Saidin said:
How is this only an imagined or idealized state? What proof do you have that this is not possible?
Because it's simply not demonstrable. The burden of truth rests on the spirituality that asserts these states as real and obtainable states, not those denying it. I say that that it's a matter of faith in most most cases, which is a matter of choice; which, more often than not, the choice of faith is ignorance, at worst, or naiveté, at best. In any case, faith equates an ill-capacity for critical thought when encountered with matters of hope (appeal of the sooth-sayer, but from what need of one?) and the carefully gauged intrigue of folklore and mythology.
Is it not possible that one can achieve a level of understanding that reveals truths about the nature of reality that others cannot percieve? One can percieve "truths" while evolving toward "Truth".
It seems to me you are saying that neither truth nor Truth can be known. I would disagree.
One can reasonably approach truth, but integrity is the real matter at hand; integrity of the language used (to what extent may there be misuse or inaccurate use of language according to the cultural criteria in place), integrity of the quality of observation (adequacy of the faculties employed), and integrity of consistency (can this observation be shared and the language applied bear commonalities between perspectives), for example. This can even be applied to a second-hand deduction of validity, which would require an integrated assessment of the source's integrity.
"Truth," as a singularity, seems highly unlikely, considering the apparent impossibility of total integration from the constraints of sentience as we know it. However, by expanding our capacity for integration, we do work toward such a goal, though with no realistic hope of ever obtaining it.
From a particular perspective it is ludicrous. From others, to not intuit something greater than ourselves is ludicrous. If "truth" cannot be known, then both perspectives are equally valid.
Well, I've explained at length the reasoning behind my assessment of this as ludicrous. Certainly these perspectives are relative, but not necessarily relatively equitable. One can be held at greater value than the other, based on the integrity of that idea. As diametrically opposed concepts vault toward a truer conception, one is inevitably overcome. Suffice to say that this does merely occur within the individual, but this is where we enter the realm of health--how well an idea integrates between individuals and individual and its environment. An indemonstrable assertion may accomplish this quite well, and this can be seen quite often in the case of Buddhism, for example. However, I would contend that the best criteria for integrating ideas is not the immediate benefits or ease of assimilating that idea, but the difficulty in striving for those ideas; not striving for a particular idea, but the idea as the outcome of struggle.
Umm, yes. Your life at the most fundamental level is purposed to simply "experience/exist".
I'm failing to equate "experiencing the good and the bad," "a series of events that follow one after another in frames of plank time," and "experience/exist" with one another, let alone as the purpose of my life.
How can being human and reacting to stimulii in our environment be anthopomorphication?
It doesn't occur in the reaction itself, but the manner of reaction. We assume that the universe takes form at the hands of a creative force because we often create complex things out of simpler things and generally for a purpose, and it's soothing to imagine oneself imbued with the purpose of a superior creative force, which in turn alleviates the absurdity of being a lonely creative force amongst a plurality of such or otherwise lacking. This is the primordial concoction of difficult and mysterious life pondered upon materialistically enabled leisure-time. In other words, this is the shit we think about while sitting around the campfire, snowed-in, seeking psychological refuge from anticipating the next catastrophe and whether your food-stock will actually last 'til the next thaw; but for now, your belly's full, thanks to to some nifty new weapons that enabled you to successfully fell a mammoth, and your mind wanders. Perhaps you are like those weapons...perhaps you and all those who came before you were made for the hunt and to provide for your tribe? Just as long as your ponderings carry you into the next successful hunt, who's to say otherwise?
If this model of self-recognition in response to external stimulii is erroneous, then how would you describe the personoal reality of an individual? How does one change over time?
Deductive reasoning. You may deduce your advantages and shortcomings from your interaction with the world around you. I don't see how this would require universal consciousness or transcendent reasoning of some implied ethical valuation. There doesn't have to be a purpose or any extraneous direction, physiological imperative with some degree of cultural abstraction is enough.
Biocentrism is not solipsism. It is smilar but with a major difference. In solipsism, my consciousness is the only thing that exists and creates this reality. In Biocentrism, it is our consciousness that creates reality. The consciousness of all life that creates reality. That is not Solipsist. It is based upon interpretations of studies which not everyone agrees upon. These stuides have created more than one interpretation, and as yet, none of them have an undenyable claim to the truth.
As this hypothesis is presented, it is falsifiable by its misappropriated claims to rationalization, otherwise it is irrefutable in the same manner as the solipsist position. It means little to differentiate between one's own mind and all minds, as the cosmological approach remains quite essentially the same.
Fear has its purpose, its time and its function. It can help us survive, but not necessairily evolove. To live in a constant state of fear limits an organisims options in interacting with its environment. Fewer chances and opportunities to evolove. Therefore fear works against evolution.
Are you kidding? We are talking about evolutionary biology, right? Survival is THE sole factor in the determining evolutionary outcomes. If you can't survive, you can't pass on your genes and the evolution of your bloodline ceases. Fear is a strong factor in adaptability: If an organism doesn't fear a predator, it fails to engage in either fight or flight, and it dies. Fear certainly isn't the only factor in adaptability. Physical endowment and material wealth (availability of food) will determine the succes of procreation, and while this doesn't determine personal survival, it does determine the survivability of a bloodline.
I have contemplated this at great length and even ascribed to this belief for many years. It very well could be true. But through my own explorations and research, meditation, contemplation, and debate have concluded that existence without purpose has no purpose. This is Nihilism, and in my opinion is a bankrupt philosophy because it includes nothing and rejects everything.
Certainly nihilism is a bankrupt philosophy, as it's the philosophy of bankruptcy. But it's not bankruptcy in and of itself, but bankruptcy of all philosophies. It is the outcome of skepticism and was the eventual out come of the enlightenment period. The most notable approaches to the concept of nihilism illustrate as an ubiquitous phenomenon, rather than a belief among other beliefs, which is to say that all beliefs are nihilistic and all believers nihilists. Nonetheless, nihilism is a philosophy but a self-refuting one, and as such, all beliefs, in their nihilistic quality, refute themselves. However, nihilism can be approached as a preliminary step to anti-nihilism, which is the inevitable outcome of its embrace, most likely as perpetual cycle of moment-to-moment destruction and resurrection, rather than a single event.
So...it is a theory based upon the most currently viable assessment of the conditions of life in the universe. Yes it is. Of course it needs verification if it is ever to move past the theoretical and into the practical. But to say that it claims the truth with no need of evidence to back up its claims is just fallacious. You are projecting something upon the theory which does not exist.
That lifeless material precedes living organisms is an observed and thoroughly evidenced fact (if for no other reason than that life is comprised of lifeless matter); a determination of how this came about would be a theory, but the a mere observation on the implications of this is not and is in no need of one.
The whole point of the theory is that it is a pardigm shift. That is made very clear early on in the article. It is a way of percieving existence in a way we are totally unfamiliar with. If this theory is true, then it would uproot all other theories using these principals.
Certainly it would be a paradigm shift if it were valid or somehow verifiable, but it's not.
As opposed to creating 95% of the universe out of nothing and claiming it as the truth? We keep adding nonsense forces and mysterious matter to fit a theory already entrenched. Instead of changing the theory based on evidence and observation, new invisible/mysterious things are added to validate the theory.
And where does this theory come from? I've never heard of it, so it can't be that entrenched. As far as I can tell, 100% of the universe came out of 100% of the universe; nothing more, nothing less. This is the law of conservation, no?
We need a paradigm shift because our current cosmology is certainly insufficient, and most likely wrong...
So we need a quick solution because arduous scientific method can't provide a service that isn't even in its scope of capability, i.e. "Truth"?
