Music is the relationship between vibrations at different frequencies, some create tension while others resolve nicely. However, it’s not just notes, it’s also rhythm. The urge to dance is something most children feel at a young age! Some like simple tunes while others like complex jazz, there is no accounting for taste. The dance never dies, only the dancer.

Consciousness itself, is an experience that we are aware of. The hard problem may never be solved!
Since we must use consciousness to search for the answer, it’s like getting into your car, to go look for your car.

Although we may make a distinction between inner and outer experiences, ALL experiences take place within the brain. The entire universe and everything in it, arises with our conception and disappears with our death. Prior to your birth, for some 13 plus billion years, nothing existed from your own personal point of view and when you die, you will not know that you are dead. Things will simply be, as they were before your birth. I didn’t miss it when I wasn’t here and I won’t miss it when I’m gone.

Using consciousness to search for the cause of consciousness, is like getting in your car to go look for you car!

God put a bullet through our 10 billion dollar toy.

But something intelligent existing eternally has creation power. It can create the universe out of nothing. Stupid dead matter can't create itself, even if eternal. It's too stupid for that so it had to be brought into existence an infinite time ago. Or maybe a few big bangs in the past. — Haglund

Dead matter was not created, if it was always there. If you believe that something may be created out of nothing, there is nothing left to discuss.

How can something non-intelligent exist without being cretated? — Haglund

The same way that something intelligent can exist without being created.

That's the whole point of the closure. Eternal intelligence need not be created. Only the non-intelligent stuff of the universe. — Haglund

If it’s possible for something to always exist, like eternal intelligence, then it’s possible that the universe itself has always existed. No beginning and no ending, just a constant changing of forms.

Only gods can give closure. — Haglund

Gods do not give closure. Whom created Gods?

The chicken is just an eggs way of making another egg.

Philosophy is simply a way of looking at things and if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change!
To consider something as being GOOD or BAD, is a product of being judgemental and I suppose we are ALL judgemental to some degree, however I disagree that the the object of philosophy is to live the good life.
We are alive right now because NOW is the only time where all life finds itself. Although we may prefer that things be different then what they are here and now, the truth may only be found in what IS, not in what might be.

The zen masters loved to use paradox in their instructions to their students. For example “what is the sound of one hand clapping”. Language and words may only go so far, but truth lies beyond words. When you can talk without speaking, cry without weeping, scream without raising your voice, then you will understand.

Reality must have a beginning. — Cidat

The idea of no beginning is hard to comprehend but just like the present moment, everything has always been here, only in different forms.

Non existence before birth apparently lasted some 13.7 billion years, and yet here I am, here and now! Time is a funny thing as one may go back 100, 200 or 300 billion years and it makes no difference to the advent of NOW! In death, we return to where we have alway been and yet we want to cling to this brief flash of existence we find ourselves in, as if it is somehow important.

All things are in a constant state of motion and change, and what we call time is just a measurement of those changes. The present moment is the zero point from which all measurements of time are taken, simply because it is always the present moment, and there is no other time besides NOW! It has always been NOW, throughout your entire life and it still is!

Time is a measurement taken from the zero point, which is now. The zero point is infinite as it may not be measured.

Since “The devil made me do it” doesn’t hold up in a court of law, we must be responsible for our own actions. The motivation to do a certain things may come from unknown sources, but we are still free to choose between what we like and dislike.

The reason I am me is because everyone else is taken!

Space is that which is not there. When we give something which is not there a name, such as space, the name itself implies that there is something there, which we are naming. Words are like a finger pointing, but if the word is pointing at nothing, how is one supposed to see the emptiness?

The illusion of ownership is a bubble that is easily popped by the simple act of dying! What happens to my body, my thoughts, or my money when I’m dead, proves it never really was mine. If it were, I’d take it with me.

Words are only sounds which point to things which are not sounds. All knowledge comes from experience. What the Buddha experienced, may be pointed to in literature, but unless one personally experiences an awakened state of enlightenment, one may only imagine what it’s all about. In the same way that a picture of food does not satisfy hunger, a description of enlightenment does not satisfy our knowledge of what enlightenment is.

Buddhist literature outlines a path which may lead to an enlightened experience and it has helped many of those whom have chosen to follow it. Through meditation, one may enter a state where all that is experienced in the moment, is allowed to be. In a state of non resistance to what IS, there may be a sudden awakening or a flash of insight.

Thoughts do not come from the future, they come from the past. If you put your finger on a red hot element, your finger is already burned by the time you think to remove it. Consciousness exists in the present moment, but all that we are consciously aware of has already happened. The light we see has already passed through our eyes and the sounds that we hear have already vibrated the ear drum. We have already made our choice before the choice we made, registers in our consciousness. We have the freedom to think and instantly become aware of those thoughts or to choose and instantly become aware of that choice. If we don’t have free will, whom is it that chooses between chocolate cake, or ice cream?

Then why preface your sentences with "the Buddha said" and such? — baker

I’m simply giving the Buddha credit for what others have attributed to the Buddha in Buddhist literature.

Sure, you can let go of this piece of cake after eating some of it, but can you give up desiring to eat delicious food altogether? — baker

No, not me. The desire to give up desire, is also a desire, so it doesn’t work. It’s like trying to wipe off blood, with blood or trying to stop thinking by thinking.

For every "Buddha said" one should have a canonical reference. One wouldn't want to spread as "the word of the Buddha" something for which one doesn't have a reference. One wouldn't want to put words into his mouth. So one relies on a bonafide source for his words. — baker

I completely disagree, because no one really know whom said what, thousands of years ago and it doesn’t even matter! What matters most are the ideas and ways of looking at things, regardless if Buddha, Jesus or any other wise man may have said them. If you read something that rings true, regardless of the source, who cares where it comes from? It may not be right, it may not be true, but you and only you, are the final judge on whether it has value!

Do provide a canonical reference for this. — baker

When I was a young man, I studied Buddhism in general and Zen Buddhism in particular. It was long ago, so I’m unable to reference any particular book I’ve read at the time, but I came away with the impression that the Buddha’s insights were simple and yet profound. Whatever has happened in the past, cannot be changed and it makes no difference whether we accept it or resist it. Whatever might happen in the future, has not yet happened, so why worry about imagined outcomes? The only moment we have any power at all, to do anything, is here and now. If one can cultivate the ability to live in the present moment and let things go, it will be a very useful attitude to have, at the moment of our own death.

squeezy — praxis

I like the way you say this, as though it were the simplest thing in the world to do, a piece of cake, or easy peasy lemon squeezy. — praxis

Easy to say, but like you point out, not so easy to do! The Buddha also realized the difficulty and came up with an eight fold path to help people obtain the right state of mind, but it isn’t easy and human nature, being what it is, is always looking for an easy solution.

The Buddha simply pointed out that attachment to things which are impermanent will lead to suffering once they are gone. If one may simply enjoy the moment as it comes, without attachment, there will be a willingness to let things go, once they are gone.

I understand your joy of philosophy! You may hold that without debate. What I'm asking is can your view point avoid what the OP is stating? If its always existed, then there is no prior reason for its existence. Thus the reason things have always existed is the fact of its existence. That's the first cause. I'm stating that no matter what we can envision in a chain of causality, it will always logically end up to end at a first cause. — Philosophim

I understand what you are saying and it does make logical sense. However, something which has always been, in one form or another, does not have a beginning. Without a beginning, there would not be a first cause, only a continuously changing cause.

Take your own personal physical form for example, at what point could you say that you came into being? Was it at birth, or conception and what about when you were a separate sperm and egg cell living in two separate bodies? You were always here in potential, otherwise you would not be here now, it’s just that your previous forms were different from your current form. They say our universe was born with a Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago, but I see that as a local event in an infinite universe. There could be other Big Bangs so distant from us that the light won’t reach us for another 10 billion years.

Why has existence always existed? What caused it to be that way? — Philosophim

This is why I love philosophy! There are two main ways of looking at existence, it was either created or it was always there. If it was created, then where did the creator come from? If it was always there, why and how could it have been always there? The answers to these questions are just points of view, not facts by any means. Without any proof, I choose to believe that existence has always existed, but I don’t know how or why.

There was no cause. If something has always been, then it was not caused to be. The idea that there MUST be a beginning seems logical but not necessarily true.
— Present awareness

Then you agree with the OP. — Philosophim

Since there was no first cause, a first cause is not necessary, so I disagree that a first cause is logically necessary.

What caused reality to be that way? — Philosophim

There was no cause. If something has always been, then it was not caused to be. The idea that there MUST be a beginning seems logical but not necessarily true.

A person whom believes in God, when asked whom created God, might answer “God has always been” which is the same thing as saying the universe has always been, only difference is a middle man is used to create it all.

Suspend disbelief for a moment and imagine that everything that is here, now, has always been here, now. No beginning and no ending, just continuous change. The changes that flow out of what is here, now, make logical sense and are predictable but there is no beginning or end to it.

Take the present moment; it does not arrive because it is already here, nor does it leave because it is still the present moment. Our sense of time comes from measuring the changes that we notice, from now to whatever duration we like. Now is always the zero point in time, since it is always now. Now may be thought of as the end of a tape measure.

I agree with boagle. First, one must assume that there is such a thing as God. And if we decide that there is, then we must imagine the powers that he/she might possess. It is truly a nonsense topic based of speculation and imagination. Since nothing may be proven, it all comes down to belief and belief itself is simply a matter of opinion. For those whom believe, all the power to you and for those whom don’t, you’ll be all dressed up with no place to go on your funeral.

The idea of fate, is based on hindsight. Once something has happened, it’s easy to say that it was destined to happen because, it has already happened.

Free will is based on the idea of choice. If you come to a fork in the road, you may choose to go left or right. Only AFTER you have made your choice may it be said that you were destined to make that choice!

It doesn’t really matter what a person believes though, because life goes on regardless.

The first, and very obvious question is, "If you are a body, then why do you say 'my body', 'I have a body', and so on?" You can't be a body and have a body at the same time, can you? — Alkis Piskas

Ownership is an illusion. The bubble of ownership is easily popped by the simple act of dying.
Consciousness seems to arise in the brain. Brain waves may be monitored to assess different states of consciousness. Waking states, dream states, coma states and brain dead states. If you are not your brain, then why do you disappear when you go into a coma?
Consciousness is aware of thoughts, emotions, memories, input from the five sense organs and constructs a hologram of what it considers to be YOU at this moment. Who you were and who you might be, exists within this hologram as well, but nowhere else.
The million dollar question is where and how does this consciousness arise in the first place?

Yes, I believe there is only one space and ALL things exist WITHIN it.
The coffee cup itself, gives definition to the empty space within the cup and also the empty space around it. Something needs to be there, in order to see that which is not there.

In the morning I take an empty coffee cup from the cupboard. It appears empty, but is actually filled with the earth’s atmosphere, which my coffee will displace. If I take my coffee cup beyond earth’s atmosphere, into the vacuum of empty space, my cup will truly be empty. I don’t see any problem in imagining the empty space in my coffee cup.
Empty space is defined and given context by the things which exist within it. If there were no things in empty space, then empty space itself, would not exist. It’s harder to imagine the absence of empty space, then it is to imagine the absence of things.

I heard it first from John, but John scooped it from Allen, as your link shows!

To be where you already are, makes sense, since you can’t be anywhere else! However, it is possible to be lost in thought, daydream or fantasize. In the words of John Lennon: “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.

There are no beginnings and there are no endings. All that happens are changes within the present moment.