The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => Philosophy & Science => Topic started by: Francis Buck on October 30, 2013, 06:12:36 am
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Warning: Stupidly long post ahead.
Considering that most, if not all, of us seem to be very like-minded individuals, I'm curious what ya'll think life/humanity/the universe is all about. I consider myself a skeptic above all else, but even so I think even the biggest skeptic has a framework they view reality through, and probably lives by to a certain extent -- even while admitting the "magical belief lottery" as Bakker put it, which is perhaps one of the biggest things that endeared me to Bakker's ideas in general.
I confess to knowing little of BBT, and indeed having difficulty in even understanding a lot of what Bakker is saying in his TPB posts. I'm woefully under-read in philosophy (among many other things); you can quote Sartre and Nietzsche and I probably wouldn't know the difference if it wasn't obvious. Nonetheless I could sit for hours and discuss reality and existence with someone. I've often felt at times that I have some kind of "problem", in that I frequently experience what I can only describe as an existential freak-out. I truly become disturbed by the fact that I exist, and more than that, why anything exists at all. I have this disturbing sensation that non-existence -- literally nothing -- is more logical than what we have. Weird, I know. But it probably strikes me several times a week, and the sensation is disarming, to say the least.
But, to get to to the point, I will elaborate on "what I think reality is". I'm not going to get into a bunch of science to back my beliefs up, if only because it would take forever, and anyway that's not so much the point. I more want to investigate the simple idea that many like-minded people (as I assume most of are, to some extent) can have such radically different views of reality. Thus I'm going to basically lay out my thoughts in a simple bullet-point form, and am interested in seeing others do so -- though I don't want to discourage scientific or philosophical rationale by any means. To get on with it:
I believe in an omniverse; that is, infinite universes, with infinite permutations.
Time, as we (conscious animals) know it is essentially an illusion.
The Omniverse has always existed, will always exist, and has never not existed.
Free will does not exist -- we are expressions of mathematical permutations (so is everything else).
There was "one" Big Bang, but from that singularity, expanded infinity.
The "one" Big Bang resulted in every possible permutation of every universe, with every set of physical laws.
Life (capital L) as we know it is basically a system that works towards two things: increased complexity (intelligence) and decreased chaos (entropy).
I use the above terminology, and, in our human language, they seem different, but in fact they're two sides of the same coin.
In order to illustrate (yes, I'm already breaking my own rule about the bullet-point thing), I'm now going to copypasta a short series of thoughts I've posted elsewhere, which I think demonstrates my idea on "what life is" fairly clearly (some of my earlier ideas will be repeated here, so I apologize for redundancy):
I believe that our universe is one of an infinite number, each defined by a certain set of parameters dictated by the mathematical attributes of sub-atomic particles and other physical laws (there was "one" big bang, but from that spawned an infinite number of universes with infinitely different attributes -- this is why there happens to be an arbitrarily larger amount of matter than anti-matter in our particular universe). I also believe that every configuration of every possible universe already exists, has always existed, and will always exist. The "entirety" of the universe is basically one enormous "thing"...I.E., Block Universe Theory. We simply view the universe as changing, or time flowing, due to a weird side-effect of being a conscious being.
I also believe that life is, quite literally, the universe processing or "comprehending itself" (perhaps a never-ending loop...though such concepts become strange in a timeless Omniverse), by means of increasing complexity and intelligence through the decrease of entropy. If you could see the earth's history in fast-forward, you would basically see a ball of matter becoming more and more "complex" (this word is difficult in such a context but I'm using it for simplicity's sake) while simultaneously decreasing the entropy of its environment. Life as it evolved altered the atmosphere, for example, to make it more suitable for survival. Jump ahead to humans, and we begin taking matter and creating a greater level of "order" (making shelter is one the simplest examples). Shelter is our way of decreasing the entropy of the environment. A modern suburban home is basically an effort to achieve the greatest level of homeostasis possible. Controlling the temperature, controlling what goes in and and out of the house, are active efforts to remove the element of randomness (harmful bacteria, break-ins, etc.). Compare the level of "order" (or homeostasis) in a modern city to the level of order in a tribal settlement five-thousand years ago. This can further be applied to societal structures, and so on.
I believe in a pseudo-Gaia theory. I don't think the earth is conscious, but I do believe that life on earth (and likely the majority of other life-bearing planets, particularly those with intelligent life) is by its very nature working towards a "goal", and that goal is the organization of matter and energy. The internet, for example, was a huge step forward in this effort, because it connected the global consciousness and the accumulated knowledge of humanity. It's basically another step forward in the organization of matter and energy through ever greater levels of efficiency (dictated by technological advancement -- technology being life's ability to alter the environment to its will). This ties into another idea of mine, which is that humanity's typical distinction between natural and unnatural -- tech vs organic -- is completely arbitrary. Technology is literally a part of evolution. Systems eventually become smart enough to control the systems they themselves arise from. They become smart enough to control their own evolution.
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We're on the shore and an ocean of mystery lies before us.
As a species, we can only swim so far, by which I mean the big question won't be answered by our limited cognitive abilities. So if there's nothing beyond the Veil we won't ever have answers about consciousness.
Additionally given the vastness of this mystery we might as well stop worrying too much about physics and space programs - by which I mean cut funding by massive amounts - unless it benefits us in some definitive way.
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I think that mankind is a expression of nature, just like a tree, wind, mountains and so on. Everything is unique in its own way. We are a expression of all the "good" and "bad" that we find in nature, and in that case there is nothing wrong with you no matter how we express ourselves.
I generally agree with both of you by the way :) and I might also add that we should all be grateful that there is something instead of nothing.
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We're on the shore and an ocean of mystery lies before us.
As a species, we can only swim so far, by which I mean the big question won't be answered by our limited cognitive abilities. So if there's nothing beyond the Veil we won't ever have answers about consciousness.
Additionally given the vastness of this mystery we might as well stop worrying too much about physics and space programs - by which I mean cut funding by massive amounts - unless it benefits us in some definitive way.
Didn't read your whole post yet Francis, sorry. Just came here to poke Sci. ;)
Swoops in
The broken hubble space telescope lens led to the discovery of the most advanced breast cancer early detection systems to date. Defunding any one sector of research will always have unseen consequences. Serendipitous discoveries lead to massive advances in science and technology that would otherwise take decades or centuries of direct research.
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Swoops in
The broken hubble space telescope lens led to the discovery of the most advanced breast cancer early detection systems to date. Defunding any one sector of research will always have unseen consequences. Serendipitous discoveries lead to massive advances in science and technology that would otherwise take decades or centuries of direct research.
Actually, upon reflection, this is a discussion for another thread I'll make later so as not to derail this one.
To add to my belief system, I have a strong belief in supernatural evil....so long as it is night time and I'm alone. Otherwise I find my rational mind scoffing at such things.
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I've often felt at times that I have some kind of "problem", in that I frequently experience what I can only describe as an existential freak-out.
+1. I wouldn't (and haven't, elsewhere on the forum) describe my experience the same, which has morphed from intense, intermittent episodes into an all-the-time backdrop of my waking reality; basically, accounting entirely for my intolerable disposition and motivating my intentful and haphazard engagement with the world.
I regularly experience cognitive dissonance as I don't understand how other people don't have a version of this experience.
But I feel I understand your connotations.
I believe in an omniverse; that is, infinite universes, with infinite permutations.
Time, as we (conscious animals) know it is essentially an illusion.
The Omniverse has always existed, will always exist, and has never not existed.
Free will does not exist -- we are expressions of mathematical permutations (so is everything else).
There was "one" Big Bang, but from that singularity, expanded infinity.
The "one" Big Bang resulted in every possible permutation of every universe, with every set of physical laws.
Life (capital L) as we know it is basically a system that works towards two things: increased complexity (intelligence) and decreased chaos (entropy).
How do these things inform your daily unfolding? Just curious.
The "entirety" of the universe is basically one enormous "thing"...I.E., Block Universe Theory. We simply view the universe as changing, or time flowing, due to a weird side-effect of being a conscious being.
I've encountered this thought numerous times in my life. It often makes a curious type of sense, which obviously makes me question it immediately. Everything is happening now, one moment, always?
I also believe that life is, quite literally, the universe processing or "comprehending itself" (perhaps a never-ending loop...though such concepts become strange in a timeless Omniverse)
The Omega entity gets tired of tea with itself when the tides of ultimate comprehension reach their culmination ;)?
I believe in a pseudo-Gaia theory. I don't think the earth is conscious, but I do believe that life on earth (and likely the majority of other life-bearing planets, particularly those with intelligent life) is by its very nature working towards a "goal", and that goal is the organization of matter and energy.
These thoughts always lead me to liken consciousness to gravity. Probably, we're measuring consciously incorrectly but, perhaps, a pooling of certain levels of conscious awareness amalgamate into a more complex entity.
You ever read any Ken Wilber, FB?
We're on the shore and an ocean of mystery lies before us.
As a species, we can only swim so far, by which I mean the big question won't be answered by our limited cognitive abilities. So if there's nothing beyond the Veil we won't ever have answers about consciousness.
Curiousity is quintessentially human, though, no? For better or worse, our cognitive abilities probably won't be biologically limited much longer.
Additionally given the vastness of this mystery we might as well stop worrying too much about physics and space programs - by which I mean cut funding by massive amounts - unless it benefits us in some definitive way.
Swoops in
The broken hubble space telescope lens led to the discovery of the most advanced breast cancer early detection systems to date. Defunding any one sector of research will always have unseen consequences. Serendipitous discoveries lead to massive advances in science and technology that would otherwise take decades or centuries of direct research.
Actually, upon reflection, this is a discussion for another thread I'll make later so as not to derail this one.
To add to my belief system, I have a strong belief in supernatural evil....so long as it is night time and I'm alone. Otherwise I find my rational mind scoffing at such things.
I hope this thread starts in the near future.
I generally agree with both of you by the way :) and I might also add that we should all be grateful that there is something instead of nothing.
I weep gratitude. Embrace Reality.
As for myself - I generally believe in nothing... or everything.
I'd be described as an agnostic? But the possibilities are too endless to restrict me philosophically. I'd accept the existence of pretty much anything but as this entity I'd probably also find reasons to fight.
I believe it is wrong to end an other's existence on evidence so shallow as belief.
I believe that most of the entities I communicate with grant that this consensual reality exists - yet still are content to tolerate entering, perpetuating, and leaving this world in the toxic state in which it exists.
I believe that we've inadvertently killed some of the most amazing consciousnesses that reality will never know because of the rigidity of our social and culture conceptual structures (how we choose to manifest collectively in our global environment).
I believe that lacking free-will is the poorest excuse for not participating in humanity's active manifestation (what we do and say each and everyday).
I believe that this is but one stage in a multi-entity existence, whereby each time an entity dies they advance to another level of existence (this is mostly borne out of the idea that people articulate an inability to do anything in life because they'll be rewarded indefinitely in the next... No, you will be tested further); Strength on the Journey - Journey Well.
Otherwise, I find it hard to commit to much of anything.
But come at me, bro ;).
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I believe that we've inadvertently killed some of the most amazing consciousnesses that reality will never know because of the rigidity of our social and culture conceptual structures (how we choose to manifest collectively in our global environment).
This is sadly correct. I have asked many people before this question: "Name me anything positive brought forward by collectivism?"
I never seem to get an satisfactory answer to that one. It is always individuals right? Brave people who dares to swim against
the current, and eventually but not always gets killed.
I believe that lacking free-will is the poorest excuse for not participating in humanity's active manifestation (what we do and say each and everyday).
Agreed. I don`t spend much time thinking about this. Illusion or not, does it matter? Do what you got to do, If you philosophically do
not have free will, it will not stop you.
I believe that this is but one stage in a multi-entity existence, whereby each time an entity dies they advance to another level of existence
What do you mean by advance? hierarchical process? A type of reincarnation? I know you can`t possibly have answers for me, but
feel free to speculate on this :)
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How do these things inform your daily unfolding? Just curious.
Not very heavily. Particularly in regards to free will -- it kinda doesn't matter. Kinda. I say this in the sense that, even if I somehow magically knew for a fact that I didn't possess free will, I'd be like "Yeah, I sorta figured", and then proceed to go on acting more-or-less like I had free will. However, there are things that need to be considered. Punishment for crimes, for example. Should criminals be punished? What does rehabilitation mean in this context? If they have no free will, then it's not really their "fault". At the same time, we need to consider if we can create an environment and society were criminality is less likely to exist or flourish. Which we already do, sort of. But there's still that element of "punishment". It's, "You did this thing", which I don't know is the correct way to go about it. Well, I definitely don't think it's the right way to go about it, but of course this (like most of this thread) could be partitioned off into a thread itself.
Overall though, the things listed above do not especially affect my reality, even if I do try to be aware of them. Perhaps the biggest thing for me in daily life is that I do believe we have one life to live. One chance in the spotlight, so to speak. And that should be considered by everyone, all the time, when making the decisions we make. I very much like Alan Watts' (probably one my bigger role models) idea on how we live our lives, see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnFUDVpFwFQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnFUDVpFwFQ). If you have a dream in life, follow it. The idea of picking a particular career, not because it's what you love, but because it's the thing you can most tolerate, only to make money, which you then use to do...what? By a car. Buy a house. Find a lover. Have kids. Keep working your whole life. Eventually retire and die. The whole time you really wanted to be a musician, or painter, or athlete, or whatever. But you didn't do that because it wasn't realistic. You have to be "a real person".
Unless of course your dream is to get a job you can tolerate just to support a typical lifestyle and have a family, etc. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. The overarching point, here, is that I find it baffling for anyone to not follow their dream, whatever it is.
I've encountered this thought numerous times in my life. It often makes a curious type of sense, which obviously makes me question it immediately. Everything is happening now, one moment, always?
It's honestly the only form of time, and the universe (well, omniverse), that "makes sense to me", which, as you say, immediately makes think it must be wrong somehow. Which leaves us in a difficult predicament.
The Omega entity gets tired of tea with itself when the tides of ultimate comprehension reach their culmination ;)?
Heh, that part of what I wrote is actually a bit "outdated", at least the never-ending loop thing (I wrote that lower paragraph maybe two or three years ago). I'm not even entirely sure what I meant by it. I do, however, still believe that life is, on a certain level, the universe processing itself. I don't think it ever ends though, because of infinity. There's always more information.
These thoughts always lead me to liken consciousness to gravity. Probably, we're measuring consciously incorrectly but, perhaps, a pooling of certain levels of conscious awareness amalgamate into a more complex entity.
You ever read any Ken Wilber, FB?
I haven't read him, but I will be checking him out now. But what you said, "Probably, we're measuring consciously incorrectly but, perhaps, a pooling of certain levels of conscious awareness amalgamate into a more complex entity", I think is true.
On a similar note, I'm going to post part of something I said on Westeros not too long ago:
(it was in response to a thread Sci made about technological optimism, or optimism in the future, but it outlines some of the things I believe about the future of life/tech, particularly an intelligent species near or around our own current level)
I'd sooner believe that our current point in life is much more insignificant than we realize. Like, way, way, way more insignificant. As in, I think human society (and really, humans themselves) are more likely to be one tiny step in a much larger cosmic evolution. Even if somehow human life goes extinct before then (though I don't think it will), I think the level where we are currently at, when applied to other intelligent civilizations that managed not to wipe themselves out, is just a stepping stone. It's like an australopithecus believing that nothing could possibly exist beyond their current understanding of the world, and thus that means some kind of apocalypse is coming.
I think the idea that technology is somehow inherently destructive to life is kind of silly, if only because I don't think technology itself should really be separated from life. Technology is just what happens when a group of organisms become intelligent enough to control their own evolution. We think of "life" and "technology" as being separate things, because we live within that sphere. We're the "life" part of the system. But if you can imagine the perspective of a remote Observer, watching the history of Earth in fast forward say, you'd see it from the outside point of view -- the non-anthropocentric one. Really, technology isn't even "something that life does". It's just as much a part of the whole life-system as anything else. We're just part of Earth-Life. It is, in a sense, all one greater entity.
ETA: To sum it up, for me it has less to do with technological optimism, and more to do with removing the ever-present anthropocentric inclination that lies within all of us. This is the same reason we thought Mesopotamia was the entire world. Or China. Or the Old World. And then we thought Earth was the center of the universe. And then we thought the Milky-Way was the entire universe. And then we realized that the Milky-Way was just one of billions of galaxies in a universe far larger than we can possibly comprehend. Our scope of self-perception has continually been challenged, and it's always in the same direction.
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I believe that we've inadvertently killed some of the most amazing consciousnesses that reality will never know because of the rigidity of our social and culture conceptual structures (how we choose to manifest collectively in our global environment).
This is sadly correct. I have asked many people before this question: "Name me anything positive brought forward by collectivism?"
I never seem to get an satisfactory answer to that one. It is always individuals right? Brave people who dares to swim against
the current, and eventually but not always gets killed.
I'm sure this is a simplification. Even the latter position, there is no revolution in thought if there is no current to swim against?
And, unfortunately, in this world, it's going to take a number of wild, restrained, and informed individuals to fight the tide now. I can even imagine some kind of psychohistoric mathematics (Asimov) that would suggest that the curve of human social and cultural evolution might be traced in part by its legislative and economic system (which are inherently self-limiting).
But I think the question is something of a trap, Royce :).
I believe that lacking free-will is the poorest excuse for not participating in humanity's active manifestation (what we do and say each and everyday).
Agreed. I don`t spend much time thinking about this. Illusion or not, does it matter? Do what you got to do, If you philosophically do
not have free will, it will not stop you.
It's especially disheartening to see that cognitive outlook adopted by individuals who are stuck in emotional and physical ruts.
I believe that this is but one stage in a multi-entity existence, whereby each time an entity dies they advance to another level of existence
What do you mean by advance? hierarchical process? A type of reincarnation? I know you can`t possibly have answers for me, but
feel free to speculate on this :)
Religions generally seek to pad a bleak existence that seems to feel otherwise unbearable? The need to explain the Outside seems to arise because people find no solace in the mortal realm. It's an idea that grew from the same vein as the lack of free-will excuse. I can't support any mindset that suggests nothing good is possible in the world without intervention - Alien, Metaphysical, or Divine. Humans are not irreversible corruptible. And as there are many possibly negative incarnations of a human being, I have to believe in an equal number of positive incarnations (as much as those connotations exist as anthropomorphic human distinctions). Just takes a new type of strength and an honest appraisal of the field of battle, as it stands today.
Lol - ramble aside.
I don't know, Royce. So add to the lack of free-will excuse, the next life is better excuse, then I begin to think about Buddhist reincarnation and the Wheel of Samsara - it must include entities not limited to either Earth-borne species or even our single Universe. If any God wanted to test us (as per the religious enumeration) and grant us life eternal, then a single human lifetime is not trial enough. Thus, a lopsided argument is born to do something with this lifetime.
FB said it best, in that, we might, and most likely do, have only one life to live, no second chances to do differently...
Live boldly.
I realize I didn't give you much, Royce - I think too many answers are locked into some of the better short-story ideas of mine. Like if all human life is a boot camp for a Heavenly Army. Or human life is like parole for a metaphysical jail, you're try never to go back to.
However, there are things that need to be considered. Punishment for crimes, for example.
Should criminals be punished? What does rehabilitation mean in this context? If they have no free will, then it's not really their "fault". At the same time, we need to consider if we can create an environment and society were criminality is less likely to exist or flourish. Which we already do, sort of. But there's still that element of "punishment". It's, "You did this thing", which I don't know is the correct way to go about it. Well, I definitely don't think it's the right way to go about it, but of course this (like most of this thread) could be partitioned off into a thread itself.
Hmm... maybe it will. Again, you've highlight only a few of a number of ways things get complex quickly. A single human life is in many cases indistinguishable from the social and cultural conditions it is borne into; life is an expression of the way we conceptually organize and embody our conceptual structures, as you write. "You did this thing" certainly seems impractical. However, I think that the all crimes are a form of brain dysfunction, which is what is slowly happening in response to 'You did this thing,' is equally dangerous. Especially when systems of justice seem to serve the existing manifestation of state.
Overall though, the things listed above do not especially affect my reality, even if I do try to be aware of them. Perhaps the biggest thing for me in daily life is that I do believe we have one life to live. One chance in the spotlight, so to speak. And that should be considered by everyone, all the time, when making the decisions we make. I very much like Alan Watts' (probably one my bigger role models) idea on how we live our lives, see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnFUDVpFwFQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnFUDVpFwFQ). If you have a dream in life, follow it. The idea of picking a particular career, not because it's what you love, but because it's the thing you can most tolerate, only to make money, which you then use to do...what? By a car. Buy a house. Find a lover. Have kids. Keep working your whole life. Eventually retire and die. The whole time you really wanted to be a musician, or painter, or athlete, or whatever. But you didn't do that because it wasn't realistic. You have to be "a real person".
Amazing. Everything you've described here gives me shivers. Money is no object. I will gladly exert my energy to benefit another in exchange for their energy. But I cannot stand by and let this be the continued and lasting incarnation of human manifestation.
Unless of course your dream is to get a job you can tolerate just to support a typical lifestyle and have a family, etc. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. The overarching point, here, is that I find it baffling for anyone to not follow their dream, whatever it is.
Indeed. In light of things I've said and written before I'd probably find myself at odds with such people - and I have in my lifetime when I encounter them, usually, because of their limited capacity to acknowledge other, alternative, possibilities.
As to your final points about technological optimism, I would agree thematically, that we aren't intricately important in the grand scheme and that technology is part-and-parcel of the environment, we've just manipulated or co-opted different aspects of matter as it exists.
However, we live now. Maclean's recently had the '70% of the human body can be reliably replaced' issue. I value our underused form as it exists too much to suggest that we can only do better if we augment ourselves (I'm not big on excuses, you might gather). The argument becomes tricky when we realize that amputees will be quickly go from handi-capable to form-mastery as the technology proceeds. We can wire a leg right into the human nervous system that has a number of different axis of movement to return someone's former range of motion to them... or easily, greater than. I don't think humans currently maintain the restraint not to pursue task-specific augmentation as much as I abhor what that is going to do to the playing field.
Just thoughts, always.
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But I think the question is something of a trap, Royce
Well, I might have to clarify what I am trying to say :) Collectivism does not exist. Only individual choices do, and individuals can be manipulated into believing that "collectively" this or that is good or bad and what not. I think the size of tribes around the world is insane. A tribe with 300 million people, collectively agreeing what is good or bad through the highly symbolic action of voting? It sounds like a tragic comedy, but it is actually happening.
I think a more healthy focus on yourself, through whatever means you feel works, to get rid of stress, uncertainty, and fear, would help many people make better choices for themselves. Meditation works for me, it has helped me not to take life so seriously. There is absolutely no way you can be in control of anything, the "now" is impossible to predict, so stop trying. Same with the "future", it does not exist. Anything can happen at any moment, so just relax and try to enjoy this fascinating journey :)
Religions generally seek to pad a bleak existence that seems to feel otherwise unbearable?
This is correct. Although it is a complex issue. I do not know about you but I am happy with my life at the moment, I do not need to be convinced there is a happy and never ending life which awaits me when I rot in the ground. Plenty of people actively seek this assurance for reasons I can totally understand. A mortal life which is pure horror every day is probably hard to live with. If this religious deception helps them, I do not feel I can judge them. Is it my right to take that little hope away from them? This issue will never cease to exist either, since there will always be people in need, especially the way the world works today.
I can't support any mindset that suggests nothing good is possible in the world without intervention - Alien, Metaphysical, or Divine
No, but I do enjoy a healthy dose of metaphysical speculation now and again, although my feet are planted on the ground :) It is kind of funny when you see this distinction that has arisen lately between religion and spirituality. People say things like "I am not religious, but I am very spiritual". That is basically the same thing. The "spiritual" person only takes the positives from religion (chanting,community,mystical experiences and so on), and just leave out the negative ones (male dominant,rigid,literally believing in the word of god,exploitation,wealth obsession and so on). All these negative aspects are not really religion either, it is politics, geopolitics, and many egoes flexing their muscles. We call this organized religion I guess, and when religion gets organized in this way it ceases to be a religion and becomes a political party. I am not religious, I am just rambeling :)
Gladly FB mentioned Alan Watts earlier, and I also have him as one of my favorites. I have to admit to a certain liking of taoism because of him. To me it is the only ism that makes sense so far. Although I do not quite grasp it , the simplicity attracts me.
I wish I could dig deeper in this discussion with you guys, but my skills in English restrict me. Hope I make some sense though :)
I think too many answers are locked into some of the better short-story ideas of mine
I would love to read some of those sometime :) I am hoping I can shear some of mine in the future too, if I can get someone to translate them for me :) Lots of great stuff on this forum too ;)
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I wish I could dig deeper in this discussion with you guys, but my skills in English restrict me. Hope I make some sense though :)
You English is great, I honestly would've never even thought you weren't a native speaker if you hadn't mentioned it.
ETA: I also wanted to mention that I should clarify my earlier point about the whole "follow your dream" thing. Obviously people need to live, and feed themselves, and so on. I mean my dream is to be a writer and filmmaker, but I still work regular jobs. The greater point is to never give up on the dream, and especially don't treat it as something that one shouldn't do because it's not what you're "supposed to do". There's a strong social pressure in the west (and I presume many other cultures worldwide) that if you don't follow this specific sort of lifestyle, then you're somehow not doing it right (it being life), or that you're lazy, or naive, or whatever incarnation the criticism takes, and that's what I think people need to consider.
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You English is great, I honestly would've never even thought you weren't a native speaker if you hadn't mentioned it.
Thanks for that FB :) It just takes so much time to translate concepts, I used almost 2 hours on my previous post.
ETA: I also wanted to mention that I should clarify my earlier point about the whole "follow your dream" thing. Obviously people need to live, and feed themselves, and so on. I mean my dream is to be a writer and filmmaker, but I still work regular jobs. The greater point is to never give up on the dream, and especially don't treat it as something that one shouldn't do because it's not what you're "supposed to do". There's a strong social pressure in the west (and I presume many other cultures worldwide) that if you don't follow this specific sort of lifestyle, then you're somehow not doing it right (it being life), or that you're lazy, or naive, or whatever incarnation the criticism takes, and that's what I think people need to consider.
Agreed. It is hard to fulfill dreams, since my daughter needs to eat and so on :) Luckily for me I can do a lot of writing at work. I also might add that to me it is enough just to be able to write. The thing in itself is very rewarding, even though my ego is yelling at me for recognition and fame :) I try to keep a healthy distance between my ego and the satisfaction of the writing process in itself. The market is so small in Norway anyway, so to "make it" as a writer you have to write soft housewife porn, or a straight forward detective story :), which is not at all what I do.
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That none of this makes sense and thus shouldn't exist does strike me - even seemingly (to me) to a blasphemous degree. But not multiple times per week, only when I draw on it (due to whatever related subject coming up)
I can't really stand the infinite universe thing, for being so dreadfully wasteful, never mind how extra, extra pointless it makes anything. Everything you do in one would be countered in another one. Every perfect place would have a counter perfect place of misery.
More down to earth, I believe we are all piecemeal handing away our liberty for the convenience of buying food. And in regard to that the more you grow your own food, if only a few herbs, the more bargaining power you reclaim for yourself and others.
Further I believe because we don't generate goods ourselves anymore, charity has been shot in the ass. That we need to give goods to others (not just a really nice smile), simply as an act of goodwill, to connect as a community. That we have fallen to the convenience of buying means we don't grow anything to give, and as usual, anything bought with money we are lothe to give away (let alone give our money away simply for charities sake). Too many people think they have figured the other guys uglyness, when if the other guy had given them some goods beforehand, such uglyness wouldn't seem so 'obvious'.
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More down to earth, I believe we are all piecemeal handing away our liberty for the convenience of buying food. And in regard to that the more you grow your own food, if only a few herbs, the more bargaining power you reclaim for yourself and others.
+1. Urban farming, IMO, might offer a chance to emancipate people from the system more than any anarchist revolution.
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My outlook on life is rather bleak and depressing.
I feel that we are just freaks of nature. No higher power, no Gaia life stream, and no infinite universe. I may or may not have resorted to this notion due to my mind having an utter inability to comprehend infinity, therefore I have no real alternative to offer.
Whether there is life outside of Earth, I couldn't tell you but if there was, I believe it would be an equally serendipitous instance as our own.
The two things I DO believe in is love and family. IMO, those are the keys to a happy and successful life, despite whatever your culture tries to force feed you.
To be honest I am genuinely surprised that this "belief system" hasn't sent me in a downward spiral into deep depression. I like to think it is because I try to only focus on what I can control and deem important; I love unconditionally until someone proves to me I shouldn't and there is nothing that I wouldn't do for my family.
If I only measure myself with those two things, I can convince myself that I am happy and successful.
Edit: I meant to say Royce, English is my first language and I feel you have a better handle on how to use it than I do.
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I just realized that in commending Royce's English, I myself made a mistake in the first damn word of the sentence.
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More down to earth, I believe we are all piecemeal handing away our liberty for the convenience of buying food. And in regard to that the more you grow your own food, if only a few herbs, the more bargaining power you reclaim for yourself and others.
+1. Urban farming, IMO, might offer a chance to emancipate people from the system more than any anarchist revolution.
Aww no, urban farming is totally anachist, wild man renegade breaking all the rules!
Oh, okay, it's not! It's more Ghandi than Chuck Norris! But I'm inclined to perpetuate the feeling that it is bad ass - call me a bad person for doing so! heh! Breakin' all da rules...
Danke for the +1! :)
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I'd prefer an urban soylent lab - 3d molecule printing ingredients and growing some in bacteria vats, if thats possible.
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Well, I might have to clarify what I am trying to say :) Collectivism does not exist. Only individual choices do, and individuals can be manipulated into believing that "collectively" this or that is good or bad and what not. I think the size of tribes around the world is insane. A tribe with 300 million people, collectively agreeing what is good or bad through the highly symbolic action of voting? It sounds like a tragic comedy, but it is actually happening.
I think we contribute to collective embodiment much more obviously with our 'purchasing power', but yes, voting is one of the few remaining ways to exercise individual agency in the Western Empire.
I think a more healthy focus on yourself, through whatever means you feel works, to get rid of stress, uncertainty, and fear, would help many people make better choices for themselves. Meditation works for me, it has helped me not to take life so seriously. There is absolutely no way you can be in control of anything, the "now" is impossible to predict, so stop trying. Same with the "future", it does not exist. Anything can happen at any moment, so just relax and try to enjoy this fascinating journey :)
Hm... you must have read enough of my words to know I disagree, Royce. Certainly, focusing on one's self is paramount to 'healthy living' - I'm an avid, if sporadic, meditator. However, we aren't alone in the world. Our way of life, where some of us can enjoy the luxury of 'focusing on yourself,' is a minority experience. If I manage escape the poverty and impoverished agency of my youth, it'll have been through a dose of luck, certainly, but also major perseverance. Many others aren't so lucky and experience more obstacles in social mobility. I can't abide while a privileged and fearful minority manipulate the populace while destroying the world to better preserve themselves - especially, with the common experience of reality being transient as you highlight.
I'm reminded of Bill Hick's closing "it's just a ride," except I don't agree with refusing to play for good as a result of that cognitive mindset.
Religions generally seek to pad a bleak existence that seems to feel otherwise unbearable?
This is correct. Although it is a complex issue. I do not know about you but I am happy with my life at the moment, I do not need to be convinced there is a happy and never ending life which awaits me when I rot in the ground. Plenty of people actively seek this assurance for reasons I can totally understand. A mortal life which is pure horror every day is probably hard to live with. If this religious deception helps them, I do not feel I can judge them. Is it my right to take that little hope away from them? This issue will never cease to exist either, since there will always be people in need, especially the way the world works today.
My argument is against inaction, when we might better the lives of us all, especially those in most need - religion has historically served as motivator of very morally bankrupt intentions despite the solace you describe.
I can't support any mindset that suggests nothing good is possible in the world without intervention - Alien, Metaphysical, or Divine
No, but I do enjoy a healthy dose of metaphysical speculation now and again, although my feet are planted on the ground :) It is kind of funny when you see this distinction that has arisen lately between religion and spirituality. People say things like "I am not religious, but I am very spiritual". That is basically the same thing. The "spiritual" person only takes the positives from religion (chanting,community,mystical experiences and so on), and just leave out the negative ones (male dominant,rigid,literally believing in the word of god,exploitation,wealth obsession and so on). All these negative aspects are not really religion either, it is politics, geopolitics, and many egoes flexing their muscles. We call this organized religion I guess, and when religion gets organized in this way it ceases to be a religion and becomes a political party. I am not religious, I am just rambeling :)
Gladly FB mentioned Alan Watts earlier, and I also have him as one of my favorites. I have to admit to a certain liking of taoism because of him. To me it is the only ism that makes sense so far. Although I do not quite grasp it , the simplicity attracts me.
I wish I could dig deeper in this discussion with you guys, but my skills in English restrict me. Hope I make some sense though :)
You are doing amazing, Royce. Perhaps, we should all bend ourselves to learning Norwegian to better facilitate your thoughts.
My gripe arises from the idea that it seems impossible to attribute the better aspects of humanity to human agency itself. Whenever a person does, says, or writes something profound, we're so quick to attribute it to intervention - which is supreme BS, in my opinion. We should celebrate human accomplishment as human accomplishment before positing ridiculous fantasies because 'humans are inherently evil' or some such.
I think too many answers are locked into some of the better short-story ideas of mine
I would love to read some of those sometime :) I am hoping I can shear some of mine in the future too, if I can get someone to translate them for me :) Lots of great stuff on this forum too ;)
Sometime, Royce. We should absolutely work to translate your stories... facilitating language is extremely healthy for a community. I wonder what would happen with a "Translation Subforum."
ETA: I also wanted to mention that I should clarify my earlier point about the whole "follow your dream" thing. Obviously people need to live, and feed themselves, and so on. I mean my dream is to be a writer and filmmaker, but I still work regular jobs. The greater point is to never give up on the dream, and especially don't treat it as something that one shouldn't do because it's not what you're "supposed to do". There's a strong social pressure in the west (and I presume many other cultures worldwide) that if you don't follow this specific sort of lifestyle, then you're somehow not doing it right (it being life), or that you're lazy, or naive, or whatever incarnation the criticism takes, and that's what I think people need to consider.
How do you deal with being ostracized for 'having a dream?'
More down to earth, I believe we are all piecemeal handing away our liberty for the convenience of buying food. And in regard to that the more you grow your own food, if only a few herbs, the more bargaining power you reclaim for yourself and others.
+1. Urban farming, IMO, might offer a chance to emancipate people from the system more than any anarchist revolution.
I can see this quickly becoming another thread but... this is a major crux of the global economic system.
The two things I DO believe in is love and family. IMO, those are the keys to a happy and successful life, despite whatever your culture tries to force feed you.
To be honest I am genuinely surprised that this "belief system" hasn't sent me in a downward spiral into deep depression. I like to think it is because I try to only focus on what I can control and deem important; I love unconditionally until someone proves to me I shouldn't and there is nothing that I wouldn't do for my family.
If I only measure myself with those two things, I can convince myself that I am happy and successful.
Edit: I meant to say Royce, English is my first language and I feel you have a better handle on how to use it than I do.
Humanity can cultivate a perspective of a global-human family.
Which "belief system" do you mean, your own? Or the versions force-fed in dissemination?
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But I think the question is something of a trap, Royce
Well, I might have to clarify what I am trying to say :) Collectivism does not exist. Only individual choices do, and individuals can be manipulated into believing that "collectively" this or that is good or bad and what not. I think the size of tribes around the world is insane. A tribe with 300 million people, collectively agreeing what is good or bad through the highly symbolic action of voting? It sounds like a tragic comedy, but it is actually happening.
I could get an arguement that they might all think that they could never vote for something which then turns out to be bad.
But other than that, what do you mean?
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I'd prefer an urban soylent lab - 3d molecule printing ingredients and growing some in bacteria vats, if thats possible.
That sounds like it's dependent on outside corporations to work, or if a device it uses breaks, it's again dependent on outside corporations to work. Thus eliminating the whole bargaining power element entirely.
Am I wrong?
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Yep. The soylent recipe is online, and all the ingredients are easy to buy in bulk. Corporations sell them cheap, thank you corporations, I love you and your inhuman use of instrumental reason more than any agrarian hippie!
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Is the ink still drying on the contract that both ensures that price remains the same as well as ensuring the income from another corporation is basically on tenure, James?
You seem really sure.
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How do you deal with being ostracized for 'having a dream?'
Well, I don't think it's ostracization for having a dream so much as following that dream with determination. For me it's less people outright telling me my dream is stupid or something like that, and more just a general social atmosphere of our youth being led to believe that "it's great to have a dream, but you have to be realistic". Which, as I said, basically boils down to, "it's great to have a dream, but you also have to be a worker bee". Honestly I think it's something that might transcend culture, because it actually makes sense, from a practical standpoint, for people to think that way. If everyone followed their dreams of being artists and athletes or whatever, then not much would get done (which is why I similarly believe the average person is naturally predisposed toward "sleep walking" through life, avoiding difficult questions about existence and reality, since they're not exactly useful things to devote your time to -- again, from a remote, evolutionary standpoint).
But, in the few cases where I recall people actually straight up ostracizing me for wanting to be a writer and pursuing it adamantly (or otherwise implied such a concept), I either ignored it, or proved myself -- the latter being more difficult, given the nature of writing and reading (it's not like if I wanted to be a singer and I could just bust out singing, writing doesn't really work that way obviously). But, I know there were people among my friends (and to a lesser extent family) who knew I wanted to be a writer but never really took the notion seriously until they actually read something I wrote.
I think I've actually faced a lot more ostracization (though I use that term lightly) for being into philosophy and the nature of reality and all that, and wanting to discuss it with people. So many times I've come up against the mindset of, "Why think about this stuff when none of it matters?" -- which, as far as I'm concerned, is absurd. It only doesn't affect because you haven't engaged it. Again though, I think this ties into people being naturally inclined not to engage with these concepts, often because they lead to scary and uncomfortable areas that make you question the entire foundation of your reality. And, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), most people simply don't want to do that.
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I'm of a subtly different mind, I think - but I felt that was the best question to ask to sound the perspective.
Which, as I said, basically boils down to, "it's great to have a dream, but you also have to be a worker bee". Honestly I think it's something that might transcend culture, because it actually makes sense, from a practical standpoint, for people to think that way. If everyone followed their dreams of being artists and athletes or whatever, then not much would get done (which is why I similarly believe the average person is naturally predisposed toward "sleep walking" through life, avoiding difficult questions about existence and reality, since they're not exactly useful things to devote your time to -- again, from a remote, evolutionary standpoint).
Just riffing but I think it's a pretty pressing historical discussion actually. I mean, leveraging agriculture, in a way, led to all of what our civilization calls achievement. It took a leisure class to make advancements. Else all is war and food. And even with individuals freed up to bend themselves towards reality, we still fought about food (land) and the ability to leverage a leisure class.
Class dissociation, as far as we have prevalent historical evidence, is insanity.
We should partake in all aspects, I'd think. We can't afford class specialization as a species.
As to the "sleep walking," I'd hazard that our social and cultural embodiments do far more than evolution to bury a child's possible 'unfolding.' And that is probably my "if the worst were to happen" social scenario: if those who profit from human ignorance were to protect their intellectual holdings (better diet, education, money-greased through the social gears) they might affect both the dumbing down of the plebletariot while continuing to secure their own increasing knowledge. Should that knowledge gap ever become too great, between what the common majority hold as true and actionable knowledge and what the intellectual elite know to be the leading edge of human understanding, my descendants at least, should I have children, will likely be enslaved for a time, that puts the fearful minority in a dangerously secure position (this is excluding, say, a worse monetary division determining availability of neuroaugmentation... and it spirals out from there)
I'll gladly spend my life trying to affect differently. Shouldn't everyone get a chance to push the bar up and contribute to our human achievement board?
But, in the few cases where I recall people actually straight up ostracizing me for wanting to be a writer and pursuing it adamantly (or otherwise implied such a concept), I either ignored it, or proved myself -- the latter being more difficult, given the nature of writing and reading (it's not like if I wanted to be a singer and I could just bust out singing, writing doesn't really work that way obviously). But, I know there were people among my friends (and to a lesser extent family) who knew I wanted to be a writer but never really took the notion seriously until they actually read something I wrote.
I think I've actually faced a lot more ostracization (though I use that term lightly) for being into philosophy and the nature of reality and all that, and wanting to discuss it with people. So many times I've come up against the mindset of, "Why think about this stuff when none of it matters?" -- which, as far as I'm concerned, is absurd. It only doesn't affect because you haven't engaged it. Again though, I think this ties into people being naturally inclined not to engage with these concepts, often because they lead to scary and uncomfortable areas that make you question the entire foundation of your reality. And, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), most people simply don't want to do that.
I think you've nicely captured my question in these two paragraphs. Basically, I've never been able to turn off that second paragraph mindset, you described, which then motivated my going against most, and any, social grains. However, I meet very few people who can actually tolerate me (I picture myself as Ciphrang now, an odd, indescribable ebb and warp that people retreat from quickly). Lol - I'm seriously lucky I have friends from growing up.
But that doesn't stop me from theorizing dynamic models of engagement with the collective as individuals. Changing curriculum at the moment is best. More purposely subversive entertainment (a la Bakker). Greater dissemination of practical and sustainable knowledge (permaculture, as is being highlighted in the thread), anything that leverages our time from monetary obligations, if we so choose.
Anyhow, just freestyling as always. I've been practicing stream-of-consciousness writing for so long, I think it has had a permanent affect on me.
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Hm... you must have read enough of my words to know I disagree, Royce. Certainly, focusing on one's self is paramount to 'healthy living' - I'm an avid, if sporadic, meditator. However, we aren't alone in the world. Our way of life, where some of us can enjoy the luxury of 'focusing on yourself,' is a minority experience. If I manage escape the poverty and impoverished agency of my youth, it'll have been through a dose of luck, certainly, but also major perseverance. Many others aren't so lucky and experience more obstacles in social mobility. I can't abide while a privileged and fearful minority manipulate the populace while destroying the world to better preserve themselves - especially, with the common experience of reality being transient as you highlight.
It was not my intention to give the impression that meditation could save a poor guy from starving. That is of course insane :). I am talking about people who are completely "trapped" in the game. Always wanting more and more, thinking they someday end up happy. It is possible to be happy without donating your existence to the machine. I think that if more and more people focused less on commodity and more on what you really want in life, the machine will eventually start to move slower. With so many brains involved, it seems unlikely that we can agree on a certain path, and that is why I am not so very positive when it comes to the future of the western empire. There should be no doubt that the West is an oligarchy, and for that to change, some kind of revolution has to come.
I'm reminded of Bill Hick's closing "it's just a ride," except I don't agree with refusing to play for good as a result of that cognitive mindset.
Completely agree with this.
My gripe arises from the idea that it seems impossible to attribute the better aspects of humanity to human agency itself. Whenever a person does, says, or writes something profound, we're so quick to attribute it to intervention - which is supreme BS, in my opinion. We should celebrate human accomplishment as human accomplishment before positing ridiculous fantasies because 'humans are inherently evil' or some such.
Yes, I have heard many people talking about their "muse", this being whispering into peoples ears profound sentences,harmonic tunes and what not.
I always want to scream at them "No, it was YOU who wrote that, please do not give the credit to some invisible angelic being that does not exist".
It is weird that we are so afraid of giving the credit to "humanness".
I could get an arguement that they might all think that they could never vote for something which then turns out to be bad.
But other than that, what do you mean?
I do not get what you are trying to say in that sentence. Sorry about that.
I guess I was trying to say that I do not believe that the current system of voting is working very well, unless you are rich. Does it matter who you vote for in an oligarchy? The whole system needs to go, the experiment needs to be shut down.
I might add that I like your idea of growing your own shit, instead of buying. It does give you an advantage. I practically live in the woods, so there is a lot of potential in growing herbs and vegetables. I have not quite started yet, but we have the greenhouse ready to go :)
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There should be no doubt that the West is an oligarchy, and for that to change, some kind of revolution has to come.
I believe.
I'm reminded of Bill Hick's closing "it's just a ride," except I don't agree with refusing to play for good as a result of that cognitive mindset.
Completely agree with this.
He tried speaking truth, in our limited capacity.
It is weird that we are so afraid of giving the credit to "humanness".
Super strange.
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Meant to mention this earlier, but I agree with you guys on the whole "give credit where its due" thing regarding humans. This also for me ties into the pseudo-pessimistic viewpoint that seems to be popular, even if I generally think it's more of a shallow, trend-following reaction rather than a carefully reasoned out perspective ("I don't want to live on this planet anymore," etc.). This, in turn, goes into line with the idea that the world is somehow worse now than it has ever been, and is getting even more horrible, and also the idea that humans are inevitably going to destroy ourselves. I think part of it is ironically fed, as I mentioned in my earlier re-post, by a sort of arrogance, and an insistence that humanity now is at some sort of "peak" (just as, say, the Romans thought), when in reality it's more likely to be just another random spot out of what may be an incredibly long history going forward.
Somewhat of a tangent here, but I remember being kinda pissed (and disappointed) when Stephen Hawking made that comment about how we should be afraid of alien life, since it's likely to be violent and aggressive, a conclusion he arrived at by looking at humanity's history. It pissed me off because I knew that since Hawking said it, a bunch of people (or more people than already do) would latch onto the concept thinking it suddenly has credence, and I was disappointed because it seemed like a really close-minded concept from someone that is otherwise clearly one of the most intelligent people in history. I just find the idea that advanced civilizations, or even ones near to the most advanced societies of our current time, are going to go around finding other life simply to war with it, is kind of...dumb. For starters, there's virtually no practical motive. Any resource on Earth (aside from life itself) can be found in abundance elsewhere in the universe. Beyond that though, I think using our own primitive history as a way of predicting how an advanced alien species might interact with us is almost hilariously shortsighted, not to mention anthropocentric (which is why I bring this topic up -- it's the same sort of "humans are inherently bad" viewpoint, only placed onto the entire universe). There's an incredibly vast difference between something like what happened between Spanish Conquistadores and the Aztecs, and what would happen between two spacefaring civilizations that likely were forced to travel incredible distance and overcome enormous technological hurdles just to meet each other in the first place. It also speaks to how modern civilizations act. We're hardly perfect by any means, but there's also a very notable effort to undo damage we've caused, and to conserve the preciousness of life, which a lot of folks tend to completely gloss over in these discussions. The important thing, too, is that these tendencies appear to grow more common as a civilization grows more developed and intelligent. I don't think it's going to suddenly stop, or turn the other way around.
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Is the ink still drying on the contract that both ensures that price remains the same as well as ensuring the income from another corporation is basically on tenure, James?
You seem really sure.
I have no idea, recipe is online though.
You may have a good point but I sold my soul to Skynet a long time ago.
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Then skynet owns nothing of you...
Francis,
I'm inclined to think the same as Hawking. The key factor being religion (no one really thinks of religious aliens, do they?), and not resources in the sense we think of. There's really not much point talking about how we try to repair the damage afterward - I'm sure any alien race is not going to be a hive mind and there will be quite different cultures amongst it who try to do different things than the zealots. Heck, earth could be in a designated 'preservation zone' right now for all we know?
But the thing is, if your first contact is with the zealots, and they can cross the stars, they've probably brought enough nukes with them to be the equivalent of a death star.
It's not just a question of how many murders there will be and then folks on both sides latter try and patch it up and feel bad about it together.
It's funny - I used to believe in UFO's/alien visits, 'like a calculator believes in numbers', I'd say - until I found how much people delude themselves (as well as the f ton of cameras around now but no footage). But now I wonder again, because pretty much all the stories I heard had the aliens acting in really quite batshit insane sorts of behaviours. Which isn't quite the way we make up stories, but would match with a self modifying race, post their own semantic apocalypse (oh, one of my pet theories was that the greys aren't aliens. Just time travelers)
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I think part of it is ironically fed, as I mentioned in my earlier re-post, by a sort of arrogance, and an insistence that humanity now is at some sort of "peak" (just as, say, the Romans thought), when in reality it's more likely to be just another random spot out of what may be an incredibly long history going forward.
Somewhat of a tangent here, but I remember being kinda pissed (and disappointed) when Stephen Hawking made that comment about how we should be afraid of alien life, since it's likely to be violent and aggressive, a conclusion he arrived at by looking at humanity's history . . . I just find the idea that advanced civilizations, or even ones near to the most advanced societies of our current time, are going to go around finding other life simply to war with it, is kind of...dumb. For starters, there's virtually no practical motive. Any resource on Earth (aside from life itself) can be found in abundance elsewhere in the universe. Beyond that though, I think using our own primitive history as a way of predicting how an advanced alien species might interact with us is almost hilariously shortsighted, not to mention anthropocentric (which is why I bring this topic up -- it's the same sort of "humans are inherently bad" viewpoint, only placed onto the entire universe) . . . We're hardly perfect by any means, but there's also a very notable effort to undo damage we've caused, and to conserve the preciousness of life, which a lot of folks tend to completely gloss over in these discussions. The important thing, too, is that these tendencies appear to grow more common as a civilization grows more developed and intelligent. I don't think it's going to suddenly stop, or turn the other way around.
I didn't know how to chop and quote this properly as I think I'm riffing off most of your post. The thoughts that come:
We experience preeminence in our personal lives. How can we not think all change a sheer drop?
I understand your reaction on Hawking's dissemination. I fear this is simply communicative laziness on his part (which I think I can forgive much more than mine own) but we never truly know what people are going to take from our words. The best we can do (which people don't - see the unfolding world) is construct our communications with rigor and care. Nothing goads me more than when that feeling of communication efficiency evaporates at the glazed and vacant stare remaining on a listener's face.
My guess was always that Hawking tried to use that idea as metaphor for a more-encompassing argument. Ultimately, his counsel is strategically warranted but there remains the fact that our social and technological growth is as much a beacon as is our searching at all (which may inherently require exposure).
We're an immature species, FB. It doesn't mean we can't work to be, qualitatively, better or different; proud of ourselves for once. If we're going to exist at all, we should always strive toward philosophic ideals. The more of us who embody and disseminate difference, the more we all can't help but change.
Perhaps, the empathic civilization is the next culmination?
The science is a little off (especially mirror neuron research is still very young, as Rifkin says, and the term is a placeholder) but still food for thought (also the full lecture from which this animation is generated from and the book by the same title are awesome, as well):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g
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Perhaps, the empathic civilization is the next culmination?
That is my hope ;)
It is very interesting to hear about these mirror neurons, and it shows at least that we have the potential to become the emphatic civilization.
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Perhaps, the empathic civilization is the next culmination?
That is my hope ;)
It is very interesting to hear about these mirror neurons, and it shows at least that we have the potential to become the emphatic civilization.
I don't think it was a conciously deliberate turning of empathic into emphatic, but I really like the lyracism of what would have been such a scathing reversal!
Empathic?
Or just emphatic?
Kinda like 'Justice or Just Us?'
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I don't think it was a conciously deliberate turning of empathic into emphatic, but I really like the lyracism of what would have been such a scathing reversal!
LMAO. It swear it was a simple misspelling! I did not even know emphatic meant something completely different until I looked it up just now :)
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The two things I DO believe in is love and family. IMO, those are the keys to a happy and successful life, despite whatever your culture tries to force feed you.
To be honest I am genuinely surprised that this "belief system" hasn't sent me in a downward spiral into deep depression. I like to think it is because I try to only focus on what I can control and deem important; I love unconditionally until someone proves to me I shouldn't and there is nothing that I wouldn't do for my family.
If I only measure myself with those two things, I can convince myself that I am happy and successful.
Edit: I meant to say Royce, English is my first language and I feel you have a better handle on how to use it than I do.
Humanity can cultivate a perspective of a global-human family.
Which "belief system" do you mean, your own? Or the versions force-fed in dissemination?
I originally meant my own belief system, but now in hind sight, I can pretty much be referring to either.
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I don't believe in belief.
And I'm surprised to see people on this site, of all places, that do.
I don't like the concept of belief very much. What exactly is it? Something you just decide is true, because... you want to? Or you want it to be?
I am yet to be convinced that anyone espousing any beliefs is doing so from some sort of objective neutral and rational point of decision making, totally uninfluenced by their neuro-physiology. As if we were autonomous subjects rather than creatures with brains infested by memes circulating the socius, getting off on the sensation of will and presence, or the opposite.
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I don't believe in belief.
And I'm surprised to see people on this site, of all places, that do.
I don't like the concept of belief very much. What exactly is it? Something you just decide is true, because... you want to? Or you want it to be?
I am yet to be convinced that anyone espousing any beliefs is doing so from some sort of objective neutral and rational point of decision making, totally uninfluenced by their neuro-physiology. As if we were autonomous subjects rather than creatures with brains infested by memes circulating the socius, getting off on the sensation of will and presence, or the opposite.
Sounds like you have some beliefs there.
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Yeah, but I don't believe I believe in them.
lol?
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I don't believe in belief.
Well, whether you believe or not is irrelevant. Every word that comes out of your mouth has some belief in them. Impossible to escape I am afraid.
The only way might be to silent, to never give your opinion on anything to anyone.
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Maybe.
I still think we should be sceptical about belief. I see to much of a post christian ethos in the idea that our beliefs have some power or truth. I don't want to just dress up my whims as if there's some sort of greatness to what is just circumstance and vanity.
Let's get back to some of the earlier ideas posted here about the empathetic civilization.
Doesn't this kind of assume that empathy would be in favour of life itself. What about an empathy that saw death as the only reprieve? Is it not possible to have a kind of empathy that sees destruction as the only possible mercy? I think maybe this is more realistic than the idea that we are all going to have some moment of reconnection with each other where our self interest aligns with everyone else's.
Any of the people I've met IRL that espouse empathy have a suspicious tendency to do so almost exclusively for events and stories presented to them in the media.
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What about an empathy that saw death as the only reprieve? Is it not possible to have a kind of empathy that sees destruction as the only possible mercy? I think maybe this is more realistic than the idea that we are all going to have some moment of reconnection with each other where our self interest aligns with everyone else's.
Do you mean the destruction of humans? of all living things? I can`t see what the point is really. If everyone on the planet was ruled by an iron fist from another galaxy, and every single being was enslaved and tortured on a daily basis, maybe then death would be considered an empathic act. We are not quite there yet, and I just have to be a bit positive that humanity can change for the better and improve life, instead of enslaving it. To keep myself from crashing down in a deep depression, I have to believe that empathy towards all things can actually be crucial for our survival as a species.
Those mirror neurons that Ramachandran is describing is fascinating. Check it out.
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How can life be improved? The only thing that's EVER done it has been material conditions. Energy, shelter, food. Not some inner truth or empathy or something. Still, the only measure of improvement we have had so far has been to go from a position of starvation and war for all to only for some (but in higher numbers) and death through over consumption for the 1st worlders.
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If John Gray was posting here, he'd tell you that maybe you should chose that depression instead.
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How can life be improved?
Well,by caring more about everyone instead of the few would be a start. Erase the idea of profit, make the leaders do their own killing, get rid of national states, borders, everything that causes a division between people.
Utopic? yes, will this improve life? do not know. I do believe that making lives less hellish for others is improvement on a grand scale.
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All of those ideas are the fervently believed principles of the hegemonic global order. Nothing controversial there. Would like to know how getting rid of borders (not physically I presume?) is going to bring people together, or how some moment where we all decide that we now care about each other and everythings great is even a coherent idea.
I'm happy to play the role of the "one who holds impure intentions" if that helps.
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I agree, not controversial at all.
Do you disagree though? No matter what we try, nothing will change for the better?
Should we all just lay down and stare at a hopeless and meaningless existence? let that darkness swallow us whole, and make us more angry and hostile?
I choose not to live that way. It is a choice.
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It's not about us or what we do. It's about what is.
If a large enough asteroid had collided with the earth at any point in its history we wouldn't be here. If commercial fusion reactors come online soon, there would be a certain amount of power. I'm not interested in humans or their moral vanity, which is nothing but a lure or excuse for their evil, or the promise things will get better which they won't. What is and what exists independently of us is the realm we might look to intervene in for some sort of refuge and a more civilized death. What is out there - that's what can have some sort or liberatory affect, that's the only thing that can do so. We can't be saved, we can't have meaning, teleology, or the vanity of our good intentions as anything other than chimera. We can die differently. We can DISCONNECT the social body further. We can be more alone, less dependent on each other and more on other things. We could live and die in total isolation with the technological capability to minimize our reliance and interaction with each other, to have access to a humane form of death at anytime we wish, to have all the resources and technical skills to endlessly alter and explore our bodies. We could have more moments of solitude, something resembling peace or at least acceptance of depression. I don't think aiming much higher than this is a good idea.
I am disgusted by this endless search for some sort of inner revelation in which we pull a solution to our pointless lives out of our asses and realize the answer was the good intentions of our limited anthropomorphic perspective after all and it's all gonna be cool now cos we WANT it to be and that HAS to mean SOMETHING!
Is anyone prepared to wonder if that type of thinking, which is post christianity through and through, isn't functioning as a kind of denial mechanism that tries and FAILS to abate a massive depression and exhaustion with the futility and sad symbolic rules of the game we're all currently playing with each other?
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It's not about us or what we do. It's about what is.
What you are is what is. You're never going to transcend the limits of your flawed human perspective. You're never going to have a godlike 100% objective understanding of existence. Every thought in your head, ever, is a result of processes outside your control. Live with it.
You can either resign yourself to your fate of being human (with all the limitations that come with it) and try to have a happy and positive life regardless, or you can can obsess over the existential pointlessness of it all and end up drooling in a lunatic asylum (Nietzsche) or bitterly ranting about YOUR BRAIN IS ALWAYS DECEIVED, SEMANTIC ARMAGEDDON IS COMING on a blog (Bakker).
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You can shove your happy and positive life up your permanently grinning asshole.
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I know by saying so I am mentally ill/criminal and deserve locked up with SSRI's and tortured with condescension and self help hectoring until I commit suicide and it really makes you like appreciate the beautiful things in life you know? But still, sorry, just for once I'm not going to play ball.
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Also, the semantic apocalypse is already here and it was a physical illness that affected Nietzsche, not the consequences of his philosophy.
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And its funny that you extrapolate god like objectivity from my position which is the precise fucking opposite. That all that is actually there is what matters and not how we perceive it at all. And only the way we interact with, or rather, the way it interacts with us, is going to lead to any kind of civility.
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I'm not interested in...the promise things will get better which they won't.
Aww, I thought you were arguing against 'Hey, get out there and work, work, work! And it'll all get better!' spouted by those who profit a great deal from all that work (and put others to work at propergating that idea).
James, I'd dig if you are against how the one currency (money) drags us all into one party line or something.
But I mean, what did you eat this morning, eh? If you're all 'fuck happyness' while your sustaining yourself with some self supplied food and shelter resources, okay, that's challenging!
Otherwise it sounds like you're hanging off the same teat as the rest of us, but think yelling at your fellow monkeys somehow means you are coming from somewhere else entirely.
Where is your somewhere else, and precisely how much yelling does it take to suddenly be coming from there?
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On other matters: That mirror neurons talk, in regards to there being no empathy in heaven - that kinda tied into me Earwa theory and that its a far future thing. Why did they leave everyone to fall back to a dark ages life, then? Because empathy was so highly prized - they hadda leave everyone in the gutter, so as to maintain its presence.
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james, I'm not sure I really care either way but the option was there to modify your first post before another post shows up rather than post four in a row.
To wring some sense out of this for myself:
I don't like the concept of belief very much. What exactly is it? Something you just decide is true, because... you want to? Or you want it to be?
I am yet to be convinced that anyone espousing any beliefs is doing so from some sort of objective neutral and rational point of decision making, totally uninfluenced by their neuro-physiology. As if we were autonomous subjects rather than creatures with brains infested by memes circulating the socius, getting off on the sensation of will and presence, or the opposite.
I think you were responding generally to the thread (and to be honest, this thread was a reasoned version of what it might had been had we included population samples outside Bakker readership) but I will respond for myself.
I could narrate to you all the ways I've discovered, so far, that others come before me. But when all that is described I would probably suggest that I do decide a few items to be my beliefs (as opposed to the stuff, which clearly moved and shaped me before I had recognition of the forces at work) and that all my beliefs do for me, personally, is sometimes motivate me to embody practices, behaviors, that will shape me into the person I am aiming to be in my life.
And then messy life comes back, knocks my intentions out, and then I deal as best I can.
What's more, I'd probably go on to say that at this time, the evidence I've been exposed to suggests that all I'm doing is cultivating novel patterns (schema) of neuroarchitecture in order to change habitual behaviors. Carving the meat, as it were.
Let's get back to some of the earlier ideas posted here about the empathetic civilization.
Doesn't this kind of assume that empathy would be in favour of life itself. What about an empathy that saw death as the only reprieve? Is it not possible to have a kind of empathy that sees destruction as the only possible mercy? I think maybe this is more realistic than the idea that we are all going to have some moment of reconnection with each other where our self interest aligns with everyone else's.
Any of the people I've met IRL that espouse empathy have a suspicious tendency to do so almost exclusively for events and stories presented to them in the media.
We all have bad examples and are bad examples, sometimes. The best metaphor (metaphor) I can use is karma, the idea that if you do good, good comes back to you. Personally, I think this is actually an acute observation of sociocultural mechanism. I can frown or smile at people as I walk or skate the streets, I can hold doors, I can hold my tongue, etc, etc, ad nauseam. Or I can be loud and abravise, wear the scary, don't fuck with face, rudely and ruthlessly accomplish everything I want, in every petty moment. From my link in the chain, even these simple behaviors radiate from each of us - in my case, the way I behave further shapes how people view students, young-adults, the poor, as I am visibly each of these things. Not mention how others use there interactions with me as an individual to justify other actions.
I don't actually think I had to explain any of that here. To your point, I can imagine assisted suicide being empathy. I personally would love to get to a place where individuals aren't put in the position (because they are healthy) where they want death to be the only option.
It's not about us or what we do. It's about what is.
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I am disgusted by this endless search for some sort of inner revelation in which we pull a solution to our pointless lives out of our asses and realize the answer was the good intentions of our limited anthropomorphic perspective after all and it's all gonna be cool now cos we WANT it to be and that HAS to mean SOMETHING!
Is anyone prepared to wonder if that type of thinking, which is post christianity through and through, isn't functioning as a kind of denial mechanism that tries and FAILS to abate a massive depression and exhaustion with the futility and sad symbolic rules of the game we're all currently playing with each other?
I think that this thinking is a product of accepting human sociocultural organization as it stands. Change has to be attempted first before we can use defeat as a reason to quit (and even then I'd counsel otherwise).
I'm not advocating any divine or alien revelations. I'm suggesting that we choose to act differently.
What you are is what is. You're never going to transcend the limits of your flawed human perspective. You're never going to have a godlike 100% objective understanding of existence. Every thought in your head, ever, is a result of processes outside your control. Live with it.
I think we can become relatively less flawed? Certainly, to me it seems, that we can become more capable and skillful in using our brain/body unit.
I know by saying so I am mentally ill/criminal and deserve locked up with SSRI's and tortured with condescension and self help hectoring until I commit suicide and it really makes you like appreciate the beautiful things in life you know? But still, sorry, just for once I'm not going to play ball.
james, this is the place to not play ball. It's welcomed, I think.
And you live in a country that quells dissent with the time-honoured tradition of Insane Asylums. It is unfortunate.
I do doubt that any of us thought that is what should be done with your opinions. I, for one, enjoy your perspective immensely. I simply wish you might tailor it towards action, expression.
For instance, I know a number of people who advocate against Social Services here in Canada for leaving children with dark creatures - people who had themselves been wronged and worked to change the structure of the system. It's not ideal but it is an option and an exercise of our limited agency.
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The concept of karma you've mentioned is the bastardized western version. The original concept of karma is not about doing good in order for good things to happen to you. The goal is to have ZERO karma.
All this stuff about nice small gestures - I don't buy it. It's like the idea that if a person does one good thing or has one good characteristic they are somehow redeemed. Do I have to spell out what western cultural phenomenon this is descended from again?
I don't buy "choice", I don't buy any notion that we are going to redeem ourselves with some sudden moment where we realign our priorities. I don't believe it is peoples failure to desire the right way that makes them evil.
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The concept of karma you've mentioned is the bastardized western version. The original concept of karma is not about doing good in order for good things to happen to you. The goal is to have ZERO karma.
Personally, I think this is actually an acute observation of sociocultural mechanism.
I'm working my way, way back from negative, so it's moot point, regardless.
All this stuff about nice small gestures - I don't buy it. It's like the idea that if a person does one good thing or has one good characteristic they are somehow redeemed. Do I have to spell out what western cultural phenomenon this is descended from again?
I don't buy "choice", I don't buy any notion that we are going to redeem ourselves with some sudden moment where we realign our priorities. I don't believe it is peoples failure to desire the right way that makes them evil.
You don't have to think anything about my choices. I am mostly a product of my environment - whatever describing words I give those predeterminations. I don't want redemption nor do I care about it. I care about what I am, or 'this machine in this place is,' doing here and now and how that affects all the entities, known and unknown, matter and immaterial, in our consensual hallucinations.
The reasons I've chosen to act put me at a difference from the actions of others, 'chosen or not.'
Thoughts?
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Fine, but you're bringing it back to individual persons when all I'm interested in is ideas in general.
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redemption is an odd prosthesis to moral doctrine, a commercial or financial concept, much like salvation, ain't it? (corollary damnation is a legal concept, as expressed for instance in the ancient doctrine of damnum absque iniuria.)
exactly what is it that needs repurchased, anyway?
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Fine, but you're bringing it back to individual persons when all I'm interested in is ideas in general.
I'm unclear. Which part can I generalize on in particular? And beyond describing the futility or efficacy of certain beliefs over others, what is it I concede based on our generalizations?
exactly what is it that needs repurchased, anyway?
Maybe it harkens back to reclaiming the garden idealization?
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yeah, as though one were whole at the point of origin and then traded away essentials for mere ephemera. you were granted purity of virtue, but you sold it for a momentary backseat blowjob. sin! you were given clean sobriety, but you exchanged it for mere seconds of crack euphoria. sin!
it's odd. you traded it, but you shouldn't have. it was not yours, really, to trade away. the property implications are bizarre. virtue is not quiritary, not allodial, not even held in fee simple absolute. more like a lease, with many punitive conditions subsequent--as in the lease agreement in eden before the eating of the FotToKoG&E.
the implication is kinda ugly: moral doctrine as double-entry bookkeeping, but the account only and always depletes. progress is only the advancement of decay of the origin. it is a nasty, barbaric pessimism, contrary to the economic concepts that it uses.
anyway, EAMD, &c.
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Lol - redemption as fiat currency. Brilliant, solo.
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Heh, good stuff Solo!
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I don't know what you're conceding. My point was just that you are bringing it back to you, whereas I am not interested in attacking people, just ideas. But if you want to know about 'me':
I don't see myself as having any choices at all, at least not intellectually. Sure, I experience it as this, sure, I have determinants - I will not do this and that ever again, I resolve not to do this etc. But I never see myself as being in a situation where I pre exist the world and can alter it with my decisions. I drift in a perpetually baffled flux. That resolution to quit smoking succeeds until it doesn't, and when it doesn't I at least know that there is data in my brain that future technology will be able to interpret and even intervene in. But ideas still affect us all, ideas still unconsciously influence me, and it is a rare and lucky moment when I truly realize this. I will continue to loudly and aggressively sneer and annoy others by pointing out how their unconsciously held beliefs are unexamined post christian biases.
I think I understand what Sologdin is saying, except the abbreviations.
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resolution to quit smoking succeeds until it doesn't
nifty example. i just went without cigarettes for a month, until job became a 100-hour week marathon for a while.
the cool thing is that the words of the resolution remain true, even though the facts of non-smoking are null. these resolutions make actual facts fictive by their pronouncement (is that austin's illocutionary act, or jakobson's poetic function, maybe): the resolution is spoken, and, though normally indifferent to the words of men, the world listens.
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My job now involves selling electronic cigarettes. Highly recommended, a good quality one with the right oil has about 4 ingredients compared to the hundreds of unnecessary ones in regular tobacco.
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My job now involves selling electronic cigarettes.
how about some electronic mushrooms?
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Good idea. A unit that could scan wild pickings and detect toxicity, then perhaps grind and pulp them so drops of the psychoactive ingredients could gather in a small container.
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Yes, no more endless wandering to find it, and less vomiting too :)
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I don't know what you're conceding. My point was just that you are bringing it back to you, whereas I am not interested in attacking people, just ideas. But if you want to know about 'me':
I don't see myself as having any choices at all, at least not intellectually. Sure, I experience it as this, sure, I have determinants - I will not do this and that ever again, I resolve not to do this etc. But I never see myself as being in a situation where I pre exist the world and can alter it with my decisions. I drift in a perpetually baffled flux. That resolution to quit smoking succeeds until it doesn't, and when it doesn't I at least know that there is data in my brain that future technology will be able to interpret and even intervene in. But ideas still affect us all, ideas still unconsciously influence me, and it is a rare and lucky moment when I truly realize this. I will continue to loudly and aggressively sneer and annoy others by pointing out how their unconsciously held beliefs are unexamined post christian biases.
I think I understand what Sologdin is saying, except the abbreviations.
My bad. I meant to communicate that I'm having a hard time generalizing from what you are saying; if I summed up what I think you are trying to generalize, I find myself confused.
Also, by predeterminates, I meant, we could bulletpoint where we were brought up, who did the rearing, the experiences that shape you, etc, before we realized that they were predetermining us.
resolution to quit smoking succeeds until it doesn't
nifty example. i just went without cigarettes for a month, until job became a 100-hour week marathon for a while.
the cool thing is that the words of the resolution remain true, even though the facts of non-smoking are null. these resolutions make actual facts fictive by their pronouncement (is that austin's illocutionary act, or jakobson's poetic function, maybe): the resolution is spoken, and, though normally indifferent to the words of men, the world listens.
So neither of you think that unhealthy habits can be changed or replaced? Those coalescing random forces were always going to make you a smoker? (Semi-aside, I think changing from smoking to vaporizing is nearly as healthy a choice as moving from smoking to quitting).
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Well, we now have evidence that certain individuals have a genetic disposition to being able to easily quit smoking.
I can tell you for a fact that the last 3 times I've quit, about 6-9 months later I end up in bed with an unspeakable depression and extremely odd sensations in my body. I relent and go smoke and feel a kind of anxious relief. Choice? This has nothing to do with it. Proper scans of my brain and body could determine what is going on. Whenever I quit, I do so and within a few days I no longer even REMEMBER I ever smoked, there is no temptation, I don't even think about it. Then the depression comes. It's a mixture of extreme mental shut down and agony with disturbingly pleasurable sensations all throughout my body. I don't know what the fuck is going on, but it will be understood by science eventually. It is that intolerable that the only sane and sensible thing to do is to have a cigarette. Last time it happened and I had my first smoke, I felt a rush throughout my entire body and my fucking POSTURE and style of walking changed dramatically. This is how much these things have affected my body.
The thing is - the forces may be chaotic but they are DISCERNIBLE - we know that now. I may agonizingly switch between resolutions to quit, terror that I won't be able to, the desire just to say fuck it, shame at said desire etc. etc. but ultimately these are all manifestations of internal physiological processes.
And I agree with you about e-cigs, they genuinely are fantastic.
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madness--
my position is that one can quit smoking, for example--but that transformation will have a chain of causality. we can shorthand that as "will," though i think that is mystificatory to the extent it implies no causality other than otherwise uncaused volition.
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Science could probably explain it now.
The only counterargument I can make is that you aren't replacing what has been a constant activation for your brain. And I mean, you might have already altered your brain past the point of returning to the innate homeostasis (the brain will usually stablize at a new homeostasis until ultimately there is a crash) but I don't buy that.
I'm struggling with an analogy. But ultimately, the more we indulge habits, especially one's which introduce exogenous chemicals into the body's system, the more we ingrain patterns of activation, which the brain changes to facilitate processing. This is partially why quitting anything cold turkey can cause such problems for people.
Also, the 'choice' conversation is only one aspect of this belief discussion and the other generalities you're trying to articulate. I'm interested, I just don't seem to get the themes in your words.
madness--
my position is that one can quit smoking, for example--but that transformation will have a chain of causality. we can shorthand that as "will," though i think that is mystificatory to the extent it implies no causality other than otherwise uncaused volition.
I inherently agree but I'm fighting for a moment of leverage, I think. Lol, I just wrote about four or five different sentences to try and offer an alternative - unlikely.
Not to bring it back to the individual, exclusively, but I can't digest that I'm predestined to have an outrageous life as the Crier of the Real. It seems unlikely that I was always going to make this commentary about how by believing we have free will generates more instances of making the world a less dismal place than by believing we don't have free will.
Hrm. Deep thoughts.
It brings me back to the idea that I just can't, I won't, excuse people who do shitty things and then suggest that they're predetermined to be dicks.
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And I agree with you about e-cigs, they genuinely are fantastic.
Always freaks me when the guy takes a drag right in the middle of games club, then I smell the absence of smell. It's like listening to shave and a hair cut, without the two bits. You're hurting my sense of aesthetics man! Think of the aesthetic children!
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So neither of you think that unhealthy habits can be changed or replaced? Those coalescing random forces were always going to make you a smoker? (Semi-aside, I think changing from smoking to vaporizing is nearly as healthy a choice as moving from smoking to quitting).
To be honest that sounds more along the lines of alchoholism - you don't stop being an alchoholic, you just become an alcholic who doesn't drink.
I'm not sure if it genuinely, mechanically works that way. But it may be a strong feedback loop does build itself in the brain - and maybe that doesn't get dismantled. Only, at best, ignored.
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it's odd. you traded it, but you shouldn't have. it was not yours, really, to trade away.
What's interesting is how you think it's yours - until you impune it. Then the truth of the matter is you didn't own it?
Why leave the impression of owning?
It's a bit like giving a present to someone, until they do something with it you don't like, then saying you never gave it to them. Just to the person who would have done with it exactly as you would have done. It's very prima donna-ish - like in table top roleplay where one player tries to tell another player what their PC would do.
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Is anyone prepared to wonder if that type of thinking, which is post christianity through and through, isn't functioning as a kind of denial mechanism that tries and FAILS to abate a massive depression and exhaustion with the futility and sad symbolic rules of the game we're all currently playing with each other?
Do you mean members of the Western empire? Or are humans globally fighting to abate depression everywhere?
Just going to throw something out there, and please arrest me in regards of numbers, they might be wrong.
Maybe the futility many people feel, comes from a mass confusion. We can`t just dismiss that for 99% of our existence as homo sapiens, we have been hunter-gatherers. The civilized/modern man is a brand new concept, and we have suddenly removed ourselves completely from hunting and gathering. Instead we buy everything. Maybe this phase of transition is what causes this massive confusion of meaning and lack there of.
We have existed for 250000 years as homo sapiens, and for a couple of hundred years of those, we have been civilized and modern. That is a blink of an eye in regards to how long we have been primitive beings. To me it is not weird that we have trouble coping with how fast we are changing our way of life.
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Instead we buy everything. Maybe this phase of transition is what causes this massive confusion of meaning and lack there of.
Pure rubbish! Now I'm off to buy a video game where I go into a dungeon, slay beasts and bring back treasure!
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Pure rubbish! Now I'm off to buy a video game where I go into a dungeon, slay beasts and bring back treasure!
Lol.
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A river comes to the desert and says "Oh my, how am I going to cross that desert?" The sky says, "it is easy. You just wait a while
and bit by bit your molecules drift up to the sky and they become clouds. Then they will travel over the desert and on the other side
they will come down and form another river". The river said, "I do not think I like that. I do not want to stop being a river. How do I
know I will get to be a river again once I get up there and get to be a cloud?" I will be something entirely different and it frightens
me. I do not want to go through that". The desert says, "does not matter whether you like it or not, that is what is going to happen.
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A man watches a river and a desert talking. He swears off the drugs!
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A man watches a river and a desert talking. He swears off the drugs!
Lol, it is a old sufi story, so drugs may be involved yes.
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A man watches a river and a desert talking. He swears off the drugs!
Lol, it is a old sufi story, so drugs may be involved yes.
I think that story touches the heart of how I feel about any afterlife sort of explanation, where something of the self survives. This idea that the self is a singular, indivisible unit and that 'you' might ascend to some other plane looks like fuckin' insanity if you see this image of unity as one of the many illusions the brain foists upon itself. If you're angry one moment and calm a day later, is one of those selves any more accurate a representation of you than the other? If the calm you is more accurate, where did that anger go, and why did it seem like 'you' in the moment? I don't see 'me' as anything other than a composite.
So...which part ascends? And how is it still 'me', if it sloughs off all those other, observably neurological bits? Hell, memory seems pretty solidly physical from our explorations, and we all know how the nonmen turn out when they forget...
Even if there's some vaguely-defined electromagnetic field ejected from my meatship upon death and occasionally reinserted in some newborn meatship, that is surely so alien to what I consider my 'self' as to need a new word entirely to describe it. It's certainly not the me I'm familiar with.
EDIT: also reminds me of the idea that the same man can't wade through the same river twice, as it's a different man and different river. Is that zen? Buddhist? Native american? Does this darkness come before matter, if truth shines?
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Well said Wic :)
EDIT: also reminds me of the idea that the same man can't wade through the same river twice, as it's a different man and different river. Is that zen? Buddhist? Native american? Does this darkness come before matter, if truth shines?
It is all of those combined, also known as Wicism?:)