Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:43 pmdavidm wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2017 5:42 pmNick_A wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2017 5:21 pmThe universe is structured on levels of reality based on vibratory relationships.
This means nothing, as stated. Can you explain it?
Oh, I know, it's
esoteric, and only the finest minds can grasp it! Therefore it is beyond explanation! Just asking for an explanation proves what a retrograde schlub I am!
Mika posted posted "A Conscious Universe" from the first chapter of Jacob Needleman’s book "A Sense of the Cosmos."
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/spirituali ... leman.html
“A Conscious Universe." This is what levels of reality refer to. This book wasn’t written for those who like to argue and condemn. It is written for those whose minds are beginning to open with a need for higher understanding. It is absurd for those limiting themselves to one level of reality. But for universalists, a conscious universe as a "ladder or hierarchy of intentions" makes perfect sense
Then again, a deceased former forum member and staunch atheist, Obvious Leo, used to talk about the fractal levels of reality almost daily. Needleman's commentary on the perceptions of the ancients accord closely with the idea of reality being a series of
approximately repeating fractals or, as the ancients sensibly noted, "As above, so below".
You don't need to be a person to fulfill certain roles. There are some common relative dynamics and interaction of entities at every scale - subatomic, molecular, microbial, multicellular, societal, ecosystem, planetary, galactic and so on. The same dynamics, over and over, with the same players - large and dominating, small and controlled, conduits, fringe inhabitants, nulls and so forth. Not wildly unlike Jung's types.
This is not mystical information, just speculated observations about how things seem to work. Yes, many hard-headed science fans dismiss such speculations out of hand. Then again, so do many theists, who see only two levels - them and The Big Kahuna. While I love science, I am also keen on poetic and metaphorical relations between things, but many science people consider this to be egoistic wankery by neophytes. So be it :)
Still, I agree with hard rationalists at least in that we should proceed here with caution; the confidence of the ancients was largely driven by their not being aware of their knowledge gaps. Importantly, just because something is in a higher sphere does not mean it is more developed. New entities in higher spheres will lack the connectivity of mature entities in smaller spheres. So a newborn human infant is less capable than an adult insect and a new society less wise than a mature individual.
Rather than size, balance appears to be pivotal. The domains of the very large and very small seem to be ever less connected and sentient. The Sun, the Earth, animal scales - all middling scales. Again, this pertains to connectivity. Too small, and the structures are not stable. Too large, and the various parts of a structure cannot communicate with each other - and the very essence of consciousness is interconnectivity.
One can hardly claim that science diminishes humans, unless considered through the narrow lenses of size and energy. Science tells us that we humans appear to be the very most densely complex and sentient things for trillions of kilometres at this stage.
Still, let's stay open. Maybe there's something weird going on with other dimensions? Nobody understands how quantum entanglement works, in which, like theoretical wormholes and space's expansion, information can travel at faster than the speed of light. The information in this instance apparently bypasses our familiar dimensions, connecting directly by concept rather than space and time. This also happens in our dreams and it is basically how the mind works generally, where abstracted connections are made without need for movement through space. This could be an interesting space to watch, despite a lot of new age guesswork being presented as fact (ahem).
I go on at length in the hope you can appreciate that non-theists can be extremely interested all in this stuff - we are not robot people who blindly just follow what experts say. You would say the same thing - that you are not a cookie-cutter theist either. I would rather you reply to the content of this post rather than the "politics".
The bottom line is that we are each small, sentient fluctuations of reality trying to make sense of their surroundings and conveying those impressions to other (hopefully) sentient fluctuations. It's reality gradually making sense of itself like a baby, but piecing together its understanding one individual at a time, with many contrary perceptions cancelling each other out. This competitive shaping is at all levels of reality, from the interaction of matter and antimatter at the start of the universe to the competition of ideas that shapes societies. That's what's happening on the forum - fluctuations in the fabric of reality comparing notes about what this reality malarkey we have been so unceremoniously thrust into is about.