What came before the Big Bang?

[Slapstick]

That's irrelevant.

Can you answer one or both of the questions I asked, or not?

You didn't ask any questions. I don't see any "?" behind your statements.

 

[godnotgod]

You didn't ask any questions. I don't see any "?" behind your statements.

Here:

Originally Posted by godnotgod
For the moment, let's assume that the materialists are correct; that the BB is the beginning of a real material world we call 'reality'.

Can any of you explain the source for the original 'real' material from which the BB was derived, and then, can you explain how non-material consciousness emerges from this same material world? These two are the 'hard' questions.

The theists have already spoken: God is a magician who just created the world and conscious beings out of sheer nothing.

 

[Slapstick]

Sure, I can explain everything.

Not to long ago there was a tardisarous. It didn't know much but wanted to learn more about what it didn't already know. So more it sought out to learn. After a few thousand years it realized it wasn't like all the other tardisarouses. It had a unique personality. It was more tarded than most tardisarouses. It could discover things all on its own.

 

[idav]

What we call reality is the illusion.

What projects it is Reality.


ben d gave an explanation:

Its all reality. The projector and the image. Thank science for showing the truth or we would think that what we see is what we get. Nobody thinks that, we know very well the rabbbit hole science has shown us.

 

[godnotgod]

Its all reality. The projector and the image. Thank science for showing the truth or we would think that what we see is what we get. Nobody thinks that, we know very well the rabbbit hole science has shown us.

If nobody thought that, they would know that it is an image being projected, but they don't. They think the image is reality. It's not.

If we really knew the rabbit hole, we would not have competing theories abounding. QM has thrown a monkey wrench into the system and we don't know what to do, both on the micro and the macro scales. And even if the math 'made sense' and the physics fit perfectly, science still hasn't a clue as to what it actually is it is looking at.

 

[idav]

It still doesn't know what it is looking at.

The universe observing itself. Self reflection.

 

[godnotgod]

Sure, I can explain everything.

Not to long ago there was a tardisarous. It didn't know much but wanted to learn more about what it didn't already know. So more it sought out to learn. After a few thousand years it realized it wasn't like all the other tardisarouses. It had a unique personality. It was more tarded than most tardisarouses. It could discover things all on its own.

...until he reached the point that he knew so much that he finally realized he knew nothing at all. Then there was this Grande Bungatorre, AKA the Bigg'a Bang-a, which led to the evolution of tards, who then realized they were just like bugs going round and round the equator of a billiard ball. Then one day, one of the tards stopped dead in his tracks, and putting down his heavy load of facts and knowledge, thought: "hmmmm....there must be a better way than going round and round in circles....I know! I'll transcend! And transcend he did, so that from his new vantage point of Higher Consciousness he could now clearly SEE that he was just going round and round in circles, that he was living a fictional life, and there were no such things as tards. 'Of course!', he exclaimed. 'It was all just a Big Act, A dream. Boy! Those other re-tards sure had me coming and going! I was lost, but now am found! Hallelujah!'

..and all's well that ends well on the Good Ship Lollipop

 

[idav]

If nobody thought that, they would know that it is an image being projected, but they don't. They think the image is reality. It's not.

Nobody claims they can see atoms.

If we really knew the rabbit hole, we would not have competing theories abounding. QM has thrown a monkey wrench into the system and we don't know what to do, both on the micro and the macro scales. And even if the math 'made sense' and the physics fit perfectly, science still hasn't a clue as to what it actually is it is looking at.

We dont know how deep the rabbit hole goes, so we end up with ideas like the matrix. QM is playing tricks on us, illusions if you will, that future generations will think we were naive and gullible.

 

[godnotgod]

The universe observing itself. Self reflection.

I meant science doesn't know what it's looking at, even though it can measure, calculate, predict, catalogue, etc.

 

[godnotgod]

Nobody claims they can see atoms.

They don't need to see atoms to think the gross world is reality.

We dont know how deep the rabbit hole goes, so we end up with ideas like the matrix. QM is playing tricks on us, illusions if you will, that future generations will think we were naive and gullible.

Are you saying QM is conscious? That the universe is consciously playing tricks on man's mind? Maybe man's rational mind is playing tricks on himself. Whatever the case, it means that what we call reality is illusory.

 

[idav]

They don't need to see atoms to think the gross world is reality.

My point is once you know about atoms it changes everything. Every bit of knowledge changes things but physics has found some doozies.

Are you saying QM is conscious? That the universe is consciously playing tricks on man's mind? Maybe man's rational mind is playing tricks on himself. Whatever the case, it means that what we call reality is illusory.

Its illusory until we dig in and find another chineese box to open. Knowledge is helping us see through the smoke and mirrors, otherwise we couldnt be spouting this illusion stuff as fact.

 

[idav]

I meant science doesn't know what it's looking at, even though it can measure, calculate, predict, catalogue, etc.

Science is a source of enlightenment. How else do you get enlightened except through knowledge, unless you just wanna make stuff up.

 

[godnotgod]

Science is a source of enlightenment. How else do you get enlightened except through knowledge, unless you just wanna make stuff up.

Science is a source of knowledge, not enlightenment. Knowledge gives you the facts and figures, tells all, but says nothing. Enlightenment gives you the essence, the nature of things. Science cannot do that. Why? Because science is based on facts which are based on memory, and so based on the past. Enlightenment, on the other hand, is based on the living consciousness that dwells only in the timeless present moment. It is Reality itself, rather than merely the traces of Reality.

 

[godnotgod]

My point is once you know about atoms it changes everything. Every bit of knowledge changes things but physics has found some doozies.


Its illusory until we dig in and find another chineese box to open. Knowledge is helping us see through the smoke and mirrors, otherwise we couldnt be spouting this illusion stuff as fact.

There are now more smoke and mirrors than ever! We get down to the nitty gritty, and what do we find but 'particles' that are not really particles that pop into and out of existence.

On the macro scale, the math and physics collapse when trying to get a handle on black holes.

Reason is reaching ineluctible limits on both extremes.

'We' (mystics) have been spouting this illusion stuff as fact long before science came along.

We create a certain theory and then there is the honeymoon with the theory. For a few years things go perfectly well. Then reality asserts itself. Reality brings up a few things and the theory gets into difficulty because we had excluded a few facts. Those facts will protest, they will sabotage your theory, they will assert themselves. In the eighteenth century science was absolutely certain, now it is certain no more. Now a new theory has come: the theory of uncertainty.

Just a hundred and fifty years ago Immanuel Kant came across this fact in Germany. He said that reason is very limited; it sees only a certain part of reality and starts believing 'that this is the whole. This has been the trouble. Sooner or later we discover further realities and the old whole is in conflict with the new vision. Immanuel Kant attempted to show that there were ineluctable limits to reason, that reason is very limited. But nobody seems to have heard, nobody has cared about Immanuel Kant. Nobody cares much about philosophers.

But science in this century has at last caught up with Kant. Now Heinsenberg, in physics, and Godel, in mathematics, have shown ineluctable limits to human reason. They open up to us a glimpse of a nature which is irrational and paradoxical to the very core. Whatsoever we have been saying about nature has all gone wrong. All principles go wrong because nature is not synonymous with reason, nature is bigger than reason.

Osho

 

[idav]

Science is a source of knowledge, not enlightenment. Knowledge gives you the facts and figures, tells all, but says nothing. Enlightenment gives you the essence, the nature of things. Science cannot do that. Why? Because science is based on facts which are based on memory, and so based on the past. Enlightenment, on the other hand, is based on the living consciousness that dwells only in the timeless present moment. It is Reality itself, rather than merely the traces of Reality.

All facts, knowledge and experience are a source of enlightenment of this "timeless present moment". Not to dwell on past things but because of the very fact that where you are at any moment is a culmination of a persons knowledge and experience. Otherwise people would just be born enlightened.

 

[idav]

There are now more smoke and mirrors than ever! We get down to the nitty gritty, and what do we find but 'particles' that are not really particles that pop into and out of existence.

On the macro scale, the math and physics collapse when trying to get a handle on black holes.

Reason is reaching ineluctible limits on both extremes.

'We' (mystics) have been spouting this illusion stuff as fact long before science came along.

We create a certain theory and then there is the honeymoon with the theory. For a few years things go perfectly well. Then reality asserts itself. Reality brings up a few things and the theory gets into difficulty because we had excluded a few facts. Those facts will protest, they will sabotage your theory, they will assert themselves. In the eighteenth century science was absolutely certain, now it is certain no more. Now a new theory has come: the theory of uncertainty.

Just a hundred and fifty years ago Immanuel Kant came across this fact in Germany. He said that reason is very limited; it sees only a certain part of reality and starts believing 'that this is the whole. This has been the trouble. Sooner or later we discover further realities and the old whole is in conflict with the new vision. Immanuel Kant attempted to show that there were ineluctable limits to reason, that reason is very limited. But nobody seems to have heard, nobody has cared about Immanuel Kant. Nobody cares much about philosophers.

But science in this century has at last caught up with Kant. Now Heinsenberg, in physics, and Godel, in mathematics, have shown ineluctable limits to human reason. They open up to us a glimpse of a nature which is irrational and paradoxical to the very core. Whatsoever we have been saying about nature has all gone wrong. All principles go wrong because nature is not synonymous with reason, nature is bigger than reason.

Osho

It only seems paradoxical when we hadnt figured it out yet. Theories hold up with new facts, it adds to the bigger picture. I agree with the bigger point that our knowledge is finally catching up with what we already knew. Nothing wrong with that, we are verifying. No doubt*a lot of progress came from people trying to prove their own beliefs.

 

[godnotgod]

All facts, knowledge and experience are a source of enlightenment of this "timeless present moment". Not to dwell on past things but because of the very fact that where you are at any moment is a culmination of a persons knowledge and experience. Otherwise people would just be born enlightened.

Everyone is enlightened already; it's just that they haven't realized it yet, and they haven't realized it yet because social indoctrination, knowledge, etc. have smothered enlightenment, which, if you really knew what you were talking about, would know that the 'culmination of knowledge and experience' is not enlightenment, but only a self-concocted image we call the 'self'. Enlightenment is always beyond the self. That is why it can be called Enlightenment. The self is nothing more than dead corpse, a 'has been'. It is in no way alive, but is, instead, an artifact of the mind. Enlightenment is beyond all facts and knowledge, because it is outside of Time and Space. It cannot be encapsulated by the limited thinking mind, that is only concerned with the accumulation of knowledge. Enlightenment is not accumulation, but subtraction, of knowledge, until the mind arrives not just at knowing nothing, but until even the idea of mind is seen and finally understood as illusory. Mind has to do with knowledge and the thought that leads to knowledge; Enlightenment has to do with consciousness and seeing things as they are, not as the mind conceives them to be..

 

[godnotgod]

It only seems paradoxical when we hadnt figured it out yet. Theories hold up with new facts, it adds to the bigger picture. I agree with the bigger point that our knowledge is finally catching up with what we already knew. Nothing wrong with that, we are verifying. No doubt*a lot of progress came from people trying to prove their own beliefs.

As long as we are busy trying to figure it out, nature will always be a paradox for the simple reason that there is nothing to figure out.

Nature is not based on Reason; it is based on consciousness. Reason is derived from the mind, which attempts to create a concept to explain nature, and in so doing, fails, because the description of Reality is not Reality. It's as simple as that.

Go ahead. Keep thinking and weaving your web of paradox.

 

[idav]

Everyone is enlightened already; it's just that they haven't realized it yet, and they haven't realized it yet because social indoctrination, knowledge, etc. have smothered enlightenment, which, if you really knew what you were talking about, would know that the 'culmination of knowledge and experience' is not enlightenment, but only a self-concocted image we call the 'self'. Enlightenment is always beyond the self. That is why it can be called Enlightenment. The self is nothing more than dead corpse, a 'has been'. It is in no way alive, but is, instead, an artifact of the mind. Enlightenment is beyond all facts and knowledge, because it is outside of Time and Space. It cannot be encapsulated by the limited thinking mind, that is only concerned with the accumulation of knowledge. Enlightenment is not accumulation, but subtraction, of knowledge, until the mind arrives not just at knowing nothing, but until even the idea of mind is seen and finally understood as illusory. Mind has to do with knowledge and the thought that leads to knowledge; Enlightenment has to do with consciousness and seeing things as they are, not as the mind conceives them to be..

Awakening to truth is another way of saying having knowledge. The mind is what is concieving things as they are. I dont see why people think that we have a mind outside our bodies. When people meditate it is still their brain doing the work.

 

[idav]

As long as we are busy trying to figure it out, nature will always be a paradox for the simple reason that there is nothing to figure out.

Nature is not based on Reason; it is based on consciousness. Reason is derived from the mind, which attempts to create a concept to explain nature, and in so doing, fails, because the description of Reality is not Reality. It's as simple as that.

Go ahead. Keep thinking and weaving your web of paradox.

Yes I know the difference between reality and a description of reality. Reality is a concept like ultimate truth, never fully actualized. That doesnt mean reality is consciousness. Reality would exist without needing it described by fallible humans and it doesnt need to be conscious to exist.