where are the miracles?

[Windwalker]

I also believed Santa, among other things. And yes, my epistemic state was defective as well, even though it was making me happy.

The two things: being true/making happy, are either not correlated or have an inverse correlation.

Usually, things that make us happy, if not supported by evidence, have the bad habit of being untrue.

The question is: what do you prefer, happiness enabling lies, or the naked truth?

Ciao

- viole

I was hoping someone would want to pick up this line of thought and get to the deeper underlying truths of it. Glad you grabbed this.

I'm going to ask to take a step back and look at happiness itself first. Happiness, joy, bliss, love, etc, is something we already fully have. Objects that come along that evoke that are simply triggers that bring that out in us, that bring out what is already always fully there. The objects, the things, the person, the belief, etc did not "make" us happy, the were simply doorways that we used to open to see and experience that joy that is already ours.

What happens when we see an object that makes us happy, we are temporarily transferring that happiness that is ours to that object that we think causes it. And then we mistakenly chase after that object as if it is the source of that happiness. With me so far? And so what happens? We find out Santa Clause isn't an actual, literal person in the natural way a child will literalize these symbolic objects, and then mistakenly questions the legitimacy or validity of their joy and happiness. Sounds a whole lot like the ex-believer turned atheist. "None of it was real!," is the cry. "It's all made of B.S.!". No, the joy the bliss, the presence, the being, was all real. It was your own joy, and bliss, and happiness. Belief in the mythological image of the Divine Self (of which we all are), was simply the trigger to allow out of you what was and is always already fully there.

When one gets in touch with that, knows it and experiences it fully, face to face, "know thyself", as the saying goes, then it is known and experienced in all things and no things. Realizing this, symbols then become tools, visualizations, mental objects as it were, to releasing this energy within us to experience it and embody it within ourselves. It's not God that makes you happy, but through God you find you are God. (That's a hard truth for most).

The criteria of true/false is not valid applied to symbols. The symbols are not lies or relevant whatsoever to questions of facts and evidences. I cannot stress that strongly enough! They are symbols, used my the mind to expose deeper hidden truths within ourselves. They are psycho-spiritual tools. Being useful or relevant is the correct criteria. Does Santa work for a child? Yes. Does he work for an adult? Unlikely. And so forth. You see?

 

[viole]

I was hoping someone would want to pick up this line of thought and get to the deeper underlying truths of it. Glad you grabbed this.

I'm going to ask to take a step back and look at happiness itself first. Happiness, joy, bliss, love, etc, is something we already fully have. Objects that come along that evoke that are simply triggers that bring that out in us, that bring out what is already always fully there. The objects, the things, the person, the belief, etc did not "make" us happy, the were simply doorways that we used to open to see and experience that joy that is already ours.

What happens when we see an object that makes us happy, we are temporarily transferring that happiness that is ours to that object that we think causes it. And then we mistakenly chase after that object as if it is the source of that happiness. With me so far? And so what happens? We find out Santa Clause isn't an actual, literal person in the natural way a child will literalize these symbolic objects, and then mistakenly questions the legitimacy or validity of their joy and happiness. Sounds a whole lot like the ex-believer turned atheist. "None of it was real!," is the cry. "It's all made of B.S.!". No, the joy the bliss, the presence, the being, was all real. It was your own joy, and bliss, and happiness. Belief in the mythological image of the Divine Self (of which we all are), was simply the trigger to allow out of you what was and is always already fully there.

When one gets in touch with that, knows it and experiences it fully, face to face, "know thyself", as the saying goes, then it is known and experienced in all things and no things. Realizing this, symbols then become tools, visualizations, mental objects as it were, to releasing this energy within us to experience it and embody it within ourselves. It's not God that makes you happy, but through God you find you are God. (That's a hard truth for most).

The criteria of true/false is not valid applied to symbols. The symbols are not lies or relevant whatsoever to questions of facts and evidences. I cannot stress that strongly enough! They are symbols, used my the mind to expose deeper hidden truths within ourselves. They are psycho-spiritual tools. Being useful or relevant is the correct criteria. Does Santa work for a child? Yes. Does he work for an adult? Unlikely. And so forth. You see?

Yes, well, past joy cannot be undone, even if based on a lie, but present disappointment that it was a lie could add negative joy to the whole balance. So, what is better, a (possibly) lesser joy not followed by disappointment, or a peak of joy followed by the awareness of the hard reality?

I am not sure. I think that knowing the truth is the tie breaker that makes me favor the former.

Personally, I would have preferred if my parents would not have lied to me. They actually messed up with my malleable epistemic state enabling, thereby, my belief in similarly absurd things when I grew up.

That reminds me of that "Blade Runner" movie when Rachel realized that she never really had a mother nor a happy family, and that all her memories had been implanted by engineers.

Was she right to be deeply saddened by this realization that had the potential to drive her into an irreversible depression?

I think she was.

Ciao

- viole

 

[brokensymmetry]

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of these things. Yes, I'm quite aware of the comparisons of taking these sorts of drugs and the various levels of effects they have in these various stages of altered states of consciousness. Why drugs like LSD, or at a far more potent level ayahuasca or DMT, is that the reason it produces a similar profound change of worldview, as to say a natural state through meditation (which goes far beyond and deeper than these drugs), is because what they are doing is distracting the mind from its normal illusory states of dualistic conceptualizations. It temporarily frees us from that bondage, and by subtraction of all that debris, allows a natural state on deep primal levels of consciousness to be experienced directly, rather than just as silent background at the subconscious level. It's the experience of touching that on a conscious waking level, which changes lives.

All the visual stuff that goes with it is manifestations of that subconscious mind is just making use the symbolic frameworks of the linguist centers of the brain in the left hippocampus. It's not that what you see is "real" in the sense of you encountered an actual angel, but rather the mind put a "face" on the experience that has its origins, and rightly so, in cultural symbolic referents. These have two natures to them, as I see them. Both manifestations of primal fears, and archetypal manifestations of the transcendent nature of our very conscious being. It is through the focus on, or interaction with, or communion with to put words to it, with these archetypal forms, that what arises from within us into a direct, immediate conscious awareness that is life-transforming. The reason is because we in effect are 'setting that free' in us, and getting to know it, become familiar with it, and ultimately through disciplined practice are able to integrate it into our lived lives. We are literally driving our own evolution (think in terms of biocultural feedback loops, if you are familiar with them).

So I know quite a lot about these, and could go on at length about comparisons between these drugs and meditation or other state peak experiences. They are related, yes. But not identical. If that's the suggestion, that's wrong.


What is it you don't understand about everything I've been saying? Is it that you imagine I think a vision of seeing the Christ or Krishna of the Virgin Mary, or Kali, or the Buddha, or a Bodhisattva, are proofs of an actual realm where literal beings like these live, like a Mount Olympus or something? Everything we experience is in the brain. I said this at length in my last post. Did you merely skim over it without reading it? I'm trying to understand why you'd bring this up again?


Neither do I! And I've been bring this up. We can go much deeper into it if you wish. It supports what I've been saying. (I do realize it's unlikely you'd encountered someone saying what I am so you're struggling to try to get a handle on where this is coming from in order to respond properly).


Excellent. And I'm happy to share my insights into this. I've done a considerable amount of thought, practice, and study in these areas. They're far from your typical religious apologetic trying to justify some belief system. Rather they are open-ended explorations of what both the sciences and contemplative paths and traditions expose, and how they can legitimately be brought together. So in discussion with me, try to set aside any assumptions of what you think I believe. Chances are extremely high those assumptions will be wrong.


Why do you insist in denying all these other vital areas of development? They are 100% relevant to the discussion. Biological evolution is part of it, and that is relevant as well, but it is not all there is to this! Not by a long shot. I'm assuming since you wish to limit it to this, you think everything can be understood in nothing other than purely reductionist terms? I would completely disagree with that "religious" assumption (which is what it is, as there is no science to prove that assumption - it's just simply made on philosophical grounds or grounds of personal preference).

If we are not allowed to look at areas such as psychology, sociological, cultural studies, anthropology, ethnology, myth studies, systems theory, chaos theory, etc, then to be blunt, nothing can be understood very well at all, and we can't have any sort of meaningful discussion about anything. For instance, using neuroscience tell me the meaning of Hamlet? Using an EEG, tell me about who I am as a person and my likes and dislikes, hopes and aspirations, etc.

The Theory of Evolution is not a theory of everything. It takes more the the Theory of Evolution to explain how we go from dirt to Shakespeare. I'm dealing with the Theory of Everything, and Evolution is absolutely integral to all of it! But if you want the world to be nothing but biology, then I wish you well trying to explain much of anything substantial beyond how the machine operates.


Once ground is laid, things repeat the pattern. It's a shortcut, rather than constantly have to remap and "relearn" what evolution already created. That is why what you see in childhood development is a microcosmic snapshot of what evolution created on a macrocosmic scale for us as a species. You're seeing in 15 years in a child, what took evolution tens of thousands of years to evolve. It's the same identical pattern without exception (aside from dysfunctions) happening across the species regardless of culture again and again and again. It's a pattern that is handed down. It's a pattern that emerged through evolution. If not, please explain how it is that every child in the world follows these same stages? Or if it didn't evolve as I said, explain where the pattern came from then. Were we "created" with it fully in place, like the Creationist models suggest?


That's too bad that's all that was to you. You never experienced happiness and joy through that figure? You don't recall what came out of you and you experienced when they spoke of Santa coming? Were you always such a cynic?

I don't understand your issue with my statement since I am the one who said that just because experiences happen in the brain doesn't mean they aren't related to objective reality. I said that explicitly a couple posts back. My point with the LSD comparison is that we can have amazing, trans formative experiences which in that case are brought about by physical reactions in the brain in response to an ingested drug. If you recall, my original point was about meditation, mystical practices which teach the practitioner to induce states is ultimately going to be analogous to this, not identical (though perhaps biologically similar, depending on what sorts of experiences we are talking about!).

The issue I have is with thinking these sorts of experiences tell anyone anything interesting about the *objective world*, at least outside of their own brain working. I do think they can tell someone about their own workings, sure, they can also tell us something interesting about human physiology. I do not see why anyone would assume they are seeing anything about the world outside themselves however. There's no mechanism there for tapping the infinite, the eternal, the ultimate, the unknowable or unname-able or any other title you want to attach to it. No, I really don't take *those* specific claims seriously. The more I share my position the more insulting I think I sound- which I don't prefer in this case-, but perhaps that is the price of clarity. I'm not sure. I do think I am mostly just repeating myself with each post though.

I don't understand your claims about 'development'. We're talking about Hamlet now? I understand that humans have developed culture, and elaborate ways of teaching one another in a way that allows for the product or discovery of one person to be much more than it could have been without the intricate network of social support and access to previously discovered knowledge and skills. Yeah, I think it's very cool. I just don't see what this thing has to do with the other. By the way, I am not sure why you'd throw 'chaos theory' into the mix with anthropology and myth studies. Chaotic systems are those whose change with time is very sensitive to initial conditions, they are nonlinear. It doesn't require studying human relations or cultures to study that.

I don't think a child just recapitulates evolutionary history, no. For instance, I don't think there was a species out there whose adults thought like 6 month old human babies. Human children have an extraordinarily long time to mature because human brains are unprecedentedly large (for body size) and complex. The price of that is a long childhood. What you are saying sounds a bit like a 19th C hypothesis about embryonic development which has been discarded, i.e. that human embryos 'relive' all previous 'evolutionary stages' which got them there. While there is a kernel of truth in that, insofar as, you do see vestiges of evolutionary past in there, the idea itself is bunk. For one thing, it falsely imagines there being a ladder of life, instead of a tree of life. So while a certain degree I can agree that a 5 year old having a certain mental development does reflect evolutionary history, so does a slug, so does my ever loyal peace lily, ... every life on the planet reflects its 'evolutionary history'.

I recall the joy I had on Christmas Eve, which is why I brought the example up. I plan on driving my kids crazy with the same myth. I don't see how knowing I was wrong about it now makes me a cynic.

 

[brokensymmetry]

That reminds me of that "Blade Runner" movie when Rachel realized that she never really had a mother nor a happy family, and that all her memories had been implanted by engineers.

Was she right to be deeply saddened by this realization that had the potential to drive her into an irreversible depression?

I think she was.

Ciao

- viole

what if she never found out?

 

[Windwalker]

Yes, well, past joy cannot be undone, even if based on a lie, but present disappointment that it was a lie could add negative joy to the whole balance.

I think you missed my underlying point that your joy is not based on anything. It's your joy. Period. It is not created by another. It's not based on a lie. It's based on your being. That's a huge, and radical difference. But I fully get how we are not used to looking at it this way. I just wish to stress that perspective, as it is not only true, but will change how we approach everything in life.

I'll repeat how I said it earlier as I think it summarized it perfectly. "What happens when we see an object that makes us happy, we are temporarily transferring that happiness that is ours to that object that we think causes it. And then we mistakenly chase after that object as if it is the source of that happiness." And so thus, we think the other has made us unhappy, as if they stole our joy. We blame them. Whereas in reality, it was us who gave away our happiness to them. We are responsible for our happiness.

So, what is better, a (possibly) lesser joy not followed by disappointment, or a peak of joy followed by the awareness of the hard reality?

It is better to experience joy. Far, far better, far healthier to experience joy than to disallow ourselves that because we are afraid of future disappointments. It is such a sad, and unhealthy thing we do to ourselves to think we are protecting ourselves by not opening ourselves because we fear being hurt again. We end up living half-alive, rather than then simply learning discretion and wisdom, which is something earned through lived experience. If you're not living it, you're not learning it.

I am not sure. I think that knowing the truth is the tie breaker that makes me favor the former.

I think that shifting our expectation to ourselves is better. We are responsible for our own happiness. If we don't look to the other to make us happy, then we approach everything in life radically different. We hold beliefs and views with open hands, rather than trying to make it work for us to make us happy.

The visualization I have is that of holding my hand with my palm face up and open, and allowing life like a bird to come rest on it for me to look at, appreciate, and take into myself and mix with my joy of it. It allows that joy to have an object to give itself to, and it's that giving, that awakens and moves that joy within me. And the attitude is to allow it to be itself, as it that bird wishes to fly off you let it and appreciate it for itself, not for being what you wanted it to be, which would only lead to you trying to seize that bird with your grip, and thus crushing it and never actually knowing joy, but an unsatisfying substitutionary illusion of happiness based on fear of loss.

Personally, I would have preferred if my parents would not have lied to me. They actually messed up with my malleable epistemic state enabling, thereby, my belief in similarly absurd things when I grew up.

Are you saying your parents are to blame for how you made mistakes in your approach to religion later in life? I actually doubt it had anything to do with it. And I actually doubt had they "told you the truth" when you were four or five years old, it would have changed anything at all. And were they lying, or speaking to you as a child in how a child sees and thinks about the world, using language and symbols to stimulate the imagination of the child? To me, to speak to a child as an adult and not a child, would seem to do greater harm than playing within their fantasy world of joy and excitement through magical thinking. It would be to not allow them to grow naturally.

Children think in magical and mythological terms, and it is a mistake to assume you can simply "educate" them to the "facts" of the world as seen through the eyes of an adult. A child is not, nor should be expected to be a "rationalist". That's like those parents who try to raise "super babies", programming their little minds to be highly educated from infancy through their early years. Children do not think as adults. They have to become adults by growing through the stages of development. They are incapable of thinking as adults. They think in magical terms. And we all must go through those stages in order to become adults. We cannot bypass them.

That reminds me of that "Blade Runner" movie when Rachel realized that she never really had a mother nor a happy family, and that all her memories had been implanted by engineers.

Was she right to be deeply saddened by this realization that had the potential to drive her into an irreversible depression?

First of all, that's a movie. And the comparison of her story, where ones entire life is not what you thought it was is not comparable to a child finding out that Santa is not an real person as their imaginations fashioned him to be for themselves. Your entire life is not based on that alone.

But since you bring it up, what it actually does represent is more deep than finding out Santa isn't a literal person at the North Pole. It represents an existential awakening, that mystical awareness that happens where we realize our whole life, what we cling to as the truth about who we think we are, is actually an illusion of the mind! Now that's what Rachel represents!

How she was unable to integrate that, speaks to our own abilities or inabilities to integrate that realization. We either shut down (back off on seeking joy, as in my first response in this post), or grow through it to finding deeper, truer, and lasting joy. She couldn't integrate. Can we? It takes true bravery, and 'faith'.

 

[Windwalker]

The issue I have is with thinking these sorts of experiences tell anyone anything interesting about the *objective world*, at least outside of their own brain working.

Again I wish to come to back to my question of you earlier. Do you believe the mystics are trying to claim their insights through these experiences, which they are insights, have anything to do with these sorts of things physics looks into? Does the mystic tell you how the sun generates heat through a process of nuclear fusion? What is it you are hearing the mystic says about the "objective world" that to you causes concern?

Back to what I said before, to speak about the "nature" of reality, is not a scientific term in any modern sense of the word science. It's a metaphysical view. And who but mystics can actually speak of metaphysical matters best? The mystical experience is not one of speculative rational inquiries, but one of a descriptive language of actual experience.

Is it objective? Yes, in a broad sense it is. But is it the same sort of tools and methodologies used in the empiric-analytic sciences? No. Of course not. Nor is interpreting Hamlet which uses hermeneutics as it's tool. The mystical approach uses contemplation as the tool. Can the interpretation of Hamlet be called "objective"? In a sense, yes. You can have general agreement amongst specialists in reading Hamlet. What about mystic experience? Again, yes, just like with reading Hamlet. You can have a general map that can be creating looking at the reports of specialists in that area of inquiry. It really boils down to what your underlying question seems to be, and that is by the term "objective", you mean to suggest "reliable" or factual. Correct?

I do think they can tell someone about their own workings, sure, they can also tell us something interesting about human physiology. I do not see why anyone would assume they are seeing anything about the world outside themselves however.

Because we are part of this world. The world is inside me, and I am inside the world. It shows a holistic view, and in reality, even the empiric-analytic sciences are showing this, rather than isolated, separated little independent automatons that can be understood by analyzing its atoms. That view of reality, that it's nature can be reduced down to understanding only the components and not the wholes nor interactions between wholes, is not a truly scientific understanding.

Again, what do you mean by "objective". Do you believe it is possible to actually know the "objective" without the subjective? I'm curious.

There's no mechanism there for tapping the infinite, the eternal, the ultimate, the unknowable or unname-able or any other title you want to attach to it.

What makes you believe it's not? I say it is. Very much so. Why? Because the Ultimate, or that Infinite, or that Ground of Being, or Source of all that arises, is within me. It is within you. And you are That. It is knowing not the mechanics of how atoms works as part of the machine, but the underlying "nature" of existence itself, through knowing it within our own being. You have to look "within" to see it. It's not a material particles, strings, atoms, quarks, dark matter, black holes, cells, molecules, etc. It's that Infinite "spirit", to put a non-scientific term to it, that is beyond and before all objectification. You cannot see that looking at objects, because it is itself not an object. It is seen, by dissolving into your very Self, becoming that Ground.

To put a simple metaphor to it, you cannot see the eye you are looking out through while you are looking out through it. You will spend your whole life looking for this illusive mysterious eye of yours you've heard others say exists, but then through looking and looking everyone outside yourself, in the "objective world" you finally must conclude it doesn't exist. How true is your conclusion? The mystical experience allows you to understand the nature of eyes in this regard, whereas looking for it outside yourself is not the right set of tools to inquiry into the claims of its validity.

No, I really don't take *those* specific claims seriously. The more I share my position the more insulting I think I sound- which I don't prefer in this case-, but perhaps that is the price of clarity. I'm not sure. I do think I am mostly just repeating myself with each post though.

I'm not insulted. I appreciate you sharing your view. It's only when it degrades into doing crap like facepalms, ridicule, etc, that it insults my intelligence. Not to worry, I feel I am repeating myself too at times. Not unnecessarily though, because I realize a lot of these are unfamiliar points of view to many, and it takes further explanations to make it "click".

I don't understand your claims about 'development'. We're talking about Hamlet now? I understand that humans have developed culture, and elaborate ways of teaching one another in a way that allows for the product or discovery of one person to be much more than it could have been without the intricate network of social support and access to previously discovered knowledge and skills. Yeah, I think it's very cool. I just don't see what this thing has to do with the other. By the way, I am not sure why you'd throw 'chaos theory' into the mix with anthropology and myth studies. Chaotic systems are those whose change with time is very sensitive to initial conditions, they are nonlinear. It doesn't require studying human relations or cultures to study that.

Understanding the nature of truth and reality does require looking at the whole. How do we come to know a thing? What really is "objective" truth, and does such a thing exist? Understanding all the parts, how they interact, creates a far better gaze into the nature of reality as a whole. And it is my view, that mystical awareness is a critical, integral component to the whole which allows a "stepping outside" of the processes in order to see them. Without that perspective, all our sciences and reasoning and models are not truly seen for what they are. They are partial truths, not themselves ultimately capable of knowing the whole as it is.

I don't think a child just recapitulates evolutionary history, no. For instance, I don't think there was a species out there whose adults thought like 6 month old human babies. Human children have an extraordinarily long time to mature because human brains are unprecedentedly large (for body size) and complex.

Why do children today universally follow the same developmental stages? Explain why or how that pattern exists.

For one thing, it falsely imagines there being a ladder of life, instead of a tree of life.

There is a tree of life, not trees of life. Evolution can rightly be understood as a series of transcend and include. It builds upon earlier stages, transcending them, yet including the good useful parts into the next stage as it negates the previous stages as the dominant guiding "set of eyes", so to speak. That there are many branches, divergences, etc, does not invalidate whatsoever what I am saying. OUR branch follows distinct, repeating patterns. The other branches have their own distinct lines that repeat their distinct patterns. But, we all converge to the source of all animal life, and we all have that source within us at primal levels. If you accept the tree of life model, you cannot deny this.

Now, take this tree of life and go back before it. Where did it arise from? Where did it emerge from? Does it not itself share a common source in the earth? And where does the earth come from? Does it not share a common source in the offspring of exploding suns? And is there not a common source to the birth of suns? And is there not a common source to all that arises in this universe? And what is the source of this matter? And are we not all that within us, alive, breathing, talking to one another, looking through our eyes at each other and wondering about who and what we are?

The tree of life is connected to the Ground of Being itself. It is connected to all matter. It is connected to the Source. And it is every present within us, as us, as all things. How can looking for it see it, without opening to yourself as it?

So while a certain degree I can agree that a 5 year old having a certain mental development does reflect evolutionary history, so does a slug, so does my ever loyal peace lily, ... every life on the planet reflects its 'evolutionary history'.

Yes, and your point disagrees with me how?

 

[viole]

what if she never found out?

Ignorance is bliss, it seems.

On a most serious note, she wanted to know. Why?

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

I think you missed my underlying point that your joy is not based on anything. It's your joy. Period. It is not created by another. It's not based on a lie. It's based on your being. That's a huge, and radical difference. But I fully get how we are not used to looking at it this way. I just wish to stress that perspective, as it is not only true, but will change how we approach everything in life.

I'll repeat how I said it earlier as I think it summarized it perfectly. "What happens when we see an object that makes us happy, we are temporarily transferring that happiness that is ours to that object that we think causes it. And then we mistakenly chase after that object as if it is the source of that happiness." And so thus, we think the other has made us unhappy, as if they stole our joy. We blame them. Whereas in reality, it was us who gave away our happiness to them. We are responsible for our happiness.


It is better to experience joy. Far, far better, far healthier to experience joy than to disallow ourselves that because we are afraid of future disappointments. It is such a sad, and unhealthy thing we do to ourselves to think we are protecting ourselves by not opening ourselves because we fear being hurt again. We end up living half-alive, rather than then simply learning discretion and wisdom, which is something earned through lived experience. If you're not living it, you're not learning it.


I think that shifting our expectation to ourselves is better. We are responsible for our own happiness. If we don't look to the other to make us happy, then we approach everything in life radically different. We hold beliefs and views with open hands, rather than trying to make it work for us to make us happy.

The visualization I have is that of holding my hand with my palm face up and open, and allowing life like a bird to come rest on it for me to look at, appreciate, and take into myself and mix with my joy of it. It allows that joy to have an object to give itself to, and it's that giving, that awakens and moves that joy within me. And the attitude is to allow it to be itself, as it that bird wishes to fly off you let it and appreciate it for itself, not for being what you wanted it to be, which would only lead to you trying to seize that bird with your grip, and thus crushing it and never actually knowing joy, but an unsatisfying substitutionary illusion of happiness based on fear of loss.


Are you saying your parents are to blame for how you made mistakes in your approach to religion later in life? I actually doubt it had anything to do with it. And I actually doubt had they "told you the truth" when you were four or five years old, it would have changed anything at all. And were they lying, or speaking to you as a child in how a child sees and thinks about the world, using language and symbols to stimulate the imagination of the child? To me, to speak to a child as an adult and not a child, would seem to do greater harm than playing within their fantasy world of joy and excitement through magical thinking. It would be to not allow them to grow naturally.

Children think in magical and mythological terms, and it is a mistake to assume you can simply "educate" them to the "facts" of the world as seen through the eyes of an adult. A child is not, nor should be expected to be a "rationalist". That's like those parents who try to raise "super babies", programming their little minds to be highly educated from infancy through their early years. Children do not think as adults. They have to become adults by growing through the stages of development. They are incapable of thinking as adults. They think in magical terms. And we all must go through those stages in order to become adults. We cannot bypass them.


First of all, that's a movie. And the comparison of her story, where ones entire life is not what you thought it was is not comparable to a child finding out that Santa is not an real person as their imaginations fashioned him to be for themselves. Your entire life is not based on that alone.

But since you bring it up, what it actually does represent is more deep than finding out Santa isn't a literal person at the North Pole. It represents an existential awakening, that mystical awareness that happens where we realize our whole life, what we cling to as the truth about who we think we are, is actually an illusion of the mind! Now that's what Rachel represents!

How she was unable to integrate that, speaks to our own abilities or inabilities to integrate that realization. We either shut down (back off on seeking joy, as in my first response in this post), or grow through it to finding deeper, truer, and lasting joy. She couldn't integrate. Can we? It takes true bravery, and 'faith'.

Let's make a little Gedanken Experiment here.

Your doctor knows that you have only six months to live. During these six months you will feel completely healthy, but after that you will suddenly die without pain.

Would you like the doctor to tell you the truth when he knows it?

Ciao

- viole

 

[brokensymmetry]

Again I wish to come to back to my question of you earlier. Do you believe the mystics are trying to claim their insights through these experiences, which they are insights, have anything to do with these sorts of things physics looks into? Does the mystic tell you how the sun generates heat through a process of nuclear fusion? What is it you are hearing the mystic says about the "objective world" that to you causes concern?

Back to what I said before, to speak about the "nature" of reality, is not a scientific term in any modern sense of the word science. It's a metaphysical view. And who but mystics can actually speak of metaphysical matters best? The mystical experience is not one of speculative rational inquiries, but one of a descriptive language of actual experience.

Is it objective? Yes, in a broad sense it is. But is it the same sort of tools and methodologies used in the empiric-analytic sciences? No. Of course not. Nor is interpreting Hamlet which uses hermeneutics as it's tool. The mystical approach uses contemplation as the tool. Can the interpretation of Hamlet be called "objective"? In a sense, yes. You can have general agreement amongst specialists in reading Hamlet. What about mystic experience? Again, yes, just like with reading Hamlet. You can have a general map that can be creating looking at the reports of specialists in that area of inquiry. It really boils down to what your underlying question seems to be, and that is by the term "objective", you mean to suggest "reliable" or factual. Correct?


Because we are part of this world. The world is inside me, and I am inside the world. It shows a holistic view, and in reality, even the empiric-analytic sciences are showing this, rather than isolated, separated little independent automatons that can be understood by analyzing its atoms. That view of reality, that it's nature can be reduced down to understanding only the components and not the wholes nor interactions between wholes, is not a truly scientific understanding.

Again, what do you mean by "objective". Do you believe it is possible to actually know the "objective" without the subjective? I'm curious.


What makes you believe it's not? I say it is. Very much so. Why? Because the Ultimate, or that Infinite, or that Ground of Being, or Source of all that arises, is within me. It is within you. And you are That. It is knowing not the mechanics of how atoms works as part of the machine, but the underlying "nature" of existence itself, through knowing it within our own being. You have to look "within" to see it. It's not a material particles, strings, atoms, quarks, dark matter, black holes, cells, molecules, etc. It's that Infinite "spirit", to put a non-scientific term to it, that is beyond and before all objectification. You cannot see that looking at objects, because it is itself not an object. It is seen, by dissolving into your very Self, becoming that Ground.

To put a simple metaphor to it, you cannot see the eye you are looking out through while you are looking out through it. You will spend your whole life looking for this illusive mysterious eye of yours you've heard others say exists, but then through looking and looking everyone outside yourself, in the "objective world" you finally must conclude it doesn't exist. How true is your conclusion? The mystical experience allows you to understand the nature of eyes in this regard, whereas looking for it outside yourself is not the right set of tools to inquiry into the claims of its validity.


I'm not insulted. I appreciate you sharing your view. It's only when it degrades into doing crap like facepalms, ridicule, etc, that it insults my intelligence. Not to worry, I feel I am repeating myself too at times. Not unnecessarily though, because I realize a lot of these are unfamiliar points of view to many, and it takes further explanations to make it "click".


Understanding the nature of truth and reality does require looking at the whole. How do we come to know a thing? What really is "objective" truth, and does such a thing exist? Understanding all the parts, how they interact, creates a far better gaze into the nature of reality as a whole. And it is my view, that mystical awareness is a critical, integral component to the whole which allows a "stepping outside" of the processes in order to see them. Without that perspective, all our sciences and reasoning and models are not truly seen for what they are. They are partial truths, not themselves ultimately capable of knowing the whole as it is.


Why do children today universally follow the same developmental stages? Explain why or how that pattern exists.


There is a tree of life, not trees of life. Evolution can rightly be understood as a series of transcend and include. It builds upon earlier stages, transcending them, yet including the good useful parts into the next stage as it negates the previous stages as the dominant guiding "set of eyes", so to speak. That there are many branches, divergences, etc, does not invalidate whatsoever what I am saying. OUR branch follows distinct, repeating patterns. The other branches have their own distinct lines that repeat their distinct patterns. But, we all converge to the source of all animal life, and we all have that source within us at primal levels. If you accept the tree of life model, you cannot deny this.

Now, take this tree of life and go back before it. Where did it arise from? Where did it emerge from? Does it not itself share a common source in the earth? And where does the earth come from? Does it not share a common source in the offspring of exploding suns? And is there not a common source to the birth of suns? And is there not a common source to all that arises in this universe? And what is the source of this matter? And are we not all that within us, alive, breathing, talking to one another, looking through our eyes at each other and wondering about who and what we are?

The tree of life is connected to the Ground of Being itself. It is connected to all matter. It is connected to the Source. And it is every present within us, as us, as all things. How can looking for it see it, without opening to yourself as it?


Yes, and your point disagrees with me how?

First, I don't think mystical experiences reveal anything to anyone except about their own psychology. That's it. I don't think you gain 'metaphysical' insight (which by the way, metaphysics proper is a field that is done by philosophers in a very vigorous and analytical way). I don't think anyone having private amazing experiences has anything interesting to say to me about the objective way things are from those. I don't think you are 'seeing' the ground of being. I think you are learning how to induce brain states which I have absolutely no reason to think have anything to do with discovering anything deep about how the world works, or is. I'm not sure how to respond to the rest because I don't find it interesting that we 'come from the earth' or that we have the product of stellar and supernovae fusion in our bodies and so on, in terms of saying anything relevant to what we are talking about. We don't know about that because we have experiences of the infinite. We know about that because we do science.

By objective facts I mean those whose truth value is independent, is not constituted by, the psychological response of subjects.

The pattern of cognitive development exists because children are still growing. Why do their femurs have the same pattern of growth?

 

[brokensymmetry]

Ignorance is bliss, it seems.

On a most serious note, she wanted to know. Why?

Ciao

- viole

Because she had a notion that that was the truth. If you have any sense that your entire life is completely made up it would likely ruin your enjoyment. The only way it could work is if there was no suspicion on her part about her true nature.

 

[Windwalker]

Let's make a little Gedanken Experiment here.

Your doctor knows that you have only six months to live. During these six months you will feel completely healthy, but after that you will suddenly die without pain.

Would you like the doctor to tell you the truth when he knows it?

Ciao

- viole

This is comparing apples to orangutans. There are several problems with the correlation between the two. Firstly, I am an adult, not a child. My entire psychology is different than that of a child and being told something that I have far more comprehension than a child does makes a world of difference. Would I want to be told? Yes. Would I as a parent tell my child something like this, knowing that he would not be having any symptoms whatsoever and be able to live his life to the fullest up to the end without any suffering? Probably not. Why? Because a child's mind is not an adult's mind. It would probably lessen his life's quality to unnecessarily add anxiety and fear about something he has little to no comprehension of, and of which he'd not need to understand because of changes to his body.

But aside from that major difference right there which makes the analogy fail, being told or not told as a child that you are going to die soon, that your are facing an end-of-life event, is not whatsoever comparable to a child playing with imaginary fantasy character's like Santa Clause or Scooby Doo. That a child facing the natural pain of letting go of childhood fantasies, is a normal, natural, and healthy part of growing up, regardless of how hard it is for them to let go a playtime. I think the question should be then, would I spare a child from any growing pains? Answer, no.

May I ask, do you have children of your own? I find it hard to imagine someone thinking their children are little adults and capable of that sort of rational mental processing on a "realist's" level.

 

[Windwalker]

First, I don't think mystical experiences reveal anything to anyone except about their own psychology. That's it.

Well, that's not my personal experience. Do you have personal experience you can speak from? If so we can compare notes. If not, then on what basis do you feel your thoughts have any weight?

I don't think you gain 'metaphysical' insight (which by the way, metaphysics proper is a field that is done by philosophers in a very vigorous and analytical way).

Again, we are talking about insights into the nature of reality. If you don't think having deep personal experience at that level offers any insights, then I think I'd be safe in saying you don't have any experience you're speaking from. Kant said rightly that metaphysics is dead if it has no practical experience to back it up with. Mysticism is just that experience. In fact, as I said before metaphysical language to a mystic is a descriptive language of actual experience. So, when combined with a philosopher and a scientist, it has great value. In fact the greatest physicists of the last century were all mystics. Not because the depth of their knowledge of physics told them about mystical insights, but because they all realized the limits of physics to tell them about the nature of reality. They still did science, but they took a step beyond science into mystical insights. Here's a list of names for you to look up:

• Heisenberg
• Schroedinger
• Einstein
• DeBroglie
• Jeans
• Planck
• Pauli
• Eddington

This list if from this collection of their writings of the mystical you can read for yourself from this book: http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Questions-Mystical-Writings-Physicists/dp/1570627681 You might enjoy this to get some insights from the greatest modern physicists who had a deep love for science. It's quite different than those who think science alone will tell us all truth!

I don't think anyone having private amazing experiences has anything interesting to say to me about the objective way things are from those.

You don't think so. Does your experience tell you this is so?

I don't think you are 'seeing' the ground of being.

Have you ever directly experienced the Infinite in a wholly transcendent manner? I don't think I am either. I know I am. And so do those with similar experiences.

I think you are learning how to induce brain states which I have absolutely no reason to think have anything to do with discovering anything deep about how the world works, or is.

Have the experience yourself, do the experiment, look through the telescope yourself, then tell me if you no longer have any reason.

I'm not sure how to respond to the rest because I don't find it interesting that we 'come from the earth' or that we have the product of stellar and supernovae fusion in our bodies and so on, in terms of saying anything relevant to what we are talking about. We don't know about that because we have experiences of the infinite. We know about that because we do science.

Odd then how the Upanishads speak of these things! They were not written in post 1700's Europe. That you don't find it interesting, that even that science now is telling you of the Holistic nature of reality, is quite odd indeed. Why is this not interesting to you if you love scientific knowledge? And then when I add personal experience of the inteconnectedness of all things, which mystics have always spoken off before modern science, along with what science teaches, it adds to my mental appreciation of the beauty of the system. Doesn't it you?

By objective facts I mean those whose truth value is independent, is not constituted by, the psychological response of subjects.

Next question. Where does this exist in reality?

The pattern of cognitive development exists because children are still growing. Why do their femurs have the same pattern of growth?

You miss my point. Why is there a pattern that is universal. Where it did it come from? Magically inserted whole from on-high, or did it evolve?

 

[viole]

May I ask, do you have children of your own? I find it hard to imagine someone thinking their children are little adults and capable of that sort of rational mental processing on a "realist's" level.

Yes, but no Santa or ScoobyDo teachings from my side. I was a devout Christian and my husband an atheist, so we just let them think by themselves,
(mainly by just asking them questions instead of answering them) on these particular subjects (Santa, baby Jesus, etc).

They did not seem to have suffered any consequences whatsoever in terms of happiness, though

Obviously, they never believed in God when they grew up. Bummer.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Windwalker]

Yes, but no Santa or ScoobyDo teachings from my side. I was a devout Christian and my husband an atheist, so we just let them think by themselves,

Did your parents teach you about God, or was this something you picked up later in life because they taught you about Santa Clause?

(mainly by just asking them questions instead of answering them) on these particular subjects (Santa, baby Jesus, etc).

But you do/did enculturate them with every other manner of truth, as every parent does. It's how all parents raise their children. If not they'd be completely unguided and fail to function in a society. You just left out these two particular topics which don't fit into your world based on personal experience. Correct?

They did not seem to have suffered any consequences whatsoever in terms of happiness, though

Yes, I'm sure a child doesn't "need" to be taught about Santa of Jesus in order to be happy. But my point is that as normal human beings some things that they've believed in because of the manner in which they held truth to exist in reality through their child-eyes, will or has come crashing down on them as they grew up and faced their "new reality"(which is exactly what it is). Were you at fault for not having "told them the truth", that they were unable to see as a child?

Obviously, they never believed in God when they grew up. Bummer.

Why is that a bummer? My point in the above is this. Your parents raised you into the culture of which they were part of which including sharing the Santa lore (as modern as that is, and largely tied to America consumerism - which if you stop to think about is the true religion in the States currently). If they taught you about God they did so for the same reasons. It was part of their cultural touchstones and they imparted their culture to you, just as you impart yours to your children, just as all parents do raising children.

That you somehow were unable to take teachings about God and separate them out from the very literal imagination of a child dreaming of Santa Clause is a complex thing, and not something that can simply be sourced back to your parents teaching about Santa by making surface comparisons. The two function on completely different levels.

Not all children grow up equating God with Santa. I think teaching critical thinking is great and should be done for all children as they are at a stage in their development it is appropriate for them. Personally I think your complaint isn't against the Santa myth or a God belief, but the unhealthy continuation of mythic-literal thought into adulthood. That sort of thought is not tied to beliefs in Santa or God, but is a mode of thought in and of itself that applies to everything, such as politics, nationalism, racial views, ethnic views, and so forth. You cannot blame that mode of thought on being taught about Peter Pan or Santa Clause. That is falsely trying to find a scapegoat for the real problem.

What a parent should do, if they themselves have grown beyond that stage of concrete-literal thought applied to cultural symbols, is to cultivate continued growth in their children to move beyond that stage into the rational stage of development, or the pluralistic stage beyond the rational, or the integral stage beyond the pluralistic stage. God understood within each of those stages looks quite differently and do not equate except at the most kernel level truth as a symbol of their transformation.

What I'm trying to say is the problem isn't belief in God, but understanding that within the mythic-literal stage continued into adulthood. That view makes God the same as Santa Clause is in the eyes of a five year old. The problem isn't the symbol. The problem is the set of eyes looking at the symbol. That's moving beyond blaming the symbol. Make sense?

 

[brokensymmetry]

Well, that's not my personal experience. Do you have personal experience you can speak from? If so we can compare notes. If not, then on what basis do you feel your thoughts have any weight?


Again, we are talking about insights into the nature of reality. If you don't think having deep personal experience at that level offers any insights, then I think I'd be safe in saying you don't have any experience you're speaking from. Kant said rightly that metaphysics is dead if it has no practical experience to back it up with. Mysticism is just that experience. In fact, as I said before metaphysical language to a mystic is a descriptive language of actual experience. So, when combined with a philosopher and a scientist, it has great value. In fact the greatest physicists of the last century were all mystics. Not because the depth of their knowledge of physics told them about mystical insights, but because they all realized the limits of physics to tell them about the nature of reality. They still did science, but they took a step beyond science into mystical insights. Here's a list of names for you to look up:

• Heisenberg
• Schroedinger
• Einstein
• DeBroglie
• Jeans
• Planck
• Pauli
• Eddington

This list if from this collection of their writings of the mystical you can read for yourself from this book: Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists: Ken Wilber: 9781570627682: Amazon.com: Books You might enjoy this to get some insights from the greatest modern physicists who had a deep love for science. It's quite different than those who think science alone will tell us all truth!


You don't think so. Does your experience tell you this is so?


Have you ever directly experienced the Infinite in a wholly transcendent manner? I don't think I am either. I know I am. And so do those with similar experiences.


Have the experience yourself, do the experiment, look through the telescope yourself, then tell me if you no longer have any reason.


Odd then how the Upanishads speak of these things! They were not written in post 1700's Europe. That you don't find it interesting, that even that science now is telling you of the Holistic nature of reality, is quite odd indeed. Why is this not interesting to you if you love scientific knowledge? And then when I add personal experience of the inteconnectedness of all things, which mystics have always spoken off before modern science, along with what science teaches, it adds to my mental appreciation of the beauty of the system. Doesn't it you?


Next question. Where does this exist in reality?


You miss my point. Why is there a pattern that is universal. Where it did it come from? Magically inserted whole from on-high, or did it evolve?

If you look at my 'private experiences and objective reality' thread I explore the first question. It is the case I have had a variety of striking and vivid spiritual experiences. It's also the case that isn't at all relevant to my claim. Unless you have a good argument for why I ought to believe you are somehow tapping reality listing names of people who got into mystical thinking or just saying your experience shows you something does nothing for me whatsoever. If you want to believe I just have no idea what I'm talking about, great, be my guest. The truth is I will continue to be dismissive of your fundamental claim until you present an argument for why I ought to think these experiences reveal anything about ultimate truth. Otherwise, I will continue to think that they are interesting human psychological phenomena.

The interest for me in this is what it reveals about human psychology and cognitive science. I do find how our brains work to be very exciting and interesting. As to where subjective facts exist, I am cool discussing metaphysics (in terms of analytic philosophy) or philosophy of mind to ask that question. I would probably start a new thread for that though.