Hiya Di!!!...

In the immortal words of Al Pacino...

"Ahhhhh.... vanity, my favorite sin!"



No matter what religion or the lack thereof one adheres to, if the belief system helps one to recognize why they are who they think they are, if it leads one into themselves by recognizing those things which no longer consciously fit, then it can begin a true self-awareness path. The understanding of what influence certain things(experience) have had upon our mind and person. The knowing of one's self does not require looking outward for the answers, it requires looking within.

All of the answers which lead one to who they are lay within, beneath the worldy fingerprint which one must adopt in order to accept that which they live and learn accordingly.

The first few years of one's life establish an initial foundational belief system, no matter of a notion of theism. Truly, all things when initially perceived, recognized, and contemplated begin one's belief system. Those fragments of learning are sub-consciously strung together like dot to dots throughout one's life, slowly completing each picture of conceptual understanding accordingly.

Survival requires adaptation, adaptation requires change, change requires adoption, adoption requires difference, and later on in life, all of which, when recognized, requires the appropriate removal of that which no longer fits... lest one be personally stuck by one's own thief teachings.


EDIT:



That is a good question, actually. It obviously has some level of potential, or prior intelligence imprinted, which humans do not understand. Is it aware of it's own potential? What would it be alone, without the supporting elements which surround it? It is obviously a necessary part of the whole, not a whole by itself.

This is an interesting question that I have thought about quite deeply.

Although, I wouldn’t have phrased it as such. To ask if it has ‘intelligence’ sounds like we are asking if it is sentient. Is it aware of its potential? I think the answer to that question is, no.

It’s not intelligent in the sense of being sentient.

But does it have ‘intelligent’ design.

Well, this is where we need to realize that DNA isn’t a thing but rather the result of other things that naturally come together to form it. And those things are the atoms.

The real, ‘intelligent’ design is not in the DNA, but in the Atoms. If DNA is the blueprint for life, then Atoms are the blueprint for DNA.

The carbon atom would be seen as the single most encrypted atom. All DNA that we know of is carbon-based. The other elements are merely building blocks. It is the extremely complex bonding abilities of the carbon atom that allow it to form into things such as DNA. In fact, it would probably be wrong to say that it ‘allows’ it for form DNA. It would probably be better to that that it ‘forces’ it to form DNA when in the correct “soup” of other atoms and given the correct amount of energy (heat and/or light).

The miracle of the universe is the carbon atom. Without the carbon atom there would be no life as we know it. Although, there has been some speculation that the silicon atom may have similar potential albeit to a lesser degree.

There is no doubt in my mind that this universe has a degree of ‘design’ to it. However, I’m totally unconvinced that this design is forward-thinking. In other words, I don’t believe that the universe was intentionally designed to created specific predetermined life forms. I don’t believe that humans were pre-designed by the universe. They are just what happened when atoms randomly come together.

People misunderstand the idea of randomness they think that means totally chaotic and without design. But that’s a false notion. It’s like throwing dice. That too is a random process. Yet the dots on the faces of the dice have already been predetermined. The precise number that comes up is what is random.

It’s the same way with the universe. The atoms are like the dots on the face of the dice. Humans are like the random numbers that come up. Not pre-designed in the way that people usually think. Yet, not a totally accidental either.

The only difference is that with play dice, we’re talking about rolling numbers from 2 to 12. And only the whole numbers in-between those. That’s an extremely limited random event. You have a fair chance at guessing a number and having that number actually come up.

With the universe, the dice have innumerous faces. The numbers that can come up are basically infinite for all intents and purposes. Humans are merely one-in-infinity. We might say, “Boy how lucky are we?”

But that’s what every living creature would say about themselves! I you think that a rat would rather be a human think again. A rat probably thinks that humans are the most disgusting creatures on the planet.

All species are arrogant by nature. They all think that they are the best. Humans are no exception. They even created a God whom they believe made the entire universe just with them in mind. What a bunch of arrogant pigs.

Abra:



What the hell is a quark?

Where do those things go?

What makes 'em come back?

Creativesoul, you often speak of vanity, ego etc. as if you see it in others. I wonder if you recognize it in yourself.


I don't think I would say that DNA is intelligent in itself. It is simply information. All things that appear to have mass are simply stored information. (Some call a particle a standing wave.)

I believe that the thing that uses this information is not a material thing, but a thinking center that perceives. It is the I AM that exists with or without mass and moves as a vibration stream into the information and uses the information. Just like we, the computer user uses the programs in our computer. Without a user, the programs just sit there with all their instructions.

DNA are instructions. Mass is information stored.

JB

You’re probably not going to like these answers, but that’s tough.



Theirs is no such thing as a quark. Neither mathematically, nor in the real world.

A quark is an abstract mathematical construct defined over a quantum field.

A quark cannot exist as a single entity even as a pure mathematical concept.

A quark is defined as an excitation in a quantum field, and it is an excitation that cannot exist alone, it must at least be paired up with an antiquark (an opposing excitation). This gives rise to what we call mesons (something like a pion for example)

The quark-antiquark pair acting as a ‘pion’ (or other meson) take on a ‘particle-like’ propertie such as obeying the Palui exclusion principle, etc.

Three quarks can also become entangled as a ‘single particle-like thingy’, these are called Hadrons and make up things like protons and neutrons, etc.

When they become something like a proton, they become very stable with respect to time. Meaning that they will remain in that state very dependably and create the physical world that we see around us.



When a quark and antiquark collide with one another they “annihilate”. Meaning that the ripple that was in the quantum field now vanishes to become a silent undetectable nothingness.



Energy fluctuations.

The funny thing about the quantum field is that it is totally undetectable when it has no ripples (i.e. no quarks flittering about).

However, it can be excited by energy fluctuations (and energy is always fluctuating)

But here’s the mystery,…

It’s impossible to predict precisely what will emerge from the quantum field when it is excited. However, we can predicate probabilities under certain situations.

Think of it like this,…

You’re a fisherman. You cast your line into the quantum pond. You know there are fish in there (i.e. quarks). But you have no idea what kind of fish might bite. You might get a minnow, or whale, or some weird thing like mud puppy. You’ll catch something alright, you might even catch the crabs!

But you’re not going to catch a grizzle bear or a moose or elephant, because those things do reside in the quantum pond.

So there’s a randomness to it, but in a controlled way. The quantum fields seem to have dependable (albeit random) properties. Like rolling dice. You can only get what’s on the faces. But which faces you’ll catch are totally random.

The real mystery isn’t in the ‘particles’, it’s in the nature of the quantum pond, and the creatures from the black lagoon.

Don’t ask what the quantum field consists of. If I knew the answer to that I’d be collecting my Nobel prize.

All we know is that we can describe it with mathematical precision in terms of probabilities. Just like we do with dice which have hardcore properties. But what it is, or why it has the consistent properties that it has is anyone’s guess.

It’s a bit more complex than I’ve outlined here, of course.

JB:

I have never spoken of vanity until that quote of Pacino...

Ego is...

Do I recognize it in myself?... of course, or I would not be able to address it adequately...

There is a huge difference between recognition and substantiation...

Perhaps the burden of the intellect is awareness!
What seeks itself unless the seeking is a desire driven by need?
What need could a god have that could invoke such a desire if intellect is present?
If there is no intellect what truth could be discerned by that which seeks itself?

If, there was ever creation by design then it began from a single source (that is the theory of a god, it is a priori). So if there is awareness and intellect but there is “no thing” available for comparison then all that exists is one awareness and one intellect and that is all the truth that exist and it remains all there is to be aware of. So what is there to stimulate an awareness of need, to drive the desire, to know the truth of self, when truth is all that exists and all that exists is a priori?



This is contradictory to your previous comments above. Once a belief in a divine power has been accepted there must, ultimately, be questions regarding the nature of the divinity; or the theory that caused one to believe in the first place would not exist.

The very nature of an agnostic is to wonder, ponder, question, or at least to wait for knowledge to be imparted. Does not the waiting signify that there are questions?

Hi ya back atchya C.

The only foundation of believes a child learns in the first few years IS the impression of the worldly fingerprint.

A child of this age learns by reinforcement, similar to how a pet is trained. Their only mechanism for survival is to find the means of action that present an acceptable reinforcement.

I cried I got food, I smiled and held up my cup and I got milk, I brought a toy and offered it and I got held. This, Creative is the fingerprint, the foundation from which all future actions will stem from.



Survival requires attaining that which fulfills need.

Needs that are satiated more easily, through the power in one’s control, allows for time and freedom to experience the world, aside, from the need to survive.

These experiences do not change the requirements for basic needs, what changes is an individuals’ priority of need. What changes are the reinforcements we expect from the creatively devised behaviors we choose to exhibit.

In this way, Creative, you are correct that all a child learns in the first few years is a belief system; but it is founded on survival.

Removing, that which no longer fits, is simply replacing the nature of our behaviors, because in the end we still have needs to be fulfilled and our behavior is all we have to gain that reinforcement.

Unless one examines, understands, and accepts what “need” a belief system fulfills (divine or otherwise) there can be no truth to their beliefs that is worthy of reinforcement, outside the individual.

Now why would I not like that answer Abra?

You are far more knowlegdable than I on such things... for sure...



Thank you for that explanation...

What potential does DNA have, that was not, first, dependent on a stem cell? Once given a set of stem cells, the DNA somehow knows what it’s function is to be from cell to cell, even as each cell begins to function with the, now, separated DNA strands.

BUT; Abra has actually proposed an answer more to my expectations.



In the case for sentience I agree, however, eliminating sentience would eliminate all of the “classical” or “traditional” monotheistic belief systems.

For those systems depend on a self-aware, sentient, and intelligent being creating for the sake of purpose and with full awareness of time, space, depth and breath of all that fulfills its purpose. In this case ONLY divine, intelligent and all knowing inspiration is responsible for all that exists.



To accept this part of the equation must be to accept that sentience and intelligent design do not have to go hand in hand. In fact an intelligent design by this definition boils down to a random set of factors and divinity has nothing to do with it.

This further exemplifies that our personal awareness is of random outcome: As such any thought that awareness or consciousness or sentience continues beyond the physical form is an idea founded in an illusion of our own creation that serves to satisfy SOME NEED.

But what is the need? And if we create a satisfactory belief system to fulfill that need are we not only deluding ourselves?

I can imagine a scenario where this wouldn’t hold true. In fact, I’m actually leaning in that direction. It’s a rather complicated thesis to explain. I thing Michael would find it intriguing, but at the same time be tempted to fire more logic blanks at it.

Here it goes, quick and dirty, (and it’s just a thought, I’m not trying to claim that its reality).

In the beginning I am. I am aware. I perceive. Not physically, perhaps telepathically. I realize that I am.

But at the same time I am nothing. Nothing but a cloud of nothingness. A ghost. A Holy Spirit.

I imagine light, and there is light. All ‘around’ me. It fills me, surrounds, and pervades me. I am the light.

I divide the light from the abyss of darkness, and in doing so I create the stars and galaxies. I know not what they are. Just globs of light.

I permeate the face of the deep.

I watch as things ‘unfold’, but it is my watching that makes them unfold. It is my imagination that creates the stuff of light. Not with predefined engineering, but through pure telekinetic randomness. Controlled randomness. Randomness that is controlled only by two things; 1. My pure imagination, and 2. What I have already imagined to be.

I watched as the stars formed, and the galaxies formed, and as the planets condensed from the “star stuff’.

Stuff that even I as the magician have no clue how they must be designed in order to make my dream be true. I make it up as I go along.

If I need to know how something works, I figure out explanations for it. When I can’t figure out an explanation I call it a ‘puzzle’ and I work on it until something gives.

I was there when the molten rock of the earth solidified. I was there when the slime molds appeared. I became the slime mold to ‘see’ what that was like. I grew flagella and swam around in the liquid star stuff. I grew larger and larger and eventually came onto land. I’ve been every kind of animal you can imagine and some that you can not even imagine.

Today I am a human. I am still playing with my puzzles. I am still creating this universe. As are all the other tad poles that I have become.

I is We, and We are I.

Even we don’t know every detail, because the details are unimportant. We will never know ever detail, they’re will always be details that are unknown.

We’ve already created more paradoxes than we can ever hope to solve. Will they ever be solved, or are they just doorways to even larger paradoxes.

We are the ‘intelligent designers’. Even if the bulk masses are off playing Sodomy and Givememora. That doesn’t change the fact of what we are.

We actually created this dream to play things like Sodomy and Givememora. We didn’t create it to figure out how it works (unless, of course, we enjoy that).

Our purpose is what we make it.

i am one yet i can point at my nose
it is divine!

Oh yeah?

Well, I’m a member of the “Mirror-Mirror On the Wall Church”

I am one, yet I can actually thumb my nose at myself and peer into the windows of my soul at the same time.

It’s all done with light.

thhhhhhhhhbbbbbt

i say silly things in your general direction!

ahhhh but can you ride a unicycle?

Abra don't look know but your godliness is "manifesting".


What are you doing but creating science fiction to support a theory that gives some part of the YOU an eternal projection?

What need are you fulfilling? MUST you have a god? MUST you find a way to explain the error of your Christian roots, while maintaining its main feature 'god'?

What if tracing the physical, form and mass, to its scientific beginnings only serves to uphold the idea that the physical is a random and momentary transition affected by the movement of energy through fluctuating fields of possibilites?

Where will that leave your awareness, your thoughts, your ideal of YOU, when there is nothing physical left to contain them?

Do you think some form of logical creative belief system can be made to encompass all that you are and give it some value within a universal system capable, only, of random action? Actions from which creations are transitory at best?

You have more value to the humans who share this transitional state with you, now, than any value you think can be embrased by a random universe.

Work on your books, Abra. Through them you can share the value that is uniquely yours, here, in this little part of the randomly created and transitory state we call human.

Write your poetry, make your music and know that, this time, awarness came from the randomness. Don't waste what little time we have to be aware, of the here and now, by creating a fantacy of some afterlife in which your role will assume far greater joy, happiness, and fulfillment.

If its there at all, it will be there whether you "create" it or not. But what is here now, in this life, is what values your awareness, don't waste the gift; share it.

I don't think awareness is the burden of intellect. Intellect is the tool that organizes chaos and puts things in order. The unknowable, to the intellect, is an enigma, a puzzle, and the solving of this puzzle is the burden because it is the job of mind (intellect) to put chaos in order. One cannot put a thing in order if it is a thing unknown, a question unanswered.



As Abra expressed, the I AM awareness of source realized Itself as NOTHING. It had no form or substance.

A God needs to be known. A god needs to be acknowledged.

A thing needs to be observed in order to have existence. What is "needed" are observers and things that can be observed to perpetuate the existence of anything.

Its creations seek Itself because they do not know that they are ultimately NOTHING. So they will continue to manifest as something in order to be.

JB

Anybuddy seen my bucket?

Or my plastic shovels?

What is this in my sandbox? It looks like... oh no... that damned 'ole cat...

Doot dee doot dee doo...

Or my sein?

EDIT:

Oh wow... JB I promise you that our posts overlapped each other... this one had nothing to do with yours.

I’m working at it Di. I’d really like to become an atheist but it’s hard. You make it look so easy.

I’m currently in a process of healing. I’m speaking biologically here. I almost lost my breath completely. I never realized what it’s like to be in air trying to breath and feeling like your underwater. It’s a weird experience. I thought I was going to “drown” right on the spot. I’m much better now. The doctors rescued me and now I’m breathing again. But still not good enough to sing.

I just wrote a song featuring Jessie Lee and some dust bunnies dancing. But I can’t sing it yet.

I do need to finish my book though. No doubt about that. It’s a must read for every scientist and mathematician. If I have a purpose in life it has to be that book.

Poem anyone?,...

~~~

S1owhand’s a crude lip-service dude
he’s fallen from grace
from even St. Jude
his avatar’s gross cuz he stands there half-nude
he probably thinks it’ll help get him screwed

But everyone knows
he plays a horny guitar
howling his blues like a vociferous scar
hoping to sound so uncouthly bizarre
that women might think
he’s a blues-singing czar

Divine intervention
is what the man needs
along with a woman
who’s good at misdeeds
someone to bite him until he concedes
that he’s just a mere mortal who easily bleeds

My understanding of:
Intellect - the capacity of each individual to competently store knowledge. In other words intellect is where the sum total of factual knowledge is stored.

Intelligence – the ability to, learn through experience, and acquire knowledge (the intellect does not acquire, it stores) Intelligence is also the ability to use “knowledge” and resources effectively and resolve problems.

Philosophically speaking, knowledge should be information that holds the same value most consistently by the most people. In other words those things we learn from formal education. Or things we have experienced but BEFORE applying these to the intellect we have questioned their truth and value comparatively to other sources and other known facts.

The idea being that we don’t want to store just anything there, because it can adversely affect our ability to make sound, logical and rational judgments.

So my quote “the burden of the intellect is awareness” referenced the idea that being aware is a challenge, because in our laziness we may tend to store faulty ‘knowledge’ in the intellect.

Now, you can take a word and re-define it to mean something, other, than what it is formally KNOWN to mean. In this way you provide confirmation bias which upholds your own theories or beliefs.

But also know this, when you do so, you are creating a fantasy that will never be explained scientifically or given credence by those whose ‘intellect’ conforms with the most consistently held truths. So you can never expect to offer your ideas and have them be accepted by anyone of critical acclaim.

This is why so much of what you read and offer up for others to consider, are NOT considered valuable or even worthy of reading. They can not be credible when the words within them re-define scientifically accepted values, without any scientific evidence to proclaim the change valid.

You are only accepting that which substantiates what you want to believe when you read this stuff. You do so by ignoring (out of bias for your own beliefs) what is most generally accepted.

JB – you travel a path on which even the questions are based on faulty knowledge. Conforming to certain rules that make knowledge more functional within society is reasonable and allows intelligence a better opportunity to work for you.

Conforming in this manner does not affect the unique and individual qualities of a person. In fact it makes the person more valuable for their choosing a path less traveled.

QUOTE:

What need could a god have that could invoke such a desire if intellect is present?
If there is no intellect what truth could be discerned by that which seeks itself?




Your statement suggests that either god had no substance or that god was no thing. If no thing ever existed then god did not either.

An invisible entity that is aware of its unobservable nature but is not any less aware of itself for its condition makes no sense.

A blind person cannot observe himself, that does not mean they are invisible or that they are unaware. Awareness allows us a framework of time, place and circumstance in which to place ourselves. At the point when god is all that existed there was no time or place or Other(s) by which god could make comparison and realize it could not be observed. For god itself had no reason to have observational power, as it was all that existed?

If an entity traveled for eternity in an empty universe what experiences would it encounter? How would it even know if it was traveling or still? What stimuli would be experienced, and what intellect could be developed outside what existed? Can we even guess at what thought existed at all? Any theory would only be for creative fantasy.

So you see attributing physical and or human attributes to a god can only be the ruin of that which people have falsely stored in intellect – that god is perfect. It can not be so if god was an only and it can not be so if god was all that existed, and it can not be so if god was ‘no-thing’.

At this point we are not a product of a god, more likely, as Abra puts it, a product of random throws of the dice.