God is intelligence occupied with knowing itself. --Meister Eckhart
Obviously I didn't intend to discuss Eckhart Tolle, but now that the subject has come up, we might as well plumb its shallow depths and exhaust it before moving on to the next Oprah Book Club recommendation, at which time I will be happy to revert to my prior ignorance of him and his teaching. I suppose you could argue that he is an important phonymanon, in the sense that he sells millions of humbuggers, so it might be interesting to analyze why people are gobbling them down, devoid of nutrition though they may be. In any event, it's "Chinese theology," in the sense that you're hungry again an hour later.
Why do people prefer McDonalds and Burger King? It's not really a mystery. Apparently, human beings evolved to be attracted to sugar, fat, and salt. So it's not incumbent upon us to explain why people like to eat pizza, donuts, and ice cream. Rather, we need to explain those who are able to transcend their genetic programming through an act of will.
Is this elitist? I don't think so. It simply is what it is. Bear in mind that 50% of human beings are of below average intelligence, and that those who are of above average intelligence are most likely to be the ones who have been systematically miseducated in our left wing indoctrination mills and proud of it. D'oh! But they need religion too...
So I'm guessing that Tolle's audience consists mainly of these two varieties of ignorance. (There are also malevolent people on both ends of the spectrum who, as a result of any number of developmental exigencies, end up with a very troubled relationship to truth, which can range from ambivalence, to resentment, to narcissistic superiority, to outright hostility; all of these types in one way or another engage in "attacks on linking," which don't really damage the truth so much as their capacity to ever know it. The radical atheists come to mind.)
Now, just as man, being man, has an epistemophilic instinct, he also has what might be called, for lack of a better term, a "pneumaphilic" (spirit-seeking) instinct. You could say that the former has to do with "head knowledge" while the latter has to do with "cardiac knowledge," or more precisely, the transcendent unity of head and heart in a higher synthesis that reveals our true deiform nature, as it is consubstantial with God, or of a similar essence: "soul is in body, intellect is in soul, and God is in intellect" (Hermes).
Let us stipulate that Truth is one, but that it necessarily refracts through our prismhouse in the herebelow to reveal a spectrum of disciplines and sub-disciplines, both high and low (and even lower). Thus, for example, we have physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, etc., each creating its own little knowledge-temple full of specialized disciples.
However, despite the outward diversity, scientists assume an a priori inward unity in the fabric of existence. But instead of looking "up," where the unity actually abides, they look "down," thereby undermining the very unified entity that mirrors the oneness of creation, i.e., the scientist's all-embracing consciousness. Man may know the Absolute because he is a mirror of the Absolute. Trying to find the Absolute in the relative is a fool's errand. But that's fine. Let the dead bury the tenured.
If there is knowledge, there is truth; or, to put it another way, if knowledge does not know truth, huh!, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing, say it again ya'll!
To possess "false knowledge" is analogous to saying "ugly beauty" or "love hate." Truth is the prior reality; in the Raccoon faith, it is not exactly the mind that knows truth. Rather, the mind descends from truth, which is precisely why it can and does mirror the truth, but also why it eventually shade off into the middling relativities of error. As Eckhart put it, "the Father is begetting his Son unceasingly." The Son is not begetting the Father, just as the Word cannot be the cause of Truth. The One participates in the many, or in each of the parts we are able to apprehend; we are able to apprehend them precisely because they share a "relative unity" that the human mind is able to perceive and know.
God, the Absolute, speaks only one word, except that he does so perpetually, or eternally: "God never spake a word but one and that he holds so dear that he will never say another. If God stopped saying his Word, but for an instant even, heaven and earth would disappear" (Meister Eckhart).
Thus, to turn it around, "All creatures that have flowed out from God must become united into one Man." Who is this Man? You could say he is Christ, or the nonlocal Body of Christ, so long as you recognize, along with Augustine, that the Christian religion has always existed -- that before Abraham was, I AM -- except that it only came to be called Christianity after the appearance of Jesus. Knowing this, you can immediately prevent a lot of inter- and intra-denominational mischief, for all truth, to the extent that it is true, ultimately comes from the One (otherwise truth could not be, for it would be purely relative, which is no truth at all).
There is no need to prove the existence of this Absolute Truth, for "it is itself its own proof for those who are able to perceive it" (Henry Madathanas). It cannot not be, on pain of there being no being and no truth. Therefore, whether you like it or not, "Whoever knows him in his proximate aspect, immanent, knows him also in his ultimate aspect, transcendent; the Person seated in our heart, eating and drinking, is also the Person in the Sun. This Sun of men, and Light of lights, is the Universal Self of all things.... He does not [ultimately] come from anywhere nor does he become anyone, but only lends himself to all possible modalities of existence..." (Perry).
And repetey after him: the rend is now redeemable on your mirromortal garment. Just cash in your chimps and say Eloha, that's a good bye for the Love that removes the sin and other scars (speaking allegheirically).
A Raccoon does not claim to "possess" absolute truth, as our critics seem to say. Rather, we are lovers of wisdom and seekers after truth. But even then, not really, for it is the truth that attracts us, not vice versa. So we are not "philosophers," unless it is first understood that God is a promiscuous philanderer, or lover of men, which is why there is philosophy, "theosophy" (the real kind, not the name brand) and even science. His Love is our love, his Light is our light, his Being is our being, his Truth is our truth, and his Revelation is our revelation. We simply realize the contact between the two, and allow grace to take care of the rest in the electrically charged and polarized space in between.
Zap!
For the Divine Nature of Christ is a magnet that draws into itself all spirits and hearts that bear its likeness. --Tauler
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82 comments:
Commanded (ableit indirectly) by Petey to post this, I accede:
The Gospel of O!
Gospel of O my disembodied ass!
Talk about an inversion of reality.
Get my lawyer!
Bob, I hope I am not being thought of as a critic. I am just trying to fully grasp where you guys are coming from as I try to fully grasp where I am coming from and going to in terms of "Truth" and "Faith" and what these things mean to me. My intentions are not to troll or to bait but just to ask so that I may understand a little better.
You're not a troll! You're more gagnostic, which is perfectly understandable and as it should be. When I talk about "critics," I'm referring to the slack-jawed brutes who barge in uninvited and -- always with a combination of tedium and pomposity-- instruct us in the myriad ways of their incomprehension.
Tolle et al would connect to any energy ('zzzap!') as long as it made them feel better.
As for me, I want the cure. I don't care if I feel like crap for a few years.
But... scientists do look for unity. Different scientists look at different levels and different areas, but they expect - nay, require - them all to line up and fit together.
For example, Relativity works - to as many decimal places as we can measure. And Quantum Mechanics works, too, the same way. But they don't work together. (Not the way, say, geology fits with physics and chemistry.) They give very different predictions about things like black holes. So we know at least one and probably both are wrong in one way or another.
As to the 'unity' that's undermined by science - well, that needs to be unified with science, too, right? If the spirit from outside time and space affects the temporal and material body, how is that mediated?
Is it like Descartes supposed, and it comes in at the pineal gland? Can we use fine enough MRIs to detect atoms or neurons moving in ways that they would not otherwise have done based on the 'material' physics we'd expect?
"Let us stipulate that Truth is one, but that it necessarily refracts through our prismhouse in the herebelow to reveal a spectrum of disciplines and sub-disciplines. Thus, for example, we have physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, etc., each creating its own little knowledge-temple full of specialized disciples. "
Such as the Museum of Biblical Art.
A Nickel and Dime Job
Great stuff, Bob. Best line, "Let the dead bury the tenured." I may nominate you for the Pulitzer for that one.
The study of physics and thermo brought my ornery, new age self back to God in a most unexpected way. I never could understand why that British physicist (forgot his name...Hawking?) with Lou Gehrig's could not see God in every differential equation. How we could look so differently at God's language of physics always made me scrath my thick little skull....
s-c-r-a-t-c-h.
Do you understand why, Bob? I need help with this one. Why is it that a physics neophyte could see God. Yet a much more brillant and surely a better speller than I could ever hope to be even in eternity, could see non-god?
Is it a basic filter for reality? I need a simple answer here. In a few first grade-level words. Can it even be simplified? Is it toilet training? Or breast feeding? Or sense of humor? Or, or...?
The reasons are multiple. It just depends on the case. It's like asking "why are people wrong?," when the real question is how they could ever be right.
"for it is the truth that attracts us, not vice versa."
Yep.
And Ray, once again you've missed the point, which is inevitable I guess since you won't allow that there is a higher Unity from which all else flows. You're like a guy who looks at an image projected on the ground from above who starts digging to learn more about it. And yes, of course I realize that's an imperfect analogy, but that's only because all analogies are imperfect when trying to eff the Ineffable.
I need to think on that a while. Whatever has guided me towards what seems to be True, doesn't seem to be my doing however. I'm just a girl who got lucky and better than I deserve. And it has involved making many mistakes and being responsible for them...
At night, the moon is
reflected in all water.
Ray picks up shovel.
web: If seeing is the analogy, then I would guess it is simply pointing your eyes in the right direction. 'Seek and ye shall find.'
yes, RC, still damned lucky in my opinion....
I really like the bit about the truth drawing us out toward it. This is similar to the really old idea of destiny, and of how Aristotle pointed out a kind of future causation, where the end state guides the process in something like magnetism. It emerged in Jardin's Omega point thinking also. I am just enough of a magical thinker to WANT such notions to be true.
Instead of "knowledge" perhaps we can substitute the word "data."
Some of the data contained in the human head is verifiable by the senses, some isn't.
Other data seems verifiable by logic or intuition, but this is a gray zone.
All this talk of "Truth" cannot be be so clear-cut, because all data exists, even that which has no backing sensual or logical evidence.
Spurious data is still data. If it is coded, and thought, then it has a psuedo-existence that must be accounted for.
Therefore, the mishmash of erroneous beliefs stuffed into the head of a tenured leftist professor are not "true" in any empirical way, yet the data storage itself in the neurosynapses of the deluded "professional" gives these beliefs a tenuous foothold in the universe which cannot be dismissed out of hand.
Erroneous beliefs beget erroneous actions which beget real-world phenomenon, or verifiable truth, if you will.
Therefore, lies can become truth. There is a portal for such a transformation to occur.
Ouch, my head...what the heck did I just say?
Knowledge is not data.
If I say, "I know God" what data is there?
What do we mean when we say, "He knew his wife?"
Chris: The key is that whatever it is, it is not magical. For it to be true it must be both completely impossible and possible, like the Truth himself.
Where did I say that I deny "that there is a higher Unity from which all else flows"?
I think there is a reality out there, and we have only an imperfect picture of what it is. It might even include extradimensional beings or even that 'all of reality' is a 'person' in some sense - though, like Laplace, I've had no need of that hypothesis yet.
However, whatever is out there will have to include what we've found with science, at least as a special case (like how Newton's laws are darn good approximations for things of less than planetary mass and moving much slower than light).
We haven't needed anything supernatural to explain - quite well - how muscles work. They respond to nerves, and are about 50% efficient in converting chemical energy into force, etc. Physics explains that. We also know quite a bit about how neurons and nerves work, and haven't needed anything supernatural to explain their behavior.
If people have a supernatural component of their minds, that ends up affecting (even effecting) the choices they make, which are ultimately expressed as actions in this world... then that supernatural phenomenon must affect the matter of this world in some way. Matter must do something that it would not otherwise do in the absence of that phenomenon.
This wouldn't tell you a lot about the phenomenon itself... but like how neutrinos were deduced because of their effects on other particles, why couldn't you, even in principle, detect the effect of a spirit on matter?
"Where did I say that I deny "that there is a higher Unity from which all else flows"?"
You haven't said that today, however since you (in your own words) think it very unlikely that God exists, you do in fact deny the Unity to which I refer.
"...why couldn't you, even in principle, detect the effect of a spirit on matter?"
The very act of asking that question provides the answer.
I like that answer, Julie, and I liked your analogy.
In that little picture, Lance looks like he could be the third Winter brother which makes him OK in my book.
"Therefore, lies can become truth."
Wow. I don't think it takes a very smart person to know that your premise is a little twisted.
Ray:
"We haven't needed anything supernatural to explain - quite well - how muscles work."
Lift your hand in front of your face and move your fingers. How did you do it?
"They respond to nerves, and are about 50% efficient in converting chemical energy into force"
Yes. But what do nerves respond to? And that? And that?...
"why couldn't you, even in principle, detect the effect of a spirit on matter?"
Why do you exclude energy from the category of Spirit? If Spirit is omnipresent, then the computer siting in front of you is spirit, but just dense, inert, null quality, and bound to physics, whereas life-spirit is more expansive, conscious, and beyond gross physical laws.
River,
Truth is the most fundamental paradox. How I take what you say.
Paradox at this level is what appears at the limits of the human capacity.
However, if truth is paradox, then it is still true that all paradox is not truth.
Ray said:
"whatever is out there will have to include what we've found with science"
Well, duh, it already does. If you take apart a watch, you'll find all the cogs, springs, jewels, etal that make the sucker work. All those parts tell you something about a time-piece, but not much about Time itself.
"then that supernatural phenomenon must affect the matter of this world in some way. Matter must do something that it would not otherwise do in the absence of that phenomenon."
Would EXIST AT ALL qualify as 'doing something' & 'affecting matter'?
Ximeze,
"If you take apart a watch, you'll find all the cogs, springs, jewels, et al that make the sucker work. All those parts tell you something about a time-piece, but not much about Time itself."
I'd just like to add that, to the discerning eye they do tell something about the watchmaker, who is implied by the very existence of the watch.
"Monkeys have been able to control robotic limbs using only their thoughts, scientists report."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7423184.stm
Mind over matter.
Julie:
Bingo! And why we even care about Time, ergo Timelessmess & Infinity.
Just trying to break it down to baby-steps & throw a mess of pasta at the raywall to see if any of it manages to stick.
Woo hoo! I kan haz robotz!
Hey Johan, planning to throw yourself out of a perfectly good airplane again, anytime soon?
Do we get more exciting videos of you SCREAMING all the way down?
When taking life's tests the best answer is sometimes, "I'll leave this one blank and You'll know what I mean."
"Lies can become truth" actually works, twisted or not. Some of that is called advertising or propaganda, obviously effective, connected to the quest for and exercise of money and power.
Hypnotic tricks come from instructions to believe the desired truth.
Ordinary men believe "lies" out of ignorance, sometimes willfully. Actions arise from them as surely as from truth. If you are aeons down the consequence stream begun with an untruth followed by many truthful and untruthful actions and consequences, what you have is the human condition. Tangled.
christopher said...
Ordinary men believe "lies" out of ignorance, sometimes willfully.
Innocence, the Soul of Persia, crys out, "What of Me?"
Who will Hear her case?
Justice must be Delivered.
"Woo hoo! I kan haz robotz!"
Well, they'd be less boring than the Tolle Troll.
Further notices re truth...
I am in machine design, some of which is highly accurate and some really fuzzy, like running piping is.
What works gets you a passing grade, i.e. it won't fall down or hurt someone, and it fits without too much rework. In fact results can often be hindered by too exacting a detail. It gets to the field and is wrong anyway, meaning that there was time wasted in exactitude. I often spend design time finding exact, and then fuzzing it out (in a precise LEGAL way) so contractors have latitude but not license to steal.
All this because the map is not the territory.
There is a difference between working truth (gets you an "excellent" on the test) and absolute truth. Perhaps one can view some of the various religious truths in this way.
christopher said...
"Lies can become truth" actually works, twisted or not."
Lies never become truth. They may become effective or persuasive but they are never truth.
Hypnopompic Circumstance
in inner distance
forever is halfway home
repeating sequence
(ode to Petey, our favorite disimbobulated entity)
If an untruth governs millions and has for generations and generations declare it truth, then the man who tells the Truth will be judged insane and be persecuted for the truth.
Would God demand of me that I suffer for the Truth? Would He instead tell me to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's?
Chrisdude, what a convoluted mess of thought-strings you've got going. No wonder you're confused.
Jesus, Christopher.
Scatter, I'd like to be the first to welcome our new robot monkey overlords (they can't make much more of a mess of things than the leftists).
As a fun exercise, I invite all Coons to "troll" their own site. What kind of inflammatory half truths and Trojan Horse misconceptions can you flamboozle your friends with?
Imagine yourself a troll and cut loose. You might have a good time. Anything is fair game, but may I suggest Cousin Dupree as a target to start with?
Who is Dupree anyway? A plumber's assistant with a "crack" problem? That's how he talks anyway. Beer belly? Balding? C'mon Dupree, fess it up. You ugly, aintcha. Inside 'n out.
Bob,
Speaking of the power of the Word -- as you were this morning when you wrote:
>>As Eckhart put it, "the Father is begetting his Son unceasingly".... God, the Absolute, speaks only one word, except that he does so perpetually, or eternally....<<
That one word "perpetually" jumped off the page at me, and lots of disparate parts "clicked" into place at the very reading of it!
So you never know what part of your posts, or series, or jokes -- or what choice of a particular word -- will help a reader.
Just a little testimonial....
You know, Bob,the title is just about all this post needed. But I love the laconic for it's complexity of thought in brevity of expression.
I read the post and wonderful comments and then couldn't pull back into my "present" what the whole of the matter was.
Ah, yes: the eternal love affair between Truth and Intelligence.
It's why, no matter how entertaining and clever some atheistic bloggers are, everything they say is sounding gong and tinkling brass to a thoughtful mind and hungry heart.
Thank goodness for feed readers - Bill Whittle has surfaced briefly, probably just to tease and torment those of us who devour his every essayed word, only to be famished for more.
Love the semantics Chris.
Walt - Testify! Read this very slowly.
Yikes...just...yikes.
Nomo -
Yikes!
Christopher said,
"Would God demand of me that I suffer for the Truth?"
I for one would hope that having found the truth, a Knight of the Realm wouldn't pussy out on standing up for it, regardless the consequences.
"I suppose you could argue that he is an important phonymanon, in the sense that he sells millions of humbuggers, so it might be interesting to analyze why people are gobbling them down, devoid of nutrition though they may be. In any event, it's "Chinese theology," in the sense that you're hungry again an hour later. "
That one brightened my day.
Julie, Hoarhey & River have already made the necessary rebuts, and Johan, I was thinking of the same monkeybot story.
anonymous, I gotta say, "Therefore, lies can become truth" is even more boneheaded than saying that the truth is that there is no Truth - you deserve a headache for that one.
Web, it's good to be lucky, but while its unlucky to rely on luck "... it has involved making many mistakes and being responsible for them..." that's probably one of the best ways to manage it and ensure a continous stream of 'lucky situations' coming your way. BTW, the OC is a fortunate find to help you keep a handle on it all.
Hoarhey said "I for one would hope that having found the truth, a Knight of the Realm wouldn't pussy out on standing up for it, regardless the consequences."
Hoarhey! Hoarhey! Hoarhey!!! Hoarhey!!! Hoarhey!!!
(ISS!!!)
Nomo, Thanks for the 'good' yikes.
Chris, The raccoon's personal firewall, Truth, defeats all incursions of spiritual enemies.
Can I get an Amen?
Ah-Ha! Revolution against the tenured wackademics gets a boost - are we looking at a prototype for better online education?
Check out this article on PJM: "Austin Bay’s Arena Academy a Treat for the Mind".
"But what’s different about the Arena is that the episode runs in two synchronized windows.
While the left pane plays the video, with normal controls for pausing, skipping ahead or back a chapter, etc., on the right pane there is a large, synchronized PowerPoint-style slide show with live links.
This synchronization means viewers can pause the video at any time and examine the slides, including their accompanying hyperlinks, at their leisure.
And underneath the video screen is a navigation pane with an outline tree of the entire episode, which is also synced with the presentation.
These technical innovations mean the viewer not only can navigate at will around the presentation, but tarry in places when they want to explore the issue in greater detail.
Finally, there’s a feedback feature tucked into the lower corner of the right-hand pane so that you can send questions or feedback to Austin Bay."
I joined-up several months ago, thought then it was way-kewl & meant to mention it at that time, here at OC.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/austin
-bays-arena-academy-a-treat-for-
the-mind/
Oh Vanster..... are you reading this?
Just think what a Homeschooling Arena could do to undermine the strangling indoctrination favored by the NEA.
Oh Yeah!!!
Ximeze,
Thanks! I just sent the link to a friend of mine that I've been talking with along just those lines.
The ability to create the necessary software is here now, the bandwidth is here in most places now, the hardware - laptops, tablets or UMPC's - are very, very close to being able to make that educational use and interaction viable and functional - I think one, maybe two years from now, max.
When Teacher's (real Teacher's mind you, not just certified slugs), are able to teach to students in a private and/or web distributed classroom, under their control and with direct communication with concerned parents... without administrators, and with a potentially large income, while teaching as their own judgment says they should, then we may see a real revolution taking place in this country, where it matters - between the ears.
I'm living the cure, and I will feel like crap for a few years. I know this, yet I will not stop. The Truth is that important.
Hmmm... anyone notice a slightly less affable cast to the Obama's brow during his big speech tonight?
Will?
Van, thought it might interest you, see'n as how we talked some time ago about stuff like the Aussie Outback school system & teaching via Ham-radio, back in the dark-ages.
I sure am interested... I've been waiting almost 10 yrs for all the pieces come together in order to build my dream teaching app. Imagine a pub'ick screwal killer app! My oh my oh my!
Go gettum Van!
(smacking lips)
err... so... we're talking moola-making venture? Superspecial siblings under the pelt get to buy-in at the ground floor..... right? sweetiedarlingdearieVan?
(I had two great-aunts who shared an original single-share of Coca-cola that funded their entire lifetimes of slack)
...then that supernatural phenomenon must affect the matter of this world in some way. Matter must do something that it would not otherwise do in the absence of that phenomenon.
Matter becomes human, and makes posts on weblogs. That's something.
JWM
James - "Living the cure".
Living the cure.
ximeze said...
"Hey Johan, planning to throw yourself out of a perfectly good airplane again, anytime soon?"
Haha! No, sorry but I have to disapoint you on that :)
Anyway, I'm going to visit Istanbul this weekend, so you might get some nice pictures from there, hopefully nobody will be screaming though!
Since the captcha was removed (the meaningless distorted letters we used to enter to frustrate robots) the troll count on OC has skyrocketed.
I for one get absolutely nothing from trolls, and frankly not all that much from the back and forth that results from engaging them.
In the old days trolls were ignored with a:
*plink*
OC tradition boasts a similar mechanism:
Woof
Maybe it's time to relegate these mutts to the back alley where they belong...
Ximeze said "Superspecial siblings under the pelt get to buy-in at the ground floor..... right? sweetiedarlingdearieVan?"
Lol. Afraid I'm in no immediate liklihood of jet setting about with Smoov anytime soon... but when it gets past the vaporware stage, I'll definitly let you all know!
van:
If you have something real we should talk. I am in the process of brokering a number of deals these days. Most recently I obtained funding for a startup in Manhattan which may be acquired soon by a large firm specializing in search.
There is a LOT of money on the street right now. If you have a business plan and a prototype you should move as quickly as possible.
Julie, Jwm, Rabid - One oft-bandied analogy is that the brain is like a radio that transduces minds, the way a radio transduces received radio signals. The music coming out of a radio has its source somewhere else... unlike an mp3 player, say.
But if you started taking apart and studying a radio, you could eventually isolate that the signals were coming in here, at this "antenna" thing. We feed in a clean voltage here, and out comes a modified voltage that gets amplified and transduced to sound.
We understand enough of how the body works to be able to take the signals coming out of the brain and use it to move other things, like the monkeys. We're coming close to bridging severed nerves with implants to restore motion - we can already often restore hearing that way.
If there's an 'antenna', it has to be in the brain. We've reverse-engineered that far, and even into the brain to an extent. If something's doing something matter can't possibly do, then it has to be affecting matter in there. That's what I'm saying. If knowledge really is unified - if science is true but incomplete - then that's what the concept of a soul inescapably implies.
Ximeze - We've never seen mass/energy be created or destroyed. Modulo virtual particles (which are kinda fuzzy on 'existence' anyway), mass/energy meets all the tests we can devise for something 'eternal'. Can you flesh out your case that we need to add some epicycles onto that? :->
Not to mention Hoarhey's patented,
"Pffffttt!" "Pffffttt!" "Pffffttt!"
I confess to getting bored with the "Can you prove that i am an 'I'? You can't proove that there is any such thing as Truth! You're all just idiots for thinking that anyone can know anything!"
Even ol' hee-haw has lost his zip.
Eegads, could I be getting blogomature?
Nnneyahhh! But they are getting very boring. Speaking of which, I watched a bit of the MTV movie awards this weekend - under duress - and I've never been so bored. For all their attempts at shocking and risque' behavior... they were just empty and boring.
What a lifeless life is had by those who deny the vertical life.
Ray,
If I get your point right.
The human brain recievies pure material signals, they are scrabled around for a while in our material brain, and "out" comes material robot arms controlled by monkey thoughts...?
I will call that no less than a Miracle.
Not because we can figure out how it works. but simply because it is doable at all.
It is very nice indeed to be among people who can think a little
Ray said "reverse-engineered"...hmmm.
Ray, you seem like an intelligent enough guy in the usual sense of that word. When we can't help you, I think it is because we're not really talking about the same things.
Let us say, by way of analogy, that we are here because we are interested in learning how to tune into radio stations that broadcast some real music rather than the dogforsaken gangsta rap that seems to be commonplace these days. Bob has done a lot of listening and always seems to have some recommendation, and others chip in.
Then in come you, and earnestly want to know how a radio can possibly work before you are willing to start tuning into anything. Well, since we are all into radio, we may have some ideas about how they work. But eventually it turns out that we are not into the same thing at all.
If you eventually found out how the radio worked, what would you tune into? If you found out that spirit was real, what would you do with that knowledge?
The various religions have painstakingly detailed instructions for how to tune your radio to certain frequencies. This is usually referred to here as "tradition". It has worked for many different people during changing times, and is well worth trying if you really want to experience this thing you're not sure whether exists or not.
If you are merely curious and don't really want to use this knowledge for anything, you have probably come to the wrong place.
Smoov,
I think this new crop of trolls actually have potential.
(Lance, you weren't included in that);*)
Except maybe the Tolle Troll, he's garden variety.
(Lance, you weren't included in that);*)
Not included in the troll part not the potential part.
Johan - I'm not claiming that the mind is a process of purely material components. Based on the evidence I've seen, that seems awfully likely, but it's certainly not proven yet. ("You are not entitled to an opinion. An opinion is what you have when you don't have any facts. When you have the facts, you don't need an opinion." - David Gerrold)
However, if that's not right - if there's something else going on with minds than 'just' that - then what we have found out so far still puts some constraints on what any other theory can say.
And if it is right, as you say, it's still awfully amazing and cool, if not specifically 'miraculous'.
Nomo - for a guy who frequents a site that emphasizes that the word is not the thing it refers to, you seem awfully hung up on specific words. :->
Indeed, primary to metaphysics, science, and poetry, the map is not the territory, the finger pointing is not the moon, the name is not the object.
I also like to remember that built into the fundament is something called the uncertainty principle, which I brought up in a different context (the problem of too precise a communication across contractual lines) yesterday - that exactitude leads to limitations in knowledge and as such fuzzy communications actually can get a person further in certain critical areas.
That is itself a conundrum - that precision is critical in certain times and places and imprecision equally critical in other times and places. For example, I doubt that when I approach the limits of a topic that precision permits me to leap the boundary. Lateral thinking contains within it a fuzziness built into the periphery itself.
Magnus - Very interesting analogy, and I think I get your point. I don't deny that religion does point out something important about what it means to be human, and how we achieve a "unity of head and heart".
But, because I have trouble understanding how radios could work (so to speak), I wonder if the things people think they are 'tuning in' from elsewhere are coming from where they think they are.
That's not to say that there isn't a reality out there accessible by thought - people rediscover mathematical theorems all the time, for example. The same melodies and musical techniques are rediscovered and adapted, too, in many different genres. There may be truths about being human that have been best expressed or reached by religion.
But then again, a lot of things people do when grabbing onto antennas and contorting themselves to 'bring in a better signal' don't actually do anything useful. They're just superstitions. Knowing more about how things work help you zero in on what's useful and what isn't.
Smoov,
Hey sorry I missed your comment to me this morning, slipped right by me in between comments.
I've made several rough prototypes of the app I have in mind over the years, from vb 5 & 6 windows apps, to xsl, asp.net, and even with some gaming features etc - enough for me to see different ideas in action, not enough to prototype a complete picture to investors... mainly because the hardware and web infrastructure hasn't been there to fully carry it out.
But seeing that the pieces are starting to come together out there, I've been reconceiving previous ideas and rewriting pieces into SqlServer2005 & C#, the idea being that core features would be able to interface out to either web, windows, multi-user... even X-Box (I've got a bit more to grasp and prove on that front) - I'm pretty excited about it, but given the little free time I've got available, I wouldn't want to give anyone the idea that I'll have a respectable proof of concept prototype ready in the near future.
Smoov, I appreciate your comments, and I'll definitely let you and the 'Coon Den know when I've got the vaporware condensed out of the Ozone and into actualware!
Bob I think you would like Tolle. He named himself after Meister Eckhart. He is not a phony. I enjoy his book and yours and dip from them both gratefully and have yet to see a contradiction.
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