thoughts go trough the mind and instead of follow their neverending sequence, we do nothing but observe. Then we begin to experience non-thought, the intervals that we can observe between thoughts when they became more rare, we can even be absorbed by void. But the only real awakening, according to the masters, is hishiryo. Freud would say unconscious that emerges, but here we're talking about awakening to cosmic consciousness.

So we could think about a difference of quality between human and cosmic consciousness, but with a possibility for lower consciousness to go back to the source. We would be reductions but the principle remains. It's kind of like the ideas of Bohm about implied order, each parcels of the image of a hologram contains information about the entire image. We could even influence the source, unconsciously or by our only attentive presence.

But this could go even further. Human and even animal consciousness, in the only sense of attentive presence, might be the only way for cosmic consciousness to experience itself. The « mise en abîme ». The leaves would only exists because the tree has no perspective to see itself, leaves are limited in the sense that they decide nothing, but they have the capacity of seeing. It would be here a cosmic unconscious , which would follow its own principle, and the surface of its expansion would be attention.
How could we know ourselves, if we remain unified and immutable in a single spot smaller than a head of a pin ? You can't read a book by just seeing the cover.

We could think that the attention of species is what performs wave functions collapse, but we would have to admit that this principle can go back in time, and that seems to be absurd. However, EPR paradox told us that it could be a possibility. Costa de Beauregard, which was idealist, developed that hypothesis. And there's even materialists who believe that connected particles could go back in time.
We know nowadays that time, which is immaterial like consciousness would be, is infinitely complex, beyond understanding and raises many paradox. Far more complex than the « simple relativity » that we can measure on clock.

But cosmic unconscious, that interleaved dimension, that principle, could be a kind of non local hidden variable. And we would only be the attention in surface watching the center, exchanging with our fellows, and discovering the world of ideas of mathematicians, the unconscious of Freud, the hishiryo of buddhists.

A dimension that grows in order to enrich itself, or on the contrary that deinterlace its infinity in order to discover itself. I find beautiful to imagine that, almost touching.
I often experienced in my life absolutely mysterious feelings, leaving to me a profound impression that they come from somewhere else. Exactly like when I find myself in a particular place, at a particular time, and suddenly an ineffable sensation overwhelms me, and disappears as quickly. I will never feel it again, I will never be able to describe it with words. As a being who overwhelms us behind the glass of a metro, where did he go ?
I wonder if cosmic consciousness created that feeling in me, or if she unfold it trough me. Or maybe that's me connecting intuitively to her.

Now to conclude, I would say that all of this might only be fantasies.
You're right, it's important in science to stick to the facts, but don't forget that Einstein said that imagination is essential for the development of science, and that he believed in god

 

[Soundgarden]

@IsadoraBeauxdraps
@irrelevant_string


About human consciousness

One theory about consciousness attemps to explain it in terms of information processing. The more able you are to corelate space, objects, time, events and so on, the higher the degree of consciousness. A fly, for instance, cannot establish relations between yesterday, the banana peel on the floor and tomorrow. But humans can do that. Hence, according to this theory, the fly does not posess consciousness, but humans do.


About imagination

Imagination and curiosity are key to science. Wasn't it so that Einstein asked himself, with the imagination of a child, the question "what would the world look like when travelling on a beam of light?".

And isn't that what theoretical physicists do? Come up with wildly creative theories?

Methinks someone has been drinking from the CBT fountain again

Drinking, bathing and filling my water bottle :-)

 

[irrelevant_string]

Hi irrelevant_string,

I'm happy to exchange with you even if it's difficult for me to focus due to my illness.
I see that you like a lot mathematics, I loved them too when I was teen, but I chose art later.

Your questions are really pertinent, all of the following is pure imagination.

Firstly, we have to distinguish two principles inherent in cosmic consciousness united in a single point before big bang. The sum of a presence and its world of ideas is what we call « god » We could of course add the potentiality of cristallisation, time and space, but let's think that they are just ideas in order to simplify.

In Zen soto buddhism, we experience during meditation what we call thought, non-thought, and hishiryo « beyond thought ». So when we use only our pure attention, thoughts go trough the mind and instead of follow their neverending sequence, we do nothing but observe. Then we begin to experience non-thought, the intervals that we can observe between thoughts when they became more rare, we can even be absorbed by void. But the only real awakening, according to the masters, is hishiryo. Freud would say unconscious that emerges, but here we're talking about awakening to cosmic consciousness.

So we could think about a difference of quality between human and cosmic consciousness, but with a possibility for lower consciousness to go back to the source. We would be reductions but the principle remains. It's kind of like the ideas of Bohm about implied order, each parcels of the image of a hologram contains information about the entire image. We could even influence the source, unconsciously or by our only attentive presence.

But this could go even further. Human and even animal consciousness, in the only sense of attentive presence, might be the only way for cosmic consciousness to experience itself. The « mise en abîme ». The leaves would only exists because the tree has no perspective to see itself, leaves are limited in the sense that they decide nothing, but they have the capacity of seeing. It would be here a cosmic unconscious , which would follow its own principle, and the surface of its expansion would be attention.
How could we know ourselves, if we remain unified and immutable in a single spot smaller than a head of a pin ? You can't read a book by just seeing the cover.

We could think that the attention of species is what performs wave functions collapse, but we would have to admit that this principle can go back in time, and that seems to be absurd. However, EPR paradox told us that it could be a possibility. Costa de Beauregard, which was idealist, developed that hypothesis. And there's even materialists who believe that connected particles could go back in time.
We know nowadays that time, which is immaterial like consciousness would be, is infinitely complex, beyond understanding and raises many paradox. Far more complex than the « simple relativity » that we can measure on clock.

But cosmic unconscious, that interleaved dimension, that principle, could be a kind of non local hidden variable. And we would only be the attention in surface watching the center, exchanging with our fellows, and discovering the world of ideas of mathematicians, the unconscious of Freud, the hishiryo of buddhists.

A dimension that grows in order to enrich itself, or on the contrary that deinterlace its infinity in order to discover itself. I find beautiful to imagine that, almost touching.
I often experienced in my life absolutely mysterious feelings, leaving to me a profound impression that they come from somewhere else. Exactly like when I find myself in a particular place, at a particular time, and suddenly an ineffable sensation overwhelms me, and disappears as quickly. I will never feel it again, I will never be able to describe it with words. As a being who overwhelms us behind the glass of a metro, where did he go ?
I wonder if cosmic consciousness created that feeling in me, or if she unfold it trough me. Or maybe that's me connecting intuitively to her.

Now to conclude, I would say that all of this might only be fantasies.
You're right, it's important in science to stick to the facts, but don't forget that Einstein said that imagination is essential for the development of science, and that he believed in god

Thank you for the thoughtful response! I doubt that I have much to add. There's much to ponder over.

Mathematics and art can be a beautiful combination for sure. Perhaps I would too if I had such vivid imagination.

I'm happy to exchange with you even if it's difficult for me to focus due to my illness.

I understand... to some extent at least.

Now to conclude, I would say that all of this might only be fantasies.
You're right, it's important in science to stick to the facts, but don't forget that Einstein said that imagination is essential for the development of science, and that he believed in god

You have a point there, although many modern scientists seem to be a lot less open minded. I'm talking about people like Krauss and Dawkins, who although undoubtedly professional and successful in their fields, lack humility in a way that I often find repulsive.

One theory about consciousness attemps to explain it in terms of information processing. The more able you are to corelate space, objects, time, events and so on, the higher the degree of consciousness. A fly, for instance, cannot establish relations between yesterday, the banana peel on the floor and tomorrow. But humans can do that. Hence, according to this theory, the fly does not posess consciousness, but humans do.

Well, that's certainly plausable, but I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say that the fly doesn't posses it, mainly because I don't know what the "it" there really means, what it represents and what kind of a thing it is at all.
All I get to experience are my own sensations.
Are you familiar with Thomas Nagel's take on this? He'd ask "is it like something to be this thing?". The question is vague enough that if the answer is yes, he'd say that the thing is conscious, regardless of how it relates to other ways of being conscious that other things get to experience.

Now how the consciousness arises is beyond me. Would a certain degree of complexity in an AI ever somehow give rise to consciousness? I have no clue.
Penrose's idea is that computation isn't(or isn't the only thing) involved in consciousness which implies that an AI wouldn't be able to replicate it(I believe that he thinks of consciousness as being epiphenomenal).
It might start being more and more convincing to the point that we might feel ethically obliged to consider it to be conscious at some point though.

 

[Soundgarden]

@irrelevant_string

"Dawkins, who although undoubtedly professional and successful in their fields, lack humility in a way that I often find repulsive."

I agree with you that a degree of tentativeness is desirable in all scientific endeavours. But I guess when you have debated creationists as long as Dawkings has, you throw humility out the window, because you simply are the smartest in the room :-)

No, I am not familiar with Thomas Nagel, but do explain a bit more in depth your reference, it's got me curious.

 

[irrelevant_string]

@irrelevant_string

"Dawkins, who although undoubtedly professional and successful in their fields, lack humility in a way that I often find repulsive."

I agree with you that a degree of tentativeness is desirable in all scientific endeavours. But I guess when you have debated creationists as long as Dawkings has, you throw humility out the window, because you simply are the smartest in the room :-)

I guess. Don't get me wrong, I'm not siding with creationists, in case that it seemed like that.

No, I am not familiar with Thomas Nagel, but do explain a bit more in depth your reference, it's got me curious.

Well it seems to be a simple question of - what is it like to be a bat? Not in the sense of what it would be like for 'me' to be in a bat's body, but what would it be like for me to be a bat and experience the world as a bat?
Seems simple enough, and I don't know what Nagel would add to that, perhaps that we cannot possibly know and the conclusion would be that reductionism will never be able to account for consciousness because it is subjective and not accessible in a manner that would allow for it to be studied scientifically, it's not publicly observable.
You could read his essay if you're interested. I haven't so I might be misrepresenting him.

What I would add to that is something like the following:

We can perceive other beings acting in ways that resemble our own behavior, such as having a tendency to flee from danger, but is the subjective experience of fear necessary for that, or can we imagine them as programs running instructions without any subjective quality to it?
Would it be possible to imagine a human being in a similar way?
And the answer is usually - yes. And it's probably called Zombie thought experiment or something like that in philosophy.

The question that comes with this is, what is the advantage of this subjective conscious experience if we can very well imagine not having it and still behaving the same way?
Was it evolutionarily selected for? Well that would imply that consciousness somehow influences the material world, that the subjective experience of fear makes you more likely to survive as opposed to just an instinctual reaction similar to what you'd expect from a robot that had been programmed to avoid light for example.
That is an interactionist view in the philosophy of mind and some disagree with it.
If they disagree though, they're probably equating consciousness with the physical processes that the interactionists would think of as giving rise to consciousness. Some would go so far as to call consciousness an illusion(Dan Denett probably) but I don't quite understand what is meant by that. It does give rise to sensations, subjective experiences... I am convinced of it in my own case, but you don't have to believe me because I might just be programmed to deceive you.

That's just my layman view of the problem.

 

[IsadoraBeauxdraps]

Now how the consciousness arises is beyond me. Would a certain degree of complexity in an AI ever somehow give rise to consciousness? I have no clue.
Penrose's idea is that computation isn't(or isn't the only thing) involved in consciousness which implies that an AI wouldn't be able to replicate it(I believe that he thinks of consciousness as being epiphenomenal).
It might start being more and more convincing to the point that we might feel ethically obliged to consider it to be conscious at some point though.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
I love Ridley Scott's Blade Runner so so much

 

[Sweet emotion]

Imagine you are lying in your bed and you somehow leave your body and float above yourself.

Now zoom out.
Zoom out past your house, your neighbourhood, your city.

And zoom out even more.
Look at your country from above, then make out the contours of your continent and go further still, untill you see the entire planet.

Imagine now that you are above the Earth's atmosphere and you float in space.
Zoom out past Mars, Jupiter, all the other planets, and go beyong the Oort cloud.

And go even further outside our solar system, till you see the arms of the Milky Way, and finally the entire galaxy.

Look at all those stars, and all the other galaxies around you!

And now ask yourself: can you still find our sun? Can you still see yourself laying in bed? Does your suffering still exist?

I have no idea how to respond to this.