I'm not sure if you are referring to the Tao as literally the quantum vacuum or as a metaphor. I think taking it literally is mixing up metaphysics and physics. — T Clark
This is something I've thought about a lot - the idea of returning. This is how I think of it now - The Tao gives rise to the 10,000 things, which then returns to the Tao. That means that this process is taking place continuously and continually. The Tao didn't give rise to the multiplicity of the world once, it does it over and over. It's always doing it. I haven't heard that interpretation elsewhere, so I don't know if others would agree with it. — T Clark
20. Intelligence is having the ability to apprehend the form of things (and not its copies!).
21. The purely simple and actual being apprehends the forms of things. (19)
22. Therefore, the purely simple and actual being must be an intelligence.
23. To know the forms of every composed being is what it means to be omniscient.
24. Therefore, the purely simple and actual being is omniscient.
25. To cause the existence of a thing in correspondence to its form from knowledge (intelligence) requires a will.
26. Therefore, the purely simple and actual being must have a will. — Bob Ross
1. Composed beings are made up of parts.
2. A composed being exists contingently upon its parts in their specific arrangement.
3. A part of a composed being is either composed or uncomposed.
4. A part that is a composed being does not, in turn, exist in-itself but, rather, exists contingently upon its parts and their specific arrangement.
5. An infinite series of composed beings (viz., of parts which are also, in turn, composed) would not have the power to exist on their own.
6. Therefore, an infinite series of composed beings is impossible.
7. Therefore, a series of composed beings must have, ultimately, uncomposed parts as its first cause. (6 & 3)
8. An uncomposed being (such as an uncomposed part) is purely simple, since it lacks any parts.
9. Two beings can only exist separately if they are distinguishable in their parts.
10. Two purely simple beings do not have any different parts (since they have none).
11. Therefore, only one purely simple being can exist.
12. The purely simple being would have to be purely actual—devoid of any passive potency—because passive potency requires a being to have parts which can be affected by an other.
13. No composed being could be purely actual, because a composed being always has parts which, as parts, must have passive potency.
14. Therefore, there can only be one purely actual being which is also purely simple. (11 & 12 & 13)
15. The purely actual being is changeless (immutable), because it lacks any passive potency which could be actualized.
16. The purely actual being is eternal, because it is changeless and beyond time (as time’s subsistence of existence).
17. The effect must be some way in the cause.
18. The physical parts of a composed being cannot exist in something which is purely simple and actual; for, then, it would not be without parts.
19. Therefore, the forms of the composed beings must exist in the purely simple and actual being. — Bob Ross
My senses can deceive me, so if I cannot trust my senses, I might as well conclude that outside reality doesn't exist; It's just me and you; but if my senses cannot be always trusted then your existence must also might be an illusion. — A Realist
ultimate truth? — Corvus
we are stardust — Arcane Sandwich
Other than "Unknown" perhaps? — jorndoe
You folks wanna talk about Roko's Basilisk? — Arcane Sandwich
Is there an answer that does not admit questions (even in principle)? — jorndoe
Ok — Arcane Sandwich
things cannot be Poetry all the way down — Arcane Sandwich
And here is the Hegelian version — Arcane Sandwich
Our Father, the Absolute First
created himself from the primordial darkness. — Guarani Creation Myth
Hmmm... — Arcane Sandwich
Reality is greater than the Ultimate Truth about it, it surpasses it, it transcends it, because it is an Absolute of a very different kind, one that exists entirely outside the Ultimate Truth about it. — Arcane Sandwich
I never said that the Hegelian Absolute Spirit was First or Fundamental, all I said is that it is Ultimate and that it is a Truth about something else: Reality itself. — Arcane Sandwich
Hegel's concept of the Absolute Spirit — Arcane Sandwich
I raise you — Arcane Sandwich
but you lose the rhyming structure — Arcane Sandwich
What Hernández is saying here is that the act of singing is an act of freedom. — Arcane Sandwich
Hmmm... but is it Divine, yes or no? — Arcane Sandwich
Divinity does not have to be about a transcendent anthromorphic 'God'. There is the idea of divinity within as expressed by Walt Whitman. The poets often understood divinity as a source of inspiration. I am sure that William Blake saw it that way. — Jack Cummins
divine magic — Arcane Sandwich
Hmmm... — Arcane Sandwich
It is truly "something else" in that sense. And it is, in my belief, identical to what Kant called "the thing-in-itself" — Arcane Sandwich
I don't have it, sir. Where can I find one? — Corvus
That is indeed one of the things that I have been working on for the past year and a half, more or less. To prove, logically, definitively, that demons, dragons and other fictional entities do not exist. But it's a really difficult thing to prove, because that discussion is about the concept of existence itself. — Arcane Sandwich
And from my observations, experiences and reasoning, the only place where God exist is the word God. Nowhere else in the external world I could observe God at all. Therefore my proof God exists in the keyboard of my computer still stands. — Corvus
What could transform the potential for life into life? — Corvus
What could transform the potential for life into life? — Corvus
But after some reflection,
I understand the Ultimate Something as death. Eventually everything and every life dies by the natural law. Hence we could say Death is the Ultimate Something.
The Ultimate Something has no opposite? I agree. Death has no opposite. Death is nothing. The opposite of Death is life, but once dead, it is impossible to go back to life, no alternative. — Corvus
But in the case of deducing something Permanent and Eternal being, I have no real life experience pertaining to the concept, hence I am not sure what could be the basis for such deduction or inference. — Corvus
My belief of its existence is as firm as any other knowledge I have for certain. — Corvus
the existence of God is a matter of conjecture and personal faith.
It is an illogical statement to say God exists. The correct way of saying that statement is, one believes in God. — Corvus
So you think processes such as cell replication or photosynthesis come to be by pure chance? — kindred
In conclusion, this is the argument as to why Potential stands as a better reasoning for existence than something coming from nothing. — Benj96
