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He digressed a bit to discuss various philosophers such as some early "progressives" who spent lifetimes of denial trying to prove that there is no coherent human philosophy, and made examples of incoherence within their own works, without actually comprehending either their own failings, nor the truths revealed by others. . . . .

Angry philosophers who wanted to make nothing of everything human beings have ever conceived. . . . . . but too conceited in their own rantings to realize that while it might be actually true of their own views, they were cutting into the foundations of their own logic. . . ..

So, as a consequence of his "General Theory of Relativity", the "gift" or inherent nature of human intelligence does indeed "connect" with the reality of our existence, perceiving truths in the physical and spiritual dimensions in a manner that is more than just "rational" or "logical". . . . but transcendent, serendipitous. . . . . For those of us who choose not to blind ourselves in denials of those truths. . . . .
 
addictionary said:
So the philosophical comprehension of existence runs in the family?
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Absolutely. . . . .. I might be laughing at myself and my cousin a bit here. . . . while I extend the proposed "General Theory of Relativity" to my cows, dogs, and indeed the flies. . . . every living thing. . . . as well as to the rocks and seas. . . . . for that matter to the stars.

With Mormons, there has been a scandalous charge that Joseph Smith was an animist, as he stated that even trees as well as the earth have an organized "spiritual" body. . . . In fact, his version of the Genesis creation myth has God creating it all "spiritually" before it was created physically.. . . and as such a creation, it was more "than a twinkle in our father's eye."

I'm actually realizing that "the philosophical comprehension of existence" runs in the whole human family, and that the level of comprehension may be somewhat different in other living things, perhaps vastly different in what we in our arrogance consider the inert and unthinking "non-living" world. . .. the rocks, for example. I'm saying that when we slam, say George Bush or Obama for being dumber than a rock, it might not be all the insult we imagine it to be.

A Russian scientist/philosopher of sorts, Vladimir Vernadsky, of the not too recent soviet tradition succeeding in keeping his funding while elaborating on the light radiated by radish and potato roots. . .. and even on some processes ongoing in the geological sphere of planetary evolution. . . . describing these things in terms of the "Noosphere" and publishing his work in the soviet science press. . . .

We could not have had a planet that can sustain our present diversity of life without the contributions made by primeval bacteria clearing the air of hydrogen sulfide, for example. . .. and rendering nitrogen into a form that can be taken in by other organisms to build proteins. The primordial soup needed ancient life forms to jump start our major traditon of life today, and they are still there in the underwater volcanic plumes that the rest of us can't live in.
 
OK, that got us to the page on Vernadsky. He was just enough of socialist, combined with his scientific credentials, to survive in Russia, he embraced and extended the ideas of evolutionary science to combine it with a progressive continuum of changes in the universe favorable to the development of life. A lot of scientists get bogged down in the ruthless obsession of burying religion as some kind of essential accomplishment for mankind, but Vernadsky ignores it and speaks directly to the processes of nature which have been necessary for the existence of life, incorporating it all into a sort of "law" of science that invokes "life" as a property of all existence, and gives it a direction. . . . developmental inertia that transcends political ideology.

a few modern "progressives" are aware of his views and incorporate them into their own, but they are a class distinct from the hammerhead fascists who want to clear away every impediment to cartel rule.
 
Thanks for the info about Vernadsky. This man's work is on a really important question in my life. I'm not scientifically qualified to go into deeper I guess, but I've always wondered the possibility of the so-called non-living world's beings actually having souls/spirituality/energy forms (this thing obviously has many names and basically tries to address the being beyond material existence of everything). Also on the intelligence level of beings. I don't assume we have strong understanding of how "intelligence" and "life" works and in how many various forms they can exist. I sometimes think of simple animals being much more intelligent than we are. One can fantasize about a mind or intellect developing so far that it becomes the rock or maybe the rock itself had already had its consciousness, witnessing much more than what we've had and saving a collective memory with the rest of the world or universe that we no way now can handle to fit in our conscience.
 
In the Bible, when Jesus was going into Jerusalem to his crucifixion, some folks tried to show honor to him. Some others thought this wasn't appropriate. To the latter, Jesus said that if the praisers should shut their mouths, the very stones would cry out.

I am not inclined to think the rocks are an accretion of intelligence far above that of humans, I wouldn't even know how to rank such disparate things. I just believe consciousness is inherent in existence and , somehow, and I'm sure the subject is as complex as physical chemistry or maybe even inorganic chemistry and biological chemistry. I think it is a starkly obvious fact that life and death is a fact that is not just respiration or brainwaves, but of presence or absence of some completely different existent thing. . . in the case of a human body, the human spirit. I find some accounts of near-death or coming back from the dead. . . like Lazurus in the Bible, compelling in their telling. . . . Obviously, in this case there is something transcendental in the human being. A "dead body" might have one level of "consciousness", but a living human is orders of magnitude beyond that.
 
This might also mean that the humans might have two consciousness'es of which one is dominating the other -the spiritual body controlling the chemical body- and if you have seen someone you love dead, you would know that what you see only feels like a dreg left back by the actual thing. Lifeless, meaningless, no where near the sight of whom you knew, you loved. But even though her chemical body stops functioning as a structure, it's still existing and when it goes to become one with the soil, it becomes many more lives with relative levels of consciousness. Then what happens to the soul/spirituality/energy form that left the body host? Even though I'll learn today or tomorrow, it is still a desire to know.
 
My personal near death experiences make me inclined to think that something continues after this life, beyond a separation and then winking out of existence. I saw things I could not possibly have known about, and described them in some detail. I have experienced this twice in my life, both times I saw something I could not explain, yet it had happened as I described it later. One of those things was very bad and one was good. I have no idea why I saw what I did, but it sticks with me, and beyond some kind of existence after this life I cannot explain how it happened. And I definitely do not understand why it did. I hope I get an answer to this one day, but it is doubtful I will be able to come back here and post about it when/if I do. :)
 
LogGrad98 said:
My personal near death experiences make me inclined to think that something continues after this life, beyond a separation and then winking out of existence. I saw things I could not possibly have known about, and described them in some detail. I have experienced this twice in my life, both times I saw something I could not explain, yet it had happened as I described it later. One of those things was very bad and one was good. I have no idea why I saw what I did, but it sticks with me, and beyond some kind of existence after this life I cannot explain how it happened. And I definitely do not understand why it did. I hope I get an answer to this one day, but it is doubtful I will be able to come back here and post about it when/if I do. :)
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Cool. So are you religious? Spiritual? Any religion in particular that could explain what you went through?
 
What your thoughts on Halloween? On any other day would you let your child take food from random strangers? Also why celebrate death and not life...

I think of just an excuse to wear costumes, for little kiddies and hot chicks so I digg it.
 
The Blue Elephant said:
What your thoughts on Halloween? On any other day would you let your child take food from random strangers? Also why celebrate death and not life...

I think of just an excuse to wear costumes, for little kiddies and hot chicks so I digg it.
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Even though I have never celebrated it, I can tell that it is also a way of facing death as a concept and as the unescapable reality. Parodizing an issue that is usually taken with extreme sadness is healthy imo. And I have always liked the idea of being in a society that parodizes death and supernatural concepts like living in a fest. But might feel stupid to people who take it as a routine with boring traditions.
 
addictionary said:
This might also mean that the humans might have two consciousness'es of which one is dominating the other -the spiritual body controlling the chemical body- and if you have seen someone you love dead, you would know that what you see only feels like a dreg left back by the actual thing. Lifeless, meaningless, no where near the sight of whom you knew, you loved. But even though her chemical body stops functioning as a structure, it's still existing and when it goes to become one with the soil, it becomes many more lives with relative levels of consciousness. Then what happens to the soul/spirituality/energy form that left the body host? Even though I'll learn today or tomorrow, it is still a desire to know.
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Like there are different kinds of material existence. . . . compounds and elements. . . . elements and subatomic particles that form them. . . .

Christian belief generally supposes a "resurrection" to be the spirit combining back into a physical possession of the physical identity which the person had in "mortality" but thenceforth not in a "mortal" framework, but immortal.

One can wonder about where all the carbon will come from when everything is "resurrected", or how a body that decomposed in the ocean could be re-gathered. . . . morbid and useless specuations I suppose, but for anyone who would like to know the specifics someday, you have to ask and think. . . .
 
LogGrad98 said:
My personal near death experiences make me inclined to think that something continues after this life, beyond a separation and then winking out of existence. I saw things I could not possibly have known about, and described them in some detail. I have experienced this twice in my life, both times I saw something I could not explain, yet it had happened as I described it later. One of those things was very bad and one was good. I have no idea why I saw what I did, but it sticks with me, and beyond some kind of existence after this life I cannot explain how it happened. And I definitely do not understand why it did. I hope I get an answer to this one day, but it is doubtful I will be able to come back here and post about it when/if I do. :)
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I haven't had a specific experience like this. I have to give credit though for the existence of angels and for somehow knowing when a specific deceased person is present with me. A friend told me once about how her husband had died in a head-on collision. . .. he was in a Volkswagon bug in 1968, and tried to pass on a two lane highway. . . . and hit a semi headon. She said some days afterward he came to her and told her he was OK, that everything was right with him, and please go on with her life. I told her the best thing she could do is get married and have some kids. Oh, maybe ten years later her new brother-in-law was dating another friend of mine, and I got invited to go visit her new family. Two cute little girls.

When people tell me about experiences like yours I believe it is more than just some mental phenomena. . . .
 
A second line of correlation with this kind of idea. . . . as LogGrad is telling. . . . is that I was pretty impressed when I was totally blind and nearly totally paralyzed for a while at age 25, it seemed to me that I had lost nothing of my "value" or essence as a human being. Living for some years with serious impediments was frustrating and I was acutely aware of my "uselessness" in this physical world, and how I was a burden to others, but overall it increased my conviction of the worth of human beings and the reality of a future world where experiences like this can be an asset, a tremendous advantage, so far as what I learned about the world and myself.
 
I thought I would bring this from the other thread. Babe what is your take on clinical depression? I would be curious to hear your thoughts on that subject. Seems to fit both threads, but this one may be more appropriate to the conversation.
 
LogGrad98 said:
I thought I would bring this from the other thread. Babe what is your take on clinical depression? I would be curious to hear your thoughts on that subject. Seems to fit both threads, but this one may be more appropriate to the conversation.
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yah, I spouted off on it in the other thread already, but I had fun doing it. . . ..

I confess I am really apprehensive about the modern medicines for depression. . .. the serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. . . . . I think they're the wrong approach. I'm a little on the side of nature,and finding the natural things that make nature work the way it's designed to work. SRIs actually block a natural process in an effort to artificially achieve a "normal" balance point. That's like teaching a kid to walk by telling him he has to hold a ten pound boulder in his hand while stretching his arm to one side. . . .yeah, we can figure out how to accommodate it, but the reason kids fall down is not because they aren't holding a stone out.

The effects of SRIs are real and measureable, and in today's medicine that trumps eating good food I guess.
 
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