I just wanted to add that, from their posts, I think what Jan and LG are saying is not very different from what I'm proposing. 
A God We Know Nothing About
- Thread starter PsychoticEpisode
- Start date
Meditation is a discipline, nothing more. I did it for a while back in my early twenty's. It was supposed to cleanse the inner me, put me on the road to enlightenment and a oneness with God etc. It's like I shouldn't be satisfied with what I truly am, a little animated part of the universe that can think. No true self analysis can come from meditation because you have to be free of influence. Impossible for anyone once subject to any form of indoctrination, as it was for me. Try and find an indoctrinator that says you have no faults.
Where is my mind? I think if I said it's a product of my brain I would be correct. I know it's not in my feet or ass and since my brain is in my head then that's where you'll find my mind.
I've never heard that metaphor, the 'mind' part that is.
I think it's about the mental clutter interfering with certain experiences.
I have found mind everywhere I have ever looked.
I find meditation useful, though it took me a while not to make it over-complicated, which just gave me a headache! For me it is a centering practice, to put me back in touch with myself. It's also the freedom from analysis I like - "get out of your head and come to your senses" sort of thing.
My aim is profound self acceptance. I agree about indoctrination. I had a bad time with organised religion.
So when you are dreaming... is the world recreated inside your head? Perhaps like Dr.Who's tardis, it's bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside!
I think it is, though.
I find meditation useful, though it took me a while not to make it over-complicated, which just gave me a headache! For me it is a centering practice, to put me back in touch with myself. It's also the freedom from analysis I like - "get out of your head and come to your senses" sort of thing.
My aim is profound self acceptance. I agree about indoctrination. I had a bad time with organised religion.
So when you are dreaming... is the world recreated inside your head? Perhaps like Dr.Who's tardis, it's bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside!
Today I do my best meditating just before nodding off.
My dreams are not part of another spatial dimension, realm, or alternate universe. Nor are they clairvoyant. I do think that once you get around all the symbolism attached to a dream that there is some problem solving or creativity involved at times. For the most part I think the brain is trying to sort out what it has experienced and comprehending same.
Would a God meditate or dream? Let's pretend a creator God existed prior to the universe.... there would have to be a moment when God actually thought about creating the universe and all that it entails (God's plan). Could you call it a dream? In Martin Luther King style(I had a dream) I suppose so. Then again if God knew all then He wouldn't have any reason to meditate or dream.
I propose that any person who says God is omniscient be automatically disqualified from the list of people who claim to know God. If God has a plan then He cannot have originally known about creating a universe. If you are wrong about one part of the God equation then you essentially know nothing about Him and it's back to the drawing board.
Why would the brain use symbolism? Why doesn't it work literally? What might your answers say about how we 'should' think (sometimes?!)?
LOL! OMMMmmmm ZZZZZzzzzzzzzToday I do my best meditating just before nodding off.
Yes that sounds a good theory... and the symbolism is an indication of the way those layers of our mind work (by association and metaphor), as new connections are forged or pruned.
The fact that we dream indicate to me the possibility that we might be capable of experiencing other realities - if they exist. There is the famous dream of the Taoist sage Chaung Tzu (or Zhungzi)
Are we a brain believing we are a mind or a mind believing we are a brain?
I like Plotinus's concept of the 'One' (God) which is beyond all dualities, so is not being or thought or matter or time, but from which naturally emanates time and being and thought and indeed the whole universe etc. a bit like physicists think the Universe erupted from a singularity.
So for Plotinus, we witness the drama of existence flowing out of this limitless singularity (God), but unlike in the Hebrew scriptures it's not like God is an agent, planning and executing a universe. That would already imply time. Instead "I am the alpha and the omega" - eternal, beyond the dimension of time. Does that mean it's all pre-destined? Maybe, but I don't think so - perhaps it's almost infinite possibility, from which we co-create the drama that unfolds. Perhaps it's all a shifting dream, from which we will wake to discover our eternal nature. :shrug:
Yes, a 'plan' and even 'omniscience' are very finite human concepts, from which we cannot easily escape. Some mystics (e.g. Dionysius or St Denys) followed the 'via negativa' which is to attempt to empty the minds of all concepts of God (and everything else). They believed that direct knowledge of 'God' was blocked by our limited pronouncements.
However, I think 'omniscient' is trying to express in words the all encompassing nature of the divine. We get a headache imagining what our existence looks like beyond familiar parameters of time and space. The book 'Flatland' is a fun attempt.
As I have stated many times prior, there can be no other reality except for the one your in. Whether you think or dream that you have encountered another reality is clearly a misunderstanding on your part. If you can access it, then that is your realty. Other realities would be totally inaccessible, not sensed or noticed. You would have absolutely no idea if another reality existed. We are back to speculation.
If God can visit us from some other reality then we can visit Him, the connection between the two making it all one reality.
The Chaung Tzu dream is like saying a god created God who created God ad infinitum. You could add a list of dreamers from here to eternity, each playing a part. T'is better to not get bogged down by the dream sequence then to think of it as part of something real & tangible..
On the contrary, one reality can be a subset of a greater one.
Compare getting punched in the face in a dream and getting punched in the face during a dream.
assuming we have the means to venture outside the subset that might be currently containing us.
As a side point, buddhist philosophy ( or at least a lot of it) is underpinned by the idea of infinite regression being the ultimate ontological platform of material reality. IOW there exists only two things
- a variety of combinations of tacit terms (kind of like no matter how much you analyze something that is small, it will always reveal a host of smaller constituents, just like no matter how much you take in the big picture, it will remain a metonymic slice of something bigger)
- and nirvana, or the state of no variety
Not that I agree with such an idea. Just pointing out that if you say "see! that idea suffers from infinite regression" to a buddhist, it doesn't mean anything to them.
My point was the connection, not whether we could transverse between God's realm and ours. Once connected, subset or not, the reality is all one. Like it or not God's reality and ours is one and the same.
I can't know this of course, in keeping with the thread title
On the contrary, a subset and full set are not one and the same.
As a simple example, there is a vast difference between a bag of groceries and the department store it came from.
I can't know this of course, in keeping with the thread title
If all you have is a bag of groceries, all you know is the bag of groceries
Not really. The groceries made it from the store into the bag. At some point they connected.
Yes, and...... Do I now invent an entity from another reality to explain how they came into my possession? Like if I had an Earth full of people?
sure
at some point a subset is connected to the set it derives from.
This connection doesn't make it "one and the same" with it.
If you don't believe me, just try and advertise a bag of groceries as a Department store
meh
all you can do is invent some explanation how they came into your possession.
Next time you're in a submarine open a hatch.
And eventually I will positively be able to eventually prove how. The answer will ultimately be of this one reality.
next time you have a hatch, try and utilize it in the same manner as a submarine
keep the faith brutha!
keep the faith brutha!
Nothing to do with faith. My reality doesn't change. I am always in my reality and even if I were to cross over to what you call a separate reality then it is still mine. I don't know how it can be anything different.:shrug:
thinking that your current subset is sufficient to cross the chasm to the greater set is certainly an issue of faith
The problem is that your "reality" doesn't accommodate a changeless sense of "I" so something will have to give .....
The chasm, when I get to it, is definitely part of my reality. If I make it across to experience the other side then it is also my reality. There are no subsets. None of us can ever experience another reality.
Is another reality critical for the theistic argument? If we can't get there then a secondary reality exists....is that what you're saying? Please explain if so.
The point is that in the process of crossing the chasm, you develop sufficient experience to recognize your previous "existence" as a subset.
For instance, at the moment you don't have a changeless sense of "I".
If you bridge the gap into an eternal existence, something has to give.
yes its something like that
Basically there is one existence that accommodates illusion (characterized by a sense of I that is temporary) and another existence that accommodates reality (characterized by a sense of I that is constant and eternal). Even though a person in each type of existence has the means to be confident that their "reality" is complete, sufficient, etc, the point is that one is operating in illusion and the other has the means to contextualize the other's experience as illusion.