Kevin's Watch

+JMJ+

peter wrote:I believe that mankind will achieve immortality.

I believe that we will achieve omniscience - and that the nature of reality, of being, when we have complete knowledge and understanding of it, will transpire to be above and beyond anything our current cognitive architecture is capable of accomodating.

I believe that the passage of time will be demonstrated to be illusory as will 'change' of any kind. What Is simply Is.

I believe we are the eyes through which the Universe sees itself, the ears through which it hears itself.

I believe we are truly the brightest young thing around.

I believe we will look into the face of God and see our own faces reflected in his Image.

I would say that there is an element of truth in this, but unfortunately, it seems to have been detached from a moderated centrality — radicalized, perhaps, to an extreme position.

Since you seem so obviously concerned to avoid reductivism as regards the material sciences, I would advise to to exercise the same restraint as regards the spiritual sciences. Just a thought. (Since this seems not to be the thread to "critique" your beliefs, I'll just stop there.)

Yes Wos, after posting I thought it a bit overblown - but it pretty much does sum up for me the hopes I have for us. On a bad day I could probably list my fears in an equally unrestrained display .

But as you are no doubt aware,for me the scientific method, while providing a first rate tool for our advancement, can not, can never encompasses all things that we encounter in 'being'. There are, I believe, things that will ever be outside its remit. As Hamlet would have it "There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of by your philosophers". I'd like to hear quick critique of my post if you have time, to give me something to think on. This is a pretty quiet room and I'm sure the Mods would wear it. Just a few pointers where it might be adrift would help and I'd be grateful.

And Moses looked this way and that, and saw no man.........

peter wrote:I believe that mankind will achieve immortality.

I believe that we will achieve omniscience - and that the nature of reality, of being, when we have complete knowledge and understanding of it, will transpire to be above and beyond anything our current cognitive architecture is capable of accomodating.

I believe that the passage of time will be demonstrated to be illusory as will 'change' of any kind. What Is simply Is.

I believe we are the eyes through which the Universe sees itself, the ears through which it hears itself.

I believe we are truly the brightest young thing around.

I believe we will look into the face of God and see our own faces reflected in his Image.

I believe we will not achieve immortality---but that we will achieve a span such that a being merely 10 millennia old will be viewed as a 10 year old is now.

We will not achieve omniscience---because the further we get, the more unknowable and amazing the futures will be.
BECAUSE:
Time/change is NOT an illusion. It is the only meaningful thing there is. [[ok, not the only thing.]] Permanence/IS-ness is the illusion. Every thing we discover will be raw material for things that have never been---and could NOT have been without change and our making.

The face of god will look much like a virus---thanks for happening, but we got it from here.

We aren't the brightest young thing around. But "around" is really goddamn big, so perhaps we'll never meet the other ones. I hope that's wrong. I hope we meet at least one before I die. But I doubt it.

Now I never said we are the only thing around......just young (indisputable), and the brightest (not so - but I ike the thought.......it seems imbued with hope that we might still make it).
What about 'happy' V? Will we engineer ourselves to be happy - all the time - instead of engineering the world such as that we are happy? (Think that drug they all took in Brave New World.)

peter wrote:Now I never said we are the only thing around......just young (indisputable), and the brightest (not so - but I ike the thought.......it seems imbued with hope that we might still make it).
What about 'happy' V? Will we engineer ourselves to be happy - all the time - instead of engineering the world such as that we are happy? (Think that drug they all took in Brave New World.)

I don't know. Some, maybe most, might like it...and almost everyone would at least experiment with it.
But I have doubts.
First---happiness, as a state of being is, and probably ALL states of being are, I think, overrated.
States of doing seem better and, in some way, more real.
Imagine [this is based on a thing I was involved in elsewhere] you can hook yourself up to an AI virtual reality. Its job is too keep you always happy, give you what you truly desire, and it has perfect knowledge and feedback and produce flawless simulations. And you will [once connected] believe all of it is fully real, won't remember/know it is simulation.
Would you do it?
My idea is that most people wouldn't want it permanently.
Why?
Because I think most people, eventually, would want to know one thing: that it was REALLY real. If being the greatest gymnast ever was your perfect happiness---the simulation can convince you you are in every way---but it can't make it TRUE that you are.
More high-stakes---a person probably does NOT want to be the greatest Doctor that ever lived, saving the lives of millions, in a simulation no matter how perfect. They want to REALLY be that---REALLY save real people's lives.
And the machine will know---even if you don't, cuz you are inside---that you are not "really" happy. Because you aren't a Doctor, you aren't saving anyone.
What if you want to be a great parent of an amazing child---the founder of a line of amazing human beings?
Hell, what if all you want is to always find or create the PERFECT holiday card that pleases someone you love?
To be really happy, it has to be really real.
A machine that made you believe it was really real when it wasn't wouldn't be following your desires, doing what you want...it would be your God/Master...and you'd be the most oppressed and controlled [[but HAPPY!]] slave ever.
I don't think any real human would be happy with that.

Happiness would lose its meaning if it were permanent.

--A

Avatar wrote:Happiness would lose its meaning if it were permanent.

--A

I understand what you mean. However if happiness became the status quo it would still be happiness or the omission of that which is troubling. I quite agree it would be impossible to see happiness the same way if there was nothing to compare it to however it would still be happiness. Its easy to imagine getting "bored" with infinite happiness but if one became bored with happiness one would therefore no longer be happy. So it follows that if a person was able to achieve permanent happiness the conditions would be such that wants and desires would be fulfilled to the exclusion of not just strife but boredom as well. Which I understand is not possible to achieve given human nature but its a nice thought.

Well it's bound at the end of the day to come down to definitions, but if we define happiness as say, absence of suffering and a general contentment with ones lot [very buddhist?] then I'd have to say I'd opt for it .......mmmmmm.......ish! After all, millions accept the help of theraputic drugs to enable to cope with 'the real' on a daily basis. Sure - better if they didn't have the need to, but they do and it helps them not avoid reality, but cope with it. would it hurt so much to extend the principle. Also, as philosophy and physics blur the lines of 'reality', of what is and is not, such notions of demanding 'the real' over the 'illusory but experienced as real' start to crumble.

[Anyway, looking at my post of a few posts back whats all this about me not being optimistic! ]

Avatar wrote:Happiness would lose its meaning if it were permanent.

I remember being very bothered by: "If every good story must have a conflict to be interesting, doesn't that mean heaven would be boring?"

One time I got into a conversation where I felt I could bring up this thing that was bothering me with another serious-minded girl and she was like, "I thought that too! But my pastor said that we'll be changed and we can't even imagine what it will be like."
Anyway, I hadn't thought of that by then, and as someone aspiring to be Christian, found it incredibly satisfying.
(If anyone remembers being a teen and wishing you could get into "deep conversations" more often, say "I.")

There is also a sequel to that story...

We need more imagination.

NEEDTOBREATHE wrote:Give me your heart
Give me your song
Sing it with all your might
Come to the fountain and
You can be satisfied
There is a peace, there is a love
You can get lost inside
Come to the fountain and
Let me hear you testify

Into the wild
Canyons of youth
Oh, there's a world to fall into
Weightless we'll dance
Like kids on the moon
Oh, I will give myself to you
As soon as you start to let go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDcYsyx2mCg

Vraith wrote:More high-stakes---a person probably does NOT want to be the greatest Doctor that ever lived, saving the lives of millions, in a simulation no matter how perfect. They want to REALLY be that---REALLY save real people's lives.

Yes.
That was an awesome example.
If one wants to be that in a simulation, it's like so self-focused.
It's not love. (which is supposed to be the point of becoming a great doctor and saving lives)
I mean, we want glory too, but...
Deception is bad.

In Jack Vance's book The Eyes of the Overworld the inhabitants wear special contact lenses that transform all their dingy streets into palladian thoroughfares, their rags into richly embroidered silks, their slops into exquisite banquets. They also perceive each other as stunningly attractive when in reality they are greasy, dirty and neglected, toothless degenerates whose grunts and mumbles they hear as sparkling wit and erudition.

When drugs are available that effectively do the same - and it will be easier to develop such drugs than to change everyone's lives such that the illusory world was the reality - then people will take them, and keep taking them because not do do so would make no sense, no more so than to refuse to take aspirin when you have a headache because it merely masks the symptoms. The reality of our lives is built on papering over the cracks.

peter wrote:Yes Wos, after posting I thought it a bit overblown - but it pretty much does sum up for me the hopes I have for us. On a bad day I could probably list my fears in an equally unrestrained display .

... I'd like to hear quick critique of my post if you have time, to give me something to think on. This is a pretty quiet room and I'm sure the Mods would wear it. Just a few pointers where it might be adrift would help and I'd be grateful.

As you have invited comment, I hope sincerely and genuinely not to hurt your feelings or offend you. You've listed the things you believe and caveated with your assessment that science may not enable these ends. So it is faith in god that drives your belief in immortality, onniscience, time not being linear, seeing the face of God reflected in our image (switched it around on purpose) lol

I used to believe in a God, I believed in a Christ, now I do not I don't confidently call myself atheist because I could be wrong on all fronts. When I looked at the Bible .. it eventually occurred to me (not a quick study) that what I was reading were verbal "histories" (that's generous) passed down from generation to generation, till the first scribes. Not all were scribes, just a chosen few, these were schooled in writing at a time the written word was highly regarded. And at a time when the worship of gods was popular and common to numerous, in fact almost all ancient peoples.

When reading there is almost a promotional tone - the worshippers of one God, spoke of his power, his might, and his glory and those that scribed the Bible did the same. Then I compared the old and new testaments and you would know their tones are very different. Even there seemed to be different gods in the Old Testament and a different one again in the new. The OT God smite his enemies with the sword and put to death, men, women and children for not being born his chosen people, such thing they'd not have had any control over then in the NT the god there taught to love your enemies, do good to them that spitefully use you, and forgive those who offend you 79 x 7 times no less.

As I read I became more and more perplexed ... I studied archaeological evidences and secular history of that period also. I was surprised that there was little to no evidence of a resurrected Christ / literal son of god. In fact I found that the New Testament itself is actually the primary source (of evidence) for this characters existence ... which to me is like arguing a super hero comic book is evidence of the existence of Superman

These discoveries were no easy burden to bear. I use the word burden because it was all a terrible "revelation" .. I became quite depressed as what I had built my life on and my families lives on came tumbling down.

I continued reading and learning almost obsessively. I think I desperately wanted to learn something that supported my now flailing belief. But alas I did not - and I went through a crisis of faith. The more I learned the lighter I began to feel oddly enough. The guilt culture of religious faith and the multitudinous rules and expectations no longer held sway over me. I started to feel a sense of freedom from these restraints, from a desire even to continue fighting against what I would have previously viewed as blasphemous. Hahahaha.. I love the Jesus of the New Testament, I still want to mirror my life on this beautiful persona, I love the kindness and compassion of his teachings. So Stark are they in comparison to some of the OT principles.

I don't have to make excuses for evolution or the existence of dinosaurs or the scientific age of the earth. I never really bought into the anti- evolution mindset anyway as the evidence is hard to ignore.

So I believe now that

1. god did not create man - but rather god is a construct created by man.
2. that man from the earliest times has looked into the night sky (and day sky) and has seen the clouds as gods footstool and the heavens above them where god resides (why? Because that was the limit of their "science")
3. that man's ego has led him to pursue greater meaning and I importance for his life, surely that extends beyond mortality - of course. Surely I am made for mightier things than birth and death, surely my worth is beyond this "mortal" realm. Surely there are more glorious realms than this? Otherwise what is it all for?
4. I believe living now is what our focus ought to be, now, as children, live and love to our fullest, as teens live these years that only come once, love others now in life, show kindness, lift the diwntridden, do good while you breathe and can. Earn the love of those you know now, through to your senior years. And make this a life you would be proud to leave as legacy of a good life lived.

But why should we do any of point 4.? I know some will ask .. I say why not? These are the things which will bring richness and depth to your life and to those around you. Living well will grow your character and make you a more valued member of society, and a more valuable one. Do it because it's the right thing to do, not to secure a "reward", a place in a "heaven" LOL
AND
5. I believe "morality " is not the sole property of religion. That there are known "universal" principles identified by even many indigenous communities before Christianity, basic morals that were identified to endure a fair and equitable. system of living.

That's what I believe, and I will live my life now because I have now.

First I need to go back and look at my post Skyweir, because I am nothing if not mercurial! Having done so, like Arnie of Old "I'll be back".


Well - it was a hopefull affair! Actually I'd just read a book by Yuval Noah Harare - might have been Sapiens or possibly it's follow up, and had imbued my 'hope of the day' from that. My reference to God was I think, more in terms of eventually discovering that it is actually us who are God - and we always were.

I've not done the study as you have but as a general picture my life has run from the belief of my cultural upbringing and age as a child, to the swaggering disbelief of arrogant adolescence, to the reasoned disbelief of complacent middle age and finished up returning toward belief as, in age, I begin to confront my own mortality. It should be understood however, that these various states were always of the shallowest of depth with the Trump like chameleon property of morphing into the views of the last book I had read, or person I had spoken to. This is the way I like it for in the last analysis which of us actually knows jack about it. Now (today) I tend toward your take of 'try to do a little good, but if you can't, at least try to do no harm's approach. I genuinely believe that everything else said is just hot air that would more usefully used filling balloons: there may be a God - but if so he is beyond me to the nth degree and is best left to his own devices in the ordering of things. From a general human perspective (sad to say) - I think we're screwed alas (told you I was mercurial ) and are not long for this world as we exist now. Possible we may fuse with the AI we will soon create, more likely we just snuff ourselves out with all this climate change etc - maybe the AI will be our legacy, but one way or another it seems the 'now' that you celebrate and that I am resigned to, is all that either of us have............ but it's enough (for today).

Joy is in the ears that hear.

I believe that the phrase "I don't believe in beliefs" is perfectly coherent.

peter wrote:First I need to go back and look at my post Skyweir, because I am nothing if not mercurial! Having done so, like Arnie of Old "I'll be back".

hahahahaha ... sorry ok

I just believe in God and pray.

+JMJ+

I believe that "LadyAndrea" needs to be despammified.

Lady looks like a dude.

And cross-referencing the above-referenced "Lady's" pr0n-event with other new members, sumptin about "Ur-Lord69" (oh, I dunno what) sets me Spidey-Sense a-tinglin'.

I believe in the future of farming, with a faith born not of words but of deeds - achievements won by the present and past generations of agriculturists; in the promise of better days through better ways, even as the better things we now enjoy have come to us from the struggles of former years.

Okay that's the Future Farmers of America creed that dAN and I were forced to memorize in middle school agriculture class (yes we attended the same school as kids). I'm not sure I believed it then and I'm really fuzzy on whether I believe or understand it now.

Wosbald wrote:+JMJ+

I believe that "LadyAndrea" needs to be despammified.

Yep.

I'd already removed the website link in "her" profile. Just to give it a chance. Looks like it's been put back.

Oh well...nice try.

User deactivated. And link removed.

--A

Yeah, but our post-count Av - think of our post-count!