Comparative philosophy

[Ernie Nemeth]

In fact, quantum superposition insists that 2+2=4, 2+2≠4, and/or 2+2 maybe = 4 - Like Schrodinger's Cat.

But since this is a mathematical statement, it has no ambiguity at all...2+2=4, always, even in a quantum box.

[Ernie Nemeth]

Gotta reach back for the reference, it has been a while since I read all of Zukov's work. It would take some doing to recall without specific details. I remember liking his style and his ideas.

It is true that stretching the field probability matrix to its utmost extent reveals this interesting conundrum. It is on par with the incredible density of the smallest possible cube of space, a cube of Planck's length.

But if we consider an electron a field, which it is, then the entire universe must also be a field, which it also is. And if the Universe is a field then the planets and the stars are fields as well, and everything else we consider objects as well.

Still, if planets and stars are viewed from the perspective of a field...then the energy of the entire electromagnetic spectrum would have to be viewed as objects, which is pretty hard to do. This reversal would be necessary since objects are defined in part by comparison to energy, which is observably not the same as an object.


In the nineties I spent a lot of mental gymnastics with AI systems. I was convinced such a system could be built primarily focusing on architecture and design. I was also leaning toward a foreground/background type lattice that allowed voluminous input on an array of chip sets with parallel channels for data transfer and core processing.

This was before the days of the breakthrough in 'fuzzy logic' and trail-by-error algorithms.

Since that time AI has leapt forward in usefulness and sophistication. Face recognition is advancing to the point where even just a portion of the side of a face can be extrapolated to render the entire face for comparison to data on file - and in real time.

Most tasks require object recognition/manipulation and part of that problem is foreground/background considerations for orientation and situational/spacial awareness. This part of the problem is avoidable for stationary tasks by the use of sensors and actuators and such for robotic arms and automated processes.

But a robot needs to know where to place its next footfall, track a moving object, anticipate its future location/posture, and continue a real-time update of constantly changing foreground/background details. That is some feat, and it is slowly being mastered by many different teams around the world.

[TraineeHuman]

Ernie, you write: "Still, if planets and stars are viewed from the perspective of a field,then the energy of the entire electromagnetic spectrum would have to be viewed as objects, which is pretty hard to do. This reversal would be necessary since objects are defined in part by comparison to energy, which is observably not the same as an object."

Oh really? I don't know why you apparently believe that any objects must be treated as ultimately "real" at all. Or why they're conceptually necessary at all. For just one Eastern example of a different view, consider the Indian notion that everything you (apparently) experience as an object is maya (illusion). Also, consider how the entire underlying "world" of mathematical logic, and hence of all "things" mathematical as well, is built solely out of functions (which are one type of relation) and relations. No objects, anywhere, at all, except for things totally reducible to, and fully definable as, relations (and without any constants in them). (Incidentally, the counting numbers such as 1, 2, 3 and so on, aren't objects. They are a (very abstract) type of relation or else, if you like, adjective.) Hmm. Isn't the world of mathematics used as some kind of underlay for physics? So, whatever you're referring to as "the energy of the entire electromagnetic spectrum", is that mathematically defined, I wonder, and hence, if we look at what's ultimately real in the implicit underlying "world" of mathematics, would then necessarily have to be relational?

The mainstream Eastern view, as I understand it, and as Zukav was trying to lead his readers to the beginnings of, is that everything that's real is a relation (that's the "inter" part, but not the things being joined, and definitely not "nounizing" or "objectizing" the "inter" part at all, either). Not an object at all. Not if it;s truly real. No objects anywhere. Any supposed "object" is embedded in and not totally separable from networks of interrelation and interdependence that stretch ultimately to the "ends" of the "universe". I've inserted quotation marks because those words are nouns and therefore convey a strong bias towards nounhood (and hence objecthood)which in reality is just illusory or distorted.

[Ernie Nemeth]

These are not my personal views. I am taking the stance of popular science and the philosophy of materialism.

I spent many years as a youngster walking around the neighbourhood at night thinking about philosophy. I spent months with just the question: Is there a god?

And I would spend many more months on topics like the nature of consciousness, the universe and cosmology, science in the broadest sense, inventions, and much more.

Because, I wanted to have my own theories, my own observations, my own conclusions to test a fundamental idea: that all thinking beings begin with the same major concerns and arrive at the same general questions, and so their thinking should follow along similar trains of logical analysis.

Only then did I begin to study the old masters of western thought. I made copious notes. Spent long hours with some philosophies and discarded many others with only a passing perusal if their ideas were too far out of sync with my own.

In the end I decided that Kant came closest to my own views. I also concluded that thinking beings, on this planet at least, seem incapable of original thought, and merely revive old thoughts and package them in a seemingly unique manner. But the fundamental thinking always follows the same pertinent avenues. I did not conclude what the reason was for this, having not yet arrived at the idea that human thought is corralled, regulated, and censored on a regular basis.


Quantum mechanics set my mind on fire. It was the perfect perspective from which to draw tangential connections to far ranging topics that otherwise have no reasonable connection. Some of these topics include astrology, evolution, learning, holography, kirlian energy, black holes and stars, solar system formation, time/space dilation, gravity, atomic structure, waveform transforms, and many others.

The universe has a function. Function determines form. Form and function are inseparable, as one defines and delineates the other. That is why I said if function replaces form, then form must replace function.


And if the assumption must be that what is stated must be my opinion let me give mine, then:

The best philosophy I have ever encountered refutes materiality altogether. But it goes even further to reject reality too, stating that reality is a state of mind the person has mistakenly created.

The body itself is a learning tool the mind created in an effort to invent a time and a place that never existed. But the mind is not an invention, being created whole and without limits and extended to creation by the Creator. Invention is not a function of those created whole, implying as it does a thing not known before. The state of not knowing is impossible to the created.

Nothing without a function can exist.

And if we do share a mind then the universe is holographic and we are merely figments of our own making.

Until we learn that all distinctions are relative we will not understand that all relativistic attributes are only approximations with no actual definitive form. Without form there cannot be function.



Another way of understanding this relationship is to consider the state and the transform, or the particle and the wave. One is the collapsed wave function expressed, the other is the wave function probability of expression itself.

Still another way of looking at this is Bohm's implicate and explicate world order, where the implicate world of the quanta gives rise to the explicate world of the manifest universe.

In your parlance above, the world of adjectives gives rise to the world of nouns by unpacking the implied from the intrinsic.

[TraineeHuman]

Well, Kant created what was probably the biggest and a very overdue revolution, and the biggest shakeup, in the history of Western thought (particularly at a philosophical or theory of knowledge level). In a nutshell, what he very convincingly argued, and even largely demonstrated, was that an accurate perception of "things" "in themselves", meaning in their true nature, is impossible, at least for human minds. And as a corollary of that, it followed that such "things" as time and space and so on and so forth, as "things", which is what Westerners had conceived these to be, must be mere illusions, shared fantasies, and nothing more, created by our minds.

So, the Western worldview was and in many cases remains very deeply and inextricably committed to the presumption and belief that all substantial "things" are objects. But this presumption was not at all ever even remotely entertained in Zen, nor in ancient Taoism (though there are today two "branches" of Taoism, but I don't include as genuine the branch that spends much time chanting mantras as prayers and expecting magical results from that). So, from the viewpoint of Zen and ancient core Taoism, Kant had in effect merely just proved that the notion of "objects", or "particles", or "substances" is fatally ineffective when it comes to explaining (let alone experiencing) the true nature of reality. And, er, also, when did you come to realize you needed to stop beating your wife? We should include not just Zen and core Taoism, but certainly Vedanta also. Vedanta, in whatever of its various forms, also subscribed, among other things, to the notion of maya. The concept of maya doesn't say that "everything is an illusion", as some misinformed Westerers believe. What it does say is that if we are unfortunate enough to conceive all "things" to be objects (or particles, etc), then that is altogether and purely an illusory conception. So, Kant's revolutionary and quite correct discovery wasn't saying much that was new, as far as mainstream ancient Eastern thought was concerned.

I believe another question, though, Ernie, might be whether or to how great an extent you yourself may have disentangled the notion of a "thing" from necessarily meaning an object or particle etc?

[Ernie Nemeth]

The first fifty or so lessons in ACIM are all about unseeing the 'things' around me. Basically they are all set up as negation, 'Nothing I see means anything', is the very first lesson. So yes, I've done a whole lot of that. It is very disturbing to meditate on the above, for example, because it refutes everything I think I believe. Fifty days straight of it can make one go bonkers. And then the lessons just get more and more difficult.

These days I am keenly focused on the subtle manipulation by unseen forces, and wondering if they are real or if I am the cause. I suspect I am the cause, but often it is impossible to believe I would do what happens to myself.

That and the usual assortment of critters constantly underfoot are my concern at this time. The Archons, or bugs, or lesser demons, or whatever one wishes to call them. I do not communicate directly with them, not even sure if they are sentient.

They are all that's left these days with any interest in me it seems. There's no more communiques from the good side. Of course I did tell them to back off, as I did not trust they had my best interest at heart. I insist now on direct contact with the godhead, which doesn't happen often - only when I need it most.

I don't expect to see through the veil this time around. Not interested. I figure I purposely had my memory erased for some reason I thought was important when I had all my faculties. Why in the world would I second guess myself in this limited state I find myself in? It seems counter-productive.

If I'm in the mood, and if I peer just slightly out of focus, I can see through the illusion. I am almost convinced of the fact this world is an illusion of my own demented imagination. There is nothing in this world that is the way I believe it to be, and so there is really no reason to get all worked up about it. And nothing in this world has value beyond the value I place on it. By itself it is not even there.

I know what I should do, what I am called to do. But it pisses me off that it has come to this. I never expected such a drastic course change/correction to be required of an earnest seeker. I thought it would turn out different. I am grateful for this life and for being allowed to play my own game. I really don't want to play another's, even if that game is the real 'thing'. When I'm dead will be soon enough for me.

So I am allowed to wander aimlessly through this world, with one foot in and one foot out of the real world. Honestly, it's a nuisance.

But like they say, once you walk through the door, there's no going back.
You can't unlearn what has been taught in truth.

[Michel Leclerc]

Posted by mozo33 (here)
interestingly wisdom ( philosophy - love of wisdom ) which brings knowledge, is pictured as a tree bearing two fruits ...

...

Interestingly, dear Mozo23, the Belgian-French philosopher and psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray suggests that "philosophia" in Greek was not so much the love of wisdom as the wisdom about love (linguistically speaking, the word can mean both).

Love being "philia", which word itself is the noun derived from the adjective "philos" (beloved, loved), is etymologically related to "phallos" (male sexual organ) in Greek, and to the Latin "filius" (son) and "fellatio" (fellatio).

Her explanation is certainly vindicated by Socrates' thinking and dialectics in Plato’s writings. After all, young Alcibiades used to try and seduce Socrates (being more than a little in love with the older wise man) into sharing with him all his wisdom about what love really is and how it is best approached. In that, Socrates, being irreproachably unapproachable, politely declined Alcibiades' offer, but in explaining got major help from his inspiring goddess-like Diotima, who was a female being. (Alas, no Diotimos there.)

As a modern-day Diotima then, Luce Irigaray feels it to be a good idea when philosophy were to love more wisdom about love than just wisdom by itself.

[TraineeHuman]

Ernie, you raise a large number of different issues and lifeviews. Here's my response to a few of them.
As far as I can observe, the very nature of human beings is, or has been, to seek to transform into something
greater than oneself, something more than oneself. Often, in fact usually, they do so in many misguided ways (and
that's "the human condition" right there). But over the course of lifetimes, and even the course of one lifetime,
we keep learning the lessons. I'm not sure if that fits into your "form reflects function" view (it's more like
"execution of function transforms and then transcends form"?), but humans seem to me to be straining at the bit to
ultimately, one day, soar with wings, no matter how long that takes (in lifetimes, including many delays and
setbacks). That's the day when they will turn their impossible dream into reality. I don't see that aim as being
too idealistic, because, as I see it, humans are surprisingly robust creatures. From human to light beings to
divine beings to self-determining Divine truth to "Isness" itself, ultimately speaking. What balls they have (and
whatever the female equivalent is)!

Also, staying with the human condition for a moment, We all have so much room for individual error -- but isn't that the price for having the potential for great individuality and creativity, and ultimately super-human realization?

Everything in the universe is secretly or openly yearning for the most ultimate freedom. Why does that seem to be
the real goal of humans, but not so much of, say, my cats?

I do have all sorts of difficulties making full sense of the notion of "form and function reflect each other".
More specifically, what about comfort zones? Why is every creature and lifeform so attached to their wn" chains? Why do they imagine chains are comfortable at all? Humans are attached to them as well, but humans somehow have
the sense to crash their way out.

[mozo33]

Posted by Michel Leclerc (here)

Posted by mozo33 (here)
interestingly wisdom ( philosophy - love of wisdom ) which brings knowledge, is pictured as a tree bearing two fruits ...

...

Interestingly, dear Mozo23, the Belgian-French philosopher and psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray suggests that "philosophia" in Greek was not so much the love of wisdom as the wisdom about love (linguistically speaking, the word can mean both).

Love being "philia", which word itself is the noun derived from the adjective "philos" (beloved, loved), is etymologically related to "phallos" (male sexual organ) in Greek, and to the Latin "filius" (son) and "fellatio" (fellatio).

Her explanation is certainly vindicated by Socrates' thinking and dialectics in Plato’s writings. After all, young Alcibiades used to try and seduce Socrates (being more than a little in love with the older wise man) into sharing with him all his wisdom about what love really is and how it is best approached. In that, Socrates, being irreproachably unapproachable, politely declined Alcibiades' offer, but in explaining got major help from his inspiring goddess-like Diotima, who was a female being. (Alas, no Diotimos there.)

As a modern-day Diotima then, Luce Irigaray feels it to be a good idea when philosophy were to love more wisdom about love than just wisdom by itself.

the scriptures speak of two types of love ... agape/ masculine and phileo/feminine , one is boundless the other measured ... the love of the world is Phileo, it is a responsive love, it only responds for gain ...

or as Jesus said (loose translation) ..."if you only love those who love you, what have you done ?"

[TraineeHuman]

Ernie, I'm still trying to figure out some aspects of exactly what you mean ot presuppose the connection between "form" and "function" to be. I need to kind of guess what the likeliest possibilities of what you mean seem to be, and then I need to work out some questions that will hopefully pin down what the contentious issues are, at least for me. In the meantime, here's a description of some of my experience of the subatomic.

A few decades ago, on rare occasions I would find myself journeying in consciousness and visiting the subatomic world(s). I guess I should say "worlds" plural because sometimes it looked exactly like what you see in photos of a subatomic cloud chamber (but in black and red instead of black and white). And at other times I could see it interacting with another level of world that was larger, and macroscopic. I think almost each time I didn't deliberately intend to go there. But it was just simply one (or two) of the real worlds or universes that consciousness could visit on this planet. I guess you could describe it as accidental remote viewing, or as astral travel into the submicroscopic physical realm. Just me taking a wander wherever I was being led and trying to assuage my curiosity about other worlds that were in some way interacting with the one(s) I was normally in.

The emotional atmosphere there was something else. Rather like the atmosphere in the Jurassic World movies, where creatures or forces more physically powerful than you seemed to be threatening to do a surprise raid on you at any time. Also a little reminiscent of Dante's "circles of hell". A kind of subtle and quiet ongoing threat of horror, that wasn't contrived or made vulgar like it nearly always is in horror movies, but seeming all the more convincingly real or possible because it was mostly quiet and understated. So, if you think life is tough in the rat race and oppression in our society, that's nothing compared to what the poor old electrons and photons etc have to go through in their world. And yes, they did seem to have consciousness, and high intelligence, somehow.

So I do also know from sort-of-direct experience that there's a certain discontinuity and barrier between that micro- world and the "normal" physical world.

[TraineeHuman]

Ernie, when you talk about the relationship between "form" and "function", my first big problem is that the word
"function" seems to presuppose that something (namely, "form") is restraining the free activity of whatever it is that
possesses the form under consideration. So, it seems to me, this would already be presupposing a certain
relationship between "form' and "activity" that constrains the activity considered to only being whatever will fit
the conclusion or model that you want [or someone wants] to impose. I'll agree that form (the form of a thing) has
some effect on what types of activities may be possible for it. But "function" sounds to me like it implies some
kind of value judgment, that thereby further curtails or distorts that freedom of activity.

Secondly, consideration of the implications of the concept of "form" is anything but straightforward. As you know, the Western
side of the history of the concept of form goes something like this. As the word is used in science, the term
comes from Aristotle. Aristotle decreed that everything that was real was a substance (an object), and had form and
matter, and existed in space (which Aristotle conceived to be empty and inert). And that everything in the
physical universe was made out of form, matter and space. Unfortunately, though, by a certain point in the
twentieth century, physics had proved that "matter" always reduces to form(s) and space, so that ultimately the
whole notion of "matter" became superfluous. And yet, physicists and other scientists still cling to talking of
[the already disproved and defunct notion of] "matter", particularly with so-called "dark matter". Probably sour
grapes, I tend to think, but it's not science.

So, then, in the world of physics, "form" becomes everything that isn't "space". I therefore have even further
qualms about "everything non-space" somehow being equivalent to "function".
The ancient Eastern notion of space is that space is, among other things, by no means not empty. Such an
understanding of space only entered Western physics with the work of Riemann in the nineteenth century. Riemann
proved that space is usually "curved", i.e. it exerts its own intrinsic force.

These are only some of the concerns I have upfront before going into detail. I haven't seen any reference in your
statements so far showing that you're aware, for example, that Heisenberg collaborated so extensively with the
Indian physicist Ghose that it's been suggested it was unethical for Heisenberg not to list Ghose as the outright
co-author of his most famous pieces. Heisenberg was himself unable to make sense of his data until Ghose detailed
various notions in Indian cosmology which then provided a coherent account, which Heisenberg then adopted.

Similarly, I don't know how familiar you are with The Dancing Wu Li Masters. That provides many examples of how
various major discoveries of Western physics vindicate, and are much better and more coherently explained by,
various metaphysical principles (worldviews) from ancient Taoism.

Also, you'll know that most of the most famous researchers who
initially developed subatomic physics were deeply into mysticism, whether Eastern or Western or both. de Broglie
even wrote a number of books containing his many mystical insights.

[mozo33]

"The world (so to speak) of frequency/oscillation and its effects are just as viable in consciousness as they are to matter (in one view), think how states of matter are effected by frequency/ a wave length (spiritually think of a wave length as hills and valleys found in the journey, and the law time/distance (peak to peak, valley to valley) is to us), it permeates everything that we have thus found about the universe we live in (considering that our bodies (and all things really) in a sense), are in a liquid state), it orders matter (a frequency identifying the quantum of energy that (let’s say a photon) something carries, like a signature, the same way it orders consciousness (speaking of soul), knowing that everything testifies of us even as we are the definers of it, which is the reality of God as the truth of self-walking in us.

To eat (only) that which grows of itself, is the same truth of a well in us that springs up unto eternal life; it is the knowledge of this life (which like knowledge is not separate from self, as spirit is not separate from soul) that becomes our present truth of it." x141

[Ernie Nemeth]

What I mean, or as I understand it to mean, by form is not even necessarily substance. Form is the state, whatever moment you are in, the world around us freezes for just an instant. In that instant there is form.

When the state changes, that is when the moment is over, the state changes in accordance with its 'nature' or 'function'. And during this instant, the transition to the next instant, there is no form anywhere, as everything in the universe is in the process of changing state to the next instant.

These are my own words and my own conclusions based on the empirical work done in physics over a hundred years ago now. Niels Bohr began the turmoil by describing the nature of the electron shells around atoms. And no, I did not know about Heisenberg's collaboration.

But it was while trying to determine if electrons really did have a certain quantitative anomaly associated with their uptake in an atom. But it seemed impossible to both determine an electron's position and its energy level at the same time, which lead to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

There seems to be a quanta of time as well. It seems that time passes in packets, with one packet fixing the properties of substances while the next packet seems to allow disassociation and reassembly. If the world is not grainy, time seems to be just that.

[Michel Leclerc]

Posted by mozo33 (here)

Posted by Michel Leclerc (here)

Posted by mozo33 (here)
interestingly wisdom ( philosophy - love of wisdom ) which brings knowledge, is pictured as a tree bearing two fruits ...

...

As a modern-day Diotima then, Luce Irigaray feels it to be a good idea when philosophy were to love more wisdom about love than just wisdom by itself.

the scriptures speak of two types of love ... agape/ masculine and phileo/feminine , one is boundless the other measured ... the love of the world is Phileo, it is a responsive love, it only responds for gain ...

or as Jesus said (loose translation) ..."if you only love those who love you, what have you done ?"

Thank you, dear Mozo. Where does either the Old or the New Testament state that agape is masculine and philia is feminine? (...“phileo” is not a noun, but the first person singular of the verb "philein" meaning “to love”... the noun is "philia"...).

[mozo33]

hi Michel

the whole book speaks to it ... it is the pattern of the two's which are seen in the very first verse ( heaven & earth ) bearing in mind there is no gender in consciousness, but gender explains consciousness ... and it is how the bible is written ... two sons or two perceptions of Adam/man ...

thing is and this mind blowing beyond belief, these two ( two witnesses ) both speak as one, or both reveal the one we are (light and darkness being the same to God)

in the scrip the feminine is seen as coming out or being separated of/from the masculine as in our spirit masculine and our soul feminine or heaven masculine and earth feminine etc and these two pictured in a myriad of forms throughout the book both in the feminine and masculine, for example Hagar and Sarah in the feminine or Esau and Jacob in the masculine ...

to understand the book is to understand the division seen as a river which parted into four heads .. the fourth river Euphrates being the sum of them which flowed through Babylon/confusion ...

i will stop here because unless you begin to see the pattern of the two's which is a viewing of the two perceptions we are caught between what i write further will appear as gobbledygook ....

[TraineeHuman]

Western physics, like Western intellectual thought in general, had for centuries been based on the assumption that everything that is real is, ultimately, an object (a substance), or a collection of objects. The most basic property of a substance or object was that it didn't suddenly change form depending on what environment it was in. The very essence of an object was that it stayed basically the same, and got altered only around the edges, so to speak, if at all. However, the discovery that a certain "substance", namely light, sometimes exists as a wave and sometimes, in a different environment, as separate particles contradicted (and continues to contradict) the very essence of what made an object an object.

Really, the only way out of this dilemma is to admit that in some sense the situation itself is what determines what form an object within it takes. So, physical reality (and reality in general, and meaning in general) is now construed as being made out of, or by, situations, or contexts (of existing). That's the closest I can get to "function comes first, and determines form", Ernie.

A variant on this is to talk in terms of foreground/background, though here "background" means almost the same thing as "context" or "situation". This theoretical underlay goes very well with "living in the Now". While Western thought was, in its own particular way, mostly preoccupied with downplaying the Now, ancient Eastern thought and culture had always given it a profound and central emphasis. However, the philosopher Kirkegaard's entire philosophy was about the eternal Now (the "existentielle" moment) and what living true to that really means. He was possibly the most influential figure in nineteenth century Western philosophy, and in twentieth century Western philosophy as well.

[Ernie Nemeth]

Kirkegaard may have started the existential movement but it lead to a dead end in philosophical terms, that for a hundred years retarded the reach of philosophy in the Western World.

It was the Dadaists and culminating in Descarte and his Phenomenology that many believe began the modern empirical movement of what has become the technological era. There was no need to understand the workings of the universe, they claimed, we only need to catalogue and name those things that are real. What was real was the crux. And if it weren't for Bohr and his outlandish claims the Dadaists may have fully won the day.

But because what is real was in question and could not be reconciled, there have been from that time onward two houses of thought and diverging methods to achieve their goals.


To analyze the topic from the perspective of foreground/background is to delve into the realm of modes of control. Although I understand that that is not your intent, foreground is the focus and the background is those things, those forces, that are responsible for that presentation. And it is in this manner that humanity has been dragged down into the abyss of unwitting ignorance. What is in front of an individual keeps their attention riveted. With their rapt focus on the immediate they have no concern or even a clue that there are powers behind their plight intent on keeping humanity's attention on survival, for instance.

But from a philosophical point of view, the foreground could be the so-called objects, while the background is the actual reality that manifests as solid objects to those that are immersed within the illusion of solidity. But the one thing in this universe that we can all agree on is that everything is in flux and so there is no unchanging state.

If there is no unchanging state then there cannot be a transition to another state either, since the new state will also change. And if there is no transition there is no time. So in the context of foreground/background, the entire universe is a thought with no substance at all.

[TraineeHuman]

Well, some foregrounds and backgrounds are more real, and they're the ones we should give nearly all our attention to. The Zen master Dogen is very famous for having pointed out that you are altogether the same thing as your time. In other words, if you like, "your" time is always your true foreground, because it is simply you. This cuts beyond even making an effort, forming a concept about it or even looking at what you are. (How can, say, water see itself as separate within nothing but water?) And the background to that just means that you need to be unselfish and realize at an ultimate level there's no full separation from other people and lifeforms either.

[Ernie Nemeth]

We could agree and end the discussion. I prefer the discussion.

The progress made in the scientific description and modelling of reality, at least on macroscopic terms has led to many advancements and inventions that have, in recent generations especially, caused the general public to trust the experts in their respective fields. Science has become the religion of the secular world.

With the upper hand in terms of credibility and success, and the vast wealth that goes along with the prestige, it is the alternative that must be reconciled with science, not the other way around, which would make it far easier to accomplish a revolution in thought.

The principle of cause and effect is more attractive than the law of Karma, for example, and so the schools disregard the connection entirely. If the student is relying on their educator to teach, that student will acquire an unnoticed bias as a result.

As that student progresses through the curriculum an accumulation of bias occurs that cements that scholar's viewpoint forevermore.

To deconstruct that student's incorrect assumptions they must be taken back step by step to the point where the error originated, and then led step by step through a new assimilation of assumptions and conclusions based on the corrected information.

In a way, it boils down to the relationship between teacher and student. Although there are many interesting avenues to explore in that regard there is a more basic level, from which the teacher/student relationship evolved.

The juxtaposition of Me and You...and the mystery of Us. This is where it started.


Perhaps we have been taught the wrong curriculum by the wrong teachers.
Worse, maybe there are conflicting curriculums, being taught by teachers with conflicting goals.

In either case, learning cannot be accomplished if the curriculum being taught is conflicting.

[TraineeHuman]

I should explain what I mean by a philosophy. A philosophy is a particular systematic way of viewing and explaining and interpreting reality, and the whole world. Usually, a religion involves adopting a certain philosophy as "the truth" or, at least, as what you consider the best explanation available.

In comparative philosophy, the aim is always to be aware of both the strengths and the weaknesses of at least two different philosophies. And that includes the weaknesses of the particular one that you favour and the areas of comparatively greater strength of the other philosophies.

I guess a preference to believe in science is known as "scientism". Probably the best description of the philosophy involved is Wittgenstein's early work, his Tractatus Logicophilosophicus.

I would certainly very much question whether we live in a time when sciientism is the more esteemed or prestigious religion / philosophy. When Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the moon, it was a small step for one "man", and a big step forward for "humanity". That certainly sounds to me like humanism. The clever scientists and engineers were fellow humans, and that was the thing that mattered. The inventors of Microsoft and Google and Youtube etc may have made gigantic profits, but that was primarily because they were enhancing.our access to greater information about or from humans.

Another major "-ism" that some thinkers argue is still extremely influential in our time, and also preferred over science and scientism, is romanticism. Movies, videos, stories, even games, and fun, and pleasure.