A personal collection of writings and meditations on my journey of unforming my mind in the Unverse to Truly experience the Universe.
- 0. Preface
- 1. The Universe is Perceivable
- 2. Human Perceivers
- 3. Metaverses
- 4. Nirvana
- 5. The Unverse
- 6. Experiencing The Universe
- 7. Universal Nirvana
- 8. Postface
- 9. Unlicense
This specific writing began at the start of 2022. It serves as an initial personal exploration on the concept of the Unverse, and is accompanied by other writings that can be further explored in the collection.
Where terms represent an important concept or entity, they are indicated with Italicized Proper Case.
My ideas do not belong to me. They are manifested under a personal history of conditions and influences. My ideas belong to everyone and everything that has led up to their conception. Feel free to use and distribute as required.
The following axiom will be the basis of thought for the rest of this writing:
The Universe is, and is perceivable.
The terms "Universe", "is", "perceivable" are not formally defined since it is intentionally left for readers to define them in their own context and cultures.
The axiom does not assert on the origins and ends of the Universe, simply that it "exists" (or just is), and can be perceived. The reader may choose to include these ideas if they wish but they are non-essential to the main ideas explored in this writing.
The first axiom allows for perceivers to perceive the Universe. We will assume humans as perceivers in this writing to focus on a human perception and experience of the Universe.
Most past and existing cultures can affirm that the axiom we laid out earlier is relatable. Note that we do not claim the statement to be true, but simply establishing it as an axiom.
We have been perceiving the Universe since the birth of humanity. We observed the stars with just our eyes and created monumental Pyramids outlining their patterns; birthed Gods and religions in the image of the Sun and stars while celebrating or killing in the images of these abstract gods; discovered the building blocks of biological life and engineering biological and artificial life; and the list of all human accomplishments can be inserted behind here...
We are a part of the Universe, and by nature of consciousness, we are able to perceive and understand the Universe and work within it to advance humanity.
We introduce the following definition to differentiate the absolute Universe that just is against the perceived Universe as perceived by perceivers:
metaverse: the perceived Universe.
Using the definition provided earlier, a metaverse1 is created by our collective consciousness and represents our perception of the Universe. There maybe one or more metaverses2 existing in arbitrary periods of time depending on the conditions of society and the diversity and state of our collective consciousness. A metaverse can involve small or large numbers of perceivers. The key here is to establish that many perceptions of the Universe exist, across people and time.
A metaverse, as defined in the earlier section, can also be called a Symbolic representation of the Universe. Perception and consciousness involve attaching symbols that allow the mind to perceive concepts it cannot yet understand. It is worth noting that the mind tends to reason in symbols and not in the True Nature of things, a core Buddhist teaching that we pass on as an exercise for readers to explore in related writings in this collection. When there are symbols, there is perception, and also mis-perception.
Forget the ongoing marketing efforts on creating "The Metaverse", we have already created and are living in many metaverses.
With the advance of scientific reasoning, our logical perception of the world has deepened and moved humanity forward. But the very nature of logic is to advance our powers of abstraction. It is our abstractions of the Universe that create these perceived metaverses that our minds are comfortable reasoning with. With the advent of digital computing, the cost of abstraction is greatly reduced, so much to the point that we are approaching a breakthrough in creating literal digital metaverses in the upcoming decades.
Misperception and subsequently miscommunication and misunderstanding is at the heart of conflict and suffering. The metaverses that we create fragment our natural experiences with each other, and at a more fundamental level, it fragments our experience with the Universe itself.
Instead of offering solutions to our current problems, we simply create new metaverses and hide our existing problems by shifting our perceptions of current issues onto new problems. I am very troubled by the creation of the Metaverse, which will only build even more layers of abstractions on the Universe that we are increasingly detached from.
A powerful definition of Nirvana is given below:
Nirvana: the extinction of concepts.
And a natural theorem follows:
Nirvana: the extinction of perceptions.
Nirvana sounds troubling and seems to be at odds with the goals of expanding consciousness and free will but it is often misunderstood. Nirvana itself does not imply limiting consciousness nor giving up free will. It simply is just a paradoxical concept of extinguishing all concepts. The mind does not play well with paradoxes and loops, and a friendlier way to define Nirvana is the "detachment from all concepts".
Just by, at least attempting to, describe Nirvana, we can see a path out of the layers of metaverses, and a path back to finding and experiencing the Universe.
We now define and introduce,
The Unverse: the mindspace of unforming the I symbol.
Of all the symbols in the mind, I3 is the most powerful symbol. Every perception and symbol formed by the mind on phenomena in the Universe is related back to the I symbol. In every statement we speak in our minds, the I symbol is inevitably accessed and reinforced. Even a statement lacking human subjects such as "The table is there." links back to notions of I via inferred thoughts such as "I am not the table. I am here and not there.".
The symbol I is powerful because it has been reinforced over generations of evolution and passed down through our collective consciousness as a habitual and almsot instinctual thinking.
The Unverse is the mindspace to mindfully detach from the symbol I. Just as the thought of Nirvana is troubling, the thought of detaching yourself sounds almost like ethos-cide, the killing of your character. But for the same reasons Nirvana exposes a path to the real Universe, the Unverse allows you a chance to mindfully unravel the layers of metaverses and gain a better understanding of the True I.
As closing remarks in this chapter, it's a convenient spelling coincidence that "Unverse" is simply "Universe" spelled without the letter i. This is an easy reminder on how to experience the Universe by mindfully unforming the I symbol (even demoting it to lowercase before removing it!).
Nirvana and the Unverse are troubling insights, but so is the infinite cycle of suffering that stems from our misperceptions built in the metaverses. While our ancestors had less choices on their quality of life, they seemed to have more choices on their quality of mind. We are losing the genuine spiritual connection with the Universe. Instead of seeking refuge in the Universe, we create metaverses to hide the source of our suffering or push them onto others. The problem only worsens with our ability to now create literal digital metaverses with increasing frequency and cheaper cost.
Nirvana and the Unverse opens a path for us to slowly untangle ourselves from these metaverses. The ultimate metaverse is sometimes expressed in the Simulated Universe argument and can be described as an infinitely layered metaverse.
The discussion above on a theoretical infinitely layered metaverses is terrifying and it is difficult to imagine a way of moving out or breaking free. Nirvana and the Unverse allows us to at the very least recognize and make an attempt to move out of the layers slowly. The attempt is noble at the very least.
But the goal has nothing to do with nobility, hardwork, perserverance, belief or faith. There is in fact no goal or aim in the journey with Nirvana and the Unverse. If you are on the path, you already have the wish to seek the True Universe. That very journey is what we call an Experience, and the Experience is all that matters. When we are on that path, we no longer see nor perceive the Universe, but we simply experience it. Even if we are infinitely far from the Universe, the Experience and journey is all that matters and we reveal ourselves to the Universe as it reveals itself to us.
Perceptions of the Universe create engineered metaverses, and only from freeing our perceptions in the Unverse, can we see a path to Experience the Universe.
As we walk this path, we realize that the Unverse and Nirvana are also metaverses and symbolic concepts, and they disappear together.
Yet as we walk, we knew they were the very reasons that led us on this very path. Nirvana and the Unverse no longer reveal the path, they are the path. The Universe is now the path that we walk. The path becomes the walk, and the walk becomes the path.
The Universe is the Unverse and is Nirvana and is all the metaverses. The *One-*verse contains all-verses. What was difficult to unravel now becomes clear and remains clear as long as we are walking the path.
And at this very Present moment, we smile to ourselves knowing that we are now truly Experiencing the Universe that we belong to.
As mentioned earlier, my thoughts are only manifested and made possible by all conditions leading up to them. This section acknowledges what leads up, and continues these very thoughts.
The following teachers guide my thoughts:
- Life's Experience
- The Universe
- Dad, Mom, Sister, and Wife
- Nirvana
- Loops
- Thích Nhất Hạnh
The following writings extend ideas in this document.
Uncopyright © 2022. This document is unlicensed. Feel free to do use and distribute as you please.
Footnotes
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The term metaverse is somewhat overloaded in popular culture. There is no relationship to the specific metaverse, or marketed Metaverse, or concepts of multiverses. The Greek prefix meta- has many meanings but usually includes concepts of a self-describing and transcending nature. These concepts are related to consciousness and perception. To think and perceive is to form an abstraction around observable phenomena in the Universe, and that very act of perceiving gives way to the self-describing nature of the metaverse definition. ↩
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A keen reader would notice that "metaverse" is spelled without Italicized Proper Casing which is reserved to emphasize important entities and concepts in this writing. This is an intentional effort on my part to raise awareness that the metaverse that we perceive is non-important and a distraction from truly experiencing the Universe. ↩
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The I symbol is synonmous with the Self symbol. The journey of discovering Non-Self is an important Buddhist teaching to uncover the True Nature of both and none of Self and Non-Self. ↩