It seems at times that humanity is superfluous, it is the relentless march of entropy towards heat death which is the be all and end all.

I would say though, that I am not in favour of personal attacks, we are all entitled to our personal view.

The issue it can only ever define itself in biological and economic terms. In the mythos of transcendent freedom and immortality, the culmination is a seeking of biology and economics; if only we had the resources, the biology, to exist forever and ever and ever.

Yes, but that doesn't negate the transcendent, it is merely a comment on the manifest world we inhabit. The transcendent nature of humanity is such that people who realise it will work towards the gradual direction, or husbandry of manifest material, or biology, in the direction of the physical circumstances in which,what are now, transcendent ideals become manifest in the world. A process which will continue in an ongoing process of elevating( in terms of density, or concrete state) the emanation of vibrational state of matter. Thus we have an overarching mythos encompassing the whole of creation in an ethos of progress toward the divine. A deeply subtle, enriching philosophy of life which provides the psychological sustenance for a healthy society(I am well aware of the issues presented by organised religion).

I don't mean this in the crass sense of our bodies or earthly possessions, but rather in the sense of our presence. If only we existed in a way that gave us more and more all the time into perpetuity. Endless resources such that our existence would extend into perpetuity without cost or hitting limits.

This is merely the response in our being of being confined within the rigid parameters of the material world we find ourselves in. A condition which is accentuated by the restlessness of human behaviour. If we found ourselves in a less rigid and more fluid, or ethereal world things would be quite different.

The modern world's endless quest for economic growth is, quite literally, the mythos of freedom and immortality transplanted into the world. Like it pre-modern counterparts, it views the goal of existence to endless get more, to live forever, to be free of any Malthusian limits. In neither transcendent camp does anyone have the respect or self-awareness to say: "That's enough. I've obtained all I need. It's okay for me end."

Along with Wayfarer, I agree with the first two sentences in this paragraph. But your comment on the "transcendent camp", is incorrect. I know this, because I have personally affirmed "That's enough. I've obtained all I need. it's okay for me end". Many people who have embraced and embodied the transcendent have made this affirmation in their own way. One is made whole, repleat and is in the right frame of mind to act constructively in the progress of the humanity and the biosphere.

Without such insight all humanity is going to produce is a race of mindless Donald Trumps gallivanting around the universe, self destructing at any opportunity. And we would be back to square one. The transcendent allows and enables real progress.

I expect they are looking for a candidate who has had a significant impact on culture and Dylan could well be the most influential poet of the last century. Interestingly he is only the second person to be awarded a Nobel prize and an Oscar, the other person was George Bernard Shaw.

It isn't the words themselves which are remarkable, although it is good poetry, it is the performance, performance art. Some of the most highly regarded poets are enjoyed reading out their own poetry as performance art, Dylan Thomas comes to mind, or T S Elliot. It is the atmosphere, the mood that is created, a living interactive performance.

I visited Trump tower recently

Trump has just been described as an octopus by one of his victims, ha ha!

How much Trump had to do with the design, don't know. I would be very surprised if he had much at all to do with it. The tastes of the people who buy architect's services is often very at odds with the much more refined tastes of the designer. I doubt if most rich people could come up with a good building design if their lives depended on it. It isn't that they are untalented, it's just that most of them have pedestrian, bourgeois sensibilities suitable for the business world--that's how they got rich (if they didn't inherit it) and that's why they hire inspired architects.

Exactly, someone like Trump will have appalling taste. I expect that his brief for the architect was I want something striking and taller than everything around it, to look bigger and better. That would have been his entire input, well apart from focussing on the Super kingsize bed and gold taps in his penthouse.

You see people being leeches. So you get sick and tired of this - you crack the whip on them - you treat them as expendables as well, because you know that if you don't, sooner or later they themselves will betray you and screw you u

Machiavelli.

A few more cartoons, all about Blair, in the first one he is the glove puppet.

It's interesting that PC goes out the window in regard of the prophet. To be replaced with fear of death, or war. It's the one subject I wouldn't depict in a cartoon, whilst being the one most enticing.

I will give this schema more thought, my own position might be orthogonal to this. In that I see material extension as primary here and time is a peculiarity of its expresssion and development(causality etc). This is because we are in a state of incarnation within a material realm, with strict rules, or conventions of causality. However that in eternity material is of less importance and is far more malleable similarly with time. So an eternal state of being experiences a pregnant moment, of eternal duration. It's difficult to explain, but there is duration without time, wherein time is an ornament, or quality of something being considered, experienced, or expressed.

Not necessarily, I was talking only of the physical world in that comment. Also by "world" I mean what we find when we are born, a physical realm, one which can be experienced in many ways, this does not require an explanation of its existence. So what science is doing I suppose is describing what we find and how what we experience seems to be happening.

The way the physical world (including our bodies) behaves, as science has described in great detail, is as a fully integrated cohesive material realm, which unswervingly adheres to the processes described by science as spacetime, gravity, mass, spin, motion etc. However, acknowledging this, or disputing aspects of it doesn't address the question in the OP. That from the stand point of our being, it could simply be a world we experience due to a tuning in, or orientation of our being. Whereas it might be the case that the orientation of our being could be altered, or adjusted resulting in our experiencing an entirely seperate world, or worlds, rather like our experience of being in another world when dreaming, is an alteration in some way of our experience of being in a realm.

I know that a dream is illogical, surreal and we wake from it. But it is not proposed that a dream is equivalent to our world, only that it is an illustration of our being experiencing a different realm, which seems entirely real during that experience. This being the case, it is quite natural to consider that upon death, or attaining enlightenment, we would experience a change in the orientation of our being equivalent to switching channels into another real world, heaven, or a newly born baby, for example. That this real world we know, is just one channel, or frequency and our being, as a receiver could simply be tuned in to another channel, if one could find and operate the switch.

I don't know if I could be described as a Stoic, but I do contemplate the idea of aligning my will with the will of God. Although I don't hold a belief in God, I am not a believer, I do consider that there is something equivalent to the will of God in nature and myself which I am contemplating. But also that in a sense I am god (in my own life) and I am therefore aligning my will with the will of my being. I have also affirmed thy will not mine be done. While also striving in a creative sense to build myself anew in the direction and nature I seek.

I'm not too sure what you mean by "two parallel evolutions" Punshhh, are you thinking of something like cultural vs natural evolution?

I mean the evolutions of the spirit(soul) and the body(world).

Yes, I don't use the idea of black boxes myself. I prefer a scenario where there is some direct realism, but rather than boxes, veils, which in various ways obscure reality on ocassion.

Thanks, I will find one of Tony Blair. I like your portraits, they have a solidity and depth about them.

I was a cartoonist for a couple of years about 2003/4, I was so incensed by Blair and Bush going into Iraq etc that I turned to satire. These are a couple I fished out the other day, the G8 conference failing to come to any agreement over climate change and Gordon Brown floundering around like Tommy Cooper(the comedian), Blair is represented by the cobra.

Yes that all makes sense. So the eternal is becoming in the moment, but by the time it has become, it has passed into the past?

Yes I do consider something approximating aerviternal, with beings performing acts equivalent to angels. For me this is manifest as an army of such beings attending to your every move*. But in a removed(veiled) sense, as if one is on an operating table with a team of light beings working on the mechanics of your being. This can also be seen as a multidimensional now, in which there is an eternal moment** and an eternity of such beings as a firmanent, inside the very being of each of us. Something which is difficult to convey.

*By an army of beings in attendance, I am referring, perhaps to nature spirits, the beings forming the many and diverse kingdoms of nature.

**in this eternal moment, I see like a hub, or interchange between all moments, wherein they are the one moment.

2. I'm having trouble with this one.
But Leibniz does not stop here, as he might have done; he further claims that the human mind expresses its body by perceiving it, perception being a species of expression.

For me this reads as some kind of feedback loop. Whereby in perceiving of one's expression, one expresses something more. Then one might percieve this extra expression and express something more again and this process of reflections of feedback becomes an expression itself. An interactive expression.

Yes, this rings true. I had this insight once when the guru turned to glimpse at me during Puga. For I noticed in that glimpse that we were worlds apart, that our comfortable physical world of people in that room etc was just one frequency of interaction between us, tuned in like a radio station. While if you turned the dial to another frequency you would see stars and planets. And for a moment we were two stars glinting in the firmament. Light years apart and yet by some means of nature interacting as though standing side by side.

In fact L's view is very much in line with the notion that life is a stage and monads are merely actors upon

So black boxes jigging about on a stage, perhaps the box is an atom, a special atom with a smidgeon of God in it, just jigging around with all the normal atoms. Maybe the're so special they are allowed to wear rose tinted glasses and see all the other atoms jigging about around them.

The point being that the argument deals with the nature of temporal existence. When we understand, from the cosmological argument, that there is necessarily an actuality which is prior to the actualities of temporal existence, this necessitates that time itself is prior to the actualities of temporal existence.

I don't think we can conclude that time is prior to temporal existence, the issue might be more subtle than that. Time external to temporal existence might be orthogonal to it, of another form of existence or an eternal moment of some kind. Even in physics they entertain the idea of events occurring outside time as experienced in our world. There might be an ooze, in which both time and space are distorted/extruded across dimensions.

Anyway when I say "what exists", I am considering a transcendent object, or ooze.

From my perspective, when I started to develop an understanding of the nature of time, I realized just how little we, as human beings, actually know about temporal existence. If God is what brings us to this realization, then "God" is something which we must maintain

Agreed, we are in ignorance. I don't mean in the sense of stupid, but rather that the truth of the matter is concealed/veiled from us.

Wasn't Royston Vasey set near there? (Sorry couldn't help it). My folks come from Huddersfield, I know that part of the world well, beautiful countryside.

Now that I think about it, there really is no way to find a distinction between the objective and the subjective BECAUSE we are confined to only one point of view.

This is incorrect, we also have the sensory experience of our bodies, we are not just a mind in a cage, we have a body, which interacts within an environment

I can imagine what it might be like to be a hyperdimensional entity that is able to see where my self-awareness exists within a multifaceted objective world but nevertheless I am constrained to existing in a small compartment of a much larger reality.

Confined because we are in the position of having to rely on our brains for the computation of our minds. Hence we are subject to the environment within which we find our bodies.

Perhaps my inference of an objective world based on sensory impressions is undeniably false.

I would say mistaken, or deluded, rather than false, because your body is undeniably present within that objective world.
Perhaps neutral monism or panpsychism has it correct in that everything is either one in the same or part of one consciousness in a subjective world ONLY... and that there are different slices of this subjectivity that are exclusive from one another (our single self-awareness included as one of these slices)... and even more, perhaps ONE single subjectivity unites them all together (God consciousness) that passively observes multiple subjectivities. Perhaps, but it would mean that we interact with this subjective world chemically as well as experientially.

I am perfectly willing to admit that reality might be greater than we think and that what we think reality is might be just a part of a greater reality. This is precisely what is proposed by some religions. But 'our reality' would still be a genuine part of that greater reality and could only be intelligible in some kind of terms we are familiar with just as dreaming is a genuine and mostly intelligible part of 'our reality'.

I agree and those terms are determined by (steeped in) our evolutionary position and development. But is it the case that we are experiencing two parallel evolutions, one of mind and one of body?

Tiny houses would help, that's why I mentioned mass production of prefab' houses. With current technology they would be quick and easy to make and portable.

In this country councils wound up council house building about 40 years ago, which provided the required cheap rental housing. Sold the stock off cheap and then forgot about the whole issue for a few decades. In the meantime planning restrictions have become small minded, full of red tape and painfully slow. Meanwhile immigration is running at around 300,000 per annum.

As a fellow UK citizen I am well aware of the housing problem and have watched it develop over the last 40 years with the government not addressing it, not lifting a finger to correct it and starving the local councils of funds, while saying it is for the councils to look after the housing stock. It has been a disgrace and Labour (new Labour) was just as guilty as the Conservatives.

Even now there is all this talk about building more affordable houses, but it will only be sticking a plaster, with all the problems of planning restrictions, lack of a skilled workforce to build them, and private developers continually creaming off the profit in building expensive housing in desirable (expensive) areas and scrimping on affordable housing commitments.

I think we should try something more innovative like the mass production of prefab housing after the 2nd world war and a government task force driving schemes through the red tape.

Thanks for the Russell reference, looks interesting. I have read some Allan Watts a long time ago, I remember that I found it inspiring. I would suggest though that the use of the word "infinite" doesn't seem as appropriate as the use of the word eternity would be, to my eyes.
There are problems with the concept of infinity, which I have pointed out from time to time.

I agree with your conclusion that there must be an abosolute prior actuality and if for you this has equivalence with your concept of God, then it does conclude God, I agree. But what is this God(what is its nature), do we know, does anyone know?
In the old philosophy forum I started a thread asking "what exists", this was a request to discuss this same absolute prior actuality. But few posters responded, or understood what I was getting at.

I just want to make an observation about revelation here. I have experienced some revelations during my life. So I might be able to convey what is going on here, because it does seem to be a real phenomena, even if the divine reality we imagine and believe in turns out not to be true.

As I see it revelation is an experience which transcends ordinary day to day consciousness. By "transcends", I mean ones self transcends it's normal seat of intellection, of being within the body and has experiences which can be described as a lucid hallucination. An experience or hallucination which in ones sense of self and being within themselves/oneself, is more real, more present, more known than ordinary living experience. So in a real way, one can be lifted up by a divine intervention of some sort and experience something which ones body and mind are not equipped to experience. But you experience it through the body of the intervening deity, are hosted in their body, witness, what they witness. This process enables you to see/witness the inconceivable, inconceivable with our own capacities. Following the revelation you remember what you witnessed, you know what you experienced, but your intellect has to catch up, to give meaning and explanation, but it is always only describing things in its own terms and referring to something beyond, which it can't articulate, convey.

An example which I experienced was that of transcending time. I found myself witnessing a present outside our daily brief moment of time, that we live in, in which I saw my past and my future like viewing a landscape, as I turned to look across the landscape, I was looking across time, not space.

Perhaps the idea that those external objects, the external world we find ourselves in, is itself beings, or monads, but of a different order to us.

Or from another perspective the human race could be viewed as a closely related family of beings, it's only natural that they would experience things similarly, then. But this could also be viewed as humanity is one being, explaining the common experiences. Also all the other animals and plants may be our "brothers" and "sisters". So the biosphere is privy to one global sphere of experience via the planet which is a more distant relative. The kingdoms of nature. This perspective allows for an external reality, which may also be mentally generated. Somewhere in between the two opposite views(poles) of mind or matter.

I would use support rather than intervention.

Or in other words God(the supernatural) provides(facilitates) the stage upon which the world happens.

Thanks for the invite, I will be travelling around New Zealand for five weeks at the end of January. Although I know it is still a long way from Australia.

I wouldn't move to Thailand at the moment, there have been riots recently and that part of Asia is metaphorically and perhaps in reality in the firing line from places like North Korea and China. Not to mention Malaysia and the possibility of radical militants.

Also down sizing to poorer countries may turn out to be a one way street. I have been planning to move to southern France at some point, looks as though that might have to be put on hold. Although if Scotland leaves the U.K. And joins the EU I will be able to get an EU passport. I would love to move to New Zealand, love the place, but we have aging parents here to think of.

Per Leibniz, there is no connecting cross-piece. The explanation for the coordinated movement is God.

Tune in later for a more esoteric explanation.

I haven't read Leibniz, but I'm wondering if the esoteric explanation is that the role God is playing is from our perspective like (rather crudely) someone spinning and balancing plates on top of poles, and has to tweak them all continuously to keep them balanced. Each plate could represent an atom. God could delegate the tweaking to a team of angels, infact many teams and hierarchies, these could be the kingdoms of nature. I mean the transcendent spirits in nature not their outer casing(expression) or physical vehicles?

Woodwork is a good route, there are many woodworking philosophers.

It's not easily being an outsider(intellectually), but it's very rewarding if you are an explorer of some kind. It is something which has been going on way back into our history. Outsiders have the freedom to step out of the intellectual milieu, to stalk the frontiers to go beyond them and return with prizes, inspiration, inventions. The drawbacks are that you can be disenfranchised, treated as weird, regarded as having some psychological deficit driving you out of the system. It can be a struggle to get by financially, you have to find some novel way of accessing the market, playing a role for which there is demand.

I have struggled my whole career to fit in, but as I had chosen to study something outside the system(cabinetmaking), because I needed that freedom it gave me, I was always an outsider. I have tried this and that, shunned the path of becoming a joiner in the building industry(a route back in), found how difficult it is to access the market from outside. Until now I find myself following a course which requires skill and intelligence, which being an outsider nurtured, in order to find a niche which only a very few have the ability to exploit( an independent artist).

Although financially I am fortunate enough to have found a partner who has the imagination and freedom to be an outsider, while remaining in the system and securing a good salary. Thus enabling me to get established without having to struggle.

Living a simple and frugal lifestyle makes it easier, I am fortunate that I and my partner are very thrifty.

Well we can try, but folk have been praying for millennia, but the problems keep mounting. Perhaps it needs someone to pray for the right thing.

I do consider our being of one consciousness as you say, but I am of the opinion that we are here to save ourselves and in doing so, both showing that it can be done and moving on to the next stage in our development. Rather than wasting this opportunity.

Yes it is not as simple as I suggest, it is a big subject. I don't want to defend any cosmological argument, but rather consider what people who take God seriously, or have a belief, or faith in God. In each case the nature of God is both not understood, or regarded as understood, more than in an intuitive sense. Also people who have a belief or faith, seek refuge in Gods mercy at some point, surrendering their sense of absolute control of their person(Thy will be done not mine).

It occurs to me that no one thinks they conceive of God(in the sense of conceivable), or claims to have such knowledge, other than in their humble imperfect mind. This is why I accept that any cosmological argument cannot conclude God, because what is it concluding?

Yes, not debased. I wasn't thinking of the less than constructive tendencies in hedonism, which can be real for many people. For me, the experience occurred in the light of my already being a practitioner in a spiritual life. I do remember an occasion when amongst a party of friends, I found myself sitting peacefully meditating, while the others were wildly bouncing off the walls listening to Pink Floyd Dark side of the moon at full volume. They couldn't understand why I didn't get swept up in the mania. But I had learnt how to harness the effect of the drug in my meditation practice, or something.

I am not saying inconceivable in principle, rather from our humble vantage point. Yes ts true that folk perceive divine beauty, meaning, or perhaps something of the nature of God, but it is always understood that they are relating to an entity far greater, the part of the iceberg you cannot see. It is quite natural therefore to view this entity as understanding, or causing our world with all the consequent philosophical conundrums such as the causeles cause.

As you bring up the triad, I would mention that I use an entire philosophical perspective based on the trinity, which I find to more explanatory power than binary thinking.

So we have;

Father = God = spirit
Mother = Holy Spirit = body
Son = the Christ = mind

This can be applied to just about everything.