Cory: This seems like the intelligent design argument dressed up in a fancy new dress. 'Unfathomable nothingess' is the power-word used to make your intelligent design argument seem more legitimate.
Ryan: What is wrong with an argument for intelligent design?
It disregards logic. For instance, this super-creative-intelligence, What created
it?
Ryan: Why is the eagle able to fly so high, while the crow so low?
Darwinian natural selection explains this quite well.
Ryan: Why all these metaphors?
(I think simile is what you mean -
here)
A good place to start is consider the vast number of creatures on earth that don't provide as easy simile for human behavior. For instance, A biologist once remarked that "God had an inordinate fondness for Beetles." There are more beetles than any species on this planet, and beetles, like many insects, don't provide very easy simile's for human behavior.
Creatures that provide easy simile's for human behavior do so because they are closer relatives to humans than bacteria and insects. (although, come to think of it, bacteria, the smallest and most distant relative of humans, ironically provide the most summarizing simile for the entirety of humanity)
But when it comes to particular behaviors in humans, we find more obvious simile's in the particular behavior of animals that are relatively closer relatives to humans. Monkey's for instance is very commonly used as a simile for human behavior, and that's because they are more closely related.
The most basic parts of the human brain can be found in all of the creatures that provide us easy simile's, whether it is the snake, the bull, the peacock, the eagle, etc.
The basic strategies of seduction, charm, aggression, fight/flight, of gathering food, cooperating, competing, of dominating, submitting, these are programed in lowest creatures, and since the lower creatures are operating in a simlar world as us, and since they have the same basic needs as us, then obviously we going to see a great deal of similarity to the point where we say: "Ah, that animal's behavior is much like human behavior" or "that human is like that animal"
We fancy superstitious/supernatural explanations because we fail to consider or have no way of knowing how vast, subtle and
related the interactions comprising the world really are - in other words, aside from desiring what is comforting to the ego, we have our eyes merely on what is grossly apparent, and fail to consider or perhaps have no present way of knowing the subtler data. Pre-literate, primitive cultures had spiritual explanations for everything. A tree, the sun, the river, everything was an intelligent god or spirit. As we became more scientific and mechanical, each of our spiritual explanations became popped like balloons, one by one, until finally we were left only with one big balloon - God, cosmic consciousness.
How did this all come to be to begin with? Since science can't answer this question, then the utlimate balloon, intelligent design by super-consciousness, remains. But if we value this final balloon, it seems to only function to blind us from seeing with more subtlety.
(in regards to the crow and eagle) Why the dualistic paradoxical relationships?
I don't see them as paradoxal. Organizations are differentiated by various polarizations, and the more we study it the more godless and self-regulating it seems.
One could make an intelligent design argument very easily.
As mentioned above, aboriginals also found it quite easy to conjure spiritual explanations.
Cory: So tell me more about how this unfathomable nothingness has a thinking apparatus.
Ryan: Well, that is mere speculation based on intuitive experience, as are all metaphysical claims. : )
No, not all metaphysical claims are based on 'intuitive experience' (whatever that's supposed to mean) For instance, cause and effect, a metaphyiscal truth, is derived via rational reflection. It's a logical truth.
Cory: A perciever? The perciever, observer, whatever you want to call him, is thought. That was one of the most truthful and useful things about Jiddu Krishnamurti's work.
Ryan: Yes, but in that temporarily state, no thought was possible, but there still was an observer aware that it was taking place, so you can call it whatever you want.
You
remember that it took place. Awareness depends on memory. Without memory you would just be in a blank stupor and after recovering you would have no idea that the stupor happened and thus you wouldn't be on this forum talking about it.
Cory: To say your brain totally shut off, yet you were horrified, panicking, and struggling to think during this 'process' - is all quite absurd. Who is struggling to think? It's memory, thought. You can't try to think unless you think with memory, with egoistic identity.
Ryan: I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to think because of how insane the experience felt
The fact that you remember the experience implies that a network of thought, a self, was interepreting a new expereince. It's like having an out of body experience while sleeping. The reason you remember it as a sensation is because thought was always there, recording and making sense of the sensation. If that wasn't the case then the sensation would not have been registered, and in a sense would not have existed.
Ryan: but I tried anyway, out of fear, but nothing happened.
What you are saying implies that thought was there, interpreting and recording the experience. (e.g. I remember nothing happened)
Cory: You seem to be saying that the unfathomable-nothingness is not conscious, yet it creates consciousness. How does it do that?
Ryan: I think you’ve encountered a paradox.
More like a contradiction in your reasoning! Your fanciful usage of the word paradox here is just an attempt to apply a powder puff over the pimple growing on the face of your vain reasoning.
Cory: So emotions like horror are not brain processes, but belong to a metaphysical center of ones being - a soul?
Ryan: Emotions are of the center. They are of the heart, not the brain.
The frumpiest new age books in existence say this very thing I'm afraid.
Cory: So - tell me again, how is it that you remember all of this if the brain was totally inactive? You seem to have a good recollection of the event.
Ryan: It was only the cognitive ability that was temporarily disabled. I don’t understand the whole experience either, that is why I began to speculate and throw out theories. To test them on people to see what makes sense.
Well, in my opinion you're not making any sense. It would have been reasonable if you said something like: "I had a deep experience where I beheld great vastness". But there's not much snake oil involved in saying something like that is there?
The brain has a hard time not interpreting its self image as super special and unique compared to others. In my opinion, U.G.'s life was just an attempt to 'get one up' on the unprecedentedly sophisticated (yet dishonest) veil of mystique established by Jiddu Krishnamurti. UG tried to destroy J.K's mystique, yet he did so while creating a mystique of his own by using much of J.K.'s original material (biological mutation that was a spiritual transformation/proccess, anti-thought, etc) He just modified and specialized J.K.'s material.
UG reportedly came down stairs for breakfast one morning and sincerely confided to his friend that J.k.'s ghost visited him and scorned him by saying: "U.G. - you need to water down your teaching! - it's too radical!"
UG said he replied to the JK's ghost: "Go away old man!"
I really don't think U.G. was entirely being playful. He was either trying to seduce and mystify his friend, or perhaps it was a moment of mental illness. I would say both.
Cory: The 'I' is thought. Who is this person trying? You can't try without thought.
The “I†is much more than just thought. The individual at the deepest level is a sensitive being with feeling, that creates its entire system of thought simply as a means to keep the center in a stable state. Thought is just a tool to prevent tragedy and suffering for the most part.
Right, and sensitivity, feeling and emotion belong to a non-material being. That's why physiological readings in the brain are recorded when emotions are felt by the subject being studied....
