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Gees, Well a great Philosopher by the name of Kant, thought that one could not know the thing as it is. One could make a great deal of judgments about a thing, and say a great deal about a thing, but this was not knowing the thing as it is. You say that pure philosophy is a love of wisdom and truth, and the search for or the attainment of such. I agree, but don't think this is a quest that you are on, that I am not. You figure that you are a philosopher of the only correct kind, because everything appears to be true that you believe, and because I disagree with your take, I can't be a philosopher. Well I am often considered a deep thinker, prone to talk about ideas, and prone to think outside the box. By some measures this would make me a philosopher. Whether I am any good at being a philosopher would be a matter of opinion, and up to the judgement of others. In this regard, the title of Philosopher would have to be one given by others, rather than one self appointed. And in this regard, the idea that one could be born a philosopher would be dashed, by the mere fact that it takes an objective judge to determine whether one is one or not. So, you believe in reincarnation. You believe in consciousness as a substance. And you believe that you know a truth that can not be known by a human, but must be known by NOT thinking like a human. I think you are thrice wrong. How your beliefs make you a philosopher, and my disagreement makes me not one, is to me, a sure sign that philosophers are NOT born, but made, in the eyes of a preponderance of external judges. Regards, TAR2 Cladking, Common ground is what philosophy and science is all about. If you cannot find the grounds upon which to converse with others, because your way of thinking is of a better kind than anyone else possesses, then I would guess you might be incorrect. Either others stand on the same ground, and you are unaware, or you have no ground to stand on. Regards, TAR As to truth, I would guess that there are two types. Common truth, which is true to you and to me, and to any and all third parties, which we can call objective truth, and then subjective truth, which is true to you in the face of general disagreement.

Hoola, Huh? It does NOT take an infinite amount of time to travel a finite distance. The infinite amount of divisions of time that you suggest are within a finite amount of time, are not really. Well they are in thought, but you cannot freeze time, while you are thinking about it, because it marches on, without you. Thus by the time you have imaginarily divided a second in half and then in half again, its already the next second, and you are dividing a past second, in retrospect. If you want to talk about a future second, you can speculate that it will unfold in an infinite amount of infinitely tiny parcels, but when the designated second comes, the whole thing will unfold in exactly a finite second. So the infinite divisions were either an inappropriate, imaginary prediction, or an infinite amount of infinitely small divisions of a second will add up to exactly a second, provided the sum of the infinite series you have constructed, adds up to 1. Regards, TAR

Cladking, But still, born not made is in question. The suggestion that philosophers tend to be around people of like mind, might argue in the direction that it takes one to know one. One thing I noticed about myself about 35 years ago, is that I was more of a thinker, than a doer. And in recent years have agreed with others that I am rather an overthinker, at that. Some, that you call "shallow" that talk about other people, might also be the ones that bring the sandwiches to the meeting, arrange the chairs, and make sure the electric bill has been paid. While I, being a thinker, might consider many reasons why doing a thing might be ill advised, or have unintended, but predictable consequences, another might just do the thing, and handle the problems as they arise. Shallow should not be confused with simple and direct, and to many, behaviour is more important and consequencial than intent. This is an admonition to myself, as well as a suggestion to "philosophers", that ideas are fine, but the true test of an idea, is to make it work, to try it out, amongst the waking world, to dash it against the minds of others, and onto the fabric of the world, and see if it flies and fits with actuality. Such is science, such is technology, but in addition, such is art and poetry, music and dance, law and order. While ideas may work in ones head. Insights that are so powerful that they make one laugh aloud or sob with joy and power, they mean only a little, to the rest of the world. Only a very little, until you do something with the idea that affects the rest of the world, or at least some part of the world on the other side of your fingertips and vocal chords. Regards, TAR2 To the rest of the world you are just somebody, but to somebody you might be the whole world. Think about it? Or do something about it? Or both? The OP suggested that he knew logic and truth right out of the womb, or at a very early age. I am thinking this was not the case, and as iNow suggested, more likely a false memory. Something cobbled together, later on, as one rationalizes ones internal "togetherness" as being superior to the "togetherness" of others, or the "outside" general "togetherness". In general though, ones thoughts, no matter how internally fitting they might be, can not be superior in their "fit", to the external world which sets the standards of what fits with what.

Mike, Another event at that lake, around the time I was 13 comes to mind. I was a fast runner, loved to run, in barefeet that would callus up over the summer to where I could run on the tar and gravel road. One day on the painfree sand strip that ran along the lake wall a stiff breeze was blowing and I ran to match its speed so that no wind was in my face or at my back, and the air was still around me...ran as fast as the wind. Regards, TAR

Mike, Well CERN is certainly not leaving particles to their own devices. Rather they are setting up moving lines of magnetic force with powerful and energy consuming electromagnets, timed and sequenced and such to repel the particle from behind and pull it from in front at faster and faster speeds, in the thusly "formed" circular path that coincides with the the walls of the device. The particle itself would "rather" go in a straight line, and does when they let it free from the imposed synchronized field, to slam with its high energy (momentum) into whatever particle or substance they have prepared for it to collide with. Seems not so much a tube of opportunity, as some sort of forced enslavement tunnel prison for the doomed particle. But heck, the particle probably does not care about its fate, that is something lifeforms seem to have about them as a distinguishing characteristic. Regards, TAR2

Mike, I don't know about there "being nothing there" along a line of magnetic or eletrical or gravitational force. There is the atom or the electron or the proton from which the force is eminating. That "it" itself is elsewhere is not exactly true, since it is influencing that region of space quite continually and "presently". Somehow important to the discussion is a story I have told several times on different threads, about a time when I was 13 at a country lake, where I had heard that the light of a match on this side, the "dark" side of a new moon, could be seen from Earth at night. It being quite dark where I stood, I held a match to the sky, for the benefit of any observer that might catch sight of it. That action has come back to my memory on many occasions in reference to the greater universe, to death of relatives, to thoughts of all types about space and time and our universe, and what it is like. And like a pebble dropped into a pond, the photons I sent out that night are currently existant in the universe, in a hemispheral shell 47 lys from where the Earth was that day, in the direction that was "up" for me at the time. Last time you saw the Sun, did you consider it "here" warming you at the moment, or did you consider it existing somewhere else seven minutes ago? There is "nothing there" in the sky in that place you sometimes see a bird or a cloud or the moon or a star, that is anything like a millions of degree ball of atomic reactions. If such a thing was "here" we would be toast. Except it IS here, during a cloud free day, and we know its "here" even when the Earth or the clouds or a roof obscures our view. Those lines of force, those magnetic and electric fields that define a photon connect the one thing to the other, and make the one "felt" by the other. In this regard, there is no place where there is "nothing there" because a whole half of the observable universe is "felt" by any eye that looks at a night sky. Regards, TAR2

Alan, Then as additional helpers in you muses understand convergence and limits. My favorite helper is the abstract ball that bounces exactly up half the distance it drops and down again, bouncing a logically infinite amount of times, before coming to rest in a finite amount of time. Of course the real world takes care of bringing the ball to rest, regardless of the math, because at some point, perhaps the planck length, the ball no longer could be considered leaving the ground on the bounce, eliminating any subsequent fall. Regards, TAR

Alan, I remember my disbelief in the impossibility of the logic being correct in determining that the runner could never logically reach the tortoise because I knew, he absolutely would and could, so the logic must be wrong. Although the logic has no fault, the answer comes to me, along the lines of swansont in our inability to handle infinitesimals logically in our minds, in the same way that they are actually handled in the real world. That is, the theory, occuring in our minds does not have to follow the actual rules of time and distance that the real world imposes upon itself. Our 10th grade math class intuition of how the race would turn out, in this regard, is superior to the most intelligent and well thought out, logical proof. From wiki article on Zeno's paradox: "Pat Corvini offers a solution to the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise by first distinguishing the physical world from the abstract mathematics used to describe it.[39] She claims the paradox arises from a subtle but fatal switch between the physical and abstract. Zeno's syllogism is as follows: P1: Achilles must first traverse an infinite number of divisions in order to reach the tortoise; P2: it is impossible for Achilles to traverse an infinite number of divisions; C: therefore, Achilles can never surpass the tortoise. Corvini shows that P1 is a mathematical abstraction which cannot be applied directly to P2 which is a statement regarding the physical world. The physical world requires a resolution amount used to distinguish distance while mathematics can use any resolution" Thus math is an abstraction of what is already physical and real, and as humans we already have a solid intuition of space and time, whose rules and interactions fit together and operate, quite seemlessly, regardless of any rent in such a fitting and consequential fabric, that we might hypothetically impose. We cannot therefore bypass the actual, with the hypothetical, and the logic of reality trumps the logic of any model of it that we can formulate. If a paradox between the physical and the mental exists, I would first fault the mental as potentially working off a false premise, or an incorrect model, or attempting a transference or grain size shift or perspective change that failed to take everything into account...rather than fault reality, which already fits together in a quite error free fashion. Regards, TAR2

Mike, I lost a post. It had to do with my pride in my daughter, currently at Virginia Tech as a research assistance, teaching assistant and soon to be doctoral candidate under Professor Grove in the Chemistry Dept. They are working with "MOFs", Magnesium based nanoparticles, investigating their use as theranostic agents, to mark and target cancer cells, and deliver drugs in a non-burst fashion, and so forth. I had some brilliant comments about the study in question as well, but I am not quite sure how my analogy of taking a bus and two transfers to get to where you could walk three blocks was so cleverly worked in. It had something to do with the sidewalk already being a tube of opportunity. Anyway, I was a little put off by the study about the tube highways, in that he was talking about the modeling of the Sun-Jupiter-Saturn Lagrange point network, using some math that neglected the gravity of Saturn and Jupiter? Regards, TAR

Kristalris, I often take people wrong. I'm literal when they are figurative and vice-a-versa. Never did learn to banter well, because of it. But since the internet does seem to turn personalities inside out, and outside in, the people who best "cater" for this, are likely to become the people with the most power, regardless of their personalities. It is a general issue that I think runs in circles, or perhaps Hegel's acending spiral, or something like the politcal pendulum swing, right and left, conservative and progressive. Such can be seen by the current beneficial use of the word "disrupt". There seems to be personality differences between the generations, such that behavior such as giving state secrets to enemies of the state can be seen similitaneously (by different viewers) as heroic or treasonist behaviour. In this light, arrogance as well as genius can be "misunderstood", depending on whose paradigm you are going by, and who is in power, and who is about to rent it from the current hands, and who it is being handed to intentionally. Regards, TAR2

Kristalris, If mother nature intended the baboons to be the natural leaders, it would already be so, and there would not be the requirement for a "more and more" climb into the role. I am thinking that whatever the dynamics involved, those dynamics are already in action and a "final resolution" or a climb into proper position, is not in the cards, for any personality type, since they are already in their "proper" place. It is probably more of an "orbiting" body problem, such as whether the moon and the earth are orbiting each other, or some center of mass that the two together have established. Arrogance would be thinking the other body revolved around you, ignorant of the actual dynamics. Regards, TAR If intelligent people recognize thier intelligence (mass) it does not eliminate their gravity and pull on the local system, but allows for the consideration of the mass around which the local system is orbiting. This might explain the Dunning-Kruger thing.

Alan, Nice poem/essay/thing. I have not yet "figured out" where to draw the line between metaphor and that which the metaphor is about. Perhaps "a line" would not do the job. Does art imitate reality, or is it a real reflection of it? Its like trying to determine what cold is, in and of itself, when cold is just the absence of heat, without any "substance" of its own. I will have to pass on any kind of response that would link back to the topic of personal gods. I am rather at a loss at the moment in terms of any "based" response. We might just have to leave it, at that...a dream/feeling/knowledge of connection to some greater thing. Regards, TAR2

Mike, Interesting. Had seen something here and there on Lagrange points, and knew they were used at least theoretically for good spots for "stationary" platforms and various solar energy collection ideas and so forth, but had not really seen the tube extrapolation before. Makes me wonder if such spots exist, related to large masses like galaxies. But then again, I guess you really cannot resolve a whole galaxy into one mass, for the calculation. It would probably be a couple billion body problem to solve. Anyway, what keeps a bunch of material from collecting in those spots, anyway, like the clumps of pollen and floating stuff you see trapped in the eddy currents near rocks in a stream? It seems to me that there would be weak tubes of this sort calculable...given any two or more masses of any mass or distance from each other. And given the number of fairly large masses there are in just our galaxy, I would imagine the network of virtual "tubes" would be quite intricate and of various sizes, crisscrossing and squiqqling, tubes within tubes and intersecting and the like, that the simple drawing given is probably not the "real" image of the tubes to hold. The actual "tubes" are most likely a bit more chaotic and intricate in nature. Still leaving as a question, what parts of space are outside or inside one tube or another. Regards, TAR2

Alan, Well, if consciousness seems to have no barriers, then a single consciousness, thought to be contained in a human, would not be limited to the confines of that human. You would have sort of a logical problem in that although you can imagine your consciousness containing all things...it really does not. Holding a image of a thing, is not the same as holding the thing. And in the other direction, if you think about Cleveland, is your consciousness actually IN Cleveland? I think not. But in terms of what a "personal god" is made of, I think it is related to thinking. That is, thought itself, is not limited to physical rules, and can take short cuts, break physical rules, see patterns where desired, make analogies, switch grain size, flip perspectives, and make metaphores and such, that don't really have to "work" and fit together with reality. If you hear a small noise behind you, you can imagine turning around and seeing a monster standing there, or a mouse, or imagine that its "nothing", and if you were to turn around, you would see the room exactly as you remember it. But you really can not be sure, based on your imagination, what the case is. You have to turn around and see. So imagination might seem to have no limits or barriers, but it really does. It is limited to what has already been internalized and memembered, and by definition, is not the actual thing, but an image of it. I don't think we can really talk of consciousness as a substance or creature or energy existing in the external world, if its so obviously a thing that works only in the imagination, and does not fit the rules of the external, waking world. Regards, TAR As an example, I heard a Catholic man say that he knew what the Nuns where proposing was not real, the first time they lied, and where NOT stuck by lightning. (or otherwise admonished by hand of God). It appears to me that someone else's personal god has NO effect on me, that I do not imagine, myself. This leaves open the possibility of agreeing on the same image, and going by it, but does not make the image real to anybody or anything that does not agree. Perhaps the subject of personal gods becomes somewhat complicated when many hold an image of the same one. Such a collective image could certainly be proposed as a explanation for the major religions of the world. Take the Muslim Religion for example. 10s of thousands of people cirlcing the stone, reciting Mohammed's words. Sort of a mass self hypnosis, backed up by the fact that everyone else is reciting the same words, and holding the same image. It becomes thusly "real" in the external world, by virtue of the image's existence in the consciousness of so many others.

Moontanman, Well there is the rub. To be something is exactly not being everything else, but the distinction requires the rest to be so. It is certainly a question of mine, as to how far into the future one should hold themselves responsible, since, as you state, the "being" part seems to end at death, and with it any further interaction...good or bad...except I have already a kinship and feeling of belonging to this universe. I already know about stars that themselves have a lifetime, and that they are locally of the second and third generation sort...that the heavier elements and such that make up the Earth and its environs where part of the enviroment from which life emerged, and that the coming together of chemicals in a certain allowable pattern, was repeated long ago in the formation of mitochondria that acknowledged and remember itself, and reproduced the pattern so that even fleeting it was real. Undeniably real. And as the people that lived in the 19th century are dead now, they are also alive in our memories, and our genes, and that being the case, it will also be the case that us now will be in the memory...our legacy as Alan puts it...in the consciousness of conscious people in the 23rd century. People die, but peopleness has not ever been extinguished, since the dawn of Man. So there is good reason to believe in life after death. Just not your own particular example of it. So if I were to die, those and that that I have touched in my life would still be alive, and remember me, and when they die, those and that that they have touched will remember them. Knowledge of this condition...of being both mortal and distinct, and in and of a greater thing, is in my estimation, the proof of, and the nature of the thought of God, or of spiritual thoughts, or religious understandings of all sorts. One might consider it impossible for hydrogen, even after 13.6 billion years to become a peanut butter cup...except it did, so its not impossible. So if life grabbed form and structure from a universe tending toward entropy, and reproduced the pattern for this brief and fleeting moment that life on Earth might be considered, then its already a victory, we are already established, and have already won the rights to be us, and if we so desire, can consider it a collective, complicated effort, in which no part did not play a role. Regards, TAR2

Alan, But how should one act, when it is only he, or only she, that is watching? To whom is one ultimately responsible? It can not be just Grandpa and Grandma, Mom and Dad, one's friends and family, one's workmates or heroes, to which one holds themselves responsible. It has to be something that will still be the case after death. Perhaps children, ones own, or those of like kind. Or some image of all Grandpas and Grandmas, Moms and Dads, friends, workmates, fellow beings, and heroes, children and living, feeling, senscient beings that ever were or will be, all meshed together, as one type or sort of thing to be a part of, to care about, and to have your actions and thoughts matter to. While putting a particular subjective limit on the nature and import, characteristics and desires of this overall image is somewhat unlikely to "be as true" for another, as it is for you, there remains the beauty and order and magnificance of the solar system, and the existence of flowers and rainbows, all of which seem to have no claim on having put any thought into being what they are, and seem to have no particular reason to care about anything...except there remains the fact that they have existed, do exist, and will exist, quite without our judgement of them...yet we seek somehow, their approval of our thoughts and actions...as if we are somehow obligated. Either that, or we think we are obligated only to ourselves, which seems sort of a baseless assertion. Regards, TAR

Alan, Had a thought as to heros as related to the thought of God. Other people's conception of what it is about the world that they should be cogniscent of, that they should emulate, that they should revere, that they should be judged by and hold themselves responsible to "live up to", is not likely to match the discription of such that a certain person personally has. Heros are outside, objectively experienced examples, of emulatable behavior. God, in most people's minds is the total of all objective, outside reality, viewed as a person to whom everyone and everything is beholding. Thus it is not so strange to hold a certain human, who appears to be "doing it right", as a hero. Such is certainly the case with Mohammed, and Moses, and Jesus, and Sidhartha, and there are contemporary humans like Mendella, or Dawkins, that people hold as heros, to emulate, to "be like". Since the subjective choice of a particular human as the final arbiture and judge of correct thinking and behaviour is not likely to be the "correct" and only choice possible, then the only option left is to go with ones own "personal god", as the trumping consideration. Regards, TAR And as none of us, can claim sole ownership of objective reality, and it appears that we each and all are members of and are talking about the same, one, objective reality, there is not a significant difference between having the universe as your hero, and believing in a personal god.

Gees, Not quite sure how you are using the term instinct. Normally I think of the term instinct as referring to a species wide, complex behaviour. Like nest building. Other inate type behavior like suckling a breast, is more of a reflexive behaviour. When it comes to philosophy, which is very complex behaviour, I am thinking instinct does not apply. If it was instinctual, then it would be species wide, and not something one individual in the species would have, that others of the species did not. In this light, being a born philosopher does not make any sense. It would rather indicate to me, that there is a certain requirement, that others of the human race give certain individuals, or allow certian individuals to fulfill certain roles, and exhibit certain attributes and procivities that the talents and abilities of those individuals make workable. Much as the fastest and strongest wolf might become the leader of the pack, or the big strong guy with the quickest reflexes and the best hand eye coordination might become the star batter on the team. To be born a philosopher would then become more a distinction placed upon an individual by their peers, or family, and the greater society around them, based upon other's determination or recognition of skills and abilities, rather than a determination that a particular person could make concerning themselves. In the case of philosophy, like most other human endeavors, as was already noted, one thinker builds upon the thinking of previous thinkers. This in my opinion, while leaving open the possibility of original thinking, requires other people's thinking, both to set the framework, and to make the judgement that a philosopher...is one. Regards, TAR2 Could someone be considered a born computer programmer? Seems unlikely to mean anything without computers to program, and is not currently a profession that is pursued without the use of libraries of code already elegant and efficient, and writen and perfected by others. Philosophers I think therefore are not born, but made. Nature-nurture, is not an either or, consideration. The two are rather quite interdependent. When I was young, playing with a string, I put a loop in a loop and made a long braid. My Mom said I just invented crocheting...well I sort of did, but I certainly was not the first to do so. The OP was not the first to think.

iNow, While one's personal worldview does not necessarily map to all of humanity, there are areas in which one person's worldview jives with another's. A theory, might be that each of us considers a worldview that encompasses everybody elses, as well. That is, if one's worldview is correct, it must be consistent with the world. (being that the world consists of other worldview holders, other worldview holders are important to the consideration of the world). In this regard, the most objective viewpoint a person can take, is by concieving of a worldview holder that trumps not only oneself, but the other guy, as well. Alan McDougall proposes that everybody has a personal god, and it is in regards to the conception of an overacrching "view", greater than one's own, that I would tend to agree with him. Even the sophist is defeated by the fact that someone else can witness their sophistry. And in this, there IS a mapping of one person's worldview to the worldview of another. A "new ager", a believer in God, as well as the astral plane, and the readings of Edgar Cayce and such, asked me if I believed in a higher power. "Higher than me? Well certainly, I would have to believe that." "Just not the way you are proposing it to be. Your way does not make sense to me. I remain cynical as to Edgar's contact with another plane of existence, that is not accessable to the rest of us." For that, for explainations of the subconscious mind, and our own, each of our own connections to the the world, in ways that can not be shaken or taken away by any other, one has to both accept a large body of evidence that requires acknowledgement and agreement, and allow for a certain portion of evidence that can be taken at face value, that is absolutely true, but one needs no permission from anybody else, to behold. Such a beholding of the world, that does not require anybody else's permission, is the parchment upon which one's personal god can be securely mapped to the worldview of others. And each can decide what is possible and impossible, important and trivial, seen by all, or kept secret or obtainable by just a few or just a one based on it. Since this god, is not therefore shared by all, agreed upon by all, and evident to all, by the same name, with the same characteristics and abilities and purposes and such, and there is no way, or reason to ask for agreement from any more objective a view than your own, about it...it must be a "personal" god, that you have. Be it math, or the objective reality described by science, or the God of the Jews, or the astral plain, or the "force" in Star Wars, or the human species in Humanism, or the Secret of the Vedas, or the Rainbow Bridge, or Goodness and Hope, or whatever...a mapping of the one can be made to the other, sketched on the same parchment of reality, we all have at our disposal. A human mind. Regards, TAR2 Anyway, Merry Christmas to any and all that ever shook the jingle bell...and heard its sound. (Polar Express)

And who is not currently racking their brain to come up with the perfect presents to give their loved ones...that will show them how much they are considered welcome to everything you have? This "connection" between people, is already apparent, and palpably so, in the Holiday season that is upon us, here in the U.S.

Now that the original post is listed under speculations, and the original poster's persona has been banned for inappropriate, deceiptful behavour, and the topic retitled to be approached from a more general, objective viewpoint, I would like to add this... The development of Universal consciousness is probably ruled out by the extent of space and time, as one portion of the current universe, has no way to instantly acknowledge or embrace or become "one" with that which is occurring elsewhere, or that has already occurred, or that has not yet occurred...other than in the kind of ways, already that the universe has of interacting...over time and space. So with "universal" in the total sense subtantially ruled out, the discussion might be better addressed or held in that locally universal sense that we use the word. As in "universal grammar" or universally accepted...meaning basically within the universe of humans that any one of us has contact with, knowledge of or is within some actual causal distance of. In this regard it might be better thought of as a "collective consciousness" we are considering the development of, which is a possible consideration, as opposed to an overacrhing, impossible singular type mind or consciousness...which does not seem, under the circumstances of the universe being such as it is, to be possible, in any way other than is already manefest. And at this level of considering universal consciousness, I would argue that the developement of such is already underway and apparent in the human species, and has exhibited itself in the forms of the ways we collectively interact and behave, hope and dream...already. Things such as the secrets of the Vedas, religious tenants, the idea of all being part of, and responsible to one God or set of universal physical principles, rules, morays, conventions, and even the development of the scientific community and peer reviewed collective knowledge...point to the fact that such collective consciousness, as is possible, is already underway, We already are aware, or conscious of others, and have built and mantained and adjusted institutions and instituted procedures and protocols to work together in a collective fashion. We already have language and use it, to share and record our collective experiences. Our minds are already thusly linked. Technology itself though is a tool. It can not be created without human judgement, or used without human judgement, or be used in such a way, as to negate human judgment, or replace human judgement...or there would be no human reason for it to exist. Got an iPad mini for my 60th birthday, so I could join the 21st century. Put the Tango app on and had to give it rights to my e-mail contacts, and had to turn on "location" to use it. It was then able to call my daughter's phone, which also had the Tango app on it...it was a little creepy, as that I never gave it my daughter's phone number... and a bunch of pictures of people I do not know or have any reason to know, came up on my daughter's screen. I have not yet caught up with the 21st century, and am of the opinion that technology that puts more things under your control, also puts many more things out of your control. This is not necessarily a workable and desireable situation...but we will see how it goes. Regards, TAR2

Debrule1, There is a generational difference (baby boomer, genx, geny, millenials) amoungst the various consciousnesses that make up the 8 billion currently on the planet. There are religious and philosophical differences, there are intelligence differences, level of knowledge and introspection, leaders and followers...already. Technological advances on how brains can connect and share information will not result in an automatically good or workable situation. Everybody is not going to want to do what you want to do. That is to say, if you are unhappy about something going on in the collective consciousness...will you be allowed to "disconnect"? As Moontanman suggests, the speed of light insulates us from two way communication in a reasonable, workable time frame, from things in this universe that are more than say 100 yrs away. It would be difficult to be a pen pal with somebody that was contacted by your dead grandfather, who responds to you, and you answer back to their grandchildren. People might get a little impatient and choose rather to talk to their next door neighbor. Also, consider the Borg on star trek. The captain did not wish to remain a Borg, and chose rather to be disconnected from that particular common mind. I don't think that your vision of the future is going to pan out, in a total love, John Lennon imagine type of way, primarily because to be a human, requires a certian focal point, a sense of unique position in space and time, that is by it very nature separate from everything else, yet connected to, and reliant upon it. Plus, there are stupid things that happen with unattended technology, when a particular actual combination of events is not forseen or planned. Unintended consequences. Let's say for instance, your life savings is in Bitcoin, and you lose the key. Or somebody decides to create a subnet collective consciousness, and only allow people with IQs over 130 to join, and your's is 129, so you decide to create a subnet collective consciousness for people under 130, but find the collective consciousness cloud server is controlled by the people in the above 130 group, and they won't give you access, and you are not smart enough, or rich enough, or knowledgable enough to build your own servers. We may well find criminal behavior or hurtful behaviour accentuated right along with loving and sharing behavior, by any advances in the technology that can link minds. And even if 90 percent of us are trustworthy and kind, it would only take a few numbnuts to foul up the works. Or one misguided soul to fly a digital plane full of people, into a digital World Trade Center. Additionally, there is, and has been a tendency for technology to raise new moral questions, that it takes time to talk out and work through. Lets say for instance that our collective consciousness takes a vote, and decides the place would work better if there were only 5 billion people alive on the Earth, at a time and started selecting the kind and number of people that should be allowed to reproduce, and who should get the most bandwidth on the braingrid, and so forth...we would pretty much, most likely wind up with some of the same kinds of problems we currently have, with powersharing, and eliteism and so-forth, it would just be operating on a different level. Take "Hunger Games" as an indicator of what kind of situation might develop. There most likely would be some disenfrancised group or another revolting AGAINST the Borg... or at least finding a "better way" to live, without it. AND the thought about evolution that I did not complete, was that evolution itself, in the physical, brain chemistry, organism structure sense, takes generations to achieve, and can not keep up with a logoristically accellerating technology. I for instance am not very good at multi-tasking. I have enough trouble remembering where I left the hammer...I don't think I could handle the thoughts and emotions of 8 billion others, with all these unfamiliar hormones and ideas and wills and desires coming into my consciousness simultaneously. And I am rather sure, that NOBODY is built for that. Regards, TAR2 Just pick the person in the world you hate the most, and consider having to share your consciousness with that individual, and millions of others of "like mind" as that... doesn't sound to me like a completely workable situation. At least now, when the Jehovah Witness rings the door bell, you can choose not to answer. And who wants to be mind linked with rapists and mass murderers and insane people, and bigots and drug addicts, and liars and thiefs and so forth?

Hoola, Well, speaking of getting back on topic. 1. " Anything or everything can occur, if there is no reason for it not to occur " 2. " Anything or everything can occur, if there is no reason for it not to occur, if there is some form of initiative for it to occur. " 3. " If there are reasons for anything not to occur , left to their own devices, the path of least energy and /or resistance will be followed. " "left to their own devices" is an interesting conundrum. As a universe, we really don't have anywhere else to turn. That is, any "device" we have at our disposal is already ours, and we don't have the luxury of going for an "outside" opinion. We can not use some other universe's device. If the device can be constructed out of this universe's devices, then it would be immediately one of our own devices. Besides, "left to" would require there to be an "outside this universe" decision maker, which would not be consistent with the thought that the theory included everything. So we should be able to agree that the universe is solely responsible for its own devices, and we are unquestionably left to them, as there is no other way it could be, and still be THIS universe, this particular universe, that there is only one of. If there are "other" aspects of this reality, that we have not yet noticed or considered, then they are still members of the set of our devices, and belong only to this one reality that we have. There is not "another" reality to consider. Here is where I find fault with your (Hoola) thought that everything is information. On two counts. One, "information" is more of an activity than a substance that a universe can be built from, and two, you actually need the whole universe to form any particle of it. Consider Kant's two apriori intuitions. That of space, and that of time. You can not have a "here" without having a "there", and you can not have a "now" without a "before" and a "next"...so any "piece" of information requires the setting of the universe in which to occur. The form needs to exist, to have had occured, before the internalization of that form, or the modeling of that form, or the remembering of that form, can take place. Information, remains, in my opinion, a secondary, reactionary type of thing, not the primary consideration of the whole form, in all its complexity and immense extent, already being the case. You say that one mass of hydrogen atoms over here, has the same informational content as an identical mass, over there. This is not true. Because the one mass is over there, and the other one is over here, giving them each a different position in reference to the rest of the universe. Electrons, may be interchangable and indistiguishable from each other, in the sense that there is not a different thing you can say about one holding a position in your wire, and the next one to hold that position. But you can say there is an electon holding that position, and that position itself, makes that a unique electron, in reference to the universe, because it is the only one that holds that position. So the informational content of an entity is not limited to its contents, but includes its position in time and space. So you cannot build a universe from information about it. Because there is no information without a form to consider. Saying something about something, is different than the thing, as it is. Regards, TAR2

P.S. Sorry for the wise crack. I am just trying to illustrate that your initial question has an element of truth and agreement in it, and an element of an unuseful and self serving nature. Its sort of similar to a question I have been asking myself over the last few months about intelligence and capability and one's view of themselves in reference to other's view of the same capability and intelligence. Like for instance I like to think I am a good singer. Maybe I am, maybe I am not. Perhaps I can hit the right notes that would please another's ear, or perhaps its not as pleasing as I think, or perhaps its pleasing, but nothing special, not anything that would knock off anybody's socks. Then again, there are probably people whose warbling is wasted on the shower's wall, and would please everybody. After all, there are a lot of people that can sing. Choruses however, tend to practice, and all sing notes in harmony with each other...like a bunch of sheep. Would you propose that singing your own notes at the concert, would be somehow an improvement of the experience, for everybody involved? Perhaps in some rare case a certain unexpected harmony might be interesting, but on the whole, my guess would be that people in the audience and the others in the chior would wish the guy third from the left in the fourth row, had learned the song, and could sing his part on key. If you truly feel you have a gift that would be of benefit to the world, go to the talent contest, which we call the university. There you will find others, with gifts, born to think logically and well, and originally and compare your thoughts with theirs. Learn what others have already figured out, concerning the subjects you muse on, and apply your talents to an area of human endeavor where advancements are needed. There you might find yourself outclassed, or just another run of the mill doctorate candidate. Or perhaps you can run a department, or cure cancer or establish world peace, or fly teams to Mars. There are few in this world with a PhD. But those that have them, benefit the world, and lead us in the endeavors that we all appreciate and require. If you think you were born for such a role...pursue it. You can not prove anything to the rest of us, just by saying you think you are something special. Just for fun, consider Socrates. Born with the gifts you feel you were born with, who was sentenced to drink poison by his society. Perhaps he did not apply his gifts in exactly the best manner he could have. Perhaps he did it, exactly right.

Turionx, Think about something, without using language to do it. Even if we all are born with the abiltity to understand and express things in a "universal grammar", the specific words we use in most places in the U.S. are different than the words used in India...in fact India has many different local languages understood by the people of the province, but not by the people of a neighboring one. Now consider that there are varied languages and symbol systems used in various formal logic systems. Conventions all, language, logic, math and thought...yet you propose you were born with your own logic, and your own way of thinking. I somehow doubt that is even possible...well wait...very possible, but not particularly useful. If it is not understood by those around you, it would be impossible for you to share the thing, or use the thing. Before I learned to speak, or as I was learning to speak I would converse with my sister in what my father remembers as meaningless babble. My sister knew what I was saying though, I just had my own words for things. For instance, since I had a lot of trouble saying sh I simply bypassed the difficulty and called a shovel a yahde. (Even later on when I actually spoke English). Point being I think we all know how to think, in our own internal "dream" language, and internalizing the sensible world and remebering it, and using analogies and pattern matching and so on is something that just comes with the territory of having a human brain. So perhaps we are all born philosophers and thinkers. The trick is to do it in such a way that it makes sense to everybody else, as well. Here, while I myself argued with my 5th grade teacher, and later with my calculus professors...I lost the arguments...quite rightly. As I think you should lose this one. You can have a thought, or a word, that makes no sense to anybody else...but what is the use? There is a difference between what you characterize as "being a sheep", and following a useful and workable and valuable convention. Just remember, when you have an "original" thought, that chances are, someone else already had it before, and wrote it down and shared it, and most probably did it 600 years ago. You are not the first "wise guy" to arise on this Earth. Regards, TAR2