fair points

fascist national-socialism. — Raul

I’d be inclined to agree except for the existence of self sacrifice and martyrdom. In this case the I in question is not facist to itself but to a community it identifies as similar to itself but may not necessarily be like itself. For example one could die for the global climate change cause and one might say they sacrificed themselves for their love of nature whilst another could be a martyr to authorities because they valued others people equally as themselves if not more.

And what about the state of suicide or cancer? When this facist socialistic nation (Multicellular organism) turns on itself?

Regardless of how well I describe the taste of something, it’s not the same as actually eating and experiencing it. — Present awareness

What would you make of synethesia which is word based... for example you always see the word green as The colour green or you always smell petrol when you read the word petrol. This would equate to the word being also the thing it describes. A self referential word. Or the the word “word” Or the sound of “sound” which is exactly what it is. Can some language actually be the thing it means rather than pointing to something else indirectly ?

Also the word “I” can only ever be referential to the thing saying it. Only “I”s say “I”

I recommend you read a bit of Naturalism of Andler or Nannini. — Raul

Thank you very much you’re very articulate in your explanation. Makes sense to me. I’ll add this t my reading list

Doesn't sound like a good reason to be honest. The "rarity of something" is not grounds for staying. — Darkneos

It seems no ones opinion satisfies your “curiosity” regarding the subject. Are you here to explore other people’s ideas or simply reaffirm that yours is correct or that you need not ask in the first place - considering you say that most of ours are “not good enough reasons”.

Rarity of something is not grounds for staying any more than abundance of something is grounds for staying. If I can use the opposite to the same end is it logically sound to point it out? I don’t really get your point. You either want someone’s cause for desire (which is often emotional or illogical) or you want someone’s logical reasoning (desire removed and speaking Objectively/ of only probabilities and statistics).

Let me put it this way. If living requires energy and energy must always change and if it has already been the 99% of things that are dead then it stands to reason that the last 1% is that which is living energy systems. In this case to even ask whether one should have a reason to live or not is pointless because it was bound to happen and it is finite. Whether it’s finite by the span of 80 years or 20 isn’t going to impact the entirety of the system a whole lot.

One lives either because they have to (logical), or they want to (emotional). Most people live for a mix of these things with overlap between necessity and desire on multiple levels. But you could simply remove both need and desire and say “I live because it is happening to me. i exist because I exist. I have no control ultimately” - a predeterministic view

Parents and teachers can come up with all sorts of justifications for beating kids up — baker

I think the word “beating” and “punishing” in the context we are speaking of need to be disassociated. One can be reprimanded non physically (Verbally/ or a privilege subtracting threat - for example “if you don’t do X you won’t be allowed Y for a week) and
even in such cases as the traditional sense they are punished with a “slap on the wrist” which is designed to inflict enough pain to act as a warning/ negative association but not enough to cause severe harm, there is a huge difference between “beating - which leaves permanent physical damage as well as eliciting extreme pain responses that are detrimental to the psychology of the child” and comes from uncontrolled anger and aggression and a “slap” associated with “don’t ever cross the road without holding my hand do you understand?” Out of fear and concern.

Children are forever learning to avoid things because it hurt them: they accidentally burnt their hand or hurt their knee when they fell from running too fast or got a splinter because they fell from a height on a tree. Pain is a natural bodily boundary between that which is safe and that which is not.

The issue really is that it’s extremely difficult to establish whether a parent was too forceful or whether it was appropriate to the situation. I personally would always try to speak to my child and give them the opportunity to understand verbally but if it were something extremely dangerous that they did and they weren’t responding to verbal threats a bit of protective pain (Not damaging harm) may be appropriate.

Knowing his dark secrets, I still believe he is a very respectable person. Just as respectable as someone who doesn't hear voices, but still works hard. The thoughts are not important, what matters is a person's actions. — Edy

This shows exceptional strength and will on his part. I also agree that the internal mind can highly mismatch external reality without there being a behavioural/ acted link. But I would imagine it takes the greatest effort to avoid being manipulated by your own mind

I do not really understand what you're saying, but it smells false and beside the point.

Can there be a being who can do anything? Yes, although we need to be clear that doing anything means what it means - it means anything at all. — Bartricks

It’s not beside the point in the sense that you are defining a “person” But then let’s remove all the limiting factors of human nature/ the conditions of personhood and then call it an “all powerful person”. How do we still call it a person in this case? You have the idea of a superhuman or superhero in mind. But one could equally argue them as alien to the human condition. A human cannot live forever nor exert ultimate force upon the universe. That is understood when we use the word human - a human; dies, is of a certain spectrum of intelligence and influence, has a reasonably consistent genetic code that only permits certain phenotypical traits. If a chimp and I share more than 99% of our components with each other... this god human is surely more distant in relation to what we decribe as human.

Supposing this “human” can be anywhere or do anything at any time why would it choose to be defined as simply “human”. Why ought it to statistically choose to be this one specific animal on this specific planet living a human life. It doesn’t make much sense in being productive. What’s much more Probable is that it interacts with itself and therefore must be all humans as well as the reality we occupy.

It’s like saying can there ever be a human that is actually a box that heats up and has the ability to cook any food and can be put in the kitchen. Yes there is ... it’s called an oven. The parameters of existence have changed so too must the definition.

So no I don’t believe there can be an all powerful god like human... there can only be the state of mind that one is god, or that others believe they are god, or that they understand reality so well that they could appreciate god (if it exists) better than the vast majority of other people and can teach in human examples of how this god is - like the prophets supposedly did.

My reasoning behind pointing to consciousness is that perhaps the mind or sentience that we have as humans is shared amongst a much larger set of things than we generally assume and that maybe this conscious entity in its entirety meets the omni-abilities of a god. That would mean we are a Technically a part of god, we can understand god to a degree but we as a human are not all of god and all of his /Hers /its properties.

Maybe in death we return to this base property. The largest consciousness. But who is to say?

But that's where such explanatory frameworks as Buddhism are relevant. As you may know, 'mindfulness meditation' is grounded in Buddhist principles, albeit considerably adapted to current requirements. But the advantage of the Buddhist approach is that it has pretty clear set of standards and criteria for what is required in mindfulness practice, set within a broad philosophical framework. That's what is missing from discussion of 'contemplation'. Scientific method is fundamentally concerned with objective measurement, and so it really has no applicability in this domain. Yet without the mantle of scientific respectability, contemplation might really just amount to daydreaming, or self-obsession. — Wayfarer

Exactly! This I agree with in entirety

Fair point, I meant to say - I disagree that self reflection/contemplation is destructive. The point I'm also trying to make is that self-awareness is not simply 'thinking about oneself', which can indeed often simply be egotism. I think there's a kind of disciplined self-awareness which is the subject of meditative discipline. — Wayfarer

Interesting. I agree in the idea that self awareness isn’t specific to the ego - the point of awareness/ body mind essentially the person.
For example you could interact with a tribesman with a spiritual belief and ask them where do you believe the self is? To which he could reply “we are one with nature. The self is everywhere. I am only one piece of my whole self, the snake another, the river yet another and also the mountains.”

So in this sense we could say that being selfish vs selfless starts to become less distinct as in his case to be selfish is to preserve and take care of the whole self - nature beyond all individual pieces (egos)

Technology would have been applied in accord with a scientifically valid understanding of reality, and we would have made a paradise of the world. — counterpunch

Hmm with all the technological and scientific advancement possible I still don’t think this means ultimate paradise. The creator of such things (humans in this case) are still very obviously capable of using tech and science to bad ends (atomic bomb - the most selfish and destructive invention ever).

So in order to create paradise we must transfigure ourselves from mere human to something unrecognisably beyond human nature. Maybe this is truly possible given enough time but leave it to the humans to try to prevent it haha

By 'God' I mean a person who is all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient) and all-good (omnibenevolent). I take it that possession of those properties is sufficient to make one God. I do not want to debate this, it is just to tell you what I mean by 'God'. — Bartricks

My issue with the idea of a god in the form of human is the human capacity cannot meet these demands: when we define a human we restrict our concept by the parameters of “presence” (the space occupied by the body), “Potency” (the minimum and maximum Possible energy used by the human to survive) and sentience ( the greatest degree to which knowledge/ information that can be held by the human MinD at any one time) none of which are “omni-“ anything. We can’t be everywhere instantaneously and therefore cannot experience all information or levels of power.

However interestingly if we replace “human” with “consciousness” than perhaps it can be those things. What if we said that consciousness is fundamental to the universe just as energy is... then it is everywhere, experiences all forms, and all levels of power and information. And importantly is firmly connected to the human mind in that the human mind is a piece of it - a part that can appreciate the whole... just not fully

Only a universe can know what it is like to be a universe.

I want to know WHY people choose to go on. It's something I wondered about, why do we take life as a good thing or a given but when someone wishes to die they are "sick". What if they just don't want to do this dance anymore and are just tired. Tired of faking it just so they don't get locked up in some hospital or whatever. — Darkneos

I wish to go on for what is perhaps a very Logical and statistical basis leaving meaning nd purpose and sentiment aside. I wish to live my life because it is a rare occurrence. In the 14 billion years of the universes existence it had not yet seen a “me” occur. Even life is relatively short lived in the total existence of the universe- a blink in the eye.

So if you ask a person who has never blinked do they want to try a blink to see what it’s like - it’s only going to happen once and it won’t last very long — they would likely be like why not? Whether the blink is uncomfortable/ bad or pleasant... at the end of the day it is a singular one time thing and it will be over - why die sooner when you will be dead for the rest of existence? That to me is illogical if you wish to experience as much as possible before going back to absolutely nothing

Interesting. What about in the case of words that denote undefinable thing like “abstraction”, “unknown” or “undefinable” and “mysterious” “ambiguous” ... if we make meaning out of associating small pieces of information how to we crest a sense of “the lack of information”? Surely there has to be a part of the brain that deals with that which has no meaning, is absurd and cannot be connected coherently or logically with other ideas.

Emphatically disagree. When I look out the window, I see the same things that everyone else does. Depending on what I'm seeing, and how others around me see those things, we might disagree on what they mean, or even what they are (was that a bird or a bat? A gunshot or a fire cracker?) — Wayfarer

How can one emphatically disagree with a question. I asked a question and you replied I disagree. Furthermore you assume that everyone’s perception is equal but then go to say it results in alterior conclusions. When in fact perception itself is also different from one person to another. How do I know your colour red is the same as mine? Or someone tripping on a hallucinogen? I would imagine a bird is conceptually regarded as different to a colourblind person or to a blind person as to one with typical vision

or that questioning the existence of ourselves is somehow illogical !! — BARAA

In some philosophy’s and ways of life this is the case. Some would argue that to exist doesn’t hinge on whether you understand why or how - in the same way as you were not asked permission nor did you require knowledge or understanding to be born.

One doesn’t need to learn instincts or reflexes... they - as far as we are concerned - are there developmentally at the start of life and we cannot prevent our knee from jerking when the doctor taps it with a hammer or to not remove our hand from a flame without thinking or understanding why we did it. What we know about our existence is learned through experience but it’s key to recognise that that its a retrospective process - through education - looking back on history, memory, observing past events, it requires memory. However, A baby having next to no life experience will eat, will cry, will sleep and breathe. It doesn’t need to know how to exist it just does because it’s closer to the hardwired drive to exist, to survive.

I’m not suggesting that ignoring big questions is wrong or Illogical or that not having curiosity of any kind as to the questions posed by life is a bad thing, I’m simply saying it’s not as necessary as western society in specific would lead one to believe.

Depending on your views and lifestyle you may live as an animal does and leave everything to nature and natural selection or you can strive to understand scientifically and take nature into your own hands but in either case you will always have two things for certain; the fact that you will always have suffering, and you will always find ways to avoid it either spiritually, or pragmatically.

I couldn’t tell you which is more logical - to Desiré knowledge to take control, or to be controlled but trust in nature’s process.

Taoism describes a flow to life. You can try to define it in any one of millions of ways but the property of the Tao is that it cannot ever be reduced to one thing. It cannot be defined. It will always provide more questions than there are answers. Whether we choose to answer them or not is up to us. But what is more fulfilling is to decide what way to be that is going to satisfy you, that is going to give your life direction.

So as for logic to question ourselves is highly logical to one person and not at all relevant to another. There are many logics and all are worthy. Art has its own creative logic but it will not bow down to the scientific logic because though science is extremely utilitarian it lacks soul or this imaginative almost instinctual logic.

Even if we decide what is logical and what is irrational the irrational is equally as important. For without the irrational you cannot have anything rational. You cannot have pi- without irrationality and pi constructs the circle, it is critical to unifying the linear and the cyclical, to geometry and maths which are arguably highly logical pursuits.

Energy if it pervades the entire universe and underpins all processes both physical and mental ... constructs one logical pursuit as well as all counter arguments (which could be equally logical as in paradoxes or more logical or less) no less they are all results of energetic change and the processing of information. Logic is what you are conditioned to accept as such. Ask an ancient human if they believe in magic and they will say yes - because at that point in time it was the most logical explanation . If spiritual healing was not useful they would not do it just as if modern medicine wasn’t useful we would give up on it.

systems cannot be independent and fully isolated form one another. All information must be connected - there cannot be a lack of continuity between information as energy can’t operate in isolation from from itself. No matter how far systems are from each other they are inextricably linked by time and space to one another. The speed of light connects Two determined locations in space time as at the speed of light time dilation is profound as is spatial contraction. For a particle travelling at the speed of light distance and time are no object at all as all is instantaneous.

Therefore systems that sculpt coordination cannot be removed from those that destroy coordination. It Is simply a matter of entropy if the system. Some systems such as “life“ are negatively entropic - they creat order and structure out of chaos but they are firmly located within larger chaotic systems from which they can gather and order information.

Time must then be a process that connects systems of order and chaos. Just as gravity “slows” down time yet generates order or “aggregation of matter” and a lack of gravity permits the existence of pure space or “void” is unhindered by the resistant effects of mass.

This is shown by the fact that the larger a mass the more momentum is required to maintain the same degree of rate of change or “speed” - something proportional or equivalent to time over distance.

this is the proverbially “I”.

We are all “I”. That is what we have in common but the irony is that this “I” is always explicit to me, to you and to them. No ones “I” is the same as another's. We are ultimately alone in our experience of the sensation of “I” - the sensation of “me”.

However intelligence permits us to identify the parts of “I” that relate to “me” as also havIng significance and validity to “you” and this is the basis of empathy. Empathy in this sense is the awareness that the feelings that my “I” has are equal and comparable to those that your “I” has.

Therefore we can assume that others have a likeness to ourselves that warrants similar leniency when it comes to judgement and effort in understanding. If I can understand myself reasonably perfectly then I ought to attempt to understand others in a similar fashion and give their “I” the time of day so to speak.

If we are all the same “I” then logically we are all capable of demonstrating the best virtues and worst vices of said “I” and therefore there is no reason to assume that one person is better than another . Empathy.

it is worthy to note that as humans - a contingent entity of the chain we are explaining or require explanation of our contingency with reference to the chain itself. It’s like the arc of a circle desiring to explain the necessity of the arc as a contingency of the whole - the circle.

Ultimately for an arc to question why it may be contingent of a circle is as pointless as a circle questioning its contingency when it is composed of arcs. In the end the contingency of either the arc or the circle is mutually contingent on One another. You cannot have the Arc of a circle without the circle and you ca not have a circle without its composing arcs.

It is a circular argument. Nature shows that causes and effects can be one and the same in the sense of natural cycles. A closed loops suggests that contingency is self contained.

Perhaps the origin of a chain requires as a prerequisite the end of that same chain. This is what we speak of when we understand frequency or vibration. I now point to the understanding that energy cannot be created or destroyed. This means whatever contingency energy Has was born by the potential of energy. Is discrete but ever cycling.

We are what we read, literally. — Constance

Haha interesting. Although I somewhat tend toward the idea that “we are what we take from a reading”... the same book does not invoke the same insights in everyone despite its attempt to point all in a unanimous direction. Wisdoms of the past offer a certain depth - an ambiguity of interpretation all of which is applicable to the useful appreciation of various minds. That is the power of literature - to invoke unavoidable contention and therefore debate based of a singular seemingly discrete text.

Language is as much interpretative as it is defined and direct.

Maybe being a friendless loner for most of my youth... and now most of my adulthood... basically every time besides my early 20s experiment in being a popular person... was actually good for me, then! — Pfhorrest

It’s perfectly fine to be a “friendless loner”. It simply means that assuming you are philosophising or otherwise using your solitude constructively you have just chosen/ prefer a lifestyle of deep thought - something difficult to maintain when obligated to entertain others.

There are many that came before you that elected the same solitary existence and used the quietness and lack of distraction to great lengths and there will surely be many after you that choose the same. To be alone does not mean one is lonely... especially when we consider that these people keep the company of thought.

I am very inclined to agree with pretty much all of what you said. I feel love is not even just “putting others before yourself” as you are equally worthy of being the subject of love, but rather a dissolution of the boundaries between the “who’s” and “what’s” of love - like a melding of ones being with the being of the world around them. No longer a victim, no longer an “I” and “you” or “us” and “them”.

I can’t remember who quoted “love is boundless” but true love I really believe is not constrained by definitions or partition. One is either a source of empathetic love for all they meet regardless of insult or attack (because they come from a place of understanding) or they are not (they selectively choose what or who is worthy of love and who/what is not - they are more so attracted to certain things then loving despite differences of any kind

I am not religious at all, but in my opinion, the best way to describe authentic love is through the words of Apostle Paul: 'Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.' — PM24B

If this is love then while I can say I have tasted it, I have a lot of work to do. My work is cut out for me :p

If it was a matter of something that could be explained like a purpose or a means to something, you wouldn't have to ask about it. — Valentinus

I don’t ask for any purpose of my own. My relationship with the concept of love is mine alone :) I ask because I’m curious to know what other people feel/ have experienced. I ask for a sharing of other insights

Wayfarer Thank you very much for the link. Very informative but...I still feel there's something off about considering rhythmic/cyclical behavior "remarkable" or that it is "inexplicable — TheMadFool

Hold up haha. I don’t think it’s fair to say you cannot be in awe of something without it being explicable. That itself is erroneous. I’m frequently amazed by things when they are fully explained to me in a logical fashion. Logic is not apathetic it’s coveted, desired etc because it has a pleasurable effect on the mind. I never stated that it couldn’t be explained to me in a truer sense then the sentiments I wrote of.

A geneticist can still be in awe of DNA even when they have spent years studying it, and have established one of the highest appreciations of its mechanism/ functions etc. Perhaps how I phrased my post could have paid more attention to this but whether it is just a mere cycle or something more complex I draw my awe from its utility and my experience of it

iewing rhythmic biological processes like sleep-wake cycles, oyster opening-closing behavior, etc. as awareness of time is a grave mistake in my humble opinion. These processes are cyclical or rhythmic as other posters have commented and that's all there is to it. They can be used as crude clocks, no doubts about that, but their existence doesn't imply that living organisms have an innate awareness of time no more than a mechanical clock's ticks imply that clocks are, somehow, aware of time. — TheMadFool

This is a very clever point and I’m inclined to agree that perhaps it’s illusory to associate it with time keeping. The real question would then be why are rhythms and cycles such an integral part of nature and why are they so effective at translating into chronology/ horology -or the measure/ study and significance of time. Perhaps when looking for clues as to the link between the physical world and the living organism or the theory of “abiogenesis” - time as a principle of physics is clearly maintained or followed by living systems in their biological composition and function... perhaps the origin of life is within some cycle that links life to the physical world - like tides or day and night temperature fluctuations etc

learned from Lyall Watson's book Super Nature, that oysters kept in tanks in the midwest of the USA in old mines and in still water, still opened and closed in time with the oceanic tides, which of course in those conditions they had no exposure to. Figure that out. — Wayfarer

Wow how peculiar... genetic predisposition perhaps? Like “reflexes” That developed over many generations of inheritance of the relevant genes?

Here's another time feature: as people get older, they report that time (seems to) pass by faster. I'm 75 and can attest that time seems to pass quite a bit faster for me now than it did when I was 50. I did not experience this acceleration of time when I was in college or in my late 20s and 30s — Bitter Crank

I believe this is the “fractional effect” of lifespan - each year becomes a smaller fraction of the whole as time progresses. For a one year old one year is there entire life so far whilst for a twenty year old it is only one twentieth and so on. So there seems to be an acceleration in the passage of time as well as a reduction in the temporal significance of a “year” for example to total experience. I remember as a child waiting for Santa to come at Christmas felt like an eternity even just a week before the date whilst now christmases seem to come and go very quickly as I can clearly recall each years event as they happen. Perhaps it has to do with the “learning: recall ratio” - by this I mean that as a child we are learning a large amount of new information - behaviours, culture, educational materials and languages without a large database from which to recall (little life experience) whilst when we are elderly we are learning much less in general and life begins to become more reflective than anticipatory.

But if you are consciously or subconsciously aware that you are more fatigued than normal, then you could take this into account when making a time estimation — VagabondSpectre

Perhaps but it doesn’t negate the incredible Automatic calculating ability of the Mind without conscious intention

Oxytocin. I think all emotions have a material basis in terms of hormones, enzymes and the like. What's not explicable through such means is selfless devotion and self-sacrifice. — Wayfarer

While I think that yes definitely there is a correlation between oxytocin concentration and “bonding” or “affection” based behaviour that has resulted in the belief that it is the “love Molecule” - it’s likely along the right track but I think it’s also rather reductive. I don’t believe that profound and deep emotions of consciousness are explicitly quantised as “just a molecule.”

If this were the case then we would have already resolved war, depression, hatred etc by injecting ourselves repeatedly with oxytocin. We’d all be love bugs lol.
One think to point out is that in general with bio pharmacology - the more frequently we use a molecule the less of an effect it has and the more effort we have to put in to get the same result. This is tolerance and is common to the majority of chemicals we use both endogenous - dopamine, endorphins for example and exogenous - caffeine, Cocaine, hallucinogens.

So at the very least there is a complex negative feedback that prevents a “one solves all solution” To the generation of emotions and feelings of pleasure etc.

Love is noted for its consistency and perseverance despite removal of the object of love. One can continue to love with all their being a partner who has passed away decades ago. Love seems to be incredibly powerful and Often long lasting and I just don’t see this as being down chemistry alone.

Also on your point of selfless devotion and self sacrifice.. is this not a feature of love? Does he/she who loves in totality not find themselves willing to sacrifice anything and everything for the preservation or wellbeing of the object of their love - think the maternal instinct of a mother to throw herself in front of traffic in order to rescue her child from being hit by a car.

I am not a physicist but I believe that we have moved away from the Newtonian model which looks to structures. The quantum physicists are showing that the universe is much more complex and are less inclined to look for explanations in purely material terms. — Jack Cummins

Agreed. This comes back to the nature of fundamental phenomena, whether one subscribes to a dualist or monist philosophy, science has shown that energy has the capacity to operate as both a wave and a particle simultaneously. In this way it is both a discrete possible temporo-spatial location( a particle) and a sort of field of possible locations based on probability (a wave).

So it’s clear that the line between the material (discrete/defined) and the non-material (potentiality to be) is at best difficult to delineate. Einstein also pointed out the duality of energy with his energy equivalence E=mc2 which was the first solid scientific principle on exactly how energy relates to mass - its “alter ego”.

I like to picture it as a spectrum of determined scale - as energy is finite (Cannot he created not destroyed) and quantised (photons) - therefore at one pole of the spectrum you have the solid and manipulated form the “acted upon” and on the other you have the inmaterial potency “that which enforces/propagates the action” - the scale between them is then space-time (C^2) the speed of light squared - an area with the parameters of distance and time (speed).

None of this prevents energy and matter from being the exact same thing because implicit to the nature of each is perspective ... from what point on the scale are you observing it? Relativity. Or duality.
This neatly circles back to wave- particle duality in that it collapses into one or the other when “observed” or made “discrete” and relative.

baker I don’t say unwanted children have a bad nature. I would certainly say they have a bad nurture — Todd Martin

Indeed, it is essential that children feel they belong and are deserving of the life given to them. If they are not then it is the responsibility of society to make arrangements for another nurturing environment that provides for this basic need.

It’s worth noting that a lot of criminal/ deviant behaviour in young adults arises from this type of childhood anxiety and failure to thrive due to toxic nurturing. In this case should we not consider the individual circumstances that may have led one to deviant behaviour. It may help to establish a means by which we can empathise with those who have wronged us and help rehabilitate them into a functional/ social lifestyle

And you have some reason to believe that early punishment works well on children whose parents didn't want them, but had them anyway, and have always sent them subtle or overt messages that it would be better if they didn't exist? — baker

No because this is a question of the origin of the intention to punish. If a parent punishes out of loathing it is toxic but if they punish out of protection/ fear or concern for their child’s wellbeing - ie loving punishment then it may be appropriate.

For example a child who runs out on to a road dangerously may instil a hyper aggressive reaction from a parent that fears for their life. They will remember that it was a bad thing and that they got punished for it and won’t do it again, now, whether they come to appreciate why that happened is down to clear communication from the parent as to why they were angry or simply from reflecting as they mature themselves and reevaluate it from an adult perspective.

...then one day a crisis occurs; maybe a dear sister of the convent tragically dies (I don’t remember), and the mischievous girl secretly witnesses the painful but pious manner the chief sister prays for her perished comrade, and invokes god...

At any rate, having witnessed this, she experiences a conversion to the church, and dedicates herself as a nun, her rebellious character replaced by a serene and pious countenance. — Todd Martin

I feel this has a very strong message. That being that one cannot know piety without knowing mischievousness/rebellion. In a process by where you elect one of two ways of living it only makes sense to try them both on for size so to speak and witness what each offers. One would imagine a healthy appreciation of both angles: the pros and cons of both rebelling against unquestionable authority verses the knowledge of intention and the wisdom and experience required to take on a pious and authoritarian role would reveal the truths of both.

In that it is always acceptable for one to question previous ways for validity and correctness but it is essential not to act blindly/ rash in either case: Never fully trust what you’re told but always listen and consider at the same time where it may have originated from.

For the fulfilment of your three prerequisites of god i point to energy. Energy is an illusive substance. It is omnipresent because energy is Matter (e=mc2) and is required for the manifestation of all possible phenomena. It is omnipotent because it is the power to act through all orders of magnitude. No degree of power is not governed by energy. It is omniscient because all information, all interactions.. depends on the Propagation of energy.

But most importantly ... energy cannot be created nor destroyed; it is immortal. It always existed as potential despite what kind of potentials we choose to Focus on in any instance. Energy is the underpinning of physics. No facet of physics can exist without it.

So whether you are religious and believe in a god of such a type as indicated above Or scientific and only subscribe to energy as a governing body the outcome is the same. Where did energy come from? What does it do? What is it’s purpose?

If I had to apply a theological notion to any aspect of physics it would be energy.

is energy material? Are conscious concepts material? Is experience of the material material? This is the metaphysics of reality. What is the material basis of emotions such as love?

I think material cannot account for all phenomena in the universe as strictly speaking: materials must be manipulated and what better to manipulate the physical than the non physical. Furthermore if there is only material existence there cannot be a “nothing” To contrast such an existence and as far as I know all things have an opposite. No matter how fundamental.

If it feels good – you continue

If it feels bad – you think again, or initiate a plan of action to avert the potential pain. — Pop

What about self destructive states of mind where pain and suffering is attributed the pleasureful condition/ target of achievement. For the sadist or masochist... this is the goal not the aversive state. It is possible the existence of a state of consciousness that wishes to not be conscious (ie wishes to be dead). A true definition or theory of consciousness bust account for suicide or suicidal ideation or at least self detriment

I read an excellent excerpt on “the point” of things.

See the thing we must remember is like in geometry a “point” Is only ever relative. What is the point of a spoon for example. Well the point is relative to its function for us “the creators of spoons/ utensils” - to consume liquids, desserts, medicines etc. Now if you rephrase it in another context “what is the point of a Spoon to the existence of mars”? It’s relatively pointless. The existence of a planet is not dependent on a spoon.

So points are always based in a context. So really we are asking what is the point of “X” in relation to “Y”. In certain cases it’s highly relevant and in others it is not.

What is the point of my life? This can feel insignificant when you consider the whole human population of 8 billion people and counting. But put in context; what is the point of my life to my family, to my friends, to my career .. to the talents I have, to the difference I could make to my area of specialisation.

The point of a doctor is meaningless for the healthy seemingly immortal “care free” essence of youth but essential to the weak or elderly or diseased.

When we ask of vagueries of the universe then specific points feel unimportant. But when we ask of the point of something to its close relationships and interactions it is crucial. Just as the millisecond is crucial to the meaning of a second and the second to a minute and minute to an hour and hour to a day and day to a week month year decade century Millenium and so on. The point of something is an order of magnitude. But importantly they are always interlinked. There is always a connection between points. Even is they seem pointless as a collective.

You are a distinct “point”in the universe. You are a point in time, in space, you are a point of energy, a point of Matter. The true endeavour is to understand the relevance or association of “ your point” the the “whole point” Or your “small picture” to the “bigger picture”.

Consider voting. Voting is a Point of decision making. And while sure one vote likely doesn’t count for much... every vote counts. It is one choice in the set Of choices that makes the whole voice of a population. It has to count for something mathematically.

So when one feels pointless or worthless, They likely thing in terms of the grand, the large, the insurmountable. It is essential to think atomistically in terms of the point - a point or purpose or agenda is the fundamental unit of a collective dynamic.

What is the point of oxygen in water? Well it Sets the tone for the fluid. But a single molecule of water is not a fluid. The fluid is the group. But it needs each little point - each little molecule to interact so that the fluid phenomenon can exist.

Don’t underestimate the power of a little bit of change. Because at the end of the day any change is change all the same. We have no idea how our ripples expand outwards and influence those of others in the cosmic fluid.

You have inherent and irreplaceable worth in the dynamic change of the universe. But I compel you to focus on your immediate influence - those around you ... which value you much more than you could ever imagine.

- Well, in my country we have put a melon on a guy whose head was cut off and now he is Prime Minister. — Miguel Hernández

Haha so the Spaniards have a sense of humour then :P

When a child with a bad nature who has been educated in this way grows up, when he feels the desire to harm, will remember, subconsciously, the pain or threat of pain (which, btw, is worse than the pain itself) that accompanies such thoughts and will desist from acting on them. — Todd Martin

Yeah I suppose you’re right. It’s for their own good at the end of the day better to be punished by a parent early than the law later