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Theories: Something More |
Posted by
Alugarde on Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 10:57 PM PST
I'd like to answer a question, a question that Squid asked me in my last submission. At the time I couldn't give an answer. I'd like to try now. Again.
But (taking from Squid's comments now) what about the cells themselves? The molecular composition of your cells can change any moment in any number of ways. And if cells keep changing, at what point do you stop being you? Can your cells change to such an extent that you are (in essence) someone completely different? Or is there something more?
The obvious answer to me, of course, is that this something more is your soul. But that alone would be too simple an answer. Here's mine.
It is a common concept that energy that permeates all reality. What if an amount of this energy is used to create your surroundings, the reality of a certain place, time, dimension, concept, and so on, but an incredibly larger amount is spent on the creation of your soul?
That would mean that you are more real than reality. In other words, you can influence reality, or rather, your beliefs can. Once again, this is another common concept in some cultures.
So why aren't people walking down the street hurling fireballs at people they don't like? Messiness and legal problems aside, there are different levels of belief. For example saying you believe something but not really meaning it or saying you believe something and wanting to mean it.
You can say you believe something and make yourself think you believe it. And then there is simply believing it.
When society tells you what to think at every turn, you start to just accept things. True belief is a hard thing to come by these days.
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Something More | Login/Create an account | 13 Comments |
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Re: Something More
by IamSquid (AAA@sockmonkeys.net)
on Sep 20, 2002 - 11:50 AM
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WOW!
I forgot all about that. I think that may have even been the 1st comment I posted on Shmeng.
I enjoy yor answer, because it goes beyond physical exsistance. By definition consciousness must constantly be changing. And yet we still identify those former moments of thought as "I"
Such is the beauty of exsistance. We live in hyperspace where the 3 spaces have to play with time. And so all of reality is dancing to the infinite beat of the universe.
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Re: Something More
by Ironboots on Sep 20, 2002 - 01:58 PM
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So are you saying that if we believe in something, that it can be possible?
And by belief, I mean the utmost, no-shadow-of-a-doubt kind. The kind that says "well, of course there are fairies..." because you do not comprehend how there could not be.
That would explain a lot about our world...
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Re: Something More by IamSquid (AAA@sockmonkeys.net) on Sep 20, 2002 - 06:31 PM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | IMO nothing is impossible (although there is a paradox in that statement). |
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Get Real
by Monolycus on Sep 21, 2002 - 08:08 PM
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Alugarde, there is a great deal to be said for your theory, but one has to play the academic game of defining one's terms before it can be meaningful for very many people. One of the big problems I see arising is your casual use of the word "reality". There are many realities, and they are not interchangeable. For example:
There is an objective reality. This is the "reality" that exists whether anyone is around to hear the tree fall in the forest or not. We have no idea what is or is not going on in this reality because it comes to us through the filters of our senses and is interpreted by our highly individual brains with all of its preconceptions and limitations. Generally, when we talk about things like "eternity" and other phenomena that HAVE to exist but we can not wrap our brains around, we are discussing this reality. This is the most important reality of them all, and the one that we will never "know" anything about.
Secondly, there is what is called a consensus reality. This is the reality that we tend to think of ourselves as living in, and other people needing to get back to when they are getting too far "out there". It is also variable depending upon the culture that is contemplating it. For example, when everyone believes or behaves as if the earth is flat and the center of the Universe, then, for all intents and purposes, the earth is flat and the center of the Universe. The consensus reality is what we use to deal with each other, and it may be thought of as an organism composed of all of our itsy bitsy thoughts (or memes). It can be changed by the introduction of memetic "viruses" (propaganda) or irrefutable facts... but at the end of the day, it is what we must all more or less agree upon in order that we may interact.
Finally, the most easily changed reality is the subjective reality. This is the one we all actually experience and "know"... and each one of us has our own. This reality is very, very subject to our beliefs about it... for example, the placebo effect (healing ourselves because we believe something has happened to mitigate healing when, in fact, nothing has) occurs on this level of reality. It is as "real" as reality can be, and it is highly malleable (since it is almost entirely composed of what we think we know in the first place). The main problem with changing your subjective reality (and the subjective realities of other people) is that people do not, for the most part, know themselves well enough to do it. The ego and the superego reside in the unconsciousness of our subjective realities and often step in to block the changes we would like to make.
Hope this has helped. I am, I was, I will be
a figment,
~Monolycus.
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Re: Get Real by Alugarde (SoulCiphyr@aol.com) on Sep 21, 2002 - 08:22 PM (User info | Send a Message) | Yes, I agree with that and actually tried to fit something along those lines in the end of my article but didn't because a) writer's block and b) i thought it was getting too far off topic, the original question after all was what that "something more" was. |
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Re: Get Real by Monolycus on Sep 21, 2002 - 08:36 PM (User info | Send a Message) | I don't see it as being off-topic at all. That "something more" can be called the soul, the Divine, the Tao, the Logos, or whatever you wish to call it... but what we are discussing is still the unknowable objective reality (or Reality Number 1 in the list I made).
Anyway, you seem to do a lot better with the writer's block than I do. Keep up the good work!
~M. |
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Re: Get Real by IamSquid (AAA@sockmonkeys.net) on Sep 22, 2002 - 12:36 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | I'm going to have to disagree that the objctive reality is unknowable. If an individual can transcend into divinity objective reality can be beheld. What makes mee think spiritual transcendence is possible? Sheer hearsay (from sources that haven't failed mee in the past) and wishful thinking, I have no strong evidence to support this possibility. It is my own goal as well as the goal of many others. |
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Re: Get Real by Alugarde (SoulCiphyr@aol.com) on Sep 22, 2002 - 12:51 AM (User info | Send a Message) | Hehe, but theres the thing squid. If its the goal of many others, then wouldn't you say a at least a handful of those people ACTUALLY believe in a spiritual transcendence? And if they believe in it, then it's real, at least to them. The nice thing is, if you take this logic one step further, you can use their belief (and thus the reality of transcendence) as grounds for YOUR belief in transcendence.
Or you can simply say yes it exists but not for me.
It's up to you. |
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Re: Get Real by IamSquid (AAA@sockmonkeys.net) on Sep 22, 2002 - 02:25 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | Well this is the argument that got the Gnostics so pissed-off at Socrates. The Gnostics insisted that there are no ultimates, reality is subjective. Socrates pointed out that to say that is to state an ultimate so they killed him.
The boundaries of possibility within my perception grow wider every day. I find it increasingly difficult to believe anything is impossible but I try to remain skeptical enough to keep myself in line.
We are all gods (or God), all it takes is to realize it (which few people fully do). |
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Re: Get Real by Monolycus on Sep 22, 2002 - 12:51 AM (User info | Send a Message) | We "behold" the objective reality all the time. We live there. We just can't see the forest for all the trees (the ones that may or may not make a sound if nobody sees them fall). Plato summed this problem up in "The Cave". We can only percieve what are brains can make sense of, not what is actually there.
Have you heard the old yarn about how the native Americans saw the ships from Europe breaking the horizon and could not recognise the sails (They described them as "clouds")? This was not a linguistic problem. They really saw clouds. It was the closest thing in their experience and that is how their brains unscrambled the information. All of us are limited by what we can make sense of.
I agree that the goal of the esoterics is to become "more than human", and that would involve seeing/appreciating/manipulating the objective reality on its own terms... but the prisons of flesh we inhabit restrict us from doing that. In order to behold the objective reality as it is and not as we are, we need to transcend the flesh and process information with a brain that is not flesh and blood. I think we are in agreement.
"The Logos is everywhere, yet men see it not."
~Herakleitos of Ephesos |
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Re: Get Real by IamSquid (AAA@sockmonkeys.net) on Sep 22, 2002 - 02:42 AM (User info | Send a Message) http:// | It has always ben my understanding that to transcend to objective reality is to be one with it. Thus yor body is only restrictive in the sense that the transcendant would choose to restrict themself to it. Even average people see with more than just their eyes, I use this logic to assume (thats right, assume, it's a bit of a leap) that likewise our brains do act upon and are acted upon our true selves but our true selves are only limited to our brains because we choose to limit ourselves to our bodies.
It is strange to mee that what everyone seems to accept as "the world" is bullshit to mee. How anyone can think that dreams are not important when dreams are experiences too. More people are interested in what they learned from LSD than from dreams. More people consider both to be illsuions. IMO, the "real" world is everywhere but we like to pretend that all our skyscrapers and little machines with flashing lights are reality.
But then, who am I to speak, I'm only mee (luckily "mee" is a 200 foot super-intelligent cephelopod with somewhat of a Godzilla complex) Way to kill the mood, Squid... |
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Re: Something More
by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com)
on Sep 22, 2002 - 11:49 PM
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I"m just content being plain old molecules and radical free agents and electricity, tho a rather miserable concotion of the three than usually.
I construct my own reality by not interacting through the world. If I could work at home, have my groceries delivered, and have someone walk my dog I'd be happy. Happier, albeit, with a surveilance cam and speakerphone, but a girl's gotta start somewhere.
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Re: Something More
by ThatOneWastedChick on Sep 25, 2002 - 02:19 PM
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Yes, it would indeed explain a lot. But, it would also mean I truly believe in almost nothing. But then... I dunno... Nonetheless it's a great article.
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