If 2 People have the same philosophy or ~philosophy are they seen as the same tribe? — turkeyMan

The whole concept of separation as I see it leads us to the numerous problems we have today(on many levels of being, both political and scientific). Therefore I would like to think not that we are divided but united under one title "mankind"

the thing. John carpenter's with Kurt Russel. Go old school.

try "that which is" I find it more comprehensive, however that might be me. I have also heard of "IT" being addressed as "the un-nameable"

Your post assumes that you need salvation, which may be, you can judge that. Some of us are not seeking salvation, indeed have no interest in a deity who seeks to save us.

That the deity you mention seems so intent on having people only worship him, in order to save themselves, seems...weak and bankrupt. If I am all powerful, why do I need your worship? Worship whoever you like, makes no difference to me, I am all powerful anyway. Never really appreciated the sales pitch associated with Christianity, just generally unappealing.

The eastern philosophies seem much more thought out, something you can sink your teeth into.

It could be information from past lives or it could be thoughts themselves that already exist on another plane of being that is partially tapped into at a young age. — Thinking

It is possible, but the major idea is that memory continues through the Small Sleep and the Big Sleep. This is what defines the individual as being and this is how we know ourselves as individuals.

I guess you've seen a movie before. I try if i can to forget what movies teach me. Its really hard to do that.

So then it must be true for if it wasn't then it would be paradoxical and therefore it couldn't exist. — Thinking

Paradox of paradigms?

paradox. If we didn't create our own reality then in no way does that knowledge serve us since we cannot leave the reality we live in. Potentially unless we die, but then that is disempowering us to live our lives right now. Therefore it should be believed and true that we create our experience as long as we cannot leave the reality we are in.

For those who are interested

It seems that my assertion that there's nothing by way of a shared characteristic that runs through all that there's in the universe is incorrect or, in my defense, incomplete. The lack of a unifying principle in the universe is only so in a qualitative sense and, if you give the matter some thought, it becomes quite obvious what it is that's common to all that the universe contains, quantity.

The mathematical concept of a set is a collection and that's all there is to sets. Unlike classes/categories, sets don't need to make sense i.e. there's no necessity for there to be a pattern among its elements/members.

Set A = {x | x is is a state which borders Alabama}

Set B = {"writer", 234, { }, $}

Set A does have a (qualitative) pattern - there's something that's common to all its members and this is what a category/class is.

Set B, on the other hand, has no (qualitative) pattern - there's nothing in common to all its members but only in a qualitative sense. Nonetheless, if you look at it quantitatively, "writer" counts as a 1, 234 counts as another 1, { } also is 1, and last but not the least $ is just another 1. The oneness of set B's members is what's common to all its members. The universe is like set B - if you use qualitative properties they all end in contradictions but if you use quantitative properties, you'll see a unity to the universe that isn't available to someone unacquainted with numbers.

Set theory was developed by the great Georg Cantor who, some say, was obsessed with infinity and even believed that God is to be found in the infinite. Anyway, below is a particularly interesting take on Georg Cantor's use of the greek letter Aleph for infinity:

Aleph or Alef (א), is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the number 1 in Hebrew. Its esoteric meaning in Judaic Kabbalah, as denoted in the ancient theological treatise Bahir, relates to the origin of the universe, the "primordial one that contains all numbers." — Wikipedia

In short, the much-talked-about The Nameless in Taoism is, under this reading, what in set theory is the set that contains everything - the Universal Set. I wish the story of Taoism ended here, on a good note but, alas, this just isn't the lucky break we were looking for. Russell's paradox turns the notion of the Universal Set on its head, in fact it precludes the very existence of the Universal Set. The little sliver of hope there I thought I saw turned out to be nothing more than a mirage.

To get to the point then, it's impossible to reduce Taoism's The Nameless - interpreted to mean the whole - to a category i.e. it's impossible to find a unifying principle that ties all there is into a neat little box.. Neither quantity nor quality (is there anything else?) does the trick.

:chin:

Luckily, one can observe the shadows of the Dao by looking at its etchings.



Look closely, and you'll see the description of Creation, from Wuji to Taiji. It even explains why?

Neither quantity nor quality (is there anything else?) does the trick. — TheMadFool

Perhaps the duality in the universe is less of the current "yin and yang" idea or polarity (qualities) and infinite and finite (quantities), but something that is in between these two(again with the unity of opposites). I propose the duality is simply existence and non-existence, mind and anti-mind, rationality and anti-rationality...ad infinitum and that the universe is created through a unity of these opposites.

If we didn't create our own reality — Thinking

We certainly create our own reality to some degree and everyone's reality is different - to some degree.

exactly