think you need to consider what 'biosemiosis' means (and I'm not an expert by any stretch, I've only learned about the concept on this forum and readings from it. The Wikipedia definition is 'Biosemiotics (from the Greek βίος bios, "life" and σημειωτικός sēmeiōtikos, "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, or production and interpretation of signs and codes and their communication in the biological realm.[1] — Wayfarer

I won't quote everything you said because we can refer back to it. I just want to say those thoughts are totally awesome! Now my brain is so overstimulated I have to take a break. There are not words for expressing how much I appreciate your explanation for the Greek words and reasoning, so I will just say thank you plus 100 times thank you.

Where there seem no reasonable answers to the questions, it is our tendency to rely on God for the answers. If you are a theist, you would accept it. If not, then it is unlikely you would accept it.
It is a question that has two possible answers. One is that it is unknown. The other is God wanted it to be. Saying unknown sounds there is no answer. Saying God wanted it sounds like it is at least an answer. But in essence, they are the same answer. — Corvus

:lol: That would not be so bad if that god were an unknown god instead of a god-like Zeus who has human qualities. Doesn't the bible say God is beyond our comprehension, and then along comes Jesus and we get a god we can know because He is like us. Our relationship with the Jesus god is very different from our relationship with a god that is beyond our comprehension. Interpreting the bible abstractly is completely different from interpreting it concretely.

Oh no, there is another complication! Is our understanding of information concrete or abstract?

Heck, let us really complicate things, Daniel Kahneman explains different mental functions as fast and slow thinking. Fast thinking isn't actually thinking. Fast thinking is a knee-jerk reaction to stimulus. Fast thinking is a reflex. Education for technology favors fast thinking, and that is a disaster for democracy.

Slow thinking consumes a lot of energy and we would not have enough energy to make it through the day if we were in slow thinking mode for most of the day. Saying God wanted it, is to avoid thinking. Serious thinking can be as a walk through Hades, a place we must all go to search for the meaning of life events, but we should never go there without the help of the gods, because it is so easy to get lost in Hades. Lost in Hades means to suffer mental dis ease. Christians avoid that by turning everything over to God and trust in the will of God and the power of prayer.

One metaphysics to rule them all! — apokrisis

You kind of lost me in the explanation of why humans don't agree on the correct information, but I love your use of the concept of fractals. Hum, when the main character of the movie "Inside Out" enters the door of abstract thinking, the 3 characters who entered, started to take different and changing forms. They risked no longer being themselves. Might we say that abstract thinking is chaos that takes form and that form changes? As someone said in this thread, new information changes the thought/ concept of reality.

Because the notion of logos is so strong in my head, my thoughts keep coming back to it. For me, that would be the one metaphysics rule, but it would be a shapeshifter too like the abstract room in the movie. I think we want truth to be one thing and only one thing, but that is not the way it is.

Robin Williams, "reality, an interesting concept."

Religion is an attempt to make reality consistent and unchanging. Science is constantly changing our notion of truth and reality. We have to love Aristotle for giving us the concept of metaphysics, that which is beyond physical limits. :lol: My head is like the abstract room. I attempt to reply to posts and come to realize I don't know what I think because my thinking is a constantly changing process.

But really, the science of how to stop the spread of disease is not new. Somehow turning that information into a religious/political issue, is nuts! I know our environments and limited exposure to others, shapes our thinking, but (strong pagan words) shouldn't it be pretty easy to agree on scientific truth? It is logos, information on the physical level. We need to keep the abstracts of religion and politics out of it.

In that case, what follows is, nature made / caused events or entities are not meaningful in terms of human intelligence, perfect form or logic in its purpose or design.

Nature caused events or entities have been happening randomly without aim, purpose or plans. We can explain the physical cause of the snowfall using the other elements such as humidity, temperature and air pressure, but that is not snow itself.  It is the condition for snowfall, and there is no way to explain why snow flakes looks the way it is without citing God's will.

In that case, I wonder if it could be related to information which is based on predesigned and thought out plans, practical purposes, human intelligence and meanings in abstract form or linguistic content. — Corvus

The first sentence made sense to me. The second sentence makes sense to me. The third sentence makes sense to me. The first half of the fourth sentence makes sense to me. Concluding that it is a god's will that a snowflake takes the shape it takes, does not make sense to me.

Why throw in a god's will or a question of intelligent design?

Biology is finding that enzymes rely on quantum uncertainty to amplify their ability to make desired reactions happen. Life and mind thrive on zones of instability because they can master that free energy to do work - give the randomness of big fluctuations a cohesive direction that then builds, and keeps rebuilding, the same material structures.

So the usual notion of stable entities is that they are composed of stable parts. A house is built out of bricks and not jelly.

But an organism is a machinery that thrives on zones of instability as it has the means - the information - to just keep rebuilding itself. That is why life thrives in hot sun, intertidal zones, volcanic underwater vents, and anywhere else that there is lots of unpredictability and so the basic raw material to feed a machinery that can turn that into the predictable. — apokrisis

I totally love what you said. Just yesterday I was reading about wind evaporating water and releasing heat. I need to find that information again and add it to what you said. The transfer of energy is mind-boggling to me and here we are speaking of a transfer of information as well. In fact, I am feeling overwhelmed with information and need to take a break and digest all this. I want to pull out a book and see if I can improve my understanding. What if 70% of our population lived to learn and felt intense pleasure in the process, rather than bashing each other over stupid things, watching WrestleMania, and spreading gossip. It saddens me to know not everyone loves what we are doing here.

he American Association for the Advancement of Science describes a liberal education in this way: "Ideally, a liberal education produces persons who are open-minded and free from provincialism, dogma, preconception, and ideology; conscious of their opinions and judgments; reflective of their actions; and aware of their place in the social and natural worlds." Liberally educated people are skeptical of their own traditions; they are trained to think for themselves rather than conform to higher authorities. So your advice here is rather contradictory, to pursue a liberal education which tends to erode 'traditional' views, yet you praise traditional views and conformity to 'higher authorities'.

Incidentally, studies from the Pew Research Center indicate that Liberals are about half as religious as Conservatives (those who uphold traditional values and norms). — praxis

I really appreciate what said and especially that definition of Liberal Education. However, I see your interpretation of it is not the meaning of my words that I intended. I do not know how you came to the conclusion that I said we should rely on a "higher authority" other than our own inner higher authority? :gasp: I think in general all civilized people rely on traditional values and norms to some degree. That is the meaning of being civilized. I would say not everyone among us is civilized and they are controlled by laws and fear of punishment to some degree. That is not the same as doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Hopefully, civilized people and educated and do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.

They are strongly bonded, sharing traditional values, norms, rituals, etc., and that bond is the essential purpose, to be a unified tribe. Self-development is entirely beside the point, or intentionally suppressed, because self-development leads to self-determination. — praxis

What you said may be true of members of religious groups, but religion is not the only core model of life. This is perhaps the most important point to me. The other core model for life in a democracy is a culture built on liberal education. When this was the primary purpose of education in the US we had a strong and united Republic. That education ended in 1958 with the National Defense Education Act. We stopped transmitting our culture and left moral training to the church. That is a complete disaster! Thomas Jefferson devoted his life to universal education when education meant a liberal education because he understood that is the only way to have a strong and united Republic and to protect our liberty. There are two ways to have social order, culture, or authority over the people. We dropped the culture, leaving us with only authority over the people, and this is destroying our democracy.

I need to clarify, if our schools were transmitting the necessary culture for democracy and liberty, we would be as united as religious groups. We would be forming organizations to resolve our problems as people did when fraterities, unions, and granges were popular because schools would prepare everyone for resolving problems in this democratic way. The dependency would be on ourselves, not the government over us. Not only would we be empowered as Tocqueville said the citizens of the US were but we would be meeting our human needs in a way no government can do. Without a united effort to transmit a culture, we are no longer united by a culture. Leaving only churches to meet the human needs, and perhaps forums like this one. We are not sharing a culture here, but at least we can talk about that. Where else can we meet and discuss what is so and what should be, and our part in all this?

I am not sure but it seems to me the discussion is too limited to language. Information is the stuff of the universe and the stuff of earth. It is there for us to study, and we will learn more if we ask good questions, but the answers will be verbal explanations.

In relation to what I asked early about some people rejecting explanations of why we should wear masks and get vaccinated. In the media, I hear some people have a totally different understanding of covid and over crowded hospitals when they experience fighting for air and when they can not get medical help because the system is overwhelmed. Words alone do not necessarily convey the information that needs to be understood. Much of our information comes from experience.

What — Corvus

What would be difference between a wood carver carving away his mental image in his brain into a woodspirit carving, and something taking physical shape in the universe via / caused by "information"? Could they not be simply described as the same form of manifestations?

Are there reasons that one is a process or entity caused by information, and the others by sheer chance (heavy rainfall in Indonesia or avalanche in the Alps) or an artistic / economic labor of a guy carving the wood to produce a woodspirit that he intends to sell on eBay? — Corvus

I would say there is a difference between a nature-made object or event and a man-made object of event. This is where I part with Plato and perfect forms. I think the universe just throws it out there and what happens to it depends on its interaction with other forces. Such as the shapes of snowflakes are influenced by the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere. A snowflake is not a perfect form created by a mind such as human objects are created by a mind. There are universal laws, but not universal pre-determination. Whereas a man creating a statue begins with a rough idea of what the finished product will be.

I see. If one considers language as a mode of communication, it needs to be about reality and that invariably requires language to capture causality. Causality, as we all know, true or not, is permutationally sensitive (order matters). In fact, all human enterprises seem to be wholly cause-effect oriented. — TheMadFool

Just as a matter of argument, what is happening here? No matter what the reasoning for wearing masks, there are some who do not accept the scientific evidence and insist, mandating wearing a mask or getting vaccinated is not what science says it is, but is a government threatening our liberty because those at the top want the power to control us, and we must oppose that threat. Here information does not mean the same thing to everyone. What can be done about this? To me, it is completely mind-boggling! It is like telling someone not to drink from the well because it is polluted, and people throwing stones at you because they think you are trying to control them. Huh, for information to be useful we must trust each other and if don't trust each other information is just a lie, not truly information. :brow:

Yes, the old dialectic of logos and flux is another version of the same essential position. The Cosmos is about how logical order becomes the shaping hand that reins in chaos. And yet you need that lack,of order as the basic thing to then have something to rein in. This makes the whole system, the larger relation, a unity of opposites, — apokrisis

↪Athena I think as we explore the full meaning of information we will find it is the currency that enables the whole cosmos. — Pop

The thought that comes to mind when reading those replies is chaos is essential to creativity, but total chaos would no form, and manifestation is dependent on functioning form. Evolution requires mutant genes, but all living things come with DNA and a mechanism for stability. Oh my goodness the ancients are looking incredibly aware to me, as they spoke of chaos and the need for order. The pharaoh's job was to keep things in order because too much water or not enough to lead to famine, and so on. Mayans were consumed by the importance of numbers and dates. Chinese I Ching too. Yet if there was no chaos there would be no change, no creativity, no evolution.

Does quantum physics come to the rescue? It gives us uncertainity.

The grand project would be pansemiosis. The Cosmos would in fact have to have its own organismic point of view. — apokrisis

That is a totally fascinating post. I am amazed by how important words are. We can not discuss something without a word for it and you have used words in a most interesting way. I hope to return to your post later when I have time to ponder it. To me, you seem to be speaking of logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe. Is that close to what you are talking about?

Quite close to Claude Shannon's - father of information theory - own thoughts but with one small difference: not just change but also the degree of change as in more extreme the change, the greater the information content in a message that relates that change. C'mon, mathematize information and this is bound to happen. We need to quantify something. Why not measure the extent of the change (from the baseline)? A rough marker that this is how ordinary people actually view information is the sales figures of so-called tabloid news. I believe they sell like hot cakes. — TheMadFool

Good point. Not all information is true. You have tapped on to the emotional/social reason for seeking information. That is really something to ponder.

I think you guys have won me back from another forum that is just beginning. I wanted to be in on the beginning of a forum, but it does not have near the depth of thinking that happens here. You all are awesome!

What are your thoughts, queries, arguments, definitions, and insights? It would be great to have a general understanding of information on this forum. — Pop

While reading the OP I was wondering how an animal would answer your question, because information is essential to all animals and insects. Information regarding food, mating, and survial in a hostitle world an awareness that is essential to life. However, what humans do with it is very interesting. :lol: A pack of dogs or troop of apes is not going to sit around and discuss what is information. That said, I think your question is fascinating.

Are religious folk renown for practicing what they preach? :lol: — praxis

Which one of the Greek philosophers spoke of our higher selves? I think here we need to follow the line of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. None of us is functioning on the level of our higher selves all the time. What is important is to constantly educate ourselves and surround ourselves with people who have liberal educations because our social nature brings out the best or worse in us depending on the people we associate with. That is where religious people have a distinct advantage- they congregate regularly and intentionally focus their minds above their bases instincts. They intentionally develop themselves and support each other in this endeavor.

Timothy Ferris's "The Science of Liberty" brings up the subject of science and totalitarianism. Both The Nazi and Russian Communists believed they were committed to science, and we might all know under the Naxi, Germany did very inhuman experiments using Jews. The Russian communists were also deterministic and did a lot of killing for political reasons.

Today we might look at China and some concerns. It is using cell phone technology to monitor citizens' thoughts and behaviors. In the US millions of dollars are spent on learning how to manipulate people and influence their behavior and this information is used mostly for commercials, but it is also used for political purposes.

I am sure others can think of examples of science being evil and this is very much behind the argument that we must have Jesus and concern about being saved. So, Jack, we might want to ensure religion and philosophy have a place in our society. But we have serious reasons for opposing religion and that leaves philosophy as the most important source of knowledge to moderate both science and the religious folk.

We might want to pay more attention to culture and education because Christianity without liberal education is not the same thing as Christianity with liberal education was. We can not live on truths alone, but must also have morals, ethics, and principles.

I agree with what you said and want to bring this back to what Plato said.

In addition, Plato believed that the interests of the state are best preserved if children are raised and educated by the society as a whole, rather than by their biological parents. So he proposed a simple (if startlingly unfamiliar) scheme for the breeding, nurturing, and training of children in the guardian class. (Note that the same children who are not permitted to watch and listen to "dangerous" art are encouraged to witness first-hand the violence of war.) The presumed pleasures of family life, Plato held, are among the benefits that the higher classes of a society must be prepared to forego. — Garth Kemerling

We are adamant that the parents are responsible for preparing children to be civil creatures and this should not be the responsibility of teachers. Personally, I think that is a terrible belief and that Plato is right about the state taking the responsibility for preparing the young for citizenship and that was the priority of education in the US until 1958. I have the old textbooks that show how this was done.
Why should the state be responsible for preparing the young for good citizenship? The dominating people of the US came from Europe and did not have experience with democracy. They did not understand our institutions and the Bible does not explain democratic institutions and our relationship to them and we should not take our culture for granted. What is happening today is proof of that.
The poor have a completely different experience of life than the middle class and education for technology is not enough to prepare them for a middle-class life. If we ignore the reality of children growing up in poverty and focus education on technology, we condemn them to existing on the margins of mainstream society. So I agree with Plato.
However, we are emotional beings and for emotional reasons, we need good families. That is something institutions can not nourish in a child. A teacher might be very caring and do an excellent job of helping a child feel good about him/herself, but that is a temporary relationship. The other children are friends but not as sisters and brothers who are bonded. My old textbooks are very much about family. Unfortunately not every child has good role models or families with good life skills. As I said above they can be condemned to misfortune but, there is a chance families can be very supportive in a way institutions can not. So here I will disagree with Plato. I will argue family life is very important to being human beings and I stress this because while some women have always done well within the male standard, it is the voice of the woman who is domestic, a stay at home and care for everyone else human, that needs to be heard, and was not heard and is not heard in our technological society where equality means being as a man.

I am very worried for society as mothers leave the home to be equal to males.

oh, oh, I am not sure nature programmed us for monogamy. I think the family unit most civilizations have resulted from social pressure more than nature. To an important degree, Plato is right but he and I differ on what is important for the child in a civilization. That is a very large group of people living in cities. Small, nomadic groups may need family units? You are making me think. :grin: I don't think legal marriages and divorces would be necessary before individual property rights and large populations demanded laws and a system of enforcing them. Child care may be shared than in large groups, and male/female relationships may be more temporary than an "until do we part" agreement. In small groups the rules are informal. Not until large groups and cities do the rules become formal. To clarfiy, we become strangers to each other in large cities and that means less motivation to help a single mother and children, so laws are needed to assure the care of the vulnerable. In the city not everyone is interacting with each other and the children, and institutional care a city might provide is less personal, than the clan or the legal family ties, where there is a religious culture that forms the laws.

That awakening is the New Age. A time of high tech and peace and the end of tyranny. It has been coming for a long time and obviously depends on the development of technology.

Instead of putting military weapons in Afghanistan, put technology there so the individuals can see the rest of the world and engage with it. The technology can become a tool of the radicals and that can have bad consequences, and to counter that and have more good consequences than bad ones, it is essential the spreading of technology also deals with the problems that can arise, always working for a consciousness that benefits all of humanity and the planet.

Thank you, and as I contemplate buying another book, I am thinking of all the books I started to read and did not complete. I really do not need another book, except focusing on female philosophers could be very interesting and I need the books to refer to them, as some refer to the Bible. Problem with democracy is there not one holy book such as religions have. :roll:

I like the idea of Simon Weil writing of both Marx and theology points of view. I have always thought communism is Christian values. Sort of a put your money where your mouth is thing. And I should say, I think capitalism is a good thing but like a board game, it needs to be regulated. Economic decisions need a much larger point of view than any one corporation can have. For example, we love plastics but they are damaging our planet and this problem should not be ignored. On the other hand, I can not think why that problem should be the focus of the industry? So the greater decisions must be made by a body that benefits from both the plastic and the care of the planet. In nature, an animal that comes up with a better survival stratagy will succeed and could outcompete others but if its relationship with others is not kept in balance, the result can be damaging and ultimately lead to extinction.

Our first teacher is nature. :grin:

I would be more impressed if we had the name and writing of a woman philosopher who wrote of love and social concerns than I am by Plato referring to a woman and theory of love because what we have is the man's word, not the woman's. Athena's mother was about wisdom. The goddesses are about relationships. In mythology much is credited to the female goddesses so what is with the patriarchy that suppressed women? The reality is a young male reality when war was very much the way of life and this dominated the West.

I will go with Aristotle who stood in favor of the traditional family unit. The child is valued by the parent as proof of what the father and mother can achieve. If our children do well we get social status and if they do poorly, we do not get social status. Only those who care about that will invest in their sons and daughters. Institutions can not replace the good of a parent. There is an important difference in the quality of relationships, and therefore a difference in values.

In the animal world, of which I believe humans are a part, few animals adopt the young of another. There are exceptions to this but the point I want to make is humans are not just naturally good parents, and they tend to feel differently about their own children than they feel about someone else's child. For biological reasons, we are limited in the number of people we can have intimate relationships with. Those relationships require a lot of energy and our energy is limited. I am stressing the difference between parents raising children and children growing up in an institution. So if there is not a father and mother raising the children, but a nanny raising the children, the result is different.

Wheatley, I look forward to having the time to watch your links. Perhaps I can devote this weekend to that when my choice of TV shows is very poor. I hate the idea of being a feminist and speaking against males, and I am torn between economic, environmental, and social concerns but I think men organize themselves differently from women. Not that one is necessarily better than the other, but it might be a challenge to create a balance and acknowledge the importance of both?

Why do we speak of male philosophers and not female philosophers? Who is concerned with educating the children? Why Nietzche's Superman and not the Superwoman? When we go to war, who keeps the children alive and tends to all the things a society needs to function, while the men are consumed with war? That was truly a Spartan question. How should the children be educated?

Wow, you have opened a whole new world for me. Thank you so much for that list of female philosophers. I went on to see if there are books on the subject and there are plenty. I think I truly must get those books. Now I want to retreat to a monastery and focus on the study of female philosophers and how they may have affected the world around them.

I had read that Pythagoras gave women equality. Interestingly to me, is writing about music and math is not equal to writing about morality and social order, but I now see an opening for women who write of a subject that interests men and does not challenge their position and importance. Would you happen to know if any of these women wrote about the importance of family and childcare and community? :lol: I so want to go to the coast and focus on this subject and do workshops. Perhaps after having a hip replaced I will do that. I don't know, I have to think on it, but the possibilities give me so much reason to live. I did not expect this at this time in my life when life seemed behind me and not in front of me.

Wheatley,
You posted very interesting videos. However, no one has responded to them. To me, this is seriously problematic, because the discussion is not happening.

Your single words are not helpful because I have no idea why you think they are important? I am a firm believer in capitalism because of Sparta the first military/socialist state, and Athens, where our philosophy, science, and democracy begins and the government provided opportunity but not a welfare state.

Liberty without education has no value.

that non-philosophers have no idea what you are talking about. — Apollodorus

What do you mean by those words? I sure do not consider myself to be a trained philosopher, and I am not sure I care that much about formal philosophy? I sure don't like many of the male philosophies, and deeply regret that women were closed out of the discussion.

Wheatley, your reply that men are responsible for philosophy is meaningless without identifying which men. Cornel West made it very clear the voices of some are heard, but these are not the voices of the people. Understanding that and why that is true is very important.

Maybe both of you will see my response to Apollodorus and my last comment to Wheatley are related? Why do some people impact our lives for centuries while most live and die with no effect? Can this be changed? Doesn't a democracy mean a different order, where the many have more power than the few?

Which men. Not all men have resources and power. There must be an organization with resources and power to record and preserve a person's thoughts.

Feel free to ask questions requesting information about philosophy. Feel free to provide information about philosophy here to those in need. — Wheatley

Who makes the decision of it what someone thinks is worth saving for centuries?

Might philosophy have been different if women had not been closed out?

Teaching people ideas is probably not very problematic. It's when you teach people to be afraid of questioning, doubting, entertaining alternatives... Whether it's coercive control, wrangling slaves, ostracizing someone for having different political views or being gay or reading books, violent apostasy or good ol' Stockholm syndrome, it's always all downside. Occasionally atheists convert after consideration. It's odd, it's rare, but it's fair because they're adults using their experience, feelings and reason. But mostly theists are raised in their religion: it's chosen for them, and contains astonishing threats, even if conveyed with love. — Kenosha Kid

I think we have agreement up to the point of saying atheists convert after consideration. At that point, I think we have a different opinion of who causes the problems? The bible was used to justify slavery and segregation. Not all Christians agree with that, but they love the idea that Christianity is the way to a better a reality, and that is not true. It is democracy that pushes for the better reality. We are not sharing the same reality until we agree is it democracy or religion that raises the human potential?

I watched a show about the Southern resistance to integration last night so that is what is really on my mind, and the thinking of prejudiced people is so outside my comprehension. I feel so hurt because I know if I were treated as native Americans, or the people of color, or Palestinians have been treated, I would not like it. How could we have so little empathy for other human beings? And clearly, the Christian churches could have spread love instead of hate, but they did not. It is democracy that has pushed for equality and peaceful resolution of differences, not Christianity. While Christians want to believe they are the reason our society is better than others. That blind and false understanding of reality is not tolerable.

* REALITY being that which exists. — Daniel

This is more agreement with what you have said than not an argument.

At best we can have a perception of reality. That perception is dependent on our receptors for feeling, hearing, seeing, etc. and the devices we use to enhance our perceptive capability. Secondly, our ability to perceive reality is limited to what we know and our ability to ask good questions. It is presumptuous to think we can know reality any more than we can know God. We can know about reality, and we can study holy books but that is all limited and we might want to remain cognizant of that. Then we might be less arbitrary about our own concepts of reality.

In many ways, even though we have shared realities, I do believe that each one of us has a unique reality. I remember reading a sociological text, by Berger and Luckman, 'The Social Construction of Reality', in which the authors speak of how we construct our own identities in symbolic ways. — Jack Cummins

That would be a good book to read! I have the good fortune to have experienced the reality of poverty and living in constant insecurity and learning to not want things and the opposite of living in an exclusive neighborhood. These different economic groups have different understandings of reality tied to their emotions and thoughts. The people may share facts but the meanings are not the same.

Each of us has such a unique set of experiences and, finds meaning in the social contexts in which we find ourselves, and we also can choose the life we have, even if we have a limited range of choices. Also, we are so unique in the way in which we interpret our experiences. Each person has a subjective set of likes and dislikes. For example, I know how my own tastes in music are not necessarily the same as many others I know. — Jack Cummins

I like that example of having different tastes in music. That is an odd thing isn't it? Why don't all people enjoy music exactly the same? My taste in music has changed. I used to enjoy heavy metal but now I prefer classical music. It is like my body requires a different sound and beat and is apt to feel annoyed if the sound is harsh. However, I can enjoy a lot of rap if the words are positive. And along this line, I am concern about how TV affects people. I think it affects them in ways they are not aware of and that this has social consequences.

Each of us, at any moment, has a different perspective, including aesthetic,, emotional and rational aspects, but, at the same time, we do navigate these in connection to shared views and specific understanding of standards which are seen as objective. — Jack Cummins

You are so wise. Just wait until you are 70 years of age. Although you have a lot of self-awareness and wisdom, I bet you will be surprised by how much your thinking changes when are older. Because you are a thinker your wisdom will continue to develop. I know plenty of old people, don't develop their thinking and get stuck in their ways, but for those who live to learn and think, age improves their thinking in ways a young person can not imagine.

I think we all need to work on self-awareness so we are not trapped in our own personal drama which we believe is real, but really it is only our own reality or mythology of heroes and demons as Joseph Campbell explained. Especially when we are not getting along with someone, we tend to think it is all that person's fault and we are sure that person's thinking is not right. We either dislike the other or ourselves. Our egos think they are dying if we entertain the idea that it is our thinking that isn't right and we are the one who needs to change but if we do blame ourselves we can become self-destructive because if we knew how to do better we would. :lol: Hum, :chin: it looks like our understanding of reality is also tied to our coping skills. The better our coping skills are, the more flexible we can be and that is a different way of seeing reality.

PS defining reality with quantum physics is so different from the religious explanations of reality that we have lived with for thousands of years.

Okay, how many ways can we define reality? What about reality matters and why? How can we be sure we know reality? Like, might we live differently if we think the Jews must rebuild their temple for Jesus to return and then we will be given a new planet, or if we think our planet is finite and that no religious explanations explain our reality?

Jewish victims don't matter - got it. Israel has no right to defend itself. — BitconnectCarlos

Sure and in the US we had the right to own slaves and steal land from the native Americans. Might makes right because it is obvious the source of that might is God and His will is being done. When the Jews complete the process and rebuild their temple, Jesus will return and prove all the Jews who have not been worshipping Him wrong.

Interestingly at this time in history, our media in the US is hammering away at the wrongs we have done. We can only wonder when Israel's leadership will see their take over of land and prejudice against those who lived there before Zionism as a wrong that needs to be corrected. A big problem is the Jews and Palestinians educate their children separately, each teaching their children a different explanation of history, and last night I watched a program about people of color homeschooling their children, which can evolve into the problem Israel has of opposing cultures pitted against each other.

I am reluctant to move the discussion in a direction it was not going. I didn't realize I was so far off from what everyone else is discussing.

As writing changed human consciousness, television has changed human consciousness and will continue to do so. We live on a finite planet and we have changed it in ways nature would not do. I think our question of reality should focus on that, but perhaps not in this thread? Does it matter if there are many dimensions? Our failure to adequately understand our 3, possibly, 4-dimensional reality could mean destroying our planet and it is humans making the change, not a God and not nature. Oh dear, how could my thoughts be so different from what everyone else is thinking about?

So, Philosophy works best when its derivations can get confirmed by/with science; otherwise, as we see in some of the forums, people say a lot of things that sound good on the surface, such as having 'free will', 'infinity', and 'Nothing' that quickly evaporates when delving into the definitions. — PoeticUniverse

That final statement about definitions brings to mind the creature that is doing the defining. Chardin said God is asleep in rocks and minerals, waking in plants and animals, to know self in man. I read something in Qabala that said God can not have a consciousness like ours because God does not have a physical body and can not experience life as we do. Existence as we know it is unfolding without knowledge because before it comes into being there is nothing to know about it. What other form of intelligence would question reality as we do and how do we come to define anything or to agree on definitions? I think I am saying, we are creating reality or at least any understanding of it.

I was reading your last post and the following question came up: Is reality a changing thing?I believe that there must be one and only one "REALITY"* for every single thing there is; there must be a single "WHOLE" since we (and everything else which exists) are certainly part of the same thing (whatever reality is, it must be the same reality/whole for everything that's contained within it even if everything contained within reality experiences it differently). Nevertheless, I am asking if this reality is fixed (is the nature of reality always the same?) or if it changes as every thing contained within it does**. What do you and other readers think?

* REALITY being that which exists. I have mentioned it before... ideas must be real (they exist) since they are molecular processes being affected by time and space.
** Assuming every thing there is changes. (Assuming every thing which exists is subject to change) (Assuming that the proposition "P = All things that exist are subject to change" is "TRUE"). — Daniel

Ah, if we are talking quantum physics as reality, perhaps it is not a thing but an action and it is in constant change.

The first elements — hydrogen and helium — couldn't form until the universe had cooled enough to allow their nuclei to capture electrons (right), about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Q: How did the first chemical element appear in the universe?Dec 12, 2018

How did the first chemical element appear in the universe ...https://astronomy.com › magazine › ask-astro › 2018/12 — Astronomy magazine

Before the elements what was hot? I don't comprehend reality on this level. We begin with a reality that has no elements. This is not as simple as a god creating heaven and earth and saying it is good.

Like PoeticUniverse said....

Newton's proposed space and time as absolutes were given the boot by Einstein, so, they are but emergent, and not fundamental, so, the ultimate foundation can't have them. — PoeticUniverse

Robin Williams said reality is an interesting concept. Reality is what we agree it to be, but obviously, it can be very hard to get an agreement.

I am blown away by the changed perception of reality that is in the media. It would be interesting to know my mother's take on the explanations of how prejudice harms people of color. I think she would become very defensive of endemic racism and justify it with the sexism that kept women in their place because she thought people should stay in their places. However, she really did not like getting a lower wage because she was a woman. That is, our concept of reality is dependent on our experience and it can be very confusing when others disagree with our concept of reality.

Obviously technology beginning with the technology of agriculture and irrigation dramatically changes our reality. We become more dependent on human knowledge and less dependent on a god. Mass media especially television and the internet are dramatically changing our reality and I wonder what life will be like a hundred years from now. Will racism still be a problem or will media succeed in changing our understanding of racism and our behavior? Will we even have cities, or will our cities be destroyed by fires? Will our economy dependent on oil, collapse, and if it does how will people live?

That is not quantum physics reality but it is the kind of reality I find the most interesting. It is as we make it, not exactly how a god makes it. We are destroying our Garden of Eden because we are violating laws of nature. We are headed for a water crisis and life as we know it could come to an end.

I'm reading a book on divination in antiquity, Divination and Human Nature, by Peter Struck, which considers the views of ancient philosophers regarding that practice. From what I gather so far, philosophers didn't necessarily dispute its efficacy, but rather sought to explain why it was effective. Divination didn't necessarily involve sacrifice, though the study of livers was thought to be significant in determining what was to take place.

The Roman Emperor as Pontifex Maximus performed sacrifices as part of the Roman state religion. There's frieze of Marcus Aurelius doing so that's well known. Sacrifice seems to have been a fairly universal religious practice. — Ciceronianus the White

That looks like a very interesting book! I love to examine why people believe what they believe. Where and why did the idea originate and where did it travel and how did it blend with the beliefs of others? If is easy to imagine how hunters came to sacrificing imaging a power greater than their own and yes the practice seems to have been pretty universal. I can not imagine how a person would rationalize what the Hebrews were doing was different from what everyone else was doing and only the Hebrew's sacrifices are about a true god. Then the Christian claim that another diety eliminates the need to make sacrifices. :chin:

Not necessarily. I suppose different people are good for different reasons. Some are good because they allow their innate goodness to manifest itself; some are good because they acknowledge the importance of following laws, human or divine; and others are good because they fear punishment in this life or the next. — Apollodorus

I find that agreeable.

But even in those cultures where spiritual wisdom and laws were transmitted orally, the knowledge in question was accessible to a limited number of people, such as the priestly class. It was not available to all and sundry. — Apollodorus

I agree with this too but want to say all people have a mythology about creation with stories that tell them how to behave. They were first told around campfires and they were passed on verbally from one generation to the next. The goal of mythology is to transition youth into adults knowing the tribe's values and stories that unite them. I know of no reason why we should believe one story is more true than another. Philosophers such as Confucius have done the same with reason and without relying on supernatural beings. Why should we judge the Bible as better than the philosophers who laid out the laws (science) a society needs?

What I believe or aver is irrelevant. You have called lie. If the Bible is a lie, it should not be too difficult for you to cite the parts that are lies. It seems to me you have no clarity about beliefs and what they are, seemingly dividing the world into matters of science or lies. But it just plain is not that simple. And statements can be false all day long without being lies.

Do some people lie? Do they lie about religion? Of course they do, maybe a lot of people. But that's them, not (usually) their beliefs.

Or another way. You call lie. Is that because you believe it as a matter of belief? Or because you know it as a matter of fact? — tim wood

Five Biblical stories are Sumerian stories of multiple gods. It was a goddess who made a man and woman of mud and breathed life into them so they could help a river stay in its banks. One of the goddesses involved was Ninti. Her name translates as both "the lady of the rib" and "the lady who makes live". This play on words does not work in Hebrew so we get Eve a woman made of the man's rib. In cuneiform, the words Eden (Uncultivated plane) and Adam (settlement on the plain) appear. The people who carry this story came from Ur a Sumerian city and they were led by Abraham. It is obvious they researched the Sumerian archives and plagiarized the Sumerian story.

Science tells us humans evolved from the same line as the apes. That is the story I believe and that makes the Biblical story of creation false. Without the Biblical story, there is no need to be saved and I think all our reasoning is greatly improved by science. We were not made special by a God but we are animals.

What do you believe the facts are? If you do not clearly answer that question this is the last time I will acknowledge your posts in this thread.

If it is false it is a lie.

You are playing a good game of cat and mouse. Do you believe the Bible is God's word or a nice mythology but truth as a person of science understands truth?

What I meant was that the practice of writing down laws said to have been given by God goes back to Hammurabi (1792 - 1750 BC ) and before:

“Hammurabi is best known for having issued the Code of Hammurabi, which he claimed to have received from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice.”

Hammurabi – Wikipedia

The Judeans were taken into Babylonian captivity in 597 -581 BC, i.e., many centuries after the Code of Hammurabi.

But I agree that the idea of a loving God in the modern sense is a recent reinterpretation. The original idea was that God is to us like a father. He creates us, supports and protects us, feeds us, and expects "love" i.e., obedience in return.

God was like the pater familias in Greek and Roman society hence he was referred to as "Father" (Zeus Pateras) in the same way children out of respect always addressed their parent as "father", not by his proper name. — Apollodorus

There is a huge issue with the written word. What Hammusrabl did, did not affect the Celts who were resistant to the written word. Celts and others rejected writing in favor of memorization and passing on stories orally. I forget the whole argument about how writing changed the human psyche, but the change is huge! Our brains function totally differently when we use pictures to cue our memory or rely on "the written word", which can then become THE AUTHORITY. Protestants took this to an extreme. They decided each one of us can be an authority on God's word, and they made the Bible the authority of His word. Totally different from the Catholics who decided trained priest can be authorities on God's word, but not the lay folk. For a Catholic, the pope has authority and power, not the common man and that would be much closer to Judaism and the rabbi by inheritance who interprets the word of God.

Making the individual the authority on God's word set fire to witch-hunting. Ignorant people thinking they are authorities of spiritual truth became a superstitious nightmare and I am not sure how far from this we are today?

Om, om, we have with us ideas of the power of sound and using the vibration of sound to heighten our spiritual connection. We have Quakers who believe God speaks to everyone. Or the Buddist who gets in touch with spirituality by going within. This denies the authority of the written word and belongs in this discussion. What is the source of your spiritual experience? How do you connect with it?

Jews were known for their spells and they show up in Egyptian burials. Our word "spell" comes from the belief that words can have magical power. Do we believe this when we argue "Belief in god is necessary for being good"? Excuse me- how familiar are we with this faith in the word?