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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2017 17:30:30 GMT
No but it is still an open question whether any "full purpose" exists. No one yet has been able to show that the universe has any purpose. A matter of faith perhaps. But, otoh, doesn't the fact that you are alive, suggest the universe has purpose?
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2017 17:44:23 GMT
"Purpose" is not innate to a thing. "Purpose" is something we ascribe to something or project onto something in order to predict and model its behavior according to what is interesting and valuable to us at any given moment. It is entirely dependent on context and human interests, less so on any physical facts about the object itself. . We do not create purpose by observing a things behaviour. We might, by observation, discover aspects of a things purpose which are true , but we do not create its purpose. We merely learn, or try to understand its purpose.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2017 17:50:49 GMT
It is good that people strive to improve and it is good that people don't always accept things as ' just the way the way they are'. If we didn't there would be no advancement in many fields of endeavour. The important thing to remember , as I think you suggest, is that nobody has perfect knowledge as regards what constitutes perfection . That doesn't mean perfection doesn't exist though. How do you know though, that regardless of acceptance or not, that things will still advance whether or not one strives for perfection or not? As already mentioned, who's perfection, yours or ours? Show me where this perfection is, or explain it as you see it? Of course sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all. Sometimes the best course of action is to do nothing at all. Whose perfection? God's perfection.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2017 17:55:24 GMT
Yes, for me of course. But that would be my point of view. When I die my point of view will no longer exist. If the earth and all of its life ceases to exist, what purpose will the universe have then? The pov being from the ego mind, which is a feature of our physical human embodiment. Consciousness awareness is eternal, that is the self-realization and that is that there is no "self". Your purpose is transcendence, and being free from the limitations that the physical sense of self on earth represents for many. You wrote to the effect that 'transcending time' doesn't make a lick of sense conceptually earlier.. so how come here you are advising Cham that their purpose is transcendence? What good is spiritual transcendence if it doesn't involve transcending time ? Lol
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Post by faustus5 on May 29, 2017 18:07:48 GMT
We merely learn, or try to understand its purpose. Purpose is neither a physical property of something in the universe, nor is it some sort of silly metaphysical aura. There is nothing more to "understanding" purpose than correctly predicting and modeling the way something interacts with its environment. It is something we project onto elements in the universe, and that is literally all it is.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2017 18:33:49 GMT
What I said to Cham, is what I have said throughout most of my posts? If you could please point out where I wrote 'transcending time' doesn't make a lick of sense conceptually, then I may be able to give you a more cohesive response to what you just asked. Most of my posts have mentioned about purpose and transcendence, and discussing your thoughts on "perfection" and what it represents. My apologies Toasted Cheese!!! I got your post mixed up with another poster. Sorry bout that! Not sure how I managed to mix up Terrapins with Toast mind you but yikes I did :/ Sorry for the confusion 😀
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2017 18:44:25 GMT
We merely learn, or try to understand its purpose. Purpose is neither a physical property of something in the universe, nor is it some sort of silly metaphysical aura. There is nothing more to "understanding" purpose than correctly predicting and modeling the way something interacts with its environment. It is something we project onto elements in the universe, and that is literally all it is. You don't believe anything has a reason to exist beyond what 'we' project or interpret as its purpose? When you say "it is something we project", who is 'we'?
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2017 19:14:46 GMT
Perhaps you don't know what to say then, because your concept\notion of God and what God or The Godforce represents is different to mine. You are striving to meet what you only "perceive" as God's standards of perfection. It is all perfect as it is, and I would say you are just being rigid and coming from a religious conceptualized notion of what you feel God represents. That rigidity is also coming from a control space, which is also an ego space. As a Christian I do not fully understand perfection that died on a cross. I am grateful for it because I believe that through this act God's perfection overcame the worlds imperfection. You are right to question how people set their measure of what constitutes perfection. Too easy for ego to step in and say this is perfect that isn't. Only grace can tell us what is perfect. How could a person 2000 years or so ago travelling through Jerusalem and seeing a stranger named Jesus dying on a cross have known he was witnessing the perfect Divine unless God's grace made it known? I believe perfection is real but I believe, as I think most religions teach, that only God really knows what perfection is because only God is truly perfect. You said ' all is perfect as it is'. I disagree strongly! I am not perfect and I am part of the whole therefore all is not perfect. Julian of Norwich, a Christian mystic , said 'all will be well' not 'all is well' quite simply because all isn't well or perfect.. yet. : )
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Post by faustus5 on May 30, 2017 22:15:03 GMT
You don't believe anything has a reason to exist beyond what 'we' project or interpret as its purpose? I understood you to be using the word "purpose" in its use as a synonym for "function", because that's the only way to use the concept that makes sense in a conversation about the nature of consciousness. As in, for instance, the following sentence: "The purpose of the fusiform face area in the human brain appears to be to categorize and recognize visual data as representing a face." If you seek a "reason to exist" that lies outside this meaning of "purpose", then the only credible answers to such question have to come from the appropriate sciences, or the question as framed has no legitimate meaning. So a rock, having no parts that serve any functions within it, would have a "reason to exist" that can be discovered through the chemistry of geology. But if the rock were part of a human designed mechanism, like a pulley system, then you could describe it as having a purpose in the first sense.
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 31, 2017 10:38:55 GMT
Yes, for me of course. But that would be my point of view. When I die my point of view will no longer exist. If the earth and all of its life ceases to exist, what purpose will the universe have then? The pov being from the ego mind, which is a feature of our physical human embodiment. Consciousness awareness is eternal, that is the self-realization and that is that there is no "self". Your purpose is transcendence, and being free from the limitations that the physical sense of self on earth represents for many. There isn't anything other than physical stuff, though, and you're nothing more than your physical body.
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Post by faustus5 on May 31, 2017 10:41:49 GMT
What if we exist to have "purpose" or find a "purpose"? I can't even begin to understand what that is supposed to mean. What would the world look like if we did "exist to have or find purpose" versus if we didn't? What noticeable difference would it make one way or the other?
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 31, 2017 10:53:10 GMT
There isn't anything other than physical stuff, though, and you're nothing more than your physical body. When the brain dies and the heart stops, that's it! Correct.
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 31, 2017 11:01:05 GMT
Nice how you avoided the sarcasm, so here it is again. My statement wasn't an endorsement, but you already knew that. I was helping you out. That you feel that what's the case is funny is irrelevant.
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 31, 2017 11:16:50 GMT
You have got to find your own path and sense of purpose for your being. We certainly agree on that, it just doesn't change the physical facts of the world (and that is itself a physical fact). And there are only physical facts.
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Post by faustus5 on May 31, 2017 12:07:26 GMT
Was it a difficult question, or you are you just refusing to see the larger landscape? I don't think it is a good question and I also don't think there is a larger landscape to see or refuse to see. What evidence would support this view as opposed to a competing view, such as that we exist only to spread genes as a result of completely mindless processes going back billions of years, and that "purpose" that is "created through authentic and genuine action and thought" is just a useful fiction? Don't knock useful fictions, by the way. We can't live without them. We're largely made of them, in fact.
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Post by The Lost One on May 31, 2017 12:38:25 GMT
You have got to find your own path and sense of purpose for your being. We certainly agree on that, it just doesn't change the physical facts of the world (and that is itself a physical fact). And there are only physical facts. What do you mean by "physical facts" exactly? It strikes me for instance that "all bachelors are unmarried" is a fact but it doesn't strike me as physical per se - there is no such physical thing as marriage.
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 31, 2017 12:55:16 GMT
We certainly agree on that, it just doesn't change the physical facts of the world (and that is itself a physical fact). And there are only physical facts. What do you mean by "physical facts" exactly? It strikes me for instance that "all bachelors are unmarried" is a fact but it doesn't strike me as physical per se - there is no such physical thing as marriage. There's certainly no non-physical thing such as marriage, a fortiori because the very idea of non-physical things is incoherent. But marriage does exist. I'm married after all. So marriage is a physical fact, or a set of physical facts rather, as is everything. What physical facts? Well, things such as ways of thinking about other people (which are brain states), and ways of treating people (including others treating a married couple in ways that we take to count as a married couple), and particular documents (marriage certificates for example) and so on.
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Post by The Lost One on May 31, 2017 13:57:29 GMT
There's certainly no non-physical thing such as marriage, a fortiori because the very idea of non-physical things is incoherent. Seems kinda close to question-begging to me: "Every fact we think of must be physical because only physical facts can be thought of" Isn't there a confusion there? I have a physical brain state when I think of you as being married but it is the thinking itself that is the brain state not what I am thinking of you as. Like if I say I am walking to the shop, walking is a physical state but the shop itself is not part of the physical state. Of course, in that example a shop is physical in itself, but is marriage? Maybe getting a bit Zen here, but if no-one else knew a married couple were married, would they still be married? If a man gets amnesia and forgets he's married and there is no surviving marriage certificate and he is not around others who think him married, is he no longer married?
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 31, 2017 14:01:56 GMT
There's certainly no non-physical thing such as marriage, a fortiori because the very idea of non-physical things is incoherent. Seems kinda close to question-begging to me: "Every fact we think of must be physical because only physical facts can be thought of" I'm just answering at the moment because I want to make sure that we take care of one thing at a time, fully, if this is going to turn into a longer conversation. What you have in quotation marks isn't at all what I said, though, is it? It's not that everything must be physical because it must be physical. Rather, the very idea of non-physical existents is incoherent. That's a strong reason in favor of everything being physical instead. Does the distinction there make sense to you?
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Post by The Lost One on May 31, 2017 14:25:22 GMT
Ok I see your distinction, but I'm not sure I agree with you that the very idea of non-physical existents is incoherent. What makes it so? What do you define as "physical" and why is its coherency assured?
Maybe we need our own thread for this!
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