(H) Where are you seeing something separate or apart from life? In other words, isn’t this dualistic thought story of a me separate from ‘what is’, just an abstract thought story?
(M) What is real and what is fictional? Who knows what is abstract and what is truth? Do we know and are we clear? Or is it that we have been told what is truth and what is reality?
If the “me” is fictional and an abstraction; are we willing to test its unreality in front of a machine gun?
**I’ll describe how I’m using the words first. Basically I try to use straight-forward common usages of language in my attempts to ‘describe’ what ‘seems to be occurring’, what’s seen. I do this because using common meanings seems to limit mis-communication somewhat.
Definition of ‘real’:
“actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed”
Here are the synonyms for ‘fictional’:
fictitious, invented, imaginary, imagined, made up, make-believe, unreal, fabricated, concocted, devised, mythical, storybook, the product of someone’s imagination
**I’m describing the ‘me’ as fictional as it’s “the product of the human imagination.” It’s a “real thought,” but it’s just ‘real abstract imagination’. It’s just concoction of thought, an idea/image. And a thought, a concept, isn’t an “entity” that processes information and then responds. A thought doesn't have those capacities. But given that we aren't generally aware of what thought is doing, and it's limited abstract nature, the thinking/feeling human organisms, in general, confuse the thought imagery for Truth. The famous Korzybski phrase, "The Map is Not the Territory," is an attempt to bring awareness to this incoherence in thought.
How do we tell if something is real and what is fictional? Observation.
Regarding testing the me in front of a machine gun…If it was possible to extract the ‘me imagery’ out of a human brain, the bullets wouldn’t do much of anything, as thought seems to be a material substance similar to mist or clouds. And bullets seem to pass right through mist with little or no effect.