The Rhetoric of Philosophy Now's Forum

[Iwannaplato]

you have just, ONCE AGAIN' SHOWN your absolute INABILITY (dot dot dot)

My fate is uselessness. Must you rub it in?

What we have here is a lovely display of the new rhetorical devices (listed in this thread) vs. classical, passé rhetorical devices such as irony. Unfortunately irony is missed by many people which is why it is considered unmodern and frowned upon.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Some musings . . .

you have just, ONCE AGAIN' SHOWN your absolute INABILITY (dot dot dot)

My fate is uselessness. Must you rub it in?

What we have here is a lovely display of the new rhetorical devices (listed in this thread) vs. classical, passé rhetorical devices such as irony. Unfortunately irony is missed by many people which is why it is considered unmodern and frowned upon.

I am unsure how to *answer the charges* brought out in this thread. That is, how I measure my own culpability.

It is irony but it is also mockery. It is an attempt, when the frontal approach has failed, to yet communicate something. To make a point. And, of course, doing so enables one to feel that one has remained on top
in some sense. Though sometimes I have (personally) interpreted it as maintaining one's integrity, odd and contradictory as it may seem.

However, I always return to what I perceive as the *core of the core*: we can no longer talk because agreements have broken down. Am I wrong? I am uncertain. Am I exaggerating? Again I do not think so but clear certainly is hard to come by. I read a wide range of material and I check in to many different sites on the Internet. The 'new normal' is just that: a widening chasm between people and how they view and interpret things. They -- or we if you wish -- can no longer agree on fundamentals. So when you come face-to-face with someone (myself face-to-face with IC for example) and you see that you cannot and you will not be able to come to an agreement, I think it tends to turn one back on oneself in a strange way. Perhaps it is good, at least in some sense. But in another sense it is not good at all. If communication fails, and if you sense that it has failed widely, really you must face the fact that you are FUCKED.

Then there is the other element, but how can it be talked about? When you sense that someone you are talking with is *not quite right in their head*. Ah but that leads to other introspective self-interrogations: Am I actually and verifiably *right in my head*? And the answer is perhaps a Buddhist one (one that I have heard from many Buddhists who believe that the mind itself is a bughouse). The mind is (to borrow an Iambiguous term) 'fractured & fragmented'. The practicing Buddhist (I am not one) has an advantage and it is that he can *sit* (as they say) and 'watch the mind' that carries on like "a circus mind that's running" to quote Jimi Hendrix in Little Wing (though a very different context). While I think I have my affairs, mental and other, under control, the fact of the matter is I do not have, and cannot achieve, much of a degree of certainty about the so-called fundamental questions. Do things get clearer or do they get more cloudy, more murky, more problematic?

In this environment (this is my impression) I do believe that people, perhaps those who are weaker or perhaps more sensitive (?) actually go nuts. They populate the streets and the public sidewalks. They come out of the woodwork and show themselves. They become *painfully visible*. I have had that impression about some of the forums I've been on.

I do not conceal then that I have been musing not on open mental illness but rather on intellectual neurosis as I have been pondering Iambiguous's revelation and outlining of his stance. And for this reason refer to *outcomes* when the sense of a solid ground has been ripped out from under one -- and here I do mean 'us'. Similarly though, I could only say that I also see IC as having 'developed strategies' to hold on to sanity, and order, and a sense of continuity in the Universe and the Kosmos, through mental, intellectual, ideational and spiritual gymnastics.

Maybe there is nothing else to do?

An unrelated but related note: in today's NYTs there is a philosophical/cosmological article:

Who Will Have the Last Word on the Universe? / Modern science suggests that we and all our achievements and memories are destined to vanish like a dream. Is that sad or good?

In the end, if this dark energy prevails, distant galaxies will eventually be speeding away so fast that we can’t see them anymore. The more time goes on, the less we will know about the universe. The stars will die and not be reborn. It will be like living inside an inside-out black hole, sucking matter, energy and information over the horizon, never to return.

Worse, because thinking takes energy, eventually there will not be enough energy in the universe to hold a thought. In the end there will only be subatomic particles dancing intergalactic distances away from each other in a dark silence, trillions upon trillions of years after there was any light or life in the universe. And then, more uncountable trillions of eons to come, until there is finally no way to count the years, as Brian Greene, the popular Columbia University theorist and author, so elegantly and devastatingly described it in his recent book, “Until the End of Time.”

It’s hard not to want to scream at our own insignificance in all of this. If this is, in fact, what the universe will come to. The universe as we know it is now 14 billion years old, which seems like a long time but is only an infinitesimal sliver of the trillions and quadrillions of years of darkness to come. It will mean that everything interesting in our universe happened in a brief flash, at the very beginning. A promising start, and then an eternal abyss. The finality and futility of it all!

In short, a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. What do we do with a universe like this?

[Perhaps only Will Bouwman has the thread of an answer? Will, are you there?! What say you?]

It is odd, at least as I see things, to read the Times as I do and see so much confusion, people and ideas so twisted-up and yet they pretend to be *normal* and also *well*, but the back-drop of 'their world', and the World and indeed the Cosmos, is effectively an impossible place.

That idea is what stopped me short. It had never occurred to me that some individual being would have the last word on existence, the last chance to curse or be grateful. Part of the pain is that nobody will know who, or what, had the last word, or what was thought or said. Somehow that notion made cosmic extinction more personal, and I wondered what it would be like.

[Alexis Jacobi]

…

[Dubious]

It has become evermore debatable what comes first in the arrangement of things, intelligence or artificial intelligence or whether the latter isn't, as a DNA based entity, a necessary precursor of the former. Most people are nothing more than walking functions; who says AI can't accomplish at least that much?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Uh-oh, Age! Better watch it!

[Iwannaplato]

I am unsure how to *answer the charges* brought out in this thread. That is, how I measure my own culpability.

Oh, it was a nice use of irony, so you're 'guilty.' While collecting devices for this list, I realized a number applied to me. I don't think they form the core of my posting, but it still wasn't pleasant to notice them. Though also, in another way, pleasant.

However, I always return to what I perceive as the *core of the core*: we can no longer talk because agreements have broken down. Am I wrong? I am uncertain. Am I exaggerating? Again I do not think so but clear certainly is hard to come by. I read a wide range of material and I check in to many different sites on the Internet. The 'new normal' is just that: a widening chasm between people and how they view and interpret things. They -- or we if you wish -- can no longer agree on fundamentals. So when you come face-to-face with someone (myself face-to-face with IC for example) and you see that you cannot and you will not be able to come to an agreement, I think it tends to turn one back on oneself in a strange way. Perhaps it is good, at least in some sense. But in another sense it is not good at all. If communication fails, and if you sense that it has failed widely, really you must face the fact that you are FUCKED.

I don't think it's easy to find a useful conversation in forums. You have to work.

Then there is the other element, but how can it be talked about? When you sense that someone you are talking with is *not quite right in their head*. Ah but that leads to other introspective self-interrogations: Am I actually and verifiably *right in my head*? And the answer is perhaps a Buddhist one (one that I have heard from many Buddhists who believe that the mind itself is a bughouse). The mind is (to borrow an Iambiguous term) 'fractured & fragmented'. The practicing Buddhist (I am not one) has an advantage and it is that he can *sit* (as they say) and 'watch the mind' that carries on like "a circus mind that's running" to quote Jimi Hendrix in Little Wing (though a very different context). While I think I have my affairs, mental and other, under control, the fact of the matter is I do not have, and cannot achieve, much of a degree of certainty about the so-called fundamental questions. Do things get clearer or do they get more cloudy, more murky, more problematic?

Buddhist disidentified with their thoughts and their emotions. I have sympathy for thinking this is the only thing to do, but it's a bit like cutting off your legs because you think bad sportmanship is inevitable in football (soccer).

In this environment (this is my impression) I do believe that people, perhaps those who are weaker or perhaps more sensitive (?) actually go nuts. They populate the streets and the public sidewalks. They come out of the woodwork and show themselves. They become *painfully visible*. I have had that impression about some of the forums I've been on.

I do not conceal then that I have been musing not on open mental illness but rather on intellectual neurosis as I have been pondering Iambiguous's revelation and outlining of his stance. And for this reason refer to *outcomes* when the sense of a solid ground has been ripped out from under one -- and here I do mean 'us'. Similarly though, I could only say that I also see IC as having 'developed strategies' to hold on to sanity, and order, and a sense of continuity in the Universe and the Kosmos, through mental, intellectual, ideational and spiritual gymnastics.

I don't know. I can only speculate on people's tactics and what this seems to mean they are trying and avoiding in their posts. I mean, there's a new poster about whom I wonder a bit: not intelligent, simply stubborn and clueless, trolling and quite conscious of what they are doing. I tend to think number 2, but who knows.

Maybe there is nothing else to do?

An unrelated but related note: in today's NYTs there is a philosophical/cosmological article:

Who Will Have the Last Word on the Universe? / Modern science suggests that we and all our achievements and memories are destined to vanish like a dream. Is that sad or good?

In the end, if this dark energy prevails, distant galaxies will eventually be speeding away so fast that we can’t see them anymore. The more time goes on, the less we will know about the universe. The stars will die and not be reborn. It will be like living inside an inside-out black hole, sucking matter, energy and information over the horizon, never to return.

Worse, because thinking takes energy, eventually there will not be enough energy in the universe to hold a thought. In the end there will only be subatomic particles dancing intergalactic distances away from each other in a dark silence, trillions upon trillions of years after there was any light or life in the universe. And then, more uncountable trillions of eons to come, until there is finally no way to count the years, as Brian Greene, the popular Columbia University theorist and author, so elegantly and devastatingly described it in his recent book, “Until the End of Time.”

It’s hard not to want to scream at our own insignificance in all of this.

Well, now you're getting into a good Iambiguous headspace.

If this is, in fact, what the universe will come to. The universe as we know it is now 14 billion years old, which seems like a long time but is only an infinitesimal sliver of the trillions and quadrillions of years of darkness to come. It will mean that everything interesting in our universe happened in a brief flash, at the very beginning. A promising start, and then an eternal abyss. The finality and futility of it all!

In short, a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. What do we do with a universe like this?

I have humbler goals each day. I wouldn't give up on solving the whole thing, but I have to get past some more mundance obstacles first.

[Perhaps only Will Bouwman has the thread of an answer? Will, are you there?! What say you?]

Well, that's be lovely.

It is odd, at least as I see things, to read the Times as I do and see so much confusion, people and ideas so twisted-up and yet they pretend to be *normal* and also *well*, but the back-drop of 'their world', and the World and indeed the Cosmos, is effectively an impossible place.

I can't say I have found worklife the easiest or most satisfying set of experiences. And I find it even more disturbing when alcoholics or half insane people seem to stress about work less that I do AND manage to be successful.

That idea is what stopped me short. It had never occurred to me that some individual being would have the last word on existence, the last chance to curse or be grateful. Part of the pain is that nobody will know who, or what, had the last word, or what was thought or said. Somehow that notion made cosmic extinction more personal, and I wondered what it would be like.

I figure it cannot hurt to express myself directly to the whole thing. And bluntly, sometimes even just with sound.
Dialogue, when I can, regardless.

[Dubious]

Uh-oh, Age! Better watch it!

What makes you think you're so different? The fact is that intelligence need not be DNA based. That brings into play a considerable number of factors with the potential to create it.

[Dubious]

In the end, if this dark energy prevails, distant galaxies will eventually be speeding away so fast that we can’t see them anymore. The more time goes on, the less we will know about the universe. The stars will die and not be reborn. It will be like living inside an inside-out black hole, sucking matter, energy and information over the horizon, never to return.

Worse, because thinking takes energy, eventually there will not be enough energy in the universe to hold a thought. In the end there will only be subatomic particles dancing intergalactic distances away from each other in a dark silence, trillions upon trillions of years after there was any light or life in the universe. And then, more uncountable trillions of eons to come, until there is finally no way to count the years, as Brian Greene, the popular Columbia University theorist and author, so elegantly and devastatingly described it in his recent book, “Until the End of Time.”

It’s hard not to want to scream at our own insignificance in all of this. If this is, in fact, what the universe will come to. The universe as we know it is now 14 billion years old, which seems like a long time but is only an infinitesimal sliver of the trillions and quadrillions of years of darkness to come. It will mean that everything interesting in our universe happened in a brief flash, at the very beginning. A promising start, and then an eternal abyss. The finality and futility of it all!

In short, a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. What do we do with a universe like this?

Live in it since you're only a miniscule fraction of the cosmic calendar and the whole human race long gone before the end sets in. Even if the universe subsists forever that doesn't mean that anything within must be equal to it. If everything existing is limited what difference does it make if its container is of a much longer duration but also limited?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Uh-oh, Age! Better watch it!

What makes you think you're so different? The fact is that intelligence need not be DNA based. That brings into play a considerable number of factors with the potential to create it.

What makes you think that I think I’m different?

Soaring metaphysical height? The All Seeing eye?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Live in it since you're only a minuscule fraction of the cosmic calendar and the whole human race long gone before the end sets in. Even if the universe subsists forever that doesn't mean that anything within must be equal to it. If everything existing is limited what difference does it make if its container is of a much longer duration but also limited?

Is it possible you’ve missed the point?

This view, this description, is actually arbitrary (I mean the picture presented by the writer of the article and those who see similarly). It refers to and presents a view that seems final. An explanation that is final. Ultimate. (It is, I think, less Iambiguous’s and really more yours).

Whatever is stated there — that is your metaphysics. It determines a great deal.

So sure, I get why with it stated and clarified, that then you move naturally to ethical propositions: “Live in it since you're only a minuscule fraction of the cosmic calendar”.

That says something while also saying nothing.

[Age]

Some musings . . .

My fate is uselessness. Must you rub it in?

What we have here is a lovely display of the new rhetorical devices (listed in this thread) vs. classical, passé rhetorical devices such as irony. Unfortunately irony is missed by many people which is why it is considered unmodern and frowned upon.

I am unsure how to *answer the charges* brought out in this thread. That is, how I measure my own culpability.

It is irony but it is also mockery.

There is now NO wonder WHY communication with this one BREAKS DOWN.

It is an attempt, when the frontal approach has failed, to yet communicate something.

LOL INSTEAD of 'irony' and/or 'mockery' WHY do you NOT JUST communicate what 'it' IS, EXACTLY, that is; IF you REALLY did want to communicate some 'thing'?

To make a point. And, of course, doing so enables one to feel that one has remained on top
in some sense.

This here is REALLY how adult human beings MISBEHAVED, back in those days. They literally felt so INSECURE that they were continually doing 'things' in an ATTEMPT to somehow feel MORE SUPERIOR than "the others".

Though sometimes I have (personally) interpreted it as maintaining one's integrity, odd and contradictory as it may seem.

IF what you REALLY thought, said, and wrote here was of ANY REAL IMPORTANCE or was ACTUALLY True, Right, and/or Correct, then INTEGRITY would be STANDING UP ON its OWN SELF. I suggest if you want to maintain ANY sort of INTEGRITY, then I suggest 'you' FIRST OBTAIN SOME.

However, I always return to what I perceive as the *core of the core*: we can no longer talk because agreements have broken down.

BUT, WHEN 'communication' is done PROPERLY and Correctly, then this is WHEN AGREEMENTS are FOUND and ARISE.

OBVIOUSLY, LOTS of people can 'talk' when there is NO 'agreement', and it is ONLY through 'talk' or 'communication' WHERE what IS in 'disagreement' can be FOUND. BUT, it is ALSO through 'talk' and/or 'communication' WHERE 'agreement' IS FOUND.

Am I wrong?

NOT ALWAYS.

I am uncertain.

Then I suggest STOP 'trying to' to come across as though you are CERTAIN OF or ABOUT what you 'talk' about here.

Am I exaggerating?

That is ONLY a QUESTION 'you' could ANSWER FULLY or TruthFULLY.

Again I do not think so but clear certainly is hard to come by.

NOT when CLARIFY QUESTIONS are posed, ASKED, and ANSWERED Honestly and OPENLY.

I read a wide range of material and I check in to many different sites on the Internet.

So what?

Are you 'trying' here to come across as being somewhat BETTER or MORE SUPERIOR to "others" or are you TELLING us 'this' for some other reason?

The 'new normal' is just that: a widening chasm between people and how they view and interpret things.

How do you KNOW that this 'widening chasm between people and how they view and interpret 'things' is a so-called 'new normal' and NOT some 'thing' that has always been around, or been 'normal' for a LOT LONGER than you are IMAGINING here?

Could it just be that BECAUSE the ability to communicate with MORE people, at FAR GREATER shorter periods of time, is just HIGHLIGHTING the Fact that ALL people have DIFFERENT views? Which may have been very 'NORMAL' for quite some time now, AS WELL?

They -- or we if you wish -- can no longer agree on fundamentals.

LOL

1. 'you', adult human beings, NEED to FIRST FIND on what ARE 'the fundamentals', EXACTLY. Which, by the way, IS A VERY SIMPLE and VERY EASY 'thing' TO DO.

2. It is ONLY through 'communication', or 'talk', WHERE AGREEMENT on 'fundamentals', or ANY 'thing' else, CAN BE and WILL BE FOUND, or UNCOVERED.

How 'you' are coming across here now "alexis jacobi" is like; 'I KNOW what the fundamentals are and if you do NOT agree with me, then we can NOT agree'.

So, I suggest you either list here now what the fundamentals ARE, EXACTLY, or you just ADMIT that 'you'do NOT even KNOW what the fundamentals ARE, EXACTLY, "yourself" YET.

AND, if you Truly want to MAINTAIN 'integrity', then you WOULD do one of these. But, because you do NOT ACTUALLY POSSESS 'integrity', itself, you will do NEITHER of these, thus PROVING True, ONCE AGAIN, what i have just SAID and CLAIMED.

Now, if you REALLY want to obtain AGREEMENT and even ACCEPTANCE on the 'fundamentals' of Life in regards to what IS ACTUALLY and IRREFUTABLY True AS WELL as in regards to MORALITY and what IS ACTUALLY and IRREFUTABLY Right and Wrong in Life, TO and WITH EVERY one, then let 'us' have a Truly OPEN and Honest DISCUSSION here.

So when you come face-to-face with someone (myself face-to-face with IC for example) and you see that you cannot and you will not be able to come to an agreement, I think it tends to turn one back on oneself in a strange way.

The MAIN reason 'you' and "immanuel can", or ANY "other" one of of 'you', adult human beings, have NOT YET come to an 'agreement' is just BECAUSE either or BOTH of 'you' are NOT YET being Truly OPEN and Honest while NOT YET Truly WANTING TO LEARN some 'thing' new or more, which IS BECAUSE 'you' are BOTH just SAYING and/or CLAIMING just what 'you' ASSUME or BELIEVE is true but which 'you' have NO ACTUAL PROOF of YET.

See, if one has ACTUAL PROOF, then absolutely NO one COULD ACTUALLY REFUTE 'it', OBVIOUSLY. Thus NO DISAGREEMENT could be made.

Perhaps it is good, at least in some sense. But in another sense it is not good at all. If communication fails, and if you sense that it has failed widely, really you must face the fact that you are FUCKED.

Well I suggest if YOUR communication HAS FAILED, then just START LEARNING HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR communication WITH "other" human beings.

If YOUR communication HAS FAILED, then, OBVIOUSLY, YOU ARE DOING some 'thing' Wrong or Incorrectly here. Which ultimately MEANS you have MORE TO LEARN here.

Then there is the other element, but how can it be talked about?

If, and WHEN, you provide an ACTUAL EXAMPLE of what 'it' IS, EXACTLY, THEN I can SHOW you EXACTLY HOW 'it' can be talked ABOUT, and even SHOW you HOW AGREEMENT can be and WILL BE made.

Until then I have NO idea what 'it' IS, here. See, for all we KNOW 'it' here could just be what you ALREADY ASSUME or BELIEVE is true, and what you mean by 'talk about' 'it' is that you WANT "others" to AGREE WITH you on what you ALREADY just ASSUME or BELIEVE is true. Which, in and of itself, is just ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY ABSURD and RIDICULOUS.

When you sense that someone you are talking with is *not quite right in their head*.

LOL
LOL
LOL

Have you EVER heard absolutely ANY 'thing' ABOUT taking a GOOD HARD LOOK at "oneself" BEFORE LOOKING AT and/or JUDGING "others"?

If yes, then I suggest you HEED that ADVICE.

But if you had NOT YET heard ANY 'thing' like 'that saying', then NOW you HAVE.

Also, you are, ONCE AGAIN, coming across as though you ALREADY KNOW what IS ACTUALLY true and/or right, and if you think or KNOW, then just COMMUNICATE and PROVIDE the IRREFUTABLE Truth. Now, if you can NOT YET DO 'this', then I suggest you HEED the ADVICE just given above here.

Ah but that leads to other introspective self-interrogations: Am I actually and verifiably *right in my head*?

The ANSWER to 'this' is 'AS CLEAR AS DAY', as some might say, well to some of us here anyway.

And the answer is perhaps a Buddhist one (one that I have heard from many Buddhists who believe that the mind itself is a bughouse). The mind is (to borrow an Iambiguous term) 'fractured & fragmented'.

The Truly HILARIOUS and LUDICROUS 'thing' here is that WHENEVER ANY of these people were QUESTIONED about, 'What IS the 'mind', EXACTLY?' NOT two of them would come up with the EXACT SAME RESPONSE.

I will suggest that talking ABOUT a 'thing' like one KNOWS what they are TALKING ABOUT, but ACTUALLY does NOT YET KNOW, FULLY NOR EXACTLY, is NOT the WISEST of 'things' to do in Life.

The practicing Buddhist (I am not one) has an advantage and it is that he can *sit* (as they say) and 'watch the mind' that carries on like "a circus mind that's running" to quote Jimi Hendrix in Little Wing (though a very different context).

If absolutely ANY one would SERIOUSLY like to LEARN and KNOW MORE or ANEW here, regards this 'Mind' 'Thing', then LETS US COMMUNICATE. For one thing I KNOW FOR SURE is that 'we' BOTH COULD and WILL LEARN MORE.

While I think I have my affairs, mental and other, under control, the fact of the matter is I do not have, and cannot achieve, much of a degree of certainty about the so-called fundamental questions.

WHY do you SAY, and/or BELIEVE, and CLAIM that you can NOT achieve much of a degree of CERTAINTY about the so-called 'fundamental questions'?

To be Honest I do NOT even KNOW what you are even REFERRING TO, EXACTLY.

Do things get clearer or do they get more cloudy, more murky, more problematic?

From my perspective anyway, you are CLEARLY making 'things' here FAR TO CLOUDY and MURKY than they need to be at all.

Absolutely EVERY 'thing' IS CRYSTAL CLEAR, that is; once you LEARN HOW TO LOOK AT and SEE 'things' Properly AND Correctly.

In this environment (this is my impression) I do believe that people, perhaps those who are weaker or perhaps more sensitive (?) actually go nuts.

Are 'you' CLASSING "yourself" as one of these people here?

After all 'you' CLAIM that you can NOT EVER even achieve 'much of a degree of certainty', (whatever that ACTUALLY MEANS) in regards to just the so-called 'fundamental questions', let alone the ACTUAL and IRREFUTABLE ANSWERS to such questions.

They populate the streets and the public sidewalks.

WHY when 'you', adult human beings, talk ABOUT the so-called 'weaker', 'the more sensitive', or 'the problematic people', then it is ALWAYS "the others" WITH 'the issues'?

Just LOOK AT 'the world' that 'you', adult human beings, ARE CREATING, in the days when this is being written, ALL of 'you' ARE ACTUALLY ALREADY what is sometimes referred to and called "nuts".

I suggest LOOKING AT "yourselves" and CHANGING 'YOU', BEFORE 'you' even BEGIN to LOOK AT ANY 'one thing' ELSE.

They come out of the woodwork and show themselves. They become *painfully visible*. I have had that impression about some of the forums I've been on.

So, to 'this one', EVERY one ELSE IS AT FAULT, or NUTS, BECAUSE NONE of 'them' AGREE WITH what 'this one' SAYS and CLAIMS is true and right.

Some might say that this is a PRIME EXAMPLE of INSANITY ITSELF.

WHY, EXACTLY, "alexis jacobi" are the "OTHERS" NOT AGREEING WITH 'you'?

I do not conceal then that I have been musing not on open mental illness but rather on intellectual neurosis as I have been pondering Iambiguous's revelation and outlining of his stance.

The 'Mind', Itself, can NEVER be broken, fractured, fragmented, closed, or ANY OTHER 'thing' like 'these'. This is BECAUSE of what the 'Mind' IS, EXACTLY. And WHEN 'you', human beings, ALSO LEARN and UNDERSTAND what the 'Mind' IS, EXACTLY, and who and what, EXACTLY, is CLOSED, FRAGMENTED, FRACTURED, AND BROKEN, then 'you' CAN and WILL ALSO LEARN HOW TO FIX the ACTUAL 'problem' AND 'cause' here.

And for this reason refer to *outcomes* when the sense of a solid ground has been ripped out from under one -- and here I do mean 'us'. Similarly though, I could only say that I also see IC as having 'developed strategies' to hold on to sanity, and order, and a sense of continuity in the Universe and the Kosmos, through mental, intellectual, ideational and spiritual gymnastics.

Maybe there is nothing else to do?

An unrelated but related note: in today's NYTs there is a philosophical/cosmological article:

Who Will Have the Last Word on the Universe? / Modern science suggests that we and all our achievements and memories are destined to vanish like a dream. Is that sad or good?

So-called "modern science" has been Wrong, and VERY Wrong, on countless occasions.

In the end, if this dark energy prevails, distant galaxies will eventually be speeding away so fast that we can’t see them anymore.

ANOTHER example of ANOTHER False and Wrong CONCLUSION and BELIEF. And coming FROM so-called "modern science" makes this all the MORE DISTURBING.

The more time goes on, the less we will know about the universe.

LOL

So, according to and following this so-called "logic" ALL previous human beings KNEW MORE ABOUT the Universe than ALL of 'you', in the days when this is being written.

The stars will die and not be reborn. It will be like living inside an inside-out black hole, sucking matter, energy and information over the horizon, never to return.

AND, the sun revolves around the earth, and, the earth is flat AS WELL.

'you' are FREE to BELIEVE absolutely ANY 'thing' you like, but just be FOREWARNED NOT ALL of what you CURRENTLY or ALREADY BELIEVE is true is ACTUALLY true, let alone even close to being remotely true.

By the way how MANY DIFFERENT tangents are you going to go on here?

Worse, because thinking takes energy, eventually there will not be enough energy in the universe to hold a thought.

Oh, let us ALL feel sorry for this one human being BECAUSE 'it' BELIEVES one day there will be NO MORE thought NOR thinking.

By the way, I suggest just LISTENING TO and FOLLOWING 'knowing' INSTEAD of 'thought' and 'thinking' ANYWAY.

In the end there will only be subatomic particles dancing intergalactic distances away from each other in a dark silence, trillions upon trillions of years after there was any light or life in the universe.

Is this going FROM one tangent to ANOTHER tangent, like this here, an example of GOING NUTS?

'you' STARTED OUT here "alexis jacobi" with:
I am unsure how to *answer the charges* brought out in this thread. That is, how I measure my own culpability.

It is irony but it is also mockery.

And have ENDED UP, well so far here, with:
In the end there will on be subatomic particles dancing ....

Well you are CLEARLY Right about being UNSURE of how to 'answer the charges', that is FOR SURE.

And then, more uncountable trillions of eons to come, until there is finally no way to count the years, as Brian Greene, the popular Columbia University theorist and author, so elegantly and devastatingly described it in his recent book, “Until the End of Time.”

Are you SERIOUS here?

It’s hard not to want to scream at our own insignificance in all of this. If this is, in fact, what the universe will come to. The universe as we know it is now 14 billion years old, which seems like a long time but is only an infinitesimal sliver of the trillions and quadrillions of years of darkness to come.

WHICH IS AN ACTUAL 'infinitesimal sliver' of the ACTUAL AGE of this Universe that is ACTUALLY and IRREFUTABLY ETERNAL.

It will mean that everything interesting in our universe happened in a brief flash, at the very beginning. A promising start, and then an eternal abyss. The finality and futility of it all!

So, 'what', AGAIN, were 'the chargers against you' brought out in this thread?

In short, a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. What do we do with a universe like this?

'you' can ATTEMPT to 'try to' DEFLECT AWAY from 'answering the charges', brought out in this thread, but what 'you' ARE ACTUALLY DOING here now is STILL VERY CLEAR.

[Perhaps only Will Bouwman has the thread of an answer? Will, are you there?! What say you?]

LOL "will bouwman" could NOT be MORE Wrong in some of what 'it' WRITES and CLAIMS here. And, I have PROVED 'this' True ALREADY, regarding some of 'it's' CLAIMS.

So, "will bouwman" is going to be of ABSOLUTELY NO HELP for 'you' here "alexis jacobi". Would you like to ASK ANY one "else" for help here now?

It is odd, at least as I see things, to read the Times as I do and see so much confusion, people and ideas so twisted-up and yet they pretend to be *normal* and also *well*,

And OF WHICH 'you', "yourself", "alexis jacobi" are PROVIDING A PRIME EXAMPLE of here.

but the back-drop of 'their world', and the World and indeed the Cosmos, is effectively an impossible place.

So, 'the place', which CREATED 'the ones' WITHIN IT, in a, supposedly, IMPOSSIBLE PLACE for the ones WITHIN IT, right?

If yes, then the so-called "logic" of 'this' SPEAKS for ITSELF.

That idea is what stopped me short. It had never occurred to me that some individual being would have the last word on existence, the last chance to curse or be grateful.

The ONLY words that are WORTHY of ANY REAL 'thing' are 'those words' that ARE IN AGREEMENT and ACCEPTANCE WITH absolutely EVERY one. Therefore, the so-called 'last word' on ANY 'thing' ARE 'THE WORDS' that, literally, EVERY one AGREES WITH and ACCEPTS. 'These words' WILL BE and ARE, literally, 'the words' of Everyone, as One.

Part of the pain is that nobody will know who, or what, had the last word, or what was thought or said.

False, Wrong, Inaccurate, AND Incorrect, ONCE AGAIN.

Somehow that notion made cosmic extinction more personal, and I wondered what it would be like.

Could this one here have PROVIDED a BETTER EXAMPLE OF ATTEMPTS AT DEFLECTION and DISTRACTION from one's OWN personal Wrong DOING and 'charges' brought AGAINST 'them'?

[Age]

Uh-oh, Age! Better watch it!

ONCE AGAIN, I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA NOR CLUE as to what 'it' IS, EXACTLY, that you are talking ABOUT or REFERRING TO here.

[Age]

Uh-oh, Age! Better watch it!

What makes you think you're so different? The fact is that intelligence need not be DNA based. That brings into play a considerable number of factors with the potential to create it.

Has absolutely ANY one here even just CONSIDERED COMING-TO-AGREEMENT about WHAT 'intelligence' IS, EXACTLY, BEFORE EVERY one GOES OFF on their OWN tangent ABOUT what 'intelligence' DOES or how 'it' WORKS?

If no, then i suggest giving this a try SOMETIME, even if to just SEE WHAT HAPPENS and OCCURS.

For all you KNOW 'agreement of the fundamentals' might even ACTUALLY COME-ABOUT.

[Age]

In the end, if this dark energy prevails, distant galaxies will eventually be speeding away so fast that we can’t see them anymore. The more time goes on, the less we will know about the universe. The stars will die and not be reborn. It will be like living inside an inside-out black hole, sucking matter, energy and information over the horizon, never to return.

Worse, because thinking takes energy, eventually there will not be enough energy in the universe to hold a thought. In the end there will only be subatomic particles dancing intergalactic distances away from each other in a dark silence, trillions upon trillions of years after there was any light or life in the universe. And then, more uncountable trillions of eons to come, until there is finally no way to count the years, as Brian Greene, the popular Columbia University theorist and author, so elegantly and devastatingly described it in his recent book, “Until the End of Time.”

It’s hard not to want to scream at our own insignificance in all of this. If this is, in fact, what the universe will come to. The universe as we know it is now 14 billion years old, which seems like a long time but is only an infinitesimal sliver of the trillions and quadrillions of years of darkness to come. It will mean that everything interesting in our universe happened in a brief flash, at the very beginning. A promising start, and then an eternal abyss. The finality and futility of it all!

In short, a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. What do we do with a universe like this?

Live in it since you're only a miniscule fraction of the cosmic calendar and the whole human race long gone before the end sets in. Even if the universe subsists forever that doesn't mean that anything within must be equal to it. If everything existing is limited what difference does it make if its container is of a much longer duration but also limited?

It is GREAT TO SEE ACTUAL LOGIC come into play here. Let us now SEE if 'it' ACTUALLY WORKS.

[Age]

Uh-oh, Age! Better watch it!

What makes you think you're so different? The fact is that intelligence need not be DNA based. That brings into play a considerable number of factors with the potential to create it.

What makes you think that I think I’m different?

The Fact that 'you' are CLEARLY and IRREFUTABLY PLAINLY DIFFERENT FROM EVERY one "else".

Soaring metaphysical height? The All Seeing eye?

These DO HELP and DO COME-INTO-PLAY here.