Has Thucy been on the Holy Spirit .....

Frankly I'm not worried about my own credibility, because I know that my own reputation is just a transient puff of smoke. What remains, however, is the truth.

Your reputation definitely involves puffs of smoke.

It's funny, actually, I just read in Zhuangzi a few weeks ago that it's useless to try to show people that all things are one, and that all things are one whether you try to show people or not. Somehow I knew he was right but, on this forum, it's difficult to keep from speaking my mind and answering questions people put to me.

I think we're going to have to spend a bit more time on that moon example, because I don't think I'm buying it at all.

Just now I feel that it would be very easy and natural for me to become upset and hurt that I'm not being taken seriously by people I consider my peers, but it helps me to remember that you are my peers whether you think yourselves better, worse, or the same as me. Equality, thankfully, is a fact, not an aspiration. Sincerity, also, is a reflex, not a virtue.

Well, I'm about out of energy for it tonight, but till our next discussion I would just ask you to think of how it is that the moon is a separate object, what justification you have for it. Probably you will justify it in terms of other objects , so repeat the process for them. Go on like that till you reach singularity, and you'll see what I mean. It's not something I can do for you.

I will think about the moon, which, incidentally, is full tonight.

Thucy,

First of all, it's not "character assassination" to call into question the rational source of your points. You're full of redefinitions this evening, aren't you? It would be so to insist that you had used illegal substances that you denied using. For what it's worth, if you haven't used them in awhile, then I doubt we can point to them to explain your newfound incoherence. (Which, by the way, largely disappeared over the past page when you started trying to communicate ideas and not just sound cool).

Second: your determination to consider the universal is admirable. Unfortunately, you're being too glib in thinking that you can dismiss the particular philosophically and still use it at all in daily life. You say that you "know" that you can buy twice as much candy with two dollars as with one. Problem is, you *really can't* know that if you deny the existence of dollars. You can't deny the ultimate existence of something but still insist on treating it as real in daily life. That doesn't work -- philosophically.

Would you complain to the police if I took all your stuff? If so, then you do believe in property, or else you're a hypocrite.

As for the "moon," you're playing another game, which pretending that one has to precisely define the boundaries of something in order to name it. If I look at the moon, it's correct that, the closer I look at it, the more it appears to be diverse types of atoms and molecules. Moreover, large numbers of molecules and atoms are leaving and joining it all the time. And you're right, of course, that defining some set of them -- those identifiable as a single "object," say all the molecules within x miles of a particular point in space -- to be the moon is an essentially mental act.

But you then imply that such mental naming i s somehow incoherent or false. In fact, naming things is a perfectly coherent activity, and genuinely serves to create distinctions. You may complain that it's not "real" if it's just mental; but isn't even the distinction between existence and nonexistence a naming, and mental? If you make so much of that, and call the universe all that is, then I am only doing the same thing when I call the moon all that is in a particular region.

Oh, and incidentally:

"
But while we're on the subject: say you are dreaming, and it's a pretty vivid dream. Everything feels real. You take, in the dream, a pill a friend gives you. Then you wake up. How do you know whether you are now awake, or are hallucinating? The point is: assuming the "normal" existence is the only perspective from which the truth can be viewed is inaccurate, because you cannot know what "normal" actually is. In my own case I have found that this truth makes as much sense after months and months of hard-nosed sobriety of every kind as it does to a tripped out college kid lying on a couch somewhere."

It is conceivable that I can't tell, that's true. But my other beliefs should all be indexed to the strength and support I have for the belief that I am *not* believing. We should trust our beliefs at all only because (or if) we believe that we have cognitively useful faculties and senses. If I have reason to doubt my senses, I should start to more fully doubt what I see. And if I take a drug that I know causes me to see things that are not there, I should therefore not believe as strongly whatever it is I may see.

"If the truth is not contained in every perspective, it is no universal truth. "

Twaddle. A "perspective" taht is based on compromised and faulty cognitive aparatus is less useful for truth. It is not necessary to respect the opinions of a crazy man who thinks he is a banana when analyzing truth, because his faculties are compromised. (Of course, it appears you think he is closer to the truth than we are).

Also, you write, "I would just ask you to think of how it is that the moon is a separate object, what justification you have for it. Probably you will justify it in terms of other objects , so repeat the process for them. Go on like that till you reach singularity, and you'll see what I mean."

But this ignores that discrete subsystems of the universe can have identifiable properties that they do not share with their environment. Take yourself. You make much of the fact that you are part of the same physical system as the rest of the universe, which is true. But your consciousness only extends to your own body. You may wave this away as an unimportant, artificial distinction. I would argue that it is highly significant, and justifies the singling out of you as an individual that has occurred. Similarly, the various cells of a plant are connected in a way that cells of other plants are not: poison the plant, and they all die (and not those of other plants). You simply assume, without any argument, that subsystems of the universe cannot be so tightly causally bound together to themselves that they may reasonably regarded as sub-entities with a distinct identity. The moon is the moon because it moves as one. Distant particles do not participate in its causal identity, and so there is a wide gap in behavior between it and all the rest of the matter in the universe. It is as arbitrary to ignore this as to name it.

(Returning to Judaeo-Christian monotheism -- there are profound reasons why in Genesis, God names as He creates, and naming is the first task He gives to man; and separation is one of His first creative acts. The distinction and reality of named objects, the ability for plurality within unity, is one of the most fundamental properties of reality).

"Frankly I'm not worried about my own credibility, because I know that my own reputation is just a transient puff of smoke."

Sorry not the booze, the waccy baccy ...... easy Tiger, no need to smoke it all at once

It's not that we can't name things, we can and do. It's not that we can't distinguish discrete objects, we can and do. It's that we should know that this is a mental process, and out there in the actual natural world, these objects are not separate from the rest of things. If you are in the universe, you are subject to the entire universe, because you *are* the entire universe. What happened during the Big Bang has determined how your life goes more than what you studied in school does. Both of them are part of your life story.

When it comes down to it, delineating lines in time and space cannot be drawn. Well then can in a theoretical way, but they do not actually correspond to what we call objects. Let's say you identify a point is space as the exact center of the moon, then define the moon as the space contained by a sphere with radius R from that point. But then an asteroid comes and lands on the moon and creates a crater and a little bump on the surface that exceeds the sphere. Is that part of the moon?

I actually find the angle of time even more compelling. With any object, ask, when did it comes into existence? Let's use my own self. People who have argued about abortion know, to each side's chagrin, just how arbitrary the beginning of something so fundamental to most people as human life is. Does it start at birth? How do we define that? The moment the baby's feet clear the birth canal? The moment the umbilical cord is cut? Who does not see that this is a random caprice? What about at conception, the zygote? If leaving the birth canal was arbitrary, this is still more so. Zygotes are formed and quickly die all the time. We do not weep for this "massacre," yet these are all "human" in some sense. Catholics go ever further and consider semen to be essentially human life, as I understand it. But why not go a step even further, and consider the testes which make sperm to be human lives in their own right? And what about the food the man eats to construct these cells? Is a drop in sperm count the same as a drop in human population?

So I ask, when did your life begin as a person? When your father's food was reconstituted into a sperm cell? When that sperm cell was ejaculated into your mother? When it fertilized your mother's egg? When the subsequent fetus had a heartbeat? When the subsequent baby first cried? When your first memory occurred? When you became "fully" conscious around, usually, age 12? Not till this very moment? When?

It's cool to name things. We all have our names. But what power do these names have over true existence? God is unnamable. What mere name could describe him? What mere definition could encompass him?

As to perspective, there is no such thing as a faulty one. Every perspective exists; that is all the validation it needs to be considered legitimate. Existence, as ever, is the key. Consider the drunk who sees double. In what real sense is he not really seeing double? He in fact is. Calling his experience false is like calling the sunshine false.

My outlook is simple: look to the present. When you are hungry, if you find yourself going to the cupboard for a sandwich, make if, eat it. Be mindful while you do so; don't distract yourself with the TV or a million other things. For me, awareness is synonymous with holiness. Existence is holy - what need do we have then for escapism, or for fear, or for distraction? I cannot be bored as long as I am alive. I cannot be afraid if I know I cannot be hurt and I cannot die. This is the message of my belief: faith is knowledge, and knowledge is faith. Nothing can be known as I have said, yet we go on knowing anyway. It seems as though nothing should exist, yet there it is anyway. A miracle.

@Thucydides are the rules of baseball real, then?

Yeah of course they are. Every rule, law, word, and picture are real. But they are not what we pretend they are. One dollar exists , as does a dollar's worth of bread, but the two are not the same. Even the dollar bill itself is not a dollar, it's a piece of paper. There are rules to baseball, but these rules are not the same as the ball, the field, the players, the wind, the sky.

Any of you ever read Baudrillard? He said something similar

"But they are not what we pretend they are"

Well, they are what we agree they are. We agree to some social conventions about what we're going to call things so we can communicate about things that are real. You have decided it's clever to break that agreement. It's not clever, and it's why your posts are gibberish: you're just changing definitions around. It's a waste of time.

The thing is, what agreement actually exists? Socrates proved a long time ago no one defines a word the same, and no one when it comes down to it really even knows how.

As to "it's a waste of time," are peace, love, joy all wastes of time? Is equality? Is immortality? Is eternity a waste of time? Because that's what I'm talking about you. Meanwhile you are parsing the rules of baseball.

Also, you misunderstand. Literally all I concerned with is what is real. I am not attempting to construct a fantasy land, I'm asking you to wake up from yours. If the whole world agreed that the world was flat, would you believe them just to agree?

To use the example of baseball: if you are so intent on its rules and the names of the players, you may forget to watch the game, to exist in the stands and feel the wind on your face and hear the crack of the bat. This isn't a figure of speech: it's something that literally happens to people, in clashing myself , all the time when we lose sight of reality in favor of our constructed fantasies. It's easy to miss the forest for the trees, but try not to.

Including myself in not in clashing myself

OK!

You know what though, having thought about it some last night, I think I will only talk about these things to people who want to know about them earnestly, rather than to people who are mostly just interesting in winning an argument. I'm not really here to argue, I have better things to do.

In fact I think I will be using less of the Internet in general when I get back this week. I had considered leaving this site, but I love you, the real people behind the names and the words, too much to do that. So I will stay, and I guess I will say what I think when asked, but I don't think it does anyone any good to argue with people who think I'm delusional. If you would like to talk with me on a basis of respect, in which you respect me at least as much as I respect you, then I'm happy to. But perhaps such things are better conducted over PM, where it's not a pseudo-masculine put-down battle, no matter how much intellectualism it's dressed in. This isn't thanks only to you tendmote: I've been thinking about it since last month's tiff with krellin.

And now Thucydides has become the first person I've muted! This mute feature is a blunt instrument, but it's pretty good for people and threads that are 100% a waste of time to read.

Sad. I don't think anyone is a waste of time to listen to.

Thucydides,

Here is my first, among many, with your moon.

Our conversation started with you claiming the universe may as well not exist without an Observer. While I'm sure there is more to discuss re: that, let's use that as our basis.

You then go on to say (I think) that because things like the moon are arbitrary distinctions, everything is the same. Or something.

The problem is that it seemed you were saying that the Observer is what gives existence to the Universe. If that's true, then how the universe is observed must hold intrinsic meaning.

You're coming at it the round way around I think, but generally you are right. It is the recognition that the universe and the observer are one that is this fountainhead of peace, calm, fearlessness, and love. Everyone has different perspectives, some like yours, some like semck's. Some observers insist on the delineations they have created, others say to question them in a waste of time, like tendmote. All of this is real, all of this is part of the whole. If you yourself want to be made whole, you have to see it that way. If you don't, you will still be part of the whole (nothing can change that), but you will not know "everlasting life," to borrow a phrase. Your persistent questions will go unanswered.

Again, I don't think it's very productive for me to insist on these things. The truth of these things does not come from me, or what inkling of authority my voice may have. Every sage who has written or spoken about this has let us know that it's a realization we must come to on our own. You are, in the end, your only teacher. It would give me joy to see you or anyone else come to see some of the majesty and ecstasy that life really is, even more to see your view of it surpass mine. But I do not pretend I can get you there myself.

Your subjective experience is your only experience. If you think of things in the traditional materialistic objective sense, you will forget this. You will have forgotten that you cannot actually escape your own skull. But what the ancient Hindus knew was that, if everything is one, this is not the limitation it seems. You can know the universe by looking within yourself at your own soul (if you don't like that word, just use another; they all mean the same thing. You can say "self"). They called this the "Atman." The entire universe is there. Nature and all it's mystery and meaning is there. This is why the observer is so important - it's all we have. The observer is the universe.

I hope you don't think I'm intentionally obfuscating as others do. If you are confused by something I say, point it out specifically, and I'm happy to try to show why I'm saying it and what it means, or how it connects to the other things I said.

So yes, how the universe is observed does have intrinsic meaning, because everything has intrinsic meaning. But if you believe everything has intrinsic meaning, you won't go on believing the moon is an island unto itself. You see how they work together?

Another way of putting it. In your direct experience, there are two principle things: your inner self, and all the external nature, the "not me." This is the intuition that produced mind/body dualism. But it is the *relation* between the ignorant self and the broad universe there is the kernel of truth - because this relation is not a distant one, this relation is in fact a unity. So, when you see yourself as one with the universe, you will not walk out your door worried about what the universe will do to you, because it is you doing it, or seen the other way but just as true, there is no "you" doing it.

This is why I said solipsism and materialism are the same. One says everything is the self, the other says there is no self, only a determined animal, the only entity in materialism is the material world. Both are monist, but both are true. The self and the universe both exist because they are both one thing. The simple metaphor for this is "we are all God's children."

The awareness a human has, the ability of a conscious being to "see" the universe, is a miraculous thing - it animates the universe. Where there was darkness, there is light. But then you realize that the universe is observing itself, just as the self can observe the self during meditation - and it becomes even more miraculous.