Dear Banjo Paterson,

«I am, indeed, an idea in your mind and you are an idea in mine.»

Please speak for yourself, so you may claim the first half if you wish. I, anyway, am not an idea, nor is God.

«You and I exist independent of ideas concerning us.»

While I agree that You and I do not depend on any idea(s), you seem to believe that we exist - well I don't, nor have you proven so.

«We correspond to reality. God does not. He is just an idea.»

The only reality is God, it is nonsensical to speak of anything independently of Him, including of ideas - Just like I and You are God, just like every tree and every bird are God, so ideas too are God, yet just like God is not a bird, nor is God an idea.

«You must be able to prove it. Otherwise, you could get away with claiming that all sorts of weird and wonderful things exist that don’t and never will.»

But have I claimed that God exists?

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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I wrote :

« “I am, indeed, an idea in your mind and you are an idea in mine”

You replied :

Please speak for yourself, so you may claim the first half if you wish. I, anyway, am not an idea, nor is God »
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I’m sorry if it displeases you, Yuyutsu, but I assure you that you and the Gid concept are, indeed, ideas in my mind, and unless I have the misfortune of contracting some sort of cerebral illness or suffer a terrible accident such as a stroke (apoplexy, thrombosis), I doubt that I could ever forget you or the God hypothesis – even if I tried.

Could you ever forget me, Yuytsu ? Could you erase the idea of me that is in your mind ? Why don’t you give it a try and let me know how you get on.

That said, ideas come and go, and I am not immortal, so you may be lucky, Yuyutsu. The idea of you and God may not last too long in my mind because I might not have too many more years to go.

I hope you haven’t had too much contact with anybody else (diver dan, David f. and others … family, friends, neighbours, your religious community, etc.). They must all have ideas of you in their minds that they can’t forget either.

Are you sure you want to live the life of a hermit for the rest of your life ?
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You wrote :

« While I agree that You and I do not depend on any idea(s), you seem to believe that we exist - well I don't, nor have you proven so. »

That’s correct, Yuyutsu. I’m sure I could gather sufficient evidence to prove that you and I (and 8 billion others) exist on this planet earth. That is the difference with the God concept. I could not prove that there is a God any more than you or anyone else could. I am sure many ...

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(Continued …)

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(Continued …)

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... have tried, but no one has ever succeeded. If there is a God, he/she/etc. doesn’t seem to care whether we are aware of it or not.
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I wrote :

« “We correspond to reality. God does not. He is just an idea”

You replied :

The only reality is God, it is nonsensical to speak of anything independently of Him, including of ideas - Just like I and You are God, just like every tree and every bird are God, so ideas too are God, yet just like God is not a bird, nor is God an idea »
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I think that what you mean, Yuyutsu, is that that is what you believe. But there is no guarantee that what you believe corresponds to reality, Yuyutsu. I’m afraid you are taking your beliefs for reality. You are confounding the two. You present your beliefs as established facts. They are not. Neither you nor anybody else can prove that what you claim is exact, that it corresponds to reality.

I suspect that you are simply reciting the religious dogma of your Hindu spiritualism. It sounds very close to the philosophy of the 17th-century Dutch philosopher, Baruch Spinoza and also to that of the Hindu Vedanta tradition whose basic messages are very similar : that God and nature are one.

If you consider that God is just another name for nature, Yuyutsu, perhaps we are beginning to find some common ground, at long last – nature being defined as “the material universe with all its phenomena” (OED) – nothing more nor less.
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And, finally, you asked :

« But have I claimed that God exists? »
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Yes, you claimed that “the only reality is God”. The OED defines reality as :

« that which exists independently of ideas concerning it »

In other words, you claim that God exists.

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Dear Banjo Paterson,

So you are telling me that I am an idea in my mind.
Thus that I am an idea in the mind of an idea in my mind.
Thus that I am an idea in the mind of an idea in the mind of an idea in my mind.
Thus that I am an idea in the mind of an idea in the mind of an idea in the mind of an idea in my mind.
...

Enough of that!

«I’m sure I could gather sufficient evidence to prove that you and I (and 8 billion others) exist on this planet earth.»

Our bodies (and 8 billion others) indeed exist on this planet earth, no doubt.
That says nothing about you and I.

«I think that what you mean, Yuyutsu, is that that is what you believe. »

No, this is not what I meant.

«If you consider that God is just another name for nature»

I do not. Nature is but an illusory reflection of God.

«It sounds very close to the philosophy of the 17th-century Dutch philosopher, Baruch Spinoza and also to that of the Hindu Vedanta tradition whose basic messages are very similar : that God and nature are one.»

Perhaps Spinoza claimed that "God and nature are one", but definitely not Vedanta. According to Vedanta, nature is how one sees God through the prism ("upadhi") of collective ignorance.

«Yes, you claimed that “the only reality is God”. The OED defines reality as :

« that which exists independently of ideas concerning it »

In other words, you claim that God exists.»

Since existence is only an idea and since that which exists is dependent on that idea of existence, if I were to take the OED seriously, then I would have to conclude that there is no reality.

The only reality is God, which does not exist nor depends on anything, including on existence.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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Thanks, Yuyutsu.

I guess we have done just about all we can on this thread. I have found it quite positive. We have definitely made some progress – but we still have a long way to go.

I look forward to learning (should I say, understanding) a bit more of your Hindu spiritualistic beliefs and God concept during our next conversation.

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