Insight into to very nature of human consciousness is irrelevent? Funny I figured exploring out universe and exploring our minds kind of went togeather.
I'm very very liberal but you lost be at the polling thing. Do you really think the polls are THAT biased? I guess you will see how wrong you are in a little over a week.
I think this is actually a serious point. If we are sending these people all the way to space I think humanity could learn alot from what these people learn from mushrooms on mars. Could definatly spiral into a bad trip pretty easily though.
A clock is something that just goes around in circles (or changes the numbers it displays) but its still making those changes now. This allows for there to be timestamps. As for physics, like cause and effect, time is used as a model to explain certain things. However, all events still happen now. As for spacial dementions im not entirly sure. I could make an arguement that its always here, just like its always now, but i'm not really sure about that. The 10 dementions of string theory are also just a model to explain the things, not necessarily real. There was some physist who said that they didn't care if their theories were true just that they explained things. I forget who it was though. I don't know enough about thermodynamics to understand how that applies...
Events exist in that they are happening now, or that we are remembering them now. Motion exists the same way. Changes also exist through remembering now. Also one can think about the future now. But its still all now. You cant escape it. No matter what you do you are doing it now, no matter what you think about you are thinking about it now. If you think about how memory works, reall a memory is just the activation of the same neuropathways as when the original experience happened. So its still now.
So, in other words it is pantheism rather than Taoism... Here we go again.
No, the definition I used there is really the normal definition of Tao. Read Alan Watts he defines it quite well.
Now as for my arguement against causation. Obviously in every day life I pretend like there is cause and effect because it is a model for how things happen that makes it easy for me to do things. But it is only a model. It is no more real than the model of my self, when in reality there is no me seperate from the universe. It seems to me that you could even say that what is happening now causes the past. Think of a boat on a lake. If the boat is the present and its wake is the past, and the boat is causing the wake, then you could say that the present causes the past. Really all there is is NOW. The dancing present. This dancing present just happens on its own. It is sue generis, it comes in to being completly on its own. It is the big bang still happening. Now if we look at things this way and we see that the past is trailing off of this dancing present, we see that cause and effect is meaningless.
The Tao is the raw universe without any symbols put on it by people. Its what you see if you just watch the present. I think the present is a decent definition for the universe. Where I differ from most athiests is that I do not make my god cause and effect. It seems to me that the whole idea of cause and effect would be like looking through the slit in a fense, seeing a cat walk by, and assuming that its head caused its tail. Things just happen and that happening is the Tao.
Thats Tao literally translated but thats not what it really means. The Tao is that dancing energy of the present that is always happening. This is what the universe really is. The Tao is that from which there is no comming or going. Theres a great story about this.
Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him. "Shall I lead you on?" Ikkyu asked. Ninakawa replied: "I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to me?" Ikkyu answered: "If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and no going." With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smilled and passed away.
There you go there's your "path" but clearly its more than that. And I know this a Zen story but Zen came out of Taoism. They describe the same thing.
In the first presidential debate in the US George Bush kept telling John Kerry that he forgot POland whenever he would list the few allies we had for the Iraq war. The funny thing is that poland barely provided any troops at all for the beginning of the war.
Do you really think I was being serious about saying no more arguement? Thats why I said mmmkay, to make it clear I wasn't. Now back to the arguement that still obviously exists. Of course I am not agreeing with the popular bleliefs of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, though I could name people in those religions who think differently. Abraham Jashua Heschle was jewish, William Blake was christian, Sufi Muslims. But this really isn't the point. I'm not quite taking the position of the scientist who just simply call natural laws god. I am calling the universe god because the universe is that which has no creator. Talk to anybody that believes in a personal god and ask them who created the universe. They will say god. Ask them who created god and they will say god doesn't need a creator. They are just kicking it up one level. I say just be awe of the universe it self and not kick it up that extra level. I'm just argueing a very similar thing more simply. If one thinks of the big bang as god, and realizes that the big bang is actually still going on, then one sees that the universe is god. Now to your point about that not meaning much, you are probobly right. Thats why I generally prefer not to even use the word god because it has that conotation of being personal. I prefer to use eastern words like Tao because they dont have that conotation.
The real question is what do we even mean by intelegence? It seems to me that intelegence is defined as what we see. If the universe was completly different and so were we we would marvel at how intelegent that universe is. I think the word "perfect" is actually a better word to use here. Pefect isn't the perfect word to use but its closer. All the energy in the universe is as perfect as it could possibly be, it is part of a path from which there is no comming or going. A good story to ilustrate this:
One day Banzan was walking through a market. He overheard a customer say to the butcher, "Give me the best piece of meat you have." "Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You can not find any piece of meat that is not the best." At these words, Banzan was enlightened.
This really is a good point. There is an old jewish story about how abraham smashed up all of his father's idols and then claimed that the idols fought and broke themselves. This is obviously absurd. The ironic thing is this absurdity can be just as easily extended to saying "god did it."
The reason you can just flip it like that is the really if god is given a more mystical definition it means the same thing either way. God is just what happens, god IS the universe and its natural "laws." There, no more arguement mmmkay?
I've downloaded it and started playing it. Its pretty fun. The french is a bit annoying but there are subtitles during the cinimatics so i am not completly lost. Also, you get to play as the covanent part of the time. Haven't played multiplayer yet (not xbox live, splt screen) but I think i will this weekend.
Through my complaints about peoples tastes im really complaining about the state of our culture. It really says alot about our culture that people watch these shows.
Slashdot Mirror
Insight into to very nature of human consciousness is irrelevent? Funny I figured exploring out universe and exploring our minds kind of went togeather.
ummm...I believe the times endorsed kerry.
I'm very very liberal but you lost be at the polling thing. Do you really think the polls are THAT biased? I guess you will see how wrong you are in a little over a week.
and great insight as well.
I think this is actually a serious point. If we are sending these people all the way to space I think humanity could learn alot from what these people learn from mushrooms on mars. Could definatly spiral into a bad trip pretty easily though.
A clock is something that just goes around in circles (or changes the numbers it displays) but its still making those changes now. This allows for there to be timestamps. As for physics, like cause and effect, time is used as a model to explain certain things. However, all events still happen now. As for spacial dementions im not entirly sure. I could make an arguement that its always here, just like its always now, but i'm not really sure about that. The 10 dementions of string theory are also just a model to explain the things, not necessarily real. There was some physist who said that they didn't care if their theories were true just that they explained things. I forget who it was though. I don't know enough about thermodynamics to understand how that applies...
Events exist in that they are happening now, or that we are remembering them now. Motion exists the same way. Changes also exist through remembering now. Also one can think about the future now. But its still all now. You cant escape it. No matter what you do you are doing it now, no matter what you think about you are thinking about it now. If you think about how memory works, reall a memory is just the activation of the same neuropathways as when the original experience happened. So its still now.
So, in other words it is pantheism rather than Taoism... Here we go again.
No, the definition I used there is really the normal definition of Tao. Read Alan Watts he defines it quite well.
Now as for my arguement against causation. Obviously in every day life I pretend like there is cause and effect because it is a model for how things happen that makes it easy for me to do things. But it is only a model. It is no more real than the model of my self, when in reality there is no me seperate from the universe. It seems to me that you could even say that what is happening now causes the past. Think of a boat on a lake. If the boat is the present and its wake is the past, and the boat is causing the wake, then you could say that the present causes the past. Really all there is is NOW. The dancing present. This dancing present just happens on its own. It is sue generis, it comes in to being completly on its own. It is the big bang still happening. Now if we look at things this way and we see that the past is trailing off of this dancing present, we see that cause and effect is meaningless.
The Tao is the raw universe without any symbols put on it by people. Its what you see if you just watch the present. I think the present is a decent definition for the universe. Where I differ from most athiests is that I do not make my god cause and effect. It seems to me that the whole idea of cause and effect would be like looking through the slit in a fense, seeing a cat walk by, and assuming that its head caused its tail. Things just happen and that happening is the Tao.
Thats Tao literally translated but thats not what it really means. The Tao is that dancing energy of the present that is always happening. This is what the universe really is. The Tao is that from which there is no comming or going. Theres a great story about this.
Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him. "Shall I lead you on?" Ikkyu asked. Ninakawa replied: "I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to me?" Ikkyu answered: "If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and no going." With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smilled and passed away.
There you go there's your "path" but clearly its more than that. And I know this a Zen story but Zen came out of Taoism. They describe the same thing.
Actually it was twice.
"My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war. What's he say to Tony Blair? What's he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland?"
A billion wa obviously hyberbole but it still seems like alot for such an insignificant (not that they aren't apriciated) allie.
Its not so much about whether they helped or not as it is that Bush mentioned it like a billion times.
In the first presidential debate in the US George Bush kept telling John Kerry that he forgot POland whenever he would list the few allies we had for the Iraq war. The funny thing is that poland barely provided any troops at all for the beginning of the war.
Do you really think I was being serious about saying no more arguement? Thats why I said mmmkay, to make it clear I wasn't. Now back to the arguement that still obviously exists. Of course I am not agreeing with the popular bleliefs of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, though I could name people in those religions who think differently. Abraham Jashua Heschle was jewish, William Blake was christian, Sufi Muslims. But this really isn't the point. I'm not quite taking the position of the scientist who just simply call natural laws god. I am calling the universe god because the universe is that which has no creator. Talk to anybody that believes in a personal god and ask them who created the universe. They will say god. Ask them who created god and they will say god doesn't need a creator. They are just kicking it up one level. I say just be awe of the universe it self and not kick it up that extra level. I'm just argueing a very similar thing more simply. If one thinks of the big bang as god, and realizes that the big bang is actually still going on, then one sees that the universe is god. Now to your point about that not meaning much, you are probobly right. Thats why I generally prefer not to even use the word god because it has that conotation of being personal. I prefer to use eastern words like Tao because they dont have that conotation.
The real question is what do we even mean by intelegence? It seems to me that intelegence is defined as what we see. If the universe was completly different and so were we we would marvel at how intelegent that universe is. I think the word "perfect" is actually a better word to use here. Pefect isn't the perfect word to use but its closer. All the energy in the universe is as perfect as it could possibly be, it is part of a path from which there is no comming or going. A good story to ilustrate this:
One day Banzan was walking through a market. He overheard a customer say to the butcher, "Give me the best piece of meat you have." "Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You can not find any piece of meat that is not the best." At these words, Banzan was enlightened.
This really is a good point. There is an old jewish story about how abraham smashed up all of his father's idols and then claimed that the idols fought and broke themselves. This is obviously absurd. The ironic thing is this absurdity can be just as easily extended to saying "god did it."
The reason you can just flip it like that is the really if god is given a more mystical definition it means the same thing either way. God is just what happens, god IS the universe and its natural "laws." There, no more arguement mmmkay?
Man I know! Why oh why did he have to say "would that it were?"
works on my ntsc xbox just fine.
I've downloaded it and started playing it. Its pretty fun. The french is a bit annoying but there are subtitles during the cinimatics so i am not completly lost. Also, you get to play as the covanent part of the time. Haven't played multiplayer yet (not xbox live, splt screen) but I think i will this weekend.
From the article it seemed to me that they would just use positrons, not whole anti-atoms.
Through my complaints about peoples tastes im really complaining about the state of our culture. It really says alot about our culture that people watch these shows.
Thats why I want people to stop allowing this shit to be shoved down their throats...I know its the people that watch who are at fault.
When are people going to stop allowing the networks to shove this filth down their throats?
Too bad microsoft will probobly just charge spyware companies a fee to have their crap not get blocked.