Einstein and the Cosmic Man

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seeds
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by seeds »

davidm wrote: Tue Oct 17, 2017 6:23 pm
seeds wrote: Tue Oct 17, 2017 6:41 am
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 17, 2017 3:35 am Is an acorn an oak tree or the seed of an oak with the potential for becoming an oak? Only a very small amount of acorns become oaks. The great majority are consumed by the earth and animals that dwell on the earth

Conscious evolution offers the potential for man on earth to consciously evolve into a higher quality of being much like an acorn becomes an oak mechanically. Like acorns, only a rare few men on earth reach the height of Man’s conscious evolution.
Nick, with this “...only a rare few men...” business, you seem to be promoting the most exclusive religion I’ve ever heard of.

(And by the way, are there not a “rare few women” that make it into this club? - other than Simone, of course. I suggest that you try to be a little more mindful of how you word things.)

The bottom line is, you are complicating life far more than it really is.

And lastly, I simply can’t resist presenting my own personal take on the “acorn” metaphor...

Image

Image

(For a clearer view of the dialogue, click on the following link and scroll down - http://theultimateseeds.com/oakleytheacorn.htm)
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This is why analogies are so prone to FAIL.

There is no reason to think that you are an acorn that is going to grow into some kind of "spiritual tree" after you die. To my knowledge, you have given NO REASON AT ALL to think that anything you write or believe is TRUE -- it's pure wishful thinking.

Dream on, though, if it makes you feel good.
Hi davidm.

You said:

“This is why analogies are so prone to FAIL.”

Are you kidding?

I don’t think that the glowing proof of the success of an analogy can be more evident than that which is displayed in the contents of your response to my post, for you have perfectly captured and demonstrated the meaning of the allegorical theme of the second illustration.

You have clearly mimicked - in real life - the problem faced by “Oakley” as he attempts to convey an obvious truth (as viewed from a higher perspective) to a closed mind.

In other words, davidm, you are the human equivalent of the incredulous and angry acorn in the cartoon.
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seeds
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by seeds »

seeds wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 12:06 am
Nick_A wrote: Conscious evolution offers the potential for man on earth to consciously evolve into a higher quality of being much like an acorn becomes an oak mechanically. Like acorns, only a rare few men on earth reach the height of Man’s conscious evolution.
Arising_uk wrote: Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:36 pm Then it's a complete waste of time. Me, I prefer to think we can raise the bulk rather than pedestal the few.
Precisely!

It’s either going to be all of us, or none of us.
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Greta wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 12:57 am Seeds, at all times in history the few have lived great lives by standing on the shoulders of the many.
I don't think that the somewhat noble sounding “standing on the shoulders of the many” quite describes the cut-throat nastiness of those like Trump.
Greta wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 12:57 am I think this will remain for as long as resource scarcity is a reality. So, until we are digitised and thus enjoying endless free digital resources, there will be deeply inequitable distribution of welleing in societies.
We are already digitized, Greta. That’s what the quantum is all about.

But I get your Kurzweilian point.
Greta wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 12:57 am I'm personally glad that at least some people can use my struggles to lead a good life, although I'd prefer it to be the Buffets of this world rather than the Trumps, both in terms of ability and morality.
I think that in terms of the post you are responding to, we are talking about two different realms and issues here (the “worldly” as opposed to the “cosmic”).

However, to address your statements regarding those who get to experience and enjoy the “good life,” don’t you think that this...

Image

...in contrast with this...

Image

...is morally repugnant and unacceptable?

Are you “personally glad” about the unconscionable disparity depicted in those two images?

I realize that I’m being a bit melodramatic here, but is it okay with you if the filthy rich “stand on the shoulders” of those children in order to help pay for their golden thunder pots (commodes)?

Personally, I am sickened by the whole thing (and despite my ranting at you about it, I’m pretty sure that you are too).

And as this pertains to the topic of this thread, if the above mentioned disparity issue isn't in the forefront of the mind of Nick’s “cosmic man,” then his cosmic man is a total dud in my book.
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Last edited by seeds on Mon Jun 11, 2018 7:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Greta
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Greta »

seeds wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:20 amAnd as this pertains to the topic of this thread, if the above mentioned disparity issue isn't in the forefront of the mind of Nick’s “cosmic man,” then his cosmic man is a total dud in my book.
To be fair, Trump represents the worst of them. There are also some people with big money doing a lot of good with it, aside from the dodgy big fossil fuel, mining, arms, security, pharma, alcohol and property development companies, along with dodgy lobbying from beef and dairy, alcohol, pubs and clubs and such industries.

Look back through history. Has there ever been a time not rife with dodginess? Dodginess is basically a chaotic element that reduces the civility of civil society. Yet order has always emerged from chaos. Whatever, we can no more control these waves of societal craziness any more than we can control extreme weather or Earth events.
Belinda
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Belinda »

Oak trees purpose , in their quiescent way, to be modes of the entire natural biosphere. Oak trees are known for their participation in life as a whole, by their provision of homes for countless insects , food and shelter for birds, bats , squirrels, and down on the ground badger setts among the roots, shade for grazers, and timber for humans.Later on when dead the oak is a home for moulds, fungi, and still more insects.

Humans are not quiescent but are conscious. We destroy and colonise more powerfully than cholera germs, which our being conscious enables us to do. Our afterlife ideas and our God ideas are fanciful imitations of our predation. We cannot be nobly quiescent like oak trees, the Expulsion from Eden illustrates that fact.

What we can do to save ourselves from our fallen nature is work to instate the human as maker, not destroyer. In the newspaper this morning there was a report about how many insect species had gone forever, too many for our own safety. This alone should be a spur to work to reverse our destructiveness. There is something in what Greta says that reminds me of grazing herds that have outlived their habitat, as that is what we are doing and have done. The humans who do the work of instating sustainability are the ones who are the giants whose shoulders the rest of us stand upon if we are to stand up at all for much longer than the few years left to us.

Seeds's optimism is escapist. We cannot be acorns and oaks we can only be eggs and humans.
Dubious
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Dubious »

seeds wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:18 am
Dubious wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 1:25 am The worst side-effect of consciousness, due to its inevitable inflation, are the gross distortions of value it gives itself.
Dubious, name just one thing in the entire universe that would have any reason whatsoever for existing, without the existence of life and consciousness to confer meaning on it.
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Simply expressed, the reason for anything to exist is the process which created it from microbes to humans.

Second, life and consciousness having crossed a critical juncture can and will confer meaning as expected based on the values of the culture it was nurtured in, usually expressed through the improvisations of metaphor. If this extends to some supposed version of a Cosmic Mount Sinai expressing its affiliation with human destiny it's only because such desires are as organic to your conscious will as is the pumping action of the heart to your body.

As measured by some, consciousness, bonded to and steeped in the purgatory of its time-tortured host will accept no precinct other than the orbits of the perennial which to me is an endorsement beyond limits, a virtual thought bubble!

...but you already know what I think on this subject! :wink:
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Nick_A »

Greta wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:42 pm
Nick_A wrote:It is clear that the strict secularists like Greta, Belinda, and Arising are closed to the meaning of conscious evolution and how it relates to the creation of the cosmic man
Then again, it seems that you are closed to the idea that the universe, rather than physically manifesting a pre-existing consciousness, it may rather be growing consciousness.

The question then comes - how do you know? For all we know there may be pre-existing consciousness that is on the path to manifesting itself. I am open to this. However, I am also open to the possibility that the evolution of greater sentience is as it seems. That is, a godlike consciousness may well emerge from life, but not yet.

What makes you so certain that the former is the case? Why do you have this special knowledge that others don't? So my main question to you is whether you accept that you could be wrong.
Needleman wrote:Obviously, there is a great difference between contemplating a universe which exceeds me in size alone or in intricacy alone, and one which exceeds me in depth of purpose and intelligence. A universe of merely unimaginable size excludes man and crushes him. But a universe that is a manifestation of great consciousness and order places man, and therefore calls to him.
I think this is an archaic view, stemming from the religious ideas that "Man" was the ultimate point of reality, with a completely human-focused God pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Today, an aloof universe of unimaginable size humbles us, and we should be humbled, as we scuttle around the surface of the pale blue dot like Flatlanders. Being humbled in the face of something greater need not be crushing. Why not be pleased to be part of something so much greater than ourselves rather than simply feeling out-matched?
Without a pre-existing consciousness there is nothing to create consciousness. There is no need for it. I use the great cycle of involution and evolution since it makes logical sense and answers questions as to the meaning and purpose of the universe and human life within it.

Hinduism describes it as the breath of Brahma and other thinkers have expressed the same idea in their own way. for example:
In integral thought, involution is the process by which the Divine manifests the cosmos. The process by which the creation rises to higher states and states of consciousness is the evolution. Involution prepares the universe for the Big Bang; evolution continues from that point forward. The term involution comes from the idea that the divine involves itself in creation. After the creation, the Divine (i.e. the Absolute, Brahman, God) is both the One (the Creator) and the Many (that which was created).

The integral philosopher Ken Wilber refers to involution in his online chapter of Kosmic Karma, employing concepts from Plotinus, Advaita Vedanta, Tibetan Buddhism, and Sri Aurobindo. According to Wilber, the cosmic evolution described in his previous works is preceded by an involution of Spirit into Matter. This involution follows the reverse stages to the sequence of evolution—e.g. Spirit to soul to mind to life to matter. Once the stage of insentient, lifeless matter is attained, then "something like the Big Bang occurs", whereupon matter and manifest world come into concrete existence, from which stage evolution follows.
We know that organic life originating from the earth evolves, dies, and involves back into the earth. Then the cycle repeats. It is logical to me that humanity having a higher part can consciously evolve. Through efforts at self knowledge we can experience more inclusive conscious states. What then is the limit of human consciousness and the potential for the seed of the soul within the inner man? Some have the need, will, and courage to make the necessary efforts for self liberation to experience the truth of themselves and the potential for conscious evolution making man more than an animal destined to be a part of the earth and serve a conscious higher universal purpose serving the transition between the mechanical and the conscious - as above, so below.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 8:32 am Oak trees purpose , in their quiescent way, to be modes of the entire natural biosphere. Oak trees are known for their participation in life as a whole, by their provision of homes for countless insects , food and shelter for birds, bats , squirrels, and down on the ground badger setts among the roots, shade for grazers, and timber for humans.Later on when dead the oak is a home for moulds, fungi, and still more insects.

Humans are not quiescent but are conscious. We destroy and colonise more powerfully than cholera germs, which our being conscious enables us to do. Our afterlife ideas and our God ideas are fanciful imitations of our predation. We cannot be nobly quiescent like oak trees, the Expulsion from Eden illustrates that fact.

What we can do to save ourselves from our fallen nature is work to instate the human as maker, not destroyer. In the newspaper this morning there was a report about how many insect species had gone forever, too many for our own safety. This alone should be a spur to work to reverse our destructiveness. There is something in what Greta says that reminds me of grazing herds that have outlived their habitat, as that is what we are doing and have done. The humans who do the work of instating sustainability are the ones who are the giants whose shoulders the rest of us stand upon if we are to stand up at all for much longer than the few years left to us.

Seeds's optimism is escapist. We cannot be acorns and oaks we can only be eggs and humans.
The Great Beast left to its own devices is incapable of anything other than what we are experiencing. You believe differently. What IYO would promote the change in collective attitude for cave man to change? Is it a matter of education and more speeches?
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Nick_A »

seeds
And as this pertains to the topic of this thread, if the above mentioned disparity issue isn't in the forefront of the mind of Nick’s “cosmic man,” then his cosmic man is a total dud in my book.
The true cosmic man is awakened man in contrast with cave man reacting in the psychological confines of Plato's cave. What is happening in the World is absurd but normal for collective cave man or the Great Beast. By definition such an awakened individual is aware of the absurdity and being free of unnatural inhibitions is capable of being a beneficial awakening influence for the parts of the Beast capable of awakening.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Nick_A »

Dubious wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 1:25 am I still can't understand why the universe would respond to us regardless what anyone who EVER LIVED thinks about it.

Nature as staged on this planet, is responsible for and totally indifferent to millions of exterminations from highest to lowest but for some reason we still retain this "religious" view of the universe as having consciousness "calling to us". Of course it does no such thing. We instead call to it and by every subterfuge of wishful thinking proclaim it's the other way around!

As with SETI, there has been absolutely no response except those we imagine and resolutely defend with an implied Purpose. Could it be that without those extra value-added laminations we would feel completely trivial of not much more value than anything else which crawled on the planet? But consciousness will never allow itself to default to that reality without blow-back...which is the best it can do.

Humans have become so intensely pathetic in their desire to be important in the universe even improvising forms of retrospective acknowledgement as a virtual handshake between the powers of consciousness. In spite of all our metaphysical frog croaks of merging with the universe all we have acted out so far is our lack of awareness of just how base and demeaning this overbearing sense of self-importance really is.

The worst side-effect of consciousness, due to its inevitable inflation, are the gross distortions of value it gives itself.
I agree that animal man living as the great beast is objectively no more important than other forms of organic life. We serve the same objective purpose of transforming substances through our bodily processes. The universe doesn't serve us. We serve universal purpose. We can either serve it as reacting animals or as conscious beings serving a conscious purpose. You deny the potential for a person's transition from a reacting animal to a conscious being. Other are open to it. Such is life.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

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Nick_A wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:00 pm The universe doesn't serve us. We serve universal purpose.
It's easy enough to say "universal purpose" and all such generic claptrap but unless you can "describe" it you haven't got it, period. So what universal purpose do we serve. Please try not to go overboard if such should follow!
You deny the potential for a person's transition from a reacting animal to a conscious being. Other are open to it.
It may be news to you but we definitely are "reacting animals" and probably will be for as long as humans exist but also "conscious beings" who haven't yet managed to control their excesses. I have no idea why one would exclude the other since it's those short circuit reactions which tend to distort perception in the first place.

Your unyielding rote and trope arguments, which are nothing more than selective deviations of those you incessantly quote, proves the total deficiency of all your preaching. You are perversely borrowing the brain power of others as a defense for your own distorted views and limitations. You don't confer anything original of your own making it inadmissible for someone like you to even consider if those you quote would actually agree with your summation of THEIR ideas.

My opinion is not likely! Their thoughts are rendered more chromatically while yours only exist in big blotches of black & white which doesn't resolve to any semblance of reality.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

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Nick_A wrote:...
_The secularists here are trying to explain the cosmic man in terms of fragmentation – increased facts. It is believed more facts lead to conscious evolution. Yet conscious evolution means the acquisition of a conscious level of inclusion which is a human potential. Beginning to comprehend the reality of the human potential for conscious evolution and of the Cosmic Man requires first appreciating the foundation within which conscious evolution takes place. The bottom up quality of reason normal for secularism cannot reveal the big picture of the conscious universe. Opening to the big picture requires opening to intuition Einstein refers to which secularism struggles to deny.
Talk, talk, talk or yak, yak, yak to be precise, with absolutely no sign that you can walk your talk but every sign that you'll yak on about it ad nauseum whilst blatantly ignoring any question that requests a clarification as to what you will actually be teaching the young?
Belinda
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

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Nick_A wrote:
The Great Beast left to its own devices is incapable of anything other than what we are experiencing. You believe differently. What IYO would promote the change in collective attitude for cave man to change? Is it a matter of education and more speeches?

Partly. The thing about education is that it frees the educated person to predict, imagine, feel, and plan. Imagination is a faculty that humans are especially good at. The people in the Cave are humans many of whom are talented in imagination.

All the elite religions plus Humanism hold in common the Golden Rule, which is a proven method for progressing towards peace and prosperity. Tradition is sometimes valuable, so Cave men are not entirely helpless.

Plato himself has warned against fantasy and praised reason. Imagination includes, and depends upon, reason. Reason includes scepticism which guards us against self deception.
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Greta
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Greta »

Nick_A wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 6:35 pm
Greta wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:42 pm
Nick_A wrote:It is clear that the strict secularists like Greta, Belinda, and Arising are closed to the meaning of conscious evolution and how it relates to the creation of the cosmic man
Then again, it seems that you are closed to the idea that the universe, rather than physically manifesting a pre-existing consciousness, it may rather be growing consciousness.

The question then comes - how do you know? For all we know there may be pre-existing consciousness that is on the path to manifesting itself. I am open to this. However, I am also open to the possibility that the evolution of greater sentience is as it seems. That is, a godlike consciousness may well emerge from life, but not yet.

What makes you so certain that the former is the case? Why do you have this special knowledge that others don't? So my main question to you is whether you accept that you could be wrong.
Without a pre-existing consciousness there is nothing to create consciousness. There is no need for it. I use the great cycle of involution and evolution since it makes logical sense and answers questions as to the meaning and purpose of the universe and human life within it.
It is an interesting question - why should life experience things rather than be "philosophical zombies"?

Putting aside technicalities, the process of evolution predates biology. There was an equivalent organising of geology / chemistry that made abiogenesis possible. Before that there was an organising of matter into cosmic bodies, and before then the organising of chaotic energy into matter. So, if there was a pre-existing super-consciousness, it doesn't make sense to me that all things before the advent of encephalised animals were seemingly entirely mindless.
seeds
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by seeds »

Greta wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:46 am
seeds wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:20 amAnd as this pertains to the topic of this thread, if the above mentioned disparity issue isn't in the forefront of the mind of Nick’s “cosmic man,” then his cosmic man is a total dud in my book.
To be fair, Trump represents the worst of them. There are also some people with big money doing a lot of good with it, aside from the dodgy big fossil fuel, mining, arms, security, pharma, alcohol and property development companies, along with dodgy lobbying from beef and dairy, alcohol, pubs and clubs and such industries.

Look back through history. Has there ever been a time not rife with dodginess? Dodginess is basically a chaotic element that reduces the civility of civil society. Yet order has always emerged from chaos. Whatever, we can no more control these waves of societal craziness any more than we can control extreme weather or Earth events.
Greta, if you have made the slightest effort to understand my point of view, then you know that I believe that for the sake of maintaining the integrity of the “illusion” of objective reality, a certain amount of “dodginess” has been programmed into the system.

Humans must function at a restricted level of consciousness in order to make standing on a spinning ball – flying through space - seem natural and logical to us.

Unfortunately, the level of consciousness that permits such a passive acceptance of the strangeness of our situation is what is responsible for the dodginess.

Humans are, in essence, in a state of somnambulism, with some of us in a deeper state of sleep than others. And the deeper the sleep, the dodgier the actions become – which I believe is the reason for Nick’s clarion call for an awakening (of which I am totally on-board with).

Hopefully I’m not being too esoteric here.
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Last edited by seeds on Fri Oct 20, 2017 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
seeds
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by seeds »

Belinda wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 8:32 am Seeds's optimism is escapist. We cannot be acorns and oaks we can only be eggs and humans.
So then, it is “escapism” to believe that there may be more to our existence than meets the eye?

Belinda, I suggest that you be mindful of what I said to Greta about humans being sleepwalkers – with some being in a deeper trance than others.

That being said, I propose that what really qualifies as escapism is a bunch of anonymous and invisible knuckleheads gathering together in cyberspace and blathering their ideas at each other. :D
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