Blind Men And An Elephant; Perspective and Relativity

reply to post by Sahabi


you have helped me attain a bit more peace once again, thank you, iam truly happy i stumbled upon this place, i have tried to send a private message but it is not allowing me to, is there any way to send messages?

i also seek knowledge, i dont think it says anything about intelligence, although a keen intellect can help cut through knowledge like a knife, but whats more important is to have a burning desire to understand, and that is what ive had seemingly all my life, i see the same in my little 10 year old brother, i first saw it when he asked me why the sun doesnt run out of power, an interesting thing for a child to think about....its this questioning that leads to exploration, its the motivation to start the path to knowledge, my only problem is that the more i learn the deeper the rabbit hole gets.....the more i learn, the more i realize theres always more and what i knew before was incomplete, do i seek to be complete? why do i feel more detached from myself the more i learn about the world? i always thought that when i understood more about the world and about the human condition i would understand myself better, but in reality its been the opposite, i feel less and less like myself....
and i actually would love to learn to meditate, im kind of afraid of it to be honest.....a few years ago i tried, first off, it was difficult to silence my mind, but once i did and i lay there, i swear im not lying, but i felt as if i was leaving my body, my soul, or whatever it is inside of me, started to drift off, it was scary and i got up and never tried it again......out of body experiences scare me, they make me feel uncomfortable and make me feel like iam losing myself, i dont know why but i need to be grounded securely in my body.....since you are into buddhism im sure you know about the pineal gland, this year ive been feeling it i think, its a strange feeling, i can concentrate and feel a wave of energy unleashing..i feel like i have unlimited potential inside me.....but then i become fearful and shut it down......am i just programmed to shy away to be scared? i wonder what it is im so afraid of.....

and this will sound crazy but when i really concentrate and think about the physical world, i lose sense of 3 dimensional space, a lot of people believe we are distinctly separated from our environment bc we have a clear body structure and skin, but i know better(certain neuroscience experiments prove that we can trick our brain into thinking a rubber hand across the room is yours, we can integrate seemingly unconnected things into our body schema).....skin is just a layer, when i think about something like this for example, i feel like im stuck in a protoplasm of life, a part of it, when you move your hand side to side in your room, you are not moving your hand in an empty space, you are moving through it and with it.....ive always been able to be a good student because when i learn something, i dont just learn and memorize it, I FEEL IT, it becomes a part of my reality(i believe the more we learn of the world, the more we become of it, its quite often a burden we must carry around)......the fact that i feel so much is a problem because it makes me feel like iam not normal, like iam crazy, although i know iam not.....its so hard to describe what i feel, i hope you can understand....

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by Sahabi

 

SO this means heaven exists and i get to see my loved ones in a magical afterlife were all the aborted babies go? Or does this mean that the soul is real and god made us all including our genitalia by hand?

Wow if only we posted more pseudo intelectual threads so that deluded idiots could use them to reasure themselves that their not crazy and it isnt retarded to believe in such moronic things.

This post by our angry luminary wertdagf, is exactly what the OP adresses...the closed-minded, myopic, blind, polarised attitude, which can only really bring more anger and more blindness. Good luck on your, so far, fruitless journey wertdagf.
Akushla

hey wertgadf or whatever your name is......you think people who think like us are moronic idiots? explain to me how there is a such uniqueness in human beings when we are all using the same tools(brain, body).......the fact that you are even here to discuss your opinions and spew negative feelings are because of your subjective experience.....i know your reply was to the initial post, but these things are intricately related....and im willing to have a nice discussion with you, but please do not call people morons, it really is rude...

what if i told you everything we discussed i can back up with science, i just got done with 5 years of college(im 24) where i got two degrees and a minor in philosophy at an extremely difficult science school, and i can also document my SAT scores for you, 1520 out of 1600, 800 on the verbal section, so my analytical skills are very up to par and i can assure you this is not moronic babble(and you may still claim iam a moron, but ill trust standardized testing for now), have some respect for people, i used to be a hardcore atheist(i still am, but i was arrogant and bashed religious people) after i took freshmen year bio bc i believed i knew everything, how wrong i was, it is the most evil deed to be ignorant and lash out at others, i didnt want to use statistics to validate myself but sometimes its the only thing people like you will understand.....and my degrees are in neuroscience, psychology, and a minor in philosophy, the minor was because they dont let you get three degrees, which i would have if they let me because thats how much i love knowledge, i came to this conclusion that me and him have been discussing after five years of studying the brain(biologically, reading current experiments and doing some on my own), i also studied psychology and i have three papers published, it might be confusing to you what we discussed, but i honestly cant go through the past five years and build all the steps for you to get to this point, it will take too long, i wish i could, not because i want to hit back at you, but because i think its my goal to venture out and come back and help others, although i myself am in need of assistance from time to time, and no i dont think im some kind of special person, anyone is capable of this, most people just choose not to, but for me, my path is clear......iam sorry if i seem to be lashing out at you, but i must defend myself, you must understand, this is my PASSION, this is my life.....that and being a doctor.....but thats the boring part lol

oh yea and wertgadf....we are more than our brains, let me explain....when you are born you dont exist yet, the brain is just a tool that takes in information from the environment, only electrical information, all the senses(light, sound, pressure for touch, must be transduced into electrical signals because that is all the brain understands, check out braingate if you havent seen that yet, which basically plugs a computer into a paraplegics brain and he is able to control the mouse on the computer with his thoughts, because once again, all electric) so yea the brain is very advanced and what happens is this brain is thrown into a bunch of data, it has to make sense of it...........but the key point here is that it is the data that creates you, not the brain, there is nothing unique about anyone's brain(for the most part).......it is the data that is important, and that clearly is outside of your brain...and you see this is how we are here talking to each other , this is how we have invididual existences, because we each encounter a unique set of data coming in over out lifetime, this shapes and creates the self.....it is subjectivity that defines us........that is what we have been talking about......i personally dont believe in a god or anything, but you seem to do a lot of bashing on spiritual people, i was like that a few years ago because i thought i knew everything, until i looked deeper into science and philosophy, weird right science usually leads in the other direction, but it is because most scientists go into it looking at one angle or perspective, philosophy enables people to step back a bit and see many perspectives and see that these perspectives is what seems to define life itself.......dont bash spirituality or things that seem paranormal, we are outside our heads, anything is possible........consciousness reigns supreme over matter....do you ever think we will look somewhere and see nothing?

reply to post by akushla99


you just dont realize how close you are to the apocolypse literally.

If you think this magic fairy stuff is gonna last forever your shoving your head in the sand. Millions of people build thier lives around these false hopes.. and everythings all fine and dandy for those being lied to and those spreading the lies untill the day of reckoning. If i thought the deluded could live without being faced with the moment in their lives where all their dreams fall apart i WOULDNT care.

You sir are on a sinking ship and im telling you to get off or you will drown with it.

reply to post by Sahabi


I have a response for your U2U note, but the board's software has eaten it twice already. I guess I'll just have to wait until they clear up whatever is going on there before I can reply.

I all ways like't the Blind Men And An Elephant.
I am a Buddhist.
only when you reach enlightenment will you see ALL
of the elephant.
some people think they can see it all.
but they just fool them self's.
you can see this in sciences.
they make a big discovery.
and will not believe they are wrong.
when some one tells them.
like gravity and the mass of the universe.
they ending up with to much mass!!
so they come up with dark mater?
who do they think they are fooling.

Blind Men and the Elephant

poem by John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887)

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind


The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the ElephantIs very like a wall!”


The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”


The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!


The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
” ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”


The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!


Moral

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!