GENIUS FORUMS

Anders Schlander wrote: Yes, but when you are relating a part of the Infinite to something, you're relating something that is not-that-part, giving it a finite quality. You can only relate finites to other finites.

That's true, I'm glad you brought that up. It is technically incorrect to say "I am immersing myself in the totality."

Instead, it would be best to say "I am the totality", or "I am a part of the totality."

If I were to say, "I am experiencing the totality", that would be technically incorrect, whereas to say "I am experiencing my greater self, which is the totality" is better.

If I were to say, "I reside within the totality", that too would be incorrect, for the reasons you mentioned, whereas, if someone were to ask my location, I could say "I am residing in myself, myself is the totality, which has no location"

Such a statement would appear contradictory, and is technically incorrect, but the point of a Koan is to break you out of your conceptual mind.

Cory wrote:Division is an illusion in the sense that there are no objectively real boundaries. Meaning, there are no boundaries "out there" outside of the mind. The mind is creating differentiation, and upon closer examination of a division, there really is no division.

So we can make divisions like we can do real magic tricks. It's not real magic, but it is a real magic trick, and likewise it's not a real division, it is a real illusion.

In the sense there are no objectively real boundaries, i.e. they are caused, there is also no objectively real non-boundaries. Non-boundaries are also caused just as boundaries are. So Reality isn't objectively infused with non-boundaries/unity, not is it infused with boundaries/division.

It depends on what you mean by non-boundary. If non-boundary refers to the visible connection between two things, then it's true that Reality isn't objectively infused with such non-boundaries. However, we could correctly say that the totality is boundless, a seamless continuum, a oneness. But if by oneness we meant a connection between two distinct things, then that's not the oneness I'm talking about.

Cory Duchesne wrote:You can experience a thing in different ways, obviously. I can experience a piece of chicken by tasting it, or I can experience a chicken by looking at it, either way, I am experiencing only aspects of the chicken, never experiencing the whole thing at once.

How do you know you are experiencing a part of the chicken? You must have some other information that tells you it's a chicken, otherwise you'd never know that the part is a part of the chicken. So if you deduce that a chicken leg is part of a chicken, you have to know what a whole chicken is. If you don't, then you can't logically deduce that it is a part of a chicken. Same with shark fins, icebergs, etc.

Any experience is exclusionary, yet when you experiencing any one particular thing, you are, in a sense, experiencing everything - indirectly.

No, I would still be experiencing everything directly. Directly and indirectly are really just dependent on the time taken to know something. If you take more time to know you are experiencing everything, that's your problem, but the ultimate would be "immediacy after reflection."

A=2A is just fine, actually, as it rests on A=A. A can equal B, but first you must accept that A=A and B=B.

???

A=2A doesn't rest on A=A because A and 2A are different. It can only rest on A=A if both A and 2A are defined to be the same, in which case we will still be saying A=A.

The totality is a unity of everything including myself.

See, here you are making a distinction between yourself and everything else, and then deducing that together you form the Totality. If on the other hand you posit the Totality as unified without any duality, then you have to think of it as separate from yourself.

I don't actually. This is your own mental block, and I hope you can reason your way around it in the near future.

"I don't actually" - that's your argument now? Let me rephrase what I said - since the Totality is already everything, including you, the question of it being unified or separate does not arise. If you say you are unified with everything then you would first have to think of yourself as separate from everything.

Some people get hung up on the idea that nothing inherently exists, and from this truth, they get confused and decide it's appropriate to believe that people aren't actually having experiences of love and thingness. These experiences are happening and it's perfectly logical to inquire whether or not other minds are having the same delusional experiences that oneself is having, because after all, these are genuine experiences, it's just that the nature of those experiences are something different than most people think. "Real delusion" isn't meant to be taken in any kind of literal or technical sense, it's more like a Koan.

The experience of 1+1=3 is a delusion because 1+1=3 is false. Similarly the experience of love is a delusion because of love doesn't exist. That's why the term "real delusion" is a self-contradictory, whether taken in a literal or metaphorical sense.

That's actually you just cherry picking and seeing what you want to see, not taking that passage (Matt. 7:1) in the context it was meant to be presented in:

Matthew 7:2-5

"For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Jesus here was being entirely un-solipsistic, not denying that there are different minds, and also not denying the appropriate task of making judgments of others.

All those quotes mean the same thing as the quote I gave. My original point was - if you define something as different from yourself in the first instance, then it necessarily cannot have anything that you have, because you've defined it as different in the first place. If on the other hand you find that something has what you have, then you are only seeing yourself in that thing. We only judge in others what we have in ourselves(as you've amply demonstrated yourself in this post). In reality no one is good or evil(not even you) because things are whatever they are.

I'm not being solipsistic either, because I don't think that nothing is outside the mind. Just like there is only one number "1" which appears in many places around us, there is only one "I" which may appear in other people. Another quote by Jesus - "love thy neighbour as thyself."

Cory Duchesne wrote:It(the totality), in it's entirety, lacks the capacity to be related to anything.

But you have said this earlier:

Cory Duchesne wrote:I never said it(the totality) lacked a relation to something.

I should have bolded "something" as well, because you clearly needed that extra hint. Jup, I'm doing my best to point to a truth in different phrasings hoping the light bulb might turn on in your head, but I don't think there's any chance of that happening.

Your earlier quote in its entirety:

I never said it(the totality) lacked a relation to something. I clearly meant it(the totality) lacks the ability to be related by the nature of it's definition.

I didn't point out this blatant self contradiction earlier because I wanted to see you go a bit further with it. That's why I compared it to what you wrote in a latter post.

Your point is that you already said the totality lacks the capacity to be related, which doesn't imply that it lacks a relation to something(as I said it did). Firstly, that is wrong. Secondly, unless there is something outside itself that the totality can be related to, there is no sense in saying that it lacks the capacity to be related to that something outside itself - which was my point.

By the way, you're using pedantry to defend your arguments in this, and another case. Correct your own pedantry first, and then try to correct mine.

jupiviv wrote:

Cory Duchesne wrote:You can experience a thing in different ways, obviously. I can experience a piece of chicken by tasting it, or I can experience a chicken by looking at it, either way, I am experiencing only aspects of the chicken, never experiencing the whole thing at once.

How do you know you are experiencing a part of the chicken? You must have some other information that tells you it's a chicken, otherwise you'd never know that the part is a part of the chicken. So if you deduce that a chicken leg is part of a chicken, you have to know what a whole chicken is. If you don't, then you can't logically deduce that it is a part of a chicken. Same with shark fins, icebergs, etc.

Your grasp of relatively comes across to me as incredibly undeveloped.

My empirical concept of a chicken, like any sane persons, is just a model. It is not to be taken as truth. When we take in reality through our senses, we make models of what we perceive, and those models are used for convenience.

So what this means is that I can have a finite model of chicken where I draw clear boundaries where it begins and ends, and I can also regard this chicken as infinite. I can go back and forth. The truth is that the chicken is, in essence, infinite, and since all experience is exclusionary, my experience of the chicken (the infinite) is only partial, because all experience is partial. But these parts we are experiencing have an infinite nature, but we never experience the whole at once, only the whole's parts. The whole is a logical concept, whereas the partial, in the context I've been talking about it in, is sensory and empirical. We can model the part, but we can't model the whole.

As for the other parts of our discussion, I decided that you are far to mesmerized by words and concepts to have what I think is a productive conversation.

From Buddhist scripture:

Those who "purify" themselves through philosophy are not on the true way. They are attached to words. They go from teacher to teacher, philosophy to philosophy, book to book. They grasp, they let go like a monkey letting go one branch to catch hold of another.

You are entrenched in your definitions.

Cory Duchesne wrote:My empirical concept of a chicken, like any sane persons, is just a model. It is not to be taken as truth. When we take in reality through our senses, we make models of what we perceive, and those models are used for convenience.

I don't make models of reality, and neither would any other sane person. Reality is whatever it is.

As for the other parts of our discussion, I decided that you are far to mesmerized by words and concepts to have what I think is a productive conversation.

I think you are the one mesmerised by words and concepts, evidenced by what you wrote just above this sentence:

So what this means is that I can have a finite model of chicken where I draw clear boundaries where it begins and ends, and I can also regard this chicken as infinite. I can go back and forth. The truth is that the chicken is, in essence, infinite, and since all experience is exclusionary, my experience of the chicken (the infinite) is only partial, because all experience is partial. But these parts we are experiencing have an infinite nature, but we never experience the whole at once, only the whole's parts. The whole is a logical concept, whereas the partial, in the context I've been talking about it in, is sensory and empirical. We can model the part, but we can't model the whole.

And this:

I never said it(the totality) lacked a relation to something. I clearly meant it(the totality) lacks the ability to be related by the nature of it's definition.

And your justification of your use of the term "real delusion":

Some people get hung up on the idea that nothing inherently exists, and from this truth, they get confused and decide it's appropriate to believe that people aren't actually having experiences of love and thingness. These experiences are happening and it's perfectly logical to inquire whether or not other minds are having the same delusional experiences that oneself is having, because after all, these are genuine experiences, it's just that the nature of those experiences are something different than most people think. "Real delusion" isn't meant to be taken in any kind of literal or technical sense, it's more like a Koan.

I'll leave others to make up their minds.

I thought of this thread and Ryan's opening post when watching this recently on YouTube : Atheism can't account for...

Arguments against atheism: "Atheism cannot account for absolute laws of logic or objective truth"

A video response to the above question/statement by current YT celebs Thunderf00t, AronRa and AndromedasWake.

A pretty good example of how the common definition of Atheism only seems to go as far as supporting a scientific and utlitiarian outlook on the world, and to hell with philosophy. Unless of course it's a philosophy we can agree on as a group. Wtf?

Atheism tends to take the simplistic, common, and pathetic arguments for a sentient God and beat the crap out of em.

All the while ignoring the profound and real. Pretending the higher positions do not exist.

Never are the real ideas engaged. Just talk about Santa and magic - pretending these are the only points being made.

Robert wrote:I thought of this thread and Ryan's opening post when watching this recently on YouTube : Atheism can't account for...

Arguments against atheism: "Atheism cannot account for absolute laws of logic or objective truth"

A video response to the above question/statement by current YT celebs Thunderf00t, AronRa and AndromedasWake.

A pretty good example of how the common definition of Atheism only seems to go as far as supporting a scientific and utlitiarian outlook on the world, and to hell with philosophy. Unless of course it's a philosophy we can agree on as a group. Wtf?

Yes, I'd say the flaw of modern atheist movement is mostly the flaw of limiting oneself strictly to the scientific utilitarian outlook, as that's what modern Atheists generally worship. Also, I think people latch onto Atheism as a lifestyle (see atheist youtubers) because it's a way to let out aggression and feel superior to people. You simply combine the chip on your shoulder with the fairly straightforward arguments you have inherited from books, and away you go. It's not hard, that's precisely the appeal.

The flaw really is in personalities who need some kind of relatively easy ideology to exploit for the sake of boosting the ego. And I want to say that I disagree that it's about avoiding a sense of unknowing, I think what these modern atheists have in common is a lack of interest in absolute knowing, with a vested interest in uncertainty and maintenance of ignorance in uncomfortable areas.

But I think what Ryan meant was they strive to be ignorant of their ignorance (best way to do that is focus on limited knowledge) and for a significant number of them, that does seem to be what they do best, so I think you make a good point there, Ryan.

Ryan Rudolph wrote:The major flaw of modern atheism is that atheists commonly get egotistically involved in the accumulation of knowledge, and a absolute belief in knowledge as a means to derive a sense of egotistical security and knowing.

This seems to be the disease of our time in general.

My problem with atheism, specifically, it's that it's a negation philosophy.

It and dualism are two opposite poles of solipsism: "it's all material just as it appears to me" and "the universe is constructed around a consciousness like my own except it's omnipotent."

These are errors of maturity more than anything else.