You asked a bunch of questions in that post, somewhat rhetorically, I suppose. Anyway, I was answering to the questions, not to you, specifically. Everyone knows that mswas is the center of this little vortex.
Translation : “He never agrees with me, and is therefore irrational”. mswas, you have based your beliefs on mysticism ( irrational ) and subjective experiences ( irrational when applied to the objective world ). You say you are rational, but you stand for pure irrationality. You believe you are a god and that belief defines reality; how is that not irrational ?
Why would I ? It’s mystic and therefore fiction.
It’s only complicated if you believe in a god, easy if you don’t. I find it amusing that a demand for proof is something you consider unreasonable.
First, prove there is a baby.
You may not mean to, but you are.
It’s “puzzling” because it is fundamentally illogical.
A person who calls themselves God thinks I’m arrogant ? :rolleyes:
Oh, please. I’m conscious, a rock isn’t. A rock has nothing to be conscious with. What “context” could a rock have anyway ?
Most useful knowledge was discovered in the last few centuries.
Can you prove any of this ? No ? I thought not. How is making baseless assertions like this “rational” ?
You have no evidence the universe has a being. By the evidence, it’s inanimate.
Did you decide I was irrational before speaking to me? ie, you decided all theists are irrational?
Mysticism , from the Greek μυω (muo, “to conceal”), the belief in realities or truths beyond the present reach of reason.
Mystic doesn’t mean “Fictional”, it’s a form of methodology. Yes it is an irrational methodology, something I never claimed otherwise. What I DID claim is that if the knowledge is TRUE, it can be deduced rationally, unless of course it’s metaphorical.
Oversimplifying something so that it is easy isn’t a compelling argument. It’s easy to say that Magic is how airplanes fly, and while it is true that for someone who doesn’t understand the magic of how airplanes work, one can learn the science behind the magic. So I can oversimplify things to make it easier for me so that my brain doesn’t hurt, but I don’t find that a satisfying.
I do not find a demand for proof unreasonable. I find it funny that you think I find a demand for proof unreasonable, even though I have stated time and again that I do not. Do you think it is rational to attribute things to me that I do not believe? I simply have stated that trying to prove the existence of God is like the Theory of Everything, maybe when they figure out that pesky Theory of Everything, they’ll prove God. However, not understanding something’s mechanics does not deny it’s existence.
You don’t believe in a bearded man in the sky, neither do I, it’s time to move on. I’ve attempted to explain my position and you keep asking me to defend positions I am not taking.
You need to try and keep up if you really care that I prove it. As it is I do not have a whole lot of faith in your intellect, so trying to explain things to you is seeming more pointless every time I enter into a dialogue with you. Eventually, I’m going to require you to prove to me that you are capable of thought, rather than just random regurgitation before I am going to even attempt to discuss anything with you. You are slinging shit as though it will help you win the argument, whereas other people besides you are actually attempting to come to a common understanding, as tripped up as that understanding might be.
I hope you understand that I mostly ignore what you say not because you are atheist, but because I think you are immature and unintelligent. I hope you will examine the evidence of this as I continue to have a dialogue with other atheists on this subject. Please do not convince yourself that it is your atheism that I am judging. In this case it truly is you personally that I am judging. I hope that this candor won’t get me into trouble with the mods, but I want it to be clear for you. You are a punchline to me, you are a counter-example, an example of a worst case scenario, and will continue to be so until I see some nuance added to your methods.
You’ve already decided that I am wrong. You are very clearly uninterested in actually learning about the subject matter at hand, and only want to cast stones. I am here to attempt to learn myself, and the nutrition I get from dialogue from you is about the same as I get from Coca Cola, and I for the most part don’t drink Coca Cola.
Any mod reading this and seeing it as a personal attack, I hope you will take it in the spirit in which it was said, and remember every time he indirectly called me a lunatic. If he thinks that this is all pointless and he is not attempting to come to any understanding of my position, then him responding to me at all is merely a personal attack.
Der Trihs you are a troll.
No, I am not. I am simply saying that it is irrational to think that rational means are the only way to the truth. The knowledge gained “mystically” can be tested and verified.
Many things seem illogical until you understand them.
If you think calling myself God is arrogant, it is further evidence that you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said. I also said rocks and stars are God.
Do you truly wish to understand my viewpoint or are you still just getting your jollies? If you truly wish to understand then read on.
The rock isn’t conscious. You are not conscious, the interaction between you and the rock is consciousness. Experience is all the factors that go into the experience. It is not just the synapses firing in your brain, which is merely a biochemical reaction, and not evidence of consciousness in and of itself.
I disagree with this.
Not if you won’t pay attention. I am not asserting what is rational, but what is irrational. I am not making any positive claims about rationality. I am stating that your induction is irrational. You are starting from a basis that believes atheism is by default rational. I am arguing that this is in fact, not the case, even if atheists other than you, came to their opinion rationally.
You are claiming the universe does not exhibit motion?
Interestingly the Wikipedia article for inanimate redirects you to the definition of Life.
Erek
Except that airplanes don’t fly by magic; you make no sense.
If you respected me, then I would worry.
You have yet to demonstrate there is anything to learn about. As far as I can see, you are not here to learn, but to talk about your rather odd view of God and the universe.
Hardly. I believe everything I say; in fact, I’m rather moderating my language and attitudes because of the forum rules.
Really ? I see no evidence that non-rational methods are any better than sheer luck; I prefer a method of discovering truth that might actually work better than guessing.
And even more seem illogical because they are illogical.
You still claim to be part of God, that’s arrogant ( and silly ).
I understand you quite well; better than you do I think. You appear to be the sort of semi-solipsist who believes what they want to believe, and ignores any form of logic or evidence that contradicts what you want to believe.
No; I am conscious. The only thing I require to be conscious in is a functioning brain and body to be conscious in; rocks or the lack thereof don’t matter.
Then provide some some evidence for it; just looking around, it’s obvious how much knowledge we’ve gained.
So now waterwheels are alive ?
I’d love to hear your definition of rationality. Nonetheless, please provide a cite for where I have not been rational at any time in this argument. I trust that you will not provide a joke, but an actual argument.
One interpretation of define sets limits, but not the one I’m using. I’m talking about a way of describing what you are discussing so that we all will know if a certain thing falls into the set of objects or not. While a traditional theist quite rightly states that we cannot completely define god, you can at least define god as being, for instance, omnipotent. Then we can examine something, like a rock, and determine whether it falls into the category god. I’m sorry that I’m way too busy to read the Qabbalah, not that the version in my library is probably the right translation. To tell you the truth, nothing you have said makes me want to read it. All I get from you is argument from very old authority, which is not very convincing.
I’ve hardly called the traditional conception simplistic. The traditional conception is a deity without form who caused the universe to be created, interacted at least with our ancestors, and, if you are a Christian, had a son. Within that broad scope there are lots of variations on how god interacted with us, whether god changes his mind, etc. Long before I came to the SDMB I realized that any definition of god I came up with was a strawman to many if not most theists, and so I wait for them to provide at least a broad definition, and I try to discuss that one. It is rather pointless to tell, for instance, Tom that his god does not exist because the flood never happened, because his version of god never caused a flood. So it seems to me that you are simplifying things.
I understand that you don’t really get the burden of proof, but anyone claiming any god exists has it, unless they are willing to say they believe by irrational faith - not necessarily a bad thing if it makes one happy. If you are claiming the universe is god, and that we are all connected, and that rocks are conscious, you need to show some evidence, and the Qabbalah don’t cut it.
I don’t reject God outright, since the string “God” is not well defined. God [fundamentalist] I do reject, not outright but by the preponderance of evidence. God[deist] I don’t believe in, but accept that this god is by nature not testable. God[mswas] is so ill defined that I don’t believe, having no reason to, but am hard pressed to offer arguments against, since all I’m getting is smoke. More on this below.
I can imagine a great deal, however I demand of myself, and of others, that they are rationally consistent. I’m not asking for a dictionary definition, just some things like:
Is the consciousness of god independent from other consciousnesses?
Does god act, or is the sum of the actions of the constituents of the universe god’s action?
Does god define or impose a moral code?
Does god have or impose a purpose?
All of these questions are quite reasonable, and can be answered for the traditional Western God. If your answers to all these questions is no, then your god is not a god in any useful way.
I rather think some of it is frustration myself.
Obviously we communicate by motion, by smell, by non-language sounds. Any evidence or justification for the statement that we are part of the same consciousness of anything?
And neither I, nor you, nor the rock, nor a star is a thought. Images of all these things are thoughts, but a thought about a thing is not the thing. I deny that a rock has thoughts, since thoughts are measurable (if not understandable yet) electrochemical brain reactions. Thinking things can’t really imagine not thinking, the source of the pathetic fallacy, but I can at least express that a rock does not think.
Confusion of the image of a thing with the thing itself is at the very heart of magical thinking. Magic don’t work!
I’m not reading the whole thing to try to find what you consider string theory. Please post a representative section. Is this any different from the creationists who reinterpret Genesis to prove that it is right about evolution? Or did mystic writings randomly intersect with scientific reality. Consider the atom of Democritus. Was he correct? Not really - much of the philosophy that led to his conclusion was just as incorrect as that which led to other conclusions. That definition of the atom was unverifiable and led nowhere. The definition that arose from the development of physics and chemistry, however, was logical, verifiable, and led to further advances. If string theory is correct, and the basis of all is vibrating strings, this does not endorse the mystic vibrations of the 19th century. A similarity of words is not a similarity of concept.
Well, that’s some progress, at least. However, rejecting irrational beliefs is rational. You might begin by showing a rational justification for your view of god. The closest I’ve seen is that the Qabbalah says it, and the Qabbalah mentions something that can be interpreted as string theory, so it must be right. Not extremely convincing.
What evidence do you have, instead of pure assertion, that what you claim is separated only cognitively is not truly separated? Even you admit it appears that we are separated from a rock - why is doesn’t reality match this appearance?
I understand the concept fine - the reality is baloney.
Now this I agree with. Let’s not call it knowledge quite yet, but facts obtained from mysticism, or esp, or a trance, or anything, can be tested and verified.
But has any knowledge gained from mysticism been truly verified? Verirication has to be repeatable and statistically valid, of course.
In essence what you are saying is that no matter how compelling, well thought out and logical argument that is offered here you will consider in irrational. How exactly is that a rational position to take?
A force is a rate of change of momentum, and so cannot be conscious itself (although an arrangement of atoms characterised by consciousness can change the momenta of other arrangements). As for “creative”, well, cosmology suggests that the universe was NOT created.
No, the point at the centre of a black hole is a singularity, as is the “North Pole of the universe”. You and I, and Earth and the sun, are not infinite curvatures of spacetime.
Just because A contains B does not make A equal to B. One might as well say that the universe is alive or human simply because humans are.
Cognitive science disagrees with you.
But without signals to sense, the brain does not develop cognitive function, as sadly demonstrated by the severely retarded development of children who were raised in conditions of near sensory deprivation.
Then you are not conscious when you’re alone. Are you alone now, or am I talking to myself?
Not really.
Simply because it’s the most widespread belief in our society.
Besides, they actually insist that there are three gods who are one, which is an even more specifical and weirder concept.
So you are god, and I am god, yet we possess different attributes? Is it rational to state that A=B and C=B but A!=C? Are you positing a god who is limited in scope?
[Winston Zeddmore]
Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say YES!
[/Winston Zeddmore]
You are not yet in trouble with the Mods, but you are standing on the line seeing how many toes you can edge over it before you get noticed.
NOW, you are in trouble with the Mods.
You have already collected several warnings for your behavior toward other posters.
You need to ratchet back your anger–a lot.
This is your final Warning before we suspend your posting privileges.
Thank you for your attention.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
IMHO mythology is connected to the part of us that seeks answers. Some may prefer to cling to mythology but others will lay it down once the truth is realized. I think the development of monotheism is in large part due to a subtle awakening of how things are connected. The cycle of life and nature. If you look at the Messege of Jesus and see how it was twisted in the centuries since it’s easy to conceive that postulating about the interconnectedness of mankind and the rest of nature led to different brands of monotheism rather than polytheism, and over time and generations it simply survived the fading of other mythology. I think the same thing is happening now as we evolve spiritually, but it takes many generations.
In this argument you’ve been rational as far as I can tell. The issue I take umbrage with is the de facto rationalism that people proclaim. It is the atheist groupthink that won’t be owned up to because atheism is not a religion as defined. However, I see more of a herd mentality from atheists on this board than I do from theists. I have had theists multiple times express disagreement with me. I rarely see any of you saying anything to Der Trihs when he says, “I don’t need to provide a cite…it’s obvious.” but you wouldn’t let me do the same. This is a political ploy because Der Trihs is ‘us’ and I am ‘them’, thus SDMB atheist groupthink. Thus irrational.
I have expressed how I feel about rationality multiple times. Saying only that ‘inductive’ arguments are irrational no matter who is saying them. However, for some reason in these debates I don’t see atheists taking other atheists to task for irrational arguments, even though they profess many of them.
Here is the wikipedia entry for rationality, which supports what I have been saying:
This is the definition for rational I have been using. But I will admit that I might have been using it too hastily. It’s not that many of the arguments I’ve seen thrown at me are irrational, it’s that they are logically unsound, even if they are rational. I apologize for that misunderstanding. I will use logically unsound to describe such arguments as Der Trihs argument that God doesn’t exist, but if he does then he’s hateful, or the Tri-Omni argument, as it is more precise
Well if you don’t find reading the cites offered to be compelling, then why do you persist in trying to diminish their authority. Is it rational to dismiss something you refuse to read?
Well my issue is with so many different conceptions of God, how is it rational to pick one, debunk it, and then consider the case closed? As I have argued for these past months, the difference between an atheist and a theist is semantic. An atheist will find out that there is no white bearded man in the sky, and determine that God does not exist. A theist will determine that there is no white bearded man in the sky and revise his conception of God.
It’s the arrogant “Atheists are rational Theists are not” argument that bothers me.
Your arrogance aside, I do get the burden of proof. You are trying to get me to commit to a definition which we BOTH know will be inadequate so you can easily debunk it. You aren’t trying to get to truth, you are strategizing, and attempting to impugn my cognitive abilities as though they makes your argument more compelling or ‘rational’. If you don’t know that we are all connected you need to take a HS Freshman physics class. If you don’t feel gravity connecting you to the Earth, if you don’t know that matter is really confluences of energy interacting, then you’ve got too many basics to learn for me to possibly be able to talk to you about any of this. I said that the interaction between you and the rock is “consciousness”. That your body, and the rock are merely energy interacting. Your synapses firing are no more evidence of consciousness than a rockslide down a hill. It is the experience of the interaction between your biochemical responses, and the rock that is the consciousness.
I know you don’t really understand the concept of burden of proof, but when trying to come to a common definition of something there is no burden of proof. I can’t prove to you that a word means what it means.
Because you think this is a mathematical proof, that’s your problem. We are trying to come to a stable semantic definition, and you are approaching it like High School algebra.
All of these questions are facile in my opinion. It still requires a definition of God that is “other” or seperate from the universe, a definition that I do not hold. God is intrinsic. The constant mistake people make is that they redefine something and then set it in opposition to the way it was defined before. It’s what happened with magic. When people defined magic, they called it science and debunked the “magic”.
The word ‘occult’ refers to hidden knowledge. Once the knowledge is revealed via science, that doesn’t make the ‘occult’ incorrect, it only means that it is no longer hidden, no longer ‘occult’. However, you have a certain type of person who doesn’t really understand either science or the occult that scoffs at practitioners of the occult even though many scientists could rightly be considered practitioners of the occult. The occult is the “hidden mysteries”.
This type of oversimplification is exactly what I am railing against. So sure, I’ll admit it’s rational, but it’s logically unsound.
Again this is a ‘semantic’ argument. We are attempting to conceive of these concepts. Maybe come up with a definition of consciousness that can be mutually agreed upon. You are expecting me to de facto accept your semantic space, and ‘prove’ something to you within your limited semantic space. I contend that your semantic space is deeply flawed, and arbitrarily limited.
See you have limited your definition in a way that I don’t agree with. This is the heart of our dilemma. The difference here, is that I understand your language but cannot speak it. You neither understand NOR speak my language. However, I would implore you to consider that it’s not that my language is faulty, because there are MANY people with whom I have absolutely no trouble conversing on this subject.
This entire argument from my perspective has been a way to
Magic does work. You’ve flown in a plane, that would be considered magic 500 years ago. As Arthure C. Clarke will tell you “Any technology sufficiently advanced would be indistinguishable from magic.”
Are you contending that human beings have discovered all the knowledge there is to know? That there is nothing that anyone can accomplish that science cannot explain? Does it make it easier for you to just not acknowledge things that are difficult to explain?
Here is a small exerpt written by Timothy Leary about Lao Tse, it is from the book “Cosmic Trigger: Final Secrets of the Illuminati” by Robert Anton Wilson. It is a book about deprogramming and reprogramming one’s consciousness. RAW, is the guy who wrote the Illuminatus trilogy that Der Trihs is so fond of quoting with ‘fnord’. This book isn’t about the Bavarian Illuminati conspiracy. Timothy Leary uses the pronouns SHe and Hir instead of She/He and His/Her.
There is more to it than that. It’s a better example than any qabbalistic example I could provide you on Super-String that is that concise. You like to dismiss mysticism, but I contend that you conception of science would not be possible, that the scientists would have nothing to deduce without what the mystics induced millenia before them. The formation of what you believe today is the culmination of thousands of years of study in many different fields. No one lives in a vacuum, we pass consciousness along to one another in the form of information. We join with others to form aggregates that we call “Groups” that pool people’s abilities, whether they be physical or cognitive in order to accomplish more complex tasks than the individual would be able to accomplish on his/her own. This is what society is. I think the arguments you put forth are quite arrogant, and do not give the proper respect to your ancestors who thought of the ideas you are currently thinking about before anyone even thought about you existing.
How can I prove to you that something you are incapable of comprehending exists? When you show me that trick, then I’ll prove to you that God exists. Until then we will continue to have this SEMANTIC disagreement.
You are seperated by intervening properties from that rock. This is not a true seperation. It’s energy affects you and yours affects it through intervening concepts such as “distance” and other pieces of matter, however, you do interact with it if not in a way that you directly perceive. If you cannot comprehend that the Universe is a singularity, then this is probably a futile discussion. Here is a link to my evidence that we are all connected: General Relativity.
Erek
If you are contending that all atheists are all rational all the time, then yes, because then clearly what is rational in my world is not rational in yours.
However, I do not tend to disagree with rational arguments. Only ones that are ‘socially’ rational, rather than actually rational. Sociall rational is when “Most of the other people agree with me, so my side must be the most rational.”
Erek
I will now respond to one of the people in this thread who happens to disagree with me, but is offering rational arguments. If I have called you irrational in the past, please note the differences between SentientMeat’s arguments and your own.
I’d tend to agree with you that the universe was not “Created” but “Formed”. I think what people call “Creationism” would be an intelligent formation. The limited data set is the main thing about Intelligent Design that makes it silly. Evolution makes complete sense, and there is no reason to toss it out, it is the method by which the current set of creatures who are alive were “formed”.
The entire thing is however a singularity. Also, everything is infinite, as the size of something is relative to that which is being measured. Even if your measurement is some kind of constant as developed by Max Planck. All things are measured by that which they are being compared. The Sun is infinitely large and infinitely small. There is an infinite amount of distance from any one point on the sun to any other point on the sun. It’s not until we set finite lengths that the distance becomes finite. You have used CMB in the past to measure things, but even then you are comparing distance to the wavelength of the radiation you are using to measure things. There are infinite points between every decimal so to speak.
Well as I have stated before I don’t believe humans are ‘conscious’ they are part of the ‘consiousnes’. Without things to experience, there would be no firing of synapses. How is a biochemical response such as the firing of synapses evidence of consciousness, other than it correlates to people experiencing things? How is the thing being experienced any less a part of the process than the firing synapses?
Cognitive science has a very self-centered view of ‘consciousness’. In the link to the article on Life that I posted earlier, it had a great term referring to people who think carbon based forms are the only forms of life. They called it “Carbon Chauvinism”. What makes you believe that only creatures with Central Nervous Systems are capable of self-awareness?
Again your only evidence is biochemical reactions. The severely retarded children are experiencing SOMETHING, just not the same thing that you and I might experience.
I have never been alone, there has always been stimuli around me, whether it’s a cool breeze, the vibrational hum of the city, the trees swaying back and forth, my heart beating, many things to experience. I am always relating to something.
Fair enough.
Erek
SentientMeat I have a question for you.
Was there consciousness before brains? Was there nothing aware of itself before the brain came into existence? If so, then how did brains become “conscious”?
It is good to know that I haven’t been irrational. I also have never said that inductive arguments (if done correctly) are irrational. Much of science is inductive, and there are valid mathematical proofs by induction.
I have not seen any atheist groupthink. I have responded to some atheist arguments I think are correct, but am not obliged to respond to all, since 30 years of experience in forums like this has shown me things get off track. I post too much already. His claims of obviousness in the other thread, by the way, seem fine with me - I agree that anyone familiar with the history of the study of human origins would not need a cite.
I have just read a rather thick philosophy book by a professor of philosophy who made many of the arguments I assume you say Der Trihs is making (though probably not as well.) I assume he is making the argument for one variety of the traditional western god, not yours, but it is definitely a logical and rational objection to a certain definition of god. I won’t go into it since this is not the god you believe in. Logic arguments, btw, can be irrational, if they begin with irrational premises.
At the risk of repeating myself, I have not found other so-called mystical foreshadowings of science to be very compelling, and, given my workload, don’t have a reason to find this one likely to be compelling also. I’m not sure what authority they’re supposed to have, except being old, but saying that your appeal to their authority doesn’t really diminish it - it is just saying that you are making a fallacious argument.
If your example of the quote by Tiny Dr. Tim below is any example of what I’d expect to find in them, I’m even less impressed. But more on that later.
Well it’s jolly lucky that I’ve never made that argument, isn’t it. Not that many theists are irrational about religion, and some admittedly so.
I never said that debunking one is enough. I can only debunk one at a time, and then only conceptions that theists propose. It is pointless for me to debunk a conception I come up with. The debunking the white bearded man argument is pure strawman.
I know physicists who hate people like you. Mututal gravitational interaction (and gravity is a very weak force) does not say anything like what you are trying to get it to say, and just shows you know only enough physics to distort it. Matter is frozen energy, and the types of energy that are involved in interactions are in no way mystical and in no way describe a shared consciousness between them.
Synapses firing are definitely tied to consciousness - stop them firing, and it goes away. Affect them through drugs or probes, and you affect thoughts. Your denying this does not mean it is not true.
As for arrogance, guily. A degree from MIT, a PhD, and 15 years at Bell Labs does that for one. That and lots of professional recognition and awards. Some of us have a lot to be arrogant about. 
No, this is not math, it is general semantics. The word god is terribly overloaded. You have a concept of god that does not match with Tom’s, but why should we deny either of you the right to use the term? I’m trying to understand your conception in order to figure out something to make it testable, or at least distinguishable from the null hypothesis that no such god exists. While denying that you can define god, you did answer my questions below, so that is a start.
Facile? Theists, help me out here, but the questions seem to me to get at the heart of what most people mean by god, and why they think god is important. Over 2,000 years of theology address these questions. Saying they are worthless seems to me the height of arrogance. Even an atheist such as I appreciate their importance.
And they are questions, not answers. The next question is: how can we distinguish a universe that is not sentient, purely material without consciousness except within entities such as ourselves, from the one you you posit?
BTW, people did not relabel magic science. People gave up on things like alchemy when it became clear they did not fit within the new and working scientific paradigm. That we can accomplish the old goals of magic through science is a totally different thing.
hardly. How is your god useful? The Western god answers your prayers, puts you in heaven, created the world for us, gives us meaning. Your god does …? If your god’s existence is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, then I offer that you are practicing spiritual onanism.
(Us arrogant people love to use the big words. )
sigh I am willing to go with any definition you want. I’m just looking for evidence within your definition. I’m not talking proof here, but just asking for the slightest shred of evidence that this has any relationship to external reality. So I repeat my request.
I don’t think you get what I mean at all, and your mistaking my tagging of god for algebra is further evidence of this. Are you really saying that we are no more than thoughts? Evidence for this?
You don’t go dissin’ my favorite author. My brother just gave me an autographed book of his, and I think I’ve read every word he’s published, just about. Indistinguishable is not the same as identical. His point is that an advanced technology would be able to do things that we could not reproduce, so it would be as magic. However do you really think that scientists today would think the actions of an advanced technology was magic? Not likely. They’d say, “that’s cool. Let’s re-evaluate all our theories to see what hints we can get about where we are wrong, or which of several possibilities is correct…” The biggest aid to figuring out something is seeing it work, since this eliminates a lot of possibilities.
However your use of the quote is only the second worst I’ve heard. It was used for a car ad once (without attribution) which was offensive. Especially because it was for a crappy car.
Hardly.
There are plenty of things we can’t explain - yet. That just means to try harder. It is possible that something inexplicable will come up, but I’m not betting that way.
This is exactly the kind of crap I was expecting. You might as well say the inventor of the lightswitch anticipated computer design because light switches are binary.
However, I am a computer designer, and Leary is wrong. At the logical level computers work with 1s and 0s, but at the electrical level they do not. Voltage levels are assigned to the one value and the 0 value, but there is a range of voltages between 1 and 0 which transistors switch through - if they are working correctly, that is. Circuits can float between them, and do for outputs sometimes. Defects cause internal nodes to float also.
This is a great illustration that people with a very superficial knowledge of something (like Leary’s of computer design) make improper connections. I’m not a biologist, but I believe amino acid construction is more complex than thought when this was written. This is based on Watson’s recent book on DNA. I suspect Leary is just as wrong on this. Bottom line, this quote is total bullshit, and absolutely supports my position. I think the Qabbalah just fell a few slots on my priority list. I get mad enough reading the paper. I don’t think, by the way, that this or any other mystical document had anything to do with String theory or anything else. I don’t recall Greene mentioning it.
To summarize:
You don’t have the slightest bit of evidence your conception of god and consciousness is correct.
You don’t provide any way in which your model of god and the universe differs from the purely material model.
Your attempt to show that an ancient mystical source predicted modern technology fell flat on its face. The root cause is ignorance by the proponents of this connection about the technology.
I’m arrogant.
I don’t think the universe was “formed”, I think it’s always existed. “Formed” from what?
From non-alive things. There is no such thing as a non-universe for the universe to be “formed” from.
No, it isn’t. Spacetime is not infinitely curved in the entire thing.
I have explained before: the size of the universe is a finite multiple of the Planck scale, which itself is constant.
You are speaking gibberish. It is 109 Earths in diameter (this, again, being a finite number of constant Planck lengths).
I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Which is OK, since you clearly don’t either.
I’m having doubts about you myself: are not at least a little sleepy?
How is anything evidence of anything?
I never said it wasn’t part of the process. That does not make the rock or star itself conscious.
Well, OK, let’s explore some alternatives. Do you think a photon is conscious?
Then “you” and “I” are themselves irrelevant words. Under your philosophy, when I post to this thread I am effectively talking to myself. It certainly feels like it.
No, any more than there was life before proteins.
Nothing which crossed where I personally set the threshold of “awareness of oneself”, no.
They evolved.
I agree with Einstein, He thought of the word “God” to mean…’ What ever exists’, that would be greater than just the Universe. As I understand it there is no boundry to Existence, in order to exist you have to be in existence. Since it is impossible for Nothing to exist,because at that point nothing becomes something. God then would be Being not " A" being.
Monavis