Einstein and the Cosmic Man

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seeds
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by seeds »

Dubious wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 9:35 am
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.
_______
Simply expressed, the reason for anything to exist is the process which created it from microbes to humans.
Dubious, it is no doubt my fault for not making my question clear enough, because your response completely misses the point I was attempting to get at.

You have made the assertion that consciousness presumes an unwarranted overestimation (a “gross distortion”) of its own value.

To which I responded by asking you to name just one thing (one ontic phenomenon) in the entire universe that would have any reason (i.e., any “purpose”) for existing if life and consciousness did not exist?

And what that means is that you are not allowed to use the words “microbes” and “humans” in your reply, for in a universe sans life, they would be non-existent.

Of course you are free to suggest that the universe - as a whole - has purpose in that it (somehow) managed to become the womb of consciousness.

However, even that would create the question of which has greater value - consciousness (the very arbiter of value itself), or that which made consciousness possible?

It would seem to be a tie, with both possessing value beyond measure.

But then there's that pesky idea in quantum theory that suggests that without the presence of life and consciousness, the universe (as we know it) would not take form.

And with that being a possibility, do you still believe that the value of consciousness is overrated?
_______
seeds
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by seeds »

seeds wrote: 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.
Nick_A wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 6:49 pm The true cosmic man is awakened man in contrast with cave man reacting in the psychological confines of Plato's cave.
Wait a minute!......You’re not talking about this guy are you?...

Image

(I’m just kidding, Nick. Hopefully, the awakened man has a sense of humor.)
Nick_A wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 6:49 pm What is happening in the World is absurd but normal for collective cave man or the Great Beast.
Yes, but all established normals can be superseded by new normals, as has occurred many times throughout history.

I mean, once it was normal to see humans hanging on crosses in the town square, or being drawn and quartered.

In which case, one can only hope that soon it will no longer be normal to see children starving to death at the exact same moment when millions of other humans are obsessed with the latest antics of the Kardashians (which is the very definition of the somnambulistic condition of humanity as described in an earlier post to Greta).
Nick_A wrote: Thu Oct 19, 2017 6:49 pm 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.
First of all, if God wanted to awaken all of humanity to the ultimate truth of reality, it could be done in an instant (effectively turning everyone into cosmic men and women overnight). Therefore, there must be a very good reason for why it hasn’t been done.

And secondly, you need to understand - once and for all - that the Platonic ideals of beauty, compassion, forgiveness, and especially, love, are real and will triumph in the end, which means that absolutely everyone will be awakened...

...(though perhaps not quite in the parochial terms you are imagining).

Again, Nick, it’s either going to be all of us, or none of us.

And in the meantime, who says that trying to change the world can’t have its lighter moments...

Image

Despite my kidding here, Nick, please understand that I am on your side, but you need to lighten-up a little when it comes to your condescending approach to those whom you deem as secularists, for it obscures your message.

(And don’t bother trying to justify it to me, for the “Cosmic Man” can see straight through your reasoning with his “hypnotic eyes” :P :D)
_______
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Greta
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Greta »

seeds wrote: Fri Oct 20, 2017 9:58 pm
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.
... 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.
Don't agree. Humans are not asleep, rather they often have small field focus, where local gossip matters much more than future entropy caused by inequality and climate change. This small range of interest and perception is akin to the range of other animals, and is entirely practical. Focus on the now. My dog also cares more about the personal and the now than the general and distant. I suppose one could say we are often not aware of our larger existential situation, which tends to go into the too-hard basket.

So the cost for humans, rather than in the dormancy of sleep, is the active capacity for rumination. This stems from the broader human awareness of time than other species. This is a significant source of human suffering, arguably almost all of it.

Humans are akin to a dog that can smell something 1,000kms away but is so consumed with the distant "smells" that they miss the smells in its immediate vicinity. So, rather than living in the present like our early ancestors and other species, we moderns ruminate on the past and speculate on the future.

Rumination and speculation are powerful new (in evolutionary terms) mental tools. If used well, they bring learning, understanding, prudence and creativity. However, if used without control they bring guilt, self-loathing, worry and fear. In the future I expect humans (or their successors) will learn to better respect and utilise our time-based senses, perhaps only if those who don't use their time senses to advantage will have less capacity to survive these turbulent times.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Belinda »

Greta wrote:
Humans are akin to a dog that can smell something 1,000kms away but is so consumed with the distant "smells" that they miss the smells in its immediate vicinity. So, rather than living in the present like our early ancestors and other species, we moderns ruminate on the past and speculate on the future.
And the poet Robert Burns similarly wrote about a mouse . He was remorseful about destroying her nest while he was ploughing a field:
Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!
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Greta
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Greta »

Belinda wrote: Sat Oct 21, 2017 9:39 am Greta wrote:
Humans are akin to a dog that can smell something 1,000kms away but is so consumed with the distant "smells" that they miss the smells in its immediate vicinity. So, rather than living in the present like our early ancestors and other species, we moderns ruminate on the past and speculate on the future.
And the poet Robert Burns similarly wrote about a mouse . He was remorseful about destroying her nest while he was ploughing a field:
Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!
Yes, that's about it :)

To be fair, animals don't quite start with a clean slate every moment; they have much less baggage from the past than we do, but they do have baggage. For instance, like humans, they can suffer psychological injury through trauma, resulting in heightened flight or flight response.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Belinda »

Greta wrote:
To be fair, animals don't quite start with a clean slate every moment; they have much less baggage from the past than we do, but they do have baggage. For instance, like humans, they can suffer psychological injury through trauma, resulting in heightened flight or flight response.
That is true. The baggage that they lack is creating causal narratives to explain what happened, or to predict what will happen.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Nick_A »

It seems that the idea of the conscious perspective normal for the comic man continues to devolve into cave concerns like Donald Trump and what to teach etc. The assumption is that the goals of humanism are possible for cave life. Here is a basic list of humanistic values. They seem very worthwhile but what is wrong with this picture?

http://examples.yourdictionary.com/exam ... ctive.html
Here are some examples of humanistic perspective.
• A person feels like his or her life is bland and boring. A humanistic perspective would encourage the person to do some soul-searching and determine what is missing – a hobby? Friendships? A relationship? Whatever it takes for the person to feel fully self-actualized is what should be sought as treatment.
• The humanistic perspective encourages gestalt therapy, a special type of therapy that encourages an individual not to allow the past to affect the present, and focuses on the here and now rather than anything else.
• Family therapy is another example of the humanistic perspective. This type of therapy allows families to talk about their relationships with one another in order to encourage and strengthen those relationships, especially when families are going through difficult times such as periods of substance abuse or divorce.
• Another example of the humanistic perspective is for a person to focus on their strengths rather than their faults. The individual is encouraged not look past his or her flaws as he or she works toward a more satisfied, more complete life.
• In the humanistic perspective, it is generally regarded that all people have similar needs throughout the world, emphasizing the similarities between all members of the human race rather than the many differences. It is an approach that believes human relationships and interactions are of paramount importance.
• Cultural differences are not viewed in the humanistic perspective as being a result of the differences in human nature; rather, they are viewed as valid alternative ways of approaching life. This allows the humanistic perspective to underscore the value of all humans.
• The humanistic perspective includes the idea of self-help – that a person can be responsible for their own happiness, and that an unhappy or dissatisfied person can make changes to his or her whole life that will result in their eventual happiness and self-actualization.
• Sensitivity training at a place of employment is an example of the humanistic perspective, where individuals are taught to view those with whom they work as having the same needs and desires as themselves. It is a way of downplaying differences in physicality, culture, skin color, and belief, among other things.
• Instead of a medicine- or research-centered approach to therapy, the humanistic perspective encourages an approach that focuses on the individual person, and their individual needs and wants.
• The humanistic perspective believes that people seek value, meaning, and creativity in all they do. It understands that people have goals, and that reaching these goals is very important. It also understands that individuals are able to make choices that affect them and others, and so those choices carry with them a sense of responsibility


Humanism underestimates the power of social force and the importance of prestige for the human psych. When human meaning and purpose is defined in relation to society as it is with humanism, the need for prestige will be of primary importance. .How much of what is called altruism is really just a temporary expression of prestige and social hypocrisy? Prestige by definition prevents the actualization of equality of opportunity. It isn’t wanted. It opposes prestige. Simone Weil wrote:
Let us not think that because we are less brutal, less violent, less inhuman than our opponents we will carry the day. Brutality, violence, and inhumanity have an immense prestige that schoolbooks hide from children, that grown men do not admit, but that everyone bows before. For the opposite virtues to have as much prestige, they must be actively and constantly put into practice. Anyone who is merely incapable of being as brutal, as violent, and as inhuman as someone else, but who does not practice the opposite virtues, is inferior to that person in both inner strength and prestige, and he will not hold out in a confrontation.
Simone describes why the humanistic approach is not wanted. It doesn’t offer cave prestige. The humanistic approach cannot be put into practice. The human condition and its attachment to social prestige prevents it

Plato, Einstein, Simone, and others were and are aware of the necessity for acquiring the ability to transcend the need for social prestige as an expression of the Great Beast into the need to feel as a conscious human being. Such a person would be the Cosmic man. But as is obvious in the real world and on philosophy sites, it isn’t wanted. It is to satisfying to argue in the weeds and lose awareness of the wholeness of the big picture and basic self knowledge that doesn't originate in the cave

The trend in society is towards fragmentation and taken with the success of spirit killers in progressive education, it is difficult to see how the attraction to the potential of the cosmic man will ever be taken seriously enough to make a difference. It would have to begin with a conception of humility in relation to higher consciousness and higher human conscious potential which is foolish for humanism. How many will ever appreciate the depth and importance of Simone’s observation in the following? Yet if the majority could, it would make all the difference in the world.

Simone Weil, First and Last Notebooks, translated by Richard Rees (London: Oxford University Press, 1970.)
The combination of these two facts — the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it — constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality.

Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect.

This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality. Whoever in fact does not feel this respect is alien to that other reality also.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Arising_uk »

And as she so adroitly demonstrated the best solution to help others is to kill yourself. :roll:
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Greta
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Greta »

Nick, one could just as easily do an equivalent "analysis" of religiosity. Here is your above quote with some minor changes ....

Examples of the religious perspective.
• A person feels like his or her life is sacred and divine. A religious perspective would encourage the person to accept the doctrines of their creed.
• The religious perspective encourages prayer, a special type of meditation that presumes that deities exist without question.
• Family focus is another example of the religious perspective. This focus on "the family" is based on religions' continued fall from power and grace. Being unable to much influence institutions, they try to control individuals' private lives so as to maintain influence and relevance.
• Another example of the religious perspective is for a person to focus on their faults rather than their strengths. The individual is encouraged to feel inadequate so as to have their personal void filled by the religion.
• In the religious perspective, it is generally regarded that all people have similar needs throughout the world, emphasising the similarities between all members of the human race, with the main differences focused on being creed, gender and sexuality. It is an approach that believes human relationships and interactions are of paramount importance.
• Cultural differences are not viewed in the religious perspective as being a result of the differences in human nature; rather, they are viewed as invalid alternative ways of approaching life. Thus the religious engage in missionary work and more invasive measures to bring other cultures to their beliefs.
• The religious perspective somewhat encourages the idea of self-help – that a person can be responsible for their own happiness, and that an unhappy or dissatisfied person can make changes to his or her whole life that will result in their eventual happiness and self-actualisation - as long as they worship the right god and their faith holds true.
• Indoctrination during childhood is an example of the religious approach, where individuals are imprinted with the values of the religion right from the start. They come to view those who do not believe as they do to be deficient, regardless of race or nationality.
• Instead of a medicine- or research-centred approach to therapy, the religious perspective often encourages an approach that disregards science and embraces traditional cures that are basically placebos.
• The religious perspective believes that people seek value, meaning, and creativity in all they do. It understands that people have goals, and that reaching these goals is very important. It also understands that individuals are able to make choices that affect them and others, and so those choices carry with them a sense of responsibility.

The above points are not provided for the purpose of debate so much as illustration - that it's easy to attribute characteristics to an entity without substantiation or definition of terms.

In a couple of the dot points above I could not see any difference between the so-called humanist and religious perspective. Much of your quote struck me as simply what people increasingly do, regardless of their belief systems, cultural affiliations or metaphysical drives.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

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Nick, it is true that social prestige is one powerful motive for many human behaviours. Humanists and religionists, all of us, need to be aware of the drive to social prestige which manifests as wealth, fame, political power, or personal safety.
However there are heroes . These are heroes who reveal criminals and rebel against the rule of criminals who are most often extremely powerful and hidden from public view . These heroes frequently lose their lives or personal safety because they take great risks to out powerful criminals who as often in charge of much of ordinary people's lives.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by seeds »

seeds wrote: ...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)...
Greta wrote: Fri Oct 20, 2017 11:19 pm Don't agree. Humans are not asleep, rather they often have small field focus...
I respect the fact that you disagree, Greta.

And I also understand that no matter what I say, you will probably always disagree with me. And that’s because you simply (and understandably) do not accept the premise upon which I make my assertions.

The premise of course being that there exists a higher level of wakefulness above and outside of the universe (not unlike that which is suggested in Plato’s cave allegory).

Therefore, when I propose that humans are asleep, it is in comparison with that higher context of wakefulness, and has nothing to do with the narrowing or broadening of our focus within our present context.

Indeed, I tried to highlight the issue with my “Oakley the acorn” illustration...

Image

...wherein the acorns (aside from Oakley) simply cannot fathom that anything could exist above their present context of “acorn-ness.”

Clearly, the same thing applies to humans.

Now the “Oakley” metaphor is one way of viewing our situation.

However, I suggest that the best (and most accurate) analogy can be seen in the comparison of a mother’s state of consciousness to that of the fetus within her womb – as is metaphorically depicted in yet another of my fanciful illustrations...

Image

(For a clearer view of the dialogue, click on the follow link - http://www.theultimateseeds.com/murmurings.htm)

Can you not see how a fetus is more “asleep” (less conscious) with respect to its mother’s higher context of wakefulness?

Anyway (right or wrong), that is what I mean when I talk about humans being asleep with respect to (dare I say it) God, and to what I refer to as being “true reality.”
_______
Belinda
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Belinda »

Seeds wrote:
The premise of course being that there exists a higher level of wakefulness above and outside of the universe (not unlike that which is suggested in Plato’s cave allegory).
No evidence for such a thing . What exactly do you think is the use of your belief?
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 1:04 pm Nick, it is true that social prestige is one powerful motive for many human behaviours. Humanists and religionists, all of us, need to be aware of the drive to social prestige which manifests as wealth, fame, political power, or personal safety.
However there are heroes . These are heroes who reveal criminals and rebel against the rule of criminals who are most often extremely powerful and hidden from public view . These heroes frequently lose their lives or personal safety because they take great risks to out powerful criminals who as often in charge of much of ordinary people's lives.
Humanity consists of basic types and many sub divisions of these types. A person’s personality consists of what a person is born with and blended with what is conditioned by external influences. As a result, the Great Beast is capable of producing heroes and villains and since we are capable of hypocrisy, today’s hero can be tomorrow’s villain and today’s villain can become tomorrow’s hero. The real question concerns how to understand social force.
“Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.” ~ Simone Weil.
The Great Beast is controlled by social force.
Social force is based on prestige or trickery, whereas physical force has a more quantitative base. Hence the analogy prestige is to social force as gravity is to physical force. It is important to keep this analogy in mind when studying Weil’s notion of force.
In order for humanism to better society, it must become open to understand the dynamics of social force. When it does it will realize that without help from above in the form of grace and the influence of the cosmic man on the human psych, society will remain a reactive beast to social force. The glorification of fragmentation and the harmful effects of spirit killers pretty much assures the Great Beast will remain the same.
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Nick_A »

Greta wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 12:46 am Nick, one could just as easily do an equivalent "analysis" of religiosity. Here is your above quote with some minor changes ....

Examples of the religious perspective.
• A person feels like his or her life is sacred and divine. A religious perspective would encourage the person to accept the doctrines of their creed.
• The religious perspective encourages prayer, a special type of meditation that presumes that deities exist without question.
• Family focus is another example of the religious perspective. This focus on "the family" is based on religions' continued fall from power and grace. Being unable to much influence institutions, they try to control individuals' private lives so as to maintain influence and relevance.
• Another example of the religious perspective is for a person to focus on their faults rather than their strengths. The individual is encouraged to feel inadequate so as to have their personal void filled by the religion.
• In the religious perspective, it is generally regarded that all people have similar needs throughout the world, emphasising the similarities between all members of the human race, with the main differences focused on being creed, gender and sexuality. It is an approach that believes human relationships and interactions are of paramount importance.
• Cultural differences are not viewed in the religious perspective as being a result of the differences in human nature; rather, they are viewed as invalid alternative ways of approaching life. Thus the religious engage in missionary work and more invasive measures to bring other cultures to their beliefs.
• The religious perspective somewhat encourages the idea of self-help – that a person can be responsible for their own happiness, and that an unhappy or dissatisfied person can make changes to his or her whole life that will result in their eventual happiness and self-actualisation - as long as they worship the right god and their faith holds true.
• Indoctrination during childhood is an example of the religious approach, where individuals are imprinted with the values of the religion right from the start. They come to view those who do not believe as they do to be deficient, regardless of race or nationality.
• Instead of a medicine- or research-centred approach to therapy, the religious perspective often encourages an approach that disregards science and embraces traditional cures that are basically placebos.
• The religious perspective believes that people seek value, meaning, and creativity in all they do. It understands that people have goals, and that reaching these goals is very important. It also understands that individuals are able to make choices that affect them and others, and so those choices carry with them a sense of responsibility.

The above points are not provided for the purpose of debate so much as illustration - that it's easy to attribute characteristics to an entity without substantiation or definition of terms.

In a couple of the dot points above I could not see any difference between the so-called humanist and religious perspective. Much of your quote struck me as simply what people increasingly do, regardless of their belief systems, cultural affiliations or metaphysical drives.
You forget that humanism is concerned for what we DO and the primary concern for the essence of religion is for what we ARE. Our difference is your belief that we can change what we are without help from above. IMO the Great Beast is too powerful to allow it.
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Greta
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Re: Einstein and the Cosmic Man

Post by Greta »

seeds wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 7:14 pm
seeds wrote: ...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)...
Greta wrote: Fri Oct 20, 2017 11:19 pm Don't agree. Humans are not asleep, rather they often have small field focus...
I respect the fact that you disagree, Greta.

And I also understand that no matter what I say, you will probably always disagree with me. And that’s because you simply (and understandably) do not accept the premise upon which I make my assertions.

The premise of course being that there exists a higher level of wakefulness above and outside of the universe (not unlike that which is suggested in Plato’s cave allegory).

Therefore, when I propose that humans are asleep, it is in comparison with that higher context of wakefulness, and has nothing to do with the narrowing or broadening of our focus within our present context.
I disagree because I don't much accept confident statements about the great questions that have perplexed the finest minds throughout history. Should I make an exception your unsubstantiated assertion over others? On what basis would your assertion be exempt?

You probably won't accept my idea either, that God my well be us in distant future, a perceived potential rather than an existent entity as posited in the present.
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