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 Now online (2)dariusgriffin big ...and 172 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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have you read "the true believer" by erich hoffer (i think, the memory is a little dusty)? anything combined with dogma is dangerous. good intentions, anyone? |
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plaidze. although undermining my point, i'd distinguish between truth and Truth ... where i see truth as a maleable, playful quasi-pragmatic account. it is within - Truth is some external thing - it ignores that we who pose the question ought to be included in the question. Or more accurately, we who pose the question are included in the question, and not accounting for this is misleading. ? wasn't meaning to say that you believed int he chemical thing .. but was wondering if the "manual" was some ethical or moral guidebook, because it could be argued that cold science (ie. biochemistry for instance), can not provide ethics, or if it does, it already implicitly combines with an ethical attitude. |
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i will be honest with you, i have lost the ability to question one, hmm i don't know what to call it. for practical purposes, we can call it a belief. it is the foundation for the simple laws i spoke of. personally, i questioned this until i could not resist any longer, and i was forced to surrender. i don't mean that i gave up; something fundamental was demonstrated to me, and i could not refute it any longer. i had discovered it, and then questioned it, for seventeen years. so let it be said that i was not hasty. nor did i believe beforehand that i needed to believe it. one thing is certain: i have come into being. i realize these words will paint many different images for different people. there are a few individuals for whom these words are specifically meant. you know who you are. |
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cool. not meaning to "assasinate" anyone _ just think the inextricability of us in the world and inquiry is too often "passed over" is all. re: surrender. to see it this way, ie. not to surrender is resistance imo is already based on this mysticism or whatever. ie. one doesn't have to see it in this way. |
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agree to disagree that we disagree in agreeance. |
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what were you doing in madison? |
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the definition of a mystic that i found was, as i suggested, one who seeks the personal union with the divine. the definition of mysticim included "difficult to pinpoint exactly, but..." i think that it is important to keep in mind that all lines of logic are based on faith in some axiom or axioms, whether the "believer" is aware of this. hardcore atheist scientists are people of faith in something that they do not question. the atheist scientist has worked the axiom very deep into their thick blanket of logic, where as a man of the book makes his point of faith very clear. and think that the mystic is often somebody who places their faith in the experience rather than the abstract concept. for this reason i feel more grounded, more "down to earth" in ecstatic union with the divine than i do in mentally processing science and philosophy when i know that i am merely pushing my point of faith beyond sight when i do so. what is truth other than what is felt/experienced? in that sense, rationalizaition is an approximation of the truth. if a mystic is unable to put their alleged wisdom into words and they are legit, it is not because they are deliberately hiding anything, or hiding from anything (whereas it is common that a guru would hide things from their devotee; illegit). it is because they know that what they would truly like to communicate would be approximated to the point of the attempt to communicate not being worthy. it is only something that can be experienced, precisely because that is what Truth is. giving into the moment. |
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plaidzebra, no, my name is andy. do you / did you take class at the u of m? probably not since you consider your presence in minneapolis "shadowy." i imagine you're probably not the person that came to mind, but it's worth a shot to inquire. |
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not to undermine logical rationalization, science or philosophy by any means. clearly i'm going at it right now. and this is the precise reason that i believe understanding limitations is important. rationale, being limited, must be balanced with the intuition that one develops from living/experiencing/acting, rather than thinking. to me, unhealthy ethics stem from too much of one or the other, thought or experience (emotion). |
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i agree that it is important to recognize that we cannot exclude ourselves from the question. it is difficult to entertain the immensity of that fact. mysticism represents the hidden only inasmuch as it asserts that a fundamental assumption of our existence here represents denial of self and origin. it says, there is something that has been forgotten, and it's very important. we will rediscover what has been lost. it is hidden, because it is worthless if imposed by dogma, or enforced by ritual. it must be sought, and continuously rediscovered. again, i recognize that there are many traditions, i'm just giving the plaidzebra version. |
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regarding the feeling that i was missing my user manual: although this feeling was a genuine concern in that i did, at the time, feel that i lacked some essential information, i entertained the idea as possibility and not fact or belief, and i was really attempting to find humor in the scientific materialist "man as electrochemical machine" model. i now see it as a profoundly self limiting belief. but in a way, it was a necessary passage. i have no regrets. a very brief history: when i was a teenager, i realized that religion was something people had created. i could not see that god had any reality at all, and declared my atheism. soon after, i had a personal experience which ultimately led me to abandon atheism as a dogma of denial. i remained an agnostic until i could no longer honestly maintain agnosis. as i have said before, my goal is not to impose my will or ideas, but suggest helpfully that there are resources unused. i don't mean to tell you more than you want to know, but i wanted to clearly acknowledge the personal nature of my position. |
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totally agree that logic, atheism, science and western philosophy to a large part operate on axioms as you put. but a mystic places more faith in experience than abstract concepts? for one, the experiences are already coloured by the abstract concepts, and vice versa i guess ... but isn't blind faith in god (just as an example), faith in an abstract concept, than experience? you could perhaps subjectively verify it to yourself, but then in the extreme sense that would be betraying your faith. (though again, perhaps necessarily so). |
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mimi- i traveled there to care for my nephew while my sister was in the hospital giving birth to my new nephew. jupitah, indeed i have not taken classes at the u of m. |
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though scientific concept is not useless in the remembrence of self origin. many do not experience kinship with stars, or experience being part of a single universal as a cell is a part of our body, but the big bang theory makes the kinship idea literally so and so. |
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fallacies fallacies fallacies. if you think it's ultimately right, then you're ultimately wrong. :) |
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the following statement is true |
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the previous statement is false |
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yes, a teacher in a mystical tradition will spare the student the distortions of language. they may not answer questions in that they may not speak, and yet they may answer questions. again, the zen tradition of direct pointing is an example. recognizing too that zen takes many different forms. |
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The only study that operates purely on axiom is mathematics. It is non conditional. 1+1=2 in any place in the universe, as well as all other mathematical laws. And so the universe is entirely composed of "values" (numbers) and hence equations etc etc. Your consciousness exists in the electric field generated by the neural pathways and synapses firing in your brain, the result of chemical processes that were put into action, going way back, to the moment your DNA began replicating in your embryo, every result governed by physical laws, sans any sort of "spiritual" or "mystical" powers. Even the chemical properties inherent in the molecules of your body result from the interaction of electron fields in their consituent atoms comprised of energy. There is no God to create you, nor is there need for one. A good example of Occam's razor. Science, philosophy, etc. yes are based on reality and aim at a true representation thereof, but can only do so through demonstration. Nothing in science is known 100% to be true, otherwise it wouldn't be science, it always must leave the door open for new insights. So science really isn't based on axioms as such |
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distortions? distorting what? the Truth? language is only a tool to get by anyway .. |
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this whole 'eventually-leads-to-dualism' talk is never agreed upon by its concerned debaters. in short, dualism works if you believe in mysticism, but if you agree towards mysticism then you also agree that there are many things we cannot know right now, or do not know, and cannot prove empirically - therefore, we can say anything about everything and pretend it's true.. and that is logically unsound. thus, saying 'there is something there which we cannot know and is beyond us' - well, here's a thought (and not a new one at that) - if we can agree to the fact that we cannot know it, then what's the point in talking about it as if it is truth? |
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if we can agree to the fact that we cannot know it, then what's the point in talking about it as if it is truth? BINGO! |
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so the parties here huh? |
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well, i do not put blind faith in god. im sure some mystics are more of the blind faith type, but i don't think that that is definitive of myticism. i am aware of a mysterious possibility that there is this thing, god, and i've experienced what i cinsider to be god, but i do not expect that god is something that will take care of whatever i choose not to... except that when i consider that i myself am god, i suppose :) i take responsibility. i'm sure that there have been many a mystic with too much resting on the expience and not enough concept and analysis, as well mystics who place too much value on the coneptualization and and get caught up in dogma. but who is to say what the balance is? it certainly is not a clear line. this is how i have both conceptualized and experienced the tao, as the vague balance that can not be derived mathematically, logically. there is no way around it, and the only option, for myself as someone who believes in the importance of this balance, is to both intuit it as well as analytically watch my life unfold. if all is well, i know i am in the tao, balanced. if things are not well, i need to find equilibrium by shifting my life around. |
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i do believe that in the future, science and spirituality will converge. i don't intend to deny the value of scientific inquiry, or suggest that we deny ourselves any experience, if it serves us. asceticism can be a form of self indulgence, or an antidote for desire. the individual has so many forms, of course, there must be many paths. |
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afxnumb .. damn straight :) jupitah .. surely with blind faith you can't see god .. in this sense i guess mystics don't have blind faith, because they feel they can still see this beyond. |
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re:distortions lao tzu said, the tao which can be spoken is not the eternal tao. |
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"i do believe that in the future, science and spirituality will converge" The FUTURE is now ... join Scientology. |
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but seriously here, im sure some of you readers/writers have hallucinated or felt 'non-typical' sensations somewhere in your life. now, if you have, then do you think that happened because there was some sort of ultimate mystical truth causing that sensation to happen? or could it be your brain causing a type of chemical reaction? id rather think god had nothing to do with me and my drugs - more likely that my body did.. :) |
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science and spirituality have already converged in my life. there is no contradiction between the two. hopefully it will spill over into the mass. an absolutely unique path for every individual. potentially infinite paths? |
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and the eternal tao is the true one? |
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why would one deny the relationship between the mind and the brain, between consiousness and physicality? there is no separation. they are two ways in which we undertand one thing. |
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A mystic experience is usually described as one that is outside of physical experience, outside of reason, outside of demonstration, outside of reality. Then what was it? It's all in your head is what it is. |
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the eternal tao is eternally trapped in a paradigm, which not everyone is part of. therefore, the eternal tao is not universally eternal. and to the guy who mentioned heidegger near the beginning of this thread - existentialist phenomenology through heideggerian methods is limited in itself. it's a trick! |
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i don't know if lao tzu's tao is the balance i describe, but much of taoism i've read fits the bill. and i suggested that it is unique for every individual, so certainly not the true "one" |
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"There is no God to create you, nor is there need for one." you are not recognizing that creation is not the generation of form, not some decree to "let there be a body, NOW". how does your materialist perspective incorporate imaginary numbers into the universe? reality is not as cut and dried as you would suppose. as always, we agree to disagree. |
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jenf ... but by the same token i don't think you can explain everything in terms of biology. - not meaning to aspire to no mystical thing here .. but undermining actions via. biology (or any discipline for that matter) will be incomplete. jupitah .. science and spirituality (i'll rephrase it as ethics) shouldn't contradict, because they have different functions .. hence they can happily converge .. |
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very funny, korben. i am not advocating scientology! : ) |
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... first you ask me why one would deny the relationship between the two. therefore you are saying you believe in dualism. then you say that there is no separation. therefore contradicting your first statement. then you go back to your first statement, but try to synthesize it with some sort of ambiguous end... so where do you stand? :) |
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have ever had one of these mystical experiecnes? why would you think it necessitates being out of physical experience? it certainly can be. and besides that, what is not in your head? are you suggesting that experience of physical reality is not in the head and mystical experience is in the head? |
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"and the eternal tao is the true one?" i'm sorry, korben, but you are missing the point, and i cannot offer any more clarity that lao tzu has not already provided. |
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the point here is - sure there might be things that cannot be explained right now through science.. BUT.. does that mean you shouldn't try to? and work with what you have explained? rather than talk about things you cannot back up? |
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Sure I've had experiences that would be mystical for some people. But they are not mystical for me, because of my understanding that this idea of 'spiritualism' doesn't exist. |
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you suggested they were two. the "two i refer to are the "two" that you discussed. i believe the "two" are two different conceptions of one thing. are you playing games, or do you serious think i contradict myself? |
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well, spirit for me is what i feel. my feelings certainly exist. spirit does not have to be some esoteric hogwash. i just except that what i feel is as real as what i can think. |
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ah, i think (reading back again through the comments), you misunderstood what i said, then i mistook what you said :) i basically stated that i didn't think they were two different things - i oppose dualism. but because you responded to me in a way which didn't seem to agree with my statement, i interpreted your statements as being confusing.. if you agree that consciousness is something that comes from the physical, and that's that.. then we actually do agree. |
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enjoying it! |
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well, we might be on similar wavelengths, but i don't think that consioueness "comes from" the physical any more than the physical comes from consiousness. |
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then how can there be any interaction between your cousciousness and the perception of the physical world? there couldn't be. |
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your body is an interface of feeling, but not the source of all feeling. yes, your body allows you to feel the sun, but your feeling of the sun is not the sun, is it? the body is also an interface of consciousness, but not the source of consciousness. creation means the extension of consciousness, so that each thread generated has its own identity, but the same source. each thread has the responsibility for articulating its uniqueness. each thread is responsible for maintaining and continuing this extension. denial of the gift of creation that is given you is denial of your self. i realize that you fervently believe that your body gave rise to your consciousness, and that i cannot persuade you otherwise. i insist, however, that it is not so. certainly you can appreciate that language imposes a structure that makes some ideas very difficult to communicate. especially in straightforward, non-technical form. |
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