tar

general science vs. religion comment, I want to find a middle ground and defend it from both sides. I think there is "sense" and "rationality" to considering the universe somehow "parentlike". I think there is something about us humans that establishes an "internal conversation" with that which came before and will exist after. I think we are both in and of the universe and therefore have a certain "belonging to it" that can not be denied. I think it is somewhat understandable to join with others that have come to similar conclusions about the universe that you have. However, I do see many instances of religious leaders usurping the power of the universe, and using their proclaimed special association with it, to divide the world of people into those who agree with them, who are believers with "faith" and those who are in error. This would be fine, if there were no "riders" in the contract, inserted to fulfill the will of the preacher, who in reality has no actual special connection. Believing in reality is automatic. Believing that any man or woman has the "correct and only" grasp of it, is somewhat looney. Its way to big, way to old, and way to complicated for that to be the case. Best we can do is explore it together and get a pretty good feel for the local stuff and perhaps extend some principles to include areas beyond our reach. So I find it hard to "defend" religion when kla2 represents it how he does. Where is the comraderie in "being preached to". If something can not be explained in a way that it "means" something to everybody, its hard for everybody to go along with it. And probably is not true, is not the case, and is not real. I am proposing that there IS a meaning to the concept of GOD that to some extent each of us "knows" what is being referred to. But if in the translation from my concept to your concept there is any disagreement, the misunderstanding is ours, and has no impact on the reality of the thing we each have a concept of. It is complicated to separate reality from our model of it. Peices of truth at least analogous truth are intermingled with error and misinterpreted, especially when the communication of meaning is between two separate minds. On the whole I think the human race has done a fantastic job of finding ways to share "ideas". Just wish scientists would allow themselves a bit more room to dwell in the figurative, and religious people would stick a bit closer to the literal world in which we find ourselves. Regards, TAR2

kla2, I am wondering if you read responses Or just post? Your last post was a restatement of earlier posts, with no comment pro or con on any of the thoughts expressed inbetween. What changed, that will be bringing this movement into the fore? Was there some "event"? Did something change in the world, or did something change in your view of it? Have you been taken by the charisma of a cult leader? Or do you have some evidence that you or anybody else can see, without being TOLD to see it that way? If this new reality can only be seen if you are brainwashed or hypnotised or drugged, then it exists more in your mind that out where I can see it. Telling me again that it is coming, will not do the trick. Tell me where to look to see it coming. And if it has anything to do with "only being able to see if you have "faith"". Then I do not think its coming for me. Just you. Regards, TAR2 Phi for All, Yeah I forgot that rule. Can't moderate yourself. You lose your whistle when you put on the pads and helmet. Regards, TAR2

Imparticle, How can something outside of time "build" anything? Building would require a process. A process would require cause and effect, and time to achieve a result. There would have to be a starting condition where the building was not yet constructed, and then a time when it was finished. And how can something be "between", if not spacially or temporarily thusly positioned? And I did already ask, without any answer, why one would need any more than simply one of these particles, to do everything you suspect it has the abilitly to do? And you have not considered, or you have not responded to my suggestion that what you think is a representation of the thing you mean, not actually the thing. And nothing can be said about something that nothing can be said about. If it has no quantity, no quality, no relation and no modality, how are we to know what you "mean" by it? In my take on your theory Imparticle, it is not that the imparticle is "like an idea". It seems to me that the imparticle IS an idea. And if you think having an idea that matches reality and having reality match your idea are the same operation, I think you have another think coming. Both scientist and philosophers have been careful to find the ways that thought and sense and reality are connected, and where they are different. The existence of the imparticle, actually, in any place other than ones mind, would be demonstratable, if its existence were both sufficient and nescessary to explain ANY actual thing. And being that you have assigned the imparticle a number of attributes that have no testable falsafiablity, AND have no known meaning, it is difficult to discuss. You will not provide scientists with something they can sink there teeth into, and you do not even entertain the "problems" with the idea, that a lay person like myself raises. Interesting to me that your idea has "developed" over time. If axiomatic and basic in nature, everything else would have just "followed". All you would have had to do, was acurately described how to find this thing, and everybody could see it and start working with it, and explain everything they know about reality, with it. At least string theories have math behind them that others can repeat, improve on or find flaws in, or look for places where it might not match with observations. They attempt to explain something in particular. You are attempting to explain everything at once. Might as well be theorizing on the attributes and nature of God. Regards, TAR2 Or how many angels will fit on the head of a pin. By the way, on a humorous note. My imparticle powered wife replaced the broken lampshade on my "substantially existing, unchangingly real" lamp. It IS no longer the "same" lamp.

Phi for All, Next logical step perhaps. But there is no place like home. Humans "fit" the Earth. Here is where we came to be. Its air, it water, its density, its gravity, its temperature, its web of life, its abundace of organic molecules laid down by our predecesors, would all have to be reestablished on other stations and planets. Not that there will not be explorations and satellite bases, but "logically" we are liable to as well, figure out how to share this place for a long time, and keep it viable. China has already (I think) established a two child rule. And I generally would guess that we would rather fight and work, and plan and sacrifice, for our place here, then cause ourselves to have to "switch" to a less desireable place. Regards, TAR2

drewmillar, Couldn't answer the poll. If you mean will what turns out to be the case be consistent with reality I would say yes. If you mean has it already been determined, I would say definitely not. Not even "whether it is heads or tails" can be scientifically known ahead of time. (provided its a "human" "unrehearsed" flip). But the probabilities can be determined. And each flip has rather similar "initial conditions". If your imagined "life repeater" were to start again with everything exactly the same, and where to flip a coin, at the age of 10, what about the universe and the initial conditions would "cause" the coin to only land heads up, every time the life was repeated? If the chances were 50 50 the first time, they would be the second time as well. And that is one moment in one life. It is easy to point out any number of places in one life, where a coin flip, so to speak, would have potentially made a change, even a small change in a life. How could an entire life, even one life be "already" determined. Now consider all the other lives going on at the same time, changing the conditions. Now consider all the other objects and entities, changing the conditions that other objects and entities are operating in. More likely to me, that the universe, though scientifically valid up to now, does not know what it is going to do next. After it does it, it was obviously possible. Predicting its exact next move is rather a huge undertaking, and one that could not possibly be done before the universe made the next move. By the time you could figure it out, it would be history. Think it is better to concern oneself with local predictions, where one has a modicum of possible control over both the initial conditions and the outcome. Regards, TAR2

Tres Juicy, I am not an expert, but I have been musing along these lines and investigating "the meaning behind language". This investigation is why I am on these threads. I have much to learn, and am just reading Pinker and Chomsky and Deutscher now. At arms reach with early bookmarks in each, I have; Language and Mind-Noam Chomsky The Unfolding of Language-Guy Deutscher Language Instinct-Steven Pinker The Stuff of Thought-Steven Pinker InQuiries Into the Origin of Language (the fate of a Question)-James H. Stam Critique of Pure Reason-Immanuel Kant I do not pretend to have either the knowledge or intellectual horsepower of these writers, and I have not yet read them through, primarily because just a few pages of any of them get me "thinking" trying to put together all the ideas into "my" understanding. Chomsky writes of a "universal grammar" that learners of language are "already" armed with. This goes along with INow's "It's about logical relationships, structure, and objects. Even without vocabulary, you can still have language." 'Cause there is these relationships "already" in the folds and connections of our senses and brain, and in the world around us, that we intuit, and come to know. This is my direction anyway, sort of an "average" of the thoughts on the matter that I have read about. But to your original question, and consistent with what I have read and understood so far, it would indeed be difficult to think about anything without using "something" that stood for something else. Even in math (another language), the relationship between things is expressed, and each term in any statement stands for something else. MEANS something. It is the meaning behind our words that I am on a quest to discover, but interestingly, as soon as we use a word, we "already" know what it means. At least we had something in mind. One of my recent guesses about language is that it is conventional symbols(that stand for something) used to communicate meaning between two minds that already know each other. So that the symbols in and of themselves are not really the "thing" that is being shared. So what of "when I think of something"? Don't I already know my own mind? Why would I need a "language" to think in? Have not really fleshed out the answer to this yet. Have some guesses and candidates to put together yet. But we do have these "internal conversations". Perhaps it has something to do with "focus" and we utilize the mechanisms already evolutionarily available, that bring the outside world into focus and locate and identify the distance and nature of threats and opportunities, and perform some similar "operations" on the analog model of the world we remember, that we hold internally. So that the "things" that we mean, when we think, are those things in our model that we are focusing on. To do this, it is not unlikely that there are important analogies between the grammar and symbols we use for language between minds and the grammar and symbols we use to know "what we mean" when we think. Regards, TAR2

Like to throw the thought in here, to nobody in particular, that I think we "do" science naturally. That is we learn about the world around us, by sensing it and building an increasingly accurate model of it, and we continually test our model against reality, and adjust it accordingly. Formal science is a real good way for each of us to share what we have discovered with others, and learn what others have discovered about the world. (maybe the learning part is more important and numerous than the teaching) Metaphysics can pretty much be carried out in ones head, but formal science demands peer review and repeatability of the tests of the model against reality. The mere facts of precision and repeatability, tested and retested by more than one mind, make the model in the one mind more likely to "match" the model in the other. And at that point, "how we know what we know" becomes less critical, and more important becomes the fact that we know the same thing. That is, I have this precise model of this thing, you have the same precise model of the thing, the model matches the thing, and we both mean the same thing that we are modeling, AND we can tell anybody else about this thing and THEY will know which thing we mean, exactly which thing we mean and be able to hold the same precise model of it that we hold. Regardless of what philosophy and metaphysics might say about our ability, individually to know the thing as it is, we at least know we are not the only intuitor that intuites the darn thing.

Ponderer, Kant suggests (reasons) that time and space are our two pure intuitions. From these we build math (the successive adding over time) and from our intuition of space, Geometry. Although he constructs a rather sound "science of metaphysics" from these two intuitions, and a table of judgements, that describes our understanding, and a table of categories where we use these judgements to understand subjects...he does not seem to think that this gives us a basis for knowing the "thing as it is" directly. You seem to be saying that since you have geometry, and the world has geometry then the world obviously should be had by a person capable of a geometric thought. And since it was not you who created the world, it must be someone like you, only really really bigger and older and more powerful. I could use the same argument, and figure that a snowflake obviously has some understanding of geometry, so the universe is most likely envisioned by a very great and powerful snowflake. Or figure that a large and powerful eternal strand of DNA is behind it all, or perhaps a huge mitochondria. or figure that all these more complicated configurations are just permutations of charge and spin and distance, and therefore the world was created by "nothing" breaking apart into symmetries. In which case God is x-fold symmetry. No more. No less. Or you might take my take, and figure that the universe does not know what it is doing, except for us intuitors, who are both of it, and seek to understand it. And that the universe has not yet done what it is going to do next. In any of these cases, the existence of God does not follow from the fact of geometry. Regards, TAR2 or did you mean to say that God is geometry is the universe. In which case the simplist of the three is geometry, and that will suffice to create the universe. In which case we can leave God completely out of it since he is not required and we can't locate him anyway? Ponderer, Sorry, I just remembered that Mooeypoo has you in "time out".

SwansonT, Well then, I certainly withdraw my SO massive statement. I carried the analogy at an improper ratio. I guess to get really massive you would have to be much closer to the speed of light. Regards, TAR

SwansonT, Although there is the question of what the gamma two traveler would think of the measured length of a meter stick that SHE placed on a space buoy, before making her gamma two run past it. Owl, That if C is constant then length and time must vary with velocity, seems to be the case. PeterJ, I think Zeno was confused. Here I would use a "switching" grain size argument. That is, we have the capability to mentally "imagine" huge unfathomable things, by analogy. We can divide things up infinitely by always making another subtraction/division or build them up indefinitely by continually making additions/multiplications. But we have to have a grain size in mind, to do it. In some cases, the analogy just doesn't hold, or is improperly carried out, without accounting for the other things that are going to actually change at the new grain size imagined. If I feel good after two drinks, I should feel twice as good after four, and four times as good after eight and feel eight times as good after 16. No, you are lying in the gutter in a drunken stupor. Regards, TAR Like the near light speed traveler. She would be so massive at that speed, she would be warping the space around her. Who knows what she would experience. Aside: Too often in math, one has to do an "as if" conception. One of my difficulties with grasping certain mathematical concepts is sometimes stubborn realization that you can't really achieve that "as if" without breaking some "other" law of nature. For instance, lets say I construct a stick one MilkyWay diameter in length. How long did it take me to construct this, couple seconds? Now which end of the stick am I on? I won't even see the other end for a hundred thousand years. How can I "do" anything with that stick.

PeterJ, You say only concepts can hold concepts apart. However, a concept must be "of something", in my determination. And therefore there may be a something that gives us those concepts in the first place. On perhaps at least two grounds. One, we would not have a relationship modeled in our brains if that relationship did not have an analogue in the outside (the brain) world. Two, our brains are "of the world" and thus would be hard pressed to come up with anything that did not include, in some analogous way, the relationship between real things. (including negation) Regards, TAR2

Moontanman, I guess I was talking about things that our outside our ability to experiment with and interact with, that we just "imagine" are there, with no way of ever verifying. For instance, many in the scientific community speak of the entire universe as being as evolved as things are around here. They "imagine" such a universe, because it is not the one we experience. The background cosmic radiation is evidence of a universe just becoming transparent to photons. Which do you "believe" exists now? The one we see, or the one that is imagined? How are we to ever experience what is "happening" now on a planet on a star on the other side of the Milky Way? We just have to take it on faith, that there is such a thing occuring. What we can study and know as fact, is what that planet was doing several hundred thousand years ago. That is provided we have a really powerful device to see something the size of a planet at that distance, through the gas and stars of the center of our galaxy. To imagine that there is a particular thing going on now, on such a planet is a wild leap of faith, with no way to verify the guess. That is the kind of "belief" I am talking about. A reasonable guess as to what possibly exists, with no way to verify the truth of the matter. I cannot speak for you. But I have a tendency to think that if I do something, it is possible that others like me, can do it to. There are many things that I believe exist, that I take on faith exist, without ever checking for myself. The picture of me in my profile is cropped from a picture where my daughter and I are standing next to a 10 foot tall donkey wearing sunglasses. You will just have to take it on faith. Its the truth. Regards TAR2

THoR, I am not a "ghost in the machine" type of guy. I would like to refute your argument, while retaining the possibility of a "figurative" soul. One that emerges because of our inability to be present in any other time but now, or any other place but here. Think of each of us as a focal point. Where the past and future intersect, and the enormous and the tiny cross. We each are both a composite of multiple elements, and elements of a larger scheme. We are constituted of the molecules within us, we are situated in the universe around us, we were the past, and will be the future, but currently, presently, we are here, now. It is not untrue to consider one's self somehow connected to, and responsible for, and "in possession" of all these things. It is, after all, the only universe we have. It is ours, and we are it's. However, my model of the world is unique. My body/brain/heart group has its own unique gene history, as well as its own unique history of experience and thought. Where I sleep, and who I love, and where I work, and my family and friends are different than yours. But everywhere I go, there I am. THIS body/brain/heart group sticks together, and has for the last 58 years, and probably will for another 20-40 years. When I die, my consciousness of here and now, will have no hope of continuing. All the reasons for experiencing here and now are in the complicated human organism I am. I will have as much consciousness as I did before I was concieved/born or whenever it was, I first had a thought or a feeling. I certainly have no notion of a thought or a feeling prior being me. Chances are I will have no experience of being TAR, when TAR dies. What good would heaven be, with no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no nose and tounge to smell and taste, no nerves to feel, no heart to beat, no brain to think and remember and predict, no muscles to move, no particular place to be and no particular time to be there? Might as well be dead. Oh, that's right, I AM dead if I am in heaven (or hell), or melded with the force or reabsorbed into the mind of God. Sort of makes being alive the only thing I've got. Makes it a good thing. That I can see the tiny and the huge, the ancient and the everlasting, the near and the far, from here. ME. Regards, TAR2

Immortal, It is hard for me to "defend" an insight. Probably, my definition is not as true as I think it is. If it was true, then people would just "see it". It makes sense to me, and it folds in nicely with the other muses on consciousness, self, and what we include and exclude in our feeling of self. But that's just me, attempting to arrive at a consistent worldview that is scientifically and logically correct and explains stuff that is normally thought of as not scientifically approachable. Me thinking such, does not make me feel any better when I lose someone who is part of me. One can know exactly why they get hungry, every chemical and neuron firing involved. They would still feel hunger, and it wouldn't take anything away from the feeling. But I won't defend my definition. Either it makes sense, or it doesn't. Your choice. Regards, TAR2

Xittenn, Well considering the "nature" of dreams, in that they are "happening" in ones "imagination", many things are possible there, that are not possible "here". That is, there is a distinction between the rules of what can "work" in a dream, and the rules that the "waking world" go by. But to complicate matters, the world we all consider the "real world" is ALSO "happening" in our skull. That is, we all have a "model" of the real world, that we have internalized. The world we all share is an actual one, and the model we each carry of it has an abundance of coincidential features. When something changes in the real world, that we become aware of, our "model" instantly is adjusted to include it. In this, there appears to be a "mixing" possible of things that are real and things that are imaginary. Not unlikely that ALL of our thoughts and images are "taken" from the real world. After all, that is all we have to start with, and that is all we have to ever wind up with. However, we know when we are asleep and we know when we are awake. Most of the time, anyway. So there is some facility we have, to be aware of the difference. Probably has to do with the "consistency" of the real world. There are "things" that are always sensible, to everybody, that always follow the same rules, regardless of whether we are thinking about them or not. Those are the rules we adhere to automatically, since there is no way to break laws of nature. In dreams though, we can adjust the rules. Go by our own, so to speak. The "mixing" is enough though, to not discount "dwelling in" a dream as an unrealistic thing. Regards, TAR2

Sorry kla2, I am responding without reading your link. I would like to explain why there is enough evidence in the statement above, for me to know this is "nothing new." Correcting human nature? What was it before the correction? What is it after the correction? Was there a particular moment that this gene change occured? If It was only 2000 years ago, we can probably come up with some 2050 year old DNA and some 1950 year old DNA and see the difference. Also, we could find where Human biology is altered beyond all evolutionary boundaries. I am thinking this unlikely, since we have evolved, and therefore have done it within whatever boundries exist. Then there are some "silly" questions I have. Why would a divine power need to "intervene" in its own natural order? Would not the natural order be its to begin with, and therefore already include the possiblity for human conciousness to emerge within it? There is no need for a divine power to prove itself. The universe is already sufficiently wonderful. "to confirm divine will, command and covenant" Well, I would suppose that whatever the will of the universe is, it is already being done, and the "command" the universe has is evident anytime things don't go according to "our" will. And the "covenant" is already apparent. The universe is certainly holding up its end of the bargain. Otherwise, we would have nothing to exist in, and would have had nothing to emerge from, and we would have nothing to explore and wonder about. What is the need to pin the universe down to a particular "state of mind". We are already a particular thought in the mind of the universe, if you want to look at it thusly. If you imagine the universe being part of you, this is fine with me, I do it myself. But I believe evidence suggests that I have no special relationship with the universe, that is not similar to the relationship that every other human on earth has. It seems rather odd, that some feel that the way you look at the universe, would make any difference at all to IT. All the difference that it makes, seems to be in our own human minds, and actions. If there are beneficial ways to look at the universe and each other, they are benefits that would accrue to us. Not nesscessarily to the universe. Why would a "new way" to look at Christ's life, be substantially different than the way his disciples saw it? That is, if it still was an "internal" communication and understanding. If there is substantial value in the teachings of Christ, which I think there may be, one can accrue the same benefits by understanding the "meaning" behind his words, and take figuratively that which is figurative, and take literally that which is literal. A more scientific approach, would be to show some evidence. Not to pretend you have some. Regards, TAR2

immortal, But try it from my definition's perspective. Love is when you include another entity in your feeling of self. When someone (an entity you included in your feeling of self) is in another's arms you tend to feel very bad about it. Partially because your consideration of this person being part of you, is evidently or possibly incorrect. You might feel some hatred toward the person for stepping away from you. Or hatred toward the person whose arms they are in, for taking a peice of you away. In anycase, what you considered part of you, is now...not so much. You very well may not feel "indifferent" about this. Quite the opposite...it matters to you very much. Just can't do much about it. Hurting the person that you would rather was part of you, is useless. Hurting the person whose arms they are in, is illegal and you have no interest in spending time in jail AND being without that part of you you are losing. So you are in a bind. Win them back? Maybe, but now you have this thing that tells you that it is not so safe or sure that you can again include this person in you feeling of self. There is now some evidence that they do not feel the same about you. Makes it hard to consider this entity a part of you. More likely this person is not easily included in your feeling of self. Unrequited love. Don't know exactly what emotion to attribute when you include another person in your feeling of self, and the situation is not recipricated. Maybe it is still love. It's just not a workable situation. Regards, TAR2 You are in the lurch. You have had your "heart" cut out. A part of you is missing. You need some time to feel whole again. Find something else to fill the gap. To feel "yourself" again.

Ophiolite, I too am a fan of "waking thoughts". Lately I have started to write a couple of them down. Primarily because they are usually a bit odd, and the "question" that they are answering is not always as readily apparent as the course restructuring. And the details or "particular" angle might be lost or obscured by subsequent events. At least writing it down, allows me to look at it later and ask "what did I mean by that?". Could it really work? Regards, TAR2 If you are interested, and you might be, since you have been on some of the other threads I have been reading and thinking about on this forum, I will here post verbatim the last three entries in a notebook I have at arms reach when I wake. This of interest not only in their content, but to the nature of dreams, in that the following are "waking thoughts" - What role does sleep play in determing subjective and objective reality. Does sleep establish a baseline,(object) from which changes are determined. -Ricochet-The importance of in establishing self-and the difference in the ricochet when viewed from a different FOR -The Irk IRK The Urge URGE The Impulse Impulse

INow, I like your take. Similar to the hijack thread, in that it looks at what dreams are in terms of evolution, and therefore in a sense not only what they are, but how they came about. The common idea being that as religion hijacks "already in place" neural "ability", so might/(must) dreams. You pointed out the interactions with unseen others, and the "practicing" or rehearsal, or imagination of possible outcomes. This seems to "work" if there is an analogue we can "hijack" or repurpose. My candidate for the job is our "predictive motor simulator". Where various timing and order of neuron firing is "rehearsed" to predict the outcome "before" actually firing the motor neuron pulses to result in the coordinated motor movement desired. But the predictive motor simulator allows for the "learning of particular timing and sequences that will work" within the limits of the sensory reach, and to the limits of our fingers and toes. When we reach beyond our fingers and toes, we are into an area in which we do not have neurons, either sensory or motor. Perhaps we still can use the predictive motor simulator apparatus however and put together what "works" in reality, before we "fire off the particular timing and sequence" of impulses. Might be good to imagine what would happen if you roasted your boss over an open fire, before making the attempt. Appolinaria, "making up for what is lacking in reality" may be a good way to describe our "reach" into the areas beyond our fingers and toes. Regards, TAR2

PeterJ, Had to do a little Wikiing to understand your references. After my jaunt, I think I know what you mean, although I am not sure what point of yours I was arguing against in an ungrounded fashion. Never-the-less, meaning-wise, I am sort of feeling that you and me are OK. That is, not in a state of conflict. However the intertwinishness of philosopy and science was evident, looking at the topics and people and concepts you mention. Logic-set theory-math are the underpinnings of science. And in the other direction, truth is already in place, we just have to locate it. Regards, TAR2 and on a personal investigative note...language, whether math, or words only works if the users know the meaning behind the symbols...and I have a good guess that there actually is a "consistent" world to which we all refer. Or as Owl might put it. A world that would exist, whether we referred to it or not.

PeterJ, Noticed a little contradiction there, that might be very important to the discussion. Everybody agrees on this metaphysical point that is undecidable? If we all agree, then its been decided, which would make it decidable. I am not a fan of these logical "binds". I think set theory has a famous one similar. Russell's. I understand them, but don't quite agree that they are so problematic as they are set out to be. For instance in the contradiction in your statement above, you can understand the contradiction, only if you set the assumptions up as "strawmen" that can be easily taken down. There are different senses that statements can be taken in, and it is not difficult to find some sense in which the thing you are saying is not true. One of my favorite statements is "listen to what I mean, not what I say". Such may be the problem with philosophers who can always say something that weakens their own statements in some manner or another if the "meaning" of the assumptions is twisted or misunderstood or switched to another referant where things might not fit so well. Such may be where scientists discount the "absolute" value of thought, and say...look here, it just happened, its true. The world verifies itself. It never contradicts itself. It cannot. It must all fit together. It has no way to lie. It has no way to go back on its word. It has no way to take a "different" perspective. What ever has happened cannot be "undone", whatever is happening is actual, and what will happen next is contingent upon what has happened before. The world is absolutely true. What we think of it is accurate but not complete. Being part of it, we cannot contain it all in thought, except by analogy. Analogies which are not necessarily completely appropriate. But to prove my point...that science and philosophy are closely intertwined...my support of science in the above paragraph was a statement of "my" philosophy, which can easily be torn apart by focusing on the ways it is not true or not possible. But can be "understood" as true, if a "meaning" behind my words has a "real" object which also has "meaning" to you. As in what Superball said. Regards, TAR2

mississippichem, What is to be gained by asking such a question? That would depend on what the answers turn out to be. In any case, say in looking for the "final theory", there is a guess that all this symmetry and the mirror images that seem to keep actually being the case might "mean" something. That there may be an underlying principle or two or three or four or 5 or 6 or 10 or 12 or so from which everything follows. Looking for this would only be appropriate if "so far" we have found such answers that were actually in agreement with both our expectations and our experience. Since there are many cases in which our expectations DO indeed match with what is actually the case, there is no harm in continuing to look for such "patterns" in reality. We have found them before, we will likely continue to find them. Regards, TAR If it is evil gnomes that are doing it all, and not good elves, I might feel differently about it. It might even make a difference if it was good gnomes instead of evil elves. But if it is one or the other, or what ever the answer might be, I would still like to know the principles involved. Wouldn't hurt to know. And might open up some new avenues of exploration. Ever notice how certain "patterns" seem to be actually the case, on completely different scales? Like the shape of hurricanes and the shape of the Milky Way? Or an atom and a solar system both having this central thing that other smaller things orbit around? Might be some "principles" involved.

PeterJ, Well, I don't know if you are setting up a strawman here, or what. "Philosophy's claim that all positive metaphysical positions are logically indefensible" IS a positive claim in the first place. And might be considered a metaphysical position. Which would mean basically that you can not claim anything at all, ever. And I do not think that is either the goal of philosophy nor it's final conclusion. I am trying to get at a point, that there is "meaning" behind what we all think and say. And I am trying to float a hypothesis as to why humans (including you and me of course) tend to argue about obvious things. Both philosophers and scientists have a skeptic streak. Show me the evidence. Show me the proof. I want to know what is true, and I want to know it for myself. There is a litmus test that I believe we all use to determine what is real. It is that test that I am trying to locate and investigate. I am asking, what is it about us that is so grounded in reality, that we "KNOW" what is real, no matter what anybody else tells us? It is interesting to me that the term "awake" is used by the Shaman/Buddah fellow asked about his particular nature. I have a feeling that is very important. We dream when we are asleep, we experience reality when we are awake. We all sleep. The rules are different when you are asleep and when you are awake. Asleep you are in control of the whole shooting match. Awake...not so much. In imagination and dream, your knowledge is of you, whatever is in your body/heart/brain. Awake your knowledge is of that which you can potentially know, that is much larger than you, that you have not yet internalized or found out about. Consider the quote you posted for me, about how meditation's goal is to get to the point where there is no difference between meditating and not meditating. And this will give you complete knowledge and compassion, and energy. Ask yourself if this is a possible thing on an inward flight. Ask yourself if this is a possible thing on an outbound flight. My answer is obvious. You are dreaming if you think you can contain it all. In reality its way to big, way to old, way to far away, for a human to contain, in any manner that is not an inward flight. The outbound flight allows for new knowledge to be attained. The inward flight just allows us to process and integrate what we have experienced on the outbound (awake leg of the journey) and to prepare and rehearse our next "real" flight. That we will take in the "waking world". (hey that last sentence works in two ways) Philosophy in this answer, would be the thinking about, and ordering of the "so far internalized" waking world, and the integration of it into our "model of the world". Science would be the trial of our model against that which there is to internalize, which exists in truth in the "waking world". Can't do one without the other. But there is a difference between being awake, and dreaming. Likewise you can not do science without philosophising, nor do any philosophising without some "real" grist to mill. There is a difference between doing science and philosphising. One is done in the waking world. The other can be done with your eyes closed. Regards, TAR2 superball, Read your link after I posted the above. Still think the above stands. And the waking world exists, much as we experience it. Any "higher order" objectivity is not real or available in the waking world. By definition. What use to a human is a reality a human can not awake to? Regards, TAR2

PeterJ, There you go again with the Shaman stuff. Like certain folks are "practitioners" of humaness and others are just farting around as something else. Humbug. We are all human. Those of us who are...well, human. What exactly is it that your practioner practices? Am I able to do this thing? Have I done it already? Could I have done it before, am not doing it now, but might do it again later? What if both the inward arrow and the outward arrow ARE important to me, and I have decided the outward arrow is more easily shared and verified, and the inward arrow is somewhat limited and not required to "fit" reality. I could easily notice that the world/universe is huge and ancient beyond comprehension, and detailed and numerous beyond comprehension as well...but also noticed that I am completely of it, and there is none of me that is not. I did not spring from nothing, I was born of the union of two other humans who in turn were each born likewise. This string of parents goes back to before humans had enough human characteristics to be called such. And the organisms before them were the offspring or peices of what came before them. The first cell perhaps a few organic molecules inside a bubble. But before that there were molecules and bubbles, crystals growing and repeating their pattern. Kant might consider time, addition...the successive adding of like things. And space geometry...the relative position of things. But these are the two human intuitions. That which is already "given". The basis upon which other "understandings" are built. If we are of the world, we are of it in more than one way or more than one sense. Our equipment evolved because it fit, it worked. Not only are we the patterns the universe is capable of producing, but we sense the patterns the universe is arranged in. And although our representations are not complete, they are "something like" what is actually so. And in a real sense, even the "representations" are built from actual patterns, with actual real arrangements of synapses and series of firings of neurons. Any flight inward, is a flight outward, and any flight outward, an inward thing. The two are almost by defintion bound together. One could take any thing we think and do from this "combo" perspective. But also, in deference to others in the same boat, one should, in my book, differenciate between flights of fancy that only one can take, and flights into reality that all can take. You asked me once, (Either you or Immortal) about whether I felt somebody else could know something I don't. Absolutely people can and do know more than me. And at the very least, different things than what I know. We each hold a model of the world. And many have cataloged portions of their model for others to share. But a Shaman is no more or less a practitioner than a researcher, or a mathematician, or an artist, or a doctor, or a preist, or a soccer mom, or a shoemaker, or a football player, or a movie star. At least not in my book. Not till you show me where the Shaman is talking about a flight I can take, that "fits" reality. And if its just a matter of interpretation, and I am "already aware", then what reality is the Buddah awake to, that I have my eyes closed to? Is it something only Shamans can do? Or is it a matter of definition? What does it "mean" to reach Nirvana? Not what does it mean to the reacher, but what does it mean in terms that everybody else can use? Regards, TAR2 and more importantly What does one do the day after they reach Nirvana?

PeterJ and Immortal, This "no distinction" stuff. Means nothing to me. It is a thought had by a mortal, who by definition is distinquished from the rest of reality. I find it an impossible thing, to have a thought, which is not yours. Not that others could not give you the idea, and not that others could not have the idea, or not that the idea might come to you as a very clear and full understanding of yourself and your relationship to the universe. But if "you" have a thought, then it is "you" having the thought. Please explain to me how "you" can have a thought, if there is no "you". Regards, TAR2