Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

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Walker
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Re: Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

Post by Walker »

Lacewing wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 5:37 am
jayjacobus wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 12:59 am Isn't life neat?
I think so. So vibrant and creative.

I smiled at a very young child riding in a grocery cart yesterday... her face was beaming, and her gaze so direct, like some sort of cosmic traveler landing on Earth... ready for the ride!

Yes, seeing little pictures and big pictures... watching how it all plays together and unfolds... utterly magnificent! And we, ourselves, tiny yet also immense... so involved in our experience of life... crafting as we go... such convincing creations... truly fantastic!
That entity that with a mere glance can flood your body with feel-good hormones is actually intent on utilizing every aspect of its environment, including you, to achieve its purpose. You are charmed by an unbending, primordial, survival imperative. It charms everyone else, too, which makes nurturing an objective value.
Dubious
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Re: Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

Post by Dubious »

Lacewing wrote: Sat Jun 15, 2019 7:58 pm By that I mean... is human life significant beyond the human experience of it?
How can it be since only humans have experience of it? "Beyond" seems superflous here.
Lacewing wrote: Sat Jun 15, 2019 7:58 pm Does human life have eternal repercussions?
I can't think of anything so important about humans that their lives should have eternal repercussions. I can't even imagine anything living in the Universe having eternal repercussions.
Lacewing wrote: Sat Jun 15, 2019 7:58 pm Or is human life just another creation of physical nature expressing potential and its many fluctuations, to be experienced and honored/treasured (or not)... and to rise and fall away as physical nature does?
A nice short summary of what human life amounts to. Of course one can also say the more there is of it the more life degenerates including the environment and its ability to sustain other lives.

A big problem with human consciousness is its side-effect in forcing a diseased egotistical perspective of its own importance as if it were somehow inherent in the universe...the mother of all illusions!
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Greta
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Re: Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

Post by Greta »

What I see is a universe that's apparently about 14 billion years old but will keep producing stars for another trillion years.

That suggests to me that the universe is in its infancy, which means that we are still highly undeveloped versions of what will potentially come. Of course there's no guarantee that humanity or its inventions will continue the journey, just as no child is guaranteed to reach adulthood.

It's pretty clear that, whatever humans are, we are an immature form of it. There is long way to go before we can assess what is ultimately going on, if anything. Or maybe we'll find out very soon, but the long road would seem preferable ...
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Lacewing
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Re: Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

Post by Lacewing »

PeteJ wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:41 pm I would agree it is the play of creativity, but this is a serious business.
Serious...in what way?
PeteJ wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:41 pmThose who claim to know the truth of this matter say that 'enlightenment' comes with a great big belly-laugh.
It does seem pretty funny...even hilarious at times. Here we are playing out these lives on a stage (Earth), with all of these scenarios, and an ever-changing stream of scripts and characters and agendas in our lives, and we tend to think it is all so serious. We think we know "how things must be", and if they're not, we might go to extremes to make them so. And at the end of all of that, we die. No big deal. Yet we're so thoroughly convinced and intoxicated by "the show" while we live it. Our intense and manic antics are charming and can be uproariously funny...like watching children display such vigor on pointless endeavors.

Instead...perhaps we could have laughed more, and loved more, and basked in the experience more. From what I see, it really is a GLORIOUS opportunity to feel and share.

If there are limitless choices and no ultimate destination, how do you assign value to what any given person chooses?
PeteJ wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:41 pm The problem I have with your question is that it assumes that the 'play of creativity' has no 'eternal implications'. I'd strongly disagree. I would say its eternal (or metaphysical) implication is that Reality is creative and expressive but only in the contingent and relative realm. It therefore points beyond itself to the true nature of Reality and the place of human beings.
Can you explain further? Why would there be any eternal implications -- why would that be necessary (for what purpose?) -- and why would humans play such a significant role? (Doesn't that seem like something that humans just want to believe about themselves?) Does anything else in nature have eternal implications? Does there need to be a point?
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Lacewing
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Re: Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

Post by Lacewing »

Dubious wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2019 12:21 am I can't think of anything so important about humans that their lives should have eternal repercussions. I can't even imagine anything living in the Universe having eternal repercussions.
I agree. Eternal repercussions seem to be a concept based on human judgment and measurement, which is surely only applicable to our human reality and imagination.
Dubious wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2019 12:21 amone can also say the more there is of it the more life degenerates including the environment and its ability to sustain other lives.
Life does seem to have the ability to vigorously eat itself.
Dubious wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2019 12:21 amA big problem with human consciousness is its side-effect in forcing a diseased egotistical perspective of its own importance as if it were somehow inherent in the universe...the mother of all illusions!
Agreed. But that's just one potential of the vast creativity... and, even though twisted, it's a fantastic display of what's possible. I like to think of more/other ways for using/experiencing vast creativity. If I feel naturally filled with gratitude and acceptance... how might the Universe and its energy/dynamic (or whatever connected web/spirit there is) flow through this energy/dynamic that I experience? I'm continually tantalized by countless experiences of profound synchronicity/unfolding as if such attuned manifestation is the most natural vibe there is. (We humans create noise and blindness that obstructs it.)
Age
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Re: Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

Post by Age »

Lacewing wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 11:07 pm (We humans create noise and blindness that obstructs it.)
This is exactly what you, human beings, mostly do.
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Lacewing
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Re: Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

Post by Lacewing »

Age wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 11:44 pm
Lacewing wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 11:07 pm (We humans create noise and blindness that obstructs it.)
This is exactly what you, human beings, mostly do.
And that is your noise. :lol:
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Re: Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

Post by Age »

Lacewing wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 1:11 am
Age wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 11:44 pm
Lacewing wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 11:07 pm (We humans create noise and blindness that obstructs it.)
This is exactly what you, human beings, mostly do.
And that is your noise. :lol:
What is my noise?
Dubious
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Re: Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

Post by Dubious »

Lacewing wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 11:07 pm If I feel naturally filled with gratitude and acceptance... how might the Universe and its energy/dynamic (or whatever connected web/spirit there is) flow through this energy/dynamic that I experience? I'm continually tantalized by countless experiences of profound synchronicity/unfolding as if such attuned manifestation is the most natural vibe there is. (We humans create noise and blindness that obstructs it.)
It's an experience much written about by the likes of Blake, Wordsworth, Whitman and Emily Dickinson where feelings of immanence creates the poetry. The way you describe is not unlike how I felt long ago; but now these intensely green leaves of raw feeling have long exfoliated replaced by raw reality. Such near mythic experiences eventually evaporate - in most cases - only recalled by rare spikes of memory that seem to penetrate the veil of intervening years closer to its beginning when we felt less separated and our collusion with all aspects of being more palpable. In those days even I felt poetic! :mrgreen:
AllyPike
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Re: Do you think life is more than a play of creativity?

Post by AllyPike »

If life just exists because life exists but the positive imperative is for the experience to be as positive as possible (by positive I mean the kind of Western or Greek positive of love, community, comfort, success in one’s trade or occupation or position, etc. Versus negative which seems to be lack of all the aforementioned examples but coloured of course with modern cultural expectations of positive and negative life experiences), then I think creativity is a function of the imperative of human experience. We don’t just experience reproduction and it’s not the foremost imperative for us. Certainly it’s the imperative for many other species but our experience is very different. Out of respect for the other life forms, it makes sense to conscientiously choose the most positive experience because we have the capacity to know of a choice.
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