People are interested in finding principles, concepts that govern creation. The search for fundamental equations and causes has dominated Philosophy, Physics, and in a way, Religion. The reason Creationists even bother to rebut ideas like evolution or the big bang is because they think these ideas are plausible or have explanatory power. But the universe is not governed by principles, equations or concepts.
I was reading a question on a Physics Q&A site about whether Newton's Second Law implies cause and effect. Well, in a naive way it seems to: Force causes Acceleration. Acceleration cannot pull a Force in to existence. But in terms of science, this law does not imply causation. Science says that cause and effect are not part of what has been discovered so far, and don't seem likely to show up.
Shouldn't that mean that scientists should not waste time positing a big bang at all then? It has been criticized as untestable, unfalsifiable, unnecessary, in a word: unscientific. But, inquiring minds want to know! Trying to find reasons for things is dualistic: it separates you from what is. That doesn't mean you should never do it, it just means that as dualistic thought, it is not definitive or ultimately true, it leaves something out. It leaves you and your experience out. If it can exist without you, then you can exist without it. So, drop it.
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Monday, October 17, 2016
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Blue Dot
How do you know where you are and which direction you are going? On GPS maps there is a blue dot which shows your location, and the area around. It is implied that the dot means "You are Here". The map shows you what is nearby.
In life it is not always so clear. There is no longer a general "map" of what is best to do. Society, Religion and other situations used to provide a structure, they dictated the terrain. But those are falling away and we are outgrowing them. How do we know what to do, the best route, the valuable destinations? What I can say is that each person is the blue dot. They are where they are and they decide where to go next.
But what of the map? There is no map. There is not a structure saying what is best, where to go or what to do. It never really existed and that is becoming obvious now. There is not an authority that one can turn to and get answers. You are your own authority. You decide, not based on something someone told you, or a scenario that other people laid down, but based on your perception and needs.
A common saying is: "If the map doesn't match the terrain, trust the terrain." That is the answer. And: there is no map. Just the blue dot moving through the terrain, and that is you. You are the blue dot. There isn't anything to tell you what is real and where to go, you are on your own.
In life it is not always so clear. There is no longer a general "map" of what is best to do. Society, Religion and other situations used to provide a structure, they dictated the terrain. But those are falling away and we are outgrowing them. How do we know what to do, the best route, the valuable destinations? What I can say is that each person is the blue dot. They are where they are and they decide where to go next.
But what of the map? There is no map. There is not a structure saying what is best, where to go or what to do. It never really existed and that is becoming obvious now. There is not an authority that one can turn to and get answers. You are your own authority. You decide, not based on something someone told you, or a scenario that other people laid down, but based on your perception and needs.
A common saying is: "If the map doesn't match the terrain, trust the terrain." That is the answer. And: there is no map. Just the blue dot moving through the terrain, and that is you. You are the blue dot. There isn't anything to tell you what is real and where to go, you are on your own.
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Tiamat
This is what is real. In Egyptian naming there is Ma'at, the Divine World Order. This is everything that we know, everything we can know. Everyone is in love with what we can see, talk about. Of course. What else is there?
But there is also Tiamat: primordial chaos. Chaos is an unfortunate word here, because what was before what is, was peaceful. It was simply unformed, not turbulent. There were no forces clashing, or things being created and destroyed: this was before all that. This is like the Void that I talk about - all possibility, no actuality.
The Void gave rise to all that is - Experience. These are the Two Real Things. When people talk about Nirvana or culmination of some kind, they always ask, "What are we going toward? What is there after this?" The least cruel answer is that there is nothing else. All that is, all that God made here and now, is sufficient! It doesn't matter if there is a Heaven or Hell, because we cannot confirm or deny it. It is irrelevant to the people looking back at you today. It is said that we are made in God's image. But the important point is that what we call God is only an image. Tiamat gave rise to it. Vishnu is said to dream all of Creation. Shiva is said to dance existence in to being. There is no other God, or reality. You are that. You are God's fingers and eyes and ears. You are the love of God. Not as a metaphor or a symbol: actually. All that you see, everyone you know is "What God Hath Wrought." Nothing else exists. Is that not enough?
The reason that I am on to this right now, is that I listened to a song called Procession, by New Order. I used to listen to it long ago, but had to stop, because at that time the person that you would say is "me" was not happy. Perhaps not actually depressed in the clinical sense, but he had no one right then to care for, or to lean on. He had to be self-sufficient. I heard the song again last night when looking for something else, and I was crushed by the wave of horrid feelings that washed over me. Had I been so sad before? I had stopped seeing my friends because I was weighing on them. My family was far away and I would not have sought them out for that anyhow. So when I heard the song last night for the first time in probably two decades or more, I suddenly faced a terrifying gulf. Everything I know about myself now seemed blythe and unimportant. What could I say to that person?
Recently I was talking with my fiancee and she wondered what makes some people go forward in to growth and flourishing, and other people fall back, or give up? This is in fact a version of Camus' famous statement: "The only real Philosophical question is whether or not to commit suicide." Few people do, and I am not so much talking here about actually taking one's own life, but I would have words for someone who makes that choice. Everyone faces difficult, painful, or perhaps even shattering experiences. Au'hua'a saw her community self-destruct and a thousand people throw themselves off a cliff.
But this is not "your" pain. Your experience does not belong to you. It is all that is, you don't get to claim any of it for "yourself", because remember? You of yourself do not exist except as part of Tiamat, rendered in to form as Ma'at. Your pain is the pain of being, of creation, of giving birth. All that is, is Formlessness changing in to Form. It is painful! That does not belong to you!
In the song it says:
You have the power to go forward, or not. You choose and it is so. But your choices affect others. Not only ones you know, but people around you, and in your future that your touch could heal. You have the power, but not the right, to make others' world turn black and white.
For me, this song is like a thread. I had very little support in my life for my view. I was not a spiritual person at all then. The thread, playing over and over as I listened to the song driving on dangerous snowy roads was like hearing the Sirens sing, and also hearing people who cared about me, people I know I could help, crying out. I was being torn in two. But when my fiancee asked me the other day what made me go forward a few years ago when it seemed like I was facing only walls, I had no words for her. I felt it, with my very being. There is no other answer.
It is not a question of good and evil, of chaos being bad and life being good. There is only one thing, and it leaves us no place to hide in Philosophy, ideology or Religion. We are meant to create, not hide. There is only forward. If you choose to permanently exempt yourself from being, or just fully being, you will be missed. There is no replacement.
But there is also Tiamat: primordial chaos. Chaos is an unfortunate word here, because what was before what is, was peaceful. It was simply unformed, not turbulent. There were no forces clashing, or things being created and destroyed: this was before all that. This is like the Void that I talk about - all possibility, no actuality.
The Void gave rise to all that is - Experience. These are the Two Real Things. When people talk about Nirvana or culmination of some kind, they always ask, "What are we going toward? What is there after this?" The least cruel answer is that there is nothing else. All that is, all that God made here and now, is sufficient! It doesn't matter if there is a Heaven or Hell, because we cannot confirm or deny it. It is irrelevant to the people looking back at you today. It is said that we are made in God's image. But the important point is that what we call God is only an image. Tiamat gave rise to it. Vishnu is said to dream all of Creation. Shiva is said to dance existence in to being. There is no other God, or reality. You are that. You are God's fingers and eyes and ears. You are the love of God. Not as a metaphor or a symbol: actually. All that you see, everyone you know is "What God Hath Wrought." Nothing else exists. Is that not enough?
The reason that I am on to this right now, is that I listened to a song called Procession, by New Order. I used to listen to it long ago, but had to stop, because at that time the person that you would say is "me" was not happy. Perhaps not actually depressed in the clinical sense, but he had no one right then to care for, or to lean on. He had to be self-sufficient. I heard the song again last night when looking for something else, and I was crushed by the wave of horrid feelings that washed over me. Had I been so sad before? I had stopped seeing my friends because I was weighing on them. My family was far away and I would not have sought them out for that anyhow. So when I heard the song last night for the first time in probably two decades or more, I suddenly faced a terrifying gulf. Everything I know about myself now seemed blythe and unimportant. What could I say to that person?
Recently I was talking with my fiancee and she wondered what makes some people go forward in to growth and flourishing, and other people fall back, or give up? This is in fact a version of Camus' famous statement: "The only real Philosophical question is whether or not to commit suicide." Few people do, and I am not so much talking here about actually taking one's own life, but I would have words for someone who makes that choice. Everyone faces difficult, painful, or perhaps even shattering experiences. Au'hua'a saw her community self-destruct and a thousand people throw themselves off a cliff.
But this is not "your" pain. Your experience does not belong to you. It is all that is, you don't get to claim any of it for "yourself", because remember? You of yourself do not exist except as part of Tiamat, rendered in to form as Ma'at. Your pain is the pain of being, of creation, of giving birth. All that is, is Formlessness changing in to Form. It is painful! That does not belong to you!
In the song it says:
Its a problem, you know, that's been there all your life:
How to make you see the world without you, that just turns black and white?
You have the power to go forward, or not. You choose and it is so. But your choices affect others. Not only ones you know, but people around you, and in your future that your touch could heal. You have the power, but not the right, to make others' world turn black and white.
For me, this song is like a thread. I had very little support in my life for my view. I was not a spiritual person at all then. The thread, playing over and over as I listened to the song driving on dangerous snowy roads was like hearing the Sirens sing, and also hearing people who cared about me, people I know I could help, crying out. I was being torn in two. But when my fiancee asked me the other day what made me go forward a few years ago when it seemed like I was facing only walls, I had no words for her. I felt it, with my very being. There is no other answer.
It is not a question of good and evil, of chaos being bad and life being good. There is only one thing, and it leaves us no place to hide in Philosophy, ideology or Religion. We are meant to create, not hide. There is only forward. If you choose to permanently exempt yourself from being, or just fully being, you will be missed. There is no replacement.
Monday, April 13, 2015
explanation
People are always wondering why the universe (or life) is the way it is. They ask why God would make things this way? "What kind of a God would..." and as far as I know, even the believers don't have an answer that makes sense or is convincing. But I have one.
Someone I know says that Experience exists because "the Void can't know itself." So, presumably, the Void created Experience, and now Seeing is seeing Itself. That makes sense, right? Can we say that this is at least a consistent picture? If you were all possibility but no actuality, and no present awareness, wouldn't you create Experience in order to know... what you actually are? I would.
So, what kind of a universe would you make? Personally, I would have no clue where to start, so I suppose I would start with the fabric of space and time, then make some forces and particles. From there, as we know, particles can make choices, and we would be off and running. In other words, a God that knew nothing at all would do exactly what we observe to be the case. And a God that already knew everything would have no reason to do it in the first place.
Next question.
 |
| Let's not get carried away |
So, what kind of a universe would you make? Personally, I would have no clue where to start, so I suppose I would start with the fabric of space and time, then make some forces and particles. From there, as we know, particles can make choices, and we would be off and running. In other words, a God that knew nothing at all would do exactly what we observe to be the case. And a God that already knew everything would have no reason to do it in the first place.
Next question.
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