What is the meaning of religion

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Atreyu
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

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Alias wrote: Where are those "original teachings"? Who taught them? Who learned them?
Why are those unacknowledged canons to be considered "true" religion, in place of the ones practiced by millions of people?
You can find them if you search for them.

They came about over the course of thousands of years, by each generation of practitioner learning orally from the previous generation, then perhaps adding some new insights to the already existing systems, and then passing down that knowledge to the next generation (orally). After millennia certain religious systems were established and systematized.

And these systems have always been practiced only by the few, not the many. What the few can have, often the masses cannot. This applies not just to esoteric systems, but even to ordinary systems, like, say, quantum physics. The average man will never be able to practice and study quantum physics. Only a small % of men will have the intelligence, fortitude, and simply time to master all of its principles. And this is a law. The only difference is that it's even more rare for men to be prepared for these esoteric doctrines than it is astrophysics.
What is your source for the real origins of the real Inca and ancient Chinese mythologies that's unavailable to the rest of us?
I don't source information anymore. All I can say is that if a man seeks, it's possible to find information about these systems. They've been preserved up to modern times. The problem is that most people are quite satisfied with their falsified modern counterparts. A man who is satisfied with lies will not seek out the truth...
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Burning ghost
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

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Alias -

It is essentially a path of anthropology to study religion. I highly recommend Colin Renfrew as he is generally considered the guy to have pushed cognitive anthropology. I don't have many books on this topic exactly.

I'll post one of my all time favourite quotes later (I should really commit the damn thing to memory!). Clifford Geertz's attempt at defining religion without using any terms like "spirit" or "soul". I found it an intriguing insight into the human condition (I have quoted elsewhere on this forum before, I'm sure!)

If we are to look further into "religion" we can see it as a "social" tool. What I find to be an interesting exercise is to break "religion" out of its social mold and see what it becomes in ever dwindling populations. To view a million religious people it has a certain meaning to the observer, to view 100,000 it has another, and 10,000 yet another and then down to 1000, or 100, or merely 20. To break it down like this it should be reasonably clear that we should perhaps be considering different levels of emergence in regard to religion growing into different forms; in some respects like elements of hydrogen and oxygen bonded together emerge in greater populations into the phenomenon we know as water (I am not making an analogy here just making clear the meaning of "emergent".)

What we tend to find in studying human traditions is that oral tradition passes on certain types of stories. These stories are then subject to human likes and dislikes. Over time the better the story (whatever it is we consider "better", meaning a story we connect with for some reason) will bear the test of time, just like words pass in and out of fashion, but even with changes in fashion something of the past is brought forward into the new trend. Appeal dictates the flow of cognition.

The "original teaching" are from the human brain, from humanity and its progress in understanding brought forward through time and refined over and over to such a degree that more and more people buy into the ideology. There is no "original teacher" other than nature itself. Over time the stories emerge and refine themselves. They touch us and inspire us, they teach us and guide us. They help build social structure and a common understanding, civilization itself.

The earliest known narrative we have written down is The Epic of Gilgamesh. If you take a look at it you'll notice it is clearly handed down from oral traditions (as you can also see in Greek mythology through Homer.) The giveaway is the use of repetition (a well known memory device) and of quite obvious representations of human emotions (expressed through heroes and gods.)

To return to what I proposed above as an experiment, take this idea of the narrative and see how it shapes the individual, the family, the tribe and keep on moving up the population ladder. Even today in religious institutions it is generally considered that "religion" is both intrapersonal and interpersonal, there is the individual and the institutional perspective and over time these change. Given that in oral traditions we can understand well enough that stories will wax and wane from generation to generation, some items being fleshed out, added-on and negated from the narrative, we can begin to understand that once these stories take a certain hold on the social group that if they begin to be told differently that people would object and even be upset by such an occurrence. Imagine for instance if people at Marvel suddenly decided to make Spiderman into a villain, imagine the uproar (in fact you don't need to imagine the uproar you'll see fanatics online having raging fits about how their "personal" hero is being altered by media outlets.)

From this we can see what kind of effect the event of writing and the birth of history would have on stories passed down through time. The translation of the bible from Latin to German was met with some protest. Again, I think this stems to the fear of certain misrepresentations. In many other religious institutes the very same rule of thumb is applied to alteration of scriptures.

Anyway, one point being here the story begins with some expression of fantasy, of dream revelation and bringing forth the unconscious mind into the waking living world with deep emotional connections.

In reference to the OP today the systems in place to supplant religions, as suggested, are ephemeral constructs (be they in the form of some fleeting hero worship) or simply a metamorphosis of current religions into a new nascent religious institution. The OP is essentially saying if I remove the chair from the room and sit on the table the chair serves no purpose. This is simply wrong because "the chair" does not exist as a physical object, it exists as a functional use of some physical object, if you sit on the table and that becomes the place where you sit it doesn't matter that you still call it a table because it will have taken on the purpose of sitting and thus possesses the function of "being a chair". In this respect we could find that the term "table" would then take on a new meaning having two functions, as a table and as a chair. But within this union of functions something is lost and no doubt we'd revert to having smaller tables to sit on around a bigger table and thus "reinvent" the chair. This would be the functional and pragmatic emergence of a concept. In stories we see this too and this is probably the quickest way I can think of to express what is meant by Jungian archetypes. They emerge across cultures as an expression of humanity, much like chairs and tables, beds and walls, etc.,. Because we don't "see" these functional aspects of humanity we don't tend to them at all and only through indirect influence do they manifest in the physical world through the various social interactions and emotional displays called "being human".

-- Updated September 28th, 2017, 4:38 am to add the following --

note: It would have been better if I'd said water molecules cause the emergence of "wetness".
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

Post by Alias »

I have no problem with any of that.
I covered some it (perhaps too succinctly?) on the first page.
Of course religion - as recognized today in the worship-practices of urbanized, organized, militarized millions - is very different from the earliest awakenings of a primal connection between land and water and flesh and flesh. Of course narrative emerges from experience and awe. (Gilgamesh is quite 'modern', as narrative goes: it belongs with the Greek and Norse hero sagas, rather than primitive creation stories.) Of course it's shaped over time and is applied as appropriate and inappropriate - as balm, as explanation, as promise, as memory, as wishful thinking, as negotiation or plea-bargaining, as invocation and convocation, valediction and benediction, as consolation, as instruction, threat and warning. Of course it's the cradle of psychology, sociology, history, education and law - as well as ju-ju, medicine and black magic. Of course it's suborned and constrained, corrupted and co-opted by and for power. Of course it can be defined in various ways. Of course it doesn't have a singular meaning or purpose.

Originally, I hoped to get Apemman to sharpen up his rather sloppy terminology, so we'd know what we're talking about.
After that, I was just responding to the responses I could understand with any clarity.

As to anybody's personal Divine Revelation, I have nothing at all to say about that.
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Burning ghost
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

Post by Burning ghost »

Alias -

Don't be boring! At least pretend to disagree :(

The Epic of Gilgamesh is literally the oldest written narrative known to man (last I heard anyway?). Predates Homer by about 1000 years! There are parallels too other myths that include a great flood and mans departure from mother nature. You'd probably find it quite an interesting read? Its not very long, but typically repetitive as more narratives brought straight out from oral tradition (as I said earlier.)

The most memorable part of it for me was the dual nature of the "animal-like man", I think he was called Eduk, Manil or Enil? ... wiki time ... Enkidu! I was WAAAAAY OFF there :( Anyway, it stuck out for me later when I was reading about shamanic initiation in Eliade's famed book on shamanism.

There MUST be a free pdf link for this? ...

This one looks like its been rewritten quite a lot to make it more bearable: http://www.aina.org/books/eog/eog.pdf

This looks like a more "genuine" version: learner.org/courses/worldlit/gilgamesh/ ... mesh/read/
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

Post by Alias »

Burning ghost wrote:Alias -

Don't be boring! At least pretend to disagree :(

The Epic of Gilgamesh is literally the oldest written narrative known to man (last I heard anyway?).
Written!
That makes it as recent as 6000 years ago - assuming it was transcribed from a previous oral tradition, just as the Greek and Norse ones were.
You can tell by the flavour, though, as well as the form, that it's a highly structured, sophisticated literature, very different from than an organic local folk-tale.
Predates Homer by about 1000 years!
So do the stories Homer re-tells in his more disciplined, formal style.
There are parallels too other myths that include a great flood and mans departure from mother nature.
Those same themes appear in the mythology of all peoples who were once nomadic hunter-gatherers, then became either herders or settled farmers, (Which early - or recent - agricultural settlement isn't on a river and which river hasn't had its memorable floods?) or migrant herders and then settled farmers (like the Jews, once they'd got a taste for it and found a people they could defeat and take the land from - They brought along the much older oral mythologies of Ur and Egypt as well as probably some more picked up en route, and eventually wrote it all down in a version adapted to their new political requirements.)
You'd probably find it quite an interesting read?
It certainly was. I still have an annotated paperback somewhere. Probably too yellow to enjoy anymore. Still have my "sword of Shamah" on a silver neck-chain, too, though i stopped wearing it when that... ah ... a youthful relationship ended.

Didn't mean to bore you.
I forget lots of things - whether I took my blood-pressure pill; where I put down my glasses (most annoying when it's the one that still had some wine in) the word 'entropy' -
but not dear of Joseph Whatisname - y'know, blue and green tartan, makes soup in his spare time...
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

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Count Lucanor wrote:The best account of what religion really means:

"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
"
The above "best account of what religion really means" is about as well thought-out as the author's economics.
If the ultimate Reality is indeed a blind energy or process devoid of inherent meaning, if it is merely an unconscious permutation and oscillation of waves, particles or what not, certain consequences follow. Human consciousness is obviously a part or an effect of this Reality. We are bound, then, to come to one of two conclusions. On the one hand, we shall have to say that the effect, consciousness, is a property lacking to its entire cause—in short, that something has come out of nothing. Or, on the other hand, we shall have to say that consciousness is a special form of unconsciousness—in short, that it is not really conscious. For the first of these two conclusions there neither is nor can be any serious argument; not even a rationalist would maintain the possibility of an effect without a sufficient cause. The main arguments against theism follow, in principle, the second conclusion—that the properties and qualities of human nature, consciousness, reason, meaning, and the like, do not constitute any new element or property over and above the natural and mechanical processes which cause them. Because Reality itself is a blind mechanism, so is man. Meaning, consciousness, and intelligence are purely arbitrary and relative terms given to certain highly complex mechanical structures.

But the argument dissolves itself. If consciousness and intelligence are forms of mechanism, the opinions and judgements of intelligence are products of mechanical (or statistical) necessity. This must apply to all opinions and judgements, for all are equally mere phenomena of the mechanical world-process. There can be no question of one judgement being more true than another, any more than there can be question of the phenomenon fish being more true than the phenomenon bird. But among these phenomena are the judgements of the rationalist, and to them he must apply the logic of his own reasoning. He must admit that they have no more claim to truth than the judgements of the theist, and that if rationalism is true it is very probably not true. This is intellectual suicide—the total destruction of thought—to such a degree that even the rationalist’s own concepts of mechanism, unconscious process, statistical necessity, and the like, also become purely arbitrary and meaningless terms. To hold such a view of the universe consistently, one must separate oneself, the observer, from it. But this cannot be done, for which reason a contemporary philosopher has complained that man’s subjective presence constitutes the greatest obstacle to philosophical knowledge!

Now this is pure nonsense. Man’s subjective presence is, of course, the very condition of knowledge both of the universe and of God. It is precisely the existence of man in the universe as a conscious, reflecting self that makes it logically necessary to believe in God. A universe containing self-conscious beings must have a cause sufficient to produce such beings, a cause which must at least have the property of self-consciousness. This property cannot simply “evolve” from protoplasm or stellar energy, because this would mean that more consciousness is the result of less consciousness and no consciousness. Evolution is, therefore, a transition from the potential to the actual, wherein the new powers and qualities constantly acquired are derived, not from the potential, but from a superior type of life which already possesses them.

-- Updated September 29th, 2017, 1:00 am to add the following --

Who makes more sense: Karl Marx or Alan Watts?
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

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Alias -

Well, yeah! They are all undoubtedly thousands, if not 10's or 100's of thousands years old. A mere 1000 year difference probably isn't much of a distinction ... such I thought leads into a whole other field of questioning regarding the requirements for such use of written texts in society and the like of society that would put them to such use .. blah, blah, blah!

You have a good copy of The Epic of Gilgamesh? I looked at those links and they seemed quite edited to me? It has been a long time since I last read the thing though (pretty sure it was "penguin classic"?)

You lost me at Joseph ...?

I am inclined to look beyond the mere natural occurrence of "flood" and regard it as a symbolic theme of the human psyche. If these narratives are so old, and of partially formed dream contents (at least imaginative), then I think the flood is meant to represent more than just an actual geographic flood. I guess this is where I am starting to weave Piaget and his work on the development of human knowledge into this framework.

Anyway, I think I may be veering off topic a little here so I'll cease and desist! I think I'll have to start a thread sometime about post modernism versus constructivism, if such a comparison is deemed fruitful by my scattered thoughts ;)
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

Post by Alias »

Where did my reply go?
Whatever... if it gets repeated, ignore.
Burning ghost wrote: It has been a long time since I last read the thing though (pretty sure it was "penguin classic"?)
Yes, skinny, slightly ragged annotated Penguin, circa 1970. Hundred of copies available on line.
You lost me at Joseph ...?
Sorry; got carried away with jocularity. Joseph Campbell.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296362/
goodreads.com/book/show/588138.The_Hero ... sand_Faces
I am inclined to look beyond the mere natural occurrence of "flood" and regard it as a symbolic theme of the human psyche. If these narratives are so old, and of partially formed dream contents (at least imaginative), then I think the flood is meant to represent more than just an actual geographic flood.
Ah, but why? How?
Because it's a formative or life-changing experience for a community. Different for each kind of community: for hunters, the game is forced to move to higher, colder ground and they must follow; for farmers, their homes are washed away. For the ancient Jews, when the Tigris and Euphrates both flood, they must drive their remaining herds to less hospitable lands, where they encounter hostility and endure hardship; where maybe some of their clans split off an join more mature settled nations and their number is so diminished, their god becomes extremely jealous of his few worshipers and keeps them sequestered at any price; where they eventually fall victim to the drought that forces them to seek asylum in Egypt, and a couple of generations later, an inadequate Nile flood leads to their expulsion, about which they make up a face-saving story... etc.
A flood is a different experience for peoples in different conditions, but always traumatic. It is indelibly woven into their group memory, their oral history; passed down the generations; added to other experiences, coloured by different lessons, warning, morals and literary embellishment; traded and shared with other tribes as they intermarry and merge by consent or conquest.
In all cases, though, it's significant enough to become a recurring theme in their iconography.
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

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Dark Matter wrote:
Count Lucanor wrote:The best account of what religion really means:

"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who ...

in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
"
The above "best account of what religion really means" is about as well thought-out as the author's economics.
I have to agree. His wit in every field still amazes me.
Dark Matter wrote:
If the ultimate Reality is indeed a blind energy or process devoid of inherent meaning, if it is merely an unconscious permutation and oscillation of waves, particles or what not, certain consequences follow. Human consciousness is obviously a part or an effect of this Reality. We are bound, then, to come to one of two conclusions. On the one hand, we shall have to say that the effect, consciousness, is a property lacking to its entire cause—in short, that something has come out of nothing. Or, on the other hand, we shall have to say that consciousness is a special form of unconsciousness—in short, that it is not really conscious. For the first of these two conclusions there neither is nor can be any serious argument; not even a rationalist would maintain the possibility of an effect without a sufficient cause. The main arguments against theism follow, in principle, the second conclusion—that the properties and qualities of human nature, consciousness, reason, meaning, and the like, do not constitute any new element or property over and above the natural and mechanical processes which cause them. Because Reality itself is a blind mechanism, so is man. Meaning, consciousness, and intelligence are purely arbitrary and relative terms given to certain highly complex mechanical structures.

But the argument dissolves itself. If consciousness and intelligence are forms of mechanism, the opinions and judgements of intelligence are products of mechanical (or statistical) necessity. This must apply to all opinions and judgements, for all are equally mere phenomena of the mechanical world-process. There can be no question of one judgement being more true than another, any more than there can be question of the phenomenon fish being more true than the phenomenon bird. But among these phenomena are the judgements of the rationalist, and to them he must apply the logic of his own reasoning. He must admit that they have no more claim to truth than the judgements of the theist, and that if rationalism is true it is very probably not true. This is intellectual suicide—the total destruction of thought—to such a degree that even the rationalist’s own concepts of mechanism, unconscious process, statistical necessity, and the like, also become purely arbitrary and meaningless terms. To hold such a view of the universe consistently, one must separate oneself, the observer, from it. But this cannot be done, for which reason a contemporary philosopher has complained that man’s subjective presence constitutes the greatest obstacle to philosophical knowledge!

Now this is pure nonsense. Man’s subjective presence is, of course, the very condition of knowledge both of the universe and of God. It is precisely the existence of man in the universe as a conscious, reflecting self that makes it logically necessary to believe in God. A universe containing self-conscious beings must have a cause sufficient to produce such beings, a cause which must at least have the property of self-consciousness. This property cannot simply “evolve” from protoplasm or stellar energy, because this would mean that more consciousness is the result of less consciousness and no consciousness. Evolution is, therefore, a transition from the potential to the actual, wherein the new powers and qualities constantly acquired are derived, not from the potential, but from a superior type of life which already possesses them.

-- Updated September 29th, 2017, 1:00 am to add the following --

Who makes more sense: Karl Marx or Alan Watts?
What a load of nonsense. And not even original.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

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:lol: A failed ideology vs. logic and you go for the failed ideology that led to the murder of millions. We're you educated at Berkeley?
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

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Dark Matter wrote::lol: A failed ideology vs. logic and you go for the failed ideology that led to the murder of millions. We're you educated at Berkeley?
An old cliche of discussion forums, isn't it? Keeps being as false as ever. Keeps being unable to withstand very simple counterarguments we're all familiar with.

Calling logic the old cosmological argument is like calling chemistry the alchemists' search for the "philosopher's stone"
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

Post by Dark Matter »

Count Lucanor wrote:
Dark Matter wrote::lol: A failed ideology vs. logic and you go for the failed ideology that led to the murder of millions. We're you educated at Berkeley?
An old cliche of discussion forums, isn't it? Keeps being as false as ever. Keeps being unable to withstand very simple counterarguments we're all familiar with.

Calling logic the old cosmological argument is like calling chemistry the alchemists' search for the "philosopher's stone"
Well, let's see your "counter argument." Or are you just full of hot air?

-- Updated September 30th, 2017, 12:37 am to add the following --

Am I to take it that you are indeed Berkeley educated?

-- Updated September 30th, 2017, 3:05 am to add the following --

BTW, saying "water molecules cause the emergence of wetness" as a way of saying unconscious mechanism causes the emergence of consciousness is an old and nonsensical argument. "Wetness" is not a new element or property over and above the natural and mechanical processes that cause it. If wetness could appreciate wetness, then you might have something.

Don't they teach you how to reason at Berkeley?
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

Post by Atreyu »

Dark Matter wrote:[ BTW, saying "water molecules cause the emergence of wetness" as a way of saying unconscious mechanism causes the emergence of consciousness is an old and nonsensical argument. "Wetness" is not a new element or property over and above the natural and mechanical processes that cause it. If wetness could appreciate wetness, then you might have something.
Exactly.

But really, it should be common sense that consciousness cannot be the result of unconscious or mechanical forces.
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

Post by Dark Matter »

Atreyu wrote:
Dark Matter wrote:[ BTW, saying "water molecules cause the emergence of wetness" as a way of saying unconscious mechanism causes the emergence of consciousness is an old and nonsensical argument. "Wetness" is not a new element or property over and above the natural and mechanical processes that cause it. If wetness could appreciate wetness, then you might have something.
Exactly.

But really, it should be common sense that consciousness cannot be the result of unconscious or mechanical forces.
Of course, but Watts was wrong about one thing: some rationalists do maintain the possibility of an effect without a sufficient cause.
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Re: What is the meaning of religion

Post by Alias »

Atreyu wrote:
But really, it should be common sense that consciousness cannot be the result of unconscious or mechanical forces.
Should it? Why?
If consciousness does not arise from unconscious matter, where does it come from? Has it no cause or beginning?
If that's the case, how does "common sense" keep talking with its own tail perpetually filling its mouth?
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