Uwot
I am open to absolutely anything that isn't flatly refuted by experimental facts.
You must then be open to the division of universal structure described by Plato. You must be open to the visible level below the sun which science can measure and the intelligible level above the divided line available to us by noesis even though we cannot necessarily prove it by science.
Well let's examine this claim. Name one truth of science and one truth of religion that you think are "complimentary". And just for historical accuracy the idea of "the ONE" in western philosophy goes back to Parmenides, 500 years before Plotinus.
Draw a cross on a piece of paper. The horizontal line refers to factual knowledge of what you know scientifically. The vertical line which intersects it refers to the line of being which refers to objective value in relation to the source of creation. Where the horizontal line is based on duality the vertical line refers to the quality of a moment defined as a middle between the quality directly above and below it.
Where science functioning on the horizontal line defines what is known, the vertical line defines the objective value of what is known. A person with understanding has acquired a human perspective uniting what is known through the senses with the objective value of what is known, knowledge of which is beyond the domain of the senses. Where the laws of science seek to increase what is known, the laws of being enable us to remember what has been forgotten. The laws are the same. Science is incapable of measuring a moment in time and it is the laws of being which provide the objective value which is felt and acquired through noesis: the highest intellectual function we are capable of.
Universal laws, eh? Surprise me Nick_A; I have read nothing you have written in your years on this forum to suggest you know anything at all about "universal laws", but I'm happy to be corrected.
Why bring up such ideas where they are not wanted and will be scorned? If even the simple division of Plato’s divided line is emotionally rejected, what good will explaining the universal laws which unite them serve? It just invites negativity which does more harm than good and may even harm a lurker by associating essential ideas which can open the mind with negativity. We went through this in the secular intolerance thread. We have seen that an impartial attitude is necessary for a worthwhile discussion. Unfortunately it is usually lacking.
Well, you have created a story that makes sense to you, and congratulations, the world is a mysterious place to anyone but idiots.
I am not bright enough to create these ideas. I am just a student of perennial ideas the essence of which was always known.
So you can't see the difference between "is a living organism" and "is viewed as a "living organism""? As it happens, I'm quite happy to entertain both possibilities; I can even take Michel Callon and Bruno Latour's Actor-network theory seriously; that's the sort of thing that being open minded entails.
There have been n are now debating the idea that society is a living organism; the Great Beast Plato wrote of. Herbert Spencer has written on this but it is still too insulting for modern secularism which glorifeies the beast to consider. The Beast consists of reacting automatons? Too insulting to consider!
https://bertie.ccsu.edu/naturesci/Evolu ... ciety.html
There are two great classes of aggregates with which the social aggregate may be compared--the inorganic and the organic. Are the attributes of a society in any way like those of a not-living body ? or are they in any way like those of a living body ? or are they entirely unlike those of both 2
The first of these questions needs only to be asked to be answered in the negative. A whole of which the parts are alive, cannot, in its general characters, be like lifeless wholes. The second question, not to be thus promptly answered, is to be answered in the affirmative. The reasons for asserting that the permanent relations among the parts of a society, are analogous to the permanent relations among the parts of a living body, we have now to consider.
Nick_A, you need to understand that "proven to me" is not the same as 'proven'.
Scientific proofs require proof to others. Proofs for the objective values of our inner life cannot be proven. They must be experienced by those who are open to these experiences. Inner experiences are personal. The Ways seek to further awakening or opening the mind so as to be able to experience and verify their realty through impartial efforts to “Know thyself” Unfortunately people have been shot for less.
