The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

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Dontaskme
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

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Courage is a love affair with the unknown. ~ Osho
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

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(Mystic shape)

An anagram of Metaphysics.

I the unknown take the shape of the shapeless.

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Arising_uk
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

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Nick_A wrote:What makes me objectionable is admitting what is said here:
RW: So this idea of knowing myself—what does that mean? Clearly, the implication is that I don’t know myself.

JN: The great unknown is me, myself. We can talk all we want about Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and not knowing things in themselves, but this, myself, is the great unknown.
No, what makes you objectionable is that you won't say what it is you will be teaching the young.
By definition I don't have the answers. ...
A bald-faced lie.
I have annoying questions which irritate the secular mind living by adaptation. ...
What irritates is that you make-up phrases like 'secular mind living by adaptation' and think it means something.
The implications is that if we did know ourselves, conscious evolution would be normal for us. ...
What would evolving consciously actually mean, what would it entail?
The secular mind only accepts adaptation. ...
What are you talking about?
That is what makes a discussion like the one between RW and JN valuable. It invites and deepens questions of a higher order. It may not be for you but why discourage others? When the link finishes we may agree to describe ideas that touch all of us like how we can "Know Thyself" and be less of a great unknown?
You want to know yourself? First ask yourself 'What do I want?", then discover how to think without the internal voice, discover how to improve your memory, discover how your thoughts work, discover your learning strategies, discover how language works in communication, discover how to listen, discover how to see, discover how you feel, discover how all of this fits together then think about what greater thing you'd like to use these discoveries for. It's a start.
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Arising_uk
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

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Dontaskme wrote: Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:49 am (Mystic shape)

An anagram of Metaphysics.

I the unknown take the shape of the shapeless.

.
Spacy Theism or Miscast Hype or Thy Escapism.
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Dontaskme
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

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Arising_uk wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 3:02 am Spacy Theism or Miscast Hype or Thy Escapism.
Imagine that!
Dubious
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

Post by Dubious »

seeds wrote:I apologize to you, Dubious, I didn’t mean to give the impression that your suggestion of this being another instance of “...being careful what you wish for...” was an inappropriate response to my statement, for indeed it was perfectly reasonable.
What I was attempting to highlight is that you and I seem to have polar-opposite views when it comes to the reason for our existence.
It’s all fine! It was just an interpretation I defaulted to based on your wording. There was nothing derogatory only a misunderstanding.
seeds wrote:For example, you apparently believe that we (as individuals) have no ultimate and eternal purpose, which, of course, is in stark contrast with my belief that our eternal purpose is so wonderful that it must be kept hidden from us.
We are indeed in opposition regarding any sublime purpose which may accrue to higher organisms in the universe. It’s not that I have no empathy with this position. One time, meaning long ago, I had similar feelings of inflation regarding human destiny as a crescendo of consciousness creating in its wake this vast fugue of awareness transforming the entire cosmos into the greatest symphony ever composed.

But these patterns eventually turned into imagined hyperboles, merely shadows of our own desires. Consciousness at a certain flash point yearns for more of what it already has not unlike having a million bucks and wanting ten million, upon having that, one-hundred million and so on. Consciousness is an entity in momentum yearning for breakthroughs into higher editions expecting the universe to somehow respond in its own mysterious fashion.

I’ve long weaned myself from such fantastic ideas without judging others who have them; it’s not in the least extraordinary for the likes of us to have those views...if only on a temporary basis.
”seeds” wrote:What I am about to suggest is obviously speculation, however, the unbounded “ARENA” of what seems to be an infinite void into which our universe is continuously expanding – as is metaphorically depicted in the blackened area surrounding the bubble of our reality in the image below…

Image

...not only extends omnidirectionally away from the reality of our universe, but it also extends omnidirectionally away from any other context of reality imaginable (including those of a transcendent nature).

Therefore, there is absolutely nothing (including nothingness itself) that is not contained within the endless and boundless reaches of infinity.

A true visualization of infinity (i.e., the unbounded extent of the infinite void) can reduce the perceived size of the universe down to that of a single grain of sand.
Any “object” surrounded by infinity (in the full meaning of the word) reduces to an infinitesimal regardless of size. If “unbounded”, there is no “container” to bind it. Relative to infinity, EVERYTHING is an infinitesimal.

“Dubious” wrote:This is more of a religious view than a philosophical one where some supposed knowledge of Ultimate Reality offers humans the perpetually craved anodyne of salvation.
”seeds” wrote:Come on now, Dubious, there’s nothing “religious” in my assertions. I’m not positing any doctrines or dogmas that must be obeyed for the sake of one’s salvation.

I’m simply offering a theoretically plausible description of reality from an idealistic perspective (as in all of reality is “mind-based” and “alive”).
You’re right, “religious” was not the right term but, leaving out the “salvation” part, there is still some resemblance when thinking about purpose in the universe for it begs the question, who or what would give it? Such an inclusion as revealed to those who managed to approach its inner sanctum is not an idea I could ever come to terms with!

The human will is its true agent, the presiding force which always thrusts its yearnings outward to supply Purpose against that which implicitly has none. Whenever "meaning" is anemic it's strengthened by these kinds of mental transfusions.
”Dubious” wrote:The way things are going we will be defeated by reality long before we reach any “irrefutable knowledge” of Ultimate Reality…if there is such a thing.
”seeds” wrote:And therein lies a clear example of the aforementioned diametrical contrast of our opposing views.

Wherein I see that the “irrefutable knowledge of Ultimate Reality” would reveal something amazing and wonderful concerning our ultimate destiny,...

...you, on the other hand, seem to see it as something that would reveal our ultimate and eternal oblivion.
Well for one thing oblivion is far more reconcilable with reality than “irrefutable knowledge of Ultimate Reality”, which, if ever known is not likely to preempt entropy and its slow grinding to cosmic oblivion.

But to make it a little more personal; if such Ultimate Knowledge were indeed to generate the conclusion you imagine then what of all the prior humans who couldn’t witness the unfolding of this envisioned destiny? What should it mean to you, me or anyone in the here and now? Life still dies passing into oblivion yet continues to be renewed for as long as its host allows even if that host is no-longer a single planet but the universe itself.

Oblivion is still The End, the irrefutable Ultimate Reality. It doesn't prevent a grand destiny from happening providing we possess a consciousness that can compromise and submit long enough to those realities that precede the ultimate one...which may be one we always suspected.
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

Post by seeds »

Dubious wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:25 am We are indeed in opposition regarding any sublime purpose which may accrue to higher organisms in the universe. It’s not that I have no empathy with this position. One time, meaning long ago, I had similar feelings of inflation regarding human destiny as a crescendo of consciousness creating in its wake this vast fugue of awareness transforming the entire cosmos into the greatest symphony ever composed.

But these patterns eventually turned into imagined hyperboles, merely shadows of our own desires...
If all of your imagined hyperboles regarding human destiny were predicated upon what you thought humanity might be able to achieve within the extremely limiting confines of this universe, then it is no wonder your visions were dashed.
Dubious wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:25 am ...Consciousness at a certain flash point yearns for more of what it already has not unlike having a million bucks and wanting ten million, upon having that, one-hundred million and so on. Consciousness is an entity in momentum yearning for breakthroughs into higher editions expecting the universe to somehow respond in its own mysterious fashion...
Rather than a yearning for more (although that is certainly an important factor), I think it has more to do with the idea (or hope) that whatever it is that was capable of awaking us into life in the first place might be equally capable of providing a means in which we can continue on in a higher context.

If you, Dubious, had the power to do such a thing, would you not do it?
Dubious wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:25 am ...I’ve long weaned myself from such fantastic ideas without judging others who have them; it’s not in the least extraordinary for the likes of us to have those views...if only on a temporary basis.
So now you’ve simply settled on a nihilistic outlook? - wherein any sense of curiosity regarding the mystery of how and why your own personal consciousness came into existence, simply vanished with your personal choice to no longer entertain any fantastic ideas?

Has the seemingly unsolvable puzzle of reality completely defeated your desire to know what it’s all about?

(Continued in next post)
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seeds
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

Post by seeds »

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(Continued from prior post)
seeds wrote: What I am about to suggest is obviously speculation, however, the unbounded “ARENA” of what seems to be an infinite void into which our universe is continuously expanding – as is metaphorically depicted in the blackened area surrounding the bubble of our reality in the image below…

Image

...not only extends omnidirectionally away from the reality of our universe, but it also extends omnidirectionally away from any other context of reality imaginable (including those of a transcendent nature).

Therefore, there is absolutely nothing (including nothingness itself) that is not contained within the endless and boundless reaches of infinity.

A true visualization of infinity (i.e., the unbounded extent of the infinite void) can reduce the perceived size of the universe down to that of a single grain of sand.
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Dubious wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:25 am Any “object” surrounded by infinity (in the full meaning of the word) reduces to an infinitesimal regardless of size. If “unbounded”, there is no “container” to bind it.
Agreed.

However, remember, I was countering your claim that the “noumenon” may be nothing more than a container for “all that exists,” and I replaced it with infinity as being the real container.
Dubious wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:25 am Relative to infinity, EVERYTHING is an infinitesimal.
That was precisely my point.

One of the reasons for my elaborating on this vision of infinity was to put things into perspective.

In other words, if the human mind can truly visualize something as vast as infinity, then the universe becomes more intellectually manageable and less overwhelming.

The unfathomable size of the universe is one of the major stumbling blocks to humans accepting the possibility that a higher intelligence could be presiding over its processes.

However, if its size can be made to appear as being almost nothing at all, then that stumbling block is diminished.

The purpose of this thread is supposed to be an exploration of what the great unknown reality of the “Me” really is.

In which case (and as a Panentheistic idealist), I suggest that our “Me” is an embryonic replication of the universal “ME” (God) - as is represented in one of my oft-used illustrations seen below...

Image

In other words, the human mind, with its self-aware agent of living consciousness,...

(an agent who is in complete control of a matrix of holographic-like energy and information that is capable of being shaped (“willed”) into absolutely anything imaginable)

...is precisely what the universe appears to be from certain “religious” perspectives (at least at their cores).

Now the implication of a human mind being an embryonic replication of God’s mind is that the mind (as crazy as this may sound) can be viewed as being the same size as the universe.

It all has to do with the idea of size and distance being “relative,” as is explained in another one of my fanciful illustrations...

Image

(As always, for a clearer view of the dialogue, click on the following link and expand the image - http://theultimateseeds.com/Images/10%2 ... %20142.jpg)

Now of course I don’t expect anyone to blindly accept the fantastic claims I am making. I am simply demonstrating some of the reasoning from whence the claims arise.

(For a quick glimpse of how I arrived at the particular image above, then click on the following link and scroll down - http://theultimateseeds.com/godvisitsth ... rician.htm)

(Continued in next post)
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seeds
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

Post by seeds »

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(Continued from prior post)
seeds wrote: Come on now, Dubious, there’s nothing “religious” in my assertions. I’m not positing any doctrines or dogmas that must be obeyed for the sake of one’s salvation.

I’m simply offering a theoretically plausible description of reality from an idealistic perspective (as in all of reality is “mind-based” and “alive”).
Dubious wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:25 am You’re right, “religious” was not the right term but, leaving out the “salvation” part, there is still some resemblance when thinking about purpose in the universe for it begs the question, who or what would give it?
I think I made that clear in my prior post.
Dubious wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:25 am Such an inclusion as revealed to those who managed to approach its inner sanctum is not an idea I could ever come to terms with!
Could it be that what you could never come to terms with are all of the ridiculous and erroneous ideas and descriptions of God handed down to us from ancient minds?

If so, then I totally agree with you, hence my constant insistence on our need for a new and more logical spiritual paradigm.
Dubious wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:25 am The human will is its true agent, the presiding force which always thrusts its yearnings outward to supply Purpose against that which implicitly has none. Whenever "meaning" is anemic it's strengthened by these kinds of mental transfusions.
That’s some excellent prose there, Dubious, but is it possible that the “mental transfusions” are a result of humans hazily intuiting the deeper truths of reality? - as opposed to just wishful thinking?
seeds wrote: And therein lies a clear example of the aforementioned diametrical contrast of our opposing views.

Wherein I see that the “irrefutable knowledge of Ultimate Reality” would reveal something amazing and wonderful concerning our ultimate destiny,...

...you, on the other hand, seem to see it as something that would reveal our ultimate and eternal oblivion.
Dubious wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:25 am Well for one thing oblivion is far more reconcilable with reality than “irrefutable knowledge of Ultimate Reality”, which, if ever known is not likely to preempt entropy and its slow journey to cosmic oblivion.

But to make it a little more personal; if such Ultimate Knowledge were indeed to generate the conclusion you imagine then what of all the prior humans who couldn’t witness the unfolding of this envisioned destiny?
If you have been paying the slightest bit of attention to my ideas, then you know that I suggest that they have been born into their ultimate and eternal form – a form and context that lies above and outside of the corporeal bounds of the universe – as is suggested in yet another one of my illustrations...

Image

(link - http://theultimateseeds.com/Images/6%20 ... e%2089.jpg)

If you doggedly refuse to entertain any speculative possibility that there may be more to our existence than meets the eye, then of course all you will see is life’s oblivion via the entropic heat-death of the universe.

Indeed, that’s what a materialistic mind-set is all about.

(Did I mention that you and I see things differently? :D)
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

Post by Lacewing »

Is it not possible to have fun playing a part while seeing yourself on a stage, performing with a script, which may keep changing, and which is for entertainment? Must it feel serious in order to have value? Must it feel "known" to be fulfilling?

And must one feel like their character is real and permanent and substantially individual? Or can we produce a more dynamic show when we recognize that we are a company of actors/explorers?

Might it be that what we say we "know" is simply what we create/interpret from what we experience (individually and collectively)... and for what we want to experience/explore? And that would be why there are so many possibilities and opposites that are "known" and experienced across humankind? Countless scripts on an amazing stage of possibilities?
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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

Post by Dontaskme »

The sense of ''me /myself'' is unique to human consciousness.


Yet, no thing actually created 'me/myself'....just as consciousness itself is uncreated....the 'me/myself' ' is an artificial construct of the brain - an abstracted appearing 'thing' of no 'thing'....

To understand the sense of 'me' or 'I' ..is to first understand consciousness. And yet consciousness appears to be the great unknown, paradoxically known as the sense of 'me/myself' ..so just how consciousness is supposed to understand itself is unknowable, since there is no thing here to understand itself, and that could be the only understanding there is available.

The sense of 'me' can only be defined through the use of a word ..and words are as empty as is the consciousness that knows words, and yet paradoxically, these words are believed and taken to be real - words have become knowledge. A knowledge born out of empty words only...Out of human language comes a real world of things existing...paradoxically empty... consciousness is empty fullness.

So in effect there is here only ever the formless energy forming...including the energetic phenomena of energy appearing to be a ''me'' that knows itself via it's own constructive energy appearing as and through language...and there is no thing here doing any of this except the language itself.

There is no thing here existing outside of human language...because ALL KNOWING is knowledge made of empty words.

Language / knowledge evolved in the human brain as it became larger than the average brain.. developing to such complication as to become aware of itself ....but no thing is aware of itself except the language which is empty...so that which does not exist cannot know anything except it's own artificial constructed imagined self...which is only ever this eternal formless energy playing the game of knowing. To know is to imply a knower. And in that there is here the appearance of duality the world of knower and known, albeit illusory.



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Re: The Great Unknown is Me - Myself

Post by seeds »

Dubious wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2017 4:59 am It would be wise to recall what happened the first time we got kicked out from the The Garden of Eden, metaphorically speaking. The noumenon may itself be nothing more than a container for all that exists.
seeds wrote: Nah, infinity is the container for all that exists.
daramantus wrote: Fri Dec 08, 2017 8:02 am prove that "infinity" exists, please. and prove that you know about what is "all" that exists" and how do you know that?
Hi daramantus,

I would never presume to be able to “prove” any of this, however, according to the Big Bang theory, the universe allegedly began as something that was perhaps as small as the tiny dot between these two brackets – [.] - (or even smaller).

Now according to Wiki, the present size of our bubble-like universe is estimated to be around 93 billion light-years in diameter.

So then, for something as small as this bracketed dot [.] to expand into a 93 billion light-year sized phenomenon, it therefore suggests that “something” (nothingness?) has been constantly relenting and giving-way to the expansion.

I think it was around 25 years ago when I created the following illustration...

Image

It represents a fanciful thought experiment where I attempted to measure the “nothingness” into which the universe has been expanding.

(Note: just take the 20 billion light-year diameter of the universe I used back then and replace it with 93 billion light-years.)

The question is, that after the little guys have depleted all of the sands of the earth (or all of the sands of the entire universe, for that matter) do you think they would ever reach a wall?

I suggest that logic (assuming that such a thing applies in this situation) says an emphatic no.

And that is the “infinity” to which I have been referring.

And even though we are talking about “nothingness” here, it still represents the ultimate and all-encompassing “containment medium” whose omnidirectional endlessness not only subsumes the universe, but reduces its size back into a mere dot [.] again.

(Needles to say, I cannot meet your demand of “proving” any of the above. Therefore, my speculative thought experiment is about the best I can do in that regard.)
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