My question is: does Schamesh exist? — frank

Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn
In flowing Purple, of their Lord Forlorn;
Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal’d
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.

— FitzOmar

What does that mean?

It requires deductive reasoning from available (conditional) evidence to logical conclusions. — Gnomon

So the fear factor is that you accept the unproven as proven, and as such, you accept it to be the premise on which an argument is built to lead you to your conclusion.

Well. This is contentious. What if my unproven and assumed-to-be-true premise is incongruent with yours?

Then we play chicken, who will leap first? Or just simply not engage in an argument?

This is the first time someone called me wise. I am being myself in the world.

You're babbling at bit here. — Punshhh

I quoted you VERBATIM.

Then you called me babbling.

What does that say about your opinion? To me it means, that you were babbling in the first place. And not only did you not realize it, but you seem to despise and condescend to those, who agree with what you say.

It is disturbing when you see yourself in the mirror and you realize only a bit later, maybe by someone explaining it to you, that it's your own reflection.

But seriously, are you really yourself in the world? Or are you simply a culturally conditioned persona, believing a collection of pieces of information given you by imperfect people in your environment? — Punshhh

Whatever I am: conditioned by culture, beleiving in pieces of information that imperfect people gave me: I am still me. I am I, and I am not not I.

I can't not be me, however was I produced to be who I am.

if there is a God, you might be more than you think

My fundamental premise is that human cruelty, greed and exploitation of nature are "bad." — uncanni

True. But Kindness, Generosity, and Conservation of Nature are good. Unlike animals, humans are moral agents. They have a choice to do good or bad. But most are pretty good or not so bad. Only a few are excessively extreme in their saintliness or demonism. That's why, in an imperfect world that seems to be gradually getting better (morally), we need to appreciate the moderate. It's OK to be just OK.

Philosophers shouldn't become despondent about the world's flaws, but merely work to make their little corner of the world better. In view of Aristotle's Golden Mean and the modern Mediocrity Principle, "The idea is to assume mediocrity, rather than starting with the assumption that a phenomenon is special, privileged, exceptional, or even superior". As moral beings, we can imagine Utopia, which gives us something to work toward as we muddle through our mundane lives. But, unless you expect God to rapture you directly to Heaven, just be grateful that this is the best of all "real" worlds. :smile:

Steven Pinker on The Better Angels of Our Nature: 'reasons to be grateful' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GUdPIVymKQ

The Mediocrity Principle : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle

Desiderata : https://mwkworks.com/desiderata.html

Whatever I am: conditioned by culture, beleiving in pieces of information that imperfect people gave me: I am still me. I am I, and I am not not I.

I can't not be me, however was I produced to be who I am. — god must be atheist

"I was born this way" ___Lady Gaga

What if my unproven and assumed-to-be-true premise is incongruent with yours? — god must be atheist

That's why we have philosophy. Not to decide what's true, but what's reasonable. :smile:

Humans' endless task is tikkun olam--repair of the world. — uncanni

Well, truth is more of a stranger in this story than fiction, so Nobody was well on his way to the early days of oblivion…

“How’s it going,” asked Rascal of Nobody.

“It’s raining,” answered Nobody.

“Hardly?” inquired Puff, the better side of the plurality of he and himself.

“It’s hardly raining hardly,” answered Nobody.

“What does that mean exactly?” asked Rascal, along with many others.

“Never mind,” said Nobody. “I have an umbrella!”

Austin piped in that the English language was becoming slightly affected, via the interruptions in past, but encouraged that the journey go on, and so it continued as it progressed and went on.

“By the way, what’s the antecedent of ‘it’ in “It’s raining?” posted WiseGuy, thinking he had posed quite a tough question.

“Nothing,” said Nobody, “in the form of reverse gravity and forward light, the ultimate antecedent, of our time dilation called reality. I’m getting damp.”

Rascal added that “A little rain never hurt Nobody,” a new and original saying that suddenly appeared in the book of the 2501 greatest sayings ever.

“I hope the rain keeps up,” said Nobody.

“Why?” inquired Profpat.

“So then it won’t come down!”

“How’s it going, Nobody?” asked Rascal again, figuring that Nobody’s watch was fast from relativity and that some hours had passed.

Nobody replied, “I heard that the universe was a free lunch, so I’m having it in a restaurant on an asteroid.”

“How is it?”

“The food is great, but there’s no atmosphere.”

Now, there’s always someone who interrupts threads with off the wall stuff, so ChickenMan tried to catch Rascal unawares with “Why did the chicken fly across the road?” and “Did the egg cross into God’s universe before the chicken?”

Rascal, taking all this in stride during a lull, replied, “As allowed by Einstein’s relativity, the road moved to the other side of the chicken, then, the chicken didn’t land so much as the road rose to meet the chicken, as it extended in 4D, much like the baseball field rises to meet the pop up, since All is expanding. Furthermore, chickens can’t fly! Also, the chicken came first, for I can’t really picture ‘God’ sitting on an egg to hatch it. Now, we’re trying to better tune in the universal DNA here, so no more chicken shit posts please!”

“Hold it,” warned Graybeard. “Some critical atoms must have been disturbed by Nobody’s journey. Now the “Ace”, a new name for the formerly bottommost playing card, the lowly “one”, is now higher than the King in many kinds of card games; this is a sacrilege and a travesty! Wait until London hears about this.”

Mkirkpatrick somehow got into the conference call and said, “Just heard, but relax. The All is the One; the “A” on the card really stands for “All”, for this is what gave rise to the monarchy. And of course the one is the One.”

“It’s okay,” Fredrick said calmly, being an expert on numbers and on playing them, “the play and strategy of all affected card games has not been altered in any way. Keep on going, Nobody.”

While some old times passed, Graybeard stood around looking at the man in the moon and watching the grass grow. Fredrick checked his watch to see if he was wearing it and then counted to five on his left hand. Fine. On the other hand, he still had five fingers, so, all was still going well in the good old days. Profpat sharpened his pencil until it got down to the eraser.

Rascal interjected, “Some sort of high stakes poker mania called “Texas Hold ‘em” has broken out in some countries. Googling now. It’s even replacing baseball on many TV channels!”

“It’s okay,” reassured Fredrick, “No harm done. We’ll pass it off as another fad.”

Nobody was heading billions of years into the past, having left the asteroid before he got a polaroid from sitting on it too long, and was passing many frolicking Dodo birds, along with the beginnings of such ancient notions as alchemy and astrology. (Hey, why are hemorrhoids not called asteroids?)



A rickety old rope bridge of rotting planks finally led Nobody past many antiquities such as one-cent stamps and on to the control panel of the ancient broadcasting station of CBS—the Cosmic Broadcast Station.

“Be careful,” advised Profpat. “Be so very delicate with any adjustments. Remember, on Earth, how the tiniest minute adjustment of a shower knob of even a millionth of an inch causes the shower water to become totally steaming hot! No plumber in the universe has ever been able to resolve this problem. It has something to do with quarks, quicks, and quacks.”

“Don’t worry,” answered Nobody. “I’ll be gentle; I’ll just breathe on it slightly. We want clarity in the universe’s DNA and ours, as in improving the reception of a TV set, not unproving it back into the stone age of three channels, all of them baseball games, and the weather, with snow and static on the others. I’ll do my best, come hell or hot water.”

Nobody sprayed a few atoms toward the antenna and waited. His data/video link soon improved but then overloaded from the high transfer speed and burned out. Nobody’s cell phone soon rang, but it was only a solicitor trying to sell him some time-share condos; however, Graybeard finally got through and said “Great, the stars are becoming clearer and I can even see some galaxies with the naked eye, but take it slow; we don’t want to upset the balance of nature by making it too bright at night. It’s good to tighten a screw, but if we tighten it too much and we’re screwed.

“Wait, hold it! I can see Venus, the goddess of love and passion all too well. Yikes, I didn’t know she was that old! Plus, I now have x-ray vision and can see into all the apartments, but the worst thing is that I can hear everything they are saying. Some things should be obscene and not heard! Also, I’m getting something called ‘cartoons’ on my TV set, and they’re really weird, very unreal looking and everyone in them is doing silly things.”

Nobody took out a hand held ‘vacuum’ cleaner and brought a few atoms back in as a fine adjustment.

“Good,” cheered Graybeard, “that’s a good balance. Try something a little higher up and let’s see what happens. I am reading some fluctuations out of kilter around there.”

Notions of up and down were useless in space, so Nobody picked a direction at random.

“No,” said Graybeard. “Not that way; use your other ‘up’.”

“Okay, I’m switching. Back in kilter?”

Graybeard answered, “I don’t know; I’m seeing another goddess.”

Suddenly, the Chicago Cubs, which had finally made it to the World Series of baseball, were swept in four straight games, while the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and other unbelievables in attendance looked on in horror.

Then Michael Jordan gave up basketball for baseball and then switched back to basketball again. Global warming picked up and then an ice age began. Jesus, born a Christian, became Jewish, then converted back again. Hell froze over and then thawed out. The same with the River of Forgetfulness; everyone was walking on water for a while and running like Hell from Hades.

Profpat warned “Watch that shower knob, Nobody; the River Styx just boiled away and a bunch of dead people drowned after many more escaped!”

“Where are they going?” inquired Nobody.

Profpat replied, “They don’t know; they say they have CRS disease.”

“What’s CRS stand for?”

“Can’t Remember Shit.”

“OK guys. A little upper, Nobody” requested Graybeard. “That other direction was a downer.”

Nobody reached up and out, but the bridge creaked and groaned, causing Nobody to slip a bit as a rope frayed, and all the TOE researchers feared that his adjustment time was now quite limited.

Meanwhile, Barry Bonds had broken the home run record, but, of course, steroids would be blamed for it. Mount Rushmore had briefly turned into Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan, but just as soon returned back. However, the Boston Red Sox still won a World Series for the first time in 100 years.

Also, it turned out that someone named Yogi Berra had said many sayings that seemed to make sense, but really didn’t, like “That restaurant is so crowded that no one goes there anymore”, “It gets dark early out here”, “If people don’t want to come out to the ball park, nobody’s going to stop them”, “It’s deja vu all over again”, “I didn’t really say all of the things I said”, and many more unsayings.

Silly signs appeared on highways, like “Road Works” (it doesn’t work well during construction), and “Speed Zone” (meaning slow down). Something called rap music had become ever-present, as well as a new word, “oxymoron”, which was probably a related event. A funny thing happened to President Clinton, but he wasn’t impeached for it. He neither inhales nor does he have sex.

“This one may be hard to explain,” lamented Fredrick, “but we’ll chalk it up to human nature.”

Nobody did some fiddling of some knobs that he wasn’t supposed to touch, twiddling “More of This-ness”, and, as a result some people on Krypton started to make every shot in basketball games, even from 50 miles away, being really IN THE ZONE, plus doing many other superhuman things. All the TOE viewers from Earth were cheering this, but Fredrick warned them that total perfection might take all the fun out of life.

“Better hold off,” Graybeard suggested.

Nobody dialed the knobs back a little.

RascalPuff interjected, “Some people are now reporting that they can fly like superman in some new event called ‘sleeping hallucinations’ or ‘night dreams’.”

Also, zeroes began to look like the alphabetic letter ‘oh’, causing much confusion, along with ‘one’ looking like ‘el’, and some words began to have the same sound, as called a ‘homonym’ but not a ‘homonim’, and some with similar meanings; as called a ‘synonym’, although it had none itself, and some words now had multiple meanings. And how come ‘monosyllabic’ wasn’t? Nor was ‘phonetic’ spelled the way it sounded. And why was ‘abbreviation’ such a long word without any? Also, ‘love’ was reduced to having only the two good rhymes of ‘dove’ and ‘above’, which soon became overused and stale, frustrating many poets and their readers.

Austin reported that a part of Hawaii had sprung up in Wildwood, NJ, named ‘Sunset Bay’ and that it had had big fat singers, torches, palm trees, waterfalls, tropical flowers, a half-ship at the end of a pier that served as a bar, good food (ordering raw oysters well done), although it consisted of only waves and fields (lucky that his brain turned the noumena into phenomena), and sand all around as a floor. Also, he said that many more ‘o’s had appeared in the word ‘Goo…ooogle’.

Fredrick suggested that the sleeping visions were harmless and probably helped us in some way, that homonyms gave poets even more rhymes, that synonyms and words with multiple meanings would enrich the language, that zeroes could have a slash added through them for differentiation, that typewriters were obsolete, that we could get used to the odd words, perhaps some day getting even with them, that the word ‘of’ now rhymed with ‘love’, that ‘Hawaii in New Jersey’ would be seen as a planned tourist attraction, and that Google’s extra “o’s” would probably get used in a marketing ploy as denoting the internet page ranges of interest.

if there is a God, you might be more than you think — Punshhh

That's just as much baloney as the idea of a holy trinity.

Let's assume that you're right.

I am now X. But if there is a god, then I am X+Y.

So I am X+Y. And I am not any more than X+Y, because the extra thing got added to me in the case of a god belief, so I continue to be, precisely no more and no less, than me, X+Y.

if there is a God, you might be more than you think — Punshhh

It's like saying, "If there is a god, you will weigh five lbs more than you weigh", or "... you will run five miles an hour faster than you run," etc.

It actually does not matter what I think I am, in the determination of what I am. If I am X, then whether I think I am X+Y or else if I think I am less then X, say X-Z, then I am NOT what I think, but I am still precisely me.

Well, truth is more of a stranger in this story than fiction, so Nobody was well on his way to the early days of oblivion…

“How’s it going,” asked Rascal of Nobody.

“It’s raining,” answered Nobody.

“Hardly?” inquired Puff, the better side of the plurality of he and himself.

“It’s hardly raining hardly,” answered Nobody.

“What does that mean exactly?” asked Rascal, along with many others.

“Never mind,” said Nobody. “I have an umbrella!”

Austin piped in that the English language was becoming slightly affected, via the interruptions in past, but encouraged that the journey go on, and so it continued as it progressed and went on.

“By the way, what’s the antecedent of ‘it’ in “It’s raining?” posted WiseGuy, thinking he had posed quite a tough question.

“Nothing,” said Nobody, “in the form of reverse gravity and forward light, the ultimate antecedent, of our time dilation called reality. I’m getting damp.”

Rascal added that “A little rain never hurt Nobody,” a new and original saying that suddenly appeared in the book of the 2501 greatest sayings ever.

“I hope the rain keeps up,” said Nobody.

“Why?” inquired Profpat.

“So then it won’t come down!”

“How’s it going, Nobody?” asked Rascal again, figuring that Nobody’s watch was fast from relativity and that some hours had passed.

Nobody replied, “I heard that the universe was a free lunch, so I’m having it in a restaurant on an asteroid.”

“How is it?”

“The food is great, but there’s no atmosphere.”

Now, there’s always someone who interrupts threads with off the wall stuff, so ChickenMan tried to catch Rascal unawares with “Why did the chicken fly across the road?” and “Did the egg cross into God’s universe before the chicken?”

Rascal, taking all this in stride during a lull, replied, “As allowed by Einstein’s relativity, the road moved to the other side of the chicken, then, the chicken didn’t land so much as the road rose to meet the chicken, as it extended in 4D, much like the baseball field rises to meet the pop up, since All is expanding. Furthermore, chickens can’t fly! Also, the chicken came first, for I can’t really picture ‘God’ sitting on an egg to hatch it. Now, we’re trying to better tune in the universal DNA here, so no more chicken shit posts please!”

“Hold it,” warned Graybeard. “Some critical atoms must have been disturbed by Nobody’s journey. Now the “Ace”, a new name for the formerly bottommost playing card, the lowly “one”, is now higher than the King in many kinds of card games; this is a sacrilege and a travesty! Wait until London hears about this.”

Mkirkpatrick somehow got into the conference call and said, “Just heard, but relax. The All is the One; the “A” on the card really stands for “All”, for this is what gave rise to the monarchy. And of course the one is the One.”

“It’s okay,” Fredrick said calmly, being an expert on numbers and on playing them, “the play and strategy of all affected card games has not been altered in any way. Keep on going, Nobody.”

While some old times passed, Graybeard stood around looking at the man in the moon and watching the grass grow. Fredrick checked his watch to see if he was wearing it and then counted to five on his left hand. Fine. On the other hand, he still had five fingers, so, all was still going well in the good old days. Profpat sharpened his pencil until it got down to the eraser.

Rascal interjected, “Some sort of high stakes poker mania called “Texas Hold ‘em” has broken out in some countries. Googling now. It’s even replacing baseball on many TV channels!”

“It’s okay,” reassured Fredrick, “No harm done. We’ll pass it off as another fad.”

Nobody was heading billions of years into the past, having left the asteroid before he got a polaroid from sitting on it too long, and was passing many frolicking Dodo birds, along with the beginnings of such ancient notions as alchemy and astrology. (Hey, why are hemorrhoids not called asteroids?)



A rickety old rope bridge of rotting planks finally led Nobody past many antiquities such as one-cent stamps and on to the control panel of the ancient broadcasting station of CBS—the Cosmic Broadcast Station.

“Be careful,” advised Profpat. “Be so very delicate with any adjustments. Remember, on Earth, how the tiniest minute adjustment of a shower knob of even a millionth of an inch causes the shower water to become totally steaming hot! No plumber in the universe has ever been able to resolve this problem. It has something to do with quarks, quicks, and quacks.”

“Don’t worry,” answered Nobody. “I’ll be gentle; I’ll just breathe on it slightly. We want clarity in the universe’s DNA and ours, as in improving the reception of a TV set, not unproving it back into the stone age of three channels, all of them baseball games, and the weather, with snow and static on the others. I’ll do my best, come hell or hot water.”

Nobody sprayed a few atoms toward the antenna and waited. His data/video link soon improved but then overloaded from the high transfer speed and burned out. Nobody’s cell phone soon rang, but it was only a solicitor trying to sell him some time-share condos; however, Graybeard finally got through and said “Great, the stars are becoming clearer and I can even see some galaxies with the naked eye, but take it slow; we don’t want to upset the balance of nature by making it too bright at night. It’s good to tighten a screw, but if we tighten it too much and we’re screwed.

“Wait, hold it! I can see Venus, the goddess of love and passion all too well. Yikes, I didn’t know she was that old! Plus, I now have x-ray vision and can see into all the apartments, but the worst thing is that I can hear everything they are saying. Some things should be obscene and not heard! Also, I’m getting something called ‘cartoons’ on my TV set, and they’re really weird, very unreal looking and everyone in them is doing silly things.”

Nobody took out a hand held ‘vacuum’ cleaner and brought a few atoms back in as a fine adjustment.

“Good,” cheered Graybeard, “that’s a good balance. Try something a little higher up and let’s see what happens. I am reading some fluctuations out of kilter around there.”

Notions of up and down were useless in space, so Nobody picked a direction at random.

“No,” said Graybeard. “Not that way; use your other ‘up’.”

“Okay, I’m switching. Back in kilter?”

Graybeard answered, “I don’t know; I’m seeing another goddess.”

Suddenly, the Chicago Cubs, which had finally made it to the World Series of baseball, were swept in four straight games, while the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and other unbelievables in attendance looked on in horror.

Then Michael Jordan gave up basketball for baseball and then switched back to basketball again. Global warming picked up and then an ice age began. Jesus, born a Christian, became Jewish, then converted back again. Hell froze over and then thawed out. The same with the River of Forgetfulness; everyone was walking on water for a while and running like Hell from Hades.

Profpat warned “Watch that shower knob, Nobody; the River Styx just boiled away and a bunch of dead people drowned after many more escaped!”

“Where are they going?” inquired Nobody.

Profpat replied, “They don’t know; they say they have CRS disease.”

“What’s CRS stand for?”

“Can’t Remember Shit.”

“OK guys. A little upper, Nobody” requested Graybeard. “That other direction was a downer.”

Nobody reached up and out, but the bridge creaked and groaned, causing Nobody to slip a bit as a rope frayed, and all the TOE researchers feared that his adjustment time was now quite limited.

Meanwhile, Barry Bonds had broken the home run record, but, of course, steroids would be blamed for it. Mount Rushmore had briefly turned into Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan, but just as soon returned back. However, the Boston Red Sox still won a World Series for the first time in 100 years.

Also, it turned out that someone named Yogi Berra had said many sayings that seemed to make sense, but really didn’t, like “That restaurant is so crowded that no one goes there anymore”, “It gets dark early out here”, “If people don’t want to come out to the ball park, nobody’s going to stop them”, “It’s deja vu all over again”, “I didn’t really say all of the things I said”, and many more unsayings.

Silly signs appeared on highways, like “Road Works” (it doesn’t work well during construction), and “Speed Zone” (meaning slow down). Something called rap music had become ever-present, as well as a new word, “oxymoron”, which was probably a related event. A funny thing happened to President Clinton, but he wasn’t impeached for it. He neither inhales nor does he have sex.

“This one may be hard to explain,” lamented Fredrick, “but we’ll chalk it up to human nature.”

Nobody did some fiddling of some knobs that he wasn’t supposed to touch, twiddling “More of This-ness”, and, as a result some people on Krypton started to make every shot in basketball games, even from 50 miles away, being really IN THE ZONE, plus doing many other superhuman things. All the TOE viewers from Earth were cheering this, but Fredrick warned them that total perfection might take all the fun out of life.

“Better hold off,” Graybeard suggested.

Nobody dialed the knobs back a little.

RascalPuff interjected, “Some people are now reporting that they can fly like superman in some new event called ‘sleeping hallucinations’ or ‘night dreams’.”

Also, zeroes began to look like the alphabetic letter ‘oh’, causing much confusion, along with ‘one’ looking like ‘el’, and some words began to have the same sound, as called a ‘homonym’ but not a ‘homonim’, and some with similar meanings; as called a ‘synonym’, although it had none itself, and some words now had multiple meanings. And how come ‘monosyllabic’ wasn’t? Nor was ‘phonetic’ spelled the way it sounded. And why was ‘abbreviation’ such a long word without any? Also, ‘love’ was reduced to having only the two good rhymes of ‘dove’ and ‘above’, which soon became overused and stale, frustrating many poets and their readers.

Austin reported that a part of Hawaii had sprung up in Wildwood, NJ, named ‘Sunset Bay’ and that it had had big fat singers, torches, palm trees, waterfalls, tropical flowers, a half-ship at the end of a pier that served as a bar, good food (ordering raw oysters well done), although it consisted of only waves and fields (lucky that his brain turned the noumena into phenomena), and sand all around as a floor. Also, he said that many more ‘o’s had appeared in the word ‘Goo…ooogle’.

Fredrick suggested that the sleeping visions were harmless and probably helped us in some way, that homonyms gave poets even more rhymes, that synonyms and words with multiple meanings would enrich the language, that zeroes could have a slash added through them for differentiation, that typewriters were obsolete, that we could get used to the odd words, perhaps some day getting even with them, that the word ‘of’ now rhymed with ‘love’, that ‘Hawaii in New Jersey’ would be seen as a planned tourist attraction, and that Google’s extra “o’s” would probably get used in a marketing ploy as denoting the internet page ranges of interest. — PoeticUniverse

Has anyone here other than @PoeticUniverse read the above post (quoted for verification of antecedent) end-to-end without even skipping parts?

G_d had to create a space in which to allow matter to exist, so It inhaled. This is called the tsimtsum, G_d's contraction or limitation, or even an internal exile. This contraction was catastrophic, there was a shattering of divine vessels of light and for bits of evil were trapped in the material world. — uncanni

A Massive Big Bang explosion hardly seems to be a good way of intelligently designing a universe, but rather appears as if something really got out of hand.

Perhaps some opposite quantum fields, although having a great lightness of being nevertheless piled up so much that they reached the limit of density, infinite density not being possible, and then blew all to hell, with elementary particles as centers of oscillation.

The wave lengths make for extension into dimension; the wave frequencies make for energy; the opposite wave amplitudes made for positive and negative charge defining matter from antimatter; the waves becoming protons or quarks; the wave envelopes becoming electrons…

Or Somebody spilled something or had an accident or inhaled too much.

Segno (Sign) # 0

“There’s the aether”, replied the other, apace,
“The 5th state, one that pervades all of space,
Yet there are no signposts of it up ahead,
Or anywhere, since it’s of every stead.

“We regard it as the stuff of which Gods are made,
That lively spirit of elixir that their nature bade,
For, just as all mortal creatures inhale the air,
So do immortal and divine natures inhale the aether.”

“The intimation is the mark of their manifestation,
A demonstration and a token of the evidencention—
The aetheric and Heavenly sign of things to come,
Both the portent of the miracle and its omen.

“It is of the warning and the notice let,
Presaging both the promise and the threat.
Of this sign the aether follows, the gesture beckons;
‘Tis the signal, the wave and gesticulation reckoned.

“We can read the writing in the sky, the marquee,
Daubed with symbols marking the cipher free,
With characters, figures, and hieroglyphs of time,
The ideogram of the rune, the emblem of the Divine.”





Yet only a hair (like an Alef) divides the false from the true…

Segno (Sign) # 1

“There is the ‘vacuum’”, replied the other,
“A base state, one pervading all of space,
There being no signposts within it,
Or anywhere, since it moves in no direction.

“We must regard it the stuff of which things are made;
For just as all living creatures inhale the air,
So do all the real natures inhale the vacuum.”

“This intimation is the mark of manifestation,
A demonstration that’s the token of the evidence;
The aetheric and heavenly sign of things to become,
Both the portent and the omen of so much possibility.

“It is both the warning and the present notice,
Presaging both the promise and the threat.

“Aft this sign, that the vacuum ‘indirects’,
Then the real gestures ever beckon;
They of an unsignal faint,
The wave and gesticulation of you.

“We read the noise of the quantum theater—no marquee;
All is daubed without symbols, to mark no cipher, bare,
No letters, characters, figures, or hieroglyphs there,
No ideogram of the rune of order,
No emblem of the Divine.”

end-to-end without even skipping parts — god must be atheist

Nobody Nowhere is well on his way to repairing God's universe.

A test of good reading or speed reading?

And did anyone watch the 'Programming the Universe' video?

Some 'fortunate' accidents of nature to support either a design or a multiverse:

I said if there is a God, I did not say if there is a God belief.

So you are what you think or know yourself to be and that's all?

How wise indeed (not).

A Massive Big Bang explosion hardly seems to be a good way of intelligently designing a universe, but rather appears as if something really got out of hand. — PoeticUniverse

I think it's perfect: intelligent design, in my mind, is physics, is what is. "Intelligent design" is a bit too anthropomorphic of a phrase for my preferences.

I like the story of the tsimtsum because it's poetic: I imagine a very lonely G_d, holding its breath, wondering how on earth to fix the catastrophic creation of evil. Humankind has fallen far behind vAs far as we know, it's only a problem on our little speck of a planet.

I am what I am regardless of what I think. And I can't be more than what I am.

I did not say I can't be more than what I think I am.

You asked me two incongruent questions in two different parts of this thread:
1.

But seriously, are you really yourself in the world? — Punshhh

2.

So you are what you think or know yourself to be and that's all? — Punshhh

To 1. the answer is yes. The answer to 2. is not sure.

Please notice precisely what you asked.

And enough of this already.

To make a long story from Isaac Luria's Kabbalistic Zohar short:
G_d had to create a space in which to allow matter to exist, so It inhaled. This is called the tsimtsum, G_d's contraction or limitation, or even an internal exile. — uncanni

The Kabbalah has a complex explanation for the imperfections of the creation, with lots of magical symbols and characters, which lends itself to myth-making.

My thesis of Enformationism, has a different rationale; based on modern scientific understanding, instead of imaginative (magical) interpretations of ancient scriptures. It's rather abstract and has only one "character", hence not much fodder for mythologizing. Instead of "emptying himself", G*D created space, *a bubble", within Infinity, simply by trans-forming Generic Information (the essence of G*D) into specific forms (real things). Since G*D is all-information-all-the-time, that bubble of space is full of the essence of G*D : EnFormAction or Energy (science magic). Logically, if the bubble was perfect and complete, it would be G*D, eternal & infinite. So, by necessity, it is incomplete, which leaves it free to expand (space), and imperfect, which allows it to evolve (time) within Infinity.

Like the Kabbalah, this is a made-up story, and not to be taken literally. It's only useful as a way of thinking about the otherwise unimaginable. The Kabbalah is too complex & technical to be a popular creation story. So it appeals primarily to a few intellectuals who enjoy mystical puzzles. Enformationism is also too unfamiliar & technical & non-magical to become a popular account of creation and evolution. So, it will likely appeal to only a minority of pragmatic philosophers, who might enjoy a novel approach to an ancient mystery. The Enformationism thesis is a hypothetical account for how the world came to be, and to become, and should be accepted only as food for thought. It's no more true than any other scientific postulate. :cool:

Generic Information : Information is Generic in the sense of generating all forms from a formless pool of possibility : the Platonic Forms.

EnFormAction : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html

A Massive Big Bang explosion hardly seems to be a good way of intelligently designing a universe, but rather appears as if something really got out of hand. — PoeticUniverse

That's why my alternate version of the scientific theory of "creation" is called Intelligent Evolution. Astronomer Fred Hoyle, who assumed the world was eternal, labeled the proposed Expanding Universe theory as a "Big Bang", in order to ridicule the notion that all of space-time could have emerged from a pin-point in the abyss of no-where & no-when. Imagined as an explosion, it would seem to be self-destructive. Which now seems more plausible, since the fading final days of the universe are currently labeled "Heat Death".

By contrast with the down-hill dead-end of the Big Bang theory, Intelligent Evolution proposes that the world is progressing from essentially nothing toward something positive. It's imagined as a computer program beginning from a kernel code (singularity) and calculating all possible permutations of random freedom constrained by a specific set of laws, and initial conditions. This theory is just the opposite of Intelligent Design, which assumes that the world began as a perfect Garden of Eden, and was corrupted by Satan-inspired humans. After the Original Sin, it was all down-hill, until the perverted world is finally destroyed by its disappointed and thwarted creator.

The Intelligent Evolution theory infers from the same evidence that the Garden of Eden was not an end in itself, but that the process of upward evolution was the point of the exercise. The evolutionary program will eventually run its course, of course, but it will have produced the answer to The Programmer's question, "what will happen if . . ." For all I know, the answer might be "42". :smile:

Intelligent Evolution : http://gnomon.enformationism.info/Essays/Intelligent%20Evolution%20Essay_Prego_120106.pdf

Cosmic Progression : http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page28.html

The Enformationism thesis is a hypothetical account for how the world came to be, and to become, and should be accepted only as food for thought. — Gnomon

It's delicious!! I like it a lot.

The evolutionary program will eventually run its course, — Gnomon

Time to take more control…

Just about then, the moth-eaten walkway began its collapse, and all the cell-phoners quickly warned Nobody, for they could see the whole scene unfolding before their eyes knew about it.

“Run!” they all said in unison, and with text messages, as well. “Run for your life. Get out of there. The bridge…” All contact was lost, for Nobody’s cell phone roaming charges had become astronomical and overdue, causing his account to be canceled.

There was now nothing but nothing under Nobody’s feet, an impossibility, of course, for nothing can’t exist, but it was there, never the less; however, Nobody didn’t begin to fall right away, as in cartoons when no one falls until they realize through consciousness that there is nothing holding them up, and so he gained a precious second and leapt, just in time, back onto the falling bridge, having had the presence of mind during that split second of warning to attach a piece of tin foil to the antenna, a last ditch attempt to help humanity progress beyond TV sitcoms, Lindsey Lohan, Donald Trump, and Paris Hilton.

He moved quickly and soon accelerated to the speed of light, which was a lot faster back then, on the bridge that was literally (or virtually) crumbling as he ran across it.

No one knew where Nobody was or if he did nothing or didn’t do nothing. Concern set in. Worry followed. Despair appeared. Woe rang the doorbell. Grimness sat on the front steps. A bill collector drove up.

Rascal saddened, but kept Googling to keep his mind busy, while Graybeard stopped ogling the virgin super clusters of Virgo with both of his naked eyes, although noting, “chaste makes waste”, keeping one eye open, and even put off the opening off a beer. Fredrick, getting all teary eyed, tried to remember the good times with Nobody. Well, that was easy; they were all good times. RascalPuff checked all of his copyrights. “Darn, they’re still there. Why is there no sign of Nobody and why is Nobody not home, and what is the meaning of what I am saying? Or not.”

Well, although we are all supposed to know “everything”, or at least the theory of, we might as well just ask our teen-age offspring, for they know it all.

Michael even left his lounge chair and put down his laptop. Austin, although silently alarmed, fed french fries to a thousand seagulls, his step-kids laughing and taking a video of it… until he ran towards the kids, throwing more fries to lead the flapping flock onward toward them. He thought that Nobody might never make it, and began preparing a remembrance:

The Possibility of Being

This is the creature there has never been.
They never knew it, and yet, none the less,
They loved the way it moved, its suppleness,
Its neck, its very gaze, mild and serene.

Not there, because they loved it,
It behaved as though it were.
They always left some space.

And in that clear unpeopled space they saved
It lightly reared its head,
With scarce a trace of not being there.

They fed it, not with corn,
But only with the possibility of being.
And that was able to confer such strength,
Its brow put forth a horn. One horn.
Whitely it stole up to a maid —
To be within the silver mirror and in her.

(from Sonnets To Orpheus Second Part,
R. M. Rilke 1923)


IN HONOR OF NOBODY,

Who can under-stand the universe,
Not even needing a place to stand,
That is nowhere and everywhere,
A wizard creating something of nothing,
Whose imagination reaches the edge
Of forever, beyond, and before.


The Edge of the Universe

Existence extends its electromagnetic preach
As far as its atomic influences can reach;
Beyond all of that there is nothing there
But the naught of very thin ‘air’. (nothing)


Profpat, sidelined by so many recent TOE readings and contributions, had gotten back on his feet by missing two car payments. His career now in ruins, he switched to archeology.

MJA said, “Nobody was the most equal man I ever knew.”

Lloyd pondered the linguistics of “Time flies like a bird and fruit flies like a banana”.

Steven Wright said, “I have an existential map. It has ‘You are here’ written all over it.”

Meat Loaf sang “Some days it don’t come easy… and these are the days that never end… and some nights are breathing fire… and some night are nothing I felt or seen before… or will again… no one else can save you now but you…”

Baden finally asked for one minute of silence on ThePhilosophy Forum.

The Procession of the Constituents of Reality

Sad Yesteryear, Forever, and Everywhere,
They all came, to weep for Nobody Nowhere,
With Why and How, Then, Now, When, & What and Where,
Led but by their tears and sorrow. Your posts zing
With things that ‘none’ can bring: Everything.

More time passed, as the minutes went by like slugs and snails slowed down by older slugs and snails in their way, like when we get stuck walking behind old people in Florida.

no longer relevant to the discussion

PU, I would really like to have some of what you're smoking/vaping. — uncanni

Smoking in the desert near Timbuktu:
(Click.)

"what will happen if . . ." — Gnomon

Yogi Berra suddenly came out with “The future isn’t what it used to be.”

Fredrick smiled. Although Yogi’s typical observation sounded like it had a negative connotation, Fredrick knew better, for many negatives had been developed into positives during his days of study that were numbered as the dates of his calendar. Also, although all the pluses and minuses added up to zero, Fredrick had the wisdom to know the difference, as well.

“He’s alive!” reported Fredrick. “He’s out there somewhere! …where no man has gone before. And I don’t mean the ladies room!”

Profpat posted, “I knew he wouldn’t depart, pass on, leave us, expire, perish, pass away, decease, or go to a better place.”

Graybeard hinted, “You mean die?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s the last thing he’s going to do.”

‘Lifts’ in the UK soon became ‘elevators’ in the US; car ‘bonnets’ turned into ‘hoods’, and the ‘muzzies’ of Australia still stung as American ‘mosquitos’, but luckily nothing much else of any serious nature in this vein of language had diverged in any harmful way other than “apples of the ground” now being referred to as ‘potatoes’. Meat Loaf recorded his greatest song of “I’ll Do Anything for Love, But I Won’t Do That.” Let’s not get into country music song titles.

Time was like a river, so Nobody followed the currents through all their twists and turns, not even stopping to ask directions, for there weren’t any (unlike Moses, who didn’t, and got lost for 40 years), swimming the butterfly stroke all the way back to the safety of Earth, 2019, almost taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque. All applauded his return, giving a great reception to the improver of reception, and told him of Earth’s many new marvels, for the tin foil had beat the odds, accomplishing some fantastic things:

Color had arrived in the world, along with color TV, in the late 1950’s (just look at the black and white TV shows made before then for proof). High Definition and 4K had arrived, as well, which allowed us to examine in detail the pimples on a person’s face.

Three types of “heavenly” things had become permanent features of the world: flowers, night dreams, and elfin creatures, the latter of which were the long sought missing link between man and angel (unfortunately some angels had gone bad, although many had remained good, and thus many leprechauns couldn’t be trusted).

The Dark Ages had gotten brighter sooner (the Y1K problem), the printing press had been invented a century earlier, a book of Omar Khayyàm’s thousand year old quatrains was “discovered” in the Bodleian library by a janitor, not having been noticed there before, along with Plato’s new book of the month, ‘Beyond Metaphysics’, and Apple computers and products were ever improving and catching on to let us tune out reality (of all things) with the ipod, iphone, and the ipad.

Someone named Shakespeare had gotten over his writer’s block of trying to open a lock with a fish and so had written some of the greatest stuff ever. Blondes began to prefer gentlemen. James the Lesser was shown to really have less, actually being Mary Magdelane. 10 years had been added to the human life span, meaning that 60 was not old anymore!

However, we were stuck with cartoons, but, hey, they keep kids busy! Ernie Kovak’s saying of “Television is a medium because anything well done is rare” still stood firm, but we could better see what was worthless. People still told others to “have a nice day” even though they probably had other plans. Everyone still talked with their hands, even while on the phone. However, men now had nipples, but no matter.

Enlightenment grew bright, consciousness becoming more that just “that boring time between naps”, but some still didn’t know and didn’t care one way or the other to know the difference between ignorance, apathy, and ambivalence. As for why a ‘building; was called that after it was built, no one knew. And why wasn’t a thesaurus a type of dinosaur?

A new and useful color had appeared that was not even in the rainbow: “brown”. Humor was now more widespread, due to expanded and duplicate word meanings. The price of penny candy went up to a nickel; cigarettes now cost $1000 a pack. (I insured all of my packs, but they were eventually consumed by a series of small fires. My insurance company wouldn’t pay, so I took them to court, where I was convicted of arson.) However, all in all, the world was a better place, in that the worst times were now only the “worser”.

Everyone on ThePhilosophyForum was awarded a free annual trip around the sun and one special trip to Poughkeepsie, NY. Second place was two trips to Poughkeepsie; third place, three trips to Poughkeepsie.

‘Everything’, at least locally, had indeed turned out to be a single whole in the space of “=” by MJA, but only in that every part of a hologram contained the whole. Quantum entanglement had always suggested this, as well, and now it was could be seen that we all have access to the entire universe at every point of the holographic interference pattern, the many more fractional points that were added by Nobody the better for its resolution. Everything connecting to everything proved to be a kind of perception in and of itself and so it begat a forum thread called “The Waving Grains of Sand”, for

Every part of a hologram contains the whole,
The whole universe contained within a
Grain of sand, all eternity within a moment,
The universe rumbling when an electron vibrates.

Another missed hint of our 3D projection had been that the entropy of black holes depends on the surface area of its event horizon, not on its volume. Could something like the rippled CMBR microwaves be that esoteric radiant interference pattern? Yes, indeed.

I am what I am regardless of what I think. And I can't be more than what I am.
I did not say I can't be more than what I think I am.

Yes, I was saying that you are more than you think, or are conditioned to think. That there is a kind of enquiry through contemplation of self, as well as philosophical enquiry, or scientific enquiry.

Is that ok?

IN HONOR OF NOBODY,

Who can under-stand the universe,
Not even needing a place to stand,
That is nowhere and everywhere,
A wizard creating something of nothing,
Whose imagination reaches the edge
Of forever, beyond, and before. — PoeticUniverse

The nobody that is necessary to understand our universe "hung upon nothing" is the wizard that I credit with creating the Cosmos so vast that it is beyond our senses, but not imagination. :smile:

The nobody that is necessary to understand our universe — Gnomon

Nowhere Man

Time future, time present, and time past
Are all at once, with not a bit of it to last.
The glorious light flashes us into being shone,
As the light ‘eternal’ of all time to be known.

We are the beings of the everlasting light dream,
As products time and time again, by its means,
Of the eternal return, as baubles blown and burst,
Though draughts of time that quench life’s thirst.

We butterflies, on the edge of forever’s flight,
Spread fast our wings on the ocean of light
That is of the ageless photonic opposing waves
In no time, mass, or space that is thereby made.

Like the light from a star already spent,
Our ‘get up and go’ has long gone and went.
We all birthed, lived, and died right away;
There’s nothing left but the slo-mo replay.

Our parentheses in eternity
Flashes as a twinkling, but’s extended
By ‘time’ into a phantasmic life dream
That’s existent the same as if it were.

A life dream’s like a rainbow, not really there,
A false phenomenon become tangible
Through relativism, this faux true,
Molding temporary significance.

The price of penny candy went up to a nickel; cigarettes now cost $1000 a pack. (I insured all of my packs, but they were eventually consumed by a series of small fires. My insurance company wouldn’t pay, so I took them to court, where I was convicted of arson.) — PoeticUniverse

:smile: :razz: :grin: :blush: :cool:

:smile: :razz: :grin: :blush: :cool: — Gnomon

Bohm, too, suggested that the whole universe could be thought of as a kind of giant, flowing hologram, or holomovement, in which a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in the same finite space.

In reality, time is an illusion. The explicate order is a projection from higher dimensional levels of reality, and the apparent stability and solidity of the objects and entities composing it are generated and sustained by a ceaseless process of enfoldment and unfoldment, for the illusions of subatomic particles are constantly dissolving into the implicate order and then recrystallizing. So, our reality dissolves and reforms in a constant dance that, like moving pictures, cannot be perceived by the mind’s eye.

We knew that this same type of stunning virtual reality was likely, for it is presented to us in our night dreams for our amusement or self-improvement, or some such reason.

It would be interesting to know more of how the holographic reality operates, of course, so we could get to the next step, maybe even build our own virtual reality. Mr. Spielberg would surely buy into that.

Perhaps, instead of building VR, though, we could tap into the one that already exists within us and is flexible enough to produce great movies: again, our own night dreams. If we could only record them, keeping the ones with movie quality film and exciting story lines, we could make and sell movies without paying millions of dollars to writers, directors, actors, and filmers.

But who or what is the source of these night dream movies? Who is the producer, the director, etc.—for night dreams seem to contain surprises, a production capacity way beyond that of ourselves, of people acting in character modes that we as individuals might not even possess, say, that of being singers or comedians or whatever. I don’t see us putting Spielberg out of business soon, but I have many lucid dreams and I like to observe them closely; they are really quite spectacular. Sometimes, I just watch; other times I amaze the onlookers with my ability to fly and hover.

One time, some music kept playing for a minute or so after I awoke. Other times, I am just amused by the viewpoint: I was in a plane that was crashing through a jungle, but the viewpoint suddenly switched to one that was from outside the plane, just as real movies do. So, dreams, their mere happening, should be telling us something remarkable about reality, and these kinds of clues are what I try to make significance of.

Bohm, too, suggested that the whole universe could be thought of as a kind of giant, flowing hologram, or holomovement, in which a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in the same finite space. — PoeticUniverse

I too, have toyed with the notion of a holographic universe as an extension of the Enformationism thesis. If the uni did indeed begin as a minuscule Singularity, then 4 billion years of expansion has stretched the original information over the 2D surface of a thin membrane. In that case, there is no stuff inside the bubble and there is nothing left at the center. Instead, our 3D reality is an interpretation of the 2D information of our FlatLand. Hence, Real Reality is 2D, and Virtual Reality is 3D.

Not being a mathematician or physicist, I don't find that notion very useful in everyday life. So I still assume that the world is really as it appears to me, in my brain's interpretation of what's out there. :smile:


FlatLand : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland

Hence, Real Reality is 2D, and Virtual Reality is 3D. — Gnomon

THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE

When a tree falls in the forest
And there’s no one around to hear it,
Does it make a sound?

No, for there is no ear to turn
The sound waves into sound.

Nor is there a smell, for there is no nose
For the odorous molecules to attach to,
Nor has it any color, for there is
No retina to decode the light frequencies.

What does it look like, then?

It doesn’t look like anything,
For there is no brain to put it all together
By detecting form, color, texture,
Size, taste, smell, or vision.

Since the entropy of a black hole is known
To depend on the surface area of
The event horizon and NOT on its volume,
Then our third dimension MIGHT BE a projection.

A projected illusion, as in a hologram,
May still be used as it were really there
Since we can make sense of it, so to speak,
But, in truth, the third dimension may not exist.

Thus, apparently separate particles,
Like created photon pairs,
Copy the other when one is changed,
Because, in truth, they are still
The same thing in the projector room.

If the universe is holographic,
Then the tree in the forest,
Whether seen or not,
Is, at heart, an interference pattern
Brought to life only when we tune it in.

This is the mystery of the realness
Of sleeping dreams revealed:
We tune in to the interference patterns,
Whether awake or asleep,
To bring alive the reality projected.

Everything connects to everything else
Through overlapping interference patterns,
And so nothing is so separate at all, as it seems,
But is one large all-encompassing whole.

Memory, too, seems to be holographic,
Residing everywhere in the brain,
Every piece associated with others related,
Instantly broadcasting all the connections.

Every part of a hologram contains the whole,
The whole universe contained within
A grain of sand, all eternity within a moment,
The universe rumbling when an electron vibrates.

We are part and parcel of everything—
We are the cosmos; we are life; we are love;
We are all that is; we are the creator
Of the dance as well as the dancer.

Whether the past is recorded and accessible
As part of the holographic whole is not known
Or whether the other two dimensions are
Projected, as well, but perhaps we shall see.

This then is the secret of the universe,
Knowing of that which underlies all reality:
Fundamental, absolute, indestructible,
Omnipresent, indeterminate, but all pervasive.

Why absolute and fundamental?

Because it is made of one piece—itself,
And therefore indestructible, and eternal, too,
And makes up all that there is, everywhere.

(The Infinite may radiate through a matrix,
Using Information or Energy to create
The Cosmic Background antenna which broadcasts
Interference patterns of virtual reality.)