The simple arithmetic of eternal life
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The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Eternal life is true because it is not possible to add or subtract anything from the Totality or the Tao or God or the Causality or the All (forgive any exclusion of names for Everything). This simple logical/arithmetic truth eliminates any claims that the disappearance of the body causes annihilation (subtraction) as well as eliminating the concept most often connected to the idea of ego, that of pride, the idea one has added something to Everything.
What is not true about the eternal nature of Everything for the same reason of being infinite is that there is an external entity that subjectively or objectively witnesses and acts upon finite things in "the" Everything. Therefore, because the idea of self is the root cause of delusion, dropping the idea of self is the root cause of seeing things as they really are.
Why wisdom of the infinite simultaneously illuminates AND comforts: As long as there is a grasping of the logical truth that it is impossible to add or subtract anything from life, the way to transcend lust, greed and fear is always at hand.
What is not true about the eternal nature of Everything for the same reason of being infinite is that there is an external entity that subjectively or objectively witnesses and acts upon finite things in "the" Everything. Therefore, because the idea of self is the root cause of delusion, dropping the idea of self is the root cause of seeing things as they really are.
Why wisdom of the infinite simultaneously illuminates AND comforts: As long as there is a grasping of the logical truth that it is impossible to add or subtract anything from life, the way to transcend lust, greed and fear is always at hand.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Nor is there any life, leaving nothing else but the eternal.
Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Also, even if something couldn't be subtracted/added from/to everything that doesn't mean that subtraction/addition can't function elsewhere.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
"Eternal life" could be said to be one of those language seductions mentioned in the "What Insights Have You Experienced?" thread, in this case, the seduction of language that allows the gradual transcendence of the illusory duality of life AND death. Even the concept of "eternal" on its own could be said to be a transitional seduction, until, of course, it is realized to be such. :-)Russell wrote:Nor is there any life, leaving nothing else but the eternal.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
There can't be an "elsewhere" in the All. However, the All can use addition and subtraction as a function of sense consciousness.Bobo wrote:Also, even if something couldn't be subtracted/added from/to everything that doesn't mean that subtraction/addition can't function elsewhere.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
That means any possible "false" is always being derived from "true" as it cannot exist besides the one truth of the eternal. If one would allow logic to advance here, it would also become clear that one never "sees things as they really are" since things are never true [as is] by their own definition. Unless the appearance of fleeting and deep, unending ambiguity would still be called "really being".movingalways wrote:Eternal life is true because it is not possible to add or subtract anything from the Totality or the Tao or God or the Causality or the All (forgive any exclusion of names for Everything). This simple logical/arithmetic truth eliminates any claims that the disappearance of the body causes annihilation (subtraction) as well as eliminating the concept most often connected to the idea of ego, that of pride, the idea one has added something to Everything.
What is not true about the eternal nature of Everything for the same reason of being infinite is that there is an external entity that subjectively or objectively witnesses and acts upon finite things in "the" Everything. Therefore, because the idea of self is the root cause of delusion, dropping the idea of self is the root cause of seeing things as they really are.
Comfort? As it will destroy everything that's held dear because it supports our former sense of being, it's not the type of comfort that normally is being looked for, that is: comfort for the self, having a comfortable existence, playing with all the passions of life and so on.Why wisdom of the infinite simultaneously illuminates AND comforts: As long as there is a grasping of the logical truth that it is impossible to add or subtract anything from life, the way to transcend lust, greed and fear is always at hand.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
I don't mean seeing things as they really are in the absolute sense but in the sense of an eternal causality, which does marry up with your concept of "an unending ambiguity." Since we can never know what will be caused next with any sense of certainty all we can do is use our consciousness to best cause a lighted path. From "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen:Diebert: That means any possible "false" is always being derived from "true" as it cannot exist besides the one truth of the eternal. If one would allow logic to advance here, it would also become clear that one never "sees things as they really are" since things are never true [as is] by their own definition. Unless the appearance of fleeting and deep, unending ambiguity would still be called "really being".
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
A rethink: As long as man walks on the lighted path of acceptance of ambiguity he will not experience comfort in any lasting way, however, the will to comfort the spirit as it walks the lighted path of ambiguity is a part of the lighted path of ambiguity. Brings to mind my previous reference to the idea of thinking that thinking is an absurd way to exist; to me, this is an example of the will to comfort the ambiguous, restless spirit as it, moment by moment, has no choice but to think itself into being. To take a moment and laugh at the absurdity of Thought as a Way to Be can be a healing release.movingalways:
Why wisdom of the infinite simultaneously illuminates AND comforts: As long as there is a grasping of the logical truth that it is impossible to add or subtract anything from life, the way to transcend lust, greed and fear is always at hand.
Diebert: Comfort? As it will destroy everything that's held dear because it supports our former sense of being, it's not the type of comfort that normally is being looked for, that is: comfort for the self, having a comfortable existence, playing with all the passions of life and so on.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
The lighted path is the non acceptance of ambiguity. Thinking, that is, logical thinking casts the light of truth and meaning in order to dispel any and all ambiguity. Spirit has no use for comfort or healing, as they are constituents of the suffering of egotism.movingalways wrote:A rethink: As long as man walks on the lighted path of acceptance of ambiguity he will not experience comfort in any lasting way, however, the will to comfort the spirit as it walks the lighted path of ambiguity is a part of the lighted path of ambiguity. Brings to mind my previous reference to the idea of thinking that thinking is an absurd way to exist; to me, this is an example of the will to comfort the ambiguous, restless spirit as it, moment by moment, has no choice but to think itself into being. To take a moment and laugh at the absurdity of Thought as a Way to Be can be a healing release.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
I should have read the definition of ambiguity before I spoke. Google, defining ambiguity: "uncertainty or inexactness of meaning in language." By this definition, yes, logic dispels ambiguity, but what logic cannot dispel are the unknown things about the eternal (I was incorrectly relating ambiguous with the unknown). For example, what "happens" after death of the body: logic cannot answer this question, so ultimately we must live with this metaphysical uncertainty.Russell: The lighted path is the non acceptance of ambiguity. Thinking, that is, logical thinking casts the light of truth and meaning in order to dispel any and all ambiguity.
I agree with this statement, but surely you are not saying that even the wisest of sages thinks logically every moment of the day on things of the spirit and when they are not, the ego is active. Better for the ego to find release in laughter than alcohol or drugs.Russell: Spirit has no use for comfort or healing, as they are constituents of the suffering of egotism.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Ah, yes :) I too looked it up before I replied. I try to make it a regular practice to look up any word I don't regularly use, vocabulary isn't my strongest suit.movingalways wrote:I should have read the definition of ambiguity before I spoke. Google, defining ambiguity: "uncertainty or inexactness of meaning in language." By this definition, yes, logic dispels ambiguity, but what logic cannot dispel are the unknown things about the eternal (I was incorrectly relating ambiguous with the unknown). For example, what "happens" after death of the body: logic cannot answer this question, so ultimately we must live with this metaphysical uncertainty.
I think that the answer to what happens after death is an empirical uncertainty, rather than metaphysical. Uncertainty applies to the realm of empiricism only, while we are either correct or incorrect when it comes to the metaphysical.
What I mean to say is that while a Sage may not perfectly embrace or embody spirit at all times, spirit itself is always beyond the ebb and flow of the ego experience. Here I liken spirit to stillness, or emptiness.I agree with this statement, but surely you are not saying that even the wisest of sages thinks logically every moment of the day on things of the spirit and when they are not, the ego is active. Better for the ego to find release in laughter than alcohol or drugs.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Thought in its rational essence is always conceiving of the eternal and tries to project this on the ambiguity of the material. The material is only ambiguous because it has no truth or constancy. It changes with time, perspective and cannot be relied on to derive any meaning about anything.Russell wrote:The lighted path is the non acceptance of ambiguity. Thinking, that is, logical thinking casts the light of truth and meaning in order to dispel any and all ambiguity. Spirit has no use for comfort or healing, as they are constituents of the suffering of egotism.
One way to describe this would be like projecting ultimates onto appearances, like Quinn wrote in Wisdom of the Infinite.
This is interesting since it can make the problem of materialism easier to understand, as a full and total projection of the religious and metaphysical onto the appearance. Like the postmodern idea: the outside is the new inside. Nietzsche, master of modernity, had the following to say about it. Note that Nietzsche uses the word "reason" different in his works and rebels a lot against the ruling thought of that day where science and studying matter, combined with "common sense" would rule the universe and disclose all its secrets. This all culminated into the modern with the technological as new savior -- and sort of embodiment -- of mankind.David Quinn wrote: One no longer projects ultimate reality onto any particular appearance and thus one no longer has a personal stake in any one of them being real.
Nietzsche wrote: We enter a realm of crude fetishism when we summon before consciousness the basic presuppositions of the metaphysics of language — in plain talk, the presuppositions of reason. Everywhere reason sees a doer and doing; it believes in will as the cause; it believes in the ego, in the ego as being, in the ego as substance, and it projects this faith in the ego-substance upon all things — only thereby does it first create the concept of "thing." Everywhere "being" is projected by thought, pushed underneath, as the cause; the concept of being follows, and is a derivative of, the concept of ego. (from: Twilight of the Idols)
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
movingalways wrote:what logic cannot dispel are the unknown things about the eternal.... For example, what "happens" after death of the body: logic cannot answer this question, so ultimately we must live with this metaphysical uncertainty.
But uncertainty is really already here about what happens "before" the death of the body not to mention all that happened even before its birth. It's not clear to me how the level of uncertainty is now suddenly sky-high for that instance while most of all the stuff "what is going on" right here and now, empirically, is hidden from us, beyond even our capacity to comprehend simply because of the issues of scale. What happens is that we are imagining we know what happens now when we're alive which casts a shadow of all that we not know about a future, beyond the horizon we are.Russell wrote:I think that the answer to what happens after death is an empirical uncertainty, rather than metaphysical.
When taking a step back, it's becoming clear that upon death not that much can change in any meaningful profound sense. The nature of time and space might be so that we just continue in some fashion and never would realize any ending. So even the moment of death is ambiguous, unclear in what it will mean for us in terms of awareness. Empirically we do know the effects of aging or sleep and emotionally we might know the irrationality of fearing to stop existing as we are believing to exist.
Generally, the more we understand about who and what we are as being, the more it becomes clear what meaningfully lies "before" or "after" any death.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
So the only certainty is uncertainty, the causality will cause what it is going to cause, one cannot know what that was nor what that will be nor what that it is, which is the righteous resting "spot" for awareness. I am aware you don't like the term "resting", but I don't mean it in the sense of being passive or unconscious which is my assumption of your interpretation of my interpretation, I mean it in the sense of being awake and alert so as to not project absolutes onto the causality.Diebert: But uncertainty is really already here about what happens "before" the death of the body not to mention all that happened even before its birth. It's not clear to me how the level of uncertainty is now suddenly sky-high for that instance while most of all the stuff "what is going on" right here and now, empirically, is hidden from us, beyond even our capacity to comprehend simply because of the issues of scale. What happens is that we are imagining we know what happens now when we're alive which casts a shadow of all that we not know about a future, beyond the horizon we are.
Which is the function of philosophy, to know what we can know (empirical knowledge being causally determined to be known when it is meant to be known) and what we can't know (ultimate reality as an empirical appearance), wisdom that keeps us on the path of righteousness (right view, right speech).Generally, the more we understand about who and what we are as being, the more it becomes clear what meaningfully lies "before" or "after" any death.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
But any notion of uncertainty contains already a few assumptions. They will boil down to existence, change and causality. To us moving creatures they indeed keep appearing as absolutes. That's an unavoidable certainty, no matter how aware one might be of it.movingalways wrote:So the only certainty is uncertainty, the causality will cause what it is going to cause, one cannot know what that was nor what that will be nor what that it is, which is the righteous resting "spot" for awareness.
Ultimate reality is as much empirical appearance as anything else. Spirituality, like the highest expression of everything else, starts with dividing reality and experience between earth and heaven, body and mind, matter and spirit. But the path always will lead to finding the eternal in nature and the natural in any eternity. This has been called "heaven on earth" or "ascension to heaven". Meaning that ultimately there's no difference. That's very hard to get for any being born out of two, all of its fundamental nature as self and being wholly dependent on there being two. So all of our ideas, insight or feelings about it will tend to be split and therefore gravitate to erring. Even now, wherever we are in life and in our understanding, this is still being the case.Which is the function of philosophy, to know what we can know ... and what we can't know (ultimate reality as an empirical appearance)
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
You misunderstood my quote above, I was not implying that sense interpretation was not a part of Ultimate Reality/eternal nature, I was comparing the difference between philosophical knowledge (the discovery of absolute principles, those things that are true in all possible worlds, those things we can KNOW: for example, nothing can be left out of or be separate from Ultimate Reality) and empirical knowledge (the ever changing things of Ultimate Reality that relate only to the world of sense consciousness).Deibert: Ultimate reality is as much empirical appearance as anything else. Spirituality, like the highest expression of everything else, starts with dividing reality and experience between earth and heaven, body and mind, matter and spirit. But the path always will lead to finding the eternal in nature and the natural in any eternity. This has been called "heaven on earth" or "ascension to heaven". Meaning that ultimately there's no difference. That's very hard to get for any being born out of two, all of its fundamental nature as self and being wholly dependent on there being two. So all of our ideas, insight or feelings about it will tend to be split and therefore gravitate to erring. Even now, wherever we are in life and in our understanding, this is still being the case.movingalways:
Which is the function of philosophy, to know what we can know ... and what we can't know (ultimate reality as an empirical appearance)
You are right, ultimately there is no difference between heaven and earth, observer and observed, awareness and its things, the statement of which is another example of something that is true in all possible worlds.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
And yet there's only one principle of knowledge at work in each and every case. Once reflected upon, empirical it will remain: as appearance, full of ambiguity and misunderstanding, full of change. This is what I meant with "ultimately there's no difference": knowing something as empirical fact becomes knowing ultimate reality in that instance, full and complete. There's no separation unless we forge it.movingalways wrote:You misunderstood my quote above, I was not implying that sense interpretation was not a part of Ultimate Reality/eternal nature, I was comparing the difference between philosophical knowledge (the discovery of absolute principles, those things that are true in all possible worlds, those things we can KNOW: for example, nothing can be left out of or be separate from Ultimate Reality) and empirical knowledge (the ever changing things of Ultimate Reality that relate only to the world of sense consciousness).Deibert: Ultimate reality is as much empirical appearance as anything else. Spirituality, like the highest expression of everything else, starts with dividing reality and experience between earth and heaven, body and mind, matter and spirit. But the path always will lead to finding the eternal in nature and the natural in any eternity. This has been called "heaven on earth" or "ascension to heaven". Meaning that ultimately there's no difference. That's very hard to get for any being born out of two, all of its fundamental nature as self and being wholly dependent on there being two. So all of our ideas, insight or feelings about it will tend to be split and therefore gravitate to erring. Even now, wherever we are in life and in our understanding, this is still being the case.movingalways: Which is the function of philosophy, to know what we can know ... and what we can't know (ultimate reality as an empirical appearance)
But that is not what I said or meant to say at least. Theres nothing but difference in all of these cases. If there's any ultimate reality to be acknowledged it will be by seeing that heaven cannot be earth, observer never the observed or awareness become the things. The definition of these by whatever function of awareness is an absolute fact, that is, without such definition or contrast we wouldn't have either one. But that doesn't make them equal!You are right, ultimately there is no difference between heaven and earth, observer and observed, awareness and its things, the statement of which is another example of something that is true in all possible worlds.
When I wrote that "ultimately there's no difference" I meant between any empirical appearance and ultimate reality. Since the appearance cannot be "part of a whole" or "not part of a whole" as both remain limited concepts, they need to be the same ultimately, appearing as thing for thing-mind and yet appears as infinite to the infinite-mind.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Effects are not cause.Diebert: If there's any ultimate reality to be acknowledged it will be by seeing that heaven cannot be earth, observer never the observed or awareness become the things.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
As one points at the rotting flesh, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, the goal is not comfort, the goal is understanding. To see the impermanence, the conditional, the mutable not as a continuation of life but rather all there is.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
There's only causality. Any perceived "lack of fundamental difference" because of some "underlying unity" remains as manifestation of ego: as another form of god, power vacuum or super force. Looking for love and connection: it seems part of our nature to do so, it's the way we try to connect and as creatures of meaning then "exist" in some fashion. This lies beyond true and false: it's about understanding the way of things coming into being from the experimental view.movingalways wrote:Effects are not cause.Diebert: If there's any ultimate reality to be acknowledged it will be by seeing that heaven cannot be earth, observer never the observed or awareness become the things.
Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Hello all, this is my first post here. I'll have to ask that you forgive me my less than perfect grammar and lack of articulation, as I've had to consistently dumb myself down to function in normal society. Combined with a lack of peers to adequately require a more precise use of language and I fear I have lost much of what I may have once been capable of in the field of communication, especially in written form.
That being said I felt the need to add a comment. I didn't read all of the replies as my lunch break is ending shortly but I had one thing to add.
Someone said you can't add or subtract from everything, which is true, but you most definitely can add or subtract in parts of everything.
My reasoning being that everything can be expressed in a mathematical formula or value. Just like within any given Equation parts can be interchanged without an alteration of the solution. Add some here, lose some there, multiply some here, divide some there.
In this sense everything can most definitely be added to or subtracted from, in specific locations or instances. The fact this doesn't change the solution of the equation is irrelevant.
Is my reasoning faulty here in some way? It seems sound enough to me.
That being said I felt the need to add a comment. I didn't read all of the replies as my lunch break is ending shortly but I had one thing to add.
Someone said you can't add or subtract from everything, which is true, but you most definitely can add or subtract in parts of everything.
My reasoning being that everything can be expressed in a mathematical formula or value. Just like within any given Equation parts can be interchanged without an alteration of the solution. Add some here, lose some there, multiply some here, divide some there.
In this sense everything can most definitely be added to or subtracted from, in specific locations or instances. The fact this doesn't change the solution of the equation is irrelevant.
Is my reasoning faulty here in some way? It seems sound enough to me.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Hello Knais
Your writing skills appear adequate enough, there has been much worse around here. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what you're saying, but it isn't exactly relevant or profound. Note that this is a philosophy forum, and not math. Perhaps you have more to say about the dumbing down of society? Be sure to stop by the introduction thread, and gander around a bit to make sure this place is of particular interest to you.
Your writing skills appear adequate enough, there has been much worse around here. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what you're saying, but it isn't exactly relevant or profound. Note that this is a philosophy forum, and not math. Perhaps you have more to say about the dumbing down of society? Be sure to stop by the introduction thread, and gander around a bit to make sure this place is of particular interest to you.
Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Russell wrote:Hello Knais
Your writing skills appear adequate enough, there has been much worse around here. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what you're saying, but it isn't exactly relevant or profound. Note that this is a philosophy forum, and not math. Perhaps you have more to say about the dumbing down of society? Be sure to stop by the introduction thread, and gander around a bit to make sure this place is of particular interest to you.
It seemed more relevant before I read through all of the replies. Considering the thread is titled "arithmetic" I thought the comment seemed appropriate, albeit lacking in its profundity.
Like I said, I just saw the comment that you can't add or subtract from Everything, and someone else said something more specific along the same lines of my reply.
As for my interest in the focus of the forum I assure you I have spent most of my time since I was a small child thinking about what I have, so far, seen as the general discussion of the forum. I miss being around adults who grew up in the pre-Vietnam time period as they seemed much more apt to discuss these types of issues. It feels like today you can't bring up anything of any importance without been looked at like the kid who keeps talking and holding everyone up after the bell rings.
I know I will surely have a myriad plethora of comments in response to my following statement, but that's ok because their reactions will surely give me insight into their own perceptions and mode of thought.
While I freely admit my philosophical education is lacking and I have had very limited interpersonal dialogue along these lines, I am significantly above average in intelligence, which has been confirmed by multiple tests, and whether I am actually capable of contributing in a meaningful way or not I still understand the majority of what has been said in the few posts I have browsed through.
If anyone knows of the WAIV I actually almost capped that test, meaning I need to take something with a cap higher than 160 to be accurate. Somewhat irrelevant and surely to be seen by some as bragging but to those who understand it will simply be as a statement of credentials to some degree.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Yes, we truly do live in a decadent age. People are much more interested in looking for that next quick hit of happiness than they are in probing into more permanent, substantial matters.Knais wrote:As for my interest in the focus of the forum I assure you I have spent most of my time since I was a small child thinking about what I have, so far, seen as the general discussion of the forum. I miss being around adults who grew up in the pre-Vietnam time period as they seemed much more apt to discuss these types of issues. It feels like today you can't bring up anything of any importance without been looked at like the kid who keeps talking and holding everyone up after the bell rings.
Entertainment and modern technology have a lot to do with this. As David Quinn put it in a blog post:
___The effect this is all having on children as they grow up is devastating. Without knowing what is happening, children absorb by osmosis the agnostic vacuity which is in the air, and so by the time they reach adulthood they are no longer capable of believing in anything. And as their own minds become increasingly more vacuous, they become hopelessly addicted to electronic devices. Indeed, their addiction is so ingrained that they can no longer bear the thought of being alone with themselves. They can barely sit still for a couple of moments before having to desperately reach for their mobile phones in order to send an inane text or watch a moronic video on youtube. They do not live, they flit. From one thing to the next, they flit, never stopping long enough to derive any real pleasure or satisfaction, always on the look out for the next quick hit, always on the look out for something to poke fun at. Laughing at anything and everything is the only thing they know how to do. However, it is not a laughter which comes out of intelligent understanding, but out of a desperate desire to gain a sense of control over their lives. For their lives have long ago fractured into thousands of disparate elements. They have become utterly disconnected from the deeper parts of their minds. They have reached adulthood and now they are spiritually dead.
Fret not, academic philosophy and IQ has little to do with what this forum is about. Philosophy confined to education isn't real philosophy at all. Philosophy is a love a wisdom, and a desire to know what is ultimately true.Knais wrote:While I freely admit my philosophical education is lacking and I have had very limited interpersonal dialogue along these lines, I am significantly above average in intelligence, which has been confirmed by multiple tests, and whether I am actually capable of contributing in a meaningful way or not I still understand the majority of what has been said in the few posts I have browsed through.
If anyone knows of the WAIV I actually almost capped that test, meaning I need to take something with a cap higher than 160 to be accurate. Somewhat irrelevant and surely to be seen by some as bragging but to those who understand it will simply be as a statement of credentials to some degree.
High IQ has little bearing on the profundity of a person's wisdom. For example, there are two fellows I was watching videos about with high IQs, who happen to be very different. On one side, Rick Rosner is a guy who seems quite ordinary other than his memory and logic skills, while Chris Langan has actually used his abilities to realize things at a much deeper level.
I'm curious though, I've never heard of the WAIV test, and google didn't help me either. Perhaps you can provide a link?
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Russell:
What I garner from highly logical minds such as Langan's is that they cannot help but be obsessive about ordering the universe into neat little Hitler-like compartments, such as his idea of mandatory birth control and health screenings for those wanting "to breed" (what he calls benign eugenics or a form of anti-disgenics) or when asked who will do the training of mankind into his re-shaped purely logical version, Langdon replied, "I'll do it myself, just put me in charge. We have to have a philosophical framework, an actual ethical structure we can look at and say that this, without a doubt, is the right way of thinking. Within that framework we derive advanced ethics, an ethic that can be taught without fear in elementary school, grade school, secondary school and in our colleges and universities." How is having an ethical structure in place that is declared to be absolute going to encourage fearless, independent, expansive thinking?
Langan is an example of how an ultra high IQ can be a disadvantage when seeking what is ultimately true. The desire to "make things fit" in minds such as his is too strong.
It is interesting to me that someone such as Langan who proposes a model of the universe, "the mind of God", as being one of pure logic, a model or mind to which he acknowledges very few people (himself excepted) have access cannot see the blatant problem inherent in this assumption, the problem of the question: if God or the universe has a mind of pure logic, why did He/It create so many illogical minds?High IQ has little bearing on the profundity of a person's wisdom. For example, there are two fellows I was watching videos about with high IQs, who happen to be very different. On one side, Rick Rosner is a guy who seems quite ordinary other than his memory and logic skills, while Chris Langan has actually used his abilities to realize things at a much deeper level.
What I garner from highly logical minds such as Langan's is that they cannot help but be obsessive about ordering the universe into neat little Hitler-like compartments, such as his idea of mandatory birth control and health screenings for those wanting "to breed" (what he calls benign eugenics or a form of anti-disgenics) or when asked who will do the training of mankind into his re-shaped purely logical version, Langdon replied, "I'll do it myself, just put me in charge. We have to have a philosophical framework, an actual ethical structure we can look at and say that this, without a doubt, is the right way of thinking. Within that framework we derive advanced ethics, an ethic that can be taught without fear in elementary school, grade school, secondary school and in our colleges and universities." How is having an ethical structure in place that is declared to be absolute going to encourage fearless, independent, expansive thinking?
Langan is an example of how an ultra high IQ can be a disadvantage when seeking what is ultimately true. The desire to "make things fit" in minds such as his is too strong.
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Re: The simple arithmetic of eternal life
Moving, you might find it surprising that Russell, Cahoot, and the forum founders are in disagreement with this thread. That this whole time they've been vaguely referring to reality as being infinite and eternal, but the self, existence, conscuousness, the mind, being, or you, as being subject to an end at bodily death.
While you clearly understood the correct view here:
"Transcendence of the illusory duality of life AND death"
They have, this whole time, remained convinced that their existence is wholly dependent on the brain and that bodily death is "the end". I was amazed when I found out Cahoot had this view, even more amazed when the same occurred for Russell and the forum founders.
I shouldn't be surprised tho, the amount of language dancing that goes on around here is astounding.
While you clearly understood the correct view here:
"Transcendence of the illusory duality of life AND death"
They have, this whole time, remained convinced that their existence is wholly dependent on the brain and that bodily death is "the end". I was amazed when I found out Cahoot had this view, even more amazed when the same occurred for Russell and the forum founders.
I shouldn't be surprised tho, the amount of language dancing that goes on around here is astounding.