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jstan
climber
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Oct 10, 2012 - 11:24pm PT
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There must be a special vocabulary term for someone who...
...who declares far and wide she's looked "under the hood" of "the machinery of life" from all angles again and again and again - and yet still after all that just doesn't get it - not in the fundamentals nor the subtleties.
She is human.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Oct 10, 2012 - 11:30pm PT
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Werner
Why didn't you show off your booby's?
Jus Drool'in
BB
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Oct 11, 2012 - 12:24am PT
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The reason I don't get it, is that my experience has shown me that there isn't just one it to get.
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slayton
Trad climber
Here and There
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Oct 11, 2012 - 04:33am PT
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Not a part. There are no parts of One. How could there be? I mean, really, think about it. How can any single object have parts? If you had a car, and I deleted one piece at a time, at what point would there no longer be a car for you? Are some parts the essence of car more than others? If so, then they are the car and the others are superfluous? (This is an old but important riddle about emptiness. There's no answer to it, but it shows how no thing can be itself independently. Everything is the result of causes and conditions which are forever changing. IT's a dance.)
If you tragically lost an arm or a leg would you no longer exist? They were once a part of you. You lost it or them. What now in your analogy?
There are an infinite number of parts to one. Mathematically, the number 1 can be infinitely divided. All of those pieces exist on their own even if when put together they add up to 1. Comparing a car to the Universe as a symbol of something complete or ONE is apples and oranges. A car can absolutely be stripped of many of its parts and still be a car. A car will still work as intended as a form of transportation without lots of things; doors, windows, lights, even various parts of the engine. But so what, even without a tire or two and the ability to drive a car is still a car. And a tire is still a tire and not a car, it's a part of a car. Unless, of course, you want to use it for something else, because then, it's not even part of a car. It might be part of a retaining wall or a junk heap or whatever your creative, individual mind conceives of.
These are all parts in the ONE, the Universe. Just like you and I. Parts in the bigger picture that is ALL.
As the conversation wandered into issues of what is right and wrong, etc., evaluations and ethics arose. This is good, that is bad, this is correct, that is incorrect, Obama is right, Romney is wrong, helping old women across the streets is good, murdering 7 million Jews is bad, yada yada. The evaluations are meaningful as speech acts, but they stand for nothing . . . . just like particles, gravity, and centrifugal force. They are terms that purportedly reference reality as speech acts, but the objects referenced do not independently exist. They are in the universe but they refer to nothing if they refer to objects in the universe
These aren't just "evaluations [that] are meaningful as speech acts". These are evaluations based on living individual lives, with individual thoughts and feelings based on experiences living those individual lives.
Again, I think that many get too caught up in words and trying to explain. The reality is right here right now as we experience it. Individually. There is the ONE that is whole and makes up everything and there are the individuals (us and everything else) that make up the ONE. Someone can speak of relative examples, of right and wrong in this or that and it matters not at all to the ONE, the whole, the workings of the Universe but it certainly matters to the one affected. Ask the rabbit eaten by the wolf what it wanted.
And as an example, again, if you throw a rock at my head, I know that if it hits me it's going to hurt. If it does hit me I know that it hurts. I also know from experience of being hit in the head with a rock before that it will hurt for some time after.
I just got out of the hospital for major surgery a few days ago, and I Grok Pain, brother. It seems as real to me as anything could. But in my heart (not my head), I think it's just something that I'm paying attention to--just an idea, a perception, a passing fancy, a feeling, . . . . I think it's just something that I'm making much ado about. I'm tempted to say it's nothing.
I empathize with your pain Mike and wish you a speedy recovery. I wish you the best. I hope that your heart's thinking overcomes the pain that your head is announcing. If on your journey you discover how to overcome that pain please share it. I know that might sound condescending but it's not. It just seems anathema to the vast majority of human experience.
We all exist. We are all a part of this Cosmic Flame. There is no getting out or going elsewhere. Recycling is the plan.
Sean
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Oct 11, 2012 - 09:38am PT
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Sean:
Thanks. :-)
The old "chariot" thought experiment isn't working for you. It's probably esoteric.
Separate parts, what's supposedly relative to something else, and the passing notions of evaluations all help to build a sense of individuality and difference that ignores what must also be a complete unity. It presents a paradox, or at least understanding cannot be expressed or understood verbally or conceptually. Your responses are all perfectly logical and rational.
Try this, if you will. (i) Reality is perfect. It must be. Nothing in reality can be out of place, wrong, inappropriate, improper, or can be made better or worse. So, what's to evaluate? (ii) Reality expresses (or we see) multiplicity / infinite diversity, but at the same time there is only one reality. Which is it? Is it one of those statements, both, neither?
I think you're claiming that there are real objects in reality, but that leads to conundrums and paradoxes that are difficult if not impossible to explain conceptually. What I'm claiming is that they are essentially only images created by the mind, not unlike what one might claim to see in a grand and complex tapestry.
Mathematics is a tool, an idea. It's useful, but no one can find a one or a two in reality anymore than one could find a straight line in Nature.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Oct 11, 2012 - 11:50am PT
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Werner, that is a very cool photo. I can only imagine the awesome life experience that must've been. I've never been to the amazon. If I had a bucket list, a few months life experience in the amazon would certainly be on it.
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splitter
Trad climber
Cali Hodad, surfing the galactic plane
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Oct 11, 2012 - 04:56pm PT
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I like that pic of WB & his new converts!
edit: i bet what won them over was "Americans are so stupid!"
;)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Oct 11, 2012 - 07:20pm PT
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Jan said: A good case in point is assuming that meditation and internal journeys have to involve the supernatural.
I've also wondered where people got the idea that meditation in particular involved the "supernatural," or sought the supernatural.
What IS this supernatural that people keep talking about? Seems a little like looking for raw awareness in matter. The search itself is based on a false assumption.
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Oct 11, 2012 - 07:45pm PT
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First, it was a false assumption on Jan's part - as none of the Taco "atheists" have concluded meditation must include or has to involve supernatural belief. Case in point: I meditate myself. So does Sam Harris.
Second,
What IS this supernatural that people keep talking about?
From someone who's had years of theology? C'mon, get real man.
I'll respond anyways: What is this supernatural? Ask any Christian. Any Muslim. Any religious Jew. Our culture since its inception is awash in it. The Arab world is awash in it. The ancient world was awash in it.
I challenge you: Be authentic. To self or to your audience. Enough rhetoric if that is what it is.
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To be clear, my own "meditation" has bases: a natural basis... a neural basis... a material basis. Curious: Yours? Jan's? Deepak's?
"If you want more, you have to require more from yourself."
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michaeld
Sport climber
Sacramento
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Oct 11, 2012 - 07:51pm PT
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An Atheist thread.
Why are there so many posts about nothing?
Let people believe in what they want, or have no belief.
Freedom of religion, includes freedom of no religion.
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michaeld
Sport climber
Sacramento
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Oct 11, 2012 - 07:57pm PT
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Why? I'm totally against a lot of religions, but hey, let them be crazy.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Oct 11, 2012 - 08:02pm PT
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let them be crazy
Ah, to get involved or not to... always the $64M question...
The belief: Killing a two-week zygote is murdering a person.
You okay with this belief?
Another: Elephant bull tusk ground to powder is aphrodiasic for Chinese males.
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Not so simple.
Some beliefs matter.
Citizens have a right if not a duty to get involved, to try to influence, debate the issues, and such.
There's a huge difference between (a) "smacking" one down for his belief over the internet or in an essay or in a debate and (b) smacking one down for his belief at the point of a knife or gun barrel. Though some pussies and politicians and losers as partisans in their cause most definitely and to some effect like to blur this distinction.
Taking a moment here to reflect on how strange it really is... that a post discussion like this is even necessary. It's the 21st century... yet we still have to address such basic ideas or principles as... Beliefs matter. Wow.
a so-called droste effect, yay for the internet
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Ultimately, as I'm sure you know, one's response is a function of where one's interests lie. Some get their panties in a bunch if a wee-bit of rock is chipped from El Cap to make way, go figure.
"keep super topo rowdy"
Corollary: Keep the pot stirred. Evolution requires it to work.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Oct 11, 2012 - 08:45pm PT
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To be clear, my own "meditation" has bases: a natural basis... a neural basis... a material basis.
How does you meditation itself have a material basis?
Just asking...
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Oct 11, 2012 - 11:18pm PT
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How does you meditation itself have a material basis? Just asking...
C'mon, after all these months, you must know my beliefs (aka holdings or positions) regarding the mind-brain relationship.
This relationship, along with its activities or operations, has a material basis.
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meditation: any exercise of mind consisting of deep contemplation or reflection esp oriented toward some goal or objective.
How simple a definition, eh? ;)
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More importantly I think, for an interesting meaningful exchange, would be your take on any of Sam Harris' ideas expressed in his Australian atheist lecture... Death and the Present Moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTxTCz4Ums
For instance, what do you make of his claims of (a) the reality of your life is always now; memory of the past (even the past itself) is but a thought arising in the present; the future is a thought of anticipation arising now, in the present; (b) the frame we put around around an experience largely determines our interpretation of the experience; (c) progress, otherwise performance, in one's practice of living can be as much or more a function of a change of attitude as a function of more facts; (d) his enmass exercise in meditation (mindfulness)...
And there's even more thought-provoking ideas worth contemplating and discussing - you should check it out if you haven't already. It certainly signals big changes - dare I say evolution - coming to our belief discipline systems.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 11, 2012 - 11:39pm PT
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Sam Harris is your Guru.
You worship him ........
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Oct 11, 2012 - 11:42pm PT
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Worship, no.
Better: I respect him.
A smart brave one, he is.
(Although the word "worship" if memory serves derives from the Old English for value. So I value him, yes.)
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Hey, the point with the violence in tribal Amazonian history piece (last page) was multifold I think. One point though is this: one's take on violence (e.g., nature and history and causes for being) is likely a strong function of whether he's operating out of an evolutionary ecological framework (like me or many an evolutionary a-theist) or a traditional Abrahamic theological framework (like so many traditional Christians, e.g., Paul Ryan, or Muslims, e.g., the Islamic militant Taliban). (2) And this difference in take could make for an interesting discussion - in the right company - of evolutionary atheists, that is.
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re: VP debate
By the way, speaking of Lyin Ryan... Alka Seltzer is fizzable. Uranium is fissionable. I'd prefer that my pol reps knew the difference between the two. Ha!
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Here's a favorite from the SH lecture:
"What matters is consciousness and its contents. Consciousness is everything. Our experience of the world, the experience of those we care about, is a matter of consciousness and its contents. So whatever the origins of consciousness, the most important question for us is how can we truly be fulfilled in life? How can we create lives that are truly worth living given that these lives come to an end?"
Deep. Intense. Huge. (For some.) :)
Another droste effect. After visiting recursion.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 12, 2012 - 12:30am PT
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"Life" never comes to an end.
After you throw your worn out coat into the dumpster do throw yourself in there too?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Oct 12, 2012 - 02:44am PT
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" the most important question for us is how can we truly be fulfilled in life? How can we create lives that are truly worth living given that these lives come to an end?"
Huge? Deep?? Intense???
Ur walk'in around in the shallow end of the pool like ur afraid to get ur balls wet !!!!!
Jus Backstroke'in
BB
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giegs
climber
Tardistan
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Oct 12, 2012 - 03:14am PT
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I don't know about all this. Who's to say the life I lead is better than the one I don't? Waking up every morning only to confront the inherent pointlessness of it all with an insatiable desire to find and ascribe points is exhausting. I just want to go to work, love my lady and my friends, play with the dog, and climb rocks. The rest is tangential.
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