Back to Infinity

[AlexW]

it's a genuine, separate entity to be dealt with on its own terms

Yes and no. It obviously makes practical sense to deal with objects in an appropriate way - when a car approaches I get out of the way - I don't walk straight into a tree and I don't jump off a building to find out if I can fly.
The same is true for the body - I don't cut off my arms and legs just because they are not what defines me. I am quite happy to use them.
Problems arise as soon as we only see and value the objective side of existence and neglect reality. The practicality angle if disconnected from truth turns from a happy dream into a nightmare - we can see the ego-centric results at every corner and our addiction to practicality is increasing as we speak.

A society based on such broadly empathetic values would not compete to survive the modern world.

It would survive very well if all of humanity had the same values/understanding - I agree that it might not survive as long as we have waring nations that believe it is better to conquer than to share.

History is replete with the domination and decimation of indigenous populations

Yes, unfortunately. And why? Because people see themselves as separate beings that can benefit from exploiting others. A grand illusion that has not made anyone happy. How often do we have to make the same mistakes before we finally understand that in a war there are no winners.

The Europeans and easterners saw nature as something to be conquered rather than symbiotically related

Agree - and now we have plastic chocking our beaches, chemicals polluting water and soil etc etc... we are on a highway to self destruction.

if there is no separation between things then humans are not way separate from the Earth, in which case they are not inflicting anything wrongful on the planet but doing its bidding

No separation doesn't mean there are no illusions (wrong beliefs). We are not doing the planets bidding but act on the illusory belief that we can personally benefit from our actions. As long as we walk a path that we have invented and drawn on a map based on wrong information, there is no chance we will ever reach a goal that is worth reaching. Yes, we may achieve temporary things, power, social status or money, but lasting peace and happiness is impossible to reach - the road we travel simply doesn't lead there.

[Greta]

it's a genuine, separate entity to be dealt with on its own terms

Yes and no. It obviously makes practical sense to deal with objects in an appropriate way - when a car approaches I get out of the way - I don't walk straight into a tree and I don't jump off a building to find out if I can fly.
The same is true for the body - I don't cut off my arms and legs just because they are not what defines me. I am quite happy to use them.
Problems arise as soon as we only see and value the objective side of existence and neglect reality. The practicality angle if disconnected from truth turns from a happy dream into a nightmare - we can see the ego-centric results at every corner and our addiction to practicality is increasing as we speak.

Unproven suppositions. What is practical may be more real than you think - but you don't like to try thinking about that possibility because you are happy with the judgemental narrative you have told yourself.

A society based on such broadly empathetic values would not compete to survive the modern world.

It would survive very well if all of humanity had the same values/understanding - I agree that it might not survive as long as we have waring nations that believe it is better to conquer than to share.

The key word above is "if" - and it's not been the case through the entirety of human history. Why do you think humans would change their nature now?

History is replete with the domination and decimation of indigenous populations

Yes, unfortunately. And why? Because people see themselves as separate beings that can benefit from exploiting others. A grand illusion that has not made anyone happy. How often do we have to make the same mistakes before we finally understand that in a war there are no winners.

However, there are winners - they are the strong nations today.

The Europeans and easterners saw nature as something to be conquered rather than symbiotically related

Agree - and now we have plastic chocking our beaches, chemicals polluting water and soil etc etc... we are on a highway to self destruction.

You are dreaming if you think there can be another result. Even if humans were all perfect little new age vegan greenies, it might buy us a matter of decades before becoming unsustainable. The issue is not character but breeding and the tragedy of the commons. However, in a non-cooperative group (like the world's nations), the nation that takes the high road is simply fodder for exploitation. Imagine if the west became perfect environmental citizens, then Chinese, Indians and Russians would take control, and vice versa.

The fact is that a species with our capacities is always going to breed up to an unsustainable point. It's not as though humankind has had experience at completely overrunning the globe before - so we make "newbie errors". To believe that societies follow those with the most vision is naive - there are always many people ahead of the curve wondering why their societies are so stupid. It's just policy inertia stemming from conservatism, fear of the unknown and business interests whose business is in the conditions of the status quo.

if there is no separation between things then humans are not way separate from the Earth, in which case they are not inflicting anything wrongful on the planet but doing its bidding

No separation doesn't mean there are no illusions (wrong beliefs). We are not doing the planets bidding but act on the illusory belief that we can personally benefit from our actions. As long as we walk a path that we have invented and drawn on a map based on wrong information, there is no chance we will ever reach a goal that is worth reaching. Yes, we may achieve temporary things, power, social status or money, but lasting peace and happiness is impossible to reach - the road we travel simply doesn't lead there.

How do you know that the Earth is not re-forming itself? Do you know what happens if humans stop technological development and breeding? The end of all life on Earth. In a matter of only millions of years - a short time in the Earth's life - conditions on the planet's surface will be impossible for large animals due to the Sun's expansion. The climate change was always coming, and we are accelerating it.

Thus, if human inventions do not take information and biota off-world to start again, that is the end of the Earth's story altogether. Yet the ability to construct what would effectively be a reproductive system for the planet is killing itself in a sense. This is a common dynamic in nature - reproduction is "expensive", often costing plants and animals their lives, including human animals. It appears to be happening again.

I still always vote for environmental responsibility and compassion for other species because the corporate drivers of today's environmental problems hardly need my tiny help Still, being realistic, the party was never going to last forever.

[Belinda]

AlexW wrote:

Only the unbroken whole is true whereas all individual parts are illusions of thought. Truth has no levels — it cannot be partial — it’s all or nothing. Full stop.

It seems to be a paradox, reason pointing to its own end, but only by leaving infinity untouched by restrictive thinking, by refraining from all mental interventions of limiting its indefinable expanse, will infinity blossom and suddenly reveal itself.
Is it reasonable to believe in an eternal/infinite God (or the existence of the Absolute) while keeping up our conviction of being a limited being? Does it make any sense at all to believe the world, yes even the universe itself is made up of inherently existing, separate objects? Does it make sense to believe in us existing in physical and mental isolation? If there is something like eternity/infinity, how could even one atom of the universe be disconnected from the whole? Infinity leaves no room for parts, it contains, per definition, all and everything.

From the aspect of eternity all individual parts are illusions of thought. From the aspect of duality all individual parts are real and not illusory.
Eternity and duality aren't mutually inconsistent ; eternity and duality are aspects of reality. Eternity is not superior to duality but on a par with duality. Eternity and duality are twin aspects of something that includes both eternity and duality.

Truth has no levels — it cannot be partial — it’s all or nothing. Full stop.

But there are levels of reasoning that are better than other levels of reasoning. The criterion of 'better' is the amount of reason that's brought to bear. Maybe it's true that mathematics reveal or-or-nothing truths, however there is inductive reasoning too. Granting that men can access eternity by way of mystical experiences doesn't imply that mystical experience is the only way to access a vision of eternity.

[AlexW]

Belinda,

From the aspect of eternity all individual parts are illusions of thought. From the aspect of duality all individual parts are real and not illusory.

I agree with the aspect of duality, but there is no "aspect of eternity". An aspect can only exist in duality - the aspect of eternity is as such eternity conceptualised from the aspect of duality.

eternity and duality are aspects of reality

No, duality is an aspect of reality, but eternity IS reality.

Eternity and duality are twin aspects of something that includes both eternity and duality.

There is nothing that includes eternity - it is infinite by definition. You could say that eternity includes duality, but this is only partially true. While everything happens in eternity, even the arising of duality, eternity doesn't know anything about duality. It only knows itself and not its (illusory) parts.

But there are levels of reasoning that are better than other levels of reasoning. The criterion of 'better' is the amount of reason that's brought to bear.

Agree, when seen from the aspect of duality - but there are no levels in reality. All that is not real is ultimately unreal/false/illusory.

Granting that men can access eternity by way of mystical experiences doesn't imply that mystical experience is the only way to access a vision of eternity.

I am not talking about mystical experiences at all. I am trying to point to a new way of thinking - a correction in the aspect of duality - that redirects our vision to eternity/infinity and puts duality into the right context. Duality is an overlay to reality and can as such not be superior (or even on par) with reality. It is a practical/functional aspect and can be used as such, but when we get lost in it, forgetting reality/eternity we are essentially forgetting ourselves.

[Serendipper]

Is "eternal" and "infinite" the same thing? Is absence of time and infinite time the same?

Yes, but its not a thing... We can't objectify infinity/eternity - or... rather we actually try to do just that, but the outcome can only be illusory.

So any if reification of infinity is illusory, how can it be said to exist? It seems, rather, that is is posited to exist and defined to have inherently no evidence for it's substantiation. In other words, I posit A to exist and one of the peculiarities of A is that there can be no evidence for its existence.

Well, yes you could say that absence of time is eternity,

So infinity = zero = nothing. When something grows to infinite size, it no longer exists because it exists everywhere which leaves no room for anything that it is not and therefore it has no contrast in which to exist. We don't typically think of space as a thing because space exists everywhere and in that way is said to be nothingness (ie empty space).

but time is really never present anyway. It is just an idea and as such never real.

I see what you're saying. Time doesn't exist for things moving at lightspeed and I presume that time is infinite for things absolutely still (whatever that means). Of course, "speed" is relative to the fabric of spacetime because there is nothing outside of spacetime to be relative to. Inside a void, whether it's infinite or nothingness, there is no point to reference against.

Eternity or infinity can never be not present

Well, an infinity of time is infinite time and absence of time is zero time, and if time doesn't exist, then, by substitution, it's either an infinity of nothing or absence of nothing. Infinity x zero = zero and zero x zero = zero, so either way "infinity" isn't something that need be or can be posited to exist.

- whereas time or distance seem to be present but are so only in/as thought.

It seems to be a function of a speed limit on information. Colloquially we say we turn off our phones (delay information) to give ourselves space and time.

[AlexW]

Greta,
I think our discussion is travelling on roads that lead into different directions.
I admit, I have been drifting off from my initial point and we now have ended up in a discussion about human history, opposing nations, the environment and neutron stars (amazing how language can take one into its magic spell - and you are great at arguing your point), but this is not really what I wanted to get across.

My intention was to point out that there is a way to adjust/expand our way of relativistic thinking and make it whole - what may come from that and if this is possible for all of humanity is something I do not know. All I know is that remembering our eternal/infinite essence has a massive impact on how we see the world of things. While before we see the world as disconnected, separate from me, this changes radically once the view of duality has been corrected. Once we know and understand that eternity/infinity is what we are and not just a concept that we can discuss and put away together with all the other things that cross our mind, the world and its people suddenly are not distant anymore.
Unfortunately the way people act today is in stark contrast to this understanding and as such the urge arises to inform them about the madness they have fallen prey to when acting purely on the egotistic level. It think it is time to open our mind to something bigger - people suffer because of their limited beliefs, so why not attempt to correct it by making people see past them.

[Nick_A]

Hi Alex

As we know a dollar can be divided into two half dollars, four quarters, ten dimes, 20 nickles and 100 pennies. I think we can agree that the concept of a penny can exist within a nickle which in turn exists within a dime which in turn exists within the quarter and so on. Finally, all the fractions of dollar exist as one within the dollar, within the whole. From this perspective, a quarter exists both as part of a whole and also as an individual reality.

Why cannot a human being be simultaneously part of of a higher whole and an individual entity at the same time? Isn't that what I AM is - everything in conscious potential together with the manifestation of all qualities of lawful fractions of the whole?

[AlexW]

Nick,

From this perspective, a quarter exists both as part of a whole and also as an individual reality.

Yes, seen from this perspective you are right - but the dollar (reality) has no perspective. It only sees itself (it cannot see parts as real or separate from itself).

Why cannot a human being be simultaneously part of of a higher whole and an individual entity at the same time?

Good question, I am sure we could discuss this for a very long time
When seen from the human perspective this is possible and even beneficial - I would say it is a step into the right direction.
But seeing ourselves as a part of a higher whole is still a concept built on separation.
Only once a shift of identification happens that takes us away from the idea of being a part of something rather than being the whole, can healthy individuality arise as only then is it not built on the idea of separation.

Isn't that what I AM is - everything in conscious potential together with the manifestation of all qualities of lawful fractions of the whole?

Took me a while to wrap my head around that - its Monday morning in Australia...
I like your definition - is this what you mean:
everything in conscious potential = whole/infinite/eternal
lawful fractions of the whole = arisings in duality
If so then yes (and maybe a bit of no): I AM is eternity/infinity and that includes all manifestations - what is doesn't include are the illusory ideas that we hold about it. While it includes all thought, the stories that seem to be woven from interlinked chains of thought are not what you are. Unfortunately most people live purely in these stories and not in I AM. What I am trying to get to is that we have to find out what I AM and only then can we judge if the stories we believe in make sense at all (or if they need re-writing).

[Greta]

Greta,
I think our discussion is travelling on roads that lead into different directions.
I admit, I have been drifting off from my initial point and we now have ended up in a discussion about human history, opposing nations, the environment and neutron stars (amazing how language can take one into its magic spell - and you are great at arguing your point), but this is not really what I wanted to get across.

My intention was to point out that there is a way to adjust/expand our way of relativistic thinking and make it whole - what may come from that and if this is possible for all of humanity is something I do not know. All I know is that remembering our eternal/infinite essence has a massive impact on how we see the world of things. While before we see the world as disconnected, separate from me, this changes radically once the view of duality has been corrected. Once we know and understand that eternity/infinity is what we are and not just a concept that we can discuss and put away together with all the other things that cross our mind, the world and its people suddenly are not distant anymore.
Unfortunately the way people act today is in stark contrast to this understanding and as such the urge arises to inform them about the madness they have fallen prey to when acting purely on the egotistic level. It think it is time to open our mind to something bigger - people suffer because of their limited beliefs, so why not attempt to correct it by making people see past them.

Alex, is it that people ignore the notions of wholeness and interdependence, or that they ignore existential thought generally? Plato's old line: "An unexamined life is not worth living". In truth, an unexamined life may only not worth living for those inclined towards such examination.

I have had peak experiences and well understand the sense of unity you describe - I've been there in a visceral sense and it was, yes, extremely special and helpful, and I have considered the abstract idea at length as well, especially since it's an extremely common notion on philosophy forums. It was not just a concept but overwhelmingly visceral, affective.

Still, retirement showed me that working people (including me when I was working) worry an awful lot about rules of engagement - what they think other people should be doing and thinking. There is tremendous judgement of others about things that are simply not anyone else's business. If someone would prefer not to examine their lives, good on them. If they choose to dive into an obsessive examination of existence, then more power to them too.

Throughout history the intelligentsia has complained about the masses lack of contemplation (a la Plato), and the masses complain about the intelligentsia's lack of physical work. Each tends to engage in a wish that the others be more like themselves, even though each group benefits enormously from the other group's difference.

[AlexW]

I posit A to exist and one of the peculiarities of A is that there can be no evidence for its existence.

By positing something exists you are doing so from a point of observation that is apparently outside A.
The infinite cannot state I exist - all it does is knowing itself, but this is not a doing, it knows itself by being itself - there is no time-bound, relativistic aspect in it.

So infinity = zero = nothing

To be more precise: infinity = no thing
Which doesn't mean it is devoid of being. It is, as knowing, but knows only itself.

Inside a void, whether it's infinite or nothingness, there is no point to reference against.

Agree. Thus we require a relativistic view of the universe to measure anything, to have time, space, objects... But the relativistic view is not ultimately true. It is a map pointing to infinity, but never touching it.

It seems to be a function of a speed limit on information

A speed limit only exists if there is separation between sender and receiver - speed is infinite if they are one. In reality everything happens at the same time - which is the same as stating: nothing ever happens. Of course things (seem to) happen in time, but step out of time and everything happens now (the step is only a mental step - you are already outside of time, but the mind identifies with the limited and thus you seem to be time-bound).

[Nick_A]

Alex

Yes, seen from this perspective you are right - but the dollar (reality) has no perspective. It only sees itself (it cannot see parts as real or separate from itself).

In order to clarify what I mean by the Absolute or any other similar term, let me explain what Plotinus’ concept of the ONE means to me. The ONE is the essential quality of consciousness which IS outside the limitations of time and space within which potentials reside. Where the ONE IS, creation in contrast EXISTS. Creation is the continual process of existence which takes place within ONE which IS (NOW). Creatures existing within creation are limited as opposed to the ONE which IS.

But seeing ourselves as a part of a higher whole is still a concept built on separation.

But why is this bad? What is so good about accepting oneself along with everyone else as an equal part of society which Plato called the Beast? Consider how Simone Weil needed freedom from the Beast. Do you see it as a bad thing which gets in the way of oneness or a normal striving to become oneself?


Excerpted from a letter Simone Weil wrote on May 15, 1942 in Marseilles, France to her close friend Father Perrin:

At fourteen I fell into one of those fits of bottomless despair that come with adolescence, and I seriously thought of dying because of the mediocrity of my natural faculties. The exceptional gifts of my brother, who had a childhood and youth comparable to those of Pascal, brought my own inferiority home to me. I did not mind having no visible successes, but what did grieve me was the idea of being excluded from that transcendent kingdom to which only the truly great have access and wherein truth abides. I preferred to die rather than live without that truth.....................

My USCF chess rating is 1942. A 2300 player is far stronger than me while a 1200 player is far weaker. I could say that we are all one as chess players which only eliminates respect for relative quality. Why should this be considered a good thing? Why not value quality?

Took me a while to wrap my head around that - its Monday morning in Australia...
I like your definition - is this what you mean:
everything in conscious potential = whole/infinite/eternal
lawful fractions of the whole = arisings in duality
If so then yes (and maybe a bit of no): I AM is eternity/infinity and that includes all manifestations - what is doesn't include are the illusory ideas that we hold about it. While it includes all thought, the stories that seem to be woven from interlinked chains of thought are not what you are. Unfortunately most people live purely in these stories and not in I AM. What I am trying to get to is that we have to find out what I AM and only then can we judge if the stories we believe in make sense at all (or if they need re-writing).

This reminds me when My cousin from Australia who died three yers ago would visit the states. He would say “we have to discuss this” which meant going out drinking until 4:00 AM and getting to the heart of the matter. I’ve learned it takes a Russian to keep up with an Australian at a bar. Ah, the good ol days.

I think it is natural for the Russian mind to visualize worlds within worlds as with the Russian dolls. One cosmos within another all within what Plato called the timeless Good and Plotinus called the ONE.

The problem I believe is what you’ve described and I know of as imagination which takes the place of reality. We lack the quality of conscious attention necessary to experience the world which frees us from imagination denying the reality of the human condition

From this perspective the solution isn’t imaginary oneness which inhibits the need to become oneself but acquiring the humility and intelligence to respect the value of differences as necessary parts of the collective human organism serving a higher universal purpose.

[Serendipper]

I posit A to exist and one of the peculiarities of A is that there can be no evidence for its existence.

By positing something exists you are doing so from a point of observation that is apparently outside A.

If I posit I exist, am I doing so from outside myself?

The infinite cannot state I exist - all it does is knowing itself, but this is not a doing, it knows itself by being itself - there is no time-bound, relativistic aspect in it.

How does an object observe itself in order to know itself? How does "being" translate into "knowing"?

So infinity = zero = nothing

To be more precise: infinity = no thing
Which doesn't mean it is devoid of being. It is, as knowing, but knows only itself.

I think it means that it's void of relevance. The only ubiquitous thing I can conceive is that of nothingness, in infinite supply, yet no thing in existence is more more irrelevant than nothingness.

Inside a void, whether it's infinite or nothingness, there is no point to reference against.

Agree. Thus we require a relativistic view of the universe to measure anything, to have time, space, objects... But the relativistic view is not ultimately true. It is a map pointing to infinity, but never touching it.

Never touching it, yes, I agree with that.

It seems to be a function of a speed limit on information

A speed limit only exists if there is separation between sender and receiver -

Yes but space only exists if there is a speed limit; a resistance. The faster you travel, the smaller the universe will be; and when you hit lightspeed, the universe will have zero size.

speed is infinite if they are one.

So it would seem, but it turns out to be a finite 300,000,000 m/s for instantaneous transmission, though not from our point of view.

In reality everything happens at the same time - which is the same as stating: nothing ever happens. Of course things (seem to) happen in time, but step out of time and everything happens now (the step is only a mental step - you are already outside of time, but the mind identifies with the limited and thus you seem to be time-bound).

Yes I see what you mean. Every photon transmission from the big bang until now has been one event that took no time. That means something is acting as resistance to slow us in some regard which produces the perspective that we know.

[Atla]

Only once a shift of identification happens that takes us away from the idea of being a part of something rather than being the whole, can healthy individuality arise as only then is it not built on the idea of separation.

Agree, agree, agree.

Imo the most difficult aspect to get across is that this type of thinking is the other form of human thinking. It's, so to speak, the other philosophical meta-metaparadigm.

We have basically two forms of human thinking, two meta-metaparadigms. One is the dualistic thinking; thinking through projecting divisions, separations onto reality. My conclusion is that basically all of Western philosophy is dualistic since Plato, Descartes merely made things worse (there are many made up divisions, perhaps the worst offender being the subject-object division). And so Westerners today are unaware that another form of human thinking exists.
Dualistic thinking here also includes Western monism, so for example Westerners who string everything together into one substance, or into a sensation of oneness, are still under the dualistic meta-metaparadigm.

The other form of human thinking is the one you are describing. Seeing infinity as it is, and that we are it. And although there are differences of course (like I'm different from the monitor in front of me), and these are very important in our everyday lives, but fundamentally speaking, all actual divisions, separations are mental projections, ways of thinking.
Personally I call this nondual thinking, in the sense that "nondual" here means not-many, not-two, not-one, not-zero.
(So I mean nondual in the Eastern sense. There seem to be a few Western Christian Gnostic nondualists on this forum, but they seem to be talking about something very different, like oneness of two different realms of being.)

I think a good test is this: Western philosophy has hit a brick wall, a dead end with the Hard problem of consciousness. They came up with a hundred different possible solutions, and they have no idea how to proceed. Someone who understands nondual thinking will say that the Hard problem is automatically resolved, it doesn't even exist. It's merely an inherent systematic error produced by dualistic thinking.

But do most people have the time, willingness and intellect to work towards this other form of thinking? I have major doubts there.

[AlexW]

Greta,

is it that people ignore the notions of wholeness and interdependence, or that they ignore existential thought generally?

I think people ignore it until something happens in their lives that makes them re-evaluate whats really important and some might find a new way of looking at life.

I've been there in a visceral sense and it was, yes, extremely special and helpful, and I have considered the abstract idea at length as well

Yes, I think experiences like that happen to many people but are mostly overlooked or not examined further. They are an invitation to look deeply but the looking has to be something that is consciously performed while applying a form of reasoning that questions even our most cherished beliefs.

working people worry an awful lot about rules of engagement - what they think other people should be doing and thinking

Yes, unfortunately this is how our society works and I fully agree with you in that it is difficult to live life based on an understanding that runs contrary to many generally accepted conventions.

Throughout history the intelligentsia has complained about the masses lack of contemplation (a la Plato), and the masses complain about the intelligentsia's lack of physical work.

Yes, true, but both groups still apply the same way of thinking - some maybe more than the others - but to change that we would have to start teaching children from early infancy on that there is another way of seeing things. Or rather, we shouldn't take it away from them. Children still have the natural ability to see infinity, but it is brainwashed out of them over years of structured learning, social conditioning and the inflexible system of thought humanity subscribes to.

[AlexW]

Atla,
Yes, I very much agree with what you said.
There are (at least) two ways of thinking, the dual and non-dual one - the benefit of the non-dual understanding is that it includes understanding of duality whereas this is not so the other way round.
Non-dual thinking is where we come from, young children still think this way - this innate knowing is covered up over the years by a process adults call learning. It is important to realise that this knowledge cannot be lost, it can only be veiled and can again be found by stripping away everything that veils truth (basically everything we have learned). The stripping away of all concepts doesn't mean that we forget all the things we have learned and turn into blabbering idiots - it means that we have to see past these conceptions until the essence reveals itself. While the process is a mental exercise of seeing past illusion the last step is a natural unfolding - truth reveals itself once we understand and deeply accept that we don't know.
Now we have both - the childlike, innocent way of looking at the world AND the understanding of duality (I guess there is some truth in the parable of the lost son after all )

But do most people have the time, willingness and intellect to work towards this other form of thinking? I have major doubts there.

I don't know... doesn't look like it, but the world is a magical place and wonders happen all the time.