So basically what you're telling me is we're the product of alien imagination from another dimension projected onto a fibrous hologram?
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Is it possible that reality is not what you think?...yes?/no?...lol
- Thread starter southflorida
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statusquo
Member
The question of whether a god needs to be omnipotent would fall into the category of epistemology - defining what god is. Describing the nature of god would be metaphysical. I guess you're right that it doesn't necessarily have to be directly tied to a first cause, though.GMT said:
In regards to the big bang being metaphysical, I believe it is. Despite the root meta and the current definition, as I stated earlier, science and philosophy are merging. Philosophy is drawing more and more upon science to answer these questions. The big bang deals with the birth of the universe and is directly responsible for the beginning of existence. I have no qualms with any of the theory past the infinitesimally small point of conception but to say that the universe spontaneously came into existence and is a first cause in itself...I don't believe in first causes and find them highly illogical. I think the infinite time/cyclical nature makes much more sense and we have proof of infinity all around us where as we have no proof of first causes. Religious people and scientists alike are both equally erroneous in their explanations regarding the creation of the universe.GMT said:
To further expound upon science and philosophy merging, look at how quantum physics and the direct findings have contributed to new theories. In regards to epistemology... let's say defining the term thought. Right now our understanding of neurochemistry is not quite high enough to give a pure scientific definition of the word but we are rapidly approaching this point. Once we understand the brain enough, we will be able to give a more scientific definition of the term but it would still be epistemology - same applies for any theory regarding the creation/nature of the cosmos; even if we have a scientific theory it can be scientific and metaphysical (philosophical) simultaneously.
statusquo
Member
I addressed this exact point in an earlier post (page 6,7,8 can't remember). Another point in addition the ones I explained earlier, is that given 4d time and our laws of physics, and that matter is finite, there would be an objective reality even 'before' intelligent life given we are observing that same finite matter now...or some intelligent biological observer is observing that same matter somewhere in the universe. I highly suggest you guys read into 4d time it solves so many problems of epistemology and metaphysics and makes so much more intuitive sense than 3d time. And I'm not talking about time being the 4th dimension, it's much different and deeper than that. People rarely actually think about time; it's so abstract and fundamental and we all experience it but very few actually have a concept or remote understanding of it.
i think reality is a real illusion...hmmmm...no?? 
due to this illusion, you may believe that you are reading a text right now, but hey, thats just a real illusion..
due to this illusion, you may believe that you are reading a text right now, but hey, thats just a real illusion..
you are probably trying to say your "interpretation" of reality, right?
...because if a nuclear bomb exploded next to you, your frame of
reference wouldn't matter...you would be evaporated.
...this is truth and reality, the evaporation part, is not "unique" it just "is."
...but the "interpretation" before the evaporation is the part that
is "unique."
i think reality is a real illusion...hmmmm...no??
a real illusion...is a good way of looking at it, and is very close
to the way that I currently observe it.
...what materials you recommend about 4d time to read?
statusquo
Member
Sider, McTaggart and "Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time". Also, having read hawking's A brief History of Time would help a lot before. If I had to recommend one I would say Time's arrow. Tomorrow (or later today I suppose =P) I will look for a book I had in my philo class that is a compilation of essays written regarding time by the two first authors mentioned plus all the other major contemporary philosophers that talk about time. It's a good selection of essays that are all on point and relevant to time - no extra stuff and it's organized nicely.
okay! the distinction about time is the first step that probably put
me on the path of searching for the true nature of reality. It happened
when I had a realization that it is always...NOW
...and when this occured, I also realized that I have never been
anywhere but NOW, and that even when I think about past events
or future projections...this is always happening NOW.
...this is when I realized that the culture/society that I grew up in,
held something back...lol...and that I will have to do my own search
into what it means to be a human "being."
The way you phrased that question, it is difficult for me to answer it.
But, I'll try to explain how I had the insight that is has always been now.
The question that I asked myself was "have I ever been anywhere
except here and now, where I am in this present moment? or
something of that sort, because when I was asking it, I wasn't
exactly straight!
But after answering NO, that I have never been in the past or in
the future, I became aware that I am, have always been, and
will continue to be here and NOW.
Then, I realized that all my thoughts about the past and future
have always been happened in the present moment also. No matter,
from which side I contemplated about it, I couldn't think of one time
when I wasn't in the present moment during my entire life.
This is when I had to accept that there is only the Present Moment
even though my mind still to this day tries to work as if the past
and future are possibilities. But, when this happens, it's easy to
catch it, because many different emotions are created.
The two most common are fear and anger. If you look at these two
emotions you will observe that fear has a component where one
believes that something will happen in the future, and anger has a
component where one is denying some pain that occured in the
past. In this thread, I explained about it in a lot of detail:
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=193252
...if you have the time to read the first post in it, let me know
what you think about it.
I've read it.
Sorry but I dont agree with trying to supress emotion, nor concentrating on them. They are a part of us and help to let us know who we are. Its only by reflecting upon our self that we can understand the situations that we should and should not put ourselves into in the future. There I broke your rule, I imagined a time beyond now. I cant live as you claim to, and doubt that you truly do either. Have you ever caught a train? waited for a bus? considered yourself to be late for something? If so then you anticipate arriving somewhere, at some point in the future, or known that there was a point in the past where you should have been, but weren't. As to fear etc. they are essential to rational behaviour. If you were in a car being driven by some lunatic weaving in and out of the traffic, would you really say to yourself, "no need to worry, we havent crashed".
Sorry but I dont agree with trying to supress emotion, nor concentrating on them. They are a part of us and help to let us know who we are. Its only by reflecting upon our self that we can understand the situations that we should and should not put ourselves into in the future. There I broke your rule, I imagined a time beyond now. I cant live as you claim to, and doubt that you truly do either. Have you ever caught a train? waited for a bus? considered yourself to be late for something? If so then you anticipate arriving somewhere, at some point in the future, or known that there was a point in the past where you should have been, but weren't. As to fear etc. they are essential to rational behaviour. If you were in a car being driven by some lunatic weaving in and out of the traffic, would you really say to yourself, "no need to worry, we havent crashed".
GMT...it is not about supressing emotions, it is about observing that
there are components/elements that create the structure that is
called an emotion. If one of these elements is missing, then this
emotion will not manifest itself, or if you have it, and take one of
these elements/components out of it...it will disappear.
I didn't say we can't imagine the future, or remember the past, or
that we can't use "clock time" obviously we can.
My point is that when you reflect upon yourself, in order to understand the situations that you should and should not put
yourself in the future, you always do this in the present moment.
This is the distinction that I'm trying to point to, and below explain
about this in more detail.
...and when this imagined future arrives, it will always arrive as the
present moment, which means that the future you are talking about
ís the future you imagine in your mind in the present moment.
...there is nothing to doubt here, I live this way, and you live this way,
and will continue to do so until the last heart beat. All those things
you wrote about, we/me will DO, in the present moment. The main
distinction is that EVERYTHING we do we do in the present.
...catch a train, wait for a bus, consider ourselves arriving late
somewhere, etc...all these activities THEMSELVES are done in the
present moment, and it absolutely can't be any other way, just
take a minute and imagine DOING any of these things, when will
you be ACTUALLY doing them? The present moment obviously.
Yes, we can remember about the past, and imagine the future, but
we can ONLY do "this" in the present moment. NOTHING can ever
be done, except in the present moment, there are no exceptions.
...I don't know what someone would say, I'm trying to point to the
fact that you will fear ONLY...because you are imagining that you
will crash in an IMAGINED FUTURE MOMENT, and if you actually
crashed, you wouldn't be afraid of crashing anymore, you would
be in a crash and would be in pain or would be happy you weren't
injured...etc...but you would not be afraid.
It is impossible to be afraid if you are in the present moment, and
are not imagining a certain SCENARIO that "might" happen, or is
very likely to happen, or whatever. Fear is impossible, without the
possibility of a future.
A person "fears" what he imagines will happen in the future scenario,
even if this scenario is only one moment in the future in his
imagination. In the present moment you can't feel fear.
The thing is that I never lived my life asking myself "is it now?"
I lived it always thinking about the past and imagining the future,
i.e., these are the two areas of my imagination that I lived my life.
It is only when I realized that all there is the NOW, that I realized
that I have been living in my imagination, and not in the present
moment. I don't know if this is something that you have always
done, but I don't know one person in my life that was aware of this
simple fact. Even after I thoroughly explained it to them, they
admit it is almost impossible for them to do it...
...and that their mind always pulls them into thinking about the
past or the future in some way.
If you are thinking about the future or past on a regular basis, and
this is where the majority of your internal dialogue happens, doesn't
it seem logical that you are NOT aware of the present moment and
not really living in it totally? That the majority of your energy and
awareness is being focused on something that happened in the past
or on something that will happen in the future?
...this is basically living a "conceptual" life, and not "being" aware
of the "objective" reality that is always in front of you, and always
here and now in the present moment.
...does it make sense to you, for example to send the majority of
your attention on living in the present moment, and not spend it,
thinking about the past or future?
...since, if you spend the majority of your life in your thoughts
about the past or the present...then it basically points to the
interesting situation where you are not living the majority of your
life in the only "real" and "objective" part of your life...which is the now.
statusquo
Member
southflorida said:okay! the distinction about time is the first step that probably put
me on the path of searching for the true nature of reality. It happened
when I had a realization that it is always...NOW
...and when this occured, I also realized that I have never been
anywhere but NOW, and that even when I think about past events
or future projections...this is always happening NOW.
Think of our experience within time as a moving spotlight. All of time exists even if we aren't in all moments of time (just like all of space exists even though we aren't in all space) and the spotlight (out perception/existence) just moves along towards the future.
This position is known as the 'presentist' position and it is thoroughly dismantled by a few different philosophers. It results in logical contradictions and just doesn't make sense. Intuitively, it does make sense - I used to be one. Here is an excerpt regarding presentism from wiki:southflorida said:
"Conventionally, time is divided into three distinct regions; the "past", the "present", and the "future". Using that representational model, the past is generally seen as being immutably fixed, and the future as undefined and nebulous. As time passes, the moment that was once the present becomes part of the past; and part of the future, in turn, becomes the new present. In this way time is said to pass, with a distinct present moment "moving" forward into the future and leaving the past behind. This view of time is given the name presentism by philosophers. This conventional model presents a number of difficult philosophical problems, and seems difficult to reconcile with currently accepted scientific theories such as the theory of relativity."
The position I personally choose to defend (and take note, all theories have some flaw or they would be science) and adopt is Eternalism. From wikipedia (also discussed in the Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia):
"Eternalism is a philosophical approach to the ontological nature of time. It builds on the standard method of modeling time as a dimension in physics, to give time a similar ontology to that of space. This would mean that time is just another dimension, that future events are "already there", and that there is no objective flow of time. It is sometimes referred to as the "Block Time" or "Block Universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block",[1] as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time."
Stanford's philosophy website has a lot of good info too: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/
Did some brief skimming of this page and actually it is a great starting point. Has a couple sections directly related to McTaggart (one of the most important contemporary thinkers regarding time) Sider etc. It also has suggested reading at the bottom which you could probably find for free on the internet. Sider, “Presentism and Ontological Commitment;” & "Four-Dimensionalism"; McTaggart, “The Unreality of Time;”; Prior, "Past, Present, and Future"; Thomson, “Parthood and Identity Across Time;” and Zimmerman, “Persistence and Presentism.” These are kind of the major thinkers and major works regarding time. These would make for a great starting point and will blow your mind/deeply change how you view time. The site itself is definitely a good place to start though (kind of like reading spark notes before you get into a complicated book so at least you already have a framework which makes understanding much easier.)
D
draco
words don't cook rice.
and as long as you are thinking, you are living in the brain. it's all baubles and toys in there... round and round we go...
i challenge anyone to stop the mind instead of dancing to it's tune.
if you have really tried it, you probably gave it up because it is the HARDEST THING and you wrongly decided that it is not important (cause it is so hard!)
it's the monkey brain that has control. if you think otherwise, just for fun shut it down for five seconds. surely you can give up five seconds in your busy day in the name of science?
now. just cause you can't do it, will you call your lack of mental control unimportant?
you are under it's control - you dance it's tune! and the only way you can live with this usurper is by going along with it when it says that not being in control is OK.
abdicated the throne to a trusted councilor. now the councilor runs it all. and it's out of control...
and as long as you are thinking, you are living in the brain. it's all baubles and toys in there... round and round we go...
i challenge anyone to stop the mind instead of dancing to it's tune.
if you have really tried it, you probably gave it up because it is the HARDEST THING and you wrongly decided that it is not important (cause it is so hard!)
it's the monkey brain that has control. if you think otherwise, just for fun shut it down for five seconds. surely you can give up five seconds in your busy day in the name of science?
now. just cause you can't do it, will you call your lack of mental control unimportant?
you are under it's control - you dance it's tune! and the only way you can live with this usurper is by going along with it when it says that not being in control is OK.
abdicated the throne to a trusted councilor. now the councilor runs it all. and it's out of control...
statusquo
Member
I think this is what I try to get at when I say we don't have free will and are at the whim of our brain. Our brains are the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution within the primate species whereas ego consciousness is a relatively new product of evolution. Your brain controls everything, including the perception of reality and the perception of free will (ego). A good example of this is in emergency situations where your brain dictates and immediate response that is so important the response comes before the message is sent to your ego. Reworded in the terms of a person that believes in free will - the brain acts before you even get a chance to think about acting. One might say this is "reflex" but there is no way reflex applies to all emergency situations, there are too wide a diversity of potential dangers to have the reflexes/appropriate responses hardwired into our genes.
statusquo...thanks for that link. I read that information, but it is
not easy to grasp for me. To be honest, in the last year or so,
I have come to the conclusion to become conscious of what is/truth
I have to unlearn and become completely aware of the fact that
I don't really know anything as it is, that I only believe/assume things
and this is what gets in the way of me become completely conscious
of what is. This is why I have been going the other way, and slowly
letting go off all the beleifs/assumptions that I've attached my "self"
to over the years, and slowly work my way toward what is/truth.
We'll see how it goes, because learning knowledge hasn't really helped,
and I fugured I have nothing to lose going the other way, since I'm
going to die one day anyway
...getting a glimpse of the truth of while I'm alive seems like a good
thing to shoot for, because when I die, obviously I don't know what
is on the other side, and I might as well attempt to see it for myself
while I'm alive.
Thanks for your input in this thread, you have definitely contributed
many gold nuggets of information that I was never aware of.
So thanks, and see you around
southflorida
not easy to grasp for me. To be honest, in the last year or so,
I have come to the conclusion to become conscious of what is/truth
I have to unlearn and become completely aware of the fact that
I don't really know anything as it is, that I only believe/assume things
and this is what gets in the way of me become completely conscious
of what is. This is why I have been going the other way, and slowly
letting go off all the beleifs/assumptions that I've attached my "self"
to over the years, and slowly work my way toward what is/truth.
We'll see how it goes, because learning knowledge hasn't really helped,
and I fugured I have nothing to lose going the other way, since I'm
going to die one day anyway
...getting a glimpse of the truth of while I'm alive seems like a good
thing to shoot for, because when I die, obviously I don't know what
is on the other side, and I might as well attempt to see it for myself
while I'm alive.
Thanks for your input in this thread, you have definitely contributed
many gold nuggets of information that I was never aware of.
So thanks, and see you around
southflorida
