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Originally posted by NorEaster
Elemental logic just plain demands a fundamental real. You can't build your church on air. Well, you can try, but....
Originally posted by NorEaster
reply to post by MrVortex
I guess that I just believe that reality (the Truth) is too pervasive to be an individual perception. Like my bacteria analogy (above). Maybe not the best analogy, but like the notion of bacteria as one enormous omnipresent organism, Truth would be literally everywhere and within everything. It would have to be if it is the Truth, and whatever was proposed to be a verifiable aspect of the Truth would have to have some sort of connection to what we already know to be absolutely and verifiably true.
If a man walked up to you (no one you've ever seen before, and there's nothing remarkable about this man either physically or in how his presence affects you viscerally) and he told you that he possesses the Truth about life, about reality, about the concept and/or existence of God, about humanity, and about why you (specifically) exist; what list of questions would you need this man to answer correctly, for you to take him seriously as someone who just might be the one guy who actually has that Truth?
Originally posted by NorEaster
It's a good question, and that's why it vexes me as well. True discernment is like good judgment. The highest function of human intellect. So high a function that it can seem as if intellect isn't even involved.
Originally posted by NewAgeMan
Originally posted by NorEaster
It's a good question, and that's why it vexes me as well. True discernment is like good judgment. The highest function of human intellect. So high a function that it can seem as if intellect isn't even involved.
The only thing left vexing me now, Nor, is the eso and exoteric meaning, of the name you use here. There is something about it I find..troubling, let me just put it that way, but it's still possible of course that I'm projecting something that isn't real or true, and so I ask the question. Thanks for clarifying. Just last night it presented itself to me in a dream, and I awoke with a jolt, that name clearly in my mind, even though I'd never noticed it before, nor found it the least bit unusual or offensive.
Originally posted by NewAgeMan
P.S. The great real you're asking for, is the unconditioned ground of being, or the formless in back of form, not the mere appearance of transient forms that are ever changing. The question must be what is the one unchanging, everlasting "real" which never changes, and never dies, out of which, and into which, and out of which, existence rises and falls, only to rise again, just as we see life do in all of its forms. What is this formless potential, and can we access it like that man Eckhart Tolle did, or as Adi Da Samraj claimed to, and as Jesus did, and embodied as a universal principal of eternal life in one form or another.
And if you want a grand unified theory of physics, how do you know, to begin with, that any self consistent description of external physical matter will bring you any closer to the truth? And again I already told you that it's all the creative product of light in one form or another as an expression or manifestation of the love of God, in order to make experience possible, but you completely ignored all that, even the physical control mechanism I offered and indicated could be tested within the framework of modern quantum paradoxes, which you called "philosophy" but it wasn't philsophy I was discussing but reality.
As you can tell I'm not so very happy with you or with your motives in this very thread, which seem to represent a type of madness, and not a sincere search for the one great truth at all.
edit on 6-1-2011 by NewAgeMan because: (no reason given)
Consistency is obviously imposed. The evidence
is overwhelming that consistency exists
I would've walked off on him over those 5 answers.
Originally posted by LordBucket
The universe is obviously composed of water. The evidence is overwhelming.
-- Fish
Originally posted by tgidkp
determining the truthiness of a single statement within any formal system is not possible, as has been proven by kurt godel's fameous manhandling of the Principia Mathematica. its a really fun story, actually, so i will sum it up:
professors whitehead and russell developed a formal system of number theory which was to be a FORTRESS OF TRUTH AND LOGIC. in this system it would be impossible to construct an untrue statement and any logical argument, when translated into the character-set of PM, could be determined to be true or false by simple symbol crunching. the distinctive feature of this system which made all of this possible was the fact that at no point could an argument be consolidated into a novel symbol and then be subsequently used in further processing. in other words: a statement in PM could NEVER refer to it's SELF.
but then of course, the genius Godel came along and forced the PM to look at itself in the mirror and tell itself that it doesnt exist. his statement, when translated out of number theory into english looked something like this:
"The sentence 'The sentence is not a statement in English' is not a statement in English."
so, that was that.
you are basically asking the same thing in this thread that bertrand and russell were. and unfortunately, i must conclude that any questions that can be asked to determine truthiness will never be satisfactory.
BUT! there is hope. the above example shows a very curious aspect of what is generally accepted as an aspect of The Truth. specifically: self-reference.
the notion of self-reference relies on a nested "holarchy" (ken wilber), as can be read in the above bolded sentence. it is things nested within things.....all the while referring to the same thing. this is why the self-concept, or the "I", usually walks hand in hand with the notion of truth.
one last thing about the bolded sentence. if read strictly as a statement of English, it cancels itself out and is literally uninterpretable. in order to accept the statement as true, as a contradiction of itself, the statement must be interpreted on a level HIGHER THAN English.
so the truth, then:
- must have application in context of multiple nested domains of reality.
- is only interpretable as "True" from a perspective of "HIGHER THAN".
some sample questions that the truth MUST be able to answer are thus:
How do you close the gap between 'Me' and 'my mind'?
How do you close the gap between 'my mind' and the brain?
How do you close the gap between the brain and a single neuron?
....between a cell and macro-molecular events?
....macro-molecular
....chemical...
....physical....
....non-physical (?!)...
....turtles, all the way down and all the way up....
there should be some type of commonality to the answer to each of these questions. a common thread. a rule of some kind that gets repeated over and over again but gains new meaning in each new higher context.
the truth, then, does not lie within the systems themselves (nor English, nor PM), but rather, in whatever is their common thread.....and relies entirely upon whatever HIGHER THAN said system is reading said commonality.
so to parse a universal truth requires a perspective higher than the universe. this is not something that i place beyond the human experience, but it is unfortunately something that you have been trying to avoid in the duration of this thread.......
......oh well. so much for that, huh?
edit on 6-1-2011 by tgidkp because: details....ugh.
Originally posted by LordBucket
reply to post by NorEaster
Consistency is obviously imposed. The evidence
is overwhelming that consistency exists
The universe is obviously composed of water. The evidence is overwhelming.
-- Fish
I would've walked off on him over those 5 answers.
Ok. So, out of curiosity...would you answer your five questions yourself?
Originally posted by tgidkp
determining the truthiness of a single statement within any formal system is not possible, as has been proven by kurt godel's fameous manhandling of the Principia Mathematica. its a really fun story, actually, so i will sum it up:
professors whitehead and russell developed a formal system of number theory which was to be a FORTRESS OF TRUTH AND LOGIC. in this system it would be impossible to construct an untrue statement and any logical argument, when translated into the character-set of PM, could be determined to be true or false by simple symbol crunching. the distinctive feature of this system which made all of this possible was the fact that at no point could an argument be consolidated into a novel symbol and then be subsequently used in further processing. in other words: a statement in PM could NEVER refer to it's SELF.
but then of course, the genius Godel came along and forced the PM to look at itself in the mirror and tell itself that it doesnt exist. his statement, when translated out of number theory into english looked something like this:
"The sentence 'The sentence is not a statement in English' is not a statement in English."
so, that was that.
you are basically asking the same thing in this thread that bertrand and russell were. and unfortunately, i must conclude that any questions that can be asked to determine truthiness will never be satisfactory.
BUT! there is hope. the above example shows a very curious aspect of what is generally accepted as an aspect of The Truth. specifically: self-reference.
the notion of self-reference relies on a nested "holarchy" (ken wilber), as can be read in the above bolded sentence. it is things nested within things.....all the while referring to the same thing. this is why the self-concept, or the "I", usually walks hand in hand with the notion of truth.
one last thing about the bolded sentence. if read strictly as a statement of English, it cancels itself out and is literally uninterpretable. in order to accept the statement as true, as a contradiction of itself, the statement must be interpreted on a level HIGHER THAN English.
so the truth, then:
- must have application in context of multiple nested domains of reality.
- is only interpretable as "True" from a perspective of "HIGHER THAN".
some sample questions that the truth MUST be able to answer are thus:
How do you close the gap between 'Me' and 'my mind'?
How do you close the gap between 'my mind' and the brain?
How do you close the gap between the brain and a single neuron?
....between a cell and macro-molecular events?
....macro-molecular
....chemical...
....physical....
....non-physical (?!)...
....turtles, all the way down and all the way up....
there should be some type of commonality to the answer to each of these questions. a common thread. a rule of some kind that gets repeated over and over again but gains new meaning in each new higher context.
the truth, then, does not lie within the systems themselves (nor English, nor PM), but rather, in whatever is their common thread.....and relies entirely upon whatever HIGHER THAN said system is reading said commonality.
so to parse a universal truth requires a perspective higher than the universe. this is not something that i place beyond the human experience, but it is unfortunately something that you have been trying to avoid in the duration of this thread.......
......oh well. so much for that, huh?
edit on 6-1-2011 by tgidkp because: details....ugh.
Originally posted by MrVortex
I love it how mathematicians can say some things much more clearly, elegantly and precisely than me. To use the actual formulas instead of words would be even closer to "truth", but not many would understand.
That's also why I chose music as my "research" and communication tool in this state of being, whatever it is. Words are so limited (and limiting)
Originally posted by NorEaster
That Truth is like bacteria.
Bacteria is considered to be many strains of single cell microbes that collect within (literally) everything, and function to either promote survival or impose elimination - as the case may be. Scientists performed some experiments a while back and discovered that isolated bacteria responded to the introduction (within a separate isolated chamber containing the same strain of bacteria) of an anti-bacterial agent, producing defenses for that anti-bacterial agent. These were bacteria cells that had never been exposed to this agent, and yet they adjusted to this agent after their compatriots had been exposed within their own isolated environment.
This made some researchers assume that the bacteria under attack alerted the others via (who knows) some unknown means of communication. Primitive telepathy perhaps? Of course, that's absurd to suggest, but still, why would the isolated bacteria be affected by the exposure of other isolated bacteria to an anti-bacterial agent? A few of the researchers began getting a cold feeling as a new potential crept up on them.
Maybe bacteria isn't many strains of single cell microbes that collect within everything? Maybe bacteria is the largest single organism on this entire planet, and the physical structure that it has is just very different than what we've come to believe as unitary physical structure? Suddenly, the battle to keep up with bacteria's ability to counter anti-bacterial medicines and chemical agents isn't so mysterious after all? If addressed as one enormous host organism, one that we all live off and feed when we finally stop living, then maybe our effort to fight bacteria is what doesn't make sense.
Originally posted by NorEaster
If the entire human race could possibly allow this to be Truth in their visceral sense of what is true, then they would inevitably demand to be allowed to know what the objective criteria is to honestly determine what that "real" is. What derails people is that they've come to the unsettling realization that what they feel they must believe is daily contradicted by what they can't help but to know. This has caused reality itself to seem subjective. Given that, nothing is dependable anymore. Not truth, not morality, not honor, not integrity, not anything.
Originally posted by NorEaster
A bald-faced lie becomes just another point of view.
Originally posted by NorEaster
One "real". The one that actually exists and that set the foundation for all that has since emerged in withering complexity and sophistication. That one "real" - the Truth. Convince them that it does actually exist, and that it can be determined, and then let them work it out from there.