A trap for the intellect

a reply to: NobodySpecial268

You are the box.

a reply to: NobodySpecial268
There's no inside or outside .....
Here is all there is.

a reply to: midicon

You are the box.

Well yes I am. "The" box or "a" box"?

I know others are outside of me.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

There's no inside or outside .....
Here is all there is.

That is the view from inside . . .

a reply to: NobodySpecial268

So how to get out of the box? One

You dont i suppose as the reality we think we experience for all intents and purpose is the box.

Hence the reason i point out that even with the many worlds' interpretation and multiverse theory, they would still need to exist within something aka another box.

a reply to: andy06shake

Well, the context is philosophy and metaphysics which would include individual religions as more or less separate philosophies. So the realm of consciousness rather than the physical of science.

Reality of science is the box one might say, but is it really?

My suggestion is thought is what traps the mind within a belief system. The totality of Catholicism can be studied and forms a very defined set of rules for the mind. That creates the box. One might use the term "thought form" or indeed "egregore" as a generic description of the container.

The container and the contained can refer to how thought itself traps the mind within thought's constraints.

So as soon as we entertain the belief that god is all, we are trapped within that thought.

they would still need to exist within something aka another box.

Why exactly?

a reply to: NobodySpecial268

Reality of science is the box one might say, but is it really?

To date, NobodySpecial268, science is the only tool we have in our arsenal that will allow us to answer and attempt to understand our universe and the reality we experience.

Are there questions science cannot answer and does it have limitations, the answer is yes.

The real dilemma or so it would seem lies with resolving and uniting philosophy with physics, and considering they are not exactly synonymous with one another at the best of times, that's always going to be a problem, or so seems to be the case.

Why exactly?

I would have gone more with "What exactly"?

Because there is no such thing as nothingness springs to mind.

originally posted by: andy06shake


To date, NobodySpecial268, science is the only tool we have in our arsenal that will allow us to answer and attempt to understand our universe and the reality we experience.

Philosophical inquiry, logical deduction, etc are all forms of allowing the inside to determine reality, rather than letting the outside determine reality. Science is useful if it's balanced with philosophical inquiry. It is quite sterile without proper interpretation, and to rely on the outside world to tell you what you are is a slippery slope.

a reply to: cooperton

Philosophical inquiry, logical deduction, etc are all forms of allowing the inside to determine reality, rather than letting the outside determine reality. Science is useful if it's balanced with philosophical inquiry. It is quite sterile without proper interpretation

Context is important.

and to rely on the outside world to tell you what you are is a slippery slope.

We are ll products of society cooperton, and society exists within the outside world, which shapes and molds us into the person we become, such is the Human condition that we all experience.

a reply to: andy06shake (and Cooperton apparently : )

To date, NobodySpecial268, science is the only tool we have in our arsenal that will allow us to answer and attempt to understand our universe and the reality we experience.

Western science has it's beginning in 1833 when William Whewell coined the term, so I believe. Prior to that we had Natural Philosophers. A retrospective effort in some ways to pick through history's greatest minds as forebearers.

I wonder what Sir Issac Newton would say of modern science. Or Aristotle?

Outside of science we have the alchemists and hermeticism as tools for understanding. The Islamic and Chinese had their very practical philosophies. One may add the bhuddist way as a very practical tool for knowing. Zen? Why not?

The real dilemma or so it would seem lies with resolves in uniting philosophy with physics, and considering they are not exactly synonymous with one another at the best of times, that's always going to be a problem, or so seems to be the case.

Yah, a difficult thing. Someone would have to compromise ; )

I would have gone more with "What exactly"?
Because there is no such thing as nothingness springs to mind.

I would stay with "why" myself.

What lays between two thoughts?

a reply to: NobodySpecial268

Try it the other way around: the all is God
If there are two extremes and there always are, we are in the stupid position of living in the middle. The matter on one hand, intelligence/consciousness at the other.
Every animal is superior to us in scanning the environment for information with their senses. Sharks who can detect blood in water over crazy distances f.e.
We'll never see all informations about a blossom like a bee does.
Dogs can detect people getting a seizure long before the person in the body does.
Etc.
What we can do they can't is abstract thoughts. Ponder information we only have second hand data for. Think through hypothetical scenarios.
And we are aware of what we don't know.
We got a concept of things not making sense.
And the naging feeling of something unknown and 'bigger' than us pulling the strings behind the curtain.
On an experience, story telling level there is this gigantic need for us to figure out the unknown.
Which is not proof per se, but the question of God is beyond that search for meaning and our place in the bigger picture a totally subjective personal matter.
And I think you can read 'God is the all' simply as us being certain the more powerful aspect of our consciousness/body duality is intelligence and that it is simply necessary that there is sthg like an agent with a plan behind it.
Like Sol is huge seen from Manhattan, tiny from the Milky Way, so is our intelligence huge seen from a virus point of view, tiny compared to what just necessarily to most of us has to be out there.
There's no coincidence, there's just laws and interactions we can't sense. This universe is so fine tuned to our needs, one of the forces a little stronger or weaker and it would all come apart. There's no room for randomness.

Another thing is why some are appalled by the term 'god' that it's perceived as persona, including emotions, a body and everything, which it just don't is. pure intelligence, pure love, the beating heart of the universe.
It's complicated.

a reply to: NobodySpecial268

I wonder what Sir Issac Newton would say of modern science. Or Aristotle?

I think Newton would be over the moon with what Humanity has achieved as to Aristotle well he was a student of Plato's whose belief system revolved around the Platonic substances which have been proven incorrect via modern science. Aristotle would probably think we use magic on par with his gods.

What lays between two thoughts?

How long is a peace of string?

Personally, i cannot envisage nothingness same as i cannot visualize infinity.

a reply to: NobodySpecial268

You know how these mystics like to word things in a way to leave lots of room for interpretation....

Unless there is no truth but thyself...

Ah, the religious/ philosophical mind f###.

Firstly think on this "there is no god", God is a mans construct to try to explain the not yet known unexplainable. ERGO, if there is no god then religions, which I believe, are just mollifiers for the masses. Through the millennia man has been on this Earth he has found/ discovered many many truths, yet after all this time cannot show ANY evidence that there is an entity as god. ONLY FAITH. And faith don't cut it.

And it's EXACTLY the same with life, the Earth, the Universe and everything in it. Just because it's an enigma/ mystery to it man needs/wants to put a higher power/god into the equation. To explain the sometimes inexplainable.

a reply to: Terpene

Aye, the old rainmaker chestnut serves there purpose.

As to truth, logically speaking, that seems to be all about being in accord with facts and reality.

Then again one Man truth can be another Man's lie depending on perspective.

a reply to: Peeple

I'll tell you I grew up in in the sixties in a house that was a mix of Catholic, theosophist and whatever else was the flavour of the day. Dragged off to see some confused looking Indian kid who couldn't speak a word of English imported as the next Maharishi. All in a haunted house where things would float to the cieling and scare everyone #less. And when the everyone was in the kitchen calming down the cieling collapses (geez didn't the adults argue over the reason for that one). Even "fairies" in the garden. Things like that.

Looking back fourty years later I see a pattern, All those adults thought themselves to be something. The theosophist, the Sufi, the staunch Roman Catholic and even the Dutch Reformist. A real mixed bag they were.

The pattern was everyone was very busy being the 'something' and following the rules and observances. My own view is they were too busy to be themselves.

The great egregore of the roman church is an example, in my opinion anyway, of a construct. A construct being a thing. Personally I stay away from that thing, separating myself from 'it'. I can 'see' it, if I want to. I can also see that the collective thought over a few thousand years has built a substantial form. All the infrastructure is there as the clergy describe.

So from the OP:

To my own way of thinking the heaven of the Catholic is not the same heaven as the Hindu, nor the same heaven as the Theosophists for that matter.

Can the polythesic point of view include the montheisic within polytheisism?

I think it can.

a reply to: NobodySpecial268

One won't find the sidhe in the christian nor scientific boxes.

Why not? These box are like themes for my mobilephone, if i have the Christian theme instaled my home button is a cross, if I have the Dino theme my home button is a T-rex, it still does the same and gets me to the same place...

I guess the concept of archetype springs to mind although i find it to be rather limiting...

a reply to: NobodySpecial268

Can the "polytheistic" point of view include the "monotheistic" within "polytheism"?

I think it can.

They can't all be correct given the contradictory claims they make....................but they could all be wrong.

The universe is apparently a big place, and we are so very very little, the ability to know God or a creator force might just be somewhat above our paygrade.

a reply to: Terpene

"truth" - lots of interpretations to be found there. How many soap boxes are there in this world? Does "truth" in the philosophical sense even exist?

I reckon: "Johnny did you hit your little sister?" - "yes mom" is about as close as anyone will get ; )

Maybe the folks at Delphi were down to earth sorts, and simply said "know thy own self" and by extension know what is not the self. Which brings the mind to separativeness. The 'me' and the 'you'.

Mind you, "separativeness" is the greatest of all sins of the folks who advocate "oneness". I think some of them call separateness "the left hand path". - to my mind anyway, something suspicious there in that sort of thinking. Leaves poeple no choice but to conform otherwise "Black magician! Oh my!" - "Let's burn them! Has anyone got a match?"

a reply to: andy06shake

They can't all be correct given the contradictory claims they make....................but they could all be wrong.

If one takes the view that these things are constructs made of thought, that exist as separate things in the sense of the egregrore, within the confines of the construct it may be as they say.

(Evil and mischievious grin)

the ability to know God or a creator force might just be somewhat above our paygrade.

Now isn't god just hear-say?