Happy Atheist Forum

The Bible is belief.
God is belief.
Christianity is belief.
Nonduality is belief.

Reality as such is simply ordinary and simple; it's this immediate unknowing, and at the same time reality knows it does not know, everything else is imagination/story.

There is no such thing as Nonduality because Nonduality is not a thing.

The Oneness that is reality is not a concept. Duality and multiplicity are concepts, hence the paradox/contradiction of this NON-DUAL multiplicity.

The reality is that there is no separation or otherness.  There's simply everything&nothing one without a second.

The misunderstanding of the word ''Nonduality'' often invokes the feeling of confusion within the thinker, especially how it then attempts to express the idea's ultimate meaning, using concepts. Misunderstandings form a kind of unavoidable ignorance; as Oneness is never recognised, because it's unknown.

 Only the conceptual world is known, and in and of itself knows nothing. That's the paradox of Nonduality which is pointing to the nonconceptual using concepts. But, behind the message of every belief lies the pure clarity of reality, the absolute truth.

Is this topic worthy of being discussed? I personally think it's useful in the sense of thinking for oneself, and having the capacity to not believe something just because it's what everyone else believes too, so it must be true. We can listen to other people's personal takes on knowledge and belief, and then make up our own mind as to whether we perceive it that way too, or not.

The more deeply we think about Nonduality, the closer we come to the realisation of the true nature of reality, eventually arriving at a conclusion that all ''religious beliefs'' are simply analogous to the multiple characters and images seen in our nightly dreams.

Thoughts...

Quote from: Me_Be on March 16, 2024, 10:48:56 AMThe Bible is belief.
God is belief.
Christianity is belief.
Nonduality is belief.

Details matter, especially when there is quite as much devil in them as here. (The reason I am nitpicking is to avoid using chosen language as the deciding factor in definitionally-dependent contexts. Is "orange" a fruit or a colour? Is a vertebrate a bird? So forth. Avoiding linguistic ambiguity is a good starting point when trying to describe reality, which does not depend on the words you call it at all. Your models of it, however, may.)

The Bible is a book. A collection of stories from a couple of millennia ago, some in turn based on stories from even earlier times. It is not a belief, but people do believe in its contents.

God is a mythological creature. It's something you can believe in - or not. God is not a belief.

Christianity is a set of beliefs. There are many denominations of Christianity with contradicting views on specific theological issues. As a very surface-level analysis, however, you could say that it is a belief, thereby hand-waiving potential discrepancies.

Nonduality is a state of not being dual. It's absence, singularity and every plurality but one. As a philosophical tradition, it is as Christianity - a set of beliefs and observations. (Though from what I know, that one is called "Nondualism.")

QuoteThere is no such thing as Nonduality because Nonduality is not a thing.

This is a trick of linguistics. It would be like saying "There is no God because God is not a thing." It's... Lazy, somehow. Circular.

Even if a construct of a demented mind, it exists as such. It may be some degree of wrong and/or some degree of correct, and you could analyse the reasons why it must be so, but the expression "there is no such thing as..." implies absence of something as it is described. "No free lunch" means (literally speaking) that even if on the surface, you have been offered it for free, expect there to be strings attached. It does not mean that lunches do not exist. That would be circular argument - a much-used tool of the faithful (Much-trunkated example: The Bible is true because God says it is because the Bible says he does) but rather on the useless side when it comes to learning.

QuoteThe Oneness that is reality is not a concept. Duality and multiplicity are concepts, hence the paradox/contradiction of this NON-DUAL multiplicity.

The reality is that there is no separation or otherness.  There's simply everything&nothing one without a second.

Reality is a collection of interconnected systems. The practical degree of said interconnection, however, may vary. For example, due to wave-like nature of particles, an electron "almost certain" to be here *point* may upon resolution be in Andromeda. Let us assume that that electron is a part of my toenail. Does that mean that my toenail is connected to Andromeda? Practically speaking, no, it does not.

You may "zoom out" and view everything as a single unit. Meaningless, unless examining its properties or actions at that level. You can zoom in and determine the system's system's systems. That, in turn, would be meaningless on the scale of reality itself - just like my toenail electron resolving in Andromeda against astronomical (pun intended) odds.

QuoteThe misunderstanding of the word ''Nonduality'' often invokes the feeling of confusion within the thinker, especially how it then attempts to express the idea's ultimate meaning, using concepts. Misunderstandings form a kind of unavoidable ignorance; as Oneness is never recognised, because it's unknown.

 Only the conceptual world is known, and in and of itself knows nothing. That's the paradox of Nonduality which is pointing to the nonconceptual using concepts. But, behind the message of every belief lies the pure clarity of reality, the absolute truth.

Deliberately-confusing language may contribute to misunderstanding the proposition. It really is not complicated and while it may have some, shaky though it may be, intellectual scaffolding to lean on, it quite simply gives the individual sensor data analysis far too much credit. So someone born blind does not know what blue looks like. Well, so-effing-what? They can still understand what blue means in the broader context. It's energetic photons at certain wavelengths, hitting the retinae of the eyes and those interactions are being processed as "blue." So, does blue exist even if you cannot conventionally sense it? Of course, it does! It refers to photons of certain energy, which are trivially demonstrable to exist.

QuoteI personally think it's useful in the sense of thinking for oneself, and having the capacity to not believe something just because it's what everyone else believes too, so it must be true. We can listen to other people's personal takes on knowledge and belief, and then make up our own mind as to whether we perceive it that way too, or not.

Mmmh... Yeah... There are no good reasons to believe anything. There may, however, be sufficient reasons to accept something as true until proven otherwise.

If it's important to you - verify it.

QuoteThe more deeply we think about Nonduality, the closer we come to the realisation of the true nature of reality, eventually arriving at a conclusion that all ''religious beliefs'' are simply analogous to the multiple characters and images seen in our nightly dreams.

Thoughts...

An advice more than thoughts. You are unliekly to arrive at the "true nature of reality," whatever that expression means to you, in any meaningful way by thinking about nonduality. That just churns and re-churns your pre-existing datasets in search of new conclusions. Get a few more measurements, compare against conflicting datasets and add to your own. Your mind is an open system - treat it as such.

Christianity is not a set of beliefs. It's a set of nonsense or delusions based on ancient myth and fable.
Nonduality is not a belief. The brain builds up a model of its environment as a mode of survival.
Nobody has ever seen god, but some are willing to think such an entity is there to guide them.

"Knowing that you're nothing is wisdom, and knowing that you're everything is love."
Science has gone beyond that philosophy by asking if anything exists at all, although Buddhism comes close.
There is no wisdom, just experience.

Whether the beliefs are nonsensical or not, Christianity is still a set of them. :smilenod:

Again, I do apologize for being all nit-picky, but in my experience, one thing you don't want in a philosophical discussion is linguistic ambiguity. To put it this way, there is a reason why my otherwise-lazy ass is verbose even by my own standards in these responses.

Quote from: zorkan on March 19, 2024, 01:09:33 PMChristianity is not a set of beliefs.

Of course it's a belief. It's a story based on a character named Jesus who claims to be the son of God.

Quote from: zorkan on March 19, 2024, 01:09:33 PMIt's a set of nonsense or delusions based on ancient myth and fable.

The belief in Christianity is a belief held to be true by many believers whether their belief is true or not. For the human mind, just believing in something as existing is enough to justify it's existence, whether it's there or not in the real objective sense. That's just how the mind works, it is able to conceive things as existing. And yet not only has God never been seen, nobody has ever seen their own mind either.

And so who can say otherwise if there's a claimed belief in God; and has actually experienced God to have been their own personal direct experience. How can someone else prove their belief to be nonsense or delusional if it's been their own private direct experience, that no one else could possibly be privy to, ever?

And since no one can access the mind of another mind, as it's obvious that no two minds ever meet up. It's an impossibility for two minds to meet up so as to be in an advantageous position where each mind is able to examine directly the other mind's personal experiences as being true or not. All that can be offered to others here, is one's word about their own private experiences..

And so surely, by opposing a belief held to be true, to be nonsense and not true,  would require an opposing belief.  So even the action of dismissing one's belief requires the belief a belief can be invalidated as a false truth claim being nonsense.

 So the argument to dispel a belief as nonsense also requires belief that the belief is indeed nonsense, as you cannot know for certainty if it's nonsense or not, it'll only be your word on someone else's direct experience, and not your actual direct experience. So all I'm saying is that anything that is being claimed to be someone else's direct experience requires a belief to invalidate or validate it.

Quote from: zorkan on March 19, 2024, 01:09:33 PMNonduality is not a belief.

Of course Nonduality is a belief. It's still a claim to know the ultimate nature of reality.
It's a realisation that there is only belief, and yet no believer. As the knowledge of a BELIEVER existing would also be a belief. Which in turn means ''belief'' is simply myth, and such is all things that are claimed to be known, those claims to know any knowledge, is also a myth.

Quote from: zorkan on March 19, 2024, 01:09:33 PMThe brain builds up a model of its environment as a mode of survival.

Say's who? Who knows this? Who is seeing the brain, but then claims to know nobody has ever seen God?

Quote from: zorkan on March 19, 2024, 01:09:33 PMNobody has ever seen god

And the one who makes the claim to know nobody has ever seen God, has ever seen the one making this claim to know the brain builds up a model of it's environment by talking about someone else's brain, never their own. But even if you did open up your own skull and look at your own brain, there is nowhere in that brain where you would find a person who is claimed to be a Believer, or a Knower, or a Seer. 

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMDetails matter, especially when there is quite as much devil in them as here. (The reason I am nitpicking is to avoid using chosen language as the deciding factor in definitionally-dependent contexts. Is "orange" a fruit or a colour? Is a vertebrate a bird? So forth. Avoiding linguistic ambiguity is a good starting point when trying to describe reality, which does not depend on the words you call it at all. Your models of it, however, may.)

Okay fair enough.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMThe Bible is a book. A collection of stories from a couple of millennia ago, some in turn based on stories from even earlier times. It is not a belief, but people do believe in its contents.

Well the story/contents is never separate from the book, so belief is still a factor in this discussion.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMGod is a mythological creature. It's something you can believe in - or not. God is not a belief.

Okay. But I'm not sure what you mean exactly by that.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMChristianity is a set of beliefs. There are many denominations of Christianity with contradicting views on specific theological issues. As a very surface-level analysis, however, you could say that it is a belief, thereby hand-waiving potential discrepancies.

Okay.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMNonduality is a state of not being dual. It's absence, singularity and every plurality but one. As a philosophical tradition, it is as Christianity - a set of beliefs and observations. (Though from what I know, that one is called "Nondualism.")

This is knowledge, a claim known. A belief.

QuoteThere is no such thing as Nonduality because Nonduality is not a thing.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMThis is a trick of linguistics. It would be like saying "There is no God because God is not a thing." It's... Lazy, somehow. Circular.

It is circular, but so is all introspection into the answers as to what it is to know the knower of known conceptual things.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMEven if a construct of a demented mind, it exists as such. It may be some degree of wrong and/or some degree of correct, and you could analyse the reasons why it must be so, but the expression "there is no such thing as..." implies absence of something as it is described. "No free lunch" means (literally speaking) that even if on the surface, you have been offered it for free, expect there to be strings attached. It does not mean that lunches do not exist. That would be circular argument - a much-used tool of the faithful (Much-trunkated example: The Bible is true because God says it is because the Bible says he does) but rather on the useless side when it comes to learning.

Okay.

QuoteThe Oneness that is reality is not a concept. Duality and multiplicity are concepts, hence the paradox/contradiction of this NON-DUAL multiplicity.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMThe reality is that there is no separation or otherness.  There's simply everything&nothing one without a second.

Reality is a collection of interconnected systems. The practical degree of said interconnection, however, may vary. For example, due to wave-like nature of particles, an electron "almost certain" to be here *point* may upon resolution be in Andromeda. Let us assume that that electron is a part of my toenail. Does that mean that my toenail is connected to Andromeda? Practically speaking, no, it does not.

I think that 'Empty Space' is what divides the interconnectedness of all things creating the illusion of distance between objects. And yet there cannot be known to be space without objects and there can't be known to be any objects without space, so they have to be connected as one undivided unitary whole reality when it comes to the claim to know.. It's only language that divides what is essentially this one reality without a second. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's how we learn to understand ourselves and others. We, the one's that make the claim; each and every one of us;  who have somehow just suddenly popped aware out of nowhere, without ever knowing how or why. We just did.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMYou may "zoom out" and view everything as a single unit. Meaningless, unless examining its properties or actions at that level. You can zoom in and determine the system's system's systems. That, in turn, would be meaningless on the scale of reality itself - just like my toenail electron resolving in Andromeda against astronomical (pun intended) odds.

Okay.

QuoteThe misunderstanding of the word ''Nonduality'' often invokes the feeling of confusion within the thinker, especially how it then attempts to express the idea's ultimate meaning, using concepts. Misunderstandings form a kind of unavoidable ignorance; as Oneness is never recognised, because it's unknown.

 Only the conceptual world is known, and in and of itself knows nothing. That's the paradox of Nonduality which is pointing to the nonconceptual using concepts. But, behind the message of every belief lies the pure clarity of reality, the absolute truth.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMDeliberately-confusing language may contribute to misunderstanding the proposition. It really is not complicated and while it may have some, shaky though it may be, intellectual scaffolding to lean on, it quite simply gives the individual sensor data analysis far too much credit. So someone born blind does not know what blue looks like. Well, so-effing-what? They can still understand what blue means in the broader context. It's energetic photons at certain wavelengths, hitting the retinae of the eyes and those interactions are being processed as "blue." So, does blue exist even if you cannot conventionally sense it? Of course, it does! It refers to photons of certain energy, which are trivially demonstrable to exist.

Okay.

QuoteI personally think it's useful in the sense of thinking for oneself, and having the capacity to not believe something just because it's what everyone else believes too, so it must be true. We can listen to other people's personal takes on knowledge and belief, and then make up our own mind as to whether we perceive it that way too, or not.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMYeah... There are no good reasons to believe anything. There may, however, be sufficient reasons to accept something as true until proven otherwise.

If it's important to you - verify it.

I think we verify our beliefs by simply being aware of them. And that's all we've got to work with.

QuoteThe more deeply we think about Nonduality, the closer we come to the realisation of the true nature of reality, eventually arriving at a conclusion that all ''religious beliefs'' are simply analogous to the multiple characters and images seen in our nightly dreams.

Thoughts...

Quote from: Asmodean on March 18, 2024, 12:27:44 PMAn advice more than thoughts. You are unliekly to arrive at the "true nature of reality," whatever that expression means to you, in any meaningful way by thinking about nonduality. That just churns and re-churns your pre-existing datasets in search of new conclusions. Get a few more measurements, compare against conflicting datasets and add to your own. Your mind is an open system - treat it as such.

Although no one ever arrives where they already are, so I agree it's unlikely to be a destination to reach. An open mind informs itself, it's self-evident as a direct experience, whereas the absence of one's direct experience of being is not an experience, hence it's always openly self-evident.

Quote from: Me_Be on March 19, 2024, 04:09:22 PMI think that 'Empty Space' is what divides the interconnectedness of all things creating the illusion of distance between objects. And yet there cannot be known to be space without objects and there can't be known to be any objects without space, so they have to be connected as one undivided unitary whole reality when it comes to the claim to know.. It's only language that divides what is essentially this one reality without a second. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's how we learn to understand ourselves and others. We, the one's that make the claim; each and every one of us;  who have somehow just suddenly popped aware out of nowhere, without ever knowing how or why. We just did.

Well, if we are onto something with a field-based model of space, then in a way, "empty space" is what bridges stuff rather than what divides it.

It's not a perfect analogy by a long shot, but imagine the surface of a lake. You disturb it, and concentric waves move outward. The greater the disturbance, the grater the waves. Theoretically, "the entire lake" may experience this disturbance, but at certain point, the waves created by it fall below the level of noise - those waves already there from other causes. The lake is an analogy for a field, permeating the "empty space." The disturbance can be an analogy for a particle - a wave packet of that field. If you try to resolve a point where the particle is, you will get a probability distribution, greatest at the epicentre of the diisturbance and decreasing outwards - theoretically, "forever." If that is all there was to it, everything would have been connected. However, there are different sorts of fields permeating space, there is an inherent "noisiness" to them ("zero-point energy," ref. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle) and sufficiently-large systems are, much like the fields themselves, not practically changed by the loss or addition of their smallest components. If there is hardly any practical (or, meaningful) connection between "everything" at the building block levels, how would there be at the levels of systems consisting of more such building blocks than there are stars in the observable Universe?

Language is a tool for communication. If I start responding to you in Norwegian, you will not understand enough of it (assumnign that you have never learned it) to understand what I'm saying. It is not a reflection on the factual basis in what I say. Whether a car or en bil, the hunk of plastic, metal and rubber does not depend on it. You apply language, if you know any, to your datasets as a part of creating that mental model of reality I've been belabouring in the past two conversations.

Quote from: Me_Be on March 19, 2024, 02:51:08 PMOf course it's a belief. It's a story based on a character named Jesus who claims to be the son of God.

If I say David Icke is the son of god, would that be a belief, or would it be bullshit?

https://news.sky.com/story/who-is-david-icke-the-conspiracy-theorist-who-claims-he-is-the-son-of-god-11982406

Could be both. :smilenod:

Quote from: zorkan on March 21, 2024, 10:47:31 AM

Quote from: Me_Be on March 19, 2024, 02:51:08 PMOf course it's a belief. It's a stories based on a character named Jesus who claims to be the son of God.

If I say David Icke is the son of god, would that be a belief, or would it be bullshit?

https://news.sky.com/story/who-is-david-icke-the-conspiracy-theorist-who-claims-he-is-the-son-of-god-11982406

The point I'm making is that there are some people in the world who believe the story that is written in the Bible to be God's word. And that Jesus was the son of God.
That's all I'm trying to say here. The Belief is always prior to any valid or invalidation of it.

People have their beliefs whether they are seen by others as BS or not, the belief is held regardless.

Children have beliefs about Father Christmas, they really love the idea. Their belief about (Santa) was planted in them from birth by their parents and family. Adult human beings who know better, that the belief is a LIE continue to perpetuate the lie by wanting to keep it alive as and through their offspring.

And the reason why I think this happens is because none of us can really know our creator in the same context a machine can never know it's creator. And so we make-believe our beliefs because the alternative is just too unbelievable, we seem to be naturally wired to want to know things, there is an aching longing in the human heart for knowledge, as if we do not like to Never Not-know.

Another example of (belief) is the belief we all die. Our death is a belief too, and yet none of us have ever experienced the experience of death, it's simply a belief, but have no absolute idea about what it means to die.

It's all very mysterious because it certainly feels like I am alive, and yet there was a time when I did not exist, and so I can say to myself, ''who am I right now''  knowing right now that there was a time where I did not exist. And knowing I once did not exist seems like death to me now, so death is a strange concept then, insofar as how could I have been dead if I know that I am alive right here and now? That question is unanswerable, in my opinion.



 

Quote from: Me_Be on March 22, 2024, 10:02:12 AMThe point I'm making is that there are some people in the world who believe the story that is written in the Bible to be God's word. And that Jesus was the son of God.
That's all I'm trying to say here. The Belief is always prior to any valid or invalidation of it.

It's a fair enough observation, but I don't think validation is always secondary to belief in this manner. An observation may form a belief, and therefore precede it.

QuoteIt's all very mysterious because it certainly feels like I am alive, and yet there was a time when I did not exist, and so I can say to myself, ''who am I right now''  knowing right now that there was a time where I did not exist. And knowing I once did not exist seems like death to me now, so death is a strange concept then, insofar as how could I have been dead if I know that I am alive right here and now? That question is unanswerable, in my opinion.

This is interesting, because from my point of view, your question is actually very easy to answer.

You were not dead before you were born - or, conceived, in fact. There simply was no you. Death is something that happens to something that is alive. A cell may die - or a system (of systems) of cells, constituting a human. Death is the degradation of a living system into its non-living components. Thus, there is no death without preceding life.

You know that you didn't exist before your time - and you know that you will not after (unless you believe in some manner of an afterlife that enables the continuation of you as a single system in some meaningful way) It's... "All chemistry." If you burn two hydrogen molecules, you will get two water molecules. Those molecules did not exist before hydrogen was burned, and will not exist after they have been electrolysed apart or reacted into something else. Humans are no different in this sense - only significantly more complex.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 20, 2024, 07:56:59 AM

Quote from: Me_Be on March 19, 2024, 04:09:22 PMI think that 'Empty Space' is what divides the interconnectedness of all things creating the illusion of distance between objects. And yet there cannot be known to be space without objects and there can't be known to be any objects without space, so they have to be connected as one undivided unitary whole reality when it comes to the claim to know.. It's only language that divides what is essentially this one reality without a second. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's how we learn to understand ourselves and others. We, the one's that make the claim; each and every one of us;  who have somehow just suddenly popped aware out of nowhere, without ever knowing how or why. We just did.

Well, if we are onto something with a field-based model of space, then in a way, "empty space" is what bridges stuff rather than what divides it.

It's not a perfect analogy by a long shot, but imagine the surface of a lake. You disturb it, and concentric waves move outward. The greater the disturbance, the grater the waves. Theoretically, "the entire lake" may experience this disturbance, but at certain point, the waves created by it fall below the level of noise - those waves already there from other causes. The lake is an analogy for a field, permeating the "empty space." The disturbance can be an analogy for a particle - a wave packet of that field. If you try to resolve a point where the particle is, you will get a probability distribution, greatest at the epicentre of the diisturbance and decreasing outwards - theoretically, "forever." If that is all there was to it, everything would have been connected. However, there are different sorts of fields permeating space, there is an inherent "noisiness" to them ("zero-point energy," ref. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle) and sufficiently-large systems are, much like the fields themselves, not practically changed by the loss or addition of their smallest components. If there is hardly any practical (or, meaningful) connection between "everything" at the building block levels, how would there be at the levels of systems consisting of more such building blocks than there are stars in the observable Universe?

Language is a tool for communication. If I start responding to you in Norwegian, you will not understand enough of it (assumnign that you have never learned it) to understand what I'm saying. It is not a reflection on the factual basis in what I say. Whether a car or en bil, the hunk of plastic, metal and rubber does not depend on it. You apply language, if you know any, to your datasets as a part of creating that mental model of reality I've been belabouring in the past two conversations.

And this story authored by you there, is also you're belief. For anything at all to be known, it must first be conceptualised and infused with meaning for it to make sense or not.

Human language is the perfect tool for making sense of what we ultimately cannot know, but can envision this unknowing as if it is known as and through the senses and the mental capacity to be able impose our make-believed beliefs upon it as and through our conception of it. We have the capacity to think about reality, to perceive it by attaching labels and stringing them all together to make a story, where previously there wasn't one. And we have been doing this story telling from cradle to grave constantly relating to our thoughts until we think we've understood who we are and the world we live in. But our limited knowledge as finite beings is still just a (belief)

Beliefs are mentally constructed arbitrary ideas within the sense of human I Am-ness, they're born of thoughts. And yet 'thoughts' can never touch reality as it actually is, because reality as it actually is is inconceivable to the human mind. And yet seems to be obviously knowable in this immediate Non-knowing, for how could there be a state of Not-knowing for the mind - 'thought' simply imposes upon this unknowing reality turning it into some kind of known. So what seems to be happening here is very basic and simple once realised, and that is reality is known only by association by what is ultimately always this mysterious unknowing knowing of itself. 

Quote from: Asmodean on March 22, 2024, 10:34:42 AMThere simply was no you.

You know that you didn't exist before your time - and you know that you will not after (unless you believe in some manner of an afterlife that enables the continuation of you as a single system in some meaningful way) It's... "All chemistry." If you burn two hydrogen molecules, you will get two water molecules. Those molecules did not exist before hydrogen was burned, and will not exist after they have been electrolysed apart or reacted into something else. Humans are no different in this sense - only significantly more complex.

Well I agree with that so far.

So when you say there is no you... and then say there is a you that knows it didn't exist before it's time? and knows there is a you that will not exist upon death?

Are you saying you think the word ''YOU'' is a synthetic product of brain chemistry ?

Thank you for this insightful discussion btw.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 22, 2024, 10:34:42 AMIt's a fair enough observation, but I don't think validation is always secondary to belief in this manner. An observation may form a belief, and therefore precede it.

I think there is a third (trinity) factor involved here. Which is (observer - observing - observed) are all one unitary action.

I don't think an observation of a belief is what forms the belief. There is an awareness of belief, but the belief itself was not formed by the observer of it. Awareness and belief are one instantaneous knowing, and not two separate things where one precedes the other, or is prior to the other, except the belief within the idea of conceptual separation where the observer, observing observed, are known only to be 3 separate words in this conception.

Quote from: Me_Be on March 22, 2024, 10:41:23 AMAnd this story authored by you there, is also you're belief. For anything at all to be known, it must first be conceptualised and infused with meaning for it to make sense or not.

Or you can just assume the words to carry their most commonly agreed-upon meanings.

The story was not authored by me - I merely reproduced and reframed it. I do not claim any original research in the realm of physics.

QuoteHuman language is the perfect tool for making sense of what we ultimately cannot know,

Perhaps it is. Now, what makes you think that there is something worth knowing that we may ultimately not? (By "worth knowing," I mean something that has or can have some interactivity with us)

Quotebut can envision this unknowing as if it is known as and through the senses and the mental capacity to be able impose our make-believed beliefs upon it as and through our conception of it.

It ceases to be make-belief when it can be verified as an adequate model of some aspect of reality.

QuoteWe have the capacity to think about reality, to perceive it by attaching labels and stringing them all together to make a story

There was a time, even in your own life, when all you did was gather and process sensor data. Your conscious capacity to sort and label, not to mention make stories, came later. A person who does not know a language can still perceive and think about reality in terms of some other sensory input, and may output those thoughts by other means than linguistic communication.

QuoteAnd we have been doing this story telling from cradle to grave constantly relating to our thoughts until we think we've understood who we are and the world we live in. But our limited knowledge as finite beings is still just a (belief)

It's not a belief if it can be verified as an adequate model of some aspect of reality, even if it is not "cosmically correct." Einsteinian gravity is not a force. Newtonian gravity is. Both model the same aspect of reality with varying degrees of precision. Both are useful. You can throw a ball and predict exactly where it lands using Newton's model. You can drive a car and know exactly where to take the next right using Einstein's. When trying to accomplish something these models are insufficient for, you need a different one.

QuoteBeliefs are mentally constructed arbitrary ideas within the sense of human I Am-ness,

No. They need not be arbitrary, or have anything to do with someone's "themness," beyond "running on their hardware."

Quotethey're born of thoughts.

This, however, they are. They are born of thoughs and are themselves thoughts. They are a product of sensor input and dataset processing. (Just to explain precisely what I mean by that, a sensor input may be a sound you hear. Dataset processing may be you recalling that sound or relating it to a cat or an air raid siren)

QuoteAnd yet 'thoughts' can never touch reality as it actually is, because reality as it actually is is inconceivable to the human mind.

Are you certain that you are not talking about The Cosmic Truth(tm) rather than reality? Because even if your sensor data is faulty, you still use it to perceive reality. It's far from inconceivable, and your conception of it needs not be total or often even approach perfection.

That said, thoughts are processes. They can touch reality through triggering proper outputs. Even if we grant the premise that thoughts cannot touch reality, however, how do you arrive at the conclusion that it is because reality is inconceivable? Being inconceivable is not a bar from being touched in any way physically or metaphorically, so... Yeah.

QuoteAnd yet seems to be obviously knowable in this immediate Non-knowing, for how could there be a state of Not-knowing for the mind - 'thought' simply imposes upon this unknowing reality turning it into some kind of known. So what seems to be happening here is very basic and simple once realised, and that is reality is known only by association by what is ultimately always this mysterious unknowing knowing of itself.

So close, and yet so far, it seems. Anything that can be sensed, directly or indirectly, be it by you or some tool for the purpose, is knowable. I don't see the mystery here. Precisely how it works - say, how does my brain store faces I've seen in memory - that's the mysterious part as I see it. Of course, the fog of mystery recedes with increased understanding, For an explanation of the state of not knowing, I refer you back to the discussion we've had about you experiencing not being in my living room, or above for the burnt hydrogen example. It works in precisely the same manner.

[EDIT:]Tacked on the response to previous post:

Quote from: Me_Be on March 22, 2024, 11:03:47 AMI don't think an observation of a belief is what forms the belief.

Nono, not what I meant. An observation of a log floating down a river may make you believe that "things float." Throw a rock in, however, and you will have falisified that belief. Thus, your model of reality, in which things float, should be modified to accomodate the new data.

I don't believe in belief.
I'm even atheist to atheism.
As I am to all crackpot beliefs, except one.

I was personally visited by the angel Zarani on behalf of the goddess Zorka to reveal the truth about life and the universe.
It was described on gold plates which I have now buried, but to you my friends I am willing to divulge it if you wish me to do so.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 22, 2024, 11:22:23 AMthoughts are processes. They can touch reality through triggering proper outputs. Even if we grant the premise that thoughts cannot touch reality, however, how do you arrive at the conclusion that it is because reality is inconceivable? Being inconceivable is not a bar from being touched in any way physically or metaphorically, so... Yeah.

To think of nonduality is paradoxical by association via the process of thought.  The human mind can conceive of everything except that which is in and of itself conceiving.
 In order to call reality nondual you have to define it, draw a border around it, and then instantly you have duality, never nonduality.
You can never ever touch nonduality.

Quote from: zorkan on March 22, 2024, 12:16:13 PMI don't believe in belief.
I'm even atheist to atheism.
As I am to all crackpot beliefs, except one.

I was personally visited by the angel Zarani on behalf of the goddess Zorka to reveal the truth about life and the universe.
It was described on gold plates which I have now buried, but to you my friends I am willing to divulge it if you wish me to do so.

So you have but ONE belief; the one that was described to you by an angel. Okay!

There are many beliefs, and yet no 'believer' has ever been seen or touched.

There is always a paradox.
Just like atheism is both belief and non-belief.
I don't believe in atheism but people tell me they do believe in it as a non-belief.
I've been reading a book called Atheism. I don't see what the author (Graham Oppy) is trying to prove, because he can't.
He talks about the Innocents, people who cannot possibly know one way or the other. Like children or mental health sufferers.
I class atheism as an intellectual subject and theism as more like a feeling.

Yet what we call life and the universe does exist and probably only in our brains.

PS. Meaning of life and the universe as revealed is simply to convert waves into mesons into electrons.
There is no need to debate anything else.

Everyone is a duel personality, good guy, bad guy. Those two are the basics one relates to others. Personality is determined by others under which of the two is the prominent of the person.

Quote from: Old Seer on March 25, 2024, 01:29:10 PMEveryone is a duel personality, good guy, bad guy. Those two are the basics one relates to others. Personality is determined by others under which of the two is the prominent of the person.

Bullshit

It may be comforting to have access to a bountiful font of it though.

Quote from: Old Seer on March 25, 2024, 01:29:10 PMEveryone is a duel personality, good guy, bad guy. Those two are the basics one relates to others. Personality is determined by others under which of the two is the prominent of the person.

Oh, please.
I can understand Roger Penrose far better.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2023/10/23/testing-a-time-jumping-multiverse-killing-consciousness-spawning-theory-of-reality/?sh=32793ff1209b

To sum up: It's not consciousness that collapses the wave function, but the other way around. Simples.

Quote from: zorkan on March 27, 2024, 12:43:29 PMTo sum up: It's not consciousness that collapses the wave function, but the other way around. Simples.

The field of truth is ultimately unknowable and concept free. It is only 'thought' which collapses the wave function into a duality of projected separately named objects where there are none.
 The word ''thing'' is the false separation, it is the 'thought thing' that collapses the superposition of the unified field of truth.

Conceptually speaking, knowledge is false, because it is born of conceptual thought. It is the mind/consciousness that gives life to a 'word' that at it's fundamental core is a false empty deception believed to be real and true, but is not.

Knowledge is formed of words and thoughts which are false even though they are related to the physical world that is seen as a real truth which is actually thought-free or concept-free, in other words, simply this immediate unknowing.

Beautifully put into words by the following quote...
'' The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown. ''

Quote from: zorkan on March 25, 2024, 12:48:03 PMYet what we call life and the universe does exist and probably only in our brains.

The universe only exists as a believed conceptualised ''thought'' that cannot be found anywhere neither inside or outside the brain. In the same context ''senses'' are a physical phenomena which detect and inform the existence of a real physical world, but in and of themselves, the ''senses'' cannot be detected as having an exact location as being inside or outside of the brain, as the brain knows of no such polarity as an inside or outside of itself, except in this conception.
 So yes, the world as it is thought to be - is not what thought thinks it is. And so this thought too is the absurd paradox of not-knowing knowing.

 When there is no thought about the universe; it does not exist for the thinker. A paradox must come into play within knowing when the non-universe still exists whether is it thought about or not thought about; the non-universe must first exist for it to be brought to life by giving it the label (UNIVERSE) So the universe is both a non-universe and a universe in superposition until ''thought'' collapses the unity into separation. In other words, into a not-knowing named known thing.

Quote from: zorkan on March 25, 2024, 12:48:03 PMThere is no need to debate anything else.

And there is no thing, nothing, not a thing debating anything else. That's the non-conceptual non-dual paradox of reality.

Quote from: Me_Be on April 02, 2024, 09:55:26 PMThe field of truth is ultimately unknowable and concept free.

What is the reasoning behind it being unknowable, concept free and even existing?

A specific truth is a model of reality which is intersubjectively verifiable. It may be true while not being "the whole story" or just being a "good enough" approximation for a purpose.

QuoteConceptually speaking, knowledge is false, because it is born of conceptual thought. It is the mind/consciousness that gives life to a 'word' that at it's fundamental core is a false empty deception believed to be real and true, but is not.

Once again, your conclusion does not follow from your premise. How does conceptual thought necessitate that the knowledge arising from it is false?

QuoteBeautifully put into words by the following quote...
'' The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown. ''

Nah, it's neither linguistically impressive, what with being too heavy on the word "unknown" used towards the same end,* nor particularly meaningful in itself.

"The meaning of the mind?!" It has its functions. Abstractly speaking (also, outside those functions) the Meaning(tm) of a mind is precisely the same as the Meaning(tm) of that rock over there. They "just are." The rest of this quote simply describes curiosity.

*Here, let me try; The mind loves the mysterious. It loves the images whose meaning is unknown, since that is what it sees when looking upon itself. (Do please note that I didn't make it hold any more water than before - just "prettier" to this particular reader)

Quote from: Asmodean on April 03, 2024, 09:06:45 AMWhat is the reasoning behind it being unknowable, concept free and even existing?

A specific truth is a model of reality which is intersubjectively verifiable. It may be true while not being "the whole story" or just being a "good enough" approximation for a purpose.

The reasoning is in the model of reality which is a construct of the mind only. A descriptive reconstruction of unknowning reality is a falsely imposed reality, it's a claim to know reality without ever knowing how knowing knows. In other words knowing knows it does not know, therefore knowledge can only point to the illusory nature of a knowing reality which is ultimately unknowing.

The idea that there is a bunch of 'someone's' who are all able to agree upon there being an intersubjectively verifiable reality that all can witness is a conceived concept within infinity which in and of itself cannot conceive.

But yes, there are apparent concepts that appear as YOU that are about being (OTHER)than infinite therein being conceived.

Quote from: Asmodean on April 03, 2024, 09:06:45 AMOnce again, your conclusion does not follow from your premise. How does conceptual thought necessitate that the knowledge arising from it is false?

Quote'' The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown. ''

Quote from: Asmodean on April 03, 2024, 09:06:45 AMNah, it's neither linguistically impressive, what with being too heavy on the word "unknown" used towards the same end,* nor particularly meaningful in itself.

"The meaning of the mind?!" It has its functions. Abstractly speaking (also, outside those functions) the Meaning(tm) of a mind is precisely the same as the Meaning(tm) of that rock over there. They "just are." The rest of this quote simply describes curiosity.

*Here, let me try; The mind loves the mysterious. It loves the images whose meaning is unknown, since that is what it sees when looking upon itself. (Do please note that I didn't make it hold any more water than before - just "prettier" to this particular reader)

Okay.
But for me, flowery pretty words are simply analogous to water-colour painting upon the blank screen of transparent watery consciousness that serves only to obscure the real reality of thought free, concept-less unknowing conscious being awareness behind but never hidden from the known picture upon the screen which is then seen to be known, but compared only to a dream. Meaning; life is but a dream within a dream ad-infinitum. Real, but unreal, both, yet neither.

Quote from: Me_Be on April 03, 2024, 11:59:30 AMThe reasoning is in the model of reality which is a construct of the mind only. A descriptive reconstruction of unknowning reality is a falsely imposed reality, it's a claim to know reality without ever knowing how knowing knows. In other words knowing knows it does not know, therefore knowledge can only point to the illusory nature of a knowing reality which is ultimately unknowing.

Besides suffering from the same fallacious assertions as I originally reacted to, this answers precisely none of what I asked.

A description of reality does not impose reality. A desscription of reality does not need to be false. Understanding algorithms, statistics and the rules by which reality operates is how knowing functions, or "knows," as you put it. (How does a potato potate? Here is a simplified algorithm: https://www.ehow.com/facts_5802696_life-cycle-potato-plant.html)

Further questions, in addition to the unanswered three from above; how does "illusory" come into play? What is the significance of reality as seen as a single system not having any overarching knowledge or the capability of knowing? Can you demonstrate how the conceptualisation is done within infinity? (That which has no starting and/or end condition, which "all" knowledge does)

QuoteOkay.
But for me, flowery pretty words are simply analogous to water-colour painting upon the blank screen of transparent watery consciousness

You were the one to say that the idea was "beautifully put into words" in the quote you provided. I merely pointed out that from a different angle, it's a lackluster expression of a flawed idea.

Quote...that serves only to obscure the real reality

What makes that reality the real one? Is it real as opposed to, or in addition to, other available realities?

[EDIT:] What I'm asking for here, more than anything else, is for you to define your constants, variables and methods. I'm not looking for a nebulous non-answer. If all else fails, I'd suggest arranging it as a direct exercise in logic. A simple example: Red is a colour. Crimson is also a colour because crimson is a subset of red. [/EDIT]

Quoteof thought free, concept-less unknowing conscious being awareness behind but never hidden from the known picture upon the screen which is then seen to be known, but compared only to a dream. Meaning; life is but a dream within a dream ad-infinitum. Real, but unreal, both, yet neither.

Thing is though, without justification (as in, the factual basis and the applicable algorithm with which to approach the data) this is little more than a word soup. What does it convey? For instance, what makes a finite life a dream ad-infinitum? (Where is the methodology expressed? How do I go about falsifying it?)

Quote from: Me_Be on April 03, 2024, 11:59:30 AMMeaning; life is but a dream within a dream ad-infinitum. Real, but unreal, both, yet neither.

I want to ask what real is.
Don't
But I want to
Oh alright then. ::)
What is real, is there really any real real at all?

QuoteThe mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.

Rene Magritte was a surrealist artist, so he would say that.

Quote from: zorkan on April 03, 2024, 01:01:34 PM

QuoteThe mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.

Rene Magritte was a surrealist artist, so he would say that.

He just gave a poor definition of curiosity with an added dollop of nonsense. "Hon hon hon, ze meninge of ze mind eh, it is like le waffle belgique. Best enjoyed with strawberríe, oui?"

...The Asmo just done did a racism right there, didn't he? :sad sigh: Nothing against the dude, really, it's just that French(-sounding) bullshit seems more sophisticated somehow.

The mind fears the unknown since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.

The mind is indifferent to the unknown since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.

The mind makes up shit to appear cool since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown

Quote from: The Magic Pudding.. on April 03, 2024, 01:19:11 PMThe mind makes up shit to appear cool since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown

:rofl:

Doesn't it just? (Just to be real in my merriment, it certainly does do that to be cool, but not due to its Meaning(tm) - whatever that may be - that would be the proverbial carts pulling the horses.)

Does the mind make up its own mind, or does something else?
A shadow mind, like the subconscious.
But where is it?
Might be the Jungian mind, or from the b'cks, perhaps.
Parasympathetic nervous system might play a part.
I never know whether to fight or take flight.
Only my amygdala knows.

Feels like I have an octopus mind where 8 is the magic number.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/unconscious-branding/202012/our-brains-make-our-minds-we-know-it

"Our brains make up our minds before we know it."

Well, duuh! ::) You need a mind to know stuff with.

Basking in the dryness of my word play aside, that right there is an interesting area of research. I suppose if one could account for every (or as near as makes no difference) variable, there could be a surprising degree of determinism to the universe, brains included. Sure, some degree of instinctive decision-making is an evolutionary necessity for survival, but when looking at "random" decisions (I have a bowl of chocolates, all of similar taste and size. Do I go for the round one or the square one? Such like) Yeah... That's interesting. :smilenod:

Brain anatomy is quite a subject and we are still trying to understand it.
https://mayfieldclinic.com/pe-anatbrain.htm#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20the%20left%20hemisphere,Figure%202.

Strange how the hippocampus is so locked away. It permanently stores bad memories which you wish would go away.
Don't know why it's called that. It looks nothing like a seahorse.

Upside down yoga stances might help the brain, like headstand and shoulder stand.
Increase blood flow to brain and improve memory.
Releases the 'bindu', I'm told. Probably a load of 'bull'.

Where does the mind get it's impulses. to do anything, I'd like to know.
Wake up one day. Fly to the moon or stay at home.

Quote from: zorkan on April 04, 2024, 01:28:23 PMBrain anatomy is quite a subject and we are still trying to understand it.

This calls for a mini-rant over one of The Asmo's oldest pet peeves, so... Not addressing you specifically.

Have you noticed how common a sentiment "we are still trying to understand the brain/mind" is when compared to similar sentiments relating to gravity, evolution, chemistry and so forth?

Yes, the things brain does and the ways in which it does them contain several areas of active research, but so do those other things I mentioned and many - many others besides.

"We" understand brain anatomy. As long as there is the next question, however, what we are trying to do, is increase the degree of said understanding. Learn more. Those are not mutually exclusive.

Here, they know more about ARSes than brains.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/understanding-the-brain-is-a-catalog-of-all-we-dont-know-about-the-brain/#:~:text=We%20don%27t%20know%20which,t%20know%20what%20consciousness%20is.

We know more about the surface of Mars than what lies beneath us.

Quote from: zorkan on April 05, 2024, 12:10:08 PMWe know more about the surface of Mars than what lies beneath us.

That tired old adage is at best a matter of perspective, I think.

What specifically are you referring to? "Terabytes" of data gathered on the subject in total? The quality of terrain mapping? Positions of mineral deposits? Air/liquid streams and such like? Who's even "we?" Humanity? NASA? The faculty of geology at a given university?

We do have a LOT of data on the Earth's crust, and while it is possible that we have comparatively more on the surface of Mars, that calls for specification and verification, which I, for one, have never seen materialise with any such claims. (for instance, "we know more about the Moon than we do about the deep ocean." Same problem. In my opinion, it's just something people parrot because it sounds profound. At least, everyone I've ever pressed on the matter had to fold like wet toilet paper)

True, we do have data about the crust, like we understand the width of the peel of an apple.
I've descended in a cage 300 feet into a disused coal mine (Big Pit), and it was dark.
Go further down 2000 miles to see the core and it might be as hot as the sun.
Could the Earth stop spinning and the magnetic field be cut off?
Life would die. But so what, this planet is already a graveyard for all life.
Get life while you can, I say.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/earths-mysterious-core

The Moon is pretty much a "solid lump" of moon. Mars - not far behind. Yes, planets - the Earth among them - eventually cool, their mantles and cores solidify enough and... "No" more magnetosphere. That's pretty much how it goes.

I have no idea if that's how the biosphere is likely to meet its doom, or if it will stick around to witness the Sun going red giant on this planet's bottom, but yeah... The Universe is "out to kill" life. Fortunately for life, it tends to operate on such time scales, as may just be enough for life to destroy itself before the Universe can ever get to it. :smilenod:

[EDIT:]Also, while The Asmo is being peeved by pseudoprofundities, you know how they say soemthing to the tune of more people having been to space than to the bottom of the ocean? Well, fucking duuh! Yes, it is not as trivial (all other concerns such as actually being alive while at it excluded) to get to space and back as it is to sink to the abyssal plain, then cut the ballast, but "all" you have to do once you arrive in space is have a vessel capable of holding one atmosphere of pressure in an unpressurised environment. It's "the same" as holding two atmospheres at sea level. A pop bottle or a soda can can do it. At the bottom of the sea, the vessel has to be capable of maintaining that same atmospheric pressure in an environment where the ambient pressure is orders upon orders of magnitude greater than that. "one tiny leak," and you're fucked. It's not all there is to it, of course, it's just that maybe, all things considered, it's actually easier to get to space in some meaningful way than it is to sink to the bottom of the sea and that while astronomically (pun intended) expensive, the potential return on investment is more attractive in space travel than sub-sea exploration.

Quote from: The Magic Pudding.. on April 03, 2024, 01:19:11 PMThe mind makes up shit to appear cool since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown

All that is known is the unknown.

That which is not yet known can eventually become known. But that which is unknowable can never be known.

Quote from: Asmodean on April 03, 2024, 12:29:40 PMFurther questions, in addition to the unanswered three from above; how does "illusory" come into play? What is the significance of reality as seen as a single system not having any overarching knowledge or the capability of knowing? Can you demonstrate how the conceptualisation is done within infinity? (That which has no starting and/or end condition, which "all" knowledge does)

I can only demonstrate using a quote from biblical scripture, which is simply knowledge arising as itself, to itself and for itself. Just like any knowledge one claims to know.

''‭‭1 Corinthians 13:12  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.''

This is referring to the reflective world of knowledge/thought (for now we see only a reflection).

Then "we shall see face to face" which refers to the full picture; aka from source to source.

Now I know in part (Now I am experiencing the reflective world of thought), then I shall know fully (Complete and no longer veiled by thoughts, seeing "the light" that thoughts are covering), even as I am fully known (I am truly already and always Fullness/Wholeness no matter what, yet I seemingly experience forgetting this and falling for the illusion the reflection creates, and then remembering the Wholeness.
This is basic Nonduality. In fact pretty much all of the worlds religious text including islamic faith is derived from a base level nondual context at it's fundamental core.

Quote from: Asmodean on April 03, 2024, 12:29:40 PMWhat makes that reality the real one? Is it real as opposed to, or in addition to, other available realities?

When discussing reality/realities, contemplation using words is always referring to knowledge, something known, always knowledge, because without knowledge there's simply ''thought-free awareness'' aka nothingness appearing as everything without imposing any concept to it.

Awareness is the only ONE real reality. Awareness is not human. Human is a concept known to Awareness. Awareness is the nameless one reality.

Neither the human body, nor the human entity ( some call the spirit ) is "LIFE The Real Self" ( "AWARENESS " )
The Only thing that is "AWARE" of anything, is "AWARENESS", which is "LIFE The Real Self"

You are Awareness Itself individually and uniquely aware as "you." You are individual being. The pure awareness you are is the one universe you experience. Awareness and form are one. Awareness is what you ARE, what you see WITH, and that which is SEEN.

Awareness itself is not the awareness OF any 'thing' or any condition or situation, it is the one infinite and omnipresent "light" you ARE, you see things with, and the 'things' themselves.

You are aware of; conscious of; "alive" to  these words. But it is not "you" being aware of "these words" with "your faculty of awareness." What makes the experience possible is the oneness of Awareness Itself. That which you are aware of is Awareness Itself, and the "you" being aware is the same Awareness Itself. Awareness Itself is existence itself.

Or put a simpler way, only consciousness exists.

Quote from: Asmodean on April 05, 2024, 01:30:18 PMI have no idea if that's how the biosphere is likely to meet its doom, or if it will stick around to witness the Sun going red giant on this planet's bottom

Velikovsky fable:
Worlds in Collision (book) "proposes that Venus formed inside of Jupiter, and that around the 15th century BCE, it was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object and subsequently passed near Earth, though an actual collision with the Earth is not mentioned. In doing so it changed Earth's orbit and axial inclination, causing innumerable catastrophes which were identified in early mythologies and religious traditions from human civilizations around the world. Fifty-two years later, it again made a close approach, stopping the Earth's rotation for a while and causing more catastrophes. Then, in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, Mars (itself displaced by Venus) made close approaches to the Earth; this incident caused a new round of disturbances and disasters. After that, the current "celestial order" was established. The courses of the planets stabilized over the centuries and Venus gradually became a "normal" planet."

Suppose Jupiter which is more than twice as big as all other planets combined decides to spew out another comet which this time hits Earth, then we're doomed.
Doomed!
So what, I ain't bovvered.

Quote from: Me_Be on April 05, 2024, 04:27:03 PMAwareness is the only ONE real reality.

Explain. What precludes other realities from existing?

Quote from: Asmodean on April 07, 2024, 09:45:44 AM

Quote from: Me_Be on April 05, 2024, 04:27:03 PMAwareness is the only ONE real reality.

Explain. What precludes other realities from existing?

I don't think nothing precludes other realities existing since the word ''other'' is simply a different 'appearance' of the same ONE existence. The claim 'I exist' is the same experience for every person, and although every person's experience of existence is different, the difference is simply an appearance of the same one aware real existence.

For example: I believe the actual possibility of there being a conscious experience where consciousness is able to be aware it is aware, appears to itself as an ''other' where the illusion of duality is born.

Thought creates a duality, where the same one reality splits into many; into many existing parts by being aware it is aware. Suddenly there is an awareness of I am a ''person'' or a ''self''

This introspection points to the very fact that we are all the same person being different parts of the same one existence unaware of the 'other' experiences; as all 'other' experiences are happening simultaneously all at once within the same one aware reality.


It seems there's just one reality appearing as the many, so yes, on the one hand; it seems there are many different realities, but on the other hand, those ''other's'' are unavailable since they are simply part but NEVER apart of the same one infinite aware existence.

There is already a potentially infinite period of time where you didn't exist, which ended when you were born. And if you return to the state you were in before you were born after you die, what's stopping you from existing again and again and again, because the very concept of 'you' is already known by the ''Actual'' direct experience of being aware of being aware in the first place.

That's the only explanation I've got for the ONE and true real reality, which seems feasible to me right now. It's what I believe anyway, but doesn't mean it's seen this way for every person. It's just my opinion, due to how I perceive reality as and through the lens of my own personal direct experience of what thinking on a philosophical human level means to me here.

Quote from: Me_Be on April 14, 2024, 09:13:19 AMThere is already a potentially infinite period of time where you didn't exist, which ended when you were born. And if you return to the state you were in before you were born after you die, what's stopping you from existing again and again and again, because the very concept of 'you' is already known by the ''Actual'' direct experience of being aware of being aware in the first place.

Entropy.

Quote from: zorkan on April 14, 2024, 12:31:36 PM

Quote from: Me_Be on April 14, 2024, 09:13:19 AMThere is already a potentially infinite period of time where you didn't exist, which ended when you were born. And if you return to the state you were in before you were born after you die, what's stopping you from existing again and again and again, because the very concept of 'you' is already known by the ''Actual'' direct experience of being aware of being aware in the first place.

Entropy.

What if the known concept of 'you' is actually referring to the entire everything that is alternatively known as the universe itself. It seems that everything that is the universe is moving more towards 'higher entropy' (increasing) rather than 'lower entropy' (decreasing)

Such measurements can simply be known as and through the concept of ''time'' which must be a 'thing' albeit a temporal appearance of what is ultimately timeless /absolute and eternal.

'Appearances'' such as high and low entropy in physical systems can be observed relatively, whereas absolute timeless eternity cannot be observed; but only known as an idea in relative terms by association; meaning while (entropy and time) appear real enough within awareness, they are in fact both real and unreal within our awareness of language and knowledge; as no one ever witnessed the beginning or ending of the entire universe itself as one whole unitary thing.

 Knowledge of any thing does not actually exist outside of the brains capacity to construct it using concepts via language which can only point to the illusory nature of reality, in that ultimately, is of an unknowable nature, even to itself.

This thread is in the wrong section. It should be in the philosophy section. The contributors are certainly serious thinkers who post some high minded content

One of the things that I boast about is; although we are happy "atheists" we do not discuss religion, or the absence of it, as a main thrust. We devote more space to petrol heads, photography, music, and strange antipodean stuff that Puddin brings us.

Quote from: Icarus on April 15, 2024, 03:58:29 AMThis thread is in the wrong section. It should be in the philosophy section. The contributors are certainly serious thinkers who post some high minded content

It's a good discussion, though with a few circle-going tendencies. :smilenod:

I have not checked in for a bit, so some reading and [hopefully high-IQ to live up to the compiment] replying to do. Yep. 8)

What's stopping me from existing again and again and again is the arrow of time (rel. to entropy).
"Just as well", did I hear.

Even the Greeks knew this.
When granted eternal life Tithonus was stuck in his old body.
If he'd asked the gods for eternal youth he wouldn't have been granted eternal life.

Quote from: zorkan on April 15, 2024, 11:59:44 AMWhat's stopping me from existing again and again and again is the arrow of time (rel. to entropy).
"Just as well", did I hear.

Even the Greeks knew this.
When granted eternal life Tithonus was stuck in his old body.
If he'd asked the gods for eternal youth he wouldn't have been granted eternal life.

Eternal time is reality, and that which has a beginning and an end in time, is illusion. In the material world, time is an illusion, depicting past, present, and future.

It's an illusion, because in eternal time, there is only one tense - the present. There is no past and future in eternal time. Material time is thought of in terms of past, present, and future, so material time is illusion. In reality, past and future don't exist. There is only now. To exist in eternal time is like existing in one prolonged now.

Reality is that which is eternal and unreality, or illusion, is that which is temporary. So illusion does exist, but it is unreal in the sense that it's not eternal.

So reality and illusion are defined by time. One is eternal the other is temporary. And if you think about it, it makes sense. Anything seen in the light of eternity will be manifested for such a short flicker in time, that it is as if it didn't really happen.

So illusion exists, it is not false or fictional, but the reason it is not considered real is because it is not eternal. It's like a dream. A dream happens, but when we wake up, we understand it was not real. Life in a material body is like that - dream-like.

The duration of the universe will make a lifespan on earth seem completely insignificant, and cosmic time of millions, billions, and trillions of years will seem totally inconsequential and insignificant from the angle of eternal time. So in the light of eternity, anything that is not eternal, is but an illusory glimpse. That's how one can understand that anything which has a beginning and an end is illusory. Only that which is eternal is real.

Does the human body entropy? yes, it does. But can CONSCIOUSNESS entropy? it's hard to say...
We don't have any experience of something that lasts forever, do we? Yes we do. The only thing, that lasts forever is the conscious self. How so? because something conscious is absolutely here already being the witness of the body; so there is no way to un-witness this consciousness in the sense of it lasting forever, or having a beginning, or an ending from the first person singular pronoun perspective. Yes, we can witness beginning and ending of another person, but a consciousness is always needed for the witnessing of another persons entropy to be known to have occurred; so consciousness has to be eternal, never temporal.

Quote from: Asmodean on April 15, 2024, 07:37:32 AMThis thread is in the wrong section. It should be in the philosophy section.

Okay, move this thread to the philosophy section then. No problem.

Quote from: Asmodean on April 15, 2024, 07:37:32 AMOne of the things that I boast about is; although we are happy "atheists" we do not discuss religion, or the absence of it, as a main thrust. We devote more space to petrol heads, photography, music, and strange antipodean stuff that Puddin brings us.

And yet the ''Happy Atheist Forum'' has a Religious section where people are invited to explore - The set of beliefs, rituals, and practices founded on specific supernatural and moral claims about reality and often associated with worship of a deity.

So what to do?  :thoughtful:

Quote from: Me_Be on April 18, 2024, 11:49:35 AM

Quote from: Asmodean on April 15, 2024, 07:37:32 AMThis thread is in the wrong section. It should be in the philosophy section.

Okay, move this thread to the philosophy section then. No problem.

Quote from: Asmodean on April 15, 2024, 07:37:32 AMOne of the things that I boast about is; although we are happy "atheists" we do not discuss religion, or the absence of it, as a main thrust. We devote more space to petrol heads, photography, music, and strange antipodean stuff that Puddin brings us.

And yet the ''Happy Atheist Forum'' has a Religious section where people are invited to explore - The set of beliefs, rituals, and practices founded on specific supernatural and moral claims about reality and often associated with worship of a deity.

So what to do?  :thoughtful:

You may have misattributed the quotes slightly. 'Twas not I who said that, 'twas Icarus ;)

Yeah, scrap the religion section and religion with it.
Religion means living in fear for the rest of your life.
Philosophy is dead (Stephen Hawking).
Everything it has ever presented has been proved false.

Quote from: Asmodean on April 18, 2024, 02:00:12 PMYou may have misattributed the quotes slightly. 'Twas not I who said that, 'twas Icarus ;)

Sincere apologies for that, Asmodean.

I hadn't realised until you brought it up. It was a slip of concentration on my part. Sorry about that!

Quote from: Icarus on April 15, 2024, 03:58:29 AMThis thread is in the wrong section. It should be in the philosophy section.

I'm happy to have this thread moved to the philosophy section. No probs!  :)

Quote from: Icarus on April 15, 2024, 03:58:29 AMOne of the things that I boast about is; although we are happy "atheists" we do not discuss religion, or the absence of it, as a main thrust. We devote more space to petrol heads, photography, music, and strange antipodean stuff that Puddin brings us.

And yet the ''Happy Atheist Forum'' has a Religious section where people are invited to explore - The set of beliefs, rituals, and practices founded on specific supernatural and moral claims about reality and often associated with worship of a deity.

So what to do?  :thoughtful:

Quote from: zorkan on April 18, 2024, 02:02:52 PMYeah, scrap the religion section and religion with it.
Religion means living in fear for the rest of your life.
Philosophy is dead (Stephen Hawking).
Everything it has ever presented has been proved false.

It seems philosophy and religion both, are heard as pure ''Dogma''
"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
No person knows anything, no person knows anything for sure.
Nothing is happening, where the character ''me'' is just a word, referring to what is not really real.

Knowing from the Nondual perspective points to a grief, a loss of something for the sense of ''me''.
The realisation of no control, no problems, no path, and no goal leading the ''me'' to feel that everything is pointless, meaningless and hopeless.
So human language has sought out a God to help soothe their existential angst.

Irrefutably there is Life, and that You are Life, there is only Life, hence there is no ''My Life'' or ''My story'' 

Quote from: zorkan on April 18, 2024, 02:02:52 PMYeah, scrap the religion section and religion with it.
Religion means living in fear for the rest of your life.
Philosophy is dead (Stephen Hawking).
Everything it has ever presented has been proved false.

Scrapping the story that humanity has assumed it, itself has written, is likened or compared to a dream, and nothing ever happened in a dream.

So Who or What is this 'you' without the attachment to story?
Scrapping you're story, is the end of Authorship, the end of belief in Authorship. The end of 'you' and 'me' the end of every-one who believes in Authorship.

Reality has no Author, no Copyright. . except in this conception, the greatest story; no one ever wrote, or heard, or told.

Reality is unwritten; that which is eternal and unreality, or illusion, is that which is temporary.
Note that illusion does exist, but it is unreal in the sense that it's not eternal.

Corinthians 4:18. New International Version.

 18 ''So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.''

Compared with...

''Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the non-existent [the visible material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the invisible spirit soul] there is no change. This they have concluded by studying the nature of both. '' ~ Bhagavad Gita

From Buddhism, a godless religion:
The material world only exists because of consciousness.

"Once in Hawaii I was taken to see a Buddhist temple. In the temple a man said, "I am going to tell you something that you will never forget." And then he said, "To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell."
― Richard P. Feynman, The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist.

https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/4021/the-dark-side-of-buddhism

"I remember one student who was having problems memorising material for tests. Distraught, she went to the monks who explained to her that she was having such trouble now because, in a past life, she was a murderous dictator who burned books, and so now, in this life, she is doomed to forever be learning challenged."

The dark side of us all is that we are just a collection of assembled waves and particles.
(Being miserable keeps me happy}.

From far, from eve and morning
     And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
     Blew hither: here am I.

A E Housman, poet.

Quote from: zorkan on April 19, 2024, 12:20:26 PMFrom Buddhism, a godless religion:
The material world only exists because of consciousness.

Yes.

The material world; is an imaged projection of imageless consciousness. The same but different stuff (our) apparent dreams are made of.

Quote from: zorkan on April 19, 2024, 12:20:26 PMThe dark side of us all is that we are just a collection of assembled waves and particles.

From the internet/inner-net.
''Indeed, we are. The intricate dance of atoms and electrons forms the very fabric of our existence. From the majestic galaxies to the tiniest particles, the universe weaves its cosmic ballet. Each atom, with its nucleus at the center and electrons whirling around like celestial dancers, contributes to the grand symphony of reality.

In this cosmic choreography:

Protons and neutrons huddle together in the atomic nucleus, bound by the strong force.
Electrons, the ethereal troubadours, flit around the nucleus, their paths governed by quantum probabilities.
Energy levels dictate where these electrons can pirouette, creating the mesmerizing patterns we call chemical bonds.
Molecules, those harmonious ensembles of atoms, join hands to form everything from water to DNA.''

Quote from: zorkan on April 19, 2024, 12:20:26 PM(Being miserable keeps me happy}.

I'm happy being unhappy, and if that makes me sound like a misery guts, then I'm happy with that too. I have no particular preference to-be or not to-be; for I have no control to make what happens unhappen.

There is nothing making happening happen; nor is there anything to make what happens unhappen.

"The material world; is an imaged projection of imageless consciousness. The same but different stuff (our) apparent dreams are made of."

Nope. The material world comes from the Higgs Field.
https://www.waldorflibrary.org/journals/22-research-bulletin/1199-autumnwinter-2012-volume-17-2-higgs-field-and-a-view-of-the-material-world-that-makes-sense

"I'm happy being unhappy, and if that makes me sound like a misery guts, then I'm happy with that too. I have no particular preference to-be or not to-be; for I have no control to make what happens unhappen.
There is nothing making happening happen; nor is there anything to make what happens unhappen."

Or, everything is in the past and the future never comes.
Trying to force happiness on yourself is certain to lead to unhappiness.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/happiness-secret-why-miserable-unhappy-ok-mental-health-depression-anxiety-a7837481.html

Humans are waves.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/08/19/in-quantum-physics-even-humans-act-as-waves/?sh=40ced635312c

Quote from: zorkan on April 21, 2024, 05:22:03 PMThe material world comes from the Higgs Field.
https://www.waldorflibrary.org/journals/22-research-bulletin/1199-autumnwinter-2012-volume-17-2-higgs-field-and-a-view-of-the-material-world-that-makes-sense

Fair enough. There is a field theory. So is this field conscious of itself? I mean what's viewing the field? what part does consciousness play into the equation of the field theory of reality?

Quote from: zorkan on April 21, 2024, 05:22:03 PMOr, everything is in the past and the future never comes.
Trying to force happiness on yourself is certain to lead to unhappiness.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/happiness-secret-why-miserable-unhappy-ok-mental-health-depression-anxiety-a7837481.html

Thanks for posting the link. I've not heard that said before, but I am delighted, it's as though I was reading my exact same thoughts, it made my day even happier.  :)  8)

Quote from: zorkan on April 21, 2024, 05:22:03 PMHumans are waves.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/08/19/in-quantum-physics-even-humans-act-as-waves/?sh=40ced635312c

Okay, thanks.

Can I just ask...This assembling of all the named molecules and chemistry that just happened to have made up the material world as we know it to be.... Was all that just an accidental, opportunistic, spontaneous event...or will we never know for absolute certainty why there is something rather than nothing question?

Quote from: Me_Be on April 22, 2024, 10:18:15 AMCan I just ask...This assembling of all the named molecules and chemistry that just happened to have made up the material world as we know it to be.... Was all that just an accidental, opportunistic, spontaneous event...or will we never know for absolute certainty why there is something rather than nothing question?

Ask me a difficult one.
As there are no absolutes we will never know.
Maybe when we capture one of those aliens who invade our airspace we could ask it.
Meanwhile, your guess is as good as mine.

Quote from: zorkan on April 22, 2024, 12:37:59 PM

Quote from: Me_Be on April 22, 2024, 10:18:15 AMCan I just ask...This assembling of all the named molecules and chemistry that just happened to have made up the material world as we know it to be.... Was all that just an accidental, opportunistic, spontaneous event...or will we never know for absolute certainty why there is something rather than nothing question?

Ask me a difficult one.
As there are no absolutes we will never know.
Maybe when we capture one of those aliens who invade our airspace we could ask it.
Meanwhile, your guess is as good as mine.

You cannot capture reality and encapsulate it into a formal system because reality is infinite and so it will always escape any attempt to encapsulate it as it must, because reality is one thing, it is the self, and the self is capable of self-reference and when you're capable of self-reference this necessarily leads to a paradox.

Therefore no one can even claim to be an Atheist, let alone a Theist.

Quote from: Me_Be on May 04, 2024, 08:53:54 AMTherefore no one can even claim to be an Atheist, let alone a Theist.

I don't claim to be an atheist to every god because I believe in Zorka, the god of my own reason.

I'm not a theist because such a person believes in ancient scripture which has no place in this world.

Quote from: zorkan on May 04, 2024, 12:26:00 PM

Quote from: Me_Be on May 04, 2024, 08:53:54 AMTherefore no one can even claim to be an Atheist, let alone a Theist.

I don't claim to be an atheist to every god because I believe in Zorka, the god of my own reason.

I'm not a theist because such a person believes in ancient scripture which has no place in this world.

I believe we all believe in the God of our own understanding. So each to their own as they say.

Those people who wrote the Bible must have believed in a God of their own understanding at the time when it was being written.

Who's to say theirs was the wrong God while holding to their own God as right.
That's the nature of the human mind I guess.

Do theists allow you to have your own beliefs, or do they force them on you?
The brainwashing of young minds.

The bible is a forgery.
The genocidal god of the OT could not possibly have become the loving god of the NT.
We know nothing about the authors of any book in the bible, and there are no original manuscripts.
All of it is recycled and translated from earlier beliefs found in the ancient world.

In scientific terms what theism is to the Anthropic Principle, atheism is to the Copernican Principle.
The human mind is torn between the two.
 

Quote from: zorkan on May 05, 2024, 11:54:25 AMDo theists allow you to have your own beliefs, or do they force them on you?
The brainwashing of young minds.

No one is ever born with a belief. Belief's were imposed upon every newborn.

While it does seem as though later on when you leave the unknowing state of newborn to become self-aware you exist as a separate entity in your own right, because a name/label had been imposed upon you, the ''beliefs'' of others seem as though they have been forced on you. Like your name for example: you were given a name by someone else, and you believed that your name was who you are. You became aware of yourself as a concept, and that moment was the birth of your conception, before that, you were pure absolute beingness but did not know it, you only know it in relation to something else, namely, your name.

 And so it seems that most people accept their conditioning, the beliefs imposed upon them by others, without ever questioning them, they are happy to go along with herd mentality, they are happy to believe something they are told simply because everyone else is believing it as well. However, everyone can change their mind at any time they want about what they think they know, or believe to be truth.

However; that which is a AWARE of the mind set of beliefs,  can't be changed. Tis only the mind that can change.

Mind is relative to the absolute truth that is the observer, and so any relative claims about the absolute truth, are never the absolute truth, they are only half truths.

What you are is already the absolute truth. You can never know or speak about the absolute, because you are it. Knowing the absolute is mental interpretation, which is subject to change, and therefore temporal and limited representations or interpretations, and never ever this immediate absolutely true present, which is beyond the mind and beyond words. Words can never touch it...so anything we speak of is never it absolutely.

 The true present is always this immediate presentation and NEVER a representation of the present formed of beliefs and ideas.

Our beliefs are always ( The lies which tell the truth )  In other words, there are no absolute truths, only relative truth by association.

Quote from: zorkan on May 05, 2024, 11:54:25 AMThe bible is a forgery.
The genocidal god of the OT could not possibly have become the loving god of the NT.
We know nothing about the authors of any book in the bible, and there are no original manuscripts.
All of it is recycled and translated from earlier beliefs found in the ancient world.

In scientific terms what theism is to the Anthropic Principle, atheism is to the Copernican Principle.
The human mind is torn between the two.

The human mind is the story teller, something that is being observed, but not by the mind. That in a nutshell, is the truth of what is this nondual-dual reality. The dual truth is the only truth the mind knows, within the illusory dream of separation, where it seems there is a knower and that which is known....seemingly two, but always inseparably one and the same knowing.

Like I said, you cannot know the absolute, because you are the absolute. To know the absolute one would have to split off from the absolute to become relative. But while the relative is known, the known can know nothing of the absolute, because the relative is illusory, within the artificial dream of separation...thus, any relative ideas about the absolute are absurd.

The Truth will always be the Truth regardless of our beliefs, twinges, thoughts, or opinions about it. Rendering all human mind-made knowledge nothing more than pure imagination, belief and story.

^ Perception is reality.

Quote from: Icarus on May 06, 2024, 11:23:15 PM^ Perception is reality.

Yes and No

Yes in the relative sense, where there is perceived a sense of I who is perceiving itself as the perceiver. ( Belief ) the lies that tell the truth.

And NO in the absolute sense, which as a relative perception of reality perceived apparently - it's an imposed/ imposter generated illusory divergent of what reality actually is absolutely.

Reality is never what thought thinks it is. Reality is without doubt or error regardless of any perception of it. Therefore, reality is no reality absolutely.

What one believes to be true has nothing to do with reality but to that person his/her truth is indisputable.  We can easily observe that reality within the realm of politics and religion.

I presume, respectfully, that Me_Be is a well educated Brit who may have been sufficiently insulated from the behaviors and mind sets of the common man. Try the American MAGA person or the deeply religious ones. They are conditioned to fight you, perhaps even kill you, for doubting or disputing their closely held beliefs. That is absolutely true even if their beliefs are based on absurdity as they often are..

Me_Be please continue. I enjoy your most erudite commentary.   

Quote from: Icarus on May 08, 2024, 01:42:33 AMWhat one believes to be true has nothing to do with reality but to that person his/her truth is indisputable.  We can easily observe that reality within the realm of politics and religion.

I totally agree. 8)

For the observer (I) the known conceptual (I)...it is a fact that as I am looking at something; that act of looking actualises the something as absolutely existing, else I couldn't know it, or speak about it conceptually.
And so the truth of something is always going to be about the self-evidence of I's truth, because  that which is looked at, or looked upon, exists objectively regardless of what the I believes. And so yes, ''belief'' has nothing to do with reality.

Quote from: Icarus on May 08, 2024, 01:42:33 AMI presume, respectfully, that Me_Be is a well educated Brit who may have been sufficiently insulated from the behaviors and mind sets of the common man.

Well, I know I am self-taught in the subject of nondual discourse.  I made the choice to introspect into the infinite field of potential possibility that is the Self ;) I mean, where else was I going to attain that knowledge, except straight from the sources mouth itself?  ;)

Quote from: Icarus on May 08, 2024, 01:42:33 AMTry the American MAGA person or the deeply religious ones. They are conditioned to fight you, perhaps even kill you, for doubting or disputing their closely held beliefs. That is absolutely true even if their beliefs are based on absurdity as they often are..

Yes, I agree. We still have to take full responsibility for the beliefs we hold dear to us, taking care not to force them onto someone else; who may or may not share the same belief. Opposing beliefs often manifest the appearance of conflicting energies, where a 'me' verses 'them' mentality may or may not ensue, according to our reactions, of which carry inevitable consequences for the different believers. Any belief clash could bring about a sudden disturbance, where there was none previously, in other words, it takes two to tango, when it comes to belief sharing.

Quote from: Icarus on May 08, 2024, 01:42:33 AMplease continue. I enjoy your most erudite commentary. 

Thanks.  :)

I can be rather clumsy at putting nonduality into words, but I will venture to try my best, which I understand may be a tad difficult for some people to hear. Why, because it's pointing to the illusory nature of the separate self. Not denying it it's place, it does have a place, but only as a character like in a dream, so all nonduality does, is simply point to the identified character's illusory nature.

Not to confuse the word ''illusory'' as a 'someone' who does not exist, of course there is a 'someone' who exists, that 'someone is reflected back at the observing eye whenever it looks in a  mirror. But the mirror image reflecting back at the observing eye, is never the actual one who is looking. There's never two of us here, there is only one of us here - In other words, there is no one BEING because there is no other than BEING.

Reality cannot change. If one thinks it changed then what was wasn't reality. One was/is merely deceived.  :)

Reality cannot be created as it already exists, it can only be encountered. Reality that is created by people isn't necessarily reality but merely an idea (authority) to manipulate or control others.  ;)

Quote from: Old Seer on May 08, 2024, 01:35:06 PMReality cannot change. If one thinks it changed then what was wasn't reality. One was/is merely deceived.  :)

Two particles collide and different particles are created from the combined energy of the collision. That is change.

The Particles  may not have been created, they may have been already been present and broken apart from the main body of a cluster. A new reality has not been created , one has been encountered. :)   

Well, they are not broken off, per se... Them's the limitations of colloquial language.

I prefer system analysis as it is a little more illustrative. A electric kettle does not exist without a heating element (something resembling it might, but whatever it may be, it is not an electric kettle) and a heating element does not an electric kettle make.

Reality at time t is "a freeze frame" of the universe at time t. As such, it is subject to change, with time being the [more obvious among several] variable.

All particles were created by the Big Bang in under a second.
They were given mass by a short lived field known as the Inflaton or "Higgs".

Well... No.

Matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. Matter can be converted to energy and energy can be converted to matter.

My understanding is that it is interacting with the Higgs field that keeps the massive particles massive, but I must admit that my Higgs mechanics are of YouTube-variety at best.

Are you saying that matter can be created by energy?
Give examples.

Proposing this part of the conversion (beginning with particle physics) be moved to the science forum. :) 

Quote from: zorkan on June 06, 2024, 04:14:16 PMAre you saying that matter can be created by energy?
Give examples.

The Universe. It was only energy when it started. Plenty of mass now.

 .

Quote from: Tank on June 07, 2024, 08:20:12 AMThe Universe. It was only energy when it started. Plenty of mass now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Three_Minutes

If particles have been created since, they are very short lived virtual particles which fill the void in space.
Then they are gone, just like that last post.
I guess there could be a universe where whole objects appear out of nothing.
But not in this one.

Everyone knows that God did it

What did god do before he did it?

^^ That was sarcasm aimed toward all those hard shell Christians out there in the fantasy world.

Quote from: zorkan on June 06, 2024, 04:14:16 PMAre you saying that matter can be created by energy?
Give examples.

You could look at the creation of Higgs boson from gluon collision for an example. Gluons have "no" mass (Or, in the order of low MeV) but, if they carry enough energy, they can produce a Higgs boson, with the mass somewhere around 250-ish GeV. That's orders of magnitude more mass than what was started with, but overall, "the same*" energy.

*Sum total of energy remains the same - what is not expressed (for the lack of a more precise term off the topa' my head) as mass of the Higgs boson may in stead be expressed as other by-products of the collision. W-bosons and such-like, if memory serves.

It is a bit simplified for the purpose of exemplifying as requested, but the main takeaway here should be that fundamentally, what we think of as matter and what we think of as energy is all "packets" of energy, interacting in different ways.

Quote from: Icarus on June 10, 2024, 05:12:50 AM"What did god do before he did it?"
^^ That was sarcasm aimed toward all those hard shell Christians out there in the fantasy world.

Not sarcasm. I feel sure that god in the process of creating the multiverse eventually made our own universe.
The question remains, what was god doing before he started work on the multiverse?
Maybe he did a bit of gardening.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 10, 2024, 07:47:47 AMYou could look at the creation of Higgs boson from gluon collision for an example. Gluons have "no" mass (Or, in the order of low MeV) but, if they carry enough energy, they can produce a Higgs boson, with the mass somewhere around 250-ish GeV. That's orders of magnitude more mass than what was started with, but overall, "the same*" energy.

*Sum total of energy remains the same - what is not expressed (for the lack of a more precise term off the topa' my head) as mass of the Higgs boson may in stead be expressed as other by-products of the collision. W-bosons and such-like, if memory serves.

It is a bit simplified for the purpose of exemplifying as requested, but the main takeaway here should be that fundamentally, what we think of as matter and what we think of as energy is all "packets" of energy, interacting in different ways.

"The Higgs boson gets its mass just like other particles—from its own interactions with the Higgs field."

As the Higgs boson is the god particle maybe god is the Higgs field, which I understand we are immersed in, leading to the conclusion that god is everywhere.

"Reckless superlatives," I think Leonard Susskind called it.

You could call your hamster a God Particle. It wouldn't make it so, except in the most specific understanding.

Not a hamster.
https://www.sciencealert.com/bizarre-true-story-physicists-once-put-a-ferret-in-a-particle-accelerator

It appears we are only here because of the Higgs boson.

The more we learn about the universe the less it makes sense.

Steven Weinberg said, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless".

Quote from: zorkan on June 11, 2024, 01:36:51 PMThe more we learn about the universe the less it makes sense.

Do you really think so?

Are there specific concepts that do not make sense to you? Some are counterintuitive, to be sure, but they largely do make sense.

Like why does the universe exist?
Did it know we were coming?
Why does it decay?
Why the Higgs boson and not something else?

Why am I bored?

'Why' is the wrong question when it comes to reality as it implies intent. It's essentially a philosophical question which, while interesting, doesn't to my mind do much that muddy the waters of discussion.'How' is a more useful approach as it is open to a cause but not driven by a question.

So I'll rewrite.

How does the universe exist?
Was it caused by a singularity or a quantum fluctuation?

How did it know we were coming?
Was it primed for life to evolve or is life just an accident?

How does it decay?
Is it in accordance with the 2nd law of thermodynamics or is it being swallowed up by a neighbouring universe?

How the Higgs boson and not something else?
If the Higgs field had not existed would the universe be empty of mass or would another field have made something else?

If reality is Nondual. Then, nothing is happening. And that would be the only thing that can be known about it.  Nothing is happening, happened, happens. Except to say, illusions are happening, happened, happen, and these illusions are known to appear to be real, even though the very principle of the word ''illusion'' implies unreal.

Quite an incredible mysterious thing, this real/unreal reality/ universe or whatever it is that conceptualises itself.

The founders of Christianity or any other religion have taken the concept ''God'' and woven it into it's fabric of belief, but they have merely created a fiction that believers have bought into and are trying to sell on to whoever is willing to buy it. While at the same time there is no one here in the market for this religious dogmatic doctrine, and that is the funniest thing I evverhoid.  ;D

One could understand God is natural compelling force(s).

Quote from: Old Seer on June 19, 2024, 03:53:02 PMOne could understand God is natural compelling force(s).

Acknowledgement is the key. Which is not the same as claimed knowledge.

In not-knowing, there is a surrendering to 'What Is', without doubt or error. It's this immediate acknowledgement of obvious natural compelling force(s).

A truth claim; one of personal Knowledge is experiential, it's entirely appearance, it's a subject/object, subjective/ objective illusion.

Quote from: Old Seer on June 19, 2024, 03:53:02 PMOne could understand God is natural compelling force(s).

No. One can fantasize the existence of a myth. But there is no compelling argument or evidence for the existence of a supernatural realm.

Quote from: Tank on June 20, 2024, 10:50:15 AMBut there is no compelling argument or evidence for the existence of a supernatural realm.

Might one day be able to change the laws of physics with a super quantum computer.
Then go back in time.
Kirk: "Give it all you've got, Scotty".
Scotty:  "ye cannae change the laws of physics, captain".

But why not?

Quote from: Tank on June 20, 2024, 10:50:15 AM

Quote from: Old Seer on June 19, 2024, 03:53:02 PMOne could understand God is natural compelling force(s).

No. One can fantasize the existence of a myth. But there is no compelling argument or evidence for the existence of a supernatural realm.

I wasn't referring to anything supernatural, rather universal law. The universe contains nothing super.  :)

Quote from: Old Seer on June 20, 2024, 03:07:35 PMThe universe contains nothing super.

What about the anti-universe?

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a39745160/anti-universe-running-backward-in-time/

https://closertotruth.com/news/book-excerpt-the-janus-point/

lol

Quote from: zorkan on June 20, 2024, 03:53:01 PM

Quote from: Old Seer on June 20, 2024, 03:07:35 PMThe universe contains nothing super.

What about the anti-universe?

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a39745160/anti-universe-running-backward-in-time/

https://closertotruth.com/news/book-excerpt-the-janus-point/

If there's an anti-universe it would cancel this one, then there wouldn't be any. I'm familiar with most of these claims. When the universe was created an opposite didn't come with it. There's all manner of claims for and against all these ideas and theories. There's experts for and against---to me they just cancel out the works. No one's proven much of it, to many the big band (rapid expansion) which I favor still hasn't been proven.  :) 
(In addition) I hold the big bang or rapid expansion to be the most likely.

Quote from: zorkan on June 20, 2024, 03:53:01 PM

Quote from: Old Seer on June 20, 2024, 03:07:35 PMThe universe contains nothing super.

What about the anti-universe?

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a39745160/anti-universe-running-backward-in-time/

https://closertotruth.com/news/book-excerpt-the-janus-point/

Just for thought: Why would an anti universe be super and this  one we're in, not.  ;)

Quote from: Old Seer on June 20, 2024, 06:33:39 PM... the big band (rapid expansion) which I favor still hasn't been proven.  :) 
(In addition) I hold the big bang or rapid expansion to be the most likely.

Make up your mind.
I quite like the big band idea.
It created one universe with music.
Big bang created another with cannon.

Quote from: Old Seer on June 21, 2024, 03:29:16 PMJust for thought: Why would an anti universe be super and this  one we're in, not.  ;)

Anti one is super.
Ours is super-super. It contains special us.

Do you actually believe there's an anti universe?  ;) 

Answer that with another question.

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo126163512.html

Could be a big universe in our local group is chomping away at ours.

There is probably an infinity of universes. Some are anti-matter.
Might be that other universes have a different set of prime numbers.

I can't agree with ideas that can't be/aren't proven and relegate them to the speculation bin. However, the material universe as we know it seems to returning to its original or another state.   

Quote from: Old Seer on June 22, 2024, 03:31:16 PMthe material universe as we know it seems to returning to its original or another state.   

By what means?

Quote from: zorkan on June 15, 2024, 12:31:54 PMHow does the universe exist?
Was it caused by a singularity or a quantum fluctuation?

I'll try to answer the "spirit" of the question as it is not the question being asked. How does the Universe exist? By its constituent parts existing.

So, what caused the Universe to exist? Singularity or a quantum fluctuation? Likely neither.

While the Big Bang appears to be a spacetimetime singularity, "our" spacetime did not precede it. Thus, analysing its causes from our frame of reference may not lead to a valid conclusion. To put it thusly, we may get very close to the birth of spacetime and yet not see into the "womb."

There are some hypotheses about "colliding membranes," white holes and such like that do try. At present, however, the cause - if ever there was one - of the Universe (Thereby, the cause of the Big Bang, which is the start of "our" timeline) is unknown.

EDIT: I have a nice analogy here. The Big Bang is to the Universe what a mountaintop is to uphill. A point with no "beyond" within its particular scope. You "run out of" Universe at the Big Bang, just like you "run out of" uphill on the top of the mountain. Your question is, in this sense, that of a pebble rolling down the slope, wondering "what's uphill from the mountaintop." Strictly speaking, there is no more uphill. More broadly, there is... A different reality. (Where "uphill" becomes "up in the air" and so forth)

Let me reframe a little bit in keeping with the metaphor, since I am prone to ramble; A mountaintop is the singularity for "uphill." The mountaintop, however, did not cause uphill. So, likely not caused by a singularity. That leaves quantum fluctuation. In what medium? If it is this spacetime, then it could not have been the cause of it, could it? If it was something else... That kind-of brings us back to what's uphill from a mountaintop. It may very well be answerable by ways of more or less measuring the effects of an alien reality on our own, but I doubt that there exists an adequate word to label that process in our current language.

QuoteHow did it know we were coming?
Was it primed for life to evolve or is life just an accident?

The universe is a system of systems. Some sentient (humans and such-like) while others - not. Does the Earth know when you will eat dinner tonight? I would argue that it does not, even though perhaps a comparatively tiny constellation of systems within it does.

That said, I think you may be approaching this question "backwards." The Universe is certainly not primed for life as we understand it, being nearly-universally hostile to it. However, life arose in at least one place where it could. So, it is life, if anything, that is "attuned" to a tiny speck of the Universe it happens to have arisen in - not the Universe that is somehow "meant to" accommodate it.

QuoteHow does it decay?
Is it in accordance with the 2nd law of thermodynamics or is it being swallowed up by a neighbouring universe?

Does the Universe decay? Sure, we can use thermodynamics to infer that it is progressing from an ordered state to a disordered one. However, even a "dead" Universe may still be there. Let us say that after some googolplex years, there is nothing in the Universe apart from low energy photons. Well, what is nothing? Spacetime may still be there, even though time is irrelevant by that point. (Since no "clocks" are "ticking," but that does not mean that a clock cannot tick.) The laws of physics may still apply.

What I'm describing is decay of sorts, but whether the Universe as a whole decays... I have not read anything compelling to suggest that it does, but then nor am I aware of anything equally compelling to suggest that it does not.

QuoteHow the Higgs boson and not something else?
If the Higgs field had not existed would the universe be empty of mass or would another field have made something else?

The universe without massive particles would likely be much like the one I described above - though in that Universe, there may still be a Higgs field. If we can visualise fields as ponds, a "dead" field would simply be one with no ripples in it. I think this analogy is adequate, though it displeases me for some reason.

As I said in the very opening sentence, I did try to frame your questions myself, to a degree, as they were "whys" with the "why" substituted by a different word. Do tell me if I misunderstood what you were asking. You did a fine job expanding them though, so I think we may be covered. (In fact, the questions below the bold ones are the "right" questions.*)

Quote from: zorkan on June 23, 2024, 05:52:24 PM

Quote from: Old Seer on June 22, 2024, 03:31:16 PMthe material universe as we know it seems to returning to its original or another state.   

By what means?

It would be something like- energy can be neither created nor destroyed (from common thought). If true, energy must have always been existing. Matter then, is returning to it's original state, energy. So then (this leads to many thoughts) what is energy, does energy have weight and volume. ?? ??  Eg Photons striking material can change the material. IOW, it cleaves something from the objects it collides with.

Quote from: Asmodean on June 25, 2024, 10:01:10 AMWhile the Big Bang appears to be a spacetimetime singularity

A what?

QuoteThere are some hypotheses about "colliding membranes

What are they, and why should they collide?

QuoteEDIT: I have a nice analogy here. The Big Bang is to the Universe what a mountaintop is to uphill. A point with no "beyond" within its particular scope. You "run out of" Universe at the Big Bang, just like you "run out of" uphill on the top of the mountain. Your question is, in this sense, that of a pebble rolling down the slope, wondering "what's uphill from the mountaintop." Strictly speaking, there is no more uphill. More broadly, there is... A different reality. (Where "uphill" becomes "up in the air" and so forth)
Let me reframe a little bit in keeping with the metaphor, since I am prone to ramble; A mountaintop is the singularity for "uphill." The mountaintop, however, did not cause uphill. So, likely not caused by a singularity. That leaves quantum fluctuation. In what medium? If it is this spacetime, then it could not have been the cause of it, could it? If it was something else... That kind-of brings us back to what's uphill from a mountaintop. It may very well be answerable by ways of more or less measuring the effects of an alien reality on our own, but I doubt that there exists an adequate word to label that process in our current language.

Agreed!
Why not just ask what's north of the North Pole?

Rest of your post is irrelevant.

Quote from: Old Seer on June 25, 2024, 04:08:28 PMIt would be something like- energy can be neither created nor destroyed (from common thought). If true, energy must have always been existing. Matter then, is returning to it's original state, energy. So then (this leads to many thoughts) what is energy, does energy have weight and volume. ?? ??  Eg Photons striking material can change the material. IOW, it cleaves something from the objects it collides with.

Sorry. It must be me.

Quote from: zorkan on June 26, 2024, 11:17:17 AM

Quote from: Old Seer on June 25, 2024, 04:08:28 PMIt would be something like- energy can be neither created nor destroyed (from common thought). If true, energy must have always been existing. Matter then, is returning to it's original state, energy. So then (this leads to many thoughts) what is energy, does energy have weight and volume. ?? ??  Eg Photons striking material can change the material. IOW, it cleaves something from the objects it collides with.

Sorry. It must be me.

The striking of photons on material cleaves off something changing the state of the surface. One could think photons are burning the surface of material changing the material back to energy. In desert areas rock obtains what is referred to as desert varnish caused by the striking of photons which must be changing the surface into a different state of matter. The material universe then, must be in a constant process of destruction leaving only it's origin. (Theoretically)

Desert Varnish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_varnish#:) appears to be a purely chemical behaviour. Very interesting though.

There you go, bringing facts into it and ruining a nice story.  :sulk:

Quote from: zorkan on June 26, 2024, 11:11:57 AMA what?

The Asmo is God. Therefore, His Divine Spelling is Divinely correct by default.  >:(

...A spacetime singularity. A place where no further progression along spacetime is possible. Its mountaintop or North Pole or what-construct-have you.

QuoteWhat are they, and why should they collide?

Precisely.

I was referring to the M theory, which describes (-ish) "cosmic membranes" as sort-of... Building blocks? Basic units..? The fabric of the Universe, I suppose is the term I'm looking for on this way-too-early morning. It's an incomplete, though valiant enough attempt at a Theory of Everything, and one thing to arise from it, is the potential for such "cosmic membranes" colliding giving rise to spacetimes like our own.

It's... Thin. I don't like it. That opinion, however, is hardly worth the time it took to type out, scientifically speaking.

QuoteWhy not just ask what's north of the North Pole?

Because the premise is invalid.

I don't particularly like the North Pole analogy myself, as the intuitively-obvious, though technically-incorrect answer to that is "south." Uphill and mountaintops seem... More illustrative by virtue of the modifier "up."

QuoteRest of your post is irrelevant.

Ask irrelevant questions - receive irrelevant answers. ;)

Quote from: Asmodean on June 27, 2024, 07:15:52 AMI was referring to the M theory,

What does the M stand for?

QuoteThe fabric of the Universe, I suppose is the term I'm looking for on this way-too-early morning. It's an incomplete, though valiant enough attempt at a Theory of Everything, and one thing to arise from it, is the potential for such "cosmic membranes" colliding giving rise to spacetimes like our own.

For which there is zero evidence, even from Brian Greene.

QuoteI don't particularly like the North Pole analogy myself, as the intuitively-obvious, though technically-incorrect answer to that is "south." Uphill and mountaintops seem... More illustrative by virtue of the modifier "up."

Go north of the North Pole and you move toward the South Pole.
Simples.

Quote from: Tank on June 26, 2024, 04:14:14 PMDesert Varnish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_varnish#:) appears to be a purely chemical behaviour. Very interesting though.

Desert varnish my very well be caused by chemical action. My experience with sunlight action on material starts as a teen. Mother had a blue clothes pin bag hanging on the end of the clothesline. Over time the sun side faded to almost white. The other side remained a weathered blue. My desert experience began at 29 palms CA. Recent experience is at Quartzsite AZ where I spend winters prospecting. I found a meteorite in in the ditch West of the town at Diablo Pass on I-10.In my learning of meteorites I came across desert varnish. The meteor color was cased  by heat and is the same color as most rocks in that area. Rocks that haven't been disturbed are different colored on the underside.  Of course I'm dealing with theories, photons moving at light velocity may cause the same effects produced by a collider splitting particles. 

I'll be go ta heck, look at this.

https://x.com/i/status/1806434150527689127

Quote from: zorkan on June 27, 2024, 01:38:12 PMGo north of the North Pole and you move toward the South Pole.
Simples.

You... didn't think this through, did you? Or skimmed over my response a little too quickly? :snicker1:

The South Pole does not lie north of the North Pole.

This does illustrate the problem I have with the North Pole analogy though. People think of that house with every window facing south and what-else-have-you and... Miss what's important.

The world is spherical, or so we have been led to believe. If one marches northward past the north pole, when he continues in the same direction he will be heading southward.

If I was forced to be in the vicinity of the north pole I would definitely try to head southward either over the top, or any other appropriate way, in order to get my poor frozen ass to Costa Rico or some other warm place.

Quote from: Icarus on July 02, 2024, 11:27:29 PMIf one marches northward past the north pole,

...One marches straight into a different coordinate system. There is no "more north" past the North Pole. It is a coordinate singularity.

Quotewhen he continues in the same direction he will be heading southward.

"In the same direction" is not the same as "northward." 

QuoteIf I was forced to be in the vicinity of the north pole I would definitely try to head southward either over the top, or any other appropriate way, in order to get my poor frozen ass to Costa Rico or some other warm place.

...And as fortune would have it, that particular kind of singularity would not keep your mildly frigid bottom from being on its way to more pleasant climates, as long as it's not North. Plus, the Asmo tries to help by burning diesel. Maybe nowhere near american rates, but hey, He's trying here. :smilenod:

Quote from: Asmodean on July 02, 2024, 09:31:21 AMThe South Pole does not lie north of the North Pole.

Where did I say it does?

Quote from: zorkan on July 03, 2024, 11:30:42 AM

Quote from: Asmodean on July 02, 2024, 09:31:21 AMThe South Pole does not lie north of the North Pole.

Where did I say it does?

Quote from: zorkan on June 27, 2024, 01:38:12 PMGo north of the North Pole and you move toward the South Pole.
Simples.

Right here. Right *point* there where it says, "Go north of the North Pole and you move toward the South Pole." :smilenod:

EDIT: for clarity, the correct way of addressing this would be, "if you move northward along a geodesic that crosses the North Pole, your direction of travel changes to southward at the North Pole." This is not a matter of linguistic tricks and ambiguities - it's about describing reality in adequately comprehensive manner. When you stand precisely at the North Pole, the only direction you can move along the surface of the Earth is south. Having taken even one step, you can start adding lateral components, or even "northwardness," as you can reverse the step you just took.

That's not what I meant.
Having reached the North Pole you can only walk south.

Yes.

However, then you are not going north from the North Pole. :smileshake:

Again, this may have the outward appearance of a semantic argument, but it is not. (South is "anti-north." Thus, you cannot adequately describe moving south in terms of a positive northward movement. If you move anti-north from the North Pole, then yes, you are moving south. If you are moving north from the North Pole, however, then you abandon the coordinate system of which the North Pole is a singularity precisely at that singularity - in this case, by for example leaving the surface of the Earth.)

So,
You can go north until you reach the North Pole. From there, you can no longer go North.
You can climb a mountain until you reach its peak. from there, you can no longer climb up it.

That's "what black holes do," in layman terms; they remove that thing you can do without [Edit: as in, outside/"this" side of the singularity] them at the point of singularity. There is no north beyond the North Pole. There is no uphill beyond the mountaintop. There is no spacetime beyond a spacetime singularity. That's not to say that something else isn't there, but then neither is it to say that something else is.

Quote from: Asmodean on July 05, 2024, 03:05:27 PMSouth is "anti-north.

Only here.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/south-korean-ap-kim-jong-un-seoul-pyongyang-b2566358.html

 ^ ;D

so me_be has left the building?

Quote from: billy rubin on July 07, 2024, 10:54:14 PMso me_be has left the building?

It would appear to be.

Quote from: zorkan on July 06, 2024, 12:09:28 PM

Quote from: Asmodean on July 05, 2024, 03:05:27 PMSouth is "anti-north.

Only here.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/south-korean-ap-kim-jong-un-seoul-pyongyang-b2566358.html

No, and the person who wrote the thing seems to have avoided ambiguity. It says, "anti-North Korea," which is a nation, whereas "anti-North" is a vector direction opposite of north.

To make matters more complex consider that.... If we walked northward to the pole and past the north pole, we would be headed in the direction of the south pole. Alas, our magnetic compass would tell us otherwise.

Quote from: Icarus on July 10, 2024, 03:50:45 AMTo make matters more complex consider that.... If we walked northward to the pole and past the north pole, we would be headed in the direction of the south pole. Alas, our magnetic compass would tell us otherwise.

You could take a ladder.

Quote from: Asmodean on July 09, 2024, 08:22:38 AMIt says, "anti-North Korea," which is a nation, whereas "anti-North" is a vector direction opposite of north.

Come to think of it, North Korea is south of the North Pole.
How come?
Is it because South Korea is north of the South pole?

Seriously, to answer the question of what lies north of the North Pole.
The sky above it, could be one answer.
But I'm going for this one:
What lies north of the North Pole?
North Korea!

Quote from: Tank on June 26, 2024, 04:14:14 PMDesert Varnish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_varnish#:) appears to be a purely chemical behaviour. Very interesting though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_pavement

Quote from: zorkan on July 11, 2024, 03:20:15 PMSeriously, to answer the question of what lies north of the North Pole.
The sky above it, could be one answer.
But I'm going for this one:
What lies north of the North Pole?
North Korea!

The sky does not lie north of the pole. It lies along a completely different coordinate axis.

Quote from: billy rubin on July 11, 2024, 10:21:46 PM

Quote from: Tank on June 26, 2024, 04:14:14 PMDesert Varnish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_varnish#:) appears to be a purely chemical behaviour. Very interesting though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_pavement

Well well :) Fascinating.
 

Quote from: Asmodean on July 12, 2024, 08:58:38 AMThe sky does not lie north of the pole. It lies along a completely different coordinate axis.

So what happens in the case of a Velikovsky type fable (1) a very large object hits Jupiter and a 'comet' is ejected and deflected into the path of the earth causing its axis to change. This time it does not miss the earth to become another planet.
Earth could even start spinning north to south and the poles will shift.

(1) Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky, much criticised, but such an event could still happen with Jupiter attracting bodies like rogue planets from outside the solar system.

Quote from: Tank on July 12, 2024, 09:45:18 AM

Quote from: billy rubin on July 11, 2024, 10:21:46 PM

Quote from: Tank on June 26, 2024, 04:14:14 PMDesert Varnish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_varnish#:) appears to be a purely chemical behaviour. Very interesting though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_pavement

Well well :) Fascinating.
 

Yes, thank you for this.

Quote from: Tank on July 12, 2024, 09:45:18 AM

Quote from: billy rubin on July 11, 2024, 10:21:46 PM

Quote from: Tank on June 26, 2024, 04:14:14 PMDesert Varnish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_varnish#:) appears to be a purely chemical behaviour. Very interesting though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_pavement

Well well :) Fascinating.
 

i spent years in the lower sonoran desert. this was a routine experience.the desert floor was mixture of gravel, packed sand, and modified stones of many kinds. some of the most interesting were pieces of white chert (not the black stuff you get in the chalk downs) that were vugular molds of cavities in basalt lava that were filled by high-concentration solutions of silica.

i have some that i will photograph if i can find them.

I just wish I could download your experiences and knowledge. :)

everybody has a story, tank. i just have a big mouth about some of mine.

walk past a graveyard and think about all the life experience extinguished under every one of those headstones.

its the human condition.

^ Billy also has a keen philosophic bent.

Keep up the good work my respected friend, but stay off them infernal LSR motorcycles.

no raci g this year. i had to cancel for july because all the cars broke at once and we ran out of money.

then the second meet in august was cancelled because of insufficient entries

what can i say,  icarus?

Going on a track day on 27th July. Not fully aware of details. There will be pictures, suitably down sized :)

Quote from: billy rubin on July 14, 2024, 04:00:57 AMno raci g this year. i had to cancel for july because all the cars broke at once and we ran out of money.

then the second meet in august was cancelled because of insufficient entries

what can i say,  icarus?

I say: somebody up there must like you. 

To be realistic, the risk is not worth the thrill that the LSR contest provides.  Consider that there could be an equally rewarding thrill if you were say......... a competitive chess player.

Quote from: zorkan on July 12, 2024, 12:27:01 PMSo what happens in the case of a Velikovsky type fable (1) a very large object hits Jupiter and a 'comet' is ejected and deflected into the path of the earth causing its axis to change. This time it does not miss the earth to become another planet.
Earth could even start spinning north to south and the poles will shift.

(1) Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky, much criticised, but such an event could still happen with Jupiter attracting bodies like rogue planets from outside the solar system.

Well, if your planetary coordinate lattice terminates on the axis of rotation, that would "geographically shift" your poles. Other than that and a mahussive crater... Yeah, not much would happen, I think.

You could, for instance, transform (or, "translate") the Earth's coordinate system such that the poles would lie on the equator. It makes little practical difference outside navigation, but it would still not be possible to venture across the North Pole and maintain northward motion.

it would mess up my summer vacation though

Quote from: Asmodean on July 15, 2024, 10:05:37 AMYou could, for instance, transform (or, "translate") the Earth's coordinate system such that the poles would lie on the equator. It makes little practical difference outside navigation, but it would still not be possible to venture across the North Pole and maintain northward motion.

There is no north and south, east and west.
If you keep going in the same direction from any point on the earth's surface and keep travelling along curved space there is only one place that will stop you,
Once below the EV there is no exit.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/supermassive-black-hole-sagittarius/#:~:text=Supermassive%20black%20hole%20Sagittarius%20A*%20(Sgr%20A*)%20is%20located,is%20revealed%20in%20these%20images.

Quote from: zorkan on July 16, 2024, 10:17:19 AMThere is no north and south, east and west.

They are directions on a surface, meaning they are the descriptions of position and/or travel, relative to a "static" grid. They may be relational, but they exist.

In Australia is the North Pole really the South Pole?

How about its relation to the moon.
https://blog.plover.com/geo/Australia.html

Is Australia in the east or the west?

Where is the north of England?
I know the answer to this.
It's anywhere you can get gravy on fish and chips.

Quote from: zorkan on July 16, 2024, 02:15:28 PMIn Australia is the North Pole really the South Pole?

No, they use the same coordinate system as the UK and "all" [AFAIK] other nations.

QuoteHow about its relation to the moon.

Uses different coordinate systems.

QuoteIs Australia in the east or the west?

Of the Moon? Neither. Of the United Kingdom? East. Curiously, Russia is technically both. (In relation to the UK)

QuoteWhere is the north of England?

Technically, north of the line exactly halfway between the southernmost and the northernmost point of England. Culturally, the answer may differ, as you have alluded to.

Traditional centre of England is a village aptly called Meriden which is part of my home town of Solihull.
But not by GPS:
"Lindley Hall Farm in Leicestershire, between Atherstone and Hinckley which is just over 10 miles north of Meriden."

Yet nowhere is north, south, east, west of anywhere else.
We still live in the Pre-Copernican.
The centre of everywhere is the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.
As for the universe as a whole, there is either no centre or everywhere is the centre.

Quote from: zorkan on July 29, 2024, 01:12:18 PMThe centre of everywhere is the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.

I hate to be that guy, but I also love hating it;

(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d5/3f/18/d53f18029f3c040d4e3d2ea83a4861e5.jpg)
It is the center of mass, around which the galactic bodies, including its supermassive black hole, orbit. It's a point in space rather than an object. that point lying within the boundaries of an object is, in this specific sense, incidental.

Reminds me, I forgot to mention I'm also atheist to graphs and bar charts.

Did you know that Burger King has 3 times as much in sales than Starbucks. It makes sense that it's (the chart) is three times taller.
But the fact that its area is nine times that of Starbucks shows why the chart exemplifies everything that is wrong with charts that try to incorporate cutesy graphics.

Graphs of mathematical equations are quite reliable.   

Circular charts that divide factors into parts can easily spoof the observer. Bar graphs are also subject to careful scrutiny.

Graphs are useful for visualising one variable in relation to another and can help visualise trends. What is y when x is a given value? If the value of x increases, what does y do? Is there a point where the function terminates/bottoms/tops out?

Pie charts... Yeah. They... Yeah. Better than nothing, I suppose, but by that point I personally prefer to just use the good old numerals with a percent sign behind. Bar graphs can be decent for comparing discrete values at specific points. Say, birth rates by country in 1924 and 2024. You could plot it on a line graph, but then there is not necessarily anything that connects birth rates in Argentina to those in Andorra. A bar graph (Well, a double bar graph since we are measuring two datapoints per country) can make it easier to visualise differences and similarities.

the most important thing about meriden is that it is where my motorcycle was built.

three of them actually

Yep, Meriden is close to Coventry, the home of the Triumph motorcycle.
Also nearby is here.
https://www.nationalmotorcyclemuseum.co.uk/
 

even further off original subject.............

one of the northeast's most difficult motorcycle enduros, was called the Meriden Run. That is Meriden Connecticut in the USA.

An Enduro is a contest staged in remote areas of forest, desert, water hazards and other non practical places to ride ones motor bike. The course is laid out with numerous check points. The whole idea is to maintain a perfect 24 miles per hour. The participants starting time is recorded. When the first checkpoint is reached the elapsed time is taken. If the first leg was say 12 miles from the start, then a perfect score is if the elapsed time was 30 minutes, etc.....

If the rider arrives early he/she is penalized two points for every minute early, if the contestant arrives later than the 30 minutes, he/she is penalized one point for each minute late. The difficult courses were almost impossible to keep a 24 MPH average.

The Meriden Run was famously difficult.  The participant begins with 1000 points, then early or late penalties are subtracted from the thousand points. The contestant who finishes with the highest score is the winner.

WAaaaay back in the day I punished my poor body many times in those damned Enduros. There were many of them being conducted across the whole US during the summers and sometimes in winter. The winter self induced tortures were innocently called "snow runs".

I apologize for helping hijack the thread. I did ride a Triumph motorcycle in some of the many events. Does that count?

So waitaminute... Also, The Asmo shalt help in keeping the thread hijacked, for He musteth knowest.

Would a valid strategy be to aim to arrive a wee bit early, then just slowing down to the apopropriate crawl on the home stretch? Doesn't seem very sportsman-like, but still... Is that not a alternative to proper speed management all along the way?

Or be there rules to address enterprising Asmos thusly cheating their way to victory?

Quote from: Icarus on August 02, 2024, 12:37:13 AMeven further off original subject.............

I apologize for helping hijack the thread. I did ride a Triumph motorcycle in some of the many events. Does that count?

It's fine.
Here is a christian priest who rides a Harley.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/passed-failed-lionel-fanthorpe-1100549.html

He also presented a TV series on the paranormal.
He failed.

Asmo the possibility of arriving too early was remote.  The terrain that had to crossed was not condusive to maintaining or even reaching an average speed. In the unlikly event that you were early at a check point, it would be perfectly acceptable to park and wait an appropriate time.  The problem with that maneuver is that the check points were chosen so as to unknown and not easily visible to the contestant until he was almost there. Surprise check points were part of the evil that the sponsors of the run foisted on the contestant.

There were, and still are, sissy runs where most of it is conducted on hard roads. In that case a careful attention to ones watch and odometer was necessary. Sissy run winner scores could approach 1000. Real enduro runs more typically had the winners with 980 more or less. My own scores on difficult runs were never even near winning scores.

I suspect that there are auto clubs in your country who do some timed events that have numerous check points. You could have great fun doing that in your new Audie.

wasnt the format for the ISDT an enduro event?

i remember when enduro people had a paper tape roller on their handlbars to keep track. steve mcqueen was on tbe US team at least one year

(https://i.imgur.com/AcOrHxgl.jpg)

ISDT (international six day trials) was an annual big time trials event in Scotland. Trials, commonly called English Trials, is a different kind of contest.  Trials are a different breed of cat.

A set of obstacles are chosen by the organizing committee. Those may be any sort of difficult to navigate areas.  The rider is to negotiate the course without ever putting either of his feet down, "footing" is penalized and going off the narrowly defined course even slightly. is also penalized.  Imagine a 2 X 12 plank spanning a small creek and elevated several feet above the surface of the water.  The damned board is probably wet and the rider cannot foot even if he needed to. A favorite of committees is making a U turn with a radius so small that it cannot be steered in the ordinary way. To negotiate the U turn the rider has to stop the bike, hold the front brake and hop the rear wheel around so that the bike is pointing toward the exit direction. Great fun is had negotiating a trials course. Speed is of no consequence in a Trials contest.

The old trials bikes were usually purpose built for the job, or at least modified to increase ground clearance. It was common to use a huge rear sprocket in order to smooth out throttle response. The modern trials bike and the current crop of good riders make all those difficult sections look easy. A modern bike with an accomplished rider can ride up a near vertical wall, turn around and come down as if it was a normal thing to do. They can easily ride over the top of a VW beetle without breaking a sweat. The kind of hazardous situations that we had in the old days would not even be considered in a modern trials contest. Too easy.



 

i did not know that

ordinary trials in america are very impressive to watch. hard to imagine doing it with a triumph of any kind

Quote from: Icarus on August 03, 2024, 12:35:42 AMI suspect that there are auto clubs in your country who do some timed events that have numerous check points. You could have great fun doing that in your new Audie.

No Audi for a poor The Asmo. :sad sigh: He's too small a fish in middle management yet.

But yeah, this does sound like something I might want to try and get into. Not with my motorway cruiser though. Might want to get something that's more fun to drive, as opposed to more suited to fun drives, if the distinction makes sense... How do I 'splain? Has to do with the process of driving being fun before the journey itself - its waypoints, sights and destinations. (Say, beach buggies and such-like. Look like tons of fun on a good day, they do. I wouldn't go galavanting through europe in one, but for short-ish (semi-) competitive weekend fun? Yeah, I'd  do that.)

Of course, may have both. Maybe get one of them GT cars what to go slowly broke buying parts and fuel for. :smilenod:

I also really want to get into private aviation, though can't justify the expense. I think building one of them "'sperimental" kit planes would be a fantastic hobby to both scratch my attention to detail itch and satisfy my need to build stuff that does stuff.