Unity of everything?
- galundrux
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Unity of everything?
Anyway, tonight I'm thinking about duality, in both religion and science. And I'm starting to think that maybe the big bang was a mistake, since we're always trying to merge things together all the time. We split things up in order to look at them, but this is only to understand their place in the whole. Civilization might not look like much today, but considering we started out as primordial soup it's pretty impressive, and we got there by what we call natural instinct. But nobody really know what natural instinct is, it's just like a chemical property we call life that drives us to live. We don't know what life really is either, we just know that our universe works according to certain laws that tend to arrange things in these ways, we have no idea why, it just is like that. Atoms, molecules, everything is either attracting or repelling, this dualism returns again and again in everything. What we experience as humans, a product of these universal laws, is a strong desire to either love or fight, much the same as everything else. Separation causes pain, closeness causes pleasure, hate and love. So I propose that the big bang is a mistake, like a sickness, and life is the immune system trying to fix it for lack of a better metaphor, that's what evolution is, this immune system learning. To fix the universe would require we find the theory of everything, the mathematical equation for the name of god which when spoken will undo creation. Since matter and energy is the same thing, I think it's fair to assume that anti matter means there is also anti energy, not a scientists either so I don't know quite how far they've gotten with that stuff, but antimatter seems like it could have the power. I think their most unifying theory is down to 10 dimensions now, think that's where Kabbalah left off too. But that's not the important part, the important part is that to me it seems plausible that we are actually here to fix the universe by destroying it, or rather putting it back the way it was. If we keep studying the universe the way we are doing, is it not plausible that we'll eventually learn how it all works? And if we can then speak this name of god, or as science would see it, make a machine that uses this mathematical equation to reverse the expansion of the universe, then maybe that's what we're supposed to do? I mean, not necessarily humans, life might be a very common thing, life might not even be the only product of the laws of the universe capable of making progress, but until we know otherwise I think it's fair to work with what we know. What do you think? Think I'll get burned at the stake as a heretic if I suggest we work together in an effort to undo the big bang? Funny thing, I actually think that this makes sense both from a logical science perspective and an intuitive spiritual/religious one so I kind of blew my own mind hence why I signed up here to get some of it out so I can sleep.
Thanks for reading and goodnight.
- Hereandnow
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Re: Unity of everything?
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Re: Unity of everything?
Your opening post seems like a continuous stream of more or less unconnected thoughts, with no pausing for breath. You don't appear to make any arguments, but just throw out random unconnected assertions with no paragraph breaks. Almost halfway through the post you suddenly say "So I propose that the big bang is a mistake", as if that is the conclusion of an argument. But nothing relevant to the Big Bang has preceded it. You might just as well have said "So I propose that the price of bacon should be reduced".
Since the Big Bang is mentioned three times in your post, it seems reasonable to assume that you're interested in it. So perhaps it would be a good idea to describe your understanding of what that term means and why that concept is used to describe the evolution of the universe? You might mention such things as the observed red shifts of galaxies outside our local cluster and the cosmic microwave background radiation.
If you want to make an argument that a given scientific theory or model is not the one that best describes and predicts the observed evidence, then I think you have to start by reviewing why that theory or model was adopted in the first place. What was the evidence that led to it? What is the evidence that is believed to support it? If you don't first understand and set out the reasoning that caused people to reach a given position then it's not really possible to criticize that reasoning and propose a better line of reasoning. In order to critique the words of another you have to first understand what those words mean and why they have been spoken. Do you think that sounds reasonable?
- galundrux
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Re: Unity of everything?
With the big bang I mean that everything started out as the same thing, whatever that might be. From what I know about it, which I admit is not that much, it's an event that happened that "created" everything in the universe, or to put it another way, it was already there but the big bang changed it. From what I've heard or read, it's effects can be compared to us being inside a giant explosion as it is happening in slow motion and all the parts are traveling in all direction. But before this event, all atoms, energy, anti matter, exotic particles, everything, even the stuff we don't know about yet was just one thing, I'm not sure if we know anything about what it was before that, but if we do I'd love to know.
I'm not sure I know how to make an argument in the way that scholars demand, I have a problem with understanding why scholars seem to require a language that average people can't relate to, it honestly seem a little Animal Farm to me. I understand it's useful in science, but I was hoping you philosophers would be a little different and not so dry. I find that understanding requires effort on both parts, and people who enjoy using intellect to put themselves above others seem to always feel the responsibility to be understood rests entirely on the people beneath them. This is part of the duality I'm talking about, everything trying to split up and worship their own ego. Yesterday for example I tried to get a doctor of psychology to understand an evangelical preacher. I don't have much problem understanding either of them, but those two might as well have been different species. I find this very odd when we like to imagine ourselves as a race that could make friends with aliens life forms from other planets and so on, but we can't even relate to each other when we speak the same language. English isn't even my first language, but both of these people make perfect sense to me, except the part where they seem blind to each other. This I see as just the same separation and duality that happens all around us and inside us all the time. And that makes me think of why it is that way, and why it seems, at least to me, like this is everywhere. With that in mind, does it seem logical that the big bang could be seen as more of an "OH **** NO IT'S ALL GOING TO HELL!!" kind of event and everything tries to stick it self back together with the laws of the universe (physics and such). I'm not saying it's intelligent any more than individual cells in our body are intelligent, anymore than evolution is intelligent, or any more than any parts of a system is. But is seems very much to me like everything "wants" to be together rather than apart, and to us humans that makes us seem like we're intelligent because we can say that is what we want, find love and mate and make babies that are a new versions of us joined with another person. We often think we do things because we want, but some suggest we're just following nature, or the laws of the universe whatever you want to call it. We feel bad when we can't understand something, and we feel good when we do, when we understand something we merge two ideas that where previously separate and we make that idea or knowledge part of ourselves and we become more whole on an internal level. On an external level we're also doing that, every time we pick something apart it's to understand how it works so we can put it back together and learn from it, maybe even make it better. If we didn't start cutting people up into little pieces we'd never understand how the human body works, and that seems to be the only thing us humans do with our so called intelligence. To me that seems to lead to eventually understanding everything by studying what it looks like when it's all in pieces, and then putting it back together. We just really suck at understanding that all the pieces are important and we can't make it better by removing parts we don't like, because then we end up with Frankensteins monster. Take human interaction as an example, it's a Frankensteins monster, science and religion don't get along, red and blue don't get along, not even men and women get a long a lot of the time, because everything is always separating despite our best efforts. We form tribes, groups, religions, corporations, countries, ideologies and so on, not unlike atoms attract other atoms and form clusters of molecules which then form things like DNA and water and everything else. So if there is any science minded people here, maybe you can tell me why not all atoms or pieces of atoms don't just all cluster together and become one thing again? Is this because the effects of the big bang is the universal laws that keep saying "no, you don't fit together that way, try another way" until it finds a way that works? Not unlike evolution will just try different combination hoping one will work? And I understand that evolution as a system don't have hope or a will as we understand it, but how else do I talk about it in an understandable way then? And I mean understandable to people, all people, not just people who chose to spend their whole life in books. Books are great and all, but in my experience we don't understand books very well until we've lived them. Is any of this making any sense or should I just give up? Try a different church maybe?
- Hereandnow
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Re: Unity of everything?
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Re: Unity of everything?
There's no need to do that. Just make a simple argument that ordinary people can understand, containing paragraph breaks. Pause for breath every now and then. That may seem like a trivial point but your huge block of text is virtually impenetrable unless you organize it into separate parts using paragraphs.galundrux wrote:I'm not sure I know how to make an argument in the way that scholars demand, I have a problem with understanding why scholars seem to require a language that average people can't relate to,...
Having said that, when I bite the bullet and try to penetrate it, even with paragraph breaks it would be extremely hard to find an argument in it. You appear to be vaguely rambling about reductionism and trying to draw some kind of parallel between the Big Bang and human social interactions. But I can't spot a coherent argument in that.
It might help if you just try to make one point or ask one question. I'll pick one out of your text block:
No there are no known universal laws that say that. It's because they're moving apart. If lots of objects started off together and are now moving apart, why do you think they should suddenly cluster together again? What force might make them do that, do you think?So if there is any science minded people here, maybe you can tell me why not all atoms or pieces of atoms don't just all cluster together and become one thing again? Is this because the effects of the big bang is the universal laws that keep saying "no, you don't fit together that way, try another way" until it finds a way that works?
Hint: If you want to answer what I've said above, concentrate for now on just that. Don't post another long rambling passage. Focus.
- Sy Borg
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Re: Unity of everything?
I think a more appropriate term would be an "imbalance" rather than a "mistake". The BB does seem to have introduced a huge amount of chaos to whatever was going on beforehand. Life's role is largely the same as that of planets, stars, asteroids, molecular clouds, black holes and so forth. The difference is life's capacity to deliberately act rather than do so accidentally.
However life, and intelligent life, plays the same role in nature as do rocks, stars, planets and so forth in that it forms concentrations from which there appear new emergences, just that life accelerates that process through direct action as opposed to random chance.
- westcottj
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Re: Unity of everything?
The good thing about science is the more they dig, the more they uncover the truth. We did not come from soup, and there is no such thîng as RNA, or my favorite is an Alien pissing in a RNA pool, and that was how life was created.
Everywhere the scientific community looks , they find God's fingerprints, then they have to hide what they find.
Why ... who knows why.
- Sy Borg
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Re: Unity of everything?
Do you have any evidence to back up that claim, aside from a 2,000 year-old book of Middle Eastern myths?
- galundrux
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Re: Unity of everything?
I imagine that there was some force holding it all together before it went bang. And after, this force, if I can call it that, takes many forms. For life it's wanting to mate, or for some forms of life just consuming things until it splits into two (not sure how cells grow, but I know they'll need to aquire material to do it). For atoms, it's taking parts from other atoms, not sure what that force is called either, electromagnetism? Gravity does the same thing. I don't know what it's called when it happens inside us, but I think it's might be having serenity or achieving enlightenment, often happens after great suffering according to popular ideas. Either way, we seem to prefer this state of "wholeness of mind" and many even work to get it. Add any force that attracts one thing to another.
Thanks for the great answer Greta, it pretty much made everything I wrote above invalid if it was never a cluster to begin with, but that's okay, that's why I came here. I've been thinking about will too, if we really have free will and all that, but I'll wait until next time so it doesn't get too confusing again.
- Sy Borg
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Re: Unity of everything?
An enjoyable topic for any sci fi fan :) Who couldn't love thinking about what banged, how it banged, if the bang was indeed a "bang" or a "grow" or even a "rapid ooze"?
Some experts have wondered if the BB came about from the collision of extraordinarily massive objects - maybe more than a couple of supermassive black holes. It's a logical (if hard-to-prove) supposition since there's only two purported types of occurrences where a theoretical singularity occurs - the BB and black holes.
When we consider the heat and pressure in the young universe, the expansion would to a fair extent consist of extremely powerful chain reactions, like firecrackers setting off more firecrackers setting off more again ... up until our relatively largely calm and quiet universe, with only the occasional supernova "popping off", separated by enough distance to be comparatively isolated events.
It seems to be that the contentment comes from, to some limited extent, seeing reality for what it is. However, there are different perspectives on which one can focus to seemingly achieve similar levels of contentment.galundrux wrote:Either way, we seem to prefer this state of "wholeness of mind" and many even work to get it. Add any force that attracts one thing to another.
Thanks for the great answer Greta, it pretty much made everything I wrote above invalid if it was never a cluster to begin with, but that's okay, that's why I came here. I've been thinking about will too, if we really have free will and all that, but I'll wait until next time so it doesn't get too confusing again.
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Re: Unity of everything?
All well and good, but bear in mind that whether the Big Bang is a valid or invalid description of the large scale behaviour of the Universe, this is not because of what we can or cannot imagine. It's because of observed evidence. Imagination can generate interesting ideas. But (assuming we're doing science and not poetry) the things we can imagine have to be tested against the observed evidence.galundrux wrote: I'm glad you used the word imagine by the way, I'm trying to use that more as I've not been very good at it.
What observed evidence does imagining that help to explain? I don't know of any evidence to support the idea that there was some finite period of time during which the Universe was held at a constant high density, so I don't know of any need for this force holding it all together. But I could be wrong.I imagine that there was some force holding it all together before it went bang.
I don't know of any evidence that some imagined force stopping the early Universe from expanding is the same force which causes living things on Earth which reproduce sexually to want to do so. The latter is not a force, in any recognisable sense, at all.And after, this force, if I can call it that, takes many forms. For life it's wanting to mate, or for some forms of life just consuming things until it splits into two (not sure how cells grow, but I know they'll need to aquire material to do it)
I don't know what you mean by "taking parts from other atoms". Electromagnetism is the force which (among other things) binds electrons to atomic nuclei and causes large atomic nuclei to split apart in nuclear fission.For atoms, it's taking parts from other atoms, not sure what that force is called either, electromagnetism?
Gravity does the same thing as what?Gravity does the same thing.
You seem to like this idea of trying to somehow relate the fundamental forces of physics with various aspects of human behaviour. I don't see how this works, and I don't see how it's relevant to the validity or otherwise of the Big Bang idea.I don't know what it's called when it happens inside us, but I think it's might be having serenity or achieving enlightenment, often happens after great suffering according to popular ideas. Either way, we seem to prefer this state of "wholeness of mind" and many even work to get it. Add any force that attracts one thing to another.
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Hi westcottj. The part of your post where you say the Big Bang and Climate Change are hoaxes by atheistic scientists who don't want to admit that God did everything is fairly standard stuff, so no need for comment on that. But I was curious as to what you mean by the above. Are you saying that there is actually no such thing as RNA and that this has been covered up? Or are you saying that there is such a thing as RNA? It's difficult to tell from the above which part is you stating what you believe to be true and which part is you alleging what other people have claimed to be true and which you believe to be false. When you say "Aliens pissing in an RNA pool" is your "favourite", does that mean you think it's true? Or does it mean it's your favourite example of a falsehood? It's hard to tell.westcottj wrote:The good thing about science is the more they dig, the more they uncover the truth. We did not come from soup, and there is no such thîng as RNA, or my favorite is an Alien pissing in a RNA pool, and that was how life was created.
- galundrux
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Re: Unity of everything?
Science require ideas to be tested, but without imagination, or poetry as you call you, there would be no idea to test to begin with. It's logical to say the sky is made of water because it's blue, it just depends on how much information you have to work with. Everything we've ever learned has been because our mind draw parallels between unrelated things. In nature for example, berries that are red are often avoided by animals because red=poison, we know that is not always the case because we have bigger brains with a lot more information.All well and good, but bear in mind that whether the Big Bang is a valid or invalid description of the large scale behavior of the Universe, this is not because of what we can or cannot imagine. It's because of observed evidence. Imagination can generate interesting ideas. But (assuming we're doing science and not poetry) the things we can imagine have to be tested against the observed evidence.
I see this as one of the keys to this wholeness of mind, where logic and imagination work together. With logic you'll quickly notice that the sky is no longer blue at night, so you'll ask why that is if it's made of water, maybe the ocean sky belongs to the sun and the sun takes it with it. This makes no sense, but it would make sense to someone who didn't have any other information, without imagination he wouldn't even have gotten that far. So I think these two modes of thinking are equally valid.
I'll try to explain it better. With logic the way from point A to point B is always a straight line, a creative view would prefer the scenic route which is never a straight line, might not even end up at point B in the end. With creative thinking it doesn't really matter where you end up, it's the journey we learn from, and this allows us explore all paths without constraint. Logic helps us check it so we don't get completely lost, but without imagination we wouldn't imagine that there might be a point B to begin with. So I think these are two parts of a whole, both equal, what would philosophy be without imagination? It's not really dealing with the testable reality is it? If we could test it we wouldn't have to ask questions anymore because then we'd know and we could just sit down and not worry about it.
So that's how it works for me, I relate them simply because they display similar behavior. Our world is split into groups that are parts of larger groups that are part of larger groups. A state (for US people) is part of a country, this country is part of the world. A cell can be part of an organ, this organ is part of a body. I came to think about this because I was trying to figure out how to build a society where everyone saw their own purpose in it, and thought it would be a good idea to see it as parts of whole body, and it turns out that's pretty much how it works already anyway, most people just don't see it that way. If one country gets sick, it becomes very hostile to the rest of the body (the world) then the rest of the body begin to take steps to stop the infection, they build up their own military, use economic incentives and force, start working together against it, anything it can do to protect itself. A city too is like a cluster of cells that all operate in more or less the same way because they're part of a city, but they have different purposes, some are in a group that makes music, some are in a group that runs banks, most people are in at least a few different groups. This board is a group, that is part of the group that likes the idea of philosophy, that again are part of the internet as a whole. Or we can bring it up to universe scale, where a planet is a part of a solar system which is a part of galaxy which is a part of the universe as we know it. And you can't really see it that way if you're just looking at individual parts.
I think our whole society has been going wrong in that way, especially here in the west where imagination seem to be something we've relegated to the realm of entertainment and is considered pretty much useless anywhere else. Isn't that just throwing the baby out with the bath water?
There is that word focus again, focus to me just means choosing one path and sticking too it. Will this not eventually lead to becoming blind to all other paths? A quote I read as a teenager said something about this that I though was very insightful at the time. I'll look it up and copy it here.It seems to be that the contentment comes from, to some limited extent, seeing reality for what it is. However, there are different perspectives on which one can focus to seemingly achieve similar levels of contentment.
That is his view though, I think specialization, or focus, can be very useful, but again, only part of the equation.A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a
ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort
the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new
problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
- Hereandnow
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Re: Unity of everything?
- galundrux
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Re: Unity of everything?
I'll add a few things anyway though.
Gravity does the same thing as what?
Why do you ask silly questions like this when the answer was right there? I said " Add any force that attracts one thing to another.", it was even in the same paragraph just as you wanted. Are you just trying to muddy the waters? You need to focus, the thread is called "Unity of EVERYTHING", you can't focus on everything if you demand that the focus is on the smaller parts. If the only thing you're trying to do is show off how much you know about science in order to invalidate a philosophical idea you're missing the point. You act like you don't understand how atoms take parts from other atoms, and then you go on to explain how they do. I get that you're trying to play stupid to teach me something, but how is that helping when you go in assuming it's wrong? I didn't come here to learn science, if the body of scientific work has something that invalidates what I say then that is great to know, but saying that there is no scientific evidence for this or that, that is not an argument nor a clarification.
This I actually learned something from. Where you pointing out that I missed what you where saying because of my current lack of focus? I see now that I probably was, because you didn't say it was not all one thing to begin with, I inferred that by you saying it was out of balance. And balance is very much the point, balance is required to make all things into one. And you're also pointing out that seeing the larger picture and seeing just individual parts both lead to the same thing. This is very much what I'm trying to talk about but I missed that in the post that's not gone through yet too. So that was very helpful, thanks.It seems to be that the contentment comes from, to some limited extent, seeing reality for what it is. However, there are different perspectives on which one can focus to seemingly achieve similar levels of contentment.
I have to point out though, I only recently started thinking in this way, less than a month ago I was very atheists and science minded, and I took great pride in these labels, it was a very big part of what prompted me to try and think in different ways. So I think I might need to be out of focus a bit before I try practicing that again. I will try to think a little more before I post next time though.
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