I understand that we all smoke weed. i understand that we are interested in reality. however the purpose of this thread is to provide evidence to logical points, then have people argue about the points or evidence...LOGICALLY. I know it would be cool if everything were made of weed or food and we could just be stoneys the rest of our lives, but that's not reality. also, for those of you who are unaware, religion is philosophy so i encourage all to join peacefully and with the objective of obtaining knowledge and perspectives, not to convert other people. So... I'm taking a philosophy class and we were discussing the arguments for the existence of a cause for our physical universe. two premises were made 1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause (by begin to exist i mean was altered from a previous "thing" into a new thing that has new properties and characteristics, not "poof out of air") 2) The physical universe began to exist to support the valid and sound conclusion that: 3) The physical universe has a cause this part i have no problem with. however, teach started to say that there are two types of causes: personal and eventual causality. he went into a long in depth example about how the universe lacks evidence of an eventual causality so we must look towards a personal cause. i dont buy it. there are way too many patterns in the universe to look past, specifically order. everything goes from smal to big to small to big and so on with a general trend of big. let me explain with an example. atoms=small < molecules=big molecules = small < cells = big. the big becomes the small and so on. this applies to both the living and non living worlds. so we get to the edge of the universe, the farthest point that we cannot see. so instead of applying logic and saying that there exists other universes. however, this implies that there is an infinite series, an "impossibility." i'm not necessarily convinced that reality is finite, and actually accept the possibility of infinity. I have many other thoughts that go with these theories if anybody wants to ask questions pertaining to Truth, Knowledge, Good, etc i would like to know your thoughts.
Because "I AM" shatters any premise you can make rooted in logic. For instance... you're coming to the conclusion "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." But that is just an observation stemming from what you are - the world around you. But what about beyond that? You can't fathom anything beyond things being "altered from a previous "thing" into a new thing"... so you make your conclusion. But that isn't "logical"... just an assumption - that how you see things coming to be, is the only way things can come to be. What if whatever your experience came from... the opposite of your conclusion exists? That being.... just is. Take a second... What are you perceiving right now, after all? <--- for the record. edit: paging the doc
thats kinda what im getting at. we have no fucking clue what is beyond the membrane of our universe, leading to an infinite number of possibilities. its the validity and soundness of these possibilities that make them plausible. To hold on to one belief (ie christianity, buddhaism, the earth is the center of the universe, etc) as abolutely True is imo childish and immature. people are so easily swayed when it comes to poltics or any other topic for that matter, but when you talk to them about religion, they become angry, defensive, and hostile. The only Truth that we can find is in our physical universe. all the rest is speculation, and i dont know about you, but im not going to spend my life trying to get in touch with an adult version of santa claus. give me an example of how something came to be (in the physical universe) that was not caused. as for the "the being just is" part, i actually see that there is an omnipotent force, not being. that force being the electronegative attraction between all things with mass (aka electricity, gravity, etc all one in the same). And "I AM" a little bit of my parents along with my experience, because experience is all you really have.
Humans are not, cannot be purely logical. To be truly logical, one must be truly and authentically objective. To be truly objective, one must have no influences of relativity, subjectivity, or prior preconceptions and notions. No human exists in such a state. All humans are constantly in conditioning in reference to their personal consciousness in this life so far and their sum accumulations of emotional and experiential baggage. Even when they attempt to go into rational objectivity, they go into it for a subjective, emotional reason. Humans cannot be rational. Furthermore, the entity that is used in an attempt to be rational is the thinking mind. By nature, the mind is not rational. It functions by personal association. If you write down your thoughts indiscriminately for just 2 minutes, not verifying, not interrupting the flow, simply and honestly jotting down every thought that races through your head, you will realize thus: The thoughts have no logical order, they are random and chaotic, and the only fathomable connection between them is personal emotional association. Such an entity cannot, by nature, be rational. Humans are not, cannot be rational in the truest sense, and hence attempting to inquire into the nature of truth and reality through logic and rationality is beyond futile. This is in reference to the law of cause and effect. The law of cause and effect is limited to the dimension of time and space. Most humans are stuck in cause and effect and cannot fathom or imagine the possibility of something that is beyond cause and effect for this very reason - they are NOT beyond cause and effect themselves, they are trapped within the dimension of time-space in a very limited and personal manner, hence all they can see is impermanence and cause and effect around them. Divinity, the supernatural, with or without belief, indicates that which is beyond time-space, that which is eternal. It cannot be grasped by the thinking mind for the thinking mind is bound to time-space. Belief also cannot lead to revelation of truth. If one manages to experientially transcend the thinking mind, one transcends the limitations of cause-effect in experience, and experiences that which is unbound by cause and effect, that which is eternal. This is the basic flaw in scientific inquisition into attempting to prove "God", prove "Divinity", or gather evidence for the supernatural. That which is bound to time-space, bound to matter, can only perceive and experience and analyze time-space, can only use matter to analyze matter. Divinity, from the standpoint of the non-believer who is truly seeking to inquire into its possibility, cannot be fathomed by logic, by the thinking mind through philosophy, through scientific inquiry. It can be experienced by "throwing oneself" outside of logic, this is faith. However, even faith is not grounded and the flavor of doubt will always remain. To truly experience that which is Beyond, one must, in a grounded, methodical way, transcend one's objectivity and time-space boundaries within ones consciousness into the experience of pure subjectivity, pure eternal Isness. The fact that this experience can never be verified by a third party, can never be shared or revealed publicly, is moot to a true seeker of truth. A true seeker or truth looks for Truth in the highest respect - in realizing that he is an Individual, and all that matters is his Individual inner experience till the day he dies, for truly, that is all that is every experienced, all that is ever constant. He will be ready to experience and accept the Truth even if he cannot prove it to others. Those who try to find a Truth that is tangible and collectively provable, are not seeking the Truth, but seeking security in the discovery of a position that is defensible and collectively approveable, and hence will never find it, if it exists, for their very purpose of inquisition is not True, it has its own agenda. Furthermore, the general assumption that the Universe is limited to matter and the "Physical Universe" is in itself incomplete. What space is it within which matter is allowed to exist? Even if all matter was originally a pin-point, what space did this pin-point exist in, what was behind it? One can experience, by transcending time-space in the consciousness, the emptiness that is behind it and that always was, for this emptiness is not bound by the laws of matter for it is behind and before matter, and so is beyond cause and effect, beyond beginning and end. This is not philosophy, this is true experience, possible for all and any who are truly, not emotionally or inquisitively, but truly longing to seek that which is beyond themselves. The existence of phenomenal and mathematical paradox is nothing but a clear revelation that there exists something beyond mathematics, beyond matter, which fails to be fathomed by logical construct
your thinking is irrational, and lacks logic, because no argument or person can be rational or logical, so that lengthy explanation was to tell me that i cant trust your line of thinking. to be honest i actually agree with you on many points, but i think that people are capable of rational and logical thoughts, but insecurities with not "knowing" cause them to suppress these thoughts and lead to irrational and illogical actions. I kinda understand, but ur misinterpretining what i'm trying to say. I'm saying that time and space in its entire infinity (a paradox i'm aware, but only so because language is ineffective to say the least) never began to exist, that it always is. that trying to find the "answer" or "explanation" to reality is impossible because of the possibiity of an infinite series working towards a higher order. there are infinite atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms, communities, ecosystems, planets, solar systems, etc. then we get to the end of the universe and we cant see outside of it, so we assume that an all-powerful being created it. If there were a god, he would follow logic, and if he followed logic, so would the universe, leading to the logical conclusion that the universe was not created, rather divided from a pre-existing universe or any number of possibiites (the division from preexisting universes is the most plausible to me). a majority of humans think that the universe is in essence inorganic. i disagree. most people view time and space linearly, with a clear beginnning and end. however i view time and space cyclically and circularly, almost like a clock. the universe we exist in has certain conditions of nature, such as our perceptions of space and time. however these conditions might not apply to the realm outside this universe, or they might, i have no effing idea. what i do believe, however, is that it is Good to acquire knowledge about this universe. what use that knowledge has to the order higher than this universe is beyond any being living in this realm. If a dynein were aware of itself, which it could very well be, would it know its purpose of transporting proteins within a cell or just that it has to?
Andro... you just blew my mind. The whole thing about the seeker of truth, I mean, wow. +rep ps. ever read "Wizard's First Rule" by Terry Goodkind?
You know what's irrational? Believing people are rational. Now THAT is irrational. Good luck bringing your professor to that.