@frank

Yeah, according to the most recent pew research poll, Christianity is the largest religion in the world.

http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/

I’ve had similar thoughts, and similar self-doubts about my own interest in truth. It seems like it takes a certain amount of suffering, a lot of it often times self-induced (whether consciously or not), to allow oneself the realization that the search for truth isn’t a pure desire. But does this realization say more about truth, or more about the self? The human condition?

What you describe sounds to me like the first layer of the onion only.

Woah there, Berdyaev. :razz:

I shall respond tomorrow.

No problem at all; I on the other hand am very easily offended, and am often unkind. It's nice to have a moment on TPF where we can commune a little; lay back! Nice.

I can relate. I feel as though the mind is much more compartmentalized during waking reality, whereas during a dream everything has the chance to emerge into one's conscious aspect of the mind. — Posty McPostface

Yup. I haven't done hallucinogens, but what friends have told me about the experience sounds similar to an experience of clear-mindedness that also corresponds to the lucidity of a dream that feels very real.

I have a certain amount of reverence for dreams. I had a profound dream a long time ago about getting lost on the trip to the peak of the "mountain", whatever that may mean to you. In my opinion this mountain, from which I got separated from my family was a sort of journey in life. I found myself wandering in a forest filled with strange ghosts, plants, and whatnot.

What I gathered from that dream was that the shortest way around the mountain was through it, actually tunneling through it. I still have no idea what that could possibly mean. Quantum tunneling? — Posty McPostface

These personal dreams are so precious and interesting. When I read your account, I'm interested, but I know that the account you're describing is something so deeply personal and almost weird; even to you yourself. This is the thing that gives such an elegant beauty to dreams; this embarrassing quality.

At risk of misinterpreting you here, and that's just a given, I think it's maybe your dream telling you that you're growing distant from him? — Posty McPostface

It's true that we've grown distant in terms of physical space; but we remain essentially best friends; or, he remains my best friend. He's married, though, so she's his best friend now, I guess. But the emotion of the dream had nothing to do with that at all. It was way, way deeper than that. It was something foundational.

No, it wasn't *just* a dream. That's what I hate about reality. It demeans and treats these almost lifelike experiences into something trite or illusory, which they aren't. Dreams are magical. — Posty McPostface

I agree. Dreams feel more real than waking life.

Oh it's not a problem at all; I'm sorry if my comment was offensive. I just literally found your use of grammar to be somewhat artistic and interesting. I'm sorry if that's out of line.

There's a few grammatical errors in your post, but I actually like how poetic it sounds as it is. :up:

I've had some psychoanalysis; was it good? Eh, I would say not so much. The result is that I'm pretty pessimistic about psychoanalysis. That's both my loss, and psychoanalysises loss. Whatever. Psychology is constantly changing. What my therapist of two years ago thought was wise is probably no longer thought to be wise. There's no wisdom in psychotherapy. The psyche needs more than physical therapy.

At the risk of being laughed off the forum, I'd say that it suggests that the real world is less than we make it out to be. A dream can sometimes say more than a real world situation can say. The psychological explanation is nice, but it's just the technicality of the spiritual reality.

I have a lot of vivid dreams. I had a dream awhile ago that my brother was standing about a stone's throw away from me. But he was unreachable. Why? I don't know. It was just a dream. But was it? Whatever the psychological explanation is is fine, but it won't satisfy the emotions that accompanied the dream. When I think back to that dream, it's twilight setting, and the love that my brother was sending, and yet his inaccessibility...it's a feeling more powerful than any feeling I've felt in waking life in years. So what does that mean?

Lucid dreams feel more real than reality. That much is true from experience. Where do we go from there?

Has Western civilization been a disaster as referenced against....the East, right? Or?

I see. Well, the way the world actually is (which is what I'm metaphorically referring to as the library of the world at large) is important in that if our personal understanding of the way the world actually is is massively at odds with it, then the utility of our models will, it seems to me, be much lower. — Pseudonym

So how do you know that the way you, Psuedonym, see the world is in line with "the way the world actually is"?

Right answers on tests are the bane of knowledge.

My initial response was in response to the "universal library", or whatever it was. Is one's own library more important? The initial comment of yours that I responded to seemed to suggest a "universal library" of importance, but now you seem to say otherwise. This was the point I was commenting on.

Good so far. So why are you arguing anything?

I'm asking if the "library of the world at large" is separate from your own library.

But it remains your library, and your filing system, not that of the world at large. — Pseudonym

Is the library of the world at large your library?

Philosoraptosophy - the lost mystery religion of the Dino.

Please only analyze with utilitarianism in mind. — amirography

Analyzing with anything but utilitarianism in mind, here's a couple dunce thoughts:

I'm actually very interested in the problem of keeping pets. I have no sympathy for PETA, but I do have sympathy for animals. I think if you want to treat animals ethically, you shouldn't own them as pets.

Can you stay home all day to give your dog or bird the constant social contact it needs, and are you a bird or dog yourself? No, of course not. Dog's and birds (two of the most social pets to own) require near constant social interaction. How many pet owners can give them that?

Cats are better pets because they require less social contact; social contact that virtually no pet owner can give. If you want a pet, just get a cat. Philosophical conundrum solved.

What anthropomorphic jargon from your own tradition do you prefer?

So many thoughts coming up as I read this, I can't even focus to finish reading your post. Lemme try...

This is one of the best OP's I've read in awhile.

That the universe came from nothing, or creation ex nihilo, is prima facie, absurd. That the universe "came" into being seems to imply, from the semantics, that it came from or entered into somewhere or something that existed before. Before there was light, there was darkness - but this darkness is not "nothing". There must have already been something, a "firstness", "primary being", or some such eternal substance that holds up the rest of the architecture of existence as the foundations hold up a building, or the canvas displays the paint. — darthbarracuda

Indeed; all the arguments for and against God's existence are completely boring and irrelevant. This problem you're talking about of "something and nothing" is far more compelling. There's no logical proof to demand that a "firstness" exist. Firstness is just first.

Precisely, nothing cannot be positively defined, for otherwise it would be something. — darthbarracuda

"Nothing" can just be "no": Does 2+2=5? No. That's probably a pretty bad example because it's just a mathematical impossibility, but I think the sense of that sentiment stands; nothingness as the underside of thingness isn't problematic to me; you find it in apophatic theology. For instance, asking questions about God: "is God 'x'?" "No." "is God 'y'?" "No." etc. The nothingness of the apophatic indicates a something. So the nothing serves a purpose in relation to the something. There's not 100% something in the metaphysical universe; there's some something, and some nothing. I hope that makes some sense; if not, let me know.

The "nothing" is the primal Being, the darkness surrounding the light. — darthbarracuda

You may know that this is in line with the Kabbalah, as well as Jakob Boeme and Nikolai Berdyaev, and to some extent Tillich. I'm sympathetic.

In my mystical and esoteric moments I am drawn to the idea that what we call the world is a temporary dream in an endless sleep; — darthbarracuda

:fire: This concept I've found is better enunciated in story rather than philosophy. The works of David Lynch (reference my avatar), Philip K. Dick, George MacDonald, and David Lindsay express this notion better than any philosopher I know.

that consciousness is an insomnia in a population of dreamers, or a momentary divorce from the unconscious deep. — darthbarracuda

The question is how to make the "insomnia" permanent.

Not at all; I'm the dunce. I'm doing the decent thing and supplementing people's time against your utter robotic roboticness. :rofl:

Deutsch-Principle, to distinguish it from the Church-Turing Thesis. — tom

I prefer the Douche Principle, and the Church Thesis. Sorry, too perfect. I'll stop trolling.

Please don't read it as it will only confuse you. — tom

Thanks; I almost dived in!

I have no arguments against this nonsense; I'm just the dunce, for now. Just here to throw some confetti. Confetti sometimes gets deleted, but sometimes it scatters widely and adds a nice dolup of humanity to an otherwise robotic landscape of laconic lunacy. The confetti isn't for you, @tom; don't worry.

No, we made tech that created computational universality, and then we started getting anthropomorphical about it. Evolution didn't do that; the evolution of us making tech did that. What sort of evolution is that, anyway?

Everything is beyond computational universality.

Just some confetti.

Just some unorganized non-anthropomorphic, non-software confetti for ya

It's called science. — tom

What is?

It is proved, that according to known physics — tom

Is it proved, or is it according to known physics?

They're anthropomorphic in the sense that we made programs and hardware, and then we decided that the world is like our programs and our hardware.

Just a little confetti.

Programs and hardware are anthropomorphic in this context. Your use of the terms will ether change the use of the terms (doubtful, given their primacy within actual programing and hardwaring), or the use will just die out.

Just tossing in little bits of confetti here and there for now.

The purpose of life is to find a purpose that suits one's dispositions, is reasonable and fulfilling to the soul. — TheMadFool

Too luke warm.

Get this in your earhole, people. One of the best hooks of all time.

Nah, stay in the shifting groundless ground. It's the only place to be.

:up: Sounds a bit existential for you!

How do you fit those ideas in with your position on intuition, and pre-rationality (is that the word you recently used?) Just curious.

How to spot a pretentious philosopher? — Posty McPostface

They know what you don't know.

When does worshiping a philosopher turn into pretentiousness? — Posty McPostface

When the worship begins.

How do you illustrate that someone is being pretentious if he or she worships a philosopher? — Posty McPostface

In any number of ways, but any number of ways won't drive the point home until she's ready.

Does worshiping a philosopher necessarily mean that one is being pretentious, if so how? — Posty McPostface

No, it just means one is badly mislead.

When do you know your being pretentious? — Posty McPostface

When you fake out on your own morals.

"Posty said you think he's being pretentious??" At least get your fucking grammar right.

Jesus, PMing you.

Again, literally no one knows what you're arguing for right now.

What are we arguing about, philosophically?

Again, I never mentioned you in this, in my first post. This whole thing is meaningless.