God and Absurdity

S

Satyr

Banned
Banned
A synoptic rough draft. {2nd draft}

-Time\Space:
The concept of change and potential.

The concept of an absolute presupposes a state of completeness, stability and perfection.

The perfect has no need and, therefore, no interest and no potential - it is timeless and therefore spaceless.

The number {1}, like the concept of {here} and {now}, is a non-specific generality of a theoretical singularity (absolute); it is like any other absolute, a reference to a theoretical concept of non-existence – inertia.
The mind conceptualizes in this way so as to become efficient and so as to make sense of what it can never completely fathom.
Reality is a hypothetical, general simplification. Its validity and success is determined by the particular mind’s ability to absorb and incorporate information into viable models.
This is why every mind has a different ability to conceptualize.

Existence supposes a lack - expressed as temporality/spatiality (potential).
This lack is interpreted, by the mind, as need. When made conscious it is interpreted as suffering.

A phenomenon never IS but is in the process of becoming a Being.
To 'Be' is another way of expressing the same absolute singularity, mentioned before, just like 'self' is.
A singularity (Be) - if it is possible - drops out of space/time because it has achieved completion (its infinite possibilities have been absorbed into oneness) – it ceases to possess dimensions, as its potential becoming.

To exist is to be in flux or projected within time/space.
To be unchanging it is to be non-existent.

Potential is a projection of possibility in Time/Space.
To be timeless/spaceless is to be without possibility – to be without possibility is to be 'impossible'.

-Consciousness is a tool dedicated to becoming. It is a mechanisms which streamlines a unity's efforts and energies towards its own perfection.

Thinking is always in reference to the past.
When you say ‘I’, ‘Here’, ‘Now’, ‘You’ or whatever, you are referring to a sensual abstraction or simplification of an event or a phenomenon that has already past, as possibility, and is now fact as already has-been.
The past speaks about what we are because it is a running documentation narration of everything that has affected us or of our every decision and choice.
Our free-will would be a will unconcerned and unaffected by its history (no shame, no duty, no interest, no hope, no fear).

We are always discovering the world, and our selves within it, in the past where it can no longer be changed.

We cannot change the past – it is unchanging in that it has ceased possessing potential.
This past affects our future and determines it.
The struggle for freedom – another absolute – is the struggle to disentangle ourselves from our past which determines and limits us.
It is a cutting-loose – an indifference to it.

-There is no ‘here’ or ‘now’ or ‘I’ because these are processes of coming-to-be (becoming) and not of absolute being.
(Everything is infinitely divisible because everything is in reference to a possibility which is unknown and therefore assumed to be infinite and boundless)

These concepts are really incomplete and therefore referring to a nothing trying to be something.

A conscious god, is therefore an absurdity.

Do you agree? :D
 
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-Time/Space: Here’, ‘Now’, ‘I’, ‘Self’ or any reference to a specificity is a simplification, and therefore a generalization, derived from a limited perspective.

When I say “Here” I am talking about a general point in space/time with no specific meaning and no absolute status; a point existing in the past and encompassed between the beginning and end of a thought.
Our awareness is determined by our speed of thought.
It is a potential point and not an actual one.

The fast thinker perceives and incorporates more detail in his abstraction of reality, in relation to the slow-thinker.
The fast-thinkers simple or specific is the slow-thinkers complicated or generalization.

The same can be said for the concepts of ‘Now’ or ‘Self’.

-There is no self.
Self is a process not an actuality.
If it were actual it would be an absolute and therefore it would cease being characterized by potential (space/time).
It would become timeless, spaceless, and therefore drop out of existence.

Existence is a human concept pointing to a potential unity’s possibilities.
Free-will is this possibility self-determined and manifest.
 
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Satyr:

"The perfect has no need and, therefore, no interest and no potential - it is timeless and therefore spaceless."

What then about the perfection of both space and time? Moreover, if an absolute does not exist, from whence comes the capacity to be potential? Or from whence derives potentiality's eternity.

"A singularity (to be) drops out of space/time because it has achieved completion – it ceases to possess dimensions, as its potential becoming.
To exist is to be within time/space. To be outside it is to be non-existent."

This proposes a paradox. The attainment of existence entails non-existence. Were this to be so, even potentiality would cease, as we'd have naught but non-existence. Moreover, what quality of attaining perfection of existence would demand that it become dimensionless? To become dimensionless is hardly a perfection, if that entails annihilation.

"Potential is a projection of possibility in Time/Space.
To be timeless/spaceless is to be without possibility – impossible. "

I would argue that there are three states: Necessity, potentiality, and impossibility. To not be potential is not to be automatically impossible - although it is indicative of impossibility to not be potential - but it could also mean one could be necessary. You also fail to consider that if potentiality is to exist within time/space, then time/space exist as absolutes within which potentiality manifests.

"There is no ‘here’ or ‘now’ or ‘I’ because these are processes of coming-to-be (becoming) and not of absolute being. "

So an "I" could only be an "I" if it were absolute?

"(Everything is infinitely divisible because everything is in reference to a possibility which is unknown and therefore assumed to be infinite and boundless)"

Would not it be more that everything is divisible because it can be cut in half an infinite amount of times over?

"The same can be said for the concepts of ‘Now’ or ‘Self’."

I would disagree. For self presupposes the "inner eye" which, though changing with the mind in the sense of being the mind, nonetheless is always present, even when one is making a declaration about a relative "now" or "here". That is to say, mind presupposes an "I" (thank you Descartes) and the "I" never ceases until mind ceases completely.
 
Prince_James said:
Satyr:

"The perfect has no need and, therefore, no interest and no potential - it is timeless and therefore spaceless."

What then about the perfection of both space and time?
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Space/Time are not perfect nor do they exist.
They are mental projections of possibility.

They are how the mind interprets its own, and another's, perceptible possibilities.

Furthermore time/space are manifestations of flux.
Flux is change and by definition lacking perfection.

Change, itself, is a product of multiple forces trying to find their own stability and non-existence.
Moreover, if an absolute does not exist, from whence comes the capacity to be potential? Or from whence derives potentiality's eternity.
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The universe is a manifestation of an absence.
It is a process of seeking its own fulfillment.

To ask “From whence” is to ask for an absolute answer to a question that can never posses it.
If it could it would have ceased becoming and would simply be – inert.

It is because the universe lacks meaning and purpose that I have free-will (infinite possibilities).
If the universe had meaning or purpose I would be contained and limited by it.
My existence would be pre-determined and I would have no responsibility.
"A singularity (to be) drops out of space/time because it has achieved completion – it ceases to possess dimensions, as its potential becoming.
To exist is to be within time/space. To be outside it is to be non-existent."

This proposes a paradox. The attainment of existence entails non-existence. Were this to be so, even potentiality would cease, as we'd have naught but non-existence. Moreover, what quality of attaining perfection of existence would demand that it become dimensionless? To become dimensionless is hardly a perfection, if that entails annihilation.
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The paradox lies in that life is a manifestation of a universal process for self-annihilation.
It is the ultimate denial of life.

The cessation of suffering, entails the cessation of life.
Life and suffering/need are tautologies.

To embrace life, in essence, is to embrace suffering - and the exaltation that is derived by the momentary abatement of this suffering; felt as pleasure or ecstasy.

Suffering is what drives progress and knowledge and overcoming. Without it no evolution and no existence is possible, since life is the eternal search for self.
"Potential is a projection of possibility in Time/Space.
To be timeless/spaceless is to be without possibility – impossible. "

I would argue that there are three states: Necessity, potentiality, and impossibility. To not be potential is not to be automatically impossible - although it is indicative of impossibility to not be potential - but it could also mean one could be necessary. You also fail to consider that if potentiality is to exist within time/space, then time/space exist as absolutes within which potentiality manifests.
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To have no potential is to have no possibility.
Necessary is possibility contained and determined by another’s or others possibility or possibilities.
I am not free because I am a unified amalgamation of incomplete, forces limited within a universe of multiple incomplete unities of incompleteness.

My possibilities are restricted by another’s and so competition is what produces necessity.
"There is no ‘here’ or ‘now’ or ‘I’ because these are processes of coming-to-be (becoming) and not of absolute being. "

So an "I" could only be an "I" if it were absolute?
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Yes.
What I refer to as Self is a unity of multiple entities and multiple forces all being arbitrated over by a mind seeking to control and direct them.

My identity is a derivative of what Sartre called consciousness’s negating.
“I am not this” determines what I am.
I find identity through what I am not or through what I am in relation to the other.
The other becomes the mirror within which I find my Self, since there is no Self there to begin with.
This Self is another way of saying God.
I think of myself in relation to the other so as to find a self which I lack.
The other does the same creating a process of mutual dependence.
"(Everything is infinitely divisible because everything is in reference to a possibility which is unknown and therefore assumed to be infinite and boundless)"

Would not it be more that everything is divisible because it can be cut in half an infinite amount of times over?
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It is infinitely divisible because there is nothing there to divide but a human concept with imprecise, general parameters and meanings.

What I divide is my imprecise, general, simplified conception of what I can never know but only hypothesize and generalize about by analyzing it in the past or by looking backwards.

There is no ‘Here’ or ‘Now’ because if there were I would have dropped out of space/time before I even perceived them.

The brain is a tool of generalization. It creates abstract, simple models of phenomena that have already occurred and that have stimulated the senses into action.

When I see a friend, it is a friend that no longer exists and it is a friend that is a general interpretation of a non-specific, incomplete (spatial/temporal) unity, self-contained and self identifying itself as my friend.

Life is a process of Autopoesis, as it creates a boundary, self-limiting itself against the outer flux so as to try to achieve order within itself.

The “I” is a piece of the whole cutting itself off from the chaos so as to find order or self or perfection or eternity or stability or freedom or…..

We are the universe manifesting itself towards self-negation …..perfection.

The perfect needs nothing, wants nothing, lacks nothing - why then would it act or create or think?
"The same can be said for the concepts of ‘Now’ or ‘Self’."

I would disagree. For self presupposes the "inner eye" which, though changing with the mind in the sense of being the mind, nonetheless is always present, even when one is making a declaration about a relative "now" or "here". That is to say, mind presupposes an "I" (thank you Descartes) and the "I" never ceases until mind ceases completely.
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Self-consciousness is a mental trick.

Consciousness, being a process of negation, achieves self-consciousness when it cuts off a piece of awareness - of itself - and looks upon itself; back upon itself in the past.

This creates the illusion of duality and of mind/body or physical/spiritual.

The eye cannot look back upon itself but it can see the other parts of itself.
It then assumes that the part that looks is different from the other parts, or that it is the pure and original part.
This is why we often assume that our body is not us or why most like to distance themselves from their own physical appearance.
Racial issues are related to this denial.

For me, the physical is another way the unity which seeks Self manifests itself within a different context.
Just like space is Time in another context so is body mind in another context.

The appearance is the projection of the unity in space/time over which the mind seeks domination by separating itself from it.

This mythology of Mind/Body has created the concept of ‘Soul’.

God and religion always depend on the unknown to take root.
Where there is darkness and ignorance and misery and need, there religion finds fertile ground to exploit and to infect consciousnes with its saving-grace and positive, effortless messages.

Since self-consciousness, like the eye, can never look upon itself, but only at its own reflection, it places there spirit or God or whatever sooths its uncertainty and anxiety.

Descartes’ ‘I’ is a presupposition with no supportive evidence.

It supposes an ‘I’ so as to follow it up with the “Think” and the desired “Am”.

The “I” that thinks is the thinking.

Thinking is a process of awareness where one thought is followed by another in a stream of consciousness.
Beneath it there is nothing, since there is no ‘I’ to begin with but a becoming seeking an ‘I’.

Nietzsche’s “void” that looks back at you. :D
 
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-Truth

Truth is inaccessible to man, not because it is non-existent but because it is too fleeting to be fully perceived by man.
Therefore man is forced to exist within his own interpretations of reality/truth and face the consequences of his accuracy or error in interpreting.
This is called Perspectivism and is often used to equate all opinions as being similarly valuable and accurate.

One cannot perceive the totality of the Earth unless one escapes its gravity and looks back on it.
Even then one loses detail by trying to encompass the entirety and is forces to generalize.

This does not mean ‘reality’ is fake but that man is capable of perceiving a small, simplistic, piece of it.
There is no hidden thing-in-itself. The world displays itself fully and openly and it is only consciousness that can divert and hide and pretend.
Form, color, texture or any sensual information says something about the phenomenon. It might not be complete or it might be wrongly translated but the information itself is the phenomenon.

What there is are superior and inferior perceptions of the world.
If man’s sensual awareness was totally ineffective we wouldn’t even be able to walk across a room without falling into an error.
Our success is a result of our ability to successfully generalize and hypothesize the entirety from a few details. This is done using patterns.
Pattern recognition creates categories which make thinking more efficient.

We need no longer deal with particular beings but extrapolate general rules using the study of particulars.

The incomplete, simple abstractions we construct using sensual stimulations are precise enough to make us successful within the world.
Intelligence is a measure of perceiving, gathering, abstracting and interpreting sensual information as precisely as possible.

Reality is a relationship, forever in construction, as the universe is always in flux
How the different forces inter-relate, and mingle, and combine and separate creates reality.
This inter-relating we call ‘matter’.

Entropy is a measure of this inter-relating, Temporal/Spatial flux.

-The Will is simply the focus of a small portion of temporality/spatiality, projected from a self-contained, self-limiting unity.
Just like the temporal/spatial separates itself from the whole so as to look upon it’s self so does the mind separate a piece of it’s self to look at it’s self.
The Mind and the Body are not two different phenomena, no more than Time and Space is two different phenomena. They are the same thing within different contexts

This ‘separating’ creates the concepts of ‘in’ and ‘out’ and eventually results in the concept of ‘soul’ and ‘God’ and the mysterious.

I call IN what is within my purview and power and knowledge and awareness.
All else I call OUT.
 
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Satyr:

"Space/Time are not perfect nor do they exist.
They are mental projections of possibility. "

I would disagree. For in order for something to be possible, it must have space to be in, time to be in, and relation to engage in. Moreover, from whence came the beginning of potentiality? For clearly we must speak of an eternal process if we are to get at the root of things, must we not?

"Furthermore time/space are manifestations of flux.
Flux is change and by definition lacking perfection."

Zeno's paradox of the arrow shows quite clearly that in order for motion to exist, each point of movement must exist as if essentially motionless. That is, to move, one must move betwixt an infinite series of miniscule points, all which are non-moving, and indeed, were it not for time and relation, no motion would be at all, for one would simply be stuck in these point-moments. I therefore put forth that flux cannot be the foundation of all things, because it depends on the non-fluxing.

"Change, itself, is a product of multiple forces trying to find their own stability and non-existence. "

How would stability beget non-existence?

"The universe is a manifestation of an absence.
It is a process of seeking its own fulfillment."

How can an absence manifest?

"To ask “From whence” is to ask for an absolute answer to a question that can never posses it.
If it could it would have ceased becoming and would simply be – inert. "

I would agree that perfection is inert. That is, one cannot grow, move, nor anything else once one is perfect.

"It is because the universe lacks meaning and purpose that I have free-will (infinite possibilities)."

What about causality? Causality demands that you have, in fact, but one possibility. Let us say that God does not play dice, as it were, and this includes yourself.

"The paradox lies in that life is a manifestation of a universal process for self-annihilation.
It is the ultimate denial of life."

How could this be a goal?

"The cessation of suffering, entails the cessation of life.
Life and suffering/need are tautologies."

This I agree with.

"To embrace life, in essence, is to embrace suffering - and the exaltation that is derived by the momentary abatement of this suffering; felt as pleasure or ecstasy."

I agree.

"Suffering is what drives progress and knowledge and overcoming. Without it no evolution and no existence is possible, since life is the eternal search for self. "

Define "search for self"?

"To have no potential is to have no possibility.
Necessary is possibility contained and determined by another’s or others possibility or possibilities."

Another's, or itself? For a true necessity seems to validate itself in two ways: By its opposite being absurd and proving the necessary thing, and the necessary thing proving itself. Consider, for instance, that "there are no absolutes" itself would be an example of an absolute, and if true, would actually be wrong, whereas "there are absolutes" would be coherent and indeed, as shown by its opposite, correct undoubtably.

"Yes.
What I refer to as Self is a unity of multiple entities and multiple forces all being arbitrated over by a mind seeking to control and direct them."

So is the mind singular or also multiple?

"My identity is a derivative of what Sartre called consciousness’s negating.
“I am not this” determines what I am.
I find identity through what I am not or through what I am in relation to the other.
The other becomes the mirror within which I find my Self, since there is no Self there to begin with.
This Self is another way of saying God.
I think of myself in relation to the other so as to find a self which I lack.
The other does the same creating a process of mutual dependence. "

It would rather seem that Descartes is closer to the mark than Satre, for would you not agree that all thoughts require a thinker to think and to perceive said thoughts? And therefore there is a necessity of a self if perception and thought are taking place? If such is the case, then one can indeed find a positive,and not merely negative, affirmation of self.

"It is infinitely divisible because there is nothing there to divide but a human concept with imprecise, general parameters and meanings. "

Even if we consider it a "crude concept", as it were, it seems to have truth. For what is a point of space cut infinitely into pieces, but the process which all things must have, if nothing can truly be composed entirely of itself?

"The perfect needs nothing, wants nothing, lacks nothing - why then would it act or create or think?"

I find this the strongest reason to suggest that the concept of God as found in the West is erroneously held.

"Consciousness, being a process of negation, achieves self-consciousness when it cuts off a piece of awareness - of itself - and looks upon itself; back upon itself in the past."

Yet even if not evaluated, does not the "self" demand to be there, even in the present? For what is mind without a thinker? What is perception without a perceiver? All these things necessitate a sovereign self.

"Thinking is a process of awareness where one thought is followed by another in a stream of consciousness.
Beneath it there is nothing, since there is no ‘I’ to begin with but a becoming seeking an ‘I’. "

What then is doing the perception of thought? For it is not thought on its own, like a fly in the wind, but a thought being created and understood by a thinker.

"The Mind and the Body are not two different phenomena, no more than Time and Space is two different phenomena. They are the same thing within different contexts"

I would disagree with you here in space and time. For it would seem that time and space are -radically- different phenomena. For consider space. What is it? Well, it is position, is it not? And the "grid" that allows for position? And the substance (matter/energy) of said grid, yes? But where is motion in this? Nowhere to be found. Indeed, motion can only manifest when another dimension to this grid is added, namely, of time, which though manifesting solely in the things which display time, is itself divorced from those things in the sense that they depend on it, not it on them, only needing them to manifest.

Indeed, whereas I shall agree that there is no such divide ontologically speaking betwixt the body and mind, I will disagree that there is not a meaningful difference. For whereas the body is the body, the mind is a relational identity created from a brain which cannot be reduced to anyone part of the brain, just as the concept of "bridge" or "house" cannot be taken from a plank of wood.
 
Prince_James
I would disagree. For in order for something to be possible, it must have space to be in, time to be in, and relation to engage in. Moreover, from whence came the beginning of potentiality? For clearly we must speak of an eternal process if we are to get at the root of things, must we not?
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Time/Space are not objects and they cannot be said to “exist”, because then we would have to establish a hypothetical for them to exist within.

They are the fabric of potential within which phenomena manifest as inter-relating – phenomena are said to exist when they have temporal/spatial dimensions.

Temporal/Spatial dimensions are how phenomena interact and establish boundaries and limits and potentials.
Zeno's paradox of the arrow shows quite clearly that in order for motion to exist, each point of movement must exist as if essentially motionless. That is, to move, one must move betwixt an infinite series of miniscule points, all which are non-moving, and indeed, were it not for time and relation, no motion would be at all, for one would simply be stuck in these point-moments. I therefore put forth that flux cannot be the foundation of all things, because it depends on the non-fluxing.
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The arrow never occupies a point. It is forever in the process of reaching a point, even when it is perceived to be still.
This is why its distance from the target is infinitely divisible.

I don’t follow your reasoning.
You are supposing an absolute fixed fabric upon which reality manifests itself?

Motionless is a human prejudice determined by our speed of thought.
Our consciousness – the succession of thoughts – has a particular speed, it being also a part of universal flux trying to find the unmovable, the absolute the fixed, the inert.
As such it perceives hardness/softness or fixed/moving in relation to it.

All value judgments are a comparison of self with the other.

I feel still in relation to something else, even if we may both be constantly in flux.
Time and Space are the Flux interpreted by consciousness.
The Flux is the inter-relation of possibilities forever rearranging itself and affecting itself and causing itself.
How would stability beget non-existence?
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I’ve gone through this already.

To be stable is to achieve harmony or balance or perfection or completion.

No more change is necessary; otherwise the phenomenon would change into something unstable.
Stability becomes inert and is labeled perfect.

Time/Space being interpretations of this flux, this constant change offering potential stability but never reaching it, would cease when change ceased.

The phenomenon would drop out of the temporal/spatial continuum and would simply BE.
It would have attained absoluteness or singularity or inertia or perfection or fulfillment.
There would be nothing to change into since it would have reached its full potential.

This is hypothetical since if absolutes were possible they would have already occurred and the universe would have ceased.

In essence we seek the unattainable and we acquire identity and meaning and purpose in the pursuit.
The pursuit is endless, producing matter, and animated matter (life) and self-conscious animated matter all in the process of pursuing.

Furthermore when we describe Paradise or Nirvana or any imagined and hoped for state of non-suffering and completeness we describe it as being devoid of need and suffering.
In other words we are describing death.

Consciousness is a product of Need and it therefore is determined by need/suffering.
Consciousness is a tool of fulfilling need and alleviating suffering.
Completeness would make consciousness obsolete and unnecessary.
How can an absence manifest?
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I don’t know.
Absence IS.
All human negative concepts like: Death, Dark, Cold do not require effort. They simply are.
The universe is dark and cold and dead.

Life, Light and Heat require effort or something being consumed and rearranged.
Are you looking for a prime mover and certainty and final answers?
Talk to the imbecile lightgigantic.
I've only got hypothesis and skepticism and honesty.

All I know is that we exist and this existence is owed to a lack.

Maybe lack is all the universe ever is or could be.
Absolutes or fulfillment are human imaginative ways of projecting a desired cessation.

Religion often offers a further comforting notion where suffering and life end but consciousness continues or is passed on.
This is why the weak and the weak-minded are attracted to them.
I would agree that perfection is inert. That is, one cannot grow, move, nor anything else once one is perfect.
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Therefore it would cease being temporal and spatial.
It would be timeless and spaceless.

Non-existent, in accordance to our human understanding of existence.
What about causality? Causality demands that you have, in fact, but one possibility. Let us say that God does not play dice, as it were, and this includes yourself.
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Causality is the interplay of multiple manifestations inter-relating by each following its own need for completion.

Matter is a temporal spatial manifestation of intermingling forces trying to achieve inertia.
Living matter is the same thing but now directed with a will.

What are these forces?
Who knows?

All we can say is that they are expressing a lack by manifesting at all and that they are breaking apart and deteriorating in the attrition of the flux, tumbling the universe into entropy.

This is why we can only remember the past and we are unidirectional as corporeal beings.
We live forwards (forward being the direction of growing entropy), and we think by looking back, as Heidegger correctly surmised.

We cannot look into or beyond the chaos because it is the process of inter-mingling and not yet established reality.
We can only create models which predict the future from the past.

How precise and accurate we’ve perceived and generalized determines how accurate our projections will be.

How could this be a goal?
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How could it not?

Define "search for self"?
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The search for absolute identity.
A paradox.

You can never find self because as soon as you do you cease becoming and having a Temporal/Spatial presence and the consciousness which it entails.

Man is forever running after his own obsolescence, using religion and politics and ideals because life and the responsibility of living and being free terrify him.
This from Sartre.

To be absolutely free, and this is the irony, is to be completely devoid of interest in living.

Existence, as we know it, is the absence of self.
We exist in this absence and we are a product of it.

Another's, or itself? For a true necessity seems to validate itself in two ways: By its opposite being absurd and proving the necessary thing, and the necessary thing proving itself. Consider, for instance, that "there are no absolutes" itself would be an example of an absolute, and if true, would actually be wrong, whereas "there are absolutes" would be coherent and indeed, as shown by its opposite, correct undoubtably.
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This is why reality can only be an approximation – a shadow on a cave wall.

If absolutes are then the only thing that can be said about them is that they are not conducive to life or consciousness.

So is the mind singular or also multiple?
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Singular is another way of saying absolute.
It would rather seem that Descartes is closer to the mark than Satre, for would you not agree that all thoughts require a thinker to think and to perceive said thoughts? And therefore there is a necessity of a self if perception and thought are taking place? If such is the case, then one can indeed find a positive,and not merely negative, affirmation of self.
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No, a thought does not presuppose a thinker.

Thinking is simply thinking. To presuppose an unmoving, behind the scenes entity is to project hopes and desires for an absolute where ignorance lies.

The thinking is all there is as one neuron sparks another and causes a cascade of flashes in a continuous process we call consciousness.

Self-consciousness is a loop.
I’ve explained this in my original posts.

Consciousness separates a piece of it self and looks upon itself.
So a piece of thinking looks at the rest and this creates the dichotomy between Thinker/Thinking ort Body/Soul.
This piece can never look upon itself and so it calls itself by the mysterious Soul and projects there all its insecurities and ignorance and fears.
There is where God lies and where religion gathers its self-validation.

Where there is an unknown, man builds temples.

Even if we consider it a "crude concept", as it were, it seems to have truth. For what is a point of space cut infinitely into pieces, but the process which all things must have, if nothing can truly be composed entirely of itself?
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Nothing in the process of becoming Something.
This is why everything is ephemeral.

I find this the strongest reason to suggest that the concept of God as found in the West is erroneously held.
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Yes.
But in the east, as well, they’ve done away with the more childish conceptions of an anthropomorphic God – God as parent and emotion and authority – and have used the possibility of eternal recurrence to construct the possibility for eternal life by supposing a soul where the eye-that-cannot turn-on-itself is.

Yet even if not evaluated, does not the "self" demand to be there, even in the present? For what is mind without a thinker? What is perception without a perceiver? All these things necessitate a sovereign self.
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There is no behind-the-scenes absolute.

Thinking and perceiving is all there is.
Descartes supposed a thinker where there was none.

All you can say is “I think”.
To think is the universal flux in progress.
Thinking is temporal as one thought replaces another.
A piece of this river cuts away into a stream and looks upon the river flowing.

It becomes self-conscious and sees itself thinking. But the stream cannot infinitely cut away and look at the remainder because the process would be infinite and its resources finite. So it stops and calls the part that cut away its soul or spirit or the thinker when it is nothing more than the flow cutting a piece of its self away.

Mutarana and Varela offer a nice description of life in their “Autopoiesis and Cognition”

In it they describe how life is a process of self-containment.
The cell divides by constructing its own limitation – a membrane.

This membrane creates a barrier within which self pursuits its own order.
A piece of chaos cuts away from the flux and attempts to construct order within its sanctuary.

What then is doing the perception of thought? For it is not thought on its own, like a fly in the wind, but a thought being created and understood by a thinker.
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Thought is a spark of energy produced from a specific brain area which has stored information.
Information is the ordering of reality – the freezing of time/space in memory where it can be abstracted and used to construct models and patterns.

The succession of sparks creates thinking/consciousness.

This energy is the flux manifesting itself.
“Everything flows” as Thales said.

I would disagree with you here in space and time. For it would seem that time and space are -radically- different phenomena. For consider space. What is it? Well, it is position, is it not? And the "grid" that allows for position? And the substance (matter/energy) of said grid, yes? But where is motion in this? Nowhere to be found. Indeed, motion can only manifest when another dimension to this grid is added, namely, of time, which though manifesting solely in the things which display time, is itself divorced from those things in the sense that they depend on it, not it on them, only needing them to manifest.
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Time is also a position.
Time is also arranged, by men, on a mental or technological grid.

Time and Space are both part of a mental grid displaying possibility.
Not only your possibility but the possibility of every force and every manifestation and every unity that is in the process of becoming.

Matter is this possibility manifest.
 
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Ophiolite said:
Excellent work Satyr. Got me off to sleep in no time at all.
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Don’t fool yourself, you’ve been sleeping all along…you are merely waking up to the fact.
 
Dear little Q, are you trying to make me pay attention to you again?

I still remember your hatred of exploitation and your selfless defense of the “innocent victims” of this world.
So pure and innocent you are. So clean in a dirty world.

Capitalism sucks when you are an idealizing socialist with no ability to discern your own human weaknesses in your own ideals.

How did you put it:
“Innocent victim is the one you does not willingly enter into competition?”

Life is competition.
We do not choose life but are thrust into it.
Are we not, by your definition, all innocent?

What about a lamb?
A baby rabbit?
A tree?

Is not ignorance your shield against the brutality of life?
Ignorant is another way of saying innocent.

What did you say?:
“Your pleasures are based on the profit of another” or something like that.
Poor thing.
And his profit is based on what, or don’t you want to delve deeper and see your own culpability in the cycle of life?
Who creates a market? The profiteer simply takes advantage of a need. He doesn’t, necessarily create it, although even this is possible.

It’s all about exploitation and appropriation and manipulation, little one.
Hiding behind “innocence” is trying to avoid your own responsibilities.
At least have the balls to see that your pleasures create another’s displeasures and be willing to pay the cost for them.


That’s life. I didn’t invent it and I rarely like it.
I describe it as honestly and as clearly and as objectively as I can.
You want feel-good fairy-tales?
There are plenty of retards, like you, here.
Ignore me, please.
 
I don't hate anyone.

I merely made an observation, then you went off on a rant.

It appeared you took a bunch of words, tossed them into a bucket, shook it around then emptied onto a post.
 
:m:
What is an innocent, pure soul, like you, doing talking with someone who has never considered himself innocent?
Move on!!!!
 
God as psychological necessity.

From the beginning of human history man found reasons to worship the unknown as a way of placating his own anxieties concerning it.

When fire was not understood it was worshiped.
When the sun wasn’t comprehended it was worshiped.
And these days what baffles us about the universe and existence and death we worship and try to win over by making it human like and benevolent and caring towards us.

The antagonism between science and religion is the product of this battle between the hypothetical unknown and the hypothetical known.
As human knowledge progresses it pushes superstition to the edges and forces it to adapt and to reinterpret itself by placing itself further and further into the darkness.

Man’s success has freed much of his intellectual capacity from the burdens of survival.
This now man uses to explore and to ask and to create.

This freeing of the mind has created discomfort as it now seeks a new purpose to replace the all-consuming old one.

Man needs meaning and purpose and hope and diversion.
Without them existence becomes intolerable.

This is where religion takes root and feeds off human frailty.
The weaker the mind the more vulnerable it feels the more it will grasp upon anything to comfort itself and make itself feel special and protected.
 
Satyr:

"Time/Space are not objects and they cannot be said to “exist”, because then we would have to establish a hypothetical for them to exist within."

If existence is infinite in scope and the quality which facillitates lesser, temporal existences, would we indeed have to speak of something for them to exist within? This is rather like saying that the bowl must have a bowl to be within, as the water needs the bowl.

"They are the fabric of potential within which phenomena manifest as inter-relating – phenomena are said to exist when they have temporal/spatial dimensions. "

In so much as these two (or three things if you are wont to add "relation" like I am) things facillitate potentiality's expression as temporal/transient phenomena, I agree. However, by allowing such, you allow an absolute from whence these potentials arise, for in the absence of such "soil of potentiality", potentiality could not exist.

"Temporal/Spatial dimensions are how phenomena interact and establish boundaries and limits and potentials. "

Agreed.

"The arrow never occupies a point. It is forever in the process of reaching a point, even when it is perceived to be still.
This is why its distance from the target is infinitely divisible."

If it is reaching a point and not on a point every step of the way, where is it? And moreover, suppose we took time and relation out of the equation, and took a "snap shot" of the arrow in flight. Would not it be occuping a distinct point in space?

"I don’t follow your reasoning.
You are supposing an absolute fixed fabric upon which reality manifests itself?"

Yes. Existence in the absolute, perfect sense. The somethingness which is the diametric (and dialectic to make the transient in part) absolute opposite of nothingness, which itself is an absolute. This seems to me the only way which we can consider potentiality, for if potentiality is to exist, it stands to reason it must come from something, and this something must either itself be reducible to something else, or it must be eternal. If eternal, it must vindicate itself as so, and by that, it must be impossible for it not to be so. I postulate that existence must be this for many reasons I have given elsewhere. If you wish for me to elaborate on that line, do tell me and I'd gladly tell you.

"Motionless is a human prejudice determined by our speed of thought.
Our consciousness – the succession of thoughts – has a particular speed, it being also a part of universal flux trying to find the unmovable, the absolute the fixed, the inert.
As such it perceives hardness/softness or fixed/moving in relation to it."

I would agree that motionlessness amongst phenomena is hardly to be considered as real in an absolute sense. But if something is infinite - which I would claim existence is - then it stands to reason that that, surely, is indeed immobile, for mobility entails finitehood.

"All value judgments are a comparison of self with the other. "

Or of the value to other, at least.

"I feel still in relation to something else, even if we may both be constantly in flux.
Time and Space are the Flux interpreted by consciousness.
The Flux is the inter-relation of possibilities forever rearranging itself and affecting itself and causing itself. "

In so much as potentiality is a constant state of affairs, I agree.

"Time/Space being interpretations of this flux, this constant change offering potential stability but never reaching it, would cease when change ceased."

Yet would not a perfectly stable thing epitomize space? For space itself would be idealized by something that would never move position, no? Which would have perfect "spaceness"? And though time could not manifest directly on such an object, it stands to reason that it would not cease, either.

"The phenomenon would drop out of the temporal/spatial continuum and would simply BE.
It would have attained absoluteness or singularity or inertia or perfection or fulfillment.
There would be nothing to change into since it would have reached its full potential."

To simply be is not to simply not-be.

"Consciousness is a product of Need and it therefore is determined by need/suffering.
Consciousness is a tool of fulfilling need and alleviating suffering.
Completeness would make consciousness obsolete and unnecessary. "

I agree.

"I don’t know.
Absence IS.
All human negative concepts like: Death, Dark, Cold do not require effort. They simply are.
The universe is dark and cold and dead."

Would not absence ISN'T, as it were? An absence implies also the incapacity to manifest, because were it manifest, it would cease to be an absence, and therefore, the absence itself would not manifest.

"Life, Light and Heat require effort or something being consumed and rearranged.
Are you looking for a prime mover and certainty and final answers?
Talk to the imbecile lightgigantic.
I've only got hypothesis and skepticism and honesty. "

No prime mover, but yes, certainty and final answers, in so much as these are related to concepts which are necessary. However, on the temporal/transience of everything we will encounter directly - as oppose to exist within generally - I agree.

"Religion often offers a further comforting notion where suffering and life end but consciousness continues or is passed on.
This is why the weak and the weak-minded are attracted to them. "

I think I shall make a thread on this.

"Therefore it would cease being temporal and spatial.
It would be timeless and spaceless."

In so much as it would be eternal, it woul dnot be impacted by time, no. But it would also be perfectly spatial, as it would never cease to be.

"Non-existent, in accordance to our human understanding of existence. "

That's better. According to human standards, which define existence in terms of the temporal and transient for almost all things.

"Causality is the interplay of multiple manifestations inter-relating by each following its own need for completion."

Yet it is also deterministic, in that each relation produces but one end, in correspondence with the relational properties that arise.

"All we can say is that they are expressing a lack by manifesting at all and that they are breaking apart and deteriorating in the attrition of the flux, tumbling the universe into entropy. "

Only if this universe is all there is this necessitated. It stands to reason that exterior to the universe - if it is expanding, which implies something beyond - that entropy might not be increasing.

"How could it not?"

A goal to annihilation could not arise from a goal for permenance if permenance would be attained. That is to say, permenance would be the direct opposite of annihilation.

"The search for absolute identity.
A paradox."

It does not seem that we so much want an absolute identity, as simply enjoying the identity we have at present, and growing larger and larger, without cessation, in our identity.

"If absolutes are then the only thing that can be said about them is that they are not conducive to life or consciousness. "

Actually, I would argue that it is only in light of these absolutes that the temporal and transient have being. For how else could we explain the idea of something which has beginning and end without ascribing them as part of an infinite whole which does not ultimately? Indeed, the only reason I have ever found for such things, is that infinity demands such finitehood in order to be infinity and finitehood could not exist apart from infinity.

"Singular is another way of saying absolute. "

So then the mind is not a single guiding executive of multiple functions/entities?

"No, a thought does not presuppose a thinker."

Then who, pray tell, is thinking the thought and perceiving the thought?

"Thinking is simply thinking. To presuppose an unmoving, behind the scenes entity is to project hopes and desires for an absolute where ignorance lies. "

Where ignorance lies? If the self is self, this would be the prime certainty, as one would -be- it.

"The thinking is all there is as one neuron sparks another and causes a cascade of flashes in a continuous process we call consciousness. "

A consciousness which primarily manifests to an internal eye, as it were.

"Consciousness separates a piece of it self and looks upon itself.
So a piece of thinking looks at the rest and this creates the dichotomy between Thinker/Thinking ort Body/Soul.
This piece can never look upon itself and so it calls itself by the mysterious Soul and projects there all its insecurities and ignorance and fears. "

Or does it not look on itself as a whole? Seeing that in all instances, there is a self behind it, in order for such things to be?

When we daydream, we do not perceive. Why? Because the self is absence from the perceptions.

"Nothing in the process of becoming Something.
This is why everything is ephemeral. "

What aspect could nothing have which would allow it to become something? If it is truly nothing, it could never seek something, as even seeking would need something and not nothing.

"Yes.
But in the east, as well, they’ve done away with the more childish conceptions of an anthropomorphic God – God as parent and emotion and authority – and have used the possibility of eternal recurrence to construct the possibility for eternal life by supposing a soul where the eye-that-cannot turn-on-itself is. "

The East has its fallacies, too, yes.

"Thinking and perceiving is all there is.
Descartes supposed a thinker where there was none."

Then what, pray tell, is a thought without a thinker? Without something to witness and understand said thought?

"Thinking is temporal as one thought replaces another. "

Thinking may indeed be temporal, but a thinker needn't see only something which is not temporal in order to know itself as the perceiver and thinker of the thoughts.

"Thought is a spark of energy produced from a specific brain area which has stored information."

This only explains the physical processes, but does not explain the processes meaningfulness. That is to say, ther is nothing in a neuronal discharge that implies "thought".

"Information is the ordering of reality – the freezing of time/space in memory where it can be abstracted and used to construct models and patterns. "

yet what is doing the abstraction and construction of models and patterns?

"Time is also a position.
Time is also arranged, by men, on a mental or technological grid."

Time is a position, but not one that can be found in space. Where is 10:30's address?
 
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