If past time is infinite and the Big Bang is a natural event then is seems an infinite number of big bangs must have occurred: — Devans99

What makes you say past time is infinite? Past time is 13.8 billion years. And what makes you believe these parallel universes have contact with ours in any shape or form? To be honest, I don't even know what a parallel universe is.

Well, then it must be. And since we can comprehend it, it is possible to exist. — ep3265

'Reality' might be too complex for human comprehension. We might have to be satisfied that we even got this far in our understanding.

What evidence do we have to point to that? — ep3265

Far cleverer people than me have figured that out. The proper distance—the distance as would be measured at a specific time, including the present—between Earth and the edge of the observable universe is 46 billion light-years (14 billion parsecs), making the diameter of the observable universe about 93 billion light-years (28 billion parsecs).

This is in fact incorrect. We can only look back 13.8 billion years because that is the age of the universe.

provable insofar as human comprehension can be achieved — ep3265

We see only as far as we can look. Even now a large part of the universe is too far away to be seen. We can only see 13.8 billion light years into the past. The universe is a lot larger than that.

Then the Big Bang is obviously a supernatural event. The same cannot be said for life though - it may have occurred on other planets at different times in the past - we do not know for sure. — Devans99

The Big Bang may also have occurred at different times in the past. It might be occurring right now in a parallel universe.

I'll first say that I agree the evolution of culture was mostly mimetic rather than biological, — Enrique

The evolution of culture had been made possible by the use of language. Complex language is what sets us apart from other animals and has allowed us to build a sophisticated culture. I believe language was even the most formative force behind the evolution of our body from Australopithecus into Homo Habilis. If even chimps display a relatively sophisticated use of language, it must be the case that Australopithecus had an even greater command over language. Language must have been instrumental in our evolutionary and later cultural development.

A Buddhist believes he himself contains the world (is the world). Thus by looking into himself he sees the world and learns about the world.

Hell is pain. Heaven is pleasure.
Too much pleasure is a pain.

True wisdom is beyond pain and pleasure. — Wayfarer

True wisdom is knowing what you are talking about and that you clearly do not. There is nothing 'beyond' pain and pleasure and that 'nothing' is called being dead.

Being too selfish is harmful.
Being too altruistic is harmful.
Goldilocks knows best.

Show me a human body which is both male and female, and I will argue that it is neither. Let the vastness of my ignorance overwhelm you! — Metaphysician Undercover

Why do you think a man has nipples? Why do you think a female has a small penis? Why do you think a man can grow breasts? Why do you think both men and woman have testosterone and estrogen hormones in their body?

How am I harmed or hindered by acknowledging there are no objective "oughts"? — ZhouBoTong

Society is already being harmed by the acknowledgment that there are no objective 'oughts'. The objective 'oughts' is what makes 'members of society' from individuals.

aybe we just need to introduce more people to the pleasures of nihilism — ZhouBoTong

The idea that you can find purpose in nihilism is as likely as being able to fill up a black hole.
Humans have throughout history struggled to survive. Our super charged brains have evolved to give us an evolutionary edge in this struggle for survival. The moment this struggle ceases to be necessary we will find ourselves in a void, an emptiness for which we are not psychologically or emotionally equipped to deal with.

We are entering an era of migration crisis. Donald Trump is the foreguard of Fascism ready to defend nationalism. The jack-boots marching can be heard approaching from a distance.

Behave as selfish as you can get without unnecessarily offending others has always been my motto and this has always served me well.

If you could want nothing, like a Buddha, you would have no pain, but also no pleasure. — Pfhorrest

Exactly true. Buddha is basically we saying we want to much and therefor have too much pain.
But then again, only a dead person wants nothing.

Hi there. Is it not kind of the moral responsibility of the creator to create one who is moral. If the creator creates immoral, does that not make the creator immoral? — chromechris

The whole logic of Christian ethics is completely convoluted when you think about it. The people who wrote the bible were no great philosophers. They made a hatchet job of it.

Deeply ingrained in civilized culture as an aspect of human nature, but not a motivational vector leading inevitably to institution-building with its technological foundations. — Enrique

You have to understand that the Homo Sapiens was 200.000 years ago fully equipped to commence it's march towards modern civilization. All the biological traits and a fully functioning language had to be present. From then on it was a case of interplay between culture and environment. Our culture shaping our environment and the environment shaping our culture. As we passed various 'tipping points' such as agriculture and then urban living....Like a spiral staircase it winds it's way up the tower of Babel.

I would say so but there are types who consider the very comprehensibility of our world a miracle — TheMadFool

True. The creation of the Universe and Life are still miracles. This is the reason we are still in no position to abandon our Gods.

Time is measured by the movement of objects or particles. If no particles or ligh waves are moving then there is no time. — christian2017

If that were the case, time would stand still in a perfect vacuum . The vacuum would disappear into the past.

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
John Keats

o I think the selection pressure was initially for speech to serve as a kind of pure artistry, similar to our musical or poetic sensibilities. — Enrique

I don't think I can agree with you there. Even today's monkeys in the wild use a language for conveying information (signal danger. I think research has shown they are even able to convey different types of threats) and not to 'serve as a kind of pure artistry',

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/clever-monkeys-monkeys-and-language/3948/

"Recent studies are finding that the language abilities of some monkeys are more sophisticated than previously believed. Much more sophisticated.

Monkeys live together in social groups. All members contribute by helping to defend food sources, raise young, and watch for predators. But it is impossible to live in a social group without some form of communication. Group members need ways to influence and inform each other. This is what drives language. "

I don't see shadows. What I see is much more detailed than shadows. — Harry Hindu

You are living in Plato's Cave, you can only see shadows.

Yes, thinking in opposites gives us clarity. I liked it when males were males and females were females, — Athena

Well you see that is where people go wrong. They don't understand that most things are a combination of what we perceive to be opposite properties and therefor can not be combined. In fact the human body is both male and female. It is merely that the female is more female than male and men are the opposite: they are more male than female. Once you understand this you will understand why all the gender bender issues exist. I remember my biology teacher telling me they can change a chicken into a rooster and back again by feeding it hormones.

What is anti time? I thought time could only be measured by the movement of particles — christian2017

Might it be then the movement of anti-matter?

but language alone does not inevitably lead to institutions. — Enrique

It is a sine qua non. No civilization without language.

Maybe language platformed the evolution of civilization, — Enrique

It lies at the very birth of civilization. Until now, the earliest tool-maker was thought to be Homo habilis. -
I don't think we even as tool makers would have advanced very far without some rudimentary ability for language.

You can't have waves without time and frequency. Frequency is a function of time — christian2017

Can you please quote me to make it easier for me to understand your objections?

"Brains in a vat" is an external world scenario, thereby language would still have it's uses in such a world. — Harry Hindu

Describing the shadows on the wall of a cave will never give you a satisfactory understanding of your surroundings no matter how sophisticated you are able to formulate your description of them.

stoicism

1.
the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.

If that is Stoicism I would never want to be stoical. Why would anybody be that masochistic?

↪fdrake
↪Galuchat
Here we are 'brains in vat' endlessly discussing how to get a grip on reality with ever more sophisticated language.

We can imagine a God creating the world but not a God creating God.

What does language have to do with knowledge and our sense of reality and being part of the spirit/earth or separate from it? — Athena

Language both connects us to, and separates us from, reality. This is the reason we enjoy taking drugs, like magic mushrooms and cannabis. They tend to knock out our abstract thinking and allows us to 'truly' experience our surroundings.

↪Galuchat Here we are 'brains in vat' endlessly discussing how to get a grip on reality with ever more sophisticated language.

ohn 1:1 is the first verse in the opening chapter of the Gospel of John. In the Douay–Rheims, King James, New International, and other versions of the Bible, the verse reads:In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

It all starts with the spoken word. And yes writing propels it on.

Yes, I think stability instead of an existence in flux is more desirable, in terms of a happy life? — Wallows

Yes, agreed. The source of much dissatisfaction is the instability inherent in modern society.
However too little instability can lead to boredom. It us for everyone of us to find the happy middle ground between boredom and stress. And that is a personal choice.

The pursuit of pleasure has been time and time again, is a futile effort. — Wallows

Starting at zero, what goes up must come down. Going up is fun. Going down not so. You can not separate pleasure from pain, the up from the down. However because we are zero dwellers, what comes up from down does not have to go down again and we do derive pleasure from it. -1 to 0 is the same as 0 to 1 in pleasure terms.

Pleasure or rather, content or satisfaction, will indirectly be promoted by the alleviation of pain. — Wallows

Why indirectly? Why not directly?

origins of civilized social organization — Enrique

That would be language.

1) Pleasure, according to hedonists, is the only good. — Wallows

That is also incorrect. The alleviation of pain is also good.
And all pleasure does eventually become painful and then you have a problem Huston.

I speak out of total frustration. I have books on math and quantum physics and read them in a futile effort to understand what is being said. I get some of it, but not well enough to think in the terms of those fields of knowledge. Kind of like diabetes my head isn't sensitive to that insulin. :cry: — Athena

Totally with you there brother/sister. I just skim over the top with most of it. But I find thinking in opposites gives me great clarity in my understanding of things.