Having Answers?

[romansh]

Again, say what?

 

I have no problem distinguishing individuals ... but I do understand that the boundary I use to distinguish that individual in one sense is arbitrary.

 

I might use the skin and hair as that boundary. But I will ignore the person's education, experiences, environment, evolution etc.

I will ignore the causative factors that go into that distinct individual.

Edited December 29, 2016 by romansh

[romansh]

 

Say what?

 

Did you read the essay?

[Burl]

Two questions immediately arise:

 

1) How do you know this is not some atheist dogma?

2) How did you as an entirely separate individual divine this bit of knowledge?

1) Dogma is belief which must be supported by members without question. This has been questioned academically for decades.

2) The knowledge was transmitted to me from dead, entirely seperate sentient beings through their writings and students. It conforms well to my individual experience.

[Burl]

Did you read the essay?

I did read it. Again.

 

I do not discount your thoughts, but this essay is irrelevant to me and is also disconnected to my experience.

 

Surely this is my loss, but there it is. I like critical thinking, careful attention to discerning subtle distinctions, and a connection to the body of saints (academic and religious) so that I can fit new perceptions into my own.

 

We are unique individuals. Individual revelation is not easily transmitted.

[Burl]

Great, we're getting somewhere: I did not say nor do I believe in a "complete lack of individual distinction."

 

However, it seems that 'mutual attachment or symbiosis' falls short and does not do justice or reveal the true intimacy of God and man. So it is not complete separateness (how could it be if there is love?) and the individual is not lost (for what true father would allow for the complete end of his son or daughter?,) but it must be more than mutual attachment - that sounds like the equivalent of the girl you love saying she just wants to be friends. The guy wants more, wants love - so too, I think humanity wants more than mutual attachment with God, sounds too lukewarm.

 

So it is a true unity, perhaps even One-ness that overcomes separation, allows for individual distinction and of course, God is still God. The initiative, the first moment is always God and then man responds. So it is just a question of trying to 'capture' and do justice to what by faith, we hope is the case. Not an easy task, but fun.

This thread is getting long and confused.

 

We are all individual, sentient beings. We have multiple connections, interactions, causal chains etc. We need each other, but we are not each other.

 

Throwing our existence into a kumbaya pot of 'oneness' is anti-intellectual ######.

[tariki]

This thread is getting long and confused.

 

Too many "answers"

[tariki]

It's that "law of the excluded middle".......it never fails to get me confused.

[thormas]

 

What is this God/Being? What is this more? What is Present?

 

Is there something more than the cosmos?

 

Rom,

 

This is a big topic and I doubt we will agree (but that has not stopped any of us before) but lets hold it for another day and another thread. As a few have said, this thread is 'a bit' long and we don't want to exhaust ourselves and others with what would be a lengthy back and forth.

 

 

Finally Burl, this has not been "throwing our existence into a kumbaya pot of 'oneness' " and it is certainly not anti-intellectual: the idea of the many in the One is part of the entire history and intellectual life of Christianity (and other traditions). However, upon reflection, I sort of like the 'pot' image because it is presents a visual of the many in the One (pot). Actually, stew has its individual, distinct components but there must 'be' a pot before they can come together to be what did not exist before: the stew - in the pot.

Edited December 30, 2016 by thormas

[SteveS55]

"....the idea of the many in the One is part of the entire history and intellectual life of Christianity (and other traditions)."

 

"If everything returns to the One,

Where does the One return to?" - Zen koan

 

Personally, I'm not a "oneness" kind of guy. And, the notions of dualistic/non-dualistic seems a bit of "dualistic" irony. It can't even be grasped conceptually, and it is not how existence is presented to me. So, I get where Burl is coming from. The pragmatic approach is generally the smart play.

 

Steve

[romansh]

I think ... the individual-Burl has pulled off a massive bait and switch here.

 

We are trying to juxtapose the idea that an [intrinsic] self is an illusion with distinct individuals exist as somehow mutually exclusive.

 

Well this [individual] fish got off the hook and is one with the ocean.

Edited December 30, 2016 by romansh

[romansh]

 

This is a big topic and I doubt we will agree (but that has not stopped any of us before) but lets hold it for another day and another thread. As a few have said, this thread is 'a bit' long and we don't want to exhaust ourselves and others with what would be a lengthy back and forth.

 

I can wait Thormas ... but bear in mind I think ignosticism and theological noncognitivism are valid points of view. Also notice that wiki has its own page on the problem of religious language.

[thormas]

 

I can wait Thormas ... but bear in mind I think ignosticism and theological noncognitivism are valid points of view. Also notice that wiki has its own page on the problem of religious language.

 

Indeed it can wait and I have no problem with other's points of view, although validity might be up for grabs. The 'problem of religious language' is probably as old as the problem of language 'explaining' love - yet the difficulty and inadequacy of either language has not proven a hindrance for everybody - some perhaps, but not all.

Edited December 30, 2016 by thormas

[romansh]

Personally, I'm not a "oneness" kind of guy. And, the notions of dualistic/non-dualistic seems a bit of "dualistic" irony. It can't even be grasped conceptually, and it is not how existence is presented to me. So, I get where Burl is coming from. The pragmatic approach is generally the smart play.

 

Steve

 

Steve

I get where Burl is coming from too. I spent fifty years of my life believing this dualism/illusion to be true.

 

If one believes cause and effect to be true or at least a sensible proposition, then a form of oneness is a logical conclusion if not the logical conclusion. Now I personally don't buy into this kumbaya oneness either ... nor I do believe God is love etc. Having said that I am not sure who has bought into this lovey-dovey divinity ... but I have not certainly proposed this.

 

Despite Burl's protestations.

[thormas]

I don't buy into lovey-dovey divinity or kumbaya oneness either and don't know anyone who does (including former college and grad school professors, fellow students, friends, parents and relatives born in the earlier years of the 20th century, everyday church goers or any of the hundreds of students I taught in theology classes over 10+ years). In addition, I have never read or known or heard of any serious Christian (or writers/thinkers of other religious expressions) theologians, biblical scholars, or religious leaders who have even thought such an idea. Rather, most would dispute such a characterization as naive and not worthy of serious discussion.

 

Although it does make for an easy straw man to set up.........

[soma]

According to a well-known theory in quantum physics, a particle’s behavior changes depending on whether there is an observer or not. It basically suggests that reality is a kind of illusion and exists only when we are looking at it. Numerous quantum experiments were conducted in the past and showed that this indeed might be the case.

Now, physicists at the Australian National University have found further evidence for the illusory nature of reality. They recreated the John Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiment and confirmed that reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, at least on the atomic scale.http://themindunleashed.com/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html

[SteveS55]

"If one believes cause and effect to be true or at least a sensible proposition, then a form of oneness is a logical conclusion if not the logical conclusion."

 

I also agree with this conclusion, Rom. I have no reason to reject it as the evidence seems to be there. I don't mean to suggest that you, or anyone else participating on this forum, adheres to a strict belief in "kumbaya oneness" (well, maybe with a few exceptions!). Eliminating the "lovey-dovey", "God is love" sentiments, then most of us can probably agree that we are all made of the same stuff, and intimately dependent on every other thing to a greater or lesser extent. In this sense we could probably say that "everything is one", but that is essentially meaningless in our day to day comings and goings. We just don't experience things like that.

 

I find it interesting that intellectually we can accept the evidence suggesting that cause and effect leads to a conclusion of a sort of "oneness", yet experience existence in an entirely different way. I suppose this is just proof of the illusory nature of reality!

Edited December 31, 2016 by SteveS55

[SteveS55]

Come to think of it, use of the word "one" is probably incorrect. And what in the world is "one-NESS"? Excuse my contradiction, but it is far too "dualistic"!

 

Steve

Edited December 31, 2016 by SteveS55

[romansh]

Here is a quote from the late John Bell. Some say he would have won a Nobel if it were not for his premature death

 

It would seem that the theory [quantum mechanics] is exclusively concerned about "results of measurement", and has nothing to say about anything else. What exactly qualifies some physical systems to play the role of "measurer"? Was the wavefunction of the world waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer, for some better qualified system ... with a Ph.D.? If the theory is to apply to anything but highly idealized laboratory operations, are we not obliged to admit that more or less "measurement-like" processes are going on more or less all the time, more or less everywhere. Do we not have jumping then all the time?

 

Sometimes I find the New Agey interpretations as weird.

[romansh]

Come to think of it, use of the word "one" is probably incorrect. And what in the world is "one-NESS"? Excuse my contradiction, but it is far too "dualistic"!

 

Steve

 

Oh one is correct ... where do you think atonement comes from?

[SteveS55]

"What exactly qualifies some physical systems to play the role of "measurer"?"

 

I think I like this guy, and especially this quote. What indeed gives us the right to be arbiter of the cosmos? We are mere specks of dust.

Edited December 31, 2016 by SteveS55

[tariki]

Being "empty" has more potential for me. Telling myself that I'm a speck of dust or on the path to deification......well, both seem restrictive in their own peculiar ways.

 

Actual Reality is counter intuitive. We walk on a flat, stationary earth.

What is the actual speed of a ping pong ball being struck on a moving train? Who or what measures?

 

Insisting "we" are "just" this or that is unnessesary. Once we accept we are lost, we are "found". Once we have lost our life we have found it.

 

A common pattern of many paths is that of returning to where we started and knowing it for the first time. Suzuki from the zen perspective talks of becoming the Tom, Dicks or Harrys we have always been. First mountains are mountains, then they are not, then they become mountains again.

 

We can insist on staying where we are, insist our "ground" is the only stable one, seek to restrict our movement to a prescriptive path - reality itself is full of surprises.

 

Anyway, just musing.

[romansh]

"What exactly qualifies some physical systems to play the role of "measurer"?"

 

I think I like this guy, and especially this quote. What indeed gives us the right to be arbiter of the cosmos? We are mere specks of dust.

 

I like John Bell too.

 

But I do think his point is valid (and not so much about the right to be arbiters). My individual collection of atoms has the same right to arbitrate the universe (in the Bell's sense) as a 86 kg pile of dirt in my backyard ... or yours for that matter.

Edited December 31, 2016 by romansh

[romansh]

Being "empty" has more potential for me. Telling myself that I'm a speck of dust or on the path to deification......well, both seem restrictive in their own peculiar ways.

 

Actual Reality is counter intuitive. We walk on a flat, stationary earth.

What is the actual speed of a ping pong ball being struck on a moving train? Who or what measures?

 

Interestingly ... according some if we add up all the energy in the universe (including matter, dark energy, dark matter, gravitation) the sum total is zero or at least within experimental error zero.

 

This accords nicely with the first law of thermodynamics, that we don't get something for nothing ... though existence does seem like the biggest of free lunches we can expect.

 

Regarding relativity (classical and Einsteinian) they are reasonable approximations and fit for purpose if used appropriately.

Edited December 31, 2016 by romansh

[soma]

Interestingly ... according some if we add up all the energy in the universe (including matter dark energy, dark matter) the sum total is zero or at least within experimental error zero.

 

 

I like the way it correlates to no thing in Buddhism. Bear with me on this as I try another way to get to same conclusion.

 

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, is there noise? We all have heard this, we create the noise by hearing the sound or there is no noise. A rainbow needs 3 factors; the sun, water and an observer to exist as an object and if there are many observers each one sees it at a different angle so at a different place. Objects not in relation to us do not exist in our mind and every whole depends upon the parts so our existence depends upon our parts, but we see individuals as a whole.

 

Being "empty" has more potential for me. Telling myself that I'm a speck of dust or on the path to deification......well, both seem restrictive in their own peculiar ways.

 

 

 

We have freedom with limitations, we come into existence if the environment is conducive otherwise we don't exist so yes we are restricted.

 

To gain freedom all religions with their saints, prophets and founders talk about Oneness, God or Emptiness, which in my limited mind are the same thing.

 

I see as in the example the noise of the tree or the rainbow depend upon the object and perciever demonstrating that relationships create the objects that existence, perceiver and perceived creates the things around us. If we don't observe it we say it doesn't exist. The parts depend on observer and object to be perceived so if we reduce everything down to one we have parts but we experience it as a whole connected like our bodies. We are smaller than the universe but our connected to the environment as a part. Therefore, it everything is one in the uni-verse, there is no observer or object some say oneness, but buddhist say no thing because it is empty of objects all connected.

[romansh]

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, is there noise?

 

A better question would be is there vibration in the air? Noise is simply the brain's interpretation of the air vibrations.

 

Similarly for the diffracted light ... the photons are there regardless of the existence of an observer. The brain interprets them as a colourful arc ... or rainbow.

I don't think of photons as coloured. The rainbow is there but it is not as we perceive it.

 

Freedom is an illusion Soma ... Freedom is simply a lack of awareness of the casual mesh we exist in. (At least "freedom" in the philosophical sense we are discussing here, not the every day trivial sense).