tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post8036095562829673548..comments2024-03-27T11:16:36.951-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Get Your Own Cosmos!Gagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-16125247689327168102018-09-20T04:37:02.174-07:002018-09-20T04:37:02.174-07:00"If that's not clear, just say that being..."If that's not clear, just say that being is prior to knowing. And if we presume to undertake the task of knowing about being... well, that's a big presumption." <br />As we are the instrument of our intention, conscious awareness is simply the directional sensation of how to get from here (imperfect state) to there (perfected state). Everything else is details.PJBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11404602550746957237noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-71353969440900895272018-09-16T15:14:45.670-07:002018-09-16T15:14:45.670-07:00Just ruminating this morning of the microcosmos th...Just ruminating this morning of the microcosmos that is my mind.<br /><br />Frightening and calming at the same time. Dougmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16376833358762656823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-36347050190385584352018-09-15T06:44:04.630-07:002018-09-15T06:44:04.630-07:00Excellent post Bob.
(doing my monthly check in.)
J...Excellent post Bob.<br />(doing my monthly check in.)<br />JohnJohn Lienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02302615225311776021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-9703519129032106152018-09-14T12:01:38.232-07:002018-09-14T12:01:38.232-07:00Re: Descartes. I heard a great line this morning o...Re: Descartes. I heard a great line this morning on Catholic radio:<br /><br />God loves, therefore I exist.<br /><br />I.e., I am an object of God's love.<br /><br />PeytonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-14067583666785116742018-09-14T09:21:06.853-07:002018-09-14T09:21:06.853-07:00Let's talk about opiates for a moment. It has ...Let's talk about opiates for a moment. It has been said "They cause feelings of pleasure." <br /><br />The medical view is that they stimulate reward centers in the brain. In the scheme of mapping reality, where does brain's reward system stand? It would seem the brain has ways of manipulating its own perception of reality. Are emotions, sensations, impression, and hunches "real?" <br /><br />When discussing reality, it is often assumed to mean inter-subjective items only, like "the cat is on the mat." Etc. However, how real are internally generated sensations? How should they be weighted in any discussion of reality?<br /><br />Ponder. Reflect. <br /> <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-16010739002035004132018-09-13T19:59:22.775-07:002018-09-13T19:59:22.775-07:00"Speaking of which, if you really want to cre..."Speaking of which, if you really want to create hell on earth, it's not that difficult. Rather, just do precisely as Descartes advises: ignore everything but the reality of your own thoughts, and then construct a logico-deductive system to explain every object we encounter, AKA the real world."<br /><br />Yup. Descartes's call to artificially doubt everything, with no cause or basis in reality, is the philosophical licensing of the arbitrary.<br /><br />When Mark Cuban said <i>"In the event Donald wins, I have no doubt in my mind that the market tanks"</i>, he was reveling in his ability to 'make his own dirt' by remaking reality in his own image, via Descartes' magical 'Method of Doubt' - it was and is the means of disconnecting us from reality, Truth and meaning. <br /><br />What but Hell (and <a href="http://blogodidact.blogspot.com/2009/07/unknown-conspiracies-you-dont-think.html" rel="nofollow">conspiracies, if I do say so myself</a>) <i>could</i> follow from that?<br /><br />Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-45271433958672884012018-09-13T18:35:06.075-07:002018-09-13T18:35:06.075-07:00Ha! Ironically the dirt joke reminds me of that Ca...Ha! Ironically the dirt joke reminds me of that Carl Sagan quote, "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe". Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-16114324389737061882018-09-13T14:00:59.928-07:002018-09-13T14:00:59.928-07:00Boredom has many faces!
This post by David Solway...Boredom has many faces!<br /><br />This post by David Solway, called <a href="https://pjmedia.com/trending/silicon-valleys-futile-search-for-utopia-via-the-perfect-algorithm/" rel="nofollow">Silicon Valley's Futile Search for Utopia Via the 'Perfect Algorithm'</a>, is oddly connected to my post today:<br /><br />"A programmer -- someone who creates algorithms and codes them up -- is a minor god, creating universes at will."<br /><br />****<br /><br />"we need to recognize that our beliefs and actions are increasingly predicated on falsehood. Islam is peaceful, the planet is growing warmer, the seas are rising and polar bears are on the verge of extinction. Ultimately, taking such calculations to their logical extreme, we can assert that gender is a social construction -- there are 32 or more sexual morphisms with which we can identify -- or that our universities are places of tolerance and free debate or that masculinity is toxic or that multicultural diversity makes us stronger or that socialism is the solution to all our political and economic problems. We create an alternate reality with no relation to actual social, political and physical reality...<br /><br />"Rather, the algorithms... have us behaving in ways that must infallibly lead to our demise as rational beings as we become human bots seeking an ever more fraudulent epistemology."Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-27566956020375168752018-09-13T13:39:19.498-07:002018-09-13T13:39:19.498-07:00Speaking of which, if you really want to create he...<i>Speaking of which, if you really want to create hell on earth, it's not that difficult. Rather, just do precisely as Descartes advises: ignore everything but the reality of your own thoughts, and then construct a logico-deductive system to explain every object we encounter, AKA the real world.</i><br /><br />Along those lines, a young lost soul of my acquaintance, having exhausted (for now) the delights of volunteering in foreign places to do... something?... to help poor kids in Africa or wherever, is now planning first a month-long "monastic" retreat (Buddhist, of course), followed by a three month stint with some workshop put on by Harvard Divinity school. One can only presume that after all this "enrichment," she'll announce her intent to become an atheist lesbian rabbi, followed swiftly by the realization that having carefully skirted any actual contact with Truth, much less Meaning or Purpose, she still can't understand the essential emptiness of her life. Instead, she'll die a little inside whenever she's around friends and relatives who did the boring thing and got married and started families, raising adorable kids and having fun at family gatherings. <br /><br />I wish I could say there's only one young person I know like this, frittering away the beautiful years of her youth dutifully trying to save the world, but it has become all too common, not only for girls but for boys as well. Having rejected the simple directive to be fruitful and multiply, they don't have the faintest idea what a human - much less a man or a woman - is for.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-16979086428839466162018-09-13T11:30:48.394-07:002018-09-13T11:30:48.394-07:00Great Post, straight up philosophy, a rare find th...Great Post, straight up philosophy, a rare find these days. <br /><br />Descartes did not have the benefit of the infusion of Eastern thought in his day, so he arrived at a conclusion putting primacy on the conscious mind. The conscious mind is the easiest part of the being to play with, so its possible to overlook the other elements. That was his primary error, and it leads to all others. Probably the Left makes the same mistake, as you suggest. <br /><br />We have to turn to Yoga to get a more complete picture of a human being. The Rishis of yore put in a lot of work on this, so we don't have to repeat from scratch. <br /><br />To whit, the human being consists of:<br /><br />Atman (a soul which is not born, and remains in Heaven with Brachman as an overseer).<br /><br />Purusha (individual soul which comes to Earth) <br /><br />Psychic Being (element of the Purusha which is evolutionary and develops and grows on Earth) This is distinct to human beings. The Psychic Being carries the controlling agenda of the a particular individual, and goes from life to life developing). This is the real "you."<br /><br />Mental Sheath: (Includes mind, conscious and unconscious). <br /><br />Vital Sheath: (emotions, cravings, chi body energy)<br /><br />Physical Sheath (tissues, organs, the physical organism).<br /><br />Soooooo...the Rishis of yore concluded the best method for cutting to what was important in life was to focus on the Psychic Being. If you make contact with your Psychic Being with your thinking mind, you will understand reality in a very comprehensive way. Or so they say. <br /><br />Now it is possible to test one thing, very easily. Ask yourself, am I eternal, or did I have a beginning and do I have an end? The answer hits in the gut, not in the head. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com