David's compassion

[Sapius]

Brokenhead;

You are waxing too poetic. "I" is not a value judgement in the slightest. It is simply a term. That the "I" is what it is and not something else is an ontological realization, which by the way, not everyone is equipped to make. And yet it is not a value judgement in the sense that its value can be debated.

The “value” of the “I” cannot be debated because it will necessarily be the point “I” from which you debate, hence the “I” is already a pre-sensed judgment call, that I am I, and not not-I. Does a cow need ontological realization to make such a judgment call? Unless it does not sense it to be true, it cannot operate coherently.

I not sure if my line of thinking should make sense to you… because I do not necessarily follow pre-established traditional meanings, hence it needs more elaborate explanations, and at times invent new words.

Meaningless to everybody. It's possible that a seemingly inexplicable action had meaning to the actor, and it's also possible it may have "felt" good to the actor. It's also possible that neither the last two statements applied.

Then, I’m afraid you are talking about a rock.

S: Friendship perhaps?

Yes, indeed. But lumping such a selfless act in with other activities that are plainly less selfless and have more of a clear-cut self interest behind them is to make a philosphical statement which obfuscates the difference. To what end? Saying that pure altruism as such does not exist, and that such friendship somehow contains a selfish component is confusing a very simple thing.

I think I have not been clear enough, and although Dave has explained my point of view quite eloquently, simply speaking, all I’m saying is that unless there is some self-satisfying-interest, a self cannot be motivated to do any thing at all. All actions necessarily pre-consider an “I”, which is self-centeredness to begin with, so any selfless action has to necessarily be at least a least “self-centered” in nature. (I think you don’t like the word ‘selfish’, and you may be right, and I can understand that, so I will leave it out)

To make myself further clear; Just as an absolute selflessness is not possible, an absolute selfishness in not possible either, because a self necessarily collaborates with all that it is not, otherwise it cannot be either.

Am I making some sense?

[Sapius]

All is undetermined. If your choice is as influential as any other cause, your choice determines everything. And you're always choosing. Constantly. Absolutely.

Surely.

[Cory Duchesne]

we're employing different definitions of logic. Mine is simply differentiation and the rules of inference that spring from it.

In your view, what are the rules of inference? How many are there?

[brokenhead]

Sapius:

(I think you don’t like the word ‘selfish’, and you may be right, and I can understand that, so I will leave it out)

To make myself further clear; Just as an absolute selflessness is not possible, an absolute selfishness in not possible either, because a self necessarily collaborates with all that it is not, otherwise it cannot be either.

Am I making some sense?

Of course you are making sense, Sapius.
And so does Kevin when he proves the Universe cannot exist.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems this type of extended logic leads to existential culs-de-sac. What is gained by "demonstrating" that neither selfishness nor selflessness is possible in an absolute sense? You will of course agree that such a demonstration is possible for many other concepts, including right and wrong, good and evil, etc. Do you believe that this realization is somehow empowering?

Let me give you an analogy. Say you contracted with someone to build you and your family a house. Several months go by and you haven't heard from him. You drive over to the building site and see a few timbers erected and you see your contractor sitting on the ground among dozens of sheets of blueprints and leveling devices and plumb lines. You ask him what the hold up seems to be. He answers you that since you hired him, he has learned that the earth's surface is an oblate spheroid, and he is having difficulty adjusting his Euclidian building plans with this incontrovertible fact.

Would you keep this guy on?

Note that I am well aware that engineers of very large buildings do have to take the earth's curvature into account, that plumb lines on opposing corners will not, in fact, run parallel.

Are you aware that many physicists believe that there is a maximum size that a triangle can be? As space is not Euclidian, the three angle of real-world triangles add up to very slightly less than 180 degrees. The further away from each other, the more acute the angles become. If you extend the sides out arbitrarily far, the interior approaches a finite (albeit vast) limit.

Does this knowledge empower you in any way?

It often feels that the insights afforded by QRS-type reasoning are more debilitating than anything else. And if this is a stage I'm going through, I seem to have been in it for a good while now!

[Sapius]

Brokenhead;

Maybe it's just me, but it seems this type of extended logic leads to existential culs-de-sac. What is gained by "demonstrating" that neither selfishness nor selflessness is possible in an absolute sense?

I’m sure it is of no significance or interest to you, because you are of the mind that in any case, it is much better to jump on to the boat on “his” promise of a better world after this one, so you will not see the significance that “he” (a Theological God), cannot have those Absolute characteristics as describe, if he possesses a consciousness.

It seems it is most probably more a promise of the writer, than the one he writes about.

Does this knowledge empower you in any way?

No, makes me humble beyond your imaginations.



I have no objections to your conclusions, as they must be true as you see them, just that it is not for me… that’s all. Respect! (Ali G style) And God bless you :)

[brokenhead]

so you will not see the significance that “he” (a Theological God), cannot have those Absolute characteristics as describe, if he possesses a consciousness.

I would see it if I could be persuaded that it was in fact true.

It took some persuading for me to acknowledge that no matter how fast you go, when you fire off a photon, it will recede from you at the speed known as "c." This is what makes time itself relative to the velocity of the observer.

I do not see how a human being can make absolute claims about all things, even unto the nature of a God. Humans cannot easily comprehend time scales greatly different from theirs, nor can we fully comprehend size scales extremely large and extremely small. You may be persuaded that any conscious God cannot have absolute qualities; I am persuaded, on the other hand, that such statements lack the requisite authority to be taken as fact. I see it as an interesting proposition, most likely erroneous, in some profound sense limited by the very finiteness of the human intellect.

[bert]

sapius

I don’t see any essential difference between the Self, or purely the I, or Ego, because it necessarily remains Self-centered in nature, and self-interest always remains the motivation; even that of not valuing anything at all, which ones self-centered-values (or judgment) justify it for him. Which could lead to a sense of nihilism or depression.

Self is the real thing, Ego what we realize of it.

Well, I have no problems with how you define it, Bert, but then how unreal is the ego, that realizes the Self to be the real thing? And how can a Self operate if it did not have a sense of a Self against not Self? Which essentially is the same as a sense of “I”?

- as unreal as it remains within the realm of illusion?
as we remain only to know our impressions of reality, felt or seen, we find reality illusive, so we call it illusion: still, the shadow misnaming the substance. and gives the equation Reality is illusion; Illusion is reality. illusions giving testimony to reality and vice-versa. there are illusions that are illusions, that do not pretense anything; there is this illusionable reality. that reality is make-able. a thing is as real as it is able as conation.

- not-self is the least degree of self; ... the vastnesses of otherness are the "materialisations" of creating Ego.

- a sense of "I"... mmyeah

[Sapius]

I would see it if I could be persuaded that it was in fact true.

Well, at least I’m not the one.

It took some persuading for me to acknowledge that no matter how fast you go, when you fire off a photon, it will recede from you at the speed known as "c." This is what makes time itself relative to the velocity of the observer.

Good for you.

I do not see how a human being can make absolute claims about all things, even unto the nature of a God. Humans cannot easily comprehend time scales greatly different from theirs, nor can we fully comprehend size scales extremely large and extremely small. You may be persuaded that any conscious God cannot have absolute qualities; I am persuaded, on the other hand, that such statements lack the requisite authority to be taken as fact. I see it as an interesting proposition, most likely erroneous, in some profound sense limited by the very finiteness of the human intellect.

And yet, strangely enough, I’m to believe that your knowledge of the nature of God is absolutely true irrelevant of the very finiteness of your own human intellect?

I really don’t know what to say.

[brokenhead]

And yet, strangely enough, I’m to believe that your knowledge of the nature of God is absolutely true irrelevant of the very finiteness of your own human intellect?

I really don’t know what to say.

Who said you had to believe anything about my knowledge of the nature of God? Who said I have any such knowledge in the first place? I don't. My own human intellect is surely as finite as the next human's. I do have faith, whether I like it or not, it's there. I'm not asking you to believe anything. All I can do is tell you what I believe and why.

[Sapius]

All I can do is tell you what I believe and why.

Well, essentially I’m doing just the same, but I think you would agree, the 'why' part is crucial if it is to be communicated, and it should make sense to another.

I take discussions as merely inter-exchange and expansion of knowledge and understanding, and don’t have any personal detest for anybody’s personal realizations.

[Dave Toast]

Cory,

DT: we're employing different definitions of logic. Mine is simply differentiation and the rules of inference that spring from it.

In your view, what are the rules of inference? How many are there?

The rules of inference follow naturally from the formalization of the first principle - identity. I don't particularly fancy counting and detailing them all as there are quite a few (conditionals, negations, conjunctions, disjunctions etc). But to illustrate the point we can look at how the principles of bivalence are corollaries that follow self-evidently from the law of identity:

A = A [law of identity]
~(A = ~A) [law of noncontradiction]
A = ~(~A) [law of the excluded middle]