John,
I think Joe knows something that you don't, as you know some things that he don't. You can't blame the failure in communicating his knowledge to you on him alone.

Neither can he blame it on you alone. It seems that his way of talking is too different for you to understand him.

I, on the other hand, get along with it well. I would say there's not much in his words which I wouldn't label as true. (That doesn't mean I would label the opposite of his words as false. As you know there's a saying: The opposite of a great truth is a great truth also.)

That means neither that I really get a kick out of his teachings. Perhaps in the beginning, when I met concepts I haven't thought about for long, but in the meantime it degenerated into repetition. (And I'm not really fond of reading long texts. Less words, more meaning, that's my motto.)

After all, the main thing is to perceive the absolute, the nagual, as I would call it. And if you already know it then you understand when they talk about it, but if you've never seen it they can talk endlessly and you won't get it.

What do you guys think about the position of secular biblical scholars that claim only about 12% of the words attributed to Jesus were actually spoken by him--the rest being posthumously imposed upon him by the ambitious proponents of the early Christian church?

John, what you are saying is impossible. No one can take or give anything to you. Everything that can be known is in front of you and you are responsible for the interpretation of it. Again you choose to feel frustrated instead of looking into what is happening, into the choices you make and asking who you are rather than what and who I am. This distraction is your choice alone.

Num: Size matters? Instant gratification is still one of the pitfalls of life. people have less and less tolerance to be with the situation and would rather get what they want and move on to the next great thing. Even boredom is a choice.

Tim, My reply to your question is that there are truths that are truths, regardless of who says them. Thinking is not part of the process of recognition. Even the average Joe can speak for God as God it doesn't take anyone special. All are equal in the infinite and it only takes the ability to get ones self out of the way to hear and speak as the infinite Self/One.

Joe

I find it hard to believe that the only way to discover objective knowledge is by embracing the subjective experience of self.  Not only is it self-repudiating, but it is the total erosion of authority and the loss of meaning within the bottomless pit of relativity.  Maybe I just don't understand, but I don't see any reliable method of differentiating between real transcendence and say, the euphoria experienced by Christain snake handers, that doesn't involve serious contradiction.

I just don't see the benefit of a system which discourages thinking.  There may be some previously marginalized human faculty that increases the value of living, but to be sure, it will not exclude critical thought.  The most heinous atrocities among the history of humanity were perpetrated by individuals who felt no compunction about shirking the responsibilities of critical thought.  When someone implies that thinking gets in the way, it is almost always a sure sign of the incredibility of their argument.

If I have misrepresented your views (or anyone else's), please feel free to, in brevity and clarity, vindicate yourself.  I value diversity of opinion.

Numinoso,

Your putting yourself in the referee position gives you a unique opportunity to tell me what I am missing in Joe's presentation.
Please note I am not in disagreement with his platitudes, only his monochromatic presentation and his distorted responses that are pieces of legal technique that lead to "How to win arguments and alienate people"  India is filled with people with similar attitude, listening to the word of god whilst people starve next to them.  A very profound injustice.  The difference between what people say and what they do.

Timothy:  A statistic that would be very hard to verify.
12% measured against what yardstick?
Don't get me wrong, a secular review of what is available would indicate something like this, but someone would have had to discover the foundation of the original sayings to get this number.  A review of the Dead Sea Scrolls or Nag Hammadi find. might give a general approximation, but an unknown amount of both finds are missing so nothing to my knowledge would be available to give such an accurate portrayal of percentage.

Joe:  Read what I actually said, not what your clever mind leads you to believe.  I was talking about your desire not your ability to change me.  In the future, I will stop responding to this child like way you have of distorting what I have said to you.  You are only interested in your own music.

Joe: Size matters not? Then where's the limit? Why don't you write fifteen times as much? Or two hundred times as much?

John: Since you said that you don't disagree with Joe there's no need to point out what you might be missing. I hope that doesn't sound weird, but I think if you don't disagree then you agree, and when you agree then you understand it all. I already stated that the difference between you is in the way of communication. I would be at ease with both ways, so I have a problem in seeing why you have a problem with Joe, or why Joe has a problem with you.
I also don't know what the hunger in the world has to do with spiritual teachings. (Perhaps it had once, when the priests were not working and stealing the food from the rest of the country.) I think that's the task of the UN or some other organization. Or do you think people like Joe are generally unable to take care for the physical part of them?

I think 12% is an extreme figure and has certainly not been recieved without serious contention.  The number was derived, I believe, by using certain literary techniques on the synoptic texts and discounting various discrepencies.  Whether or not the method or its derivative are accurate or to what degree they are accurate was not my motive for introducing the position, but rather to cast doubt upon 1) the authoritivity of scripture and 2) upon any given interpretation of scripture.  If you are familiar with deconstructive literary criticism, you know that meaning is not an inherent within a text, but is producted (constructed) through the act of interpretation.  Moreover, texts in this sense are not simply limited to systems of inscription and demarkation, but exists as any context involving symbolic representation.  In other words awareness is inveteratelly contextualized and cannot exist otherwise.  Of course not everyone subscribes to these theories, but it is beneficial to be aware of them.

Let me know you all think, and please continue to help me understand what you believe.

Also, I would like to know why many people here use language that is shrouded in terms of mysticism.  It seems to me that what you are stating could be described scientifically, and that as such it would be less conducive to hostilities.  To wit, I am very uncomfortable with language that describes individuals as divine or as God.  It is not that I offended by blasphemy, as it were, but that I have a materialistic conception of reality.

-Timothy

Timothy,

My comments were, of course, in line with your question of the opinion of scholars, I did not take the meaning out of context by attributing you with this position.

What you say is very pointed and well reasoned.  In fact, some may suffer from a decoding of your elegant style of presentation.  I rather enjoy it, you have a gift of language.
Yoo said:
"If you are familiar with deconstructive literary criticism, you know that meaning is not an inherent within a text, but is producted (constructed) through the act of interpretation.  Moreover, texts in this sense are not simply limited to systems of inscription and demarkation, but exists as any context involving symbolic representation.  In other words awareness is inveteratelly contextualized and cannot exist otherwise.  Of course not everyone subscribes to these theories, but it is beneficial to be aware of them. "

But, of course, however, it is difficult to maintain the style of Jacques Diardre and keep the attention of your audience.  People might think 'inveteratelly contextualization', a moire pattern made by invertabrates.  I concur with the idea that the uncovering of truth is really a self referenced system requiring knowing what the perceiver's ability to perceive is in relationship with what is perceived.  I have been attempting to state that here in simple metaphor.

Next,
"Also, I would like to know why many people here use language that is shrouded in terms of mysticism.  It seems to me that what you are stating could be described scientifically, and that as such it would be less conducive to hostilities.  To wit, I am very uncomfortable with language that describes individuals as divine or as God.  It is not that I offended by blasphemy, as it were, but that I have a materialistic conception of reality."

I find myself unwittingly on the side of the mystics, shamans and priests due to the world being lopsidedly scientific.  Trying to invent language to bridge the gap 'twix making the subjective objective and the objective subjective.  Since I perceive our best course a middle course way, it is necessary to form a 'bridge' language.  This dictates refuting the ones that are lopsidedly leaning in the direction you are uncomfortable, speaking in terms of an elusive God, and also the ones that take a very clinical materialistic conception of reality.  Both distort what is happening in this world of ours.  This world is filled both with the mystery of the physical and the mystery of the energetic fields that drive it.  I have seperated them into two worlds prior to an attempt at integrating them back together into a more artistic and less devisive and devided structure.  I for one would appreciate your skills in this direction, if you were so inclined.

John

Numinoso,

I agree with Joe as I would agree with a subset of a master formula.  His generalizations are correct as far as I can intuit.  But, He thinks that the feeling is enough and carves away all of the remainder in a simplistic way.
If his yogic brethern in India would just see it is not an attitude that solves the dilemma of this world, but its energetic application, then India would be in a lot better place than it is now.  Relieving of suffering is not accomplished by disregarding attachments, just ask a starving child.  Do you get what I mean?  Answer this one point.  Take the time to think about it.  I am not speaking to the wisdom of not getting rid of attachments, there is just more to the formula that that subset.  With that thought I transcend the stuck meditators and anyone else that has a theory without its companion action. My challenge to Joe is to now come up with the practical wisdom that will make this place of ours-that we live and breathe in-a better place.  Stop speaking in generalities of being in touch with a higher intelligence and give us a taste of that intelligence instead of a sales job.
And, what problem do you have with this stance?

QUOTE

I find it hard to believe that the only way to discover objective knowledge is by embracing the subjective experience of self.  Not only is it self-repudiating, but it is the total erosion of authority and the loss of meaning within the bottomless pit of relativity.  Maybe I just don't understand, but I don't see any reliable method of differentiating between real transcendence and say, the euphoria experienced by Christain snake handers, that doesn't involve serious contradiction.

You wouldn't see any difference, how could you if it has been something inside you and you have been taught to ignore it. As children we are taught that expression is subject to a time and a place and that sometimes it is inappropriate to say or express our feelings at all. Then the subtle realities we experience as children are stuffed along with the ability to use our nervous system freely as we are guided by our parents who have been guided by theirs and society into beliefs that this or that is real and this isn't.
Our level of awareness is reduced to basic gross interpretations of what is known through the trained senses and judgment of the input and output of the senses abilties.
It usually takes the frustration of the individuals sense that what the heart knows and what the mind has been taught "don't match up" to start the process of change. Being that we have been taught to be anal-ytical about what is seen and heard and the anal-isation being critical and biased in the ideas of what is good/real and bad/unreal the innocense of the child has to be relearned. I'm not talking about the learned limitations of stickning your hand in a fire and getting burned but the innocense of approach that is lost and clouded by past impressions. Tell someone enough that they need to watch out for the dangers in life and the mind will be ever focused on finding the things that may threaten ones safety and physical well being. What room is there left then to be open to see the subtler aspects of creation when the thinking process is on danger alert or paranoia processing?

You will need to relearn innocense to experience the more subtle aspects of yourself and the greater Self that is in you. If you are not at the point of that realisation then it would be like trying to teach mice table manners. It is not within the scope of ones attention span or awareness. You will see what you are willing or want to see. The universe exists to serve you in that capacity, it always gives you what you want. Trouble is that with the mind locked in the repetative cycle of thought, with some 100,000 thoughts per day the thoughts are not usually of new perspectives but the wielding of old habitual thought patterns in what am I going to do today, what will I eat for dinner, why did I ever get involved with that person etc. Some thoughts and desires get canceled out by other thoughts based on limited self worth or lack of beliefs and abilities. This process does nothing to expand the mind but to anchor it into repetative processes that keep one foot nailed to the floor so you circle the same spot over and over again until your body and mind gives up.
What the mind needs is something to free its self from repetative process in cycling the same old thoughts that keep a person limited to one basic reality shrouded by fear and mortality.
When your heart gets to be stronger than your intellect it will lead you towards the process that will guide you back towards your true nature. Until then you will think your way around your reality and stay within what you believe to be the relative boundaries of sensibility, safety and mortality.

QUOTE

Read what I actually said, not what your clever mind leads you to believe.  I was talking about your desire not your ability to change me.  In the future, I will stop responding to this child like way you have of distorting what I have said to you.  You are only interested in your own music.

All music is my music. Shall I let your limitations be my limitations as well? What are you really interested in on your journey to know yourself? Are you wanting a friend to support you in your limited beliefs that are not helping you to see more, or are you interested in someone who might challenge you in what you see so that you might see something more? What do you want John a new friend?
I see exactly what you want me to see, your vulnerability and your intense desire to rise above any limitations within yourself and to spread that throughout all that you see. I want that too it is my only desire. What I have gone through in the process has changed my desires in the way they look and feel to see more of the infinte Self and live from that, so that I no longer suffer in the world of duality fear and mortality.
What seems heartless and sterile in your perceptions of me is that part that you fear in "detachment" meaning the loss of individuality and person. I see the world a little differently than you, is that so bad? Do you have such a hard time with something that is different that you feel threatened that it is trying to change you, or are you able to see the process of change that is happening within you? The things that inspire fear are being exposed so you can make different choices and find a different anchor to associate with. God doesn't want to take anything away from you but you seem pretty much afraid that something can be taken away. Why is that?
You may do something you think to be noble to change the outside of ones environment but if the subtle self defeating programs that created the environment in the first place are not changed then the poor self deluded person that has not the will to stand up for himself or try, will suck off of the person or persons who feel sorry for their disposition and expect more from the world and do less for themselves. You use India as an example and you have overgeneralized the spiritual process of meditation and religions and applied your lack of knowledge and interpretation to what I am. How could you hope to help anyone from a position of extreme prejudice and ignorance.
Have you ever studied the process of meditation from anyone? Ever made any comparisons of the different methods? Do you know of the different processes, like the hair shirt approach, the sitting in a cave approach or the natural process of the inward movement of the mind that expands consciousness in the self and everyone around you?
Would you give the hungry man a meal and leave with him no hope or would you give him hope so that he may get up and try to create his life anew? What would you think to be the most enlightened approach?
Giving things away to the undeserving ungreatful will do nothing to help them rise above self defeating thoughts. The American welfare system is full of underachieving coniving people that will milk the system for all its worth so they will not have to do anything.
You will have to do better than try and use the Indian people and your interpretations of what you think they represent in your comparisons to religions, meditation and you own frustration with me and you inability to take the time to really understand what is happening here for you.

QUOTE

Joe: Size matters not? Then where's the limit? Why don't you write fifteen times as much? Or two hundred times as much

There is no limit. Only what is needed in the moment, only what is asked for.
Do you let your preferences sway your perceptions of what is in form?

this is my world.  If you don't like it, find your own

Joe

How does one relearn innocence?  And what benefit does this process confer to the individual?  Happiness?  Virtue?  Enlightenment?  And how does one define this answer?  Personally, I am of the opinion that the moral end of humankind is happiness (which is distinct from pleasure).  Of course I have been schooled (some might say indoctrinated) in the western tradition of philosophy and all of this is new to me.

John

Yes Derrida (is that how its spelled--bah french!) is a bit of an anaesthetic isn't he?  I prefer Rorty, but mileage varies.

So there are two worlds--a rational/objective, and a inuitive/subjective.  Both are true in part, but neither is representative of reality holistically?  Therefore it is necessary to identify the more harmonious path of balance (a razors edge indeed) and set precedent for the social development of future generations?  Is this accurate?

So where do you go from here, and how do you envision the journey?

-Timothy

QUOTE

Joe How does one relearn innocence?  And what benefit does this process confer to the individual?  Happiness?  Virtue?  Enlightenment?  And how does one define this answer?  Personally, I am of the opinion that the moral end of humankind is happiness (which is distinct from pleasure).  Of course I have been schooled (some might say indoctrinated) in the western tradition of philosophy and all of this is new to me.

Does one learn to suffer or is it a natural part of you. When you were born did you remember how to suffer, how to be sad what was good and what was bad, or were these things learned. If you didn't have any preconceptions about what was wrong with anything would you know and without knowing what would your life be like without any worries

Dan,

Yeah, High noon at God's corral was acomin'.  Oh, My mention of Denver-I knew you were going for your brother's graduation and was wondering if his degree was in the bio or neuro fields?  You know family covering the waterfront type thing.

Timothy,

Yes, Derrida is correct, the other spelling just boiled off my finger tips.  Rorty?, Will put him on my list.  Derrida was erudite but could have taken his material into a compactor and nothing would have been lost.  He ground me into dust in no time, saying much about little, I felt.

You are a quick study.  Two worlds if taken as a thesis in physics rapidly sorts out everything into two catagories, not only in physics, but in many other sciences and philosophies as well.  So,I would go a step further and now call it a two world theory.
It would be helpful if you would go to the Welcome page and read my first clumsy post on this.  Then we can take it from there.

John

Perhaps I was not aware of my dissatisfactions or expectations, my innate emotions as such, but as a fragile biological organism, I must have experienced various levels of distress and elation.  It is unlikely that I understood these conditions as right or wrong, but I'm sure my mother can attest to the fact that I did a great deal of worrying in my own nonverbal way.

Are you suggesting that society 'stunts' the natural development of the personality by repressing certain expression based upon a pre-existing and artificial framework of morality?  And is this state of innocence something that must unfold in time within a nourishing environment or is it fully manifested, but unrefined, in the psyches of 'uncontaminated' children?

Joe,
Have you ever been to India?  I have.
5,000 years of Brahmin control, the highest ruling cast.
The filth, death in the streets, hunger and poverty are overwhelming and you have the audacity to dismiss what has happened there with the below tripe.   The belief system is useless with out the action to carry it out. You are a wind bag.  Shame on you.
Joe said:



John's Quote:Read what I actually said, not what your clever mind leads you to believe.  I was talking about your desire not your ability to change me.  In the future, I will stop responding to this child like way you have of distorting what I have said to you.  You are only interested in your own music.  



".......You may do something you think to be noble to change the outside of ones environment but if the subtle self defeating programs that created the environment in the first place are not changed then the poor self deluded person that has not the will to stand up for himself or try, will suck off of the person or persons who feel sorry for their disposition and expect more from the world and do less for themselves. You use India as an example and you have overgeneralized the spiritual process of meditation and religions and applied your lack of knowledge and interpretation to what I am. How could you hope to help anyone from a position of extreme prejudice and ignorance.
Have you ever studied the process of meditation from anyone? Ever made any comparisons of the different methods? Do you know of the different processes, like the hair shirt approach, the sitting in a cave approach or the natural process of the inward movement of the mind that expands consciousness in the self and everyone around you?
Would you give the hungry man a meal and leave with him no hope or would you give him hope so that he may get up and try to create his life anew? What would you think to be the most enlightened approach?
Giving things away to the undeserving ungreatful will do nothing to help them rise above self defeating thoughts. The American welfare system is full of underachieving coniving people that will milk the system for all its worth so they will not have to do anything.
You will have to do better than try and use the Indian people and your interpretations of what you think they represent in your comparisons to religions, meditation and you own frustration with me and you inability to take the time to really understand what is happening here for you.

John

After reading your introduction I feel that I do not have the requisite background to make a very meaningful contribution.  I still am curious.

RE: India -

Anyone read Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie?  Been addicted to chutney ever since.  He also wrote The Satanic Verses which I have not read, but hear is good.

Tim

Synch,
my bro in Denver is just graduating highschool, and I don't know what he's going to do.  He is intersted in medicine, though

8)

Admittedly, I haven't kept up with this entire thread, but there were a few things in Joe's last reply to me that I'd like to take up, because I don't want silence to be misinterpreted as acquiescence.

QUOTE

Who then sets the standards for what is known by the actions or works?

This is like asking, who sets the standards in a field of science?  The answer is that you have groups of competent individuals that, more or less, cooperate with each other to set the standards.    How do you define competence?  Again, look at any field in science for the answer, because the same answer applies here.

QUOTE

All actions and experiences that you do have a reference point to you. They all come back to you for final judgment and interpretation.

Great, but what am 'I'?  I am the Universe conscious of Itself.  Hardly a personal sense of identity, now is it?   So, if all my actions and words point back to the Universe as reference, or more precisely, point back to the 'Universal Mind', or 'I of the Universe', then what's that say about individual 'reference points'?   That they're merely illusion.  

QUOTE

Depending on how clear a person is, how free from stress or ego would determine the amount of light emanating without RELATIVE (my emphasis) filtering.

I hope you don't think that's how I'm using the term 'relative'.  It's not.

QUOTE

If this point is within you and this point is not recognised as being in others than it could only be based on your expereinces which have no other reference point but what you have determined to be relative only to you, and not relative to all things.

The notion (and experience) of Universal I is sufficient to address the above passage.   Again, you're throwing around the term 'relative' in a way that I've never used it.   Do you understand the distinction between levels of Being (levels of consciousness) and reference points?    When I talk about levels of Being (and consciousness) being relative, I do not mean that reference points are relative.   'Reference point', as I understand your usage of the term, refers to our particular perspective, how things appear to us being in our body.  Using this definition, it's obvious that 'reference points' are relative, and to represent my arguments in terms of 'reference points' instead of levels of Being and levels of consciousness is nothing more than a 'straw man'.   You've misrepresented my case, and have merely attacked something that is altogether different from what I've been saying about levels of consciousness and levels of Being being relative.

Let me give a clear example to hopefully prevent any more misunderstanding.   Consider the following two levels of consciousness:  1) you first wake up and are very groggy, sleepy, and disoriented, and 2) you're wide awake and experiencing an ecstatic quasi-mystical experience.    Now, how do the two levels of consciousness compare and contrast?   Obviously, one level is higher, more intense, and is characterized by greater consciousness and greater Being RELATIVE to the other.   This is the sense that I'm using the term 'relative'.  I am not using this term to describe relative perspectives, but rather relative levels of consciousness and levels of Being.

QUOTE

I am saying to you that you can't base anything that could be beyond the relative in any relative experience or teaching.

but it's all relative.  

QUOTE

This awareness [of the infinite unbounded Self] relative to the mutidimensional states of consciousness never goes away in and beyond the relative states.

To counter the above claim, consider again my sleepy vs. awake example.  Your awareness of the Self is surely qualitatively different in these two states because awareness of the Self is dependent on level of Being and level of consciousness.   Do you think you're aware of the Self in dreamless sleep?   If so, then the Self is something unconscious, and hence not discernible in consciousness when one is awake.  If not, then the Self is something conscious, and hence part of the relative states or levels of consciousness that we experience.

Joe, you seem to give the state of one-pointed consciousness (i.e., the conscious state induced by meditation) some special status, but it has none, and is only one state among an infinity of infinities.   To focus on one state of consciousness is to close yourself off to so much experience, so much Being.  You close yourself off to your world and make yourself insular, and you seem happy by that, but it's just a delusion.   It's like you've left Plato's cave, and are now closed off in a different cave.  But it's a cave, nonetheless!  

QUOTE

You have misinterpreted what you have read and heard for they never made any reference to themselves being in a highest state of awareness

But I never claimed that they made such references to themselves.  Hence, I am not the one who misinterpreted.   All I stated was that they never experienced the 'highest' state of consciousness because such a state does not exist.  It's merely a fiction, and people who believe in the reality of a 'highest' state are pleasantly deluding themselves.....sort of like the ostrich that sticks it's head in the ground.

QUOTE

You reject what you have not understood.

I could easily say the same for you, but didn't, because it was too easy.

QUOTE

I experience the One infinte reality

You mean, you 'believe' that you've experienced the one infinite reality.   Whether I or others believe such a claim is questionable.  Perhaps the one infinite reality that you experience is mere delusion.  

QUOTE

You are the one that made the interpretation that I have reached the ultimate place

But Joe, you just said above that you experience the One Infinite Reality.  If this isn't the 'ultimate' place, then what is for you?     Of course, I don't believe in the 'ultimate' place (i.e., the 'highest level of consciousness and Being') since even the 'highest' and 'ultimate' can be overcome and transcended, but I'm still curious to hear your answer.

QUOTE

You limit the infinite in its posiblities due to your relative experiences.

Again, I could say the same about you.

QUOTE

God is foreign to you

now you're just being silly!   I could just as well say, "The Experience of God" is foreign to you, because had you experienced It, then you'd know where I was coming from, and what I am.

QUOTE

Anything that is limited to the relative is not going to fulfill the infinte part of yourself

they certainly are not mutually exclusive.  There are different types of infinities, and just juxtapositioning the 'relative' to the 'infinite', like you did above, makes absolutely no sense.  

QUOTE

I have not expereinced all of the many different realities nor do I need to in order to experience the one constant that is still there, like the self that experiences.

It's obvious your personal experience is limited, as is everyone's.    What amazes me is that you think your self is constant thru all experiences.  Our experience of Self is dependent on our level of Being and on our level of consciousness.   To what extent have you transcended your own self?


Perhaps our differences, Joe, ultimately stem from our different temperaments.  You do not seem like a manic fellow to me, and so perhaps this is the reason for our differences.   Alternatively, I'm a second-born, and hence more likely to be iconoclastic, whereas you seem to want to keep the old icons around (i mean, you seem to accept the truths of the Gita and Upanishads as some sort of Ultimate Truth, whereas I regard them as merely the beginning of wisdom), which makes me wonder whether you're a first-born or only child.  


I wish you'd read Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, even if it's just the first 30 pages.  I think you might find a few worthy gems, and perhaps even look out onto the world with new eyes.

namaste,
Shawn

I think the absolute is relative, too. Because if it were absolute it wouldn't be able to change or else it would lose its absoluteness. There would be no development in it.

You can make a logical construction called the absolute which is the superset of everything existing, with each relative reality being a subset of it, but I don't think God would prefer to be like that. It would mean that he's static, that spontaneity and creativity don't exist for him. He would be bored.

I think God is happy with being a relative being, too. Like that life is much more interesting. He's one of us. (Although being a little bit bigger.) And the absolute remains being a logical construction, like the infinite in maths, which is always approached but never reached.

Tim,
If I may.  I am a boy, underneath the various personalities my ego has collected and shines out in a defensive splay as a dogs back hairs bristle,  I am a boy.
I am very glad you do not know, as then I do not have to pretend.  I have found a treasure that I am not sure of so I am groping in the semi-darkness.  It is a serious treasure maybe worth two frogs or a trip to the movies.
I really like to share the wonder of it and to maybe make a club house out in the woods.  I am excited and want to make sure that it is real.  I would like to have a gang, but before that I don't want to be embarrassed.  When I was a young boy they used to extoll my virtues and embarrass my personal treasures.  I never want this to happen again.  I'll show you because you are persistently interested, if you want.  If nothing else it may be fascinating science fiction, nothing lost.  But, just, maybe....  Have you got trading material?  Maybe a genuine slingshot?  With marbles, not rocks?

QUOTE

Joe, Have you ever been to India?  I have. 5,000 years of Brahmin control, the highest ruling cast. The filth, death in the streets, hunger and poverty are overwhelming and you have the audacity to dismiss what has happened there with the below tripe.   The belief system is useless with out the action to carry it out. You are a wind bag.  Shame on you.

There is no shame in failing to stereotype the name of unconscious pretenders that call themselves Brahmins nor the tendancy to make God or the enlightened responsible for changing the free will of people to make choices around their development or social conditions.

QUOTE

This is like asking, who sets the standards in a field of science?  The answer is that you have groups of competent individuals that, more or less, cooperate with each other to set the standards.    How do you define competence?  Again, look at any field in science for the answer, because the same answer applies here.

Not being a big fan of groups of individuals who take what they believe in the moment to be the end all of creation like the appearance of myself and other followers of the experience of God. I don't see the validity of another group of individuals who think they are responsible for the answers to lifes questions.
Both sides have their pitfalls and this point of reference is pointless. Educated individuals once thought the world to be flat. Science today is still growing and improving upon itself, where one idea evolves into another to answer one question, then prompts 2 or more questions as to the source of the first. Responsible scientists created the technologies that have helped mankind both in creating more comfort and also the byproducts that have been destroying the earth. Waking state relative responsibility without conscious awareness is as dangerous as a child with nitroglycerin. There are more illnesses related to contaminated food air and water than ever before because of the responsible 10% ability of the brain to try and reason what is real and productive. Science hasn't but more than a few ideas about the brain and its capacity to become self aware. No group that touts logic can ultimately influence anyones free will. Only the Self being aware of itself can recognize true guidance from source. All other interpretations of authority are illusions.

QUOTE

Great, but what am 'I'?  I am the Universe conscious of Itself.  Hardly a personal sense of identity, now is it?

What is your point? I can make the same claim but in your terms it is a fantasy of the present state of awareness or consciousness.
I would ask you where the idea comes from and how you would recognise or label it as something to establish as a point of reference in the many that you say exist?

 

QUOTE

So, if all my actions and words point back to the Universe as reference, or more precisely, point back to the 'Universal Mind', or 'I of the Universe', then what's that say about individual 'reference points'?   That they're merely illusion.

Individual reference points, point back to the one reference point, beyond mind and universe to the infinite one. It is present in all individual points of reference and all relative states of consciousness.
Where I am is the statement of the Ego I am that is more accurate and closer to the one reference point of the Self. The illusions of the self always bear the infinite within as the essence of all things illusiory and the infinite cannot be separated.

QUOTE

The notion (and experience) of Universal I is sufficient to address the above passage.   Again, you're throwing around the term 'relative' in a way that I've never used it.   Do you understand the distinction between levels of Being (levels of consciousness) and reference points?    When I talk about levels of Being (and consciousness) being relative, I do not mean that reference points are relative.   'Reference point', as I understand your usage of the term, refers to our particular perspective, how things appear to us being in our body.  Using this definition, it's obvious that 'reference points' are relative, and to represent my arguments in terms of 'reference points' instead of levels of Being and levels of consciousness is nothing more than a 'straw man'.   You've misrepresented my case, and have merely attacked something that is altogether different from what I've been saying about levels of consciousness and levels of Being being relative. Let me give a clear example to hopefully prevent any more misunderstanding.   Consider the following two levels of consciousness:  1) you first wake up and are very groggy, sleepy, and disoriented, and 2) you're wide awake and experiencing an ecstatic quasi-mystical experience.    Now, how do the two levels of consciousness compare and contrast?   Obviously, one level is higher, more intense, and is characterized by greater consciousness and greater Being RELATIVE to the other.   This is the sense that I'm using the term 'relative'.  I am not using this term to describe relative perspectives, but rather relative levels of consciousness and levels of Being.

I understand what you are saying and the semantics that separate the understandings is due to interpretation.
You speak of experiences that vary in the process of evolution and the changing states of consciousness and you use these varying changes in states of awareness as reference points.
There is but one point of reference that is available to all experiences and states of consciousness, In and away from the reference of the body. The egoless originless. Consciousness or different states of consciousness experiences the one in varying degrees. The Experiences themselves change but the infinite itself never changes. It is omnipresent, omniscient, still and unchanging. Leaving all experiencial reference points aside consciousness can experience the originless Self experiencing the Self in its infiniteness. In pure stillness the Self never changes, only the ideas that create movement and the interpretation of that.

QUOTE

but it's all relative.

Only the descriptions not the infinite itself. IT has no boundaries or limits, it is as real as your awareness. Your awareness can change but [b]it[b] never changes. what may manifest from it looks like something but that is the illusion, the manifest idea.

QUOTE

To counter the above claim, consider again my sleepy vs. awake example.  Your awareness of the Self is surely qualitatively different in these two states because awareness of the Self is dependent on level of Being and level of consciousness.   Do you think you're aware of the Self in dreamless sleep?   If so, then the Self is something unconscious, and hence not discernible in consciousness when one is awake.  If not, then the Self is something conscious, and hence part of the relative states or levels of consciousness that we experience.

The one is present in all states of consciousness,  it is simple. Why do you want to make it any more complicated than that? Too simple to be valid? Need more scientific proof to back up your ideas and give meaning to it? All states of relative consciousness can be witnessed, including dreamless sleep.But then I suppose you wouldn't call it dreamless, but then why call dreaming, sleep?

QUOTE

Joe, you seem to give the state of one-pointed consciousness (i.e., the conscious state induced by meditation) some special status, but it has none, and is only one state among an infinity of infinities.   To focus on one state of consciousness is to close yourself off to so much experience, so much Being.  You close yourself off to your world and make yourself insular, and you seem happy by that, but it's just a delusion.   It's like you've left Plato's cave, and are now closed off in a different cave.  But it's a cave, nonetheless!

The many ideas that are created in experiences are infinite and the self can get lost in the infinite for eternity. believing in its purpose to create and be creation but to be the creator is far beyond the insular ideas of being something. To be everything is only possibel by returning to the source, the infinite potential. There free from the web of any particular reality all realities can be known simultaneously, with the awareness in a thousand or more places at the same time.
Meditation is one form to know the infinte. It is simply a tool, nothing more. All forms of religion and spiritual drive is linked to the source and will always create a pathway for the individual who will return to the source of the Self. Once there infinite joy is the reality, not closed to any experience or world. Not limited to the world or its appearances or ideas. Discipline to direct the mind inward to release it from the 10% level of thinking and release the 90% of untapped potential and enliven the dormant DNA opens up much more than the typical world experience that follows logic and its boundaries. You limit yourself and have built the cave that tries to convince yourself the infinite is unreachable and delusional. You may throw your logic at me but for what purpose? To share your experience or convince me that I am wrong. What do you think I am if you are so expanded in your awareness?

QUOTE

But I never claimed that they made such references to themselves.  Hence, I am not the one who misinterpreted.   All I stated was that they never experienced the 'highest' state of consciousness because such a state does not exist.  It's merely a fiction, and people who believe in the reality of a 'highest' state are pleasantly deluding themselves.....sort of like the ostrich that sticks it's head in the ground.

Here you and I differ because I don't see them as people only pure manifestation of Consciousness. The manifestation points to the source of the Self. You wish to see them as the knower when you are still the knower and they the known you still make real,  the interpretation of what they represent relative to your limited point of reference.

QUOTE

on May 26th, 2003, 12:15am, joe wrote: You reject what you have not understood.   I could easily say the same for you, but didn't, because it was too easy.

Oh go ahead, I love a the way things fit together in the relative world. I promise I won't be offended.

QUOTE

on May 26th, 2003, 12:15am, joe wrote:God is foreign to you   now you're just being silly!   I could just as well say, "The Experience of God" is foreign to you, because had you experienced It, then you'd know where I was coming from, and what I am.

I know exactly who you are and the direction of this conversation, I also find it amusing the point of reference you take in stating if I had known God I would have said something different. You wouldn't want to limit God from playing this type of game or anything else
would you?

QUOTE

they certainly are not mutually exclusive.  There are different types of infinities, and just juxtapositioning the 'relative' to the 'infinite', like you did above, makes absolutely no sense.

Oh here we go again limiting reality to logic. There is only one infinite one, we are not talking about the manifestations within the one, although they are mentioned it is not the point of conversation nor the point of reference. Why spread yourself into so many when the infinite one is so much bigger than the sum of the many?

QUOTE

It's obvious your personal experience is limited, as is everyone's.    What amazes me is that you think your self is constant thru all experiences.  Our experience of Self is dependent on our level of Being and on our level of consciousness.   To what extent have you transcended your own self?

Now what use would I have to find the guage? To limit myself to a system of limits. We are talking different languages. You experiences and constant change and me the one constant. For what its worth you haven't reached the ability to surrender yourself to anhialation, to give your individuality to the totality of God. It's much safer to control the relative than to give control to something greater than what you experience in each moment.

QUOTE

Perhaps our differences, Joe, ultimately stem from our different temperaments.  You do not seem like a manic fellow to me, and so perhaps this is the reason for our differences.   Alternatively, I'm a second-born, and hence more likely to be iconoclastic, whereas you seem to want to keep the old icons around (i mean, you seem to accept the truths of the Gita and Upanishads as some sort of Ultimate Truth, whereas I regard them as merely the beginning of wisdom), which makes me wonder whether you're a first-born or only child.   I wish you'd read Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, even if it's just the first 30 pages.  I think you might find a few worthy gems, and perhaps even look out onto the world with new eyes.

You mean through your eyes.
I am not so concerned with definitions as they vary from perspectives in relationship to the infinite ideas. Only the infinite one which contains all ideas and realities.

The Gita points the way to simple truths that always get diluted in so much complicated interpretation.

You may take your relative textbook psychological interpretations and apply them to me if you wish but it would be as pointless as performing psychotherapy on God.

I don't exist.

 











 

And on this stage we have the perfect example of NPD.
A Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Next stage on the left, ladies and gentlemen.  we have a perfect re-creation of Napoleon.
And this person on the right, coming up is Gods Twin brother.  His name is James and preforms amazing acts of death defying feats in his head at lightning speed.
And then.......

hello Joe,

it should be obvious by now that neither one of us is going to convert the other since we both appear to be stubborn asses (stubborness can be good).  I do appreciate your thoughtful reply and would like to comment on one thing at this time:  namely, on your statement, "For what its worth you haven't reached the ability to surrender yourself to anhialation, to give your individuality to the totality of God."  I would disagree.  Your inability to take into serious consideration states of consciousness beyond the limited number that you've experienced, including what you interpret as your experience of 'Self', suggests to me a certain rigidity regarding your identity, and that perhaps you're afraid of losing yourself by transcending yourself, or admitting to more transcendent and profound states of consciousness than what you've experienced.  

I don't think you grasp just how limited 'human consciousness' is.   The typical human experience of 'Self', including yours, is nothing when compared to the vastness of Being and transcendence of consciousness that's yet to be experienced.  I know this because I've experienced a relatively small bit of it (relative to the vastness of Being and transcendence of consciousness that's possible to experience, but has not yet been experienced by anyone), though I know that the small bit I've experienced is far, far beyond typical 'human consciousness', even your stereotypical 'mystical experience' of Oneness and the 'Self'.  

I truly believe you have no idea where I'm coming from, and I know you believe likewise about me, though of course I believe this to be an error on your part, as you no doubt believe that I'm the one in error.  What I ultimately fall back on for the basis of my beliefs are my experiences, of course.   And I admit to not being content with what I've experienced.  I want more.   And this, I think, is another big difference between us, that you appear perfectly content with what you claim is your experience of 'Self', whereas I abhor such contentment as being due solely to self-delusion and a type of 'spiritual laziness'.   There are vast continents of consciousness you've never experienced, consciousness that is absolutely nothing like 'human consciousness' and the type of consciousness that you're so familiar and seemingly content with.    If you could only experience what you've been missing out on, I'm convinced that you'd see just how limited your current states of consciousness are, and would embrace the noble ideal of doing whatever is necessary to realize these more transcendent and divine states of consciousness and Being.

I know I post this in vain, at least to the extent that I know you're not going to change your mind over reading my post, but I do hope that others may see the truth in what I say, or at least that I motivate others to go beyond the ancient Indian wisdom, and in fact, to seek the way to go beyond mankind's most transcendent experiences of past.   I don't think even the ancient sages of India would've wanted the peak of mankind's spiritual enlightenment to be represented by their writings, but would have wanted future men to go beyond them, to transcend their own transcendent experiences.  

The ancient Indian wisdom of the 'Self' is but the beginning, not the end, of wisdom.  

namaste,
Shawn

John

It is true that curiosity can be a lethal form of flattery, cajoling dark secrets to the surface, assuaging their guardians, cloaking malignant intent.  Was this not the fate of the Trojans?  What assurance can I give you that these are not my motives for promoting the relationship?  I will not insult you detective.  I hail from a rival gang, to which your intentions are irksome.  Your hesitancy is well-founded.  Rationalism and atheism are tyrannical masters, but I serve them for they have freed me from fates far worse.  Yet my my loyalty is not absolute, for even these masters bend knee to one that is greater and it is this that I truly serve--above all I am a Freethinker.  So long as you value the questioning of beliefs and are never satisfied with having discovered "ultimate truth" (for it is a hegemony most oppressive), you have nothing to fear from me.  

I give to you in pledge the promise that I will never betray your headquarters to those whose vulgarity will never allow them to appreciate heterogeneity of thought, and to this I add my own insecurities: I suffer from APD - avoidant personality disorder, related to NDP, but treatable.  I am particularly allergic to criticism.  I fare decently in controlled forums such as this, but in person, sometimes I can barely communicate.  This is me.

And yes, detective, my writing style is compensatory for my interpersonal handicap.


- Tim

There is also a mathematical proof why God can't be absolute. It's number theory. The only way out of this proof would be to say that God is beyond numbers, but if you want to take that way I'll prove to you that this leads to saying that God is beyond anything, which would make him nothing. (A superset that contains all subsets also has to contain the content of these subsets.)

So, if God would be absolute he would have to contain all the numbers. But, the numbers are infinite. So God can't contain them all.

That means that the infinite is only a possibility, a logical projection. You can extend this projection easily from numbers to all the other things. Which would mean that the absolute can't exist in reality, only in potentiality.

However, it's understandable that humans who perceive a glimpse of God notice that he is so much bigger than they that they believe him being absolute. It's as understandable as believing the surface of the earth is endless, as long as you explore it by walking.

Shawn,
We both come from the same place and yet you are not satisfied with Knowing your Self.
You mistake my knowing for the conclusive experience and you still cling tightly to the experiences that you will need to further understand which river you are or rather being all the rivers rather than being the ocean that they all return to.
I will continue to progress thru the process of Karma, the desires that have been initiated at the will of Self to experience the Self. The Feelings and the experiences will progress and transmute themselves back into the One absolute.
From the relative there are many, from the infinite Self there is but One. This Is difficult for you to understand from the relative and literal interpretation you have professed to in your deciphering of the vedic signposts. Like the parables Christ spoke in that the truth is there to hear for those that have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.

Let me ask you something. When you look in the mirror and see yourself and each year as you see yourself, do you change? I'm not talking about experiences, what you accumulate over time in knowledge or the form and appearance, but the simple point of who you are.

Pure energy at its basic level is still energy. Beyond the illusions of changing form and Ideas there still exists the One self that initiates all forms, time and dimensional realities to support the many forms and ideas of time and structure.
You can have them all at the same time. They are like parlor tricks. What you base as your point of of reference in your exalted experiences is but a stepping stone to your path of return. To know the essence of your relative self and beyond to the Self, which is relative only to the limited singular approach of the self as being limited in any description of the One.

The Sum of the many equals the one. The one is the many.

God is the infinite many but in its basic formless essence is one. The singular consciousness is the many at the same time.
There is a theory that is known by some but not proven by relative experiences yet, that if you start in any direction in space and continue long enough you will eventually end up back where you started. Curved Space.
The paradox of the literal linear mind to translate the illogical into the linear logical will forever fail in trying to attempt to put any one description or definition of the infinite into form.
You and I together speak truths that lead to the one truth. If anyone is listening they will see one working as two or two separate viewpoints and points of reference. There is nothing wrong with either interpretation. God is very much capable of being schizophrenic and singular at the same time.

I'm sure you have heard of "Achems razor"
All things being equal the simplest explanation must be true.

The detrmination of scientists that need to fulfill the desire to dissect the universe and label all of its parts is an endless task and open to any that would try. The simplest Ideas are alway the most elusive and the hardest to accept for those that have dedicated themselves to the intellect and the complexity of themselves. They would try to understand each moment and each experience to elevate themselves in to such vastness, and yet the vastness is always external to the one point of reference that would try and experience itself in all of the many experiences it would call its Self, and its points of reference.
To the Ego it is self deflating to narrow itself into simplicity.

Your condemnation of the tools of enlightenment and the idea of failure in comparison to your unknowns and your awe of its complexity is that you still see the mountain to be climbed. It's interpreted by your experiences and the relationship you have to the inability to bring it all back to one source. This is only illusion and temporary for eventually it will lead you to the One.
If it takes a million lifetimes of multidimensional experiences to bring all experiences back to the one point of reference that you are God and God is both complex and simple this you will do. This God created and you are part of that creation to complete the idea of linear progression, to realize its point of origin, and yet you and all of it don't exist. You and your experiences are merely thoughts. All realities are just thoughts and ideas. You can go as deep into them as you wish or go as deep into the creative force that created you and all other ideas. It is always just a choice.

God can go in any direction even inward as is represented in the external ideas of spritual paths. God has many forms and many dimensional realities and yet the one absolute that the many infinite Gods are connected and born from is the same One transcendant isness. Literal translations only demean the reality into limited descriptions.

I'm not sure what you think you are attempting to accomplish in your ideas. Whether to master the concepts and continue with the rest of Sciences attempts to come up with a better explaination for the universe that hopefully will be the end all description.  Maybe prompted by a desire or belief that it will be greater than the other attempts? Or to disprove all of the other attempts to give meaning or point a direction to the infinite?
 Either way its a merry go round and certainly enjoyable to those that ride it, but eventually the ride gets old and habitual and will crumble for lack of any permanence.

Neither one of us can take any of this seriously because we have the illusiory path that seems to follow the many ideas. But if one is capable of seeing the layers of reality that is within the appearances it is an awesome experience. But again experiences come and go and eventually they end up where they started. Here or there in your interpretation lies infinite Bliss.
What you determine that to be relative to experience will either dissapoint you or thrill you depending on your level of surrender and your ability to give up relative points of reference.

Hey Shawn

I thought I'd offer an alternate perspective on this 'highest being' crap, as it just came to me:

the 'hightest' state of meditators is really a 'ground state'.  The 'highest' has to do with the lack of 'bad', not the presence of 'good'.  At the ground state, with bad gone, any good is infinitely larger than the bad (which is zero).  As one approaches ground state, vigilance is key.  The religious texts and ideas are crutches to this end, as they serve to continually aim one toward ground state (although people get trapped in an orbit close to or at ground state because the final transition is a personal experience that cannot be instructed).  The 'other side' of ground state (passing through the singularity, which is the final transition) is the holy grail of the meditators, it is the unified being-state where perception is always true and action is always right.  This would also be beyond the 'highest state', it would be 'self-actualization'.  At this point the person exists by sheer will, going back into the world because there is nothing else worthwhile.  And it is this person who is interested in new and improved brains.  ;D (It seems to me that Joe lives to profess a way to think oneself toward the ground state, although he does seem narrowed into his particular way.  Maybe he is still in close orbit?   )   

8)

Tim,
My sentiments are similar.  Incidentally,  my NPD coment was not directed at you, but at someone who had just draped god around themselves and 'disappeared'.
My jesting posture that was also serious in its nature indicated that only as a boy can I approach this material.  I can find no other approach that does not unbalance the inquiry with technique.  I need the wonder and excitment.  I do not want the adults to come in and spoil the game at this point.
Who better than a child should do this exploration?  The only tool of the child to explore or escape is imagination.
When serious inquiry leaves what is left is soon turned into fixed opinion.  This life, if lived fully is one of continuous growth, to stop is to go unconscious.  That also is one of the premises of my two world theory.
On one side is consciousness, the other awareness driven by unconscious contents.

Joe

I am not trying to be antagonistic towards your beliefs, but you must understand that it would be disengenuous for me, as Shawn eloquently stated, to acquiesce through silence (his case being absence, mine being ignorance).  As far as my understanding goes, your position seems to be, and forgive me for using western terms, a strange blend of Platoism and Stoicism, where the ultimate virtue of rational knowledge is replaced by knowledge of the self--a grandious Solipsism in a sense.

But this concept of Self is very elusive to me, and I have never experienced it.  I am very skeptical about belief systems that minimize the here and now in preference for some better, but as of yet, unrealized state of reality.  I believe that the here and now is all we have and to diminish its importance as an end in itself is to squander what little we life we have.  It's interesting.  I believe that the only reality is the material and that consciousness is illusion while you maintain that consciousness is the only reality and that the material (or world of appearances) is illusory.  But I guess my greatest concern is the unfalsifiability of your claims.  The burden of proof lies squarely upon the backs of the claimant, but an ultimate Self, or any other transcendent object for that matter, is exactly the kind of thing that cannot be proven.  It's as if I were to proclaim the existence of the IPU (Intangible Pink Unicorn).  It very well might exist, or it might not, but in either case, such knowledge cannot be objectively known but only subjectively experienced.  That leaves the unbeliever in quite a predicament doesn't it?  Not wanting to be the victim of someone's elaborate scam nor the dupe of another's halucenation, what is one to do?  Reason and compassion are finite, but reliable.  They are humanistic and I am content with that.

Shawn

Regarding the negative correlation between enlightenment and reproduction: reproduction is merely the replication of information that happens to be stored within genes.  Configurations of information (like DNA) that happen to be more successful at making copies of themselves are naturally going to survive while those less effecient at the process are atrophied.  Over time, various information configurations differentiate into distinct replicating programs based on their symbiotically adaptive fit into an environment.  Imagine a hand growing into a glove until it is a perfect fit.  But once differentiated, these 'programs' are often force to compete for resources and inevitably displace one another.  This provides the impetus for further differentiation which in some cases results in the increasing complexity of the information configuration and at other times results in decreased complexity.  Eventually self-replicating configurations of information become *very* complex and exhibit a vast continuum of adaptive mechanism.  I believe that consciousness is such a 'trait' (it is almost vulgar to reduce it to a discrete faculty).  What is interesting is that consciousness, at least in humans, possesses the ability to arrange information configurations much in the same way that natural selection does in in genes.  The human mind is the environment in which the informational configurations of ideas (or memes) are replicated--such as religion, history, ethics, scientific knowledge, etc.  These memes modify the environment in which genes are replicated and dialectically influence one another.  Some people believe that the emergence of memes, a sort of collective consciousness, heralds the transcendence of genes as the fundamental information replicator.  This 'new' configuration integrates genetic information with consciousness, resulting in the dimension of reconfiguration as an adaptive mechanism in the complex self-replicating configurations of information.

This theory gives me the 'Whoa!' factor, but the individual consciousness, in this view, is still a deterministic function of Darwinism, which doesn't leave much room for a meaningful humanistic philosophy.

To follow up and just to be clear - in Darwinism, the discrete biological organism is seen as the fundamental unit of replication.  This theory is being superceded by the view that sees the individual gene as the fundamental unit of replication.  And now, some people are arguing that the genetic configuration of humans has set the stage for a new kind of replication which upon reaching critical complexity will broaden what we consider natural selection.

I think some scientists, Lynn Margulis to be specific, believe that most cells are the evolutionary product of differing bacteria strains forming symbiotic relationships and eventually merging through the process of becoming more and more dependent and thus less and less distinct.  The product is a new information package able to replicate itself.  In the same way, the human gene pool and the meme pool of ideas exist in a symbiotic relationship.  Marx asked does the individual determine consciousness or does consciousness determine the individual.  His answer was that consciousness, which for him meant the cultural/physical environment one is born into, determines to a large degree (although not same degree as tabula rasa, or blank slate, theorists).  But at the same time, the individual is an inseparable element of consciousness.  If you view this relationship from a neodarwinist perspective it looks like a symbiotic relationship that is approaching the threshold a new kind of 'organism.'  That is, the organism of consciousness, which is merely a hyper-complex unit of self-replication employing human genes as its sub-structural components.  What if we are the mitochondria of some future 'organism'?

The term, organism of consciousness is confusing because it is not really an organism, nor is it conscious.  It is just a self-replicating information structure, although in principle, there is nothing to stop it from achieving self-awareness, at least not that I know of.

Tim,

Good place to start.
My new perspective is that we live in two worlds.  Let us start with the world we are most familiar with and treat this world as the first of two, instead of the one and only world that we are familiar with, the one of sensory perception.
We can describe it in as many ways as people have throughout time.  This is the very real world of the physical.  To use just some descriptors:
The world of the brain, the particle world; the world of the electron; atomic structure, five senses; Darwin's and Newton's world of rules and order.  This world is perceived though th Kantian world of observation as detected through the senses.  Further organized through the highest organization available-the ego.  The ego uses reason and logic to organize this world and to catagorize it.  The ego is driven by complex sets of instructions that have been embedded in ints unconscious operating instructions that are the instruction set of survival.  
Now for the disagreeable part.  The part that has been failed to be recognized, since we live in this soup and do not realize it. (The Chinese Taoist teaching tale-does the fish know that it is swimming in water?).
We live in a world where the level of consciousness operates as an aware ego driven by a set of Nature's instructions that are unconscious.  We are only aware on a day to day basis of complex, unconscious habit patterns we have been trained into.  This is the current status of mankind viewed from this perspective.  We are nature's handmaidens and henchmen driven to perform her rules in a survival of the fittest game designed to hand off to the next generation the fittest that survived from the last.  Please allow me to be a reductionist here to state the core of this half of this belief system.

And it would make absolutely no sense to seek enlightenment in a way that you disappear yourself and fall back into God. If we all would do this only God would be left. The universe would be less than it is now.

The only worthwile thing is to keep your individuality as long as you can and collect experiences about everything, included (and probably above all) the supernatural (=God). If we all do like that the universe (and consciousness as a whole) will get constantly enhanced.
That means absolute enlightenment like Joe propagates is actually a degeneration. If realized it would mean a regression.

So the only meaningful thing is relative enlightenment, where you develop your consciousness further and further, all the time. (I'm sure God is doing the same, in his way.)

Tim,
It seems like you are saying that 'subjective meaning' is meaningless in terms of physical action (epiphenomenalism), but then you invoke subjective meaning as an agent of physical action through reference to the influence of 'mind' on natural selection.  

And memetics is logically inconsistent due to self-definition ('memetics' as a meme)

8)

I'm not not exactly familiar with phenomenology or ephenomenology.  In fact I don't even know the difference.  But either way, I don't think your representation of my last two posts is accurate.  Subjective meaning exists only in intangible world of experience, an constructed illusion.  The processes whereby illusions are constructed and the apparatus in which they operate function in a completely deterministic fashion.  We just happen to experience these processes as executive faculty, but the experience of choice does not mean that 'I,' or the part of me that is self-aware, is actually choosing.

Secondly, when I refer to consciousness or mind (a subjective element) as able to influence natural selection, you have to understand that I am only speaking of self-modifying information structures.  It might help if you think of it as a computer program that can rewrite its own code.  Such a program is completely deterministic.  Given identical initial circumstances and identical variables, any two 'executions' of the program will result in exactly the same output.  It's just that this particular recursion is so complex that it exhibits self-awareness.  If you think about it, mate selection is just a simpler version of what I'm talking about.  Humans are selective about who they mate with.  We discriminate between potential sexual partners 'consciously' and in a sense the subjective mind is the means by which natural selection operates.  Its only a contradiction if view the subjective experience (as opposed to the information comprising that experience) as real.

I do not follow your last comment regarding the inconsistency of memetics.  I have heard no such argument before.

John

I follow you agree with your overview of the modernistic conception of reality so far.

QUOTE

Subjective meaning exists only in intangible world of experience, an constructed illusion.  The processes whereby illusions are constructed and the apparatus in which they operate function in a completely deterministic fashion.  We just happen to experience these processes as executive faculty, but the experience of choice does not mean that 'I,' or the part of me that is self-aware, is actually choosing.

I think that an important point is to ask why coherent subjective meaning should exist.  If there is no 'choice', then there is no process whereby subjective meaning could emerge in physical systems.  The fact that subjective meaning does exist in direct correlation to 'mental' systems can be taken as a strong proof that choice happens through brains.  

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It's just that this particular recursion is so complex that it exhibits self-awareness. Â

complexity does not imply self-awareness!  to imply this is logical voodoo   ???

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If you think about it, mate selection is just a simpler version of what I'm talking about.  Humans are selective about who they mate with.  We discriminate between potential sexual partners 'consciously' and in a sense the subjective mind is the means by which natural selection operates.  Its only a contradiction if view the subjective experience (as opposed to the information comprising that experience) as real.

the definition of subjective meaning is in the meaningful perception of experience.  If there is no subjective experience, then there is no perception.  What you are talking about is computational systems, what I am talking about is the quality of meaning in perception.  One is a causal machine, one is a judging 'subject'.  If the perceived meaning is unable to affect the future of the machine, then there is absolutely no reason for the machine to support it.  The fact that such complex and coherent meaning correlates with the brain machine implies either inconceivable improbability or that choice happens

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I do not follow your last comment regarding the inconsistency of memetics.  I have heard no such argument before.

then listen to it now
'memetics' is a meme
and, putting words in Godel's mouth, (a general 'consistency' statement for formal systems of deduction)
a consistent formal system cannot be used to define itself
therefore, if a formal system can be used to define itself, it must be logically inconsistent.  And since the system of 'memetics' clearly can be used to define itself ('memetics' as the meme that induces a belief in memes), it must be logically inconsistent.  




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Joe I am not trying to be antagonistic towards your beliefs, but you must understand that it would be disengenuous for me, as Shawn eloquently stated, to acquiesce through silence (his case being absence, mine being ignorance).  As far as my understanding goes, your position seems to be, and forgive me for using western terms, a strange blend of Platoism and Stoicism, where the ultimate virtue of rational knowledge is replaced by knowledge of the self--a grandious Solipsism in a sense. But this concept of Self is very elusive to me, and I have never experienced it.  I am very skeptical about belief systems that minimize the here and now in preference for some better, but as of yet, unrealized state of reality.  I believe that the here and now is all we have and to diminish its importance as an end in itself is to squander what little we life we have.  It's interesting.  I believe that the only reality is the material and that consciousness is illusion while you maintain that consciousness is the only reality and that the material (or world of appearances) is illusory.  But I guess my greatest concern is the unfalsifiability of your claims.  The burden of proof lies squarely upon the backs of the claimant, but an ultimate Self, or any other transcendent object for that matter, is exactly the kind of thing that cannot be proven.  It's as if I were to proclaim the existence of the IPU (Intangible Pink Unicorn).  It very well might exist, or it might not, but in either case, such knowledge cannot be objectively known but only subjectively experienced.  That leaves the unbeliever in quite a predicament doesn't it?  Not wanting to be the victim of someone's elaborate scam nor the dupe of another's halucenation, what is one to do?  Reason and compassion are finite, but reliable.  They are humanistic and I am content with that.

Contentment is all anyone wants isn't it.
The Self would seem like a belief to those that haven't experienced it as probably would anything else. Where one has an experience and tells the story it might attract others towards the same type of experience in hope that they may also achieve something similar. However the Self can be experienced. With guidance and the proper tools and the desire anything is possible.
At first it may seem to be just the imagination at work but the subtle realities are very real and the Infinite self is more real than the illusiory manifestations of the relative world.
You may look into the world and see something but as it changes then was it or is it the same world after the change. Like looking in the mirror what you see may seem similar from year to year, even while the process of aging takes place but is it the appearance that remains stable or the person looking into the reflection?
Take any two people and put them together and although the two may share similar experiences the perception is not exactly the same. This individuality sets each person and experience apart, coupled with the free will that is within the choice to believe or interpret the experience the directions of the thoughts are rarely the same for each individual.
Impressions based on the foundations of beliefs color the perceptions. This may seem the same for all that is interpreted in life but within each interpretation is an anchor to the essence of what is percieved.
Sacred languages had at one time tonal qualities that when spoken would come close to imprinting the pattern of the idea into a common awareness. Where the human nervous system at times within the history of civilization was anchored in a common element of the Self and the infinite awareness, one who experienced and described a cow could  imprint the experience into the awareness of another who had never heard of or seen a cow. Today say cow to someone who has never heard the word and the word has no value unless it is associated with a memory of the cow. The whole present system is based on memories.
Todays languages and levels of consciousness have lost some of their luster in the more grounded basics of plain ol' here and now, what I can see hear and touch is all there is. And yet everyone sees hears and feels differently in all situations.

I'm sure you are intelligent enough to give possibility to the unknown, to the ideas that what you have not heard of or experienced may be possible, admitting that you have not had the experience.
Anytime someone places a boundary on lifes possibilities they close themselves off to experiencing beyond the lines they have drawn in perception and beliefs.
Beliefs come from the 10% level of the mind and it is pretty obvious that without the other 90% of untapped resource we as a society have barely risen to any potential. Although some are very much impressed or content with the way things are and spend most of their time finding ways to substantiate the present with reason there is always more. We experience this at a painfully slow rate as we allow ourselves to integrate small changes into our awareness. Without a post to grab onto the mind would have a hard time with the multidimensional processes of the interconnected realities that form the structure of creation. For the majority this reality is enough to handle and they don't care about anything else.
This is not bad but it is not the end of it.
This reality doesn't have to minimize the present reality it can enhance it if one can find a way to integrate what exists already and find peace with what is.
My experience is that once freed from the world of memory the universe unfolds in all its glory. Like putting down what you carry in your hands so that you can embrace more. You don't have to give up anything, you can still be happy with the things you like but wouldn't it be glorious to be freed from the aversions and feelings from the ideas and things you don't like or fear?
People are still trying to rearrange the things that are on the outside but are unwilling to change the source of the ideas and fears that created what they want to change and so they rearrange and create it all over again only to try and rearrange it again. Some would say this is part of human nature. I would say human nature is not limited to repetition and habit.

Tim,
You said
"I follow you agree with your overview of the modernistic conception of reality so far"
I could take this several different ways.  I shall take it that there is generally nothing too far out of line save for first indicating that this world is in an unconscious fixed state of awareness.  The name chosen for this state is "arconsciousness"
There are about 50,000 paid workers I have been told looking for consciousness in this first world.  
I mean to indicate that this physical world is of fixed intelligence and that intelligence is driven by nature's programs for survival.  To restate:  Conscious awareness driven by unconscious programs rule this world.  This world is a fixed place with fixed rules and regulations described by science as represented by Darwin and Newton and their followers.  There is a reason for my redundancy other than repetition.  Not to get your agreement, just to stay on the same page.
The second major discrepancy between my view is to seperate out two worlds from the generally held concept that one world holds all the keys to all the doors.
OK, so far?  I am setting some foundations to spring  from.  This just a starting point.  Occam's razor demands the most simple answer to be the correct one.  Since this world is complex, the answer will necessarily follow this rule.  
If this is too painfully childlike we can stop at this point
Or I can modify my method of presentation, at this point.
John

What would be most advantageous to both of us, Dan, is to work at discerning those points of disagreement in which we are irreconcilably divided, rather than trying to 'prove me wrong' as you are doing.  To do otherwise does nothing to advance dialogue and only impedes understanding.

Based on your statements concerning the inability for consciousness to emerge from the mechanistic processes of replicating units, I can only infer that 1) you view the Darwinian model of evolution to possess inadequate explanatory power in terms of 'mind' or 2) you do not understand conventional Darwinism, or 3) you neither agree with it nor undestand it.

Furthermore, your insistence upon 'subjective meaning' as distinct from, but correlative to the anatomical constituency and present state of the brain seems to be the source of most of your dissension with me.  You seem to view it as some autonomous agency, enabled by the brain--a ghost in the machine--and capable of making real, meaningful, and nondeterministic decisions, whereas I view 'subjective meaning' as a property of the nervous system's mechanistic integration and response to stimulation--a locus of perception in which the drive to satisfy competing unconscious needs creates the illusion of choice.  All of this is in line with Darwinism.

And lastly, yes, memetics is a meme, but the meme of memetics is not the same thing as the system it attempts to describe.  Godel shows us that knowledge is tautological, that it can't correspond absolutely with what is seeks to describe, but is based upon unavoidable presuppositions.  Arithmetic succumbs to the same inadequacies, but we don't inanely go around attempting to discredit our opponents arguments whenever they try to use a mathematical proof, now do we?  This argument is only valid against totalizing systems, which memetics is not.

John

Sorta still with you.  What do you mean by keys and doors?

don't get so uptite, Timmy!  I'm your friend  :-*

QUOTE

Based on your statements concerning the inability for consciousness to emerge from the mechanistic processes of replicating units, I can only infer that 1) you view the Darwinian model of evolution to possess inadequate explanatory power in terms of 'mind' or 2) you do not understand conventional Darwinism, or 3) you neither agree with it nor undestand it.

2?
Darwinism tells me that if something is not capable of affecting the physical evolutionary process, it can have no selective advantage and likely will not develop in any meaningful or coherent way.  Materialism tells me that subjective 'choosability' does not exist.  So, if we combine materialism and darwinism and say that there is no subjective 'choosing' influence in a darwinian system, we should not have meaningful or coherent subjective experience. qed

QUOTE

I view 'subjective meaning' as a property of the nervous system's mechanistic integration and response to stimulation--a locus of perception in which the drive to satisfy competing unconscious needs creates the illusion of choice.  All of this is in line with Darwinism.

you seem to be saying that 'subjective meaning' is identical to mechanical action, although I am not clear if you imply that there is really no 'subjective' state or that meaningfulness in a 'subjective' state is illusory (which sounds like an oxymoron).  Why should the orientations of matter generate meaningful perceptions at all if these perceptions cannot influence how the matter orients?    

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And lastly, yes, memetics is a meme, but the meme of memetics is not the same thing as the system it attempts to describe. Â

memetics describes memes.  memetics is a meme.  memetics describes itself

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Godel shows us that knowledge is tautological, that it can't correspond absolutely with what is seeks to describe, but is based upon unavoidable presuppositions. Â

I dunno.  It seems to me that Godel shows that knowledge is unremovable from subjective meaning that is not logical, and that formal systems of logic are not independently meaningful.

perhaps we should reexamine the meaning of the word 'meaning'?
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Tim,

You seem to be having fun.  I admire your mastery over the words.
I have to admit I am quite crazy and do not want to distract you from the Sun.  It is so warm.

Dan,
Wow, and what is the next gear?  Bach?  The transcendental music? Symbol, No?  Was Escher a self referencing system, is that the implication?  Hmm.
I always thought a meme was a silent clown from France.  Let a boy try this.  Everything in a formula has to contain even the description of itself if it is to be a meme.  This is impossible, Why?  If it is self referencing and therefore imputed to be self transformative, it is no longer a formula but something live and self altering.  But this might not fit the parameters of mathematics, which is sort of reporting on static and dead things and not a good descriptor of live things in the first place.  ( Even though we have things called simultaneous equations)  So, maybe mathematics is not the language of live things that can transform like us.  Does this mean mathematics may be misleading in attempts to report on live objects that are self tranforming?  Makes my head go 'round.  Well, one of them.
I always thoght E=MC2 should have been E=MC+1, since I was a boy.  Never could figure this out, meaning why are they right?  ( I really knew what it meant)

Dan

I apologize.  I felt as if you were attacking me.  Much of what I have described is largely speculation, on my part and others.  I think its interesting to talk about.

John

You have the floor.

Thank you Tim,  I am enjoying your flow and don't want to interupt your mastery in lieu of mine.
Dan just gets better and better as he warms up.

I wish I had a black board to paint some pictures and diagrams.
But here goes the word stuff.
So, let the left hemisphere of the brain represent our dominant perceptions of this world.
It is thinking and five sense oriented, executive order (ego) dominated, using logic and reason to bring about sense, using science to be the catagorizing, list building, main investigatory tool of choice.  Using the particle, atomic world as its model  At least in the predominately Western world.
(I could have used quantum electrodynamics as the  physics of choice to express the metaphor here, it would work just as well or archetypal psychology or Jungian psychology or levels of consciousness rather than neuroanatomy.).  Let us move to the next world now for comparison.

This second world in general description is as follows:
Let the right brain be the model for this world.
It is the counterpointal opposite of the left brain.
It is analog, feeling and intuitive oriented, symbol rather than word oriented, it is image dominated and in most things, it is chaotic.  It is also the direct link to the unknown-unconscious world.  Everything we do not know or own resides here.  It is a land of analog tools that have access to a world we do not know.  Right now it is not very well organized.  It has access to the waveform world-the energetic world, but for now only generates pictures of this world.

So, let us step back from the canvas and see to examine the outlines painted of these two worlds, crudely labeled for now.
One world representing order, logic, reason, physicality and tactile parameters.  The world of the word.  The conscious world at a level we know it to be.
In the beginning was the Word-the beginning of conscious awareness, perhaps.
 
The other in this two world theory is analog, visionary, feeling and imagination dominated and the source of strange pictures that may represent things as yet unknown.  (The whole of the unconscious is a vastness.  What is known is miniscule compared to what is not known as many investigators have speculated)

Let us make an approximation at this juncture.
We have available two engines: one of the word; one of the symbol.  Both are harnessed and pulling in opposite directions except in certain small areas.  For instance, you can not feel if you are doing abstract thinking.
One world representing the physical world with all its guiding energies and their descriptions as science has labeled so far.
The other vast, chaotic in the main representing to all appearances the waveform world.  Remember, this right side is analog and much better equipt to do any exploration of the waveform world.
This is stage I in the presentation.  Any problems with the description so far?  Any questions or summary?  This is new to present this material in writing, I mean.

no need for apologies, I am acting abrasive intentionally  :

I think I crave heated debate about this stuff, it seems to me that such a state best enables critical thought.

party on

8)

QUOTE

no need for apologies, I am acting abrasive intentionally  : I think I crave heated debate about this stuff, it seems to me that such a state best enables critical thought. party on 8)

Sounds like the cowards approach. Stir the pot to dilute/criticize all thoughts but your own.

Joe, are you experiencing a rare moment of self reflection?

John

Just a couple questions.  I think I follow your descriptions, but I'm not sure at how you arrive at these conclusions.  What makes you suppose that a nonrational world of wave-form energy exists and is distinct from the material world?  And granting its existence, what makes you think that the human mind is receptive to this reality in nonrational ways that are largely repressed?  Is this where you introduce me to the good Mr. William of Occam?  :)

- Tim

Tim,

First the evidence against using just logic and reason.  It has failed in a miserable fashion to give us answers on the waveform side of the equation.  To mention a few without belabouring the point.  Mysterious occurances that need to be denied by reason such as NDE's, OBE's, psychic events, apparitions of all kinds throughtout history, Quantum electrdynamics, the holagram effect, the basic understanding of how electricity, gravity, nuclear effects actually work, what is consciousness?  What is the unconscious?  What is the mind?  What is the reason for the existance of this world?  Why Darwinism fails to tell the whole story. Why a unified field theory has not been generated, etc.  To ignore this is to leave the field exclusively to the shaman and priest with disastorous consequences.

If you were an alien from another planet and presented with this lack of understanding, might you not comment:  "Why these creatures are searching under the wrong street light for this information.  They are so prejudiced with their wonderment of logic and reason, that they cannot see there is another world and the answers may be better located there.  They are betrayed by there abilities to perceive, they have five detector senses that are all oriented toward the solid world of the particle, the world they reside in that they think is the one and only world in existance."
This the first part of my response and the beginning reason to look for a razor of Occam's demensions.  Ther is another, more positive grouping of reasons that form the other positive side of the equation.
I don't mean to draw you into my lair and then treat you unkindly, we can quit for any reason.  I do appreciate critical comment as I can use it for mid-course corrections on this sailing adventure.
And where are you, Dan?
Am I to regard your silence as one of an absence of love and recognition?
I didn't even get to the final distortion of the water medium in the final standing wave of the tsunami when the force ran out of places to go.  Why did the force not just pass through to the land as in an earthquake effect?  Why did it just stay in the medium it was in?
Is this due to the nature of the 'matrix' it was in?  Does this suggest a force and a matrix that are paired together?  Inseperable, but each different from one another?

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And where are you, Dan? Am I to regard your silence as one of an absence of love and recognition?

Of course not!  you know I love you  ;D
the conversation stalled when I went to Denver, and I thought I had made the last comment which is why I hadn't said anything further

QUOTE

I didn't even get to the final distortion of the water medium in the final standing wave of the tsunami when the force ran out of places to go.  Why did the force not just pass through to the land as in an earthquake effect?  Why did it just stay in the medium it was in? Is this due to the nature of the 'matrix' it was in?  Does this suggest a force and a matrix that are paired together?  Inseperable, but each different from one another?

the deal is that the water and the earth are highly dissimilar kinetic wave mediums such that harmonic kinetic waves mostly reflect at their boundary.  In a similar way, sound waves in the atmosphere are reflected at water surfaces, and vice versa.  


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