You Are Not Your Brain

[Frediano]

I can (and do) believe that the physical universe was my Creator, and I am even grateful for that fact; but that bears no real answer to the concept of a God outside of the physical Universe as an entity that, for example, chose the means of this physical universe as the means of my Creation. Those are the stories of 'faith' from people who simultaneously claim 'faith' and 'knowing' in the same breath. It requires no faith to 'know;' deliberately or not, knowing voids the possibility of faith.

But I am as certain that I was created as I am of anything else. As 'me' I once was not; as 'me' I am now. The logic that my Creator filled his universe with demands that I acknowledge I was Created. By process is certain; by an act of intelligence outside of or beyond this universe is and can only be an act of faith.

That logic, however, doesn't demand that I create stories about that Creation, or accept the stores of ancient man, fellow also merely created naked sweaty apes just like me but with even less knowledge of the physical universe; that is purely an act of faith, and so on.

Nor does it demand that I believe in spooks to arrive at morality; that is clear from history. For example, the concept 'The Golden Rule' transcends so many religions and philosophies(if folks insist, I will refer to that as two different things, as if they were), that it is not the exclusive Truth of any one.

regards,

Fred

[Frediano]

it has no answers to 'the meaning of life', or the purpose and morality a man can live by.

Speaking only for me, now, there is a real act of faith without knowing: a -default- belief in the singular, that there is only one such meaning, and only one such purpose and morality a man can live by.

Tell me that belief isn't at the foundation of every pile of corpses rotting under the Sun.

It goes directly to my personal meta-defintion of the word 'religion': any conscious pondering of the questions "Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing now as a result of that why?"

Notice how quickly those questions can be politicized: "Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing now as a result of that why?"

If you believe in the singular, then, you embrace the 'we' form of those questions. If you believe in pluralities, then you accept that in addition to the we form, there can also be the I form, completely without conflict. That is the essence of freedom. It is only the 'we' form that can result in the spectacle of barbed wire fences and machine guns surrounding a nation and enforcing 'the' answer to those questions.

In exactly the same sense of 10 to the minus 42 seconds after the Big Bang, I suspect that within 10 to the minus 42 seconds after mankind achieved self-awareness, that fundamental existential question warped from the personal and plural to the tribal and singular, and war was invented.

Every one of my fellow peers in mankind who has ever lived answered those questions implicitly even if they never consciously pondered the questions; in the end, their lives were the answers, plural, like the answers or not, with or without an intelligent creator. However, when mankind explicitly ponders those questions, either singularly or in groups of like minded fellow wonderers, IMO, they are engaged in religion/philosophy.

To me, a never addressed, much less, answered question: Is there just one answer to those fundamental questions -- one reason why I/we are here, and one thing that I/we should be doing now as a result of that why, or are there a plurality of reasons?

Speak up; who speaks for God in this regard? Don't be shy; many in the past have felt no compunction at all about speaking for God in this or any regard.

regards,

Fred

[Frediano]

There is no doubt that religion succeeds because it works as a means of navigating to a set of answers, and even, that some 'R'eligions work better than others(a 'R'eligion being an instance of religion.) . There is a 6000 yr tradition, for example -- the Hebrew 'R'eligion, the shared old testament foundation of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. The Hebrew 'R'eligion has some very conservative tenets(I'd say that a tradition that spans 6000 yrs is 'conservative' of those traditions.) Those traditions include things like cherishing education and family and hard work, and as well, a very flat model: you-God, with the singular role of Rabbi being 'teacher.' Then, 2000 yrs ago, an abrupt split, and the resulting model has evolved ever more layers, both corporate and other worldly: you - several layers of also naked sweaty apes in funny hats, the stuff not only of chess boards but entire nations in Italy -- Jesus -- The Holy Spirit -- God all one in the same, world without end but a definite beginning 2000 yrs ago, and any number of versions of a rewritten Bible, take your pick.

Limiting our vision to just these subsets of 'R'eligions, clearly there are a plurality of answers to those fundamental questions, not 'the' answer.

[Frediano]

When we ponder the question "What is the meaning of life?" we have already accepted, as a Truth, that there is only one such meaning.

Why? On what basis? Doesn't that question need to be answered first, before looking for 'the' answer?

regards,

Fred

[Frediano]

To clarify, by 'Why am I here?" I mean to ask why as in purpose, not 'what was the physical means of my coming from a state of non-being to a state of being.'

For human beings, even that restrictive interpretation of 'why' is no longer singlularly answered; we have moved beyond coitus as the only means of procreation.

For sentient beings, it is easy to see in the near horizon even more answers to that restrictive interpretation of 'why', with individual instances of sentient beings in the future having multiple answers even to -that- question.

But that isn't the question I meant by 'Why am I here?" What I meant is, 'what is the purpose of my life?'

My assertion is, there is no evidence that there is one such answer applicable to all. Nor is there convincing evidence that there should be.

That is the 'Why are we here?" form of that question, with an implicit belief in the singular among those who pose that question in that form.

regards,

Fred

[Frediano]

I am not saying it is necessary to define a purpose; I've said before, even folks who never ponder the questions answer them, simply by living their lives. In the end, their lives are their answers, plural, whether the questions were pondered along the way or not.

My definition of religion is simply, when any of us actively ponder those questions, then we are actively engaged in religion/philisophy and are actively seeking an answer and a purpose to our life. At different times in our life, we might arrive a different purpose.

Others assert there is one purposeful answer or reason applicable to all. When those others meet under rules of free association, I say, more power to them; a very American idea, and long may they wave.

When some of those others embrace forced association to impress their answers on others unwillingly, another very American idea comes to mind; the defense of freedom from those who would embrace forced association for any cause.

An example of that would be the GOP and its insane embrace of the Defense of Marriage Act. Marriage is a term of art defined by churches and religions, plural, not 'the' church or 'the' religion. Not the only example, there are plenty more examples, including ACA and most of the Progressive Movement.

I've been a married heterosexual for decades. I have no dog in the gay marriage hunt. But here is another waning American idea; one of the most important means of defending freedom in this nation is for each of us to defend the freedom of our peers. That was behind JFK's concept of the 1964 CRA as written, and as expressed in his own race neutral EO. LBJ's EO, which contradicted both JFK's EO and the 64 CRA as written, cynically demanded what the CRA prohibited and created AA. Cynically because of LBJs political reasoning, exposed in his comment "We'll have those n*****s voting Democratic for the next 200 years.."

And well, it worked. Can't deny that.

Let's not paint too fine a picture around what the GOP is doing with that defense of marriage nonsense; pandering to a special interest group of theocrat wannabees for their constituent faction votes to gain power, selling out American freedom to eyes rolled back into their heads Pensatuckians blinded by the Truth of their religious visions, shredding the very Constitution that defends their absolute right to flail away, like the complete morons they are for doing so.

To be clear: not morons for abhoring homosexuality as an abomination as part of their religious beliefs; under the rules of polite free association, feel free. But morons for lurching that religious belief into campaigns for public policy and forcing their religious beliefs onto all as absolute truths, when the absolute truth is, when it comes to 'free association' there is no deeper example of same than the choice of life mate as part of our personal pursuit of happiness, as well as no greater example of none of mine or anyone's fucking business than the principals involved in that pursuit under their embrace of free association.

And so, the GOP, as it is today, has lost all credibility when it claims to be the party of liberty and freedom and whatever else its lust for the power of the moment demands and an electorate lets it get away with; the false hope for freedom GOP is no answer to the no hope for freedom Democrats. As it stands today, the GOP itself is the biggest impediment to liberty and freedom in America, precisely because it is a totally hollow and ineffective alternative to the Democrats.

RealPolitik demands that a Rand Paul run as a Republican, because the reality is, running as a Libertarian would bury him in a Sea of Stupid. This has been apparent, to me, ever since 1980, when Clark scraped up 1% of the vote after putting today clearly in writing in "New Beginnings." The nation got Reagan and his charismatic lip service to Liberty and limited government, along with his 'a little more guns in exchange for a lot more Butter' deal with O'Neill. Why? So that this nation could do an end zone dance in a game long already won, while the USSR was farming with oxcarts on the way to the trash heap of history as the latest failed example of centrally planned command and control 'the economy' running. Before Reagan? Go back and read Nixon's 1970 Economic Stabilization Act. Straight from the pages of Atlas Shrugged.

Who grew the federal government more than Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 43?

Well, having followed the charismatic Reagan, don't worry, USSR, so far we are right behind you on the way to that trash heap.

[Frediano]

Reagan's folly: making the 'a little more guns in exchange for a lot more butter' deal with O'Neill. Folly because, the little more guns lasted for barely a few years; Clinton immediately leveled off the planned Reagan defense buildup. No '600 ship' Navy (We're currently glad to be around 300). The 'alot more butter' however has remained to this day, and has compounded itself. All so that this nation could do an end zone dance in a game already long won. The fact that the Soviets were farming with ox carts in the 80s and this was known by our Intelligence communty was publicly disclosed by former vice chair of the Senate Intelligence committee Bob Kerrey in a talk at JFK Library Foundation in March 2003. I've posted a link to the transcript often.

I could forgive Reagan his folly if it was shown that what the US Intelligence community long knew (that the Soviets were farming with oxcarts in the 80s and were hanging on by a thread)was hidden from Reagan; then, he was just someone raised during the real Cold War acting out on what he knew.

But if that was the case, it begs the question; why was that withheld from Reagan by the US Intelligence community?

[anthony]

But that isn't the question I meant by 'Why am I here?" What I meant is, 'what is the purpose of my life?'

regards,

Fred

But that's it. The one valid question for each to ask of one's self: - the purpose of one's own life. And the multi-purposes derived from it and supporting it. (There is no one size fits all, of course). You know how it goes, devote attention and energy to one's unique 'purpose', and the 'meaning' kind of takes care of itself and/or becomes clear in retrospect.

I enjoy your musings, and think I follow ;) so don't let me stop you.

[Mikee]

Then what you "know" is. Either that or God is an axiom.

--Brant

God is as obvious as reality.

Greg

You are right. The physical universe is God

God is a metaphor for a benevolent universe. Humility is the response to the realization the we know an insufficient number of facts and conclusions about the universe.

[moralist]

Then what you "know" is. Either that or God is an axiom.

--Brant

God is as obvious as reality.

Greg

You are right. The physical universe is God

Saying God is as obvious as reality isn't the same thing as saying God is the physical universe. However, you're welcome to your view as it has no effect on mine.

Greg

[Jules Troy]

Heaven lies between a woman's thighs?

[Brant Gaede]

Then what you "know" is. Either that or God is an axiom.

--Brant

God is as obvious as reality.

Greg

You are right. The physical universe is God

Saying God is as obvious as reality isn't the same thing as saying God is the physical universe. However, you're welcome to your view as it has no effect on mine.

Greg

To Bob "physical universe" is a redundancy--and an argument against just saying "universe" or "reality." But no one has the data to support the idea that physical is all there is to the universe. It's impossible--at least practically impossible--to obtain all the data, to know everything. It's a theory. As a theory it's subject to falsification. He's effectively saying his position is both unfalsifiable and dogmatic without admitting that and that that is what he's up to. He tried to body slam us.

--Brant

I don't say "universe" myself for if there is more than the universe it'd be covered by "reality."

[Frediano]

Brant:

Isn't the wrestling over 'universe'...' multi-verse'....'mega-verse' ... 'physical reality'.. etc., just kicking the can down the road? What I mean is, no matter how far we kick that can down that road(up that road?)the concept 'supernatural' is by definition forever outside the range of that concept.

Otherwise, we could have just arbitrarily stopped the definition at Chicago's United Center and, finding Michael Jordan inside, declared him the God of all that is basketball.

You said 'reality' and I qualified that with 'physical reality' but I think(correct me if I'm wrong)you intended 'reality' to include 'all that is', not restricted to physical reality. A superset of the physical universe(however we define physical universe.) The kick the can down the road definitions of 'universe' as far as they can be taken by science/physics/cosmology(and even cosmetology, to dress up Neil on 'Cosmos' and explain it all), plus, everything else that might be-- such as, Astrology+. Is that fair?

Then, we probably need yet another qualifier for that concept of reality. 'inaccessible physical reality.' What I mean by that is, regions of physical reality that we believe exist but, by the very laws of physical reality, are forbidden to us as sentient beings to verify/falsify with calibration or experiment. Examples are, regions of space-time outside of our space-time event horizons/cones, or any event of smaller duration or extent than Planck time or distance. 'Physical' things that yet require, in some sense, an act of faith. We may 'get there' via reason, but in fact...we never 'get there.' We can never 'get there.'

That would be quite some pissing contest; the battle over which of those concepts is 'real' faith based, and which is 'unreal' faith based.

And like all such pissing contests, meaningless.

Speaking of meaningless(I do that alot), here is one of those. It is argued sometimes that our physical Universe is a singularity that appears to defy its own conservative laws; something from nothing. Therefore, there must have been something outside of 'it' that we must purely imagine, because we are not outside of 'it.'

Well, if we must, then here is one such imagining: two for the price of none.

0 = 0

A + -A = 0

A = A

A1 = A2 where A1=A and A2=A

Two for the price of none.

A vast sea of gradientless sameness, complete random bubbling cosmic foam. No identity because there is no net gradient, just bubbling randomness about some dim grey mean. (Try not to notice that I kicked the can down the road...where did the foam come from? It just always was... just, with no identity because there was no gradient.)

Randomly, like waves in a pool, occasionally there is localized 'coherence' -- the randomness adds up or subtracts to create a temporary local peak or trough, a spark of coalesced energy into matter, but it is immediately consumed by an also random local trough or peak, matter-antimatter. The bubbling randomness creates and anihilates tiny bursts of matter and anti-matter constantly, sparks in the dim gray cosmic foam of nothing.

Given an infinite amount of time for this nothing to exist, occasionally the lottery is won. A statistically improbable event occurs. Two local regions, one of net matter, and one of net anti-matter, form substantially close enough to each other to create a stabilizing event. The two regions in close proximity initially annihilate enough of each other to create a separation event; the balance of region A recoils at 0.51 times or more the speed of light away from the region of interaction, while the balance of region B recoils in the opposite direction at 0.51 times or more the speed of light. The relative speed of separation of the two regions exceeds the speed of light, but in the frame of reference of the original interaction, both regions are moving at a fraction of the speed of light away from each other. This creates two regions of long-lived net matter and long lived net-antimatter, no longer able to interact, and no longer able to experience each other in each others event cones; they both can only look back and see a Big Bang. They each, in their 'universe A' or 'universe -A' seem to have a local conservative paradox, gradient from nothing, but in 'reality' there is no conservative paradox, because A + -A = 0 and reality is in balance.

How long would it take for such an event to occur? It doesn't matter. No matter how much time you imagine, just wait longer. Reality has all the time there is for this to happen. In some sense, there is no 'time' before there is no identity/net gradient of anything.

When it comes to fantastic unverifiable stories to explain the inexplicable, take your pick, there are harmlessly many.

But, do you realize that 'in reality' there is actual public science money being spent looking for evidence of such an early universe interaction?

regards,

Fred

PS: Not two 'identical' universes, A1 and A2, but two universes in conservative balance with their own distributions of energy/net matter and energy/net anti-matter, and no 'in reality' conservative paradox..

[Frediano]

... and for all I can know, that is how God chose to create two universes.

[Brant Gaede]

Ah, but I say "reality" to avoid discussions such as this and to spend my time with more important and less brain-cracking things. But, I'm in awe. Seriously. By reading your post before last five times with comprehension my forthcoming dementia will be pushed back at least another five years. It's just I'm in doubt about the value of dementialness. Can I try it and send it back if found wanting?

--Brant

intellectual wimp

[moralist]

Greg, in olden days you'd be confined to the basement with the upstairers hoping they won't hear your rantings. They won't kill you because they love you, but the food comes down a chute.

--Brant

In the olden days I would have been known as an American.

Greg

[moralist]

(Or to be "Agnostic". 'Without knowledge', waiting for Divine intervention or upon final scientific disproof)...

That's the decent state of being, Tony...

...because it does not possess the ugly bitterness and hostility towards a false image of God (regardless of whether or not He actually exists) that's so commonly expressed by leftist secularists.

Greg

[moralist]

... and for all I can know, that is how God chose to create two universes.

Just an off topic comment, Fred...

There are two moral universes. One created by God and the other created by men. They're commonly known as good and evil.

Greg

[Frediano]

There are two moral universes. One created by God and the other created by men. They're commonly known as good and evil.

Is that speaking for you, or is that speaking for God?

If I understand what you are saying, the moral universe created by God is the good universe, and the moral universe created by men created by God is the evil universe.

Said another way, that which God creates is the good, except for man, and that which man creates is the evil.

And, this was told to you, or you know it on faith, or you know it.

Have I characterized that unfairly?

Am I characterizing this unfairly by regarding this as something that you've told me, and not something that God told me?

regards,

Fred

[Frediano]

Ah, but I say "reality" to avoid discussions such as this and to spend my time with more important and less brain-cracking things. But, I'm in awe. Seriously. By reading your post before last five times with comprehension my forthcoming dementia will be pushed back at least another five years. It's just I'm in doubt about the value of dementialness. Can I try it and send it back if found wanting?

--Brant

intellectual wimp

Brant:

There is an implicit 30 day money-back return policy, as long as it is returned in the original packaging. But only for store credit.

Be glad the anti-you didn't read that post in the anti-universe; your forthcoming dementia would have been pushed ahead five years.

regards,

Fred

[Xray]

I know God exists.

moralist:

What exactly is it that makes you so certain?

My own direct personal experience.

Greg

Greg

So it was a purely subjective experience on your part, with no objective evidence involved?

[moralist]

There are two moral universes. One created by God and the other created by men. They're commonly known as good and evil.

Is that speaking for you, or is that speaking for God?

Glad you asked, Fred. It helps to clear up misunderstanding.

You can always presume I speak solely for myself, and for no one else, or for anything else for that matter.

If I understand what you are saying, the moral universe created by God is the good universe, and the moral universe created by men created by God is the evil universe.

That's pretty close. Again, speaking only for myself... Men created by God were given the free will to choose to live in the good universe, or to create an evil one.in which to live.

Said another way, that which God creates is the good, except for man, and that which man creates is the evil.

No. It's good that he created men with the free will to choose to do evil, because it is also the free will to choose to do good. Without the potential for the existence of evil, it would be impossible to know good.

So it's good for evil to exist... but only for good people... because there would be no opportunity for them to know good without evil.

And, this was told to you, or you know it on faith, or you know it.

Not faith. I know this solely by my own personal observation of the world as well as observing myself..

Am I characterizing this unfairly by regarding this as something that you've told me, and not something that God told me?

Nope... just me and only me.

You may regard every word I write as only being my subjective opinion as a totally subjective being. I can only either choose to subjectively agree with what is objective, or I can choose to subjectively disagree with what is objective...

...but I can never BE objective.

Greg

[moralist]

I know God exists.

moralist:

What exactly is it that makes you so certain?

My own direct personal experience.

Greg

Greg

So it was a purely subjective experience on your part, with no objective evidence involved?

It is my subjective personal experience of That which is Objective. So there is ample proof... but only for me and for no one else.

You're on your own and have complete freedom to figure things out for yourself.

Greg

[Jules Troy]

Hrrmmm so if the ones created by god are good and those created by man "evil" why is it that all "acts of god" usually end up with massive death and destruction?..

[moralist]

Hrrmmm so if the ones created by god are good and those created by man "evil" why is it that all "acts of god" usually end up with massive death and destruction?..

Wooah... hold on there, Jules. You're already off and running down the wrong path!

God did not create good men. He created men with the choice to do good. So whether we personally choose to do good or evil is completely up to us.

The world is exactly what people have made it.

In fact, the world around you, which is everything within your own direct personal sphere of influence, your own personal control, and which is your own personal responsibility, is what you have made it.

Greg