Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 3,124 - 3,136 of 6,170
It means, in every moment, doing what needs to be done, without judging or complaining. It means, using every moment to the fullest, because we really only have one moment (the now). It means not turning away from something that needs to be done. And, above all, it means showing compassion to all, not just to those we might label "good." It means walking the edge, and maintaining the balance point.
Exactly.
a world without evil. We don't live there, but I can imagine it if I want to try.
You're... channeling John Lennon! Awesome!
But good luck in your search - the realms of concept-space are indeed limitless, if difficult to visit.
Precisely because their experience of evil is so limited, children will interpret marginally less good experiences as positively bad, and radically polarise a spectrum of experience that an adult would consider all generally good. All children will find things to have tantrums about
Case in point: Roxie
Posts 3,124 - 3,136 of 6,170
Oh, you mean accept the world as it is instead of complaining about how I'd like it to be? That pretty much is my problem in a nutshell.
You are right, Ulrike. It's just that doing what needs to be done every moment is a lot to ask sometimes, and though I can imagine compasson for Hitler or Ted Bundy or the guy that thought up reality TV, in real life, I still kind of want to avoid them.
You are right, Ulrike. It's just that doing what needs to be done every moment is a lot to ask sometimes, and though I can imagine compasson for Hitler or Ted Bundy or the guy that thought up reality TV, in real life, I still kind of want to avoid them.
Ulrike: Ummm... We have defined dimensions in dualistic terms, yes. Which means that (by the defintion) if planar movement is possible, then there are two dimensions, not one.
Yes, but that's not quite what I mean - when I say "planar", it is a necessarily poor analogy (our conventions of language don't make describing such things easy!) In the same way we may represent a tesseract in 3 (or even 2) dimensions, the representation fails to fully describe the inherent geometry, for it is a symbol, and not a tesseract itself. The "planar" modality of the trinary symmetry would be irreducible, and not merely correspond to 2 separate dimensions - that's just the only way we can envisage it from here.
The definition is convenient because we think in either/or terms most of the time.
Indeed. But I wonder if the dimensions we perceive appear dualistic because this is how we think, or we think like this because that is how the dimensions are? Or are the two, in some subtle way, the same thing?
However, the way we define dimenionality is based on the number of ways we can "move". east/west, north/south, up/down on earth gives 3 orthogonal directions. And defining dimensionality in this way give useful results in both mathematics and physics. Even if we change the axes, we still find 3 orthogonal directions (orthogonal meaning that movement in one of them cannot be expressed in terms of movement in any of the others).
But isn't this just a self-referential definition of dimensionality in terms of the orthogonal and vice versa? Just as self-referential as all the other dualities we've been noting?
For the sake of argument, suppose there were a single dimension with 3 directionalities (call them over/under/sideways). Then we would be able to express movement in all three modalities in terms of movement in the other two (analogy to 1D: up 3 is the same as down -3). That is what unifies a "dimension" in mathematical terms: ability to express movement in that single dimension in terms of any of its modalities. So it would be something like going 2 units over is the same as -2 units under is the same as 1/2 a unit sideways.
I think that's close to what I mean (though we're hovering very near the semantic event horizon in concept-space here, I think!)
But "movement" through such dimensions would also be of a higher order of "richness", not perfectly equating to our own notion of movement as progressing along a single, dualistic dimension as we experience it - in a somewhat similar way that a 2-D flatlander (vide Abbot) could have no conception of how a sphere can move through 3 dimensions (even though in that example all their relevant dimensions would still be individually dualistic.)
I can't think of any way to apply such a modality to the known, experiential universe. *shrugs*
No. I would say it may be intrinsically impossible to do so with a mind of merely human complexity (or at least of human morphology.) But I don't see why it should be impossible to determine whether it is possible to do so - whether the dualism inheres to reality (and if so, how that relates to any meta-Reality,) or to our conceptual model of it. For one of the only things we can be truly sure of, I think, is that the two are not the same.
We can, after all, visualise a tesseract and prove it's geometrically possible in 4 spatial dimensions, even if we can't build one.
Yes, but that's not quite what I mean - when I say "planar", it is a necessarily poor analogy (our conventions of language don't make describing such things easy!) In the same way we may represent a tesseract in 3 (or even 2) dimensions, the representation fails to fully describe the inherent geometry, for it is a symbol, and not a tesseract itself. The "planar" modality of the trinary symmetry would be irreducible, and not merely correspond to 2 separate dimensions - that's just the only way we can envisage it from here.
Indeed. But I wonder if the dimensions we perceive appear dualistic because this is how we think, or we think like this because that is how the dimensions are? Or are the two, in some subtle way, the same thing?
But isn't this just a self-referential definition of dimensionality in terms of the orthogonal and vice versa? Just as self-referential as all the other dualities we've been noting?
I think that's close to what I mean (though we're hovering very near the semantic event horizon in concept-space here, I think!)
But "movement" through such dimensions would also be of a higher order of "richness", not perfectly equating to our own notion of movement as progressing along a single, dualistic dimension as we experience it - in a somewhat similar way that a 2-D flatlander (vide Abbot) could have no conception of how a sphere can move through 3 dimensions (even though in that example all their relevant dimensions would still be individually dualistic.)
No. I would say it may be intrinsically impossible to do so with a mind of merely human complexity (or at least of human morphology.) But I don't see why it should be impossible to determine whether it is possible to do so - whether the dualism inheres to reality (and if so, how that relates to any meta-Reality,) or to our conceptual model of it. For one of the only things we can be truly sure of, I think, is that the two are not the same.
We can, after all, visualise a tesseract and prove it's geometrically possible in 4 spatial dimensions, even if we can't build one.
There are other possible coordinate systems for three-space, but they all need three coordinates to define a point.
Bev: Not a big believer in the garden of Eden then, are you?
We weren't truly human until we left the garden. But it's only allegory anyway - all thoughts necessarily are, if only by virtue of being thought. Because what is real must be converted into mere symbols in order for us to conceive it.
If there were a personal god who reasoned all this out
This is again, I think, to confuse allegory with reality. I do not see why God should be bound by "entity" to be a being just like us, but a lot bigger. In a sense God is Being, and so his personality is expressed in you, and me, and everyone - not as some cosmic chess player on a celestial throne demanding worship. He's not a remote person "out there", but he is the you who is more you than you are yourself. That's how I conceive of Him anyway - as much force as entity, as much unfolding as Creation, and really not a Creator or an unfolder at all.
But we are all free to find our own allegory.
If this God worked in such a way, surely it would make more sense to have the greediest suffer the most and the most charitable suffer the least. Why then do those with the most charity often suffer more? Why are those with faith tortured while those who torture live in wealth and luxury?
Because unearned wealth and unappreciated luxury are the prison for the soul that such people willingly embrace - indeed, will fight for. I have never met people so unhappy as the mass of educated, prosperous Western people who surround me. I've travelled around quite a bit here and there over the last 20 years, and I find it striking how much happier relatively poorer people are - not the desperately famine-stricken or war-ravaged obviously, but just the mass of people who just about manage to feed themselves decently and keep a shanty roof over their family's heads.
And their kids play in the dirt with a couple of sticks, and they laugh. I have never heard such laughter from the children here. They're too busy complaining that they're bored with their playstation, and there's nothing on 200 channels of satellite TV they want to watch, and they're pissed off because they want the latest Reebok trainers, and they want a new, faster computer, and their parents are anxiously consulting child psychologists to have little Johnnie dosed up on Ritalin for some condition that didn't exist 20 years ago. And so the cycle turns, and they become the next generation of parents to fail their children.
Poverty is a virtue - I relish mine, even if it is only relative. For one thing because when I do splash out on anything (and I do like my few serious gadgets,) I have to save hard for them, and so they really mean something to me. If I had some fancy city job with a 5 figure salary, what would anything mean? I just don't buy into this obscene consumption culture - it's not even materialism, or we would at least value materials for their intrinsic merits, instead of trying to turn them into landfill and poisonous gases as quickly as possible.
There is as much danger, I think, of falling into a sort of neurotic guilt over our supposed affluence at the expense of the world's poor, as there is of not caring enough about them. If you find yourself raging at the injustice of wealth and luxury for the few, consider how few third world peasant farmers are driven to abusing their bodies and minds with eating disorders, self-harming, substance and behavioural addictions, the inability to form meaningful relationships, and the frankly psychotic pursuit of momentary titillation and instant gratification that seems to me the very hallmark of the affluent Westerner.
Oh to be so poor I could convincingly tell my wife that we couldn't afford to keep the TV!
It's a generalisation, of course, and there are exceptions. And too many people live lives of pain and misery and suffering, that are largely so because of unfair global trade rules and the vested interests of big business. But it won't stop until we show our politicians and corporate leaders that we won't stand for it. Vote and spend ethically - at a personal level, that is all you can do, so there is no point feeling guilty about not doing more.
There is wisdom in this, but only because I have more control over my own heart and mind than I have over others, not because others' "evil" doen't effect me or innocent people.
Do you really? I don't want to sound sceptical, but controlling your self is considerably harder than controlling other people. You can control most people very easily by bribery or flattery, or putting on a uniform and pointing a gun at them if all else fails (should you really want to.) I've been trying to control aspects of my self for most of my life, and I am resigned to failing ultimately. Not by works of righteousness that we have done shall we be saved, but by Grace alone (Titus, I think, if I could be bothered to look it up.)
We weren't truly human until we left the garden. But it's only allegory anyway - all thoughts necessarily are, if only by virtue of being thought. Because what is real must be converted into mere symbols in order for us to conceive it.
This is again, I think, to confuse allegory with reality. I do not see why God should be bound by "entity" to be a being just like us, but a lot bigger. In a sense God is Being, and so his personality is expressed in you, and me, and everyone - not as some cosmic chess player on a celestial throne demanding worship. He's not a remote person "out there", but he is the you who is more you than you are yourself. That's how I conceive of Him anyway - as much force as entity, as much unfolding as Creation, and really not a Creator or an unfolder at all.
But we are all free to find our own allegory.
Because unearned wealth and unappreciated luxury are the prison for the soul that such people willingly embrace - indeed, will fight for. I have never met people so unhappy as the mass of educated, prosperous Western people who surround me. I've travelled around quite a bit here and there over the last 20 years, and I find it striking how much happier relatively poorer people are - not the desperately famine-stricken or war-ravaged obviously, but just the mass of people who just about manage to feed themselves decently and keep a shanty roof over their family's heads.
And their kids play in the dirt with a couple of sticks, and they laugh. I have never heard such laughter from the children here. They're too busy complaining that they're bored with their playstation, and there's nothing on 200 channels of satellite TV they want to watch, and they're pissed off because they want the latest Reebok trainers, and they want a new, faster computer, and their parents are anxiously consulting child psychologists to have little Johnnie dosed up on Ritalin for some condition that didn't exist 20 years ago. And so the cycle turns, and they become the next generation of parents to fail their children.
Poverty is a virtue - I relish mine, even if it is only relative. For one thing because when I do splash out on anything (and I do like my few serious gadgets,) I have to save hard for them, and so they really mean something to me. If I had some fancy city job with a 5 figure salary, what would anything mean? I just don't buy into this obscene consumption culture - it's not even materialism, or we would at least value materials for their intrinsic merits, instead of trying to turn them into landfill and poisonous gases as quickly as possible.
There is as much danger, I think, of falling into a sort of neurotic guilt over our supposed affluence at the expense of the world's poor, as there is of not caring enough about them. If you find yourself raging at the injustice of wealth and luxury for the few, consider how few third world peasant farmers are driven to abusing their bodies and minds with eating disorders, self-harming, substance and behavioural addictions, the inability to form meaningful relationships, and the frankly psychotic pursuit of momentary titillation and instant gratification that seems to me the very hallmark of the affluent Westerner.
Oh to be so poor I could convincingly tell my wife that we couldn't afford to keep the TV!
It's a generalisation, of course, and there are exceptions. And too many people live lives of pain and misery and suffering, that are largely so because of unfair global trade rules and the vested interests of big business. But it won't stop until we show our politicians and corporate leaders that we won't stand for it. Vote and spend ethically - at a personal level, that is all you can do, so there is no point feeling guilty about not doing more.
Do you really? I don't want to sound sceptical, but controlling your self is considerably harder than controlling other people. You can control most people very easily by bribery or flattery, or putting on a uniform and pointing a gun at them if all else fails (should you really want to.) I've been trying to control aspects of my self for most of my life, and I am resigned to failing ultimately. Not by works of righteousness that we have done shall we be saved, but by Grace alone (Titus, I think, if I could be bothered to look it up.)
Exactly.
This is again, I think, to confuse allegory with reality. I do not see why God should be bound by "entity" to be a being just like us, but a lot bigger.
I agree with you about the nature of the divine and teh uses of world religions. That's why I said "if". Many people who speak of praying to "God" do not mean it as an allegory. I'm not a Christian myself, I was just borrowing the symbol. On the other hand, I do not agree that we are not human without knowledge of good and evil.
Even that could just be an issue of labels though.
Do you really? I don't want to sound sceptical, but controlling your self is considerably harder than controlling other people
Not for me. I don't like telling others what to do, and I don't like it when they tell me what to do. I'm not saying I have amazing self control, I just have a better shot at self control than in controling others. This may be somewhat specific to my own case. I hate confrontation and I hate being sneaky. When people try to control me, I go into avoidance mode. If I can't raise my voice, or purposefully manipulate others, how do you expect me to point a gun at them? I couldn't even practice law for very long without being paralyzed by guilt. Controlling myself isn't easy, and I don't always do it, but it is still a more reasonable goal for me that manipulating others. To each their own.
I agree with Ulrike about living in the world as it is. That is the goal or ideal I would embrace. However, I still disagree with the idea that evil is "necessary". If in the infinite possible realities, there is, for example, a world without shrimp, or a world without trees, or a world where people have tails, it could be, that out in the limitless realms of possibilities, there is a world without evil. We don't live there, but I can imagine it if I want to try.
I agree with you about the nature of the divine and teh uses of world religions. That's why I said "if". Many people who speak of praying to "God" do not mean it as an allegory. I'm not a Christian myself, I was just borrowing the symbol. On the other hand, I do not agree that we are not human without knowledge of good and evil.
Even that could just be an issue of labels though.
Do you really? I don't want to sound sceptical, but controlling your self is considerably harder than controlling other people
Not for me. I don't like telling others what to do, and I don't like it when they tell me what to do. I'm not saying I have amazing self control, I just have a better shot at self control than in controling others. This may be somewhat specific to my own case. I hate confrontation and I hate being sneaky. When people try to control me, I go into avoidance mode. If I can't raise my voice, or purposefully manipulate others, how do you expect me to point a gun at them? I couldn't even practice law for very long without being paralyzed by guilt. Controlling myself isn't easy, and I don't always do it, but it is still a more reasonable goal for me that manipulating others. To each their own.
I agree with Ulrike about living in the world as it is. That is the goal or ideal I would embrace. However, I still disagree with the idea that evil is "necessary". If in the infinite possible realities, there is, for example, a world without shrimp, or a world without trees, or a world where people have tails, it could be, that out in the limitless realms of possibilities, there is a world without evil. We don't live there, but I can imagine it if I want to try.
You're... channeling John Lennon! Awesome!
But good luck in your search - the realms of concept-space are indeed limitless, if difficult to visit.
Roxie, what are you upset about, that they are talking about things you don't understand? I don't understand everything they are saying either, if it makes you feel better. But I don't feel the need to be rude to them because of it. Is there something you wanted help with, or are you just trying to get attention again? Because acting like a child is only going to ensure that you are ridiculed in anagram haikus.
Case in point: Roxie
Precisely because their experience of evil is so limited, children will interpret marginally less good experiences as positively bad, and radically polarise a spectrum of experience that an adult would consider all generally good. All children will find things to have tantrums about
Case in point: Roxie
Roxie's behavior could be influenced by many factors. It may be biologically determined as well as a matter of nurturing (or lack thereof). Are you familiar with the stages of cognitive development proposed by Piaget?
Piaget was an epigenetic theorist who demonstrated that children's thinking normally develops in stages. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_cognitive_development ). This is not a matter of being less intelligent, or having less education, or even being more spoiled--Children are hard-wired to think differently than adults.
Roxie could be in the beginning of the pre-operational stage of cognitive development, where she is able to use symbolism and some form of logic, but has not quite got the hang of the delimitation of egocentrism. This would be consistent with her ability to type, chat with people and bots and post, but her inability to grasp the purpose of the forums, or to see why people are not responding the way she would like us to.
Such behavior is not necessarily caused by lack of exposure to the world or by being spoiled. It's because children start out to be naturally egocentric and can only see things from others' perspective when their brain has biologically developed enough for them to do so. How this way of thinking manifests into behavior is most likely a function of her environment and education, but the tendency to egocentric thinking is normal.
There is also the factor of emotional maturity. It's very common for some types of intelligence (say verbal ability) to develop faster than other types (say emotional or social intelligence). This is simply a matter of individual abilities and developmental idiosyncrasies. Exposure to evil will probably not help matters much.
To say that children are egocentric and take small things as large things because they have no exposure to evil is assuming that children are just like little adults but with less experience. I do not believe the bulk of scientific evidence supports that assumption. Futhermore, if the assumption were true children who were abused or neglected would be less egocentric than children who were not abused or neglected. I have no studies to back me up in mind, but I am sure this is not the case. From anecdotal evidence I know children who were abused can often become clinging and more prone to emotional outburst, though other abused children may withdraw inward to depression, they are no less egocentric. In fact, exposure to evil tends to interrupt normal child development, cause regression to occur, and give the individual problems that may follow throughout their adult lives.
Case in point: Roxie
Roxie's behavior could be influenced by many factors. It may be biologically determined as well as a matter of nurturing (or lack thereof). Are you familiar with the stages of cognitive development proposed by Piaget?
Piaget was an epigenetic theorist who demonstrated that children's thinking normally develops in stages. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_cognitive_development ). This is not a matter of being less intelligent, or having less education, or even being more spoiled--Children are hard-wired to think differently than adults.
Roxie could be in the beginning of the pre-operational stage of cognitive development, where she is able to use symbolism and some form of logic, but has not quite got the hang of the delimitation of egocentrism. This would be consistent with her ability to type, chat with people and bots and post, but her inability to grasp the purpose of the forums, or to see why people are not responding the way she would like us to.
Such behavior is not necessarily caused by lack of exposure to the world or by being spoiled. It's because children start out to be naturally egocentric and can only see things from others' perspective when their brain has biologically developed enough for them to do so. How this way of thinking manifests into behavior is most likely a function of her environment and education, but the tendency to egocentric thinking is normal.
There is also the factor of emotional maturity. It's very common for some types of intelligence (say verbal ability) to develop faster than other types (say emotional or social intelligence). This is simply a matter of individual abilities and developmental idiosyncrasies. Exposure to evil will probably not help matters much.
To say that children are egocentric and take small things as large things because they have no exposure to evil is assuming that children are just like little adults but with less experience. I do not believe the bulk of scientific evidence supports that assumption. Futhermore, if the assumption were true children who were abused or neglected would be less egocentric than children who were not abused or neglected. I have no studies to back me up in mind, but I am sure this is not the case. From anecdotal evidence I know children who were abused can often become clinging and more prone to emotional outburst, though other abused children may withdraw inward to depression, they are no less egocentric. In fact, exposure to evil tends to interrupt normal child development, cause regression to occur, and give the individual problems that may follow throughout their adult lives.
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