Einstein and the Cosmic Man

[Nick_A]

Nick quoted Einstein, and commented:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

This is a cosmic perspective that can be experienced consciously. It isn't a matter of more facts but the conscious willingness to open to a higher perspective that recognizes the universe as a functioning unified whole within which Man's purpose is served through the process of consciously connecting levels of reality.

Nick, the higher perspective is a higher moral perspective that derives from scientifically verified knowledge.

The higher perspective cannot be what you call "consciously connecting levels of reality" : that is not scientific but may be a delusion of grandeur.

A higher moral perspective is meaningless without a higher vertical physical perspective to account for it.

Is Plotinus' concept of the ONE, the Hermetic concept of "As above so below" and the idea expressed in the Kybalion that the "All is Mind" just delusions of grandeur? This is the mentality that has become dominant in many institutions of child abuse called schools resulting in metaphysical repression. Sad.

Why suggest some sort of psychological deficiency necessary in order to imagine what is intuitively revealed? It is just a normal expression for assumed secular superiority.

[Nick_A]

Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panichas (David McKay Co. NY 1977) p 417

She hit the nail on the head with this insight. There are many highly intelligent atheists and secularists and often more intelligent than believers. However they lack the quality of reason Einstein suggests that intuition opens us to. Simone referred to it as the third dimension of thought and most refer to it in one way or another as the hidden third. It is the appearance of a reconciling third quality of consciousness that reconciles the contradictions within the duality we experience from a higher conscious perspective.

Try and convince a secularist or atheist of the possibility that a supernatural part within them necessary for human understanding has yet to awaken and they are doing their best to keep it dormant. It won't be easy.

[Belinda]

Nick_A wrote:

Try and convince a secularist or atheist of the possibility that a supernatural part within them necessary for human understanding has yet to awaken and they are doing their best to keep it dormant. It won't be easy.

True, you have a hard nut to crack.

[Nick_A]

Nick_A wrote:

Try and convince a secularist or atheist of the possibility that a supernatural part within them necessary for human understanding has yet to awaken and they are doing their best to keep it dormant. It won't be easy.

True, you have a hard nut to crack.

True, and as much as I admire my usual list of characters that are more optimistic than me for the future of humanity, I believe it is all over. You have won. Secular influences that prevent opening to a cosmic perspective are too powerful. Einstein meant well but only a few will be capable of awakening sufficiently to make a difference. It is all over but the shouting. You've won. There is too much secular resistance to the cosmic perspective so sadly can only be communicated to a relative few and not enough to make a difference

Excerpted from: Religion and Science
By Albert Einstein
(The following article by Albert Einstein appeared in the New York Times Magazine on November 9, 1930 pp 1-4. It has been reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers, Inc. 1954, pp 36 - 40. It also appears in Einstein's book The World as I See It, Philosophical Library, New York, 1949, pp. 24 - 28.)


………………Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.

The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.

How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.

It cannot be done. The dominant artistic influence will be self centered and I cannot see it provoking feelings of a cosmic religious experience.

[Harbal]

I cannot see it provoking feelings of a cosmic religious experience.

Can't you just go off and have your own cosmic experience without annoying people in the process?

[Nick_A]

I cannot see it provoking feelings of a cosmic religious experience.

Can't you just go off and have your own cosmic experience without annoying people in the process?

No. Simone Weil advised us to "annoy the Great Beast" in pursuit of truth. Who am I to reject such valuable advice?

[Harbal]

No. Simone Weil advised us to "annoy the Great Beast" in pursuit of truth. Who am I to reject such valuable advice?

I thought you didn't like being told what to do by women.

[Greta]

Can't you just go off and have your own cosmic experience without annoying people in the process?

I keep wondering why he thinks attacking a few outsider-type thinkers like himself on a philosophy forum is "annoying the Great Beast". He might as well go annoy mice for all the good it will do. If Simone Weil was alive today she would be trying to annoy multinational corporations and their tame governments rather than a few online nobodies. Weil would have seen that as cowardice, a cop out - playing small targets while claiming to be part of the war.

In truth, PN forum members are not actually governments or corporations. Nor are we connected with those organisations, nor even their supporters - just random people on forums hoping to share ideas about reality and compare notes.

The OP plays the "if you are not with me, you're against me" card. So, if other forum members question his grandiloquent claims then they immediately assumed to be one with "the Great Beast" that we actually like no more than he does. Invalid criticisms only serve to muddy the waters, effectively undermining valid and potentially more effective critiques and thus ultimately serve the interests of the GB.

[Nick_A]

Greta wrote:

The OP plays the "if you are not with me, you're against me" card. So, if other forum members question his grandiloquent claims then they immediately assumed to be one with "the Great Beast" that we actually like no more than he does.

The OP quotes Einstein's ideas concerning the potential for Man as we are to acquire a conscious cosmic perspective. Only Greta could think that Einstein is playing the "you're against me card." Greta is locked into this multi national corporation routine. Those like Einstein and Simone know the problem is the lack of a human perspective.

“We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them” Einstein

This is poison for those like Greta who insist all we need are more facts. They insist we already have a human perspective. No. We have a cave perspective with the potential for a cosmic perspective those like Greta defending secularism will seek to prevent.

[Harbal]

He might as well go annoy mice for all the good it will do.

Yes, anyone would think he's out there challenging governments rather than shooting his mouth off in a tiny internet backwater. I honestly don't understand why anyone is arguing with him. Time and again you, Belinda and others who are obviously not admirers of the establishment he calls the Great Beast are having your words twisted out of recognition and being deliberately misinterpreted. The only thing you could say to him in order to avoid his pathetic condemnation is "yes, Nick, you're right, tell us more". He forever quotes those he claims to be the source of his inspiration and then attempts to force his misinterpretation of them onto everyone else using the methods of Mao Tse-Tung and Stalin. I don't doubt that he harbours fantasies of future generations of students wandering about campus, all carrying a copy of the Thoughts of Chairman Nick. I urge you to walk away from this, Greta, it's beneath you. You can't reason with a crackpot.

[Greta]

I urge you to walk away from this, Greta, it's beneath you. You can't reason with a crackpot.

True, Alfie. It's not just beneath me but beneath pretty well everyone here, including Nick. I mean, can you believe his response to my last post?

But Nick's obvious gaming and misrepresentations are just a symptom of a greater malaise in the public conversation. Increasingly people are not interested in what is true, only in winning. So they employ the games of politicians and lawyers - playing the game to win - rather than just speaking about a topic with others in a relaxed manner.

You know what I always wanted from philosophy forums? People who are curious about life having a chat about the bizarreness of our existential situation. It's not as though any of us actually know "The Truth" so you'd think that most benefit would come from pooling perceptions.

[Harbal]

I mean, can you believe his response to my last post?

Yes I can but only because I've become so accustomed to it. It doesn't matter what you say to him, his response will bear no relationship to what you said.

You know what I always wanted from philosophy forums? People who are curious about life having a chat about the bizarreness of our existential situation. It's not as though any of us actually know "The Truth" so you'd think that most benefit would come from pooling perceptions.

This is typical Secular Intolerance, how do you expect the spirit of the young to thrive when you set them such an example of perfectly reasonable and considerate behaviour?

[Belinda]

Greta wrote:

I keep wondering why he thinks attacking a few outsider-type thinkers like himself on a philosophy forum is "annoying the Great Beast". He might as well go annoy mice for all the good it will do. If Simone Weil was alive today she would be trying to annoy multinational corporations and their tame governments rather than a few online nobodies. Weil would have seen that as cowardice, a cop out - playing small targets while claiming to be part of the war.

Well said Greta. You have rescued Simone's reputation for us.Very well done. You have made me happier, not only because you have summed up Nick's weakness, but because you have described Simone Weil as she probably deserves to be remembered and honoured.

[Walker]

I urge you to walk away from this, Greta, it's beneath you. You can't reason with a crackpot.

True, Alfie. It's not just beneath me but beneath pretty well everyone here, including Nick. I mean, can you believe his response to my last post?

But Nick's obvious gaming and misrepresentations are just a symptom of a greater malaise in the public conversation. Increasingly people are not interested in what is true, only in winning. So they employ the games of politicians and lawyers - playing the game to win - rather than just speaking about a topic with others in a relaxed manner.

You know what I always wanted from philosophy forums? People who are curious about life having a chat about the bizarreness of our existential situation. It's not as though any of us actually know "The Truth" so you'd think that most benefit would come from pooling perceptions.

From the little bit I've seen, it's more about people trying to destroy what they can't convince. Perhaps convincing is only the ostensible reason for participation.

[Harbal]

it's more about people trying to destroy what they can't convince. Perhaps convincing is only the ostensible reason for participation.

As usual, Walker, you've used the English language in such a way as to completely obscure the meaning of what you're trying to say.