"Your truth" v "the truth"

[Ernie Nemeth]

I only come across that way, I am not actually smugly superior.

It is just that I have thought about this stuff for so long it is rote, it is fundamental. For instance, the idea of whether there is The Truth and whether that can be known is one of the very first necessary questions. Without a decision in that regard, the rest of the information will fall in the wrong categories, and may not make sense at all. Another fundamental consideration is whether there is a Creator. These have to be answered, however tentatively, before any other information can be assembled into a coherent pattern.

Mathematics is a great way to arrive at answers for these fundamental questions. But certainty at this stage is secondary. Once decisions on the fundamentals, and even what is fundamental, has been accomplished, more information can be sorted and catalogued. Decisions on this additional information can wait, it is only imperative to add them to the whole in a manner that makes them easily accessible when needed.

Pertinent tidbits can be added to the core fundamentals as more data is crunched, which in turn refines and expands the categories of interest.

A point is reached where the incoming data either falls neatly into established categories or they fall outside the scope of study, becoming anomalies and exceptions.

It is these anomalies that are important. It is what guides the direction of focus because it is these that are not understood and threaten the entire edifice of understanding so far assembled.

Sometimes the entire edifice must be torn down, if you are truly honest about the search for truth. Those times can be devastating.

I find, and this and probably most of what I refer to does not apply here, that most people are not equipped to debate because they are uninformed about too many topics. How can one debate if topics of pertinence are beyond the scope of the challenger's knowledge?


I much prefer, for instance, a person like Daniel Quinn and his book, Ishmael. That book gives insightful perspective on the world of man and humanity's philosophy.

People who have scrambled their brains with hallucinogens and opened the inner door will have wonders revealed to them, to be sure. But to assemble that esoterica into a comprehensive and comprehensible whole, so far removed from the average human experience, will drive them mad or beyond the veil prematurely. Certain knowledge cannot be had in these containers of flesh. That is another reason The Truth can never be known.

Interestingly, I read how you came at this from the atheist perspective...I chose the believer route. One period not long ago I tried the atheist approach but too much data just won't fit, and my bias was already fixed. I now hold to an impersonal god, the Creator of all things, who looks out at It's Creation through the eyes of its creation in a strange synthesis of retro-introspection with infinite permutations and limitless potential.

WAMLTN, welcome.

Good thread.

[WeAllMustLearnToNavigate]

@Erneth Nemeth I think we arrived at a very similar place.

And yes it is a kind of meeting point -- as I said, there came a point where I noticed that many of the things being said on the 'theistic' side were actually true statements (regardless of what is the case in the metaphysical) -- things like heart, human intentions, that the closed model of conventional rationalism is blindsighted on.

There's an old NLP phrase which is very apt "The map is not the terrain". However we cannot conceive of the totality - whether mathematical or not our representations of it are always partial to some degree. (so again i'm not knocking maps) -- but when there's whole regions not on the map -- it makes sense to expand the map. What makes a good map is that all that data as you put it is integratable -- i.e. everything fits into one picture) . (another way to see this is about integrating the two hemispheres of the brain - the rational and the holistic). The navigational perspective can be viewed very formally like a mathematics, but it doesn't have to-- it can also be viewed holistically. The point is that the two reconcile.

at the same time it's still a map -- it's domain is the apparent temporal physical and introspection.

it's a better map -- and could potentially be extended to a kind of formalisable philosophy - similar to 'law of one'.

On a personal note - I don't know what my label would be now, as my beliefs have changed - but it's not specifically atheist. As I said the navigation perspective makes no comment on the metaphysical.

It's like this - physicists might learn to make predictions quite accurately about certain measurements - but that doesn't tell you the true nature of what it is that's being measured. There's a kind of fundamental mystery - which will never be solved - because the totallity will always be beyond it. Actually even though he was an atheist I think earlier physicists like Richard Feynman definitely had a comprehension of this -- the limited nature of what we do understand - and the awe and mystery of nature. The misapprehension that later students might have -- that in some way nature has been pinned down and understood - is far from the truth (and an artifact of confusing the map for the terraine).

[WeAllMustLearnToNavigate]

b.t.w both atheists and theist both make the same wrong argument. The atheist will claim there is no God but demand proof of the theist, and the Theist will claim there is a God and demand proof of the atheist.

I don't think the existence of God is something you can demonstrate to another person, put I don't dismiss the belief either. The rules in the metaphysical domain are different because it's only for ourselves that we can assertain such thing. What we are beyond the meat suit avatar in this apparent temporal physical is the subject of a kind of deep knowing. (For example people with experience of past lives, can't prove it but for themselves they may know it -- a kind of residual memory.)

In a sense even if we don't effectively 'go' anywhere after our departure from this mortal coil -- the perspective that we are eternal is not effectively contradicted because in the totality -- we are. A more transient way of expressing it is like a pebble landing in the water, even after the splosh is over the ripples continue, and forever will the path be slightly different.

[palehorse]

In regards of religion and God, I personally do not believe nor follow closely, I do believe in a creator of the cosmos (absolute) and I do practice vipassana in accordance with the Theravada tradition, but I do not limit myself to the teaching of this tradition alone, I am open to others teachings. A while ago I was a student of the Fourth Way School (Gurdjieff teachings, which is considered to be an esoteric teaching of self transformation).

I believe we all agree that there is different perspectives in how we see and interact with the ray of creation, and it is important to notice that and respect each and all traditions/teachings available to us. We can learn from it all, it take time and patience. We do not need to be scholars in order to gain knowledge through experience, I know one scholar that is very limited, the only truth is his own line of thinking that he won't accept anything outside his own circle of experience, I personally am more into the openness, wilderness and free will I want freedom and not enslavement.


My intention is far from turn the thread into a drug research , but I just have a few thoughts I would like to point out..

Regards psychedelics: as we know it has been present in our civilization since ever, but only about 4.000 years ago it became more a thing of leisure (see high priests of Egypt), in fact that neural state of "high" is the transcendence of the 4 initial levels of the Leary's model (gravitation, digital, linear, Aristotelian, Newtonian, Euclidean, planetary orientations, and so forth and so on as explained in the Leary's third circuit of the brain). The same levels that our beloved governments around the globe try at all costs to keep us in.

Our brain is a chemical factory, it can produce by itself chemicals that we can experience through the use of any so called drugs. The drug itself (the chemical compound) act as a trigger to certain neurotransmitter receptor (membrane receptor protein) and activate by the neurotransmitter, these chemicals outside of the cell can bind into the cell membrane which will find the corresponding receptors, then the subject get "high". e.g. The Dimethyl Tryptamine is produced naturally by many plants and animals (include humans, a scientific study says that the very moment of death a huge amount of DMT is released into the brain). another example is pheromones, anyone can increase it just having the right amount of sleep, eating the correct food, allowing natural odors (e.g. armpits), use of essential oils, etc..

Some legal "prescribed" drug, lets say Diazepam/Valium, it produce a very calming effect (aka zombie effect with many side effect), studies proved that a simple poppy (Opioid) tea could provide the same effect naturally without any side effect.

My intention was to explain how practically it is possible to choose ones realities/perspectives and improve their way of life without compromising their biological system.

Drugs play a huge role in this regards, because it opens the doors of our perceptions, hence we question the "authority" and they do not want that. They want to keep the mass in the dark.

sorry back to topic


About the navigational system I believe we all can direct ourselves in any direction if we are open for that and allow ourselves, as I said before, our tunnel of reality is the only limitation, and as someone said here the map is not territory, we can always expand our maps. I know it is more complex than that, but the words are failing me today.

I would like to say that I appreciate very much everything I did read in this thread until, so far so good.


Merry Christmas to everyone.

[WeAllMustLearnToNavigate]

@pale horse

I only have limited experience of psychadelice -- I tried LSD once and grew Cubensis mushrooms at one point. (also many years before this I tried mushrooms which I bought at a shop in the high street). I think one of the key factors of these experiences is a kind of profundity -- in those moments the eternal and the present are somehow experienced as profoundly linked. (actually I think nhilism and a psychadelic experience are almost polar opposites).

I agree with you very much about free will. One way of viewing things, is that in nature there is always a tension between single celular autonomous and multi celular. I don't believe a multi-cellular borg type future is optimal for our species at this time. The reason for that (beyond personal preference -- I have pretty strong feelings on the matter ) is that centralised control is in some sense brittle - decisions made locally can better incorporate full information of circumstance. For our species to become like a bee hive, would not fully harness our true capacity to self navigate.

re authority -- this is one thing that Timothy Leary said "think for yourself - question authority" which definitely didn't come from the so called 'high ups'. (I think most of what he said didn't actually - he was kind of irrepressible - even if he was seen as useful (in terms of making decentors into non-threatening peace-nicks) - the philosophy he spoke was his own.

Merry Christmas