About a deity full of love and compassion

[Penumbra]

Mind is reducable to all the things that make up the world.

That statement doesn't seem like it conveys information. Actually, that's basically the exact opposite of reducibility. Can you clarify?

So, no relevance -- what I'd said had been drawn into another part of the discussion. Thought as much.

My posts are directly related to what you said. Going on about relevance is deflective. Earlier when I said a statement of yours to me was out of the scope of the thread, you asked me to pretend it was in the scope of the thread an answer it anyway, and I did.

Much of the thread itself has been a giant tangent, including my posts, your posts, everyone's posts, after a certain point. That's generally why I'm not a fan of 100+ post threads.

The tangent seems to have begun because people were proposing that just because someone dies, that's not necessarily a bad thing, and therefore the love and compassion of god is not necessarily discredited.

But there were no effective answers when others questioned why, if death is a good thing, is everyone not dead.

There were infants and children killed in the tsunami. What would be an appropriate reason that a compassionate and loving god would include a system where infants can be born into this world, only to die from drowning or bludgeoning?

No, I'm suggesting that neither brains nor minds exist one without the other.

Based on what? Do you put forth the claim that if you aren't aware of it, it doesn't exist?

 

[atanu]

Awareness can be measured with response to stimuli, and measurement of brain activity. Doctors need to utilize rather objective approaches regarding levels of consciousness so that they can best deal with brain injury.

We seem to come back to same questions. However, this is the eternal question of spirit first or matter first.

When you see/measure a stimuli it is not separate from your own awareness, which you cannot grasp and which you cannot recreate. However, there has been no time when awareness has been absent. Stimuli is measured and interpreted by you. Stimuli or any brain that you see do not come running to you declaring "I am your intelligence".

(I do not want to go into the subject that awareness is time).

People can be mistaken regarding what their own awareness consists of. Science has helped us to better understand the brain and how it operates.

I can see that.

It does not prove your point. It contests your point. You said that sweetness is the nature of sugar, and compared it to consciousness being the nature of the physical body. Both are inaccurate.

It shows that sweetness is not something inherent to the sugar, but rather, the biological system assigns flavors to things. In fact, there's a berry, which I've personally tried, that makes all sour things taste sweet. It makes biting into a lemon taste like biting into sugar.
Synsepalum dulcificum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well. Then that Berry has a property.

(I agree that ultimately all properties are modification of awareness.)

A dead brain is not the same as a living brain. When cells don't receive blood flow, they begin dying. Dead cells cannot perform the functions the brain uses to operate.

You know that through awareness. Though a brain (a PC) has gone down, awareness has not. Just as energy-mass is conserved, consciousness is conserved. Only difference is energy-mass are known through awareness and not the other way around.

Proposing independentd. consciousness is basically akin to proposing magic, as far as science is concerned. This would qualify as an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.

Scientists do not however say so. There are scientists at highest level who actually say what we say. On the other hand, what you say is not independent of your awareness. All things are in awareness.

May I ask you a question, for better discussion? What knowledge/philosophy/religious line you adhere to?

 

[atanu]

Can you show me a mind that exists without a brain?

That is because a brain exists as an object of mind, which exists as an object of the Seer. Brain is not known to have declared ever "I exist".

Here the intuitive grasp of deep sleep and dream states is necessary. Deep sleep and dream states cannot be known 'as they are' from the waking state. One must intuitively examine it. A brain is an object of waking state mind alone.

It is not possible to state about presence or absence of an object, independent of a Seer, whose nature is different in three different states of sleep, dream and waking. What is seen is just as the Seer is.

For example, in a dream, a thirst can be quenched by dream water -- but that has no reality in other states. Similarly the reality of waking state is true for waking state alone.

Just as water exists in three states, which appear to be very different, consciousness itself appears in many states. But water has a unchanging reality different from its states that allows it to change states yet remain water. Similarly, there is reality of the mind, which appears as three universes of waking, dreaming, and sleeping.
.

 

[Penumbra]

We seem to come back to same questions. However, this is the eternal question of spirit first or matter first.

When you see/measure a stimuli it is not separate from your own awareness, which you cannot grasp and which you cannot recreate. However, there has been no time when awareness has been absent. Stimuli is measured and interpreted by you. Stimuli or any brain that you see do not come running to you declaring "I am your intelligence".

(I do not want to go into the subject that awareness is time).

Stimuli is indeed separate from my own awareness. If a photon travels from the sun to my eye, it is a stimuli, and is an external phenomenon.

And, as far as absence of consciousness is concerned, there was a time when there wasn't even any life on this planet. There may be have life elsewhere in this universe, but that's speculative.

I can see that.

Well. Then that Berry has a property.

(I agree that ultimately all properties are modification of awareness.)

How does this relate to the discussion?

You stated that much like consciousness is the nature of the body, sweetness is the nature of sugar, but that's not how things work. Our tastes are based on our tongue and signals.

You know that through awareness. Though a brain (a PC) has gone down, awareness has not. Just as energy-mass is conserved, consciousness is conserved. Only difference is energy-mass are known through awareness and not the other way around.

Scientists do not however say so. There are scientists at highest level who actually say what we say. On the other hand, what you say is not independent of your awareness. All things are in awareness.

Which scientists? I'm sure a few fringe scientists do indeed believe certain things like this. But the majority medical/neuroscientist community seems pretty clear regarding the mind being an emergent property of the brain, or that's at least how they operate and perform scientific and medical studies.

May I ask you a question, for better discussion? What knowledge/philosophy/religious line you adhere to?

I utilize multiple philosophies without specifically adhering to any of them. Philosophies can be a box to trap the thinking of people into a confined space.

Generally, I stick to scientific methods, because they are objective and repeatable, and they work. Claims made without significant expertise and understanding of the world don't hold much weight. I use religion in terms of literature when appropriate, and for assisting in the development of worldviews. For instance, I utilize a form of Karma Yoga, but not in a theistic sense. But I do not use religions to make objective claims regarding the operation of the cosmos, because those sorts of claims are usually speculative and unable to be justified.

 

[Willamena]

Both realism and idealism can be used to correctly describe the world.

 

[Penumbra]

That is because a brain exists as an object of mind, which exists as an object of the Seer. Brain is not known to have declared ever "I exist".

The brain exists regardless of whether there exists consciousness to perceive it. Anything that exists external to the body exists regardless of whether we perceive it.

Here the intuitive grasp of deep sleep and dream states is necessary. Deep sleep and dream states cannot be known 'as they are' from the waking state. One must intuitively examine it. A brain is an object of waking state mind alone.

It is not possible to state about presence or absence of an object, independent of a Seer, whose nature is different in three different states of sleep, dream and waking. What is seen is just as the Seer is.

For example, in a dream, a thirst can be quenched by dream water -- but that has no reality in other states. Similarly the reality of waking state is true for waking state alone.

Just as water exists in three states, which appear to be very different, consciousness itself appears in many states. But water has a unchanging reality different from its states that allows it to change states yet remain water. Similarly, there is reality of the mind, which appears as three universes of waking, dreaming, and sleeping.
.

Deep sleep is the absence of consciousness. In what way do you suggest that consciousness exists during deep sleep?

When we sleep, our brain goes through cycles (which are measurable). During certain cycles, we dream, and during other cycles, we do not. If during certain times we are neither awake nor dreaming, then how can it be said that we are conscious?

 

[atanu]

If a photon travels from the sun to my eye, it is a stimuli, and is an external phenomenon.

Ya. There lies the cause of this long discussion. At least, we have now a line to pursue.

The photon, the sun , your eyes -- all that you see/perceive/know -- are not separate from you.

Examination of deep sleep state reveals this unlimited nature of oneself.

We will take it up, slowly. I have to now join the working world. And you have to join the sleeping world.

 

[atanu]

Deep sleep is the absence of consciousness. In what way do you suggest that consciousness exists during deep sleep?

Yes, it is absent of vignana - the sensual knowledge and thereby it is full as it is. Only problem is that mind is unaware of the prajna that constitutes the substratum.

When we sleep, our brain goes through cycles (which are measurable). During certain cycles, we dream, and during other cycles, we do not. If during certain times we are neither awake nor dreaming, then how can it be said that we are conscious?

What you say are observations of waking time of the observer. They do not represent the deep sleep as it is of the mind that is sleeping.

No observation is independent of observer.

 

[PolyHedral]

Just as energy-mass is conserved, consciousness is conserved.

Tommorow, Hypothetical-Earth gets incinerated by a gamma ray burst. Where do 7 billion consciousnesses go? And for that matter, since you said that "all that you see/perceive/know -- are not separate from you," what happens to the rest of the universe? Does it just vanish?

 

[Willamena]

Tommorow, Hypothetical-Earth gets incinerated by a gamma ray burst. Where do 7 billion consciousnesses go? And for that matter, since you said that "all that you see/perceive/know -- are not separate from you," what happens to the rest of the universe? Does it just vanish?

*psst*

God

 

[Falvlun]

Both realism and idealism can be used to correctly describe the world.

I agree with this, but I don't think either is complete without the other. You only get a partial correct view of the world if you just use one or the other.

 

[Breathe]

Tommorow, Hypothetical-Earth gets incinerated by a gamma ray burst. Where do 7 billion consciousnesses go?

Distributed across the universe?

 

[Falvlun]

Distributed across the universe?

As bits of conciousness or as bits of brain matter?

 

[Willamena]

I agree with this, but I don't think either is complete without the other. You only get a partial correct view of the world if you just use one or the other.

Just so, like looking through a coloured piece of glass. (At least, that's my image of philosophical theories. )

 

[Autodidact]

Or Maybe you know nothing about what you are talking about!
Maybe you are that shallow that you think every one tapped into the right God will be a millionaire because they pray to win Lotto and God should oblidge.

The cost of sin is death and we will all die up untill after Armageddon, whether by tsunami or other causes. The reason God does not interceed is because He needs to show the world and Mankind and the angels that Mankind is unable to rule itself. The state of the world shows He is correct.

Earthquakes, are said to not be increasing by geologists. Certainly their catastrophic results are enhanced by an increasing population. However other reports suggest an increase.
Massive Increase in Earthquakes in 2008 | NowPublic Photo Archives

Regardless the toll from earthquakes has increased with population and our knowledge of them has increased for many reasons including more instrumentation and communication, something not available 100 years ago. What we see now is nothing compared to when the Great Tribulation begins.

"For then there will be GREAT distress, unequaled from the worlds beginning until now and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no-one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short" Mathew Ch24.

So in fact God will inteceed at this point, and the world will change for the better. You just need to hope that in that day you stand as one of the elect or have already died and paid for your sins. Until that day God is demonstrating how useless we are without his guardianship and intervention. Satan nor angel nor mankind will ever be able to alledge that mankind is capable of ruling themselves nor that people will only love Him for what we can get out of Him. There will be always be the faithfull believing through faith, without the grant of every prayer that has nothing to do with drawing closer to God!!!!

And yes,, as much as God is loving, he is equally exacting and He and his Son will rule with rods of iron as well as love. God made the world, he gets to make the rules. We do not have to like them. All those alive at that time will get a final choice prior to Armageddon that, will not involve faith, to follow or die. Many will still choose death, is bible prophesy.

If you knew for sure there was a God and you had to change your ways and beliefs to a certain way, whatever that may be, would you, or could you, do it? I am sure I can no matter whether the JW's, Mormon, Jews or a mix or any other. Are you prepared? These are the questions you all should be asking yourselves!

If your answer is NO. Then the dead will be more fortunate than you, if that day arrives in your life time.

Thank you for sharing your private world with us.

 

[Breathe]

As bits of conciousness or as bits of brain matter?

...both.

 

[atanu]

Tommorow, Hypothetical-Earth gets incinerated by a gamma ray burst. Where do 7 billion consciousnesses go? And for that matter, since you said that "all that you see/perceive/know -- are not separate from you," what happens to the rest of the universe? Does it just vanish?

This is a hypothetical question. Again the question is perceived from a waking state assuming that 7 billion bodies have 7 billion consciousnesses. There is no rational answer with me that can convince you.

But what we know is that the 7 billion consciousnesses are 7 billion reflections, just as a single moon is reflected on many poodles of water and each reflection is distorted in unique way. Destruction of images do nothing to destroy the source.

Om ! That (Brahman) is infinite, and this (universe) is infinite.
The infinite proceeds from the infinite.
(Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe),
It remains as the infinite (Brahman) alone. ​

...

 

[atanu]

The theory that our consciousnesses are nothing but emergent properties of a special combination of materials called brain is somewhat like characters of a novel declaring themselves to be emergent of the novel.

If our consciousnesses are nothing but emergent properties of a special combination of materials called brain, then how do we place so much certainty on the process of science? On one hand, we say consciousness is a mere result of electrochemical reactions and on the other hand, we say that those electrochemical reactions themselves are capable of understanding the mechanisms and we also vouch for the accuracy of our theories as true.:sarcastic

 

[Mellonhead]

The theory that our consciousnesses are nothing but emergent properties of a special combination of materials called brain is somewhat like characters of a novel declaring themselves to be emergent of the novel.

If our consciousnesses are nothing but emergent properties of a special combination of materials called brain, then how do we place so much certainty on the process of science? On one hand, we say consciousness is a mere result of electrochemical reactions and on the other hand, we say that those electrochemical reactions themselves are capable of understanding the mechanisms and we also vouch for the accuracy of our theories as true.:sarcastic

I see no confliction here. We have simply used the processes in our brain to figure out the processes in our brain. It's not a paradox exactly.

 

[Willamena]

I see no confliction here. We have simply used the processes in our brain to figure out the processes in our brain. It's not a paradox exactly.

Well, the paradox is that we are conscious of "using our brain to figure out the processes in our brain."