Philosophy Now Forum

Nick, you misidentify both God and the great beast. You actually believe that God is a metaphysical being. You are unaware of serious dangers from the capitalist establishments.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:32 pm Nick, you misidentify both God and the great beast. You actually believe that God is a metaphysical being. You are unaware of serious dangers from the capitalist establishments.

If God were a being god would be a creature which is clearly not the case. Consider God to be pure consciousness within which the levels of being have their origin.

Ecclesiastes 3:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Existence takes place as cycles. Nature's laws within which animals including the man animal, takes place in cycles. War and peace is a cycle in response to natural laws. Capitalism, communism, and other isms are just mechanical systems within which natural cycles take place. The only thing that can redirect REACTIONS of natural laws are conscious ACTIONS which the Great Beast or society as a whole is incapable of. You are concerned with what humanity DOES while I am concerned with what we ARE. Only the concern for what we ARE and what we lack can enable humanity as a whole to strive for consciousness and its benefits both for ourselves and for society as a whole..

seeds wrote: Nick, with this “...only a rare few men...” business, you seem to be promoting the most exclusive religion I’ve ever heard of.

(And by the way, are there not a “rare few women” that make it into this club? - other than Simone, of course. I suggest that you try to be a little more mindful of how you word things.)

The bottom line is, you are complicating life far more than it really is.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2017 4:45 pm My acorn analogy only seems elitist and exclusive to you because I distinguish between the inner or essential human with the outer which is our acquired personality.

Yes, I understand that.

However, as you know, I have a more literal interpretation of the acorn (seed) metaphor as it applies to humanity.

To slightly paraphrase something I posted last year in an alternate thread:

seeds wrote: In our second and final birth we will be leaving our physical bodies behind - like a cosmic version of “placental afterbirth” (or an empty “husk” as it pertains to the acorn metaphor), and awaken into our true and ultimate form (the same form as God).

And if something as amazing as the human body can be thought of as being placental afterbirth - a glob of tissue to be discarded...



...then just imagine how wondrous our “true” and eternal form must be.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of visualizing how “natural” and “organic” our ultimate situation truly is.

Now to view this from the perspective of our acorn (seed) analogy, have a look at the nice sample of one below...



...and then envision the hidden potential encapsulated within it.

Now just replace the image of the acorn above with the image of a human head...



...and then think of it as being the “Ultimate Seed” in all of existence (i.e., the literal seed of the universe) in the form of the infinite potential of the human mind and its singular agent, momentarily encapsulated within a tiny “husk” of matter.
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What I am getting at, Nick, is that your vision of humanity’s “cosmic potential” simply isn’t cosmic enough in my book.

Furthermore, if you want to know just how important Einstein’s contribution to our situation truly is, I actually believe it was predicted in the Bible, in Revelation, chapter 9.

Please indulge me as I present my interpretation of that chapter in the following post.

(Continued in next post)
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(Continued from prior post)

This may seem crazy, but the following is my interpretation of Revelation, Chapter 9, as it pertains to Einstein.

Revelation 9:1:

“And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit.”

The term “bottomless pit” does not, as it may sound, represent “hell.”

I suggest that it represents the infinite manifestations of material phenomena that the quantum can produce when handled properly.

Furthermore, its “bottomlessness” is a direct reference to mind and the infinite (or bottomless) permutations of “reality” that imagination can create out of mental imaging energy.

So how is the quantum handled properly?

One way is with the “key.”

“...and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit.”

That (I suggest) is a direct reference to Albert Einstein and the key to matter – E=mc2.

Armed with this “key,” the efforts of an international group of physicists culminated in the discovery and practical application of quantum mechanics.

With this “key” leading to quantum science, humans have unlocked the secrets of physical matter (God’s mental holography) and have been reshaping objective reality ever since.

Revelation 9:2:

“And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace...”

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what that refers to...



The mushroom cloud billowing up from the “great furnace” of a nuclear blast says it all; which, of course, is one of the most significant (albeit negative) fruits of quantum mechanics.

“...and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.”

The sun and the air and all of nature have been darkened just by “reason” of the foreboding pall of potential nuclear destruction (the “smoke of the pit”) hanging over the earth.

Revelation 9:3:

“And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.”

Locusts are an allegorical representation of a destructive force on earth.

The locusts in this case are those nations possessing nuclear weaponry. Their power, besides that which is obvious, is likened to the power of a scorpion.

When humans encounter scorpions they are usually overcome with fear.

Fear is the allegory here, because fear is the power with which the leading nations deal with each other. It is the fear produced “...by reason of the smoke of the pit.” Like a scorpion’s venomous tail, the specter of death in the form of all-out nuclear war, stands poised over the earth, casting a grim and fearful shadow over the future of all of creation.

Revelation 9:4:

“And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree: but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.”

Again, it is obvious what nuclear devastation would do to the grass, the trees, and the green things of the earth.

However, the real targets in this situation are those humans who do not yet recognize or accept the absolute reality of the existence of God.

Revelation 9:5:

“And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.”

Scorpion venom contains powerful neurotoxins that affect the central nervous system. These neurotoxins can produce symptoms in the victim that have been described as feelings of “restlessness,” or “apprehensiveness,” creating a sense of foreboding and dread.

The threat of nuclear destruction is causing worldwide apprehension with the underlying intent of compelling humans to seek out God for spiritual peace and comfort, ultimately putting “...the seal of God in their foreheads.”

The rest of Revelation chapter 9, from verses 6 through 19 (using strange and arcane language), reads like a scenario of modern day aerial warfare.

Finally, the last 2 verses state:

Revelation 9:20, 21:

“And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and of silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”

Setting aside the harshness of that ancient rhetoric, don’t you think that the above quote sounds a lot like a metaphorical description of the fruits of the modern-day “Great Beast” that you've been touting?

Nick, if we’re going to get “cosmic” here, then let’s get COSMIC!
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seeds wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2017 9:29 pmNick, if we’re going to get “cosmic” here, then let’s get COSMIC!

You remind me of Crocodile Dundee telling the would-be mugger - "You call that a knife?".



I personally think the Book of Revelations is about as credible and reliable as astrology, it seems to me that when it comes to being cosmic, Nick is, as is sometimes said in parts of Sydney, getting off at Redfern. If Nick was to go closer to "the CBD of cosmic-style thinking", all this chitter chatter about education of abortions and politics generally would be put aside.

After all, a cosmic mindset considers cosmic time scales. So let today's Neanderthals chip away at their challenges as every generation before them has done. Let them make the mistakes that they must make so as to gain experience and learn. Let the Earth follow its life cycle, with humans as the face of both its dotage and seemingly certain bequest of life and intelligence to other worlds.

Like skin cells worried that its human will spend too much time in the sun without protection, there is little we can do other than to aim to be a positive influence on those in our sphere of influence, and trust that many others will be doing roughly the same. Perhaps the world seems to belong to those to fight and agitate the most - the "squeaky wheel". However, isn't that basically selling one's soul? That is, one forsakes personal peace for worldly benefits such as influence and power because the fighting is logically based on opinions about things that we cannot possibly be certain about.

Yet the world is not being made by the philosophical but by the dynamic - humans in the grip of natural drives, acting as would any animal with similar empowerment. Yet, just as galaxies emerged from chaotic molecular clouds, somehow out of all of life's mindless selfishness and chaos comes an ever more refined awareness and morality.

I think this is perhaps the real meaning of "faith" - faith that life is inherently good but immature. Faith that the progression of life, of which we are each a link of the chain, is inexorable, and that future beings will be as much more aware and intelligent than today's humans are as we are more sentient than insects.

Given the age of the universe and its potential lifespan, it would seem that the journey of life has barely begun, in its toddlerhood (which might explain the selfishness). Good news is far ahead but we schmucks now are the ones that must do the hard yards until our distant descendants (living on other worlds or on a vastly refurbished Earth) reap the benefits. All we can do is try to have positive affects within our sphere of influence.

Nick_A wrote:...
While people should serve the needs of the state, the state should serve the “GOOD” as described by Plato. ...

But he doesn't describe it does he. Hence he allows such as you and Weil to equate it to your 'God'.

Secularism forgets about the source of everything and adopts the role of the good and left to its own devices can only produce the results of hypocrisy. ...

What 'source of everything'? What are you describing here.

Where a philosopher King should govern a Platonic society, an anti-christ capable of projecting a charismatic image must be the ideal leader of a secular society worshiping image..

Actually no, in a perfect 'secular' society there'd be no 'ideal leader' as this is the ideal of the religious sheep and totalitarian.

Capitalism is just a tool. ...

For whom.

The problem is the fallen human condition living by imagination which perverts the tool.

Or you could just be a Marxist and say the problem is scarce and unequal distribution of resources.

We receive the external world by means of intellect, emotion, and sensation. They would act as ONE, as inner unity united by consciousness for evolved individuals. They do not function as one with cave men. They are connected by imagination taking the place of consciousness. In this fallen state we can be thinking one thing while feeling another and sensing something else all at the same time. Imagination enables us to accept it as normal. ..

Imagination also allows us to correct such stuff so one can use one's imagination to produce techniques to align all of the above and produce a congruent consciousness. Now whether you'd like the results of such a one I doubt as you'd have to allow them to make up their own mind about how to behave.

Is an acorn an oak tree or the seed of an oak with the potential for becoming an oak? Only a very small amount of acorns become oaks. The great majority are consumed by the earth and animals that dwell on the earth

Conscious evolution offers the potential for man on earth to consciously evolve into a higher quality of being much like an acorn becomes an oak mechanically. Like acorns, only a rare few men on earth reach the height of Man’s conscious evolution.

Then it's a complete waste of time. Me, I prefer to think we can raise the bulk rather than pedestal the few.

Since I’ve explained over and over that I believe in Plotinus’ concept of the ONE and Panentheism that asserts the source both outside of the limitations of time and space but simultaneously within the universe within time and space I can’t see why you’ve written this. ...

Personally I liked his take on Phenomenology but think his 'One' falls at Kant's Noumena.

Christianity doesn’t have a personal god. You are thinking of Christendom or man made Christianity which is probably the cause of your justified concern for blind obedience to an unjust god. ...

I think you confusing the Greeks with the Jews.

I hope so. I don’t see the advantage of either blind belief or blind denial. What is the crime in consciously awakening to reality even if it is so annoying?

Hope? That's no intuition.

Very true. But what of those like Simone Weil who walked the talk? They lived their philosophy. ...

And what a waste of space it was.

She has opened many eyes not by intent but by her personal efforts. Those like T.S Eliot and Albert Camus spent their own money organizing and publishing her essays and personal letters not for profit but because they felt their value. She had the ability to transmit an awakening influence because of the purity of her writings.

Where?

Water seeks its own level. ...

Does it? And there was me thinking it just ran downwards until stopped.

There is a minority unwilling to either blindly believe or deny but are driven to experience objective human meaning and purpose that doesn’t arise from the earth. They are open to receive from above through intuition. I support their efforts whenever possible.

And yet all of them appear to have been already indoctrinated from birth? I support giving people the tools to think and letting them make of the world as they will.

Greta wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:32 pm

seeds wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2017 9:29 pmNick, if we’re going to get “cosmic” here, then let’s get COSMIC!

You remind me of Crocodile Dundee telling the would-be mugger - "You call that a knife?".

Ha! – one of my all-time favorite movie scenes.

Greta wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:32 pm I personally think the Book of Revelations is about as credible and reliable as astrology...

Yeah, it’s definitely some sketchy stuff.

However, you know how I like to incessantly (wind-baggedly) explain my ideas. So don’t make me try to explain how there could possibly be some extremely vague merit to astrology from a perspective that you may not have considered.

(You - - Don’t worry, I would never ask you to explain such a bonehead bucket of codswallop. Me - Oh, you want a piece of this ? And thus ends today’s episode of emoji theatre. Be sure to try the veal.)
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Nick_A wrote: Conscious evolution offers the potential for man on earth to consciously evolve into a higher quality of being much like an acorn becomes an oak mechanically. Like acorns, only a rare few men on earth reach the height of Man’s conscious evolution.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:36 pm Then it's a complete waste of time. Me, I prefer to think we can raise the bulk rather than pedestal the few.

Precisely!

It’s either going to be all of us, or none of us.
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seeds wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2017 12:06 am

Nick_A wrote: Conscious evolution offers the potential for man on earth to consciously evolve into a higher quality of being much like an acorn becomes an oak mechanically. Like acorns, only a rare few men on earth reach the height of Man’s conscious evolution.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:36 pm Then it's a complete waste of time. Me, I prefer to think we can raise the bulk rather than pedestal the few.

Precisely!

It’s either going to be all of us, or none of us.

Seeds, at all times in history the few have lived great lives by standing on the shoulders of the many. I think this will remain for as long as resource scarcity is a reality. So, until we are digitised and thus enjoying endless free digital resources, there will be deeply inequitable distribution of welleing in societies. I'm personally glad that at least some people can use my struggles to lead a good life, although I'd prefer it to be the Buffets of this world rather than the Trumps, both in terms of ability and morality.

Nick_A wrote:

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:32 pm
Nick, you misidentify both God and the great beast. You actually believe that God is a metaphysical being. You are unaware of serious dangers from the capitalist establishments.
(Nick replied)If God were a being god would be a creature which is clearly not the case. Consider God to be pure consciousness within which the levels of being have their origin.

You do misidentify God. Most people do. "Pure consciousness" is a metaphysical substance . There is no metaphysical substance called "consciousness" in the same way that there is no metaphysical substance called "God".

Both consciousness, and God, are names for what people do. My consciousness is different for your consciousness, and my God is different from your God. I express my consciousness as I do, and I express my God as I do. You express your consciousness as your do, and you express your God as you do.

Meanwhile there are a few actual problems that philosophy deals with. One problem is that so many people think that there exists some metaphysical entity which they call "God", or "consciousness". If there were such a metaphysical entity it would have an essence; an essence that we can quarrel over. But there is no such entity and no such essence.

It is clear that the strict secularists like Greta, Belinda, and Arising are closed to the meaning of conscious evolution and how it relates to the creation of the cosmic man, So even though it is rejected, I should at least introduce the idea of the conscious universe since without it, conscious evolution doesn’t make sense. Once again I’ll invite Jacob Needleman to explain in ways far superior than I could. This link includes a section from Jacob Needleman’s book: “A Sense of the Cosmos.” I will post the conclusion with my emphasis but for those interested it is very worthwhile to read the entire section so as to put it into perspective.

http://www.tree-of-souls.com/spirituali ... leman.html

…………………..Obviously, there is a great difference between contemplating a universe which exceeds me in size alone or in intricacy alone, and one which exceeds me in depth of purpose and intelligence. A universe of merely unimaginable size excludes man and crushes him. But a universe that is a manifestation of great consciousness and order places man, and therefore calls to him.

So much is obvious, for a conscious universe is the only reality that can include human consciousness. And only when I am completely included by something does the need arise for me to understand my relationship to it in all the aspects of my inner and outer life. Only a conscious universe is relevant to the whole of human life.

Undoubtedly, one contributing factor in our misunderstanding the cosmos of the ancient teachings is our habitual assumption that a conscious universe is somehow more comforting, a psychological crutch. Giorgio de Santillana also speaks to this in Hamlet's mill:

[MAN] is unable to fit himself into the concepts of today's astrophysics short of schizophrenia. Modern man is facing the nonconceivable. Archaic man, however, kept a firm grip on the conceivable by framing within his cosmos an order of time and an eschatology that made sense to him and reserved a fate for his soul. Yet it was a prodigiously vast theory, with no concessions to merely human sentiments. It, too, dilated the mind beyond the bearable, although without destroying man's role in the cosmos. It was a ruthless metaphysics.

"Ruthless" not in the sense of hostile to human hope, ... the universe of the traditional teachings, such as Hinduism and Judaism, is "ruthless" in that it is ruthlessly responsive to what man demands of it and of himself. For whatever man expects from external reality reflects what he asks or fails to ask of himself.

We must explore this thought further, for it can help us to see why the idea of a conscious universe appears to modern man as naive, as either a daydream or a nightmare. Science, as we know it, searches the universe for order and pattern. To pursue this search carefully, objectively, the scientist struggles to be free of his feelings, his inclinations to believe. He may follow hunches--what he calls "intuitions"--but in the final analysis he wishes for proofs that will compel the intellect, and only the intellect. The entire organization of modern science, the community of experimenters and researchers, the teaching of science in the schools, the training of specialists, is based on this ideal of proof that compels the mind.

Looked at in this way, we may conclude that the practice of modern science is based on a demand for human fragmentation, the division between thought and feeling. Searching for an outer unity, the scientist demands of himself an inner disunity. Perhaps "demands" is not the right word. We should simply say that in his practice the scientist endorses the division and inner fragmentation from which all of us suffer in our daily lives.

We now see why a conscious universe makes no sense to modern science. In the ancient teachings, higher mind or consciousness is never identified with thought associations, no matter how ingenious they may be. If these teachings speak of levels of reality higher than human thought, they are referring, among other things, to an order of intelligence that is inclusive of thought. Consciousness is another word for this power of active relationship or inclusion. Can the power to include ever be understood through a process of internal division and exclusion? Fascinated by the activity of thinking, and drawn to it to the extent of psychological lopsidedness, is it any wonder that we modern scientific men almost never directly experience in ourselves that quality of force which used to be called the Active Intellect, and which in the medieval cosmic scheme was symbolized by a great circle that included the entire created universe?

_The secularists here are trying to explain the cosmic man in terms of fragmentation – increased facts. It is believed more facts lead to conscious evolution. Yet conscious evolution means the acquisition of a conscious level of inclusion which is a human potential. Beginning to comprehend the reality of the human potential for conscious evolution and of the Cosmic Man requires first appreciating the foundation within which conscious evolution takes place. The bottom up quality of reason normal for secularism cannot reveal the big picture of the conscious universe. Opening to the big picture requires opening to intuition Einstein refers to which secularism struggles to deny.

Nick_A wrote:It is clear that the strict secularists like Greta, Belinda, and Arising are closed to the meaning of conscious evolution and how it relates to the creation of the cosmic man

Then again, it seems that you are closed to the idea that the universe, rather than physically manifesting a pre-existing consciousness, it may rather be growing consciousness.

The question then comes - how do you know? For all we know there may be pre-existing consciousness that is on the path to manifesting itself. I am open to this. However, I am also open to the possibility that the evolution of greater sentience is as it seems. That is, a godlike consciousness may well emerge from life, but not yet.

What makes you so certain that the former is the case? Why do you have this special knowledge that others don't? So my main question to you is whether you accept that you could be wrong.

Needleman wrote:Obviously, there is a great difference between contemplating a universe which exceeds me in size alone or in intricacy alone, and one which exceeds me in depth of purpose and intelligence. A universe of merely unimaginable size excludes man and crushes him. But a universe that is a manifestation of great consciousness and order places man, and therefore calls to him.

I think this is an archaic view, stemming from the religious ideas that "Man" was the ultimate point of reality, with a completely human-focused God pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Today, an aloof universe of unimaginable size humbles us, and we should be humbled, as we scuttle around the surface of the pale blue dot like Flatlanders. Being humbled in the face of something greater need not be crushing. Why not be pleased to be part of something so much greater than ourselves rather than simply feeling out-matched?

I still can't understand why the universe would respond to us regardless what anyone who EVER LIVED thinks about it.

Nature as staged on this planet, is responsible for and totally indifferent to millions of exterminations from highest to lowest but for some reason we still retain this "religious" view of the universe as having consciousness "calling to us". Of course it does no such thing. We instead call to it and by every subterfuge of wishful thinking proclaim it's the other way around!

As with SETI, there has been absolutely no response except those we imagine and resolutely defend with an implied Purpose. Could it be that without those extra value-added laminations we would feel completely trivial of not much more value than anything else which crawled on the planet? But consciousness will never allow itself to default to that reality without blow-back...which is the best it can do.

Humans have become so intensely pathetic in their desire to be important in the universe even improvising forms of retrospective acknowledgement as a virtual handshake between the powers of consciousness. In spite of all our metaphysical frog croaks of merging with the universe all we have acted out so far is our lack of awareness of just how base and demeaning this overbearing sense of self-importance really is.

The worst side-effect of consciousness, due to its inevitable inflation, are the gross distortions of value it gives itself.

From what we've learned about abiogenesis and subsequent evolution, under the right chemical conditions life is inevitable, as is evolution. Maybe humans and co will continue developing, or maybe the pessimists will be right, but at least on some habitable worlds at some time intelligent life will almost certainly continue developing to the point where it can spread across star systems.

Given that the universe is 13.8b years old and potentially has another trillion more years to go, humanity may be extremely simple compared with what could develop in even one billion years' time, let alone in 10, 100 or 500 billion years. We'd be like microbes by comparison.

It sounds like speculative science fiction but it's just simple logic. This is our existential reality. In truth, it is actually speculative and unrealistic to believe that this is as good as it gets.

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2017 1:25 am The worst side-effect of consciousness, due to its inevitable inflation, are the gross distortions of value it gives itself.

Dubious, name just one thing in the entire universe that would have any reason whatsoever for existing, without the existence of life and consciousness to confer meaning on it.
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