Homo Idioticus

a reply to: Astrocyte

If we live in a world where we and almost everyone we know claims "no one knows the truth", than the world we live within is one where the representative consciousness of the social organism - by definition a dissipative structure - is ontologically out of touch with the dynamism of its body.

Would it be fair to say that black and white statements do a disservice to the rainbow of cause and effect at the heart of this dynamism?

If you aren't one of those people who feel iffy, negative and strange feelings when someone says "everyone and everything is ontologically a part of the same phenomenon i.e. the universe", and therefore "one", you are in advantaged situation - much further in your place in understanding because you have overcome the state of ontological embeddedness in a false culture.

Again, it's a rainbow and not an if / then statement. False is not nearly as descriptive as relative, which is the only way to describe the absolute nature of the Dharmas (universal natures) that branch out from absolute invariance. Translational symmetry is a good cross-section of invariance you could use to see how invariance and translation are interdependent. Translation leaves the symmetry untouched, yet translation can only move one eternal direction. Whether its a butterfly using translational symmetry to fly, or a human using it to balance their own body, or even a cogent statement of fact, invariance has no opinion since it cannot change from its highest Arete. Invariance is never changed by the translation of it. This is the beauty you may miss if you reduce all things to if / then statements.

a reply to: Astrocyte

The idea of "name it to tame it" has been an ancient belief and is the basis of mankind's magical relationship to the power of words. It is not words, however, as much as the concepts and ideas that logically organize within a system of concepts, that gives words their power and meaning. Yet - ancient man was apt to reverse this relationship: as if the word preceded the person who needed the word to make its conscious experience of self-in-a-world coherent. Words - names - and the magical effect they have upon our internal organization, is the basis of the evolution of our consciousness. That said, words and concepts don't necessarily need to refer to real things. Words can breed false realities and false convey a sense of coherency to those which apply them.

I recognize much of what you are saying here, yet intent is the key. You refer to the predicatory mind, which is often defined as preaching. Predication is like saying, "George is a genius." Is a genius is the predicate. Naming things is then confused by linguists as man inventing language. Language is not an invention, but a translation of something preexisting our own design and function. It's a mirror to our DNA.

In Hebrew, for instance, the letter SHIN means two front teeth. Symbolically, this designation means a flame consuming the coal from the inside out. In English, this is Shine. If you look at the word Read in relation, it may not be obvious why there is a connection to both words and Bread. In Hebrew, the Bet means house, so adding a Bet in English to Read makes house of letters, which is what Bread is in relation to the Wheat seed. Add a Shin (light) and a Pey (mouth) and you get Spread. Shine the light out the mouth. Read is shining the light in the eye, where Resh is the letter starting the word (Resh is human head). Ear is a ear of corn, or seed, which also is the word balance (like the two water sacs in the ear allowing translational symmetry). Add a Hey (behold) to Ear and get Hear (behold the seed). Add a tav (plowmans mark) to Hear and get Heart, the soil for what you hear and plant the seed (information). Move the hey to the end of Heart and get EartH, or the literal soil where you behold.

I just showed you the invariance. Translation requires digging for the information with understanding, yet we translate these words each day without knowing what the true meaning is in relation.

Sowing seed is Sow. What happens if I want you to behind the seed? sHow. Hey means behold. How can English come through a Germanic linguistic path, yet still hold its original invariance from the Sanskrit and Phonetician it derives from? Invariant symmetry is never changed by the translation of it.

Words - names - and the magical effect they have upon our internal organization, is the basis of the evolution of our consciousness. That said, words and concepts don't necessarily need to refer to real things. Words can breed false realities and false convey a sense of coherency to those which apply them.

I very much agree, yet we need a mirror to see absolute from relative parts. WORD! DNA brings this word to life. Letters make word, which you might be surprised to know have a great deal of meaning from this verse.

John 1

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

Is it any wonder that the word Father in Hebrew is Aleph Bet? In the Tao, this is naming things (predicatory mind). The unnamed Tao is the speaker unchanged. Speaking into existence is the named thing evolving in simulation.

Read the Tao Te Ching Chapter 1.

a reply to: Astrocyte

As physical beings we are indeed individuated - yet it takes the spirituality of the mind which arises from matter to see it's ultimate union with it, and so with the others it arises from. Not being able to be "helped" by the acceptance of others into acknowledging this relationship, egotism paradoxically affirms the superiority of the self (and it's union with the other) over the superficial sense of being 'physically separate' from others.

I would have a suggestion for you if you are intent on knowing more of this subject. Purchase a book from Shambhala called the Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion. Annotate the entire thing one word at a time. It took me two weeks to do this. From this, you will have your eyes opened to what you are already thinking here. Yoga is the union you are speaking of here.

Earlier, when I mentioned translational symmetry and invariance, this is a direct reference to the Tao of the Tao Te Ching chapter 1 and the WORD of John 1. They are the same thing. Translation of invariance is our own ability to seek God (the invariance) from a state of amnesia. This is encoded into a Hebrew word. I could show you if you like. Transfiguration is the metamorphosis of our own Living Word (DNA) back to invariance. In truth, we (mind) has never been out of invariance. The act of living in a mortal (BUDDHA) body is the process to gain something that could not otherwise be gained. While knowledge can be imparted, wisdom cannot be imparted. For the mind to regain its knowledge, wisdom must be the mirror to what is reawakened. A reflecting point (time and space) is necessity.

I would also recommend a book from antiquity called the Kore Kosmou. There is a reason temples crumble and crowns have thorns. Even the Son of Man (especially the Son of Man) had to experience a fully human and flawed existence.

POE

V. All things are either good or bad by comparison. A sufficient analysis will show that pleasure, in all cases, is but the contrast of pain. Positive pleasure is a mere idea. To be happy at any one point we must have suffered at the same. Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed. But it has been shown that, in the inorganic life, pain cannot be thus the necessity for the organic. The pain of the primitive life of Earth, is the sole basis of the bliss of the ultimate life in Heaven.

What you may miss in your dissertation is intent, but you have a good feel for it already.

a reply to: ClovenSky

It almost appears, and correct me if I am wrong, that the OP is getting frustrated with people suggesting that there are forces outside of our modern scientific process of measurement. That if something can not be measured and recreated from a theoretical standpoint, it shouldn't matter or that it doesn't even exist. They are simply delusions that we are creating to help us cope with this reality. I got the impression that their main concern or argument is with the spiritual. It can not be measured by the tools that we currently possess.

So they are possibly calling those of us that believe in something outside of the physical as being delusional.

Yes.

Because he had no faith in God, he turned to the alter of man, placed his faith in science (in psychology/soul-ology), learned a little bit, and became vain.

Mostly he wants to justify his own faith, but in his vanity, he has become jealous of God's worship, so now his justification can only be met by taking followers back to his alter (by ridiculing and "demystifying" their faith byway of his explanation of how living-dirts' behavior is natural and/or "epistemological").

I feel bad for him but I've tried to help him and he wouldn't listen.

edit:
He demands that spirituality make sense to him, but if it does, then "its not the faith that spiritualists have been practicing".

He's stuck in a catch-22 kind of paradox.