A synoptic rough draft. {2nd draft}

-Time\Space:
The concept of change and potential.

The concept of an absolute presupposes a state of completeness, stability and perfection.

The perfect has no need and, therefore, no interest and no potential - it is timeless and therefore spaceless.

The number {1}, like the concept of {here} and {now}, is a non-specific generality of a theoretical singularity (absolute); it is like any other absolute, a reference to a theoretical concept of non-existence – inertia.
The mind conceptualizes in this way so as to become efficient and so as to make sense of what it can never completely fathom.
Reality is a hypothetical, general simplification. Its validity and success is determined by the particular mind’s ability to absorb and incorporate information into viable models.
This is why every mind has a different ability to conceptualize.

Existence supposes a lack - expressed as temporality/spatiality (potential).
This lack is interpreted, by the mind, as need. When made conscious it is interpreted as suffering.

A phenomenon never IS but is in the process of becoming a Being.
To 'Be' is another way of expressing the same absolute singularity, mentioned before, just like 'self' is.
A singularity (Be) - if it is possible - drops out of space/time because it has achieved completion (its infinite possibilities have been absorbed into oneness) – it ceases to possess dimensions, as its potential becoming.

To exist is to be in flux or projected within time/space.
To be unchanging it is to be non-existent.

Potential is a projection of possibility in Time/Space.
To be timeless/spaceless is to be without possibility – to be without possibility is to be 'impossible'.

-Consciousness is a tool dedicated to becoming. It is a mechanisms which streamlines a unity's efforts and energies towards its own perfection.

Thinking is always in reference to the past.
When you say ‘I’, ‘Here’, ‘Now’, ‘You’ or whatever, you are referring to a sensual abstraction or simplification of an event or a phenomenon that has already past, as possibility, and is now fact as already has-been.
The past speaks about what we are because it is a running documentation narration of everything that has affected us or of our every decision and choice.
Our free-will would be a will unconcerned and unaffected by its history (no shame, no duty, no interest, no hope, no fear).

We are always discovering the world, and our selves within it, in the past where it can no longer be changed.

We cannot change the past – it is unchanging in that it has ceased possessing potential.
This past affects our future and determines it.
The struggle for freedom – another absolute – is the struggle to disentangle ourselves from our past which determines and limits us.
It is a cutting-loose – an indifference to it.

-There is no ‘here’ or ‘now’ or ‘I’ because these are processes of coming-to-be (becoming) and not of absolute being.
(Everything is infinitely divisible because everything is in reference to a possibility which is unknown and therefore assumed to be infinite and boundless)

These concepts are really incomplete and therefore referring to a nothing trying to be something.

A conscious god, is therefore an absurdity.

Do you agree? :D

-Time/Space: Here’, ‘Now’, ‘I’, ‘Self’ or any reference to a specificity is a simplification, and therefore a generalization, derived from a limited perspective.

When I say “Here” I am talking about a general point in space/time with no specific meaning and no absolute status; a point existing in the past and encompassed between the beginning and end of a thought.
Our awareness is determined by our speed of thought.
It is a potential point and not an actual one.

The fast thinker perceives and incorporates more detail in his abstraction of reality, in relation to the slow-thinker.
The fast-thinkers simple or specific is the slow-thinkers complicated or generalization.

The same can be said for the concepts of ‘Now’ or ‘Self’.

-There is no self.
Self is a process not an actuality.
If it were actual it would be an absolute and therefore it would cease being characterized by potential (space/time).
It would become timeless, spaceless, and therefore drop out of existence.

Existence is a human concept pointing to a potential unity’s possibilities.
Free-will is this possibility self-determined and manifest.

Satyr:

"The perfect has no need and, therefore, no interest and no potential - it is timeless and therefore spaceless."

What then about the perfection of both space and time? Moreover, if an absolute does not exist, from whence comes the capacity to be potential? Or from whence derives potentiality's eternity.

"A singularity (to be) drops out of space/time because it has achieved completion – it ceases to possess dimensions, as its potential becoming.
To exist is to be within time/space. To be outside it is to be non-existent."

This proposes a paradox. The attainment of existence entails non-existence. Were this to be so, even potentiality would cease, as we'd have naught but non-existence. Moreover, what quality of attaining perfection of existence would demand that it become dimensionless? To become dimensionless is hardly a perfection, if that entails annihilation.

"Potential is a projection of possibility in Time/Space.
To be timeless/spaceless is to be without possibility – impossible. "

I would argue that there are three states: Necessity, potentiality, and impossibility. To not be potential is not to be automatically impossible - although it is indicative of impossibility to not be potential - but it could also mean one could be necessary. You also fail to consider that if potentiality is to exist within time/space, then time/space exist as absolutes within which potentiality manifests.

"There is no ‘here’ or ‘now’ or ‘I’ because these are processes of coming-to-be (becoming) and not of absolute being. "

So an "I" could only be an "I" if it were absolute?

"(Everything is infinitely divisible because everything is in reference to a possibility which is unknown and therefore assumed to be infinite and boundless)"

Would not it be more that everything is divisible because it can be cut in half an infinite amount of times over?

"The same can be said for the concepts of ‘Now’ or ‘Self’."

I would disagree. For self presupposes the "inner eye" which, though changing with the mind in the sense of being the mind, nonetheless is always present, even when one is making a declaration about a relative "now" or "here". That is to say, mind presupposes an "I" (thank you Descartes) and the "I" never ceases until mind ceases completely.

Satyr:

"The perfect has no need and, therefore, no interest and no potential - it is timeless and therefore spaceless."

What then about the perfection of both space and time?
Space/Time are not perfect nor do they exist.
They are mental projections of possibility.

They are how the mind interprets its own, and another's, perceptible possibilities.

Furthermore time/space are manifestations of flux.
Flux is change and by definition lacking perfection.

Change, itself, is a product of multiple forces trying to find their own stability and non-existence.
Moreover, if an absolute does not exist, from whence comes the capacity to be potential? Or from whence derives potentiality's eternity. The universe is a manifestation of an absence.
It is a process of seeking its own fulfillment.

To ask “From whence” is to ask for an absolute answer to a question that can never posses it.
If it could it would have ceased becoming and would simply be – inert.

It is because the universe lacks meaning and purpose that I have free-will (infinite possibilities).
If the universe had meaning or purpose I would be contained and limited by it.
My existence would be pre-determined and I would have no responsibility.
"A singularity (to be) drops out of space/time because it has achieved completion – it ceases to possess dimensions, as its potential becoming.
To exist is to be within time/space. To be outside it is to be non-existent."

This proposes a paradox. The attainment of existence entails non-existence. Were this to be so, even potentiality would cease, as we'd have naught but non-existence. Moreover, what quality of attaining perfection of existence would demand that it become dimensionless? To become dimensionless is hardly a perfection, if that entails annihilation.The paradox lies in that life is a manifestation of a universal process for self-annihilation.
It is the ultimate denial of life.

The cessation of suffering, entails the cessation of life.
Life and suffering/need are tautologies.

To embrace life, in essence, is to embrace suffering - and the exaltation that is derived by the momentary abatement of this suffering; felt as pleasure or ecstasy.

Suffering is what drives progress and knowledge and overcoming. Without it no evolution and no existence is possible, since life is the eternal search for self.
"Potential is a projection of possibility in Time/Space.
To be timeless/spaceless is to be without possibility – impossible. "

I would argue that there are three states: Necessity, potentiality, and impossibility. To not be potential is not to be automatically impossible - although it is indicative of impossibility to not be potential - but it could also mean one could be necessary. You also fail to consider that if potentiality is to exist within time/space, then time/space exist as absolutes within which potentiality manifests.To have no potential is to have no possibility.
Necessary is possibility contained and determined by another’s or others possibility or possibilities.
I am not free because I am a unified amalgamation of incomplete, forces limited within a universe of multiple incomplete unities of incompleteness.

My possibilities are restricted by another’s and so competition is what produces necessity.
"There is no ‘here’ or ‘now’ or ‘I’ because these are processes of coming-to-be (becoming) and not of absolute being. "

So an "I" could only be an "I" if it were absolute?
Yes.
What I refer to as Self is a unity of multiple entities and multiple forces all being arbitrated over by a mind seeking to control and direct them.

My identity is a derivative of what Sartre called consciousness’s negating.
“I am not this” determines what I am.
I find identity through what I am not or through what I am in relation to the other.
The other becomes the mirror within which I find my Self, since there is no Self there to begin with.
This Self is another way of saying God.
I think of myself in relation to the other so as to find a self which I lack.
The other does the same creating a process of mutual dependence.
"(Everything is infinitely divisible because everything is in reference to a possibility which is unknown and therefore assumed to be infinite and boundless)"

Would not it be more that everything is divisible because it can be cut in half an infinite amount of times over?It is infinitely divisible because there is nothing there to divide but a human concept with imprecise, general parameters and meanings.

What I divide is my imprecise, general, simplified conception of what I can never know but only hypothesize and generalize about by analyzing it in the past or by looking backwards.

There is no ‘Here’ or ‘Now’ because if there were I would have dropped out of space/time before I even perceived them.

The brain is a tool of generalization. It creates abstract, simple models of phenomena that have already occurred and that have stimulated the senses into action.

When I see a friend, it is a friend that no longer exists and it is a friend that is a general interpretation of a non-specific, incomplete (spatial/temporal) unity, self-contained and self identifying itself as my friend.

Life is a process of Autopoesis, as it creates a boundary, self-limiting itself against the outer flux so as to try to achieve order within itself.

The “I” is a piece of the whole cutting itself off from the chaos so as to find order or self or perfection or eternity or stability or freedom or…..

We are the universe manifesting itself towards self-negation …..perfection.

The perfect needs nothing, wants nothing, lacks nothing - why then would it act or create or think?
"The same can be said for the concepts of ‘Now’ or ‘Self’."

I would disagree. For self presupposes the "inner eye" which, though changing with the mind in the sense of being the mind, nonetheless is always present, even when one is making a declaration about a relative "now" or "here". That is to say, mind presupposes an "I" (thank you Descartes) and the "I" never ceases until mind ceases completely.Self-consciousness is a mental trick.

Consciousness, being a process of negation, achieves self-consciousness when it cuts off a piece of awareness - of itself - and looks upon itself; back upon itself in the past.

This creates the illusion of duality and of mind/body or physical/spiritual.

The eye cannot look back upon itself but it can see the other parts of itself.
It then assumes that the part that looks is different from the other parts, or that it is the pure and original part.
This is why we often assume that our body is not us or why most like to distance themselves from their own physical appearance.
Racial issues are related to this denial.

For me, the physical is another way the unity which seeks Self manifests itself within a different context.
Just like space is Time in another context so is body mind in another context.

The appearance is the projection of the unity in space/time over which the mind seeks domination by separating itself from it.

This mythology of Mind/Body has created the concept of ‘Soul’.

God and religion always depend on the unknown to take root.
Where there is darkness and ignorance and misery and need, there religion finds fertile ground to exploit and to infect consciousnes with its saving-grace and positive, effortless messages.

Since self-consciousness, like the eye, can never look upon itself, but only at its own reflection, it places there spirit or God or whatever sooths its uncertainty and anxiety.

Descartes’ ‘I’ is a presupposition with no supportive evidence.

It supposes an ‘I’ so as to follow it up with the “Think” and the desired “Am”.

The “I” that thinks is the thinking.

Thinking is a process of awareness where one thought is followed by another in a stream of consciousness.
Beneath it there is nothing, since there is no ‘I’ to begin with but a becoming seeking an ‘I’.

Nietzsche’s “void” that looks back at you. :D

-Truth

Truth is inaccessible to man, not because it is non-existent but because it is too fleeting to be fully perceived by man.
Therefore man is forced to exist within his own interpretations of reality/truth and face the consequences of his accuracy or error in interpreting.
This is called Perspectivism and is often used to equate all opinions as being similarly valuable and accurate.

One cannot perceive the totality of the Earth unless one escapes its gravity and looks back on it.
Even then one loses detail by trying to encompass the entirety and is forces to generalize.

This does not mean ‘reality’ is fake but that man is capable of perceiving a small, simplistic, piece of it.
There is no hidden thing-in-itself. The world displays itself fully and openly and it is only consciousness that can divert and hide and pretend.
Form, color, texture or any sensual information says something about the phenomenon. It might not be complete or it might be wrongly translated but the information itself is the phenomenon.

What there is are superior and inferior perceptions of the world.
If man’s sensual awareness was totally ineffective we wouldn’t even be able to walk across a room without falling into an error.
Our success is a result of our ability to successfully generalize and hypothesize the entirety from a few details. This is done using patterns.
Pattern recognition creates categories which make thinking more efficient.

We need no longer deal with particular beings but extrapolate general rules using the study of particulars.

The incomplete, simple abstractions we construct using sensual stimulations are precise enough to make us successful within the world.
Intelligence is a measure of perceiving, gathering, abstracting and interpreting sensual information as precisely as possible.

Reality is a relationship, forever in construction, as the universe is always in flux
How the different forces inter-relate, and mingle, and combine and separate creates reality.
This inter-relating we call ‘matter’.

Entropy is a measure of this inter-relating, Temporal/Spatial flux.

-The Will is simply the focus of a small portion of temporality/spatiality, projected from a self-contained, self-limiting unity.
Just like the temporal/spatial separates itself from the whole so as to look upon it’s self so does the mind separate a piece of it’s self to look at it’s self.
The Mind and the Body are not two different phenomena, no more than Time and Space is two different phenomena. They are the same thing within different contexts

This ‘separating’ creates the concepts of ‘in’ and ‘out’ and eventually results in the concept of ‘soul’ and ‘God’ and the mysterious.

I call IN what is within my purview and power and knowledge and awareness.
All else I call OUT.

Satyr:

"Space/Time are not perfect nor do they exist.
They are mental projections of possibility. "

I would disagree. For in order for something to be possible, it must have space to be in, time to be in, and relation to engage in. Moreover, from whence came the beginning of potentiality? For clearly we must speak of an eternal process if we are to get at the root of things, must we not?

"Furthermore time/space are manifestations of flux.
Flux is change and by definition lacking perfection."

Zeno's paradox of the arrow shows quite clearly that in order for motion to exist, each point of movement must exist as if essentially motionless. That is, to move, one must move betwixt an infinite series of miniscule points, all which are non-moving, and indeed, were it not for time and relation, no motion would be at all, for one would simply be stuck in these point-moments. I therefore put forth that flux cannot be the foundation of all things, because it depends on the non-fluxing.

"Change, itself, is a product of multiple forces trying to find their own stability and non-existence. "

How would stability beget non-existence?

"The universe is a manifestation of an absence.
It is a process of seeking its own fulfillment."

How can an absence manifest?

"To ask “From whence” is to ask for an absolute answer to a question that can never posses it.
If it could it would have ceased becoming and would simply be – inert. "

I would agree that perfection is inert. That is, one cannot grow, move, nor anything else once one is perfect.

"It is because the universe lacks meaning and purpose that I have free-will (infinite possibilities)."

What about causality? Causality demands that you have, in fact, but one possibility. Let us say that God does not play dice, as it were, and this includes yourself.

"The paradox lies in that life is a manifestation of a universal process for self-annihilation.
It is the ultimate denial of life."

How could this be a goal?

"The cessation of suffering, entails the cessation of life.
Life and suffering/need are tautologies."

This I agree with.

"To embrace life, in essence, is to embrace suffering - and the exaltation that is derived by the momentary abatement of this suffering; felt as pleasure or ecstasy."

I agree.

"Suffering is what drives progress and knowledge and overcoming. Without it no evolution and no existence is possible, since life is the eternal search for self. "

Define "search for self"?

"To have no potential is to have no possibility.
Necessary is possibility contained and determined by another’s or others possibility or possibilities."

Another's, or itself? For a true necessity seems to validate itself in two ways: By its opposite being absurd and proving the necessary thing, and the necessary thing proving itself. Consider, for instance, that "there are no absolutes" itself would be an example of an absolute, and if true, would actually be wrong, whereas "there are absolutes" would be coherent and indeed, as shown by its opposite, correct undoubtably.

"Yes.
What I refer to as Self is a unity of multiple entities and multiple forces all being arbitrated over by a mind seeking to control and direct them."

So is the mind singular or also multiple?

"My identity is a derivative of what Sartre called consciousness’s negating.
“I am not this” determines what I am.
I find identity through what I am not or through what I am in relation to the other.
The other becomes the mirror within which I find my Self, since there is no Self there to begin with.
This Self is another way of saying God.
I think of myself in relation to the other so as to find a self which I lack.
The other does the same creating a process of mutual dependence. "

It would rather seem that Descartes is closer to the mark than Satre, for would you not agree that all thoughts require a thinker to think and to perceive said thoughts? And therefore there is a necessity of a self if perception and thought are taking place? If such is the case, then one can indeed find a positive,and not merely negative, affirmation of self.

"It is infinitely divisible because there is nothing there to divide but a human concept with imprecise, general parameters and meanings. "

Even if we consider it a "crude concept", as it were, it seems to have truth. For what is a point of space cut infinitely into pieces, but the process which all things must have, if nothing can truly be composed entirely of itself?

"The perfect needs nothing, wants nothing, lacks nothing - why then would it act or create or think?"

I find this the strongest reason to suggest that the concept of God as found in the West is erroneously held.

"Consciousness, being a process of negation, achieves self-consciousness when it cuts off a piece of awareness - of itself - and looks upon itself; back upon itself in the past."

Yet even if not evaluated, does not the "self" demand to be there, even in the present? For what is mind without a thinker? What is perception without a perceiver? All these things necessitate a sovereign self.

"Thinking is a process of awareness where one thought is followed by another in a stream of consciousness.
Beneath it there is nothing, since there is no ‘I’ to begin with but a becoming seeking an ‘I’. "

What then is doing the perception of thought? For it is not thought on its own, like a fly in the wind, but a thought being created and understood by a thinker.

"The Mind and the Body are not two different phenomena, no more than Time and Space is two different phenomena. They are the same thing within different contexts"

I would disagree with you here in space and time. For it would seem that time and space are -radically- different phenomena. For consider space. What is it? Well, it is position, is it not? And the "grid" that allows for position? And the substance (matter/energy) of said grid, yes? But where is motion in this? Nowhere to be found. Indeed, motion can only manifest when another dimension to this grid is added, namely, of time, which though manifesting solely in the things which display time, is itself divorced from those things in the sense that they depend on it, not it on them, only needing them to manifest.

Indeed, whereas I shall agree that there is no such divide ontologically speaking betwixt the body and mind, I will disagree that there is not a meaningful difference. For whereas the body is the body, the mind is a relational identity created from a brain which cannot be reduced to anyone part of the brain, just as the concept of "bridge" or "house" cannot be taken from a plank of wood.

Prince_James
I would disagree. For in order for something to be possible, it must have space to be in, time to be in, and relation to engage in. Moreover, from whence came the beginning of potentiality? For clearly we must speak of an eternal process if we are to get at the root of things, must we not?Time/Space are not objects and they cannot be said to “exist”, because then we would have to establish a hypothetical for them to exist within.

They are the fabric of potential within which phenomena manifest as inter-relating – phenomena are said to exist when they have temporal/spatial dimensions.

Temporal/Spatial dimensions are how phenomena interact and establish boundaries and limits and potentials.
Zeno's paradox of the arrow shows quite clearly that in order for motion to exist, each point of movement must exist as if essentially motionless. That is, to move, one must move betwixt an infinite series of miniscule points, all which are non-moving, and indeed, were it not for time and relation, no motion would be at all, for one would simply be stuck in these point-moments. I therefore put forth that flux cannot be the foundation of all things, because it depends on the non-fluxing.The arrow never occupies a point. It is forever in the process of reaching a point, even when it is perceived to be still.
This is why its distance from the target is infinitely divisible.

I don’t follow your reasoning.
You are supposing an absolute fixed fabric upon which reality manifests itself?

Motionless is a human prejudice determined by our speed of thought.
Our consciousness – the succession of thoughts – has a particular speed, it being also a part of universal flux trying to find the unmovable, the absolute the fixed, the inert.
As such it perceives hardness/softness or fixed/moving in relation to it.

All value judgments are a comparison of self with the other.

I feel still in relation to something else, even if we may both be constantly in flux.
Time and Space are the Flux interpreted by consciousness.
The Flux is the inter-relation of possibilities forever rearranging itself and affecting itself and causing itself.
How would stability beget non-existence?I’ve gone through this already.

To be stable is to achieve harmony or balance or perfection or completion.

No more change is necessary; otherwise the phenomenon would change into something unstable.
Stability becomes inert and is labeled perfect.

Time/Space being interpretations of this flux, this constant change offering potential stability but never reaching it, would cease when change ceased.

The phenomenon would drop out of the temporal/spatial continuum and would simply BE.
It would have attained absoluteness or singularity or inertia or perfection or fulfillment.
There would be nothing to change into since it would have reached its full potential.

This is hypothetical since if absolutes were possible they would have already occurred and the universe would have ceased.

In essence we seek the unattainable and we acquire identity and meaning and purpose in the pursuit.
The pursuit is endless, producing matter, and animated matter (life) and self-conscious animated matter all in the process of pursuing.

Furthermore when we describe Paradise or Nirvana or any imagined and hoped for state of non-suffering and completeness we describe it as being devoid of need and suffering.
In other words we are describing death.

Consciousness is a product of Need and it therefore is determined by need/suffering.
Consciousness is a tool of fulfilling need and alleviating suffering.
Completeness would make consciousness obsolete and unnecessary.
How can an absence manifest?I don’t know.
Absence IS.
All human negative concepts like: Death, Dark, Cold do not require effort. They simply are.
The universe is dark and cold and dead.

Life, Light and Heat require effort or something being consumed and rearranged.
Are you looking for a prime mover and certainty and final answers?
Talk to the imbecile lightgigantic.
I've only got hypothesis and skepticism and honesty.

All I know is that we exist and this existence is owed to a lack.

Maybe lack is all the universe ever is or could be.
Absolutes or fulfillment are human imaginative ways of projecting a desired cessation.

Religion often offers a further comforting notion where suffering and life end but consciousness continues or is passed on.
This is why the weak and the weak-minded are attracted to them.
I would agree that perfection is inert. That is, one cannot grow, move, nor anything else once one is perfect. Therefore it would cease being temporal and spatial.
It would be timeless and spaceless.

Non-existent, in accordance to our human understanding of existence.
What about causality? Causality demands that you have, in fact, but one possibility. Let us say that God does not play dice, as it were, and this includes yourself.Causality is the interplay of multiple manifestations inter-relating by each following its own need for completion.

Matter is a temporal spatial manifestation of intermingling forces trying to achieve inertia.
Living matter is the same thing but now directed with a will.

What are these forces?
Who knows?

All we can say is that they are expressing a lack by manifesting at all and that they are breaking apart and deteriorating in the attrition of the flux, tumbling the universe into entropy.

This is why we can only remember the past and we are unidirectional as corporeal beings.
We live forwards (forward being the direction of growing entropy), and we think by looking back, as Heidegger correctly surmised.

We cannot look into or beyond the chaos because it is the process of inter-mingling and not yet established reality.
We can only create models which predict the future from the past.

How precise and accurate we’ve perceived and generalized determines how accurate our projections will be.

How could this be a goal?How could it not?

Define "search for self"?The search for absolute identity.
A paradox.

You can never find self because as soon as you do you cease becoming and having a Temporal/Spatial presence and the consciousness which it entails.

Man is forever running after his own obsolescence, using religion and politics and ideals because life and the responsibility of living and being free terrify him.
This from Sartre.

To be absolutely free, and this is the irony, is to be completely devoid of interest in living.

Existence, as we know it, is the absence of self.
We exist in this absence and we are a product of it.

Another's, or itself? For a true necessity seems to validate itself in two ways: By its opposite being absurd and proving the necessary thing, and the necessary thing proving itself. Consider, for instance, that "there are no absolutes" itself would be an example of an absolute, and if true, would actually be wrong, whereas "there are absolutes" would be coherent and indeed, as shown by its opposite, correct undoubtably.This is why reality can only be an approximation – a shadow on a cave wall.

If absolutes are then the only thing that can be said about them is that they are not conducive to life or consciousness.

So is the mind singular or also multiple?Singular is another way of saying absolute.

It would rather seem that Descartes is closer to the mark than Satre, for would you not agree that all thoughts require a thinker to think and to perceive said thoughts? And therefore there is a necessity of a self if perception and thought are taking place? If such is the case, then one can indeed find a positive,and not merely negative, affirmation of self.No, a thought does not presuppose a thinker.

Thinking is simply thinking. To presuppose an unmoving, behind the scenes entity is to project hopes and desires for an absolute where ignorance lies.

The thinking is all there is as one neuron sparks another and causes a cascade of flashes in a continuous process we call consciousness.

Self-consciousness is a loop.
I’ve explained this in my original posts.

Consciousness separates a piece of it self and looks upon itself.
So a piece of thinking looks at the rest and this creates the dichotomy between Thinker/Thinking ort Body/Soul.
This piece can never look upon itself and so it calls itself by the mysterious Soul and projects there all its insecurities and ignorance and fears.
There is where God lies and where religion gathers its self-validation.

Where there is an unknown, man builds temples.

Even if we consider it a "crude concept", as it were, it seems to have truth. For what is a point of space cut infinitely into pieces, but the process which all things must have, if nothing can truly be composed entirely of itself?Nothing in the process of becoming Something.
This is why everything is ephemeral.

I find this the strongest reason to suggest that the concept of God as found in the West is erroneously held.Yes.
But in the east, as well, they’ve done away with the more childish conceptions of an anthropomorphic God – God as parent and emotion and authority – and have used the possibility of eternal recurrence to construct the possibility for eternal life by supposing a soul where the eye-that-cannot turn-on-itself is.

Yet even if not evaluated, does not the "self" demand to be there, even in the present? For what is mind without a thinker? What is perception without a perceiver? All these things necessitate a sovereign self.There is no behind-the-scenes absolute.

Thinking and perceiving is all there is.
Descartes supposed a thinker where there was none.

All you can say is “I think”.
To think is the universal flux in progress.
Thinking is temporal as one thought replaces another.
A piece of this river cuts away into a stream and looks upon the river flowing.

It becomes self-conscious and sees itself thinking. But the stream cannot infinitely cut away and look at the remainder because the process would be infinite and its resources finite. So it stops and calls the part that cut away its soul or spirit or the thinker when it is nothing more than the flow cutting a piece of its self away.

Mutarana and Varela offer a nice description of life in their “Autopoiesis and Cognition”

In it they describe how life is a process of self-containment.
The cell divides by constructing its own limitation – a membrane.

This membrane creates a barrier within which self pursuits its own order.
A piece of chaos cuts away from the flux and attempts to construct order within its sanctuary.

What then is doing the perception of thought? For it is not thought on its own, like a fly in the wind, but a thought being created and understood by a thinker.Thought is a spark of energy produced from a specific brain area which has stored information.
Information is the ordering of reality – the freezing of time/space in memory where it can be abstracted and used to construct models and patterns.

The succession of sparks creates thinking/consciousness.

This energy is the flux manifesting itself.
“Everything flows” as Thales said.

I would disagree with you here in space and time. For it would seem that time and space are -radically- different phenomena. For consider space. What is it? Well, it is position, is it not? And the "grid" that allows for position? And the substance (matter/energy) of said grid, yes? But where is motion in this? Nowhere to be found. Indeed, motion can only manifest when another dimension to this grid is added, namely, of time, which though manifesting solely in the things which display time, is itself divorced from those things in the sense that they depend on it, not it on them, only needing them to manifest.Time is also a position.
Time is also arranged, by men, on a mental or technological grid.

Time and Space are both part of a mental grid displaying possibility.
Not only your possibility but the possibility of every force and every manifestation and every unity that is in the process of becoming.

Matter is this possibility manifest.

Excellent work Satyr. Got me off to sleep in no time at all.

Excellent work Satyr. Got me off to sleep in no time at all.Don’t fool yourself, you’ve been sleeping all along…you are merely waking up to the fact.

Pithy retort.

Do you often fractionate your piss?

Satyr

So many words, so little content.

Dear little Q, are you trying to make me pay attention to you again?

I still remember your hatred of exploitation and your selfless defense of the “innocent victims” of this world.
So pure and innocent you are. So clean in a dirty world.

Capitalism sucks when you are an idealizing socialist with no ability to discern your own human weaknesses in your own ideals.

How did you put it:
“Innocent victim is the one you does not willingly enter into competition?”

Life is competition.
We do not choose life but are thrust into it.
Are we not, by your definition, all innocent?

What about a lamb?
A baby rabbit?
A tree?

Is not ignorance your shield against the brutality of life?
Ignorant is another way of saying innocent.

What did you say?:
“Your pleasures are based on the profit of another” or something like that.
Poor thing.
And his profit is based on what, or don’t you want to delve deeper and see your own culpability in the cycle of life?
Who creates a market? The profiteer simply takes advantage of a need. He doesn’t, necessarily create it, although even this is possible.

It’s all about exploitation and appropriation and manipulation, little one.
Hiding behind “innocence” is trying to avoid your own responsibilities.
At least have the balls to see that your pleasures create another’s displeasures and be willing to pay the cost for them.


That’s life. I didn’t invent it and I rarely like it.
I describe it as honestly and as clearly and as objectively as I can.
You want feel-good fairy-tales?
There are plenty of retards, like you, here.
Ignore me, please.

*yawn*

*yawn*Don't hate me because I'm innocent.

Here’s a better way to feign indifference and to get me mad:
Ignore me!!!!

I don't hate anyone.

I merely made an observation, then you went off on a rant.

It appeared you took a bunch of words, tossed them into a bucket, shook it around then emptied onto a post.

Still not ignoring me?

:m:
What is an innocent, pure soul, like you, doing talking with someone who has never considered himself innocent?
Move on!!!!

God as psychological necessity.

From the beginning of human history man found reasons to worship the unknown as a way of placating his own anxieties concerning it.

When fire was not understood it was worshiped.
When the sun wasn’t comprehended it was worshiped.
And these days what baffles us about the universe and existence and death we worship and try to win over by making it human like and benevolent and caring towards us.

The antagonism between science and religion is the product of this battle between the hypothetical unknown and the hypothetical known.
As human knowledge progresses it pushes superstition to the edges and forces it to adapt and to reinterpret itself by placing itself further and further into the darkness.

Man’s success has freed much of his intellectual capacity from the burdens of survival.
This now man uses to explore and to ask and to create.

This freeing of the mind has created discomfort as it now seeks a new purpose to replace the all-consuming old one.

Man needs meaning and purpose and hope and diversion.
Without them existence becomes intolerable.

This is where religion takes root and feeds off human frailty.
The weaker the mind the more vulnerable it feels the more it will grasp upon anything to comfort itself and make itself feel special and protected.

When do you move up to senior school?

Satyr:

"Time/Space are not objects and they cannot be said to “exist”, because then we would have to establish a hypothetical for them to exist within."

If existence is infinite in scope and the quality which facillitates lesser, temporal existences, would we indeed have to speak of something for them to exist within? This is rather like saying that the bowl must have a bowl to be within, as the water needs the bowl.

"They are the fabric of potential within which phenomena manifest as inter-relating – phenomena are said to exist when they have temporal/spatial dimensions. "

In so much as these two (or three things if you are wont to add "relation" like I am) things facillitate potentiality's expression as temporal/transient phenomena, I agree. However, by allowing such, you allow an absolute from whence these potentials arise, for in the absence of such "soil of potentiality", potentiality could not exist.

"Temporal/Spatial dimensions are how phenomena interact and establish boundaries and limits and potentials. "

Agreed.

"The arrow never occupies a point. It is forever in the process of reaching a point, even when it is perceived to be still.
This is why its distance from the target is infinitely divisible."

If it is reaching a point and not on a point every step of the way, where is it? And moreover, suppose we took time and relation out of the equation, and took a "snap shot" of the arrow in flight. Would not it be occuping a distinct point in space?

"I don’t follow your reasoning.
You are supposing an absolute fixed fabric upon which reality manifests itself?"

Yes. Existence in the absolute, perfect sense. The somethingness which is the diametric (and dialectic to make the transient in part) absolute opposite of nothingness, which itself is an absolute. This seems to me the only way which we can consider potentiality, for if potentiality is to exist, it stands to reason it must come from something, and this something must either itself be reducible to something else, or it must be eternal. If eternal, it must vindicate itself as so, and by that, it must be impossible for it not to be so. I postulate that existence must be this for many reasons I have given elsewhere. If you wish for me to elaborate on that line, do tell me and I'd gladly tell you.

"Motionless is a human prejudice determined by our speed of thought.
Our consciousness – the succession of thoughts – has a particular speed, it being also a part of universal flux trying to find the unmovable, the absolute the fixed, the inert.
As such it perceives hardness/softness or fixed/moving in relation to it."

I would agree that motionlessness amongst phenomena is hardly to be considered as real in an absolute sense. But if something is infinite - which I would claim existence is - then it stands to reason that that, surely, is indeed immobile, for mobility entails finitehood.

"All value judgments are a comparison of self with the other. "

Or of the value to other, at least.

"I feel still in relation to something else, even if we may both be constantly in flux.
Time and Space are the Flux interpreted by consciousness.
The Flux is the inter-relation of possibilities forever rearranging itself and affecting itself and causing itself. "

In so much as potentiality is a constant state of affairs, I agree.

"Time/Space being interpretations of this flux, this constant change offering potential stability but never reaching it, would cease when change ceased."

Yet would not a perfectly stable thing epitomize space? For space itself would be idealized by something that would never move position, no? Which would have perfect "spaceness"? And though time could not manifest directly on such an object, it stands to reason that it would not cease, either.

"The phenomenon would drop out of the temporal/spatial continuum and would simply BE.
It would have attained absoluteness or singularity or inertia or perfection or fulfillment.
There would be nothing to change into since it would have reached its full potential."

To simply be is not to simply not-be.

"Consciousness is a product of Need and it therefore is determined by need/suffering.
Consciousness is a tool of fulfilling need and alleviating suffering.
Completeness would make consciousness obsolete and unnecessary. "

I agree.

"I don’t know.
Absence IS.
All human negative concepts like: Death, Dark, Cold do not require effort. They simply are.
The universe is dark and cold and dead."

Would not absence ISN'T, as it were? An absence implies also the incapacity to manifest, because were it manifest, it would cease to be an absence, and therefore, the absence itself would not manifest.

"Life, Light and Heat require effort or something being consumed and rearranged.
Are you looking for a prime mover and certainty and final answers?
Talk to the imbecile lightgigantic.
I've only got hypothesis and skepticism and honesty. "

No prime mover, but yes, certainty and final answers, in so much as these are related to concepts which are necessary. However, on the temporal/transience of everything we will encounter directly - as oppose to exist within generally - I agree.

"Religion often offers a further comforting notion where suffering and life end but consciousness continues or is passed on.
This is why the weak and the weak-minded are attracted to them. "

I think I shall make a thread on this.

"Therefore it would cease being temporal and spatial.
It would be timeless and spaceless."

In so much as it would be eternal, it woul dnot be impacted by time, no. But it would also be perfectly spatial, as it would never cease to be.

"Non-existent, in accordance to our human understanding of existence. "

That's better. According to human standards, which define existence in terms of the temporal and transient for almost all things.

"Causality is the interplay of multiple manifestations inter-relating by each following its own need for completion."

Yet it is also deterministic, in that each relation produces but one end, in correspondence with the relational properties that arise.

"All we can say is that they are expressing a lack by manifesting at all and that they are breaking apart and deteriorating in the attrition of the flux, tumbling the universe into entropy. "

Only if this universe is all there is this necessitated. It stands to reason that exterior to the universe - if it is expanding, which implies something beyond - that entropy might not be increasing.

"How could it not?"

A goal to annihilation could not arise from a goal for permenance if permenance would be attained. That is to say, permenance would be the direct opposite of annihilation.

"The search for absolute identity.
A paradox."

It does not seem that we so much want an absolute identity, as simply enjoying the identity we have at present, and growing larger and larger, without cessation, in our identity.

"If absolutes are then the only thing that can be said about them is that they are not conducive to life or consciousness. "

Actually, I would argue that it is only in light of these absolutes that the temporal and transient have being. For how else could we explain the idea of something which has beginning and end without ascribing them as part of an infinite whole which does not ultimately? Indeed, the only reason I have ever found for such things, is that infinity demands such finitehood in order to be infinity and finitehood could not exist apart from infinity.

"Singular is another way of saying absolute. "

So then the mind is not a single guiding executive of multiple functions/entities?

"No, a thought does not presuppose a thinker."

Then who, pray tell, is thinking the thought and perceiving the thought?

"Thinking is simply thinking. To presuppose an unmoving, behind the scenes entity is to project hopes and desires for an absolute where ignorance lies. "

Where ignorance lies? If the self is self, this would be the prime certainty, as one would -be- it.

"The thinking is all there is as one neuron sparks another and causes a cascade of flashes in a continuous process we call consciousness. "

A consciousness which primarily manifests to an internal eye, as it were.

"Consciousness separates a piece of it self and looks upon itself.
So a piece of thinking looks at the rest and this creates the dichotomy between Thinker/Thinking ort Body/Soul.
This piece can never look upon itself and so it calls itself by the mysterious Soul and projects there all its insecurities and ignorance and fears. "

Or does it not look on itself as a whole? Seeing that in all instances, there is a self behind it, in order for such things to be?

When we daydream, we do not perceive. Why? Because the self is absence from the perceptions.

"Nothing in the process of becoming Something.
This is why everything is ephemeral. "

What aspect could nothing have which would allow it to become something? If it is truly nothing, it could never seek something, as even seeking would need something and not nothing.

"Yes.
But in the east, as well, they’ve done away with the more childish conceptions of an anthropomorphic God – God as parent and emotion and authority – and have used the possibility of eternal recurrence to construct the possibility for eternal life by supposing a soul where the eye-that-cannot turn-on-itself is. "

The East has its fallacies, too, yes.

"Thinking and perceiving is all there is.
Descartes supposed a thinker where there was none."

Then what, pray tell, is a thought without a thinker? Without something to witness and understand said thought?

"Thinking is temporal as one thought replaces another. "

Thinking may indeed be temporal, but a thinker needn't see only something which is not temporal in order to know itself as the perceiver and thinker of the thoughts.

"Thought is a spark of energy produced from a specific brain area which has stored information."

This only explains the physical processes, but does not explain the processes meaningfulness. That is to say, ther is nothing in a neuronal discharge that implies "thought".

"Information is the ordering of reality – the freezing of time/space in memory where it can be abstracted and used to construct models and patterns. "

yet what is doing the abstraction and construction of models and patterns?

"Time is also a position.
Time is also arranged, by men, on a mental or technological grid."

Time is a position, but not one that can be found in space. Where is 10:30's address?

Satyr:
"Time/Space are not objects and they cannot be said to “exist”, because then we would have to establish a hypothetical for them to exist within."

If existence is infinite in scope and the quality which facillitates lesser, temporal existences, would we indeed have to speak of something for them to exist within? This is rather like saying that the bowl must have a bowl to be within, as the water needs the bowl. That's a big IF.

I’m saying that time/space cannot be said to exist at all.

They are a way existence manifests itself or a way consciousness translates existence.
"They are the fabric of potential within which phenomena manifest as inter-relating – phenomena are said to exist when they have temporal/spatial dimensions. "

In so much as these two (or three things if you are wont to add "relation" like I am)Are you obsessed with the symbolism of a triad?
things facillitate potentiality's expression as temporal/transient phenomena, I agree. However, by allowing such, you allow an absolute from whence these potentials arise, for in the absence of such "soil of potentiality", potentiality could not exist.I don’t think so.
Potentiality is a relationship based on absence.
Multiple manifestations of potentiality coexist.
Their interactions determine reality.

If there were an absolute then it would limit potentiality or determine it. Therefore it would cease being free.

The ground you seek in Nothingness.
"Temporal/Spatial dimensions are how phenomena interact and establish boundaries and limits and potentials. "

Agreed.

"The arrow never occupies a point. It is forever in the process of reaching a point, even when it is perceived to be still.
This is why its distance from the target is infinitely divisible."

If it is reaching a point and not on a point every step of the way, where is it?That's the point - excuse the pun - it is nowhere.
And moreover, suppose we took time and relation out of the equation, and took a "snap shot" of the arrow in flight. Would not it be occuping a distinct point in space? A photo is a frozen moment. It is like a memory: a generalized frozen moment of space/time depicting a phenomenon in the process of becoming.
Its substantiality is determined by your limited perspective.
If you could take a quantum photo of it, it would be a nothing.

Reality has no frozen moments.
Your senses only perceive a generality and this gives you the illusion of substance.
"I don’t follow your reasoning.
You are supposing an absolute fixed fabric upon which reality manifests itself?"

Yes. Existence in the absolute, perfect sense. The somethingness which is the diametric (and dialectic to make the transient in part) absolute opposite of nothingness, which itself is an absolute.If this were so then all existence would have ceased.
There would be no reason for movement or time/space.

Nothingness and Somethingness can be considered opposites because neither of them is ever completely so.
Ying/Yang. Something contains nothingness and Nothing contains somethingness which makes both unstable and so forever tumbling towards purity or absoluteness or chaos or completion.

The Big Bang had to have been produced by a flaw which resulted in the ‘explosion’ and fragmentation of space/time.
Similarly the Big Crunch will have to be incomplete or else the universe will settle into an inert state.
This seems to me the only way which we can consider potentiality, for if potentiality is to exist, it stands to reason it must come from something, and this something must either itself be reducible to something else, or it must be eternal. If eternal, it must vindicate itself as so, and by that, it must be impossible for it not to be so. I postulate that existence must be this for many reasons I have given elsewhere. If you wish for me to elaborate on that line, do tell me and I'd gladly tell you.Okay.
"Motionless is a human prejudice determined by our speed of thought.
Our consciousness – the succession of thoughts – has a particular speed, it being also a part of universal flux trying to find the unmovable, the absolute the fixed, the inert.
As such it perceives hardness/softness or fixed/moving in relation to it."

I would agree that motionlessness amongst phenomena is hardly to be considered as real in an absolute sense. But if something is infinite - which I would claim existence is - then it stands to reason that that, surely, is indeed immobile, for mobility entails finitehood.Inter-relations are infinite (if that).
This does not necessarily mean that the energies involved are infinite or that the universe is so.
Inter-relations produce possibilities.
How does mobility entail finitehood?
"All value judgments are a comparison of self with the other. "

Or of the value to other, at least.

"I feel still in relation to something else, even if we may both be constantly in flux.
Time and Space are the Flux interpreted by consciousness.
The Flux is the inter-relation of possibilities forever rearranging itself and affecting itself and causing itself. "

In so much as potentiality is a constant state of affairs, I agree.

"Time/Space being interpretations of this flux, this constant change offering potential stability but never reaching it, would cease when change ceased."

Yet would not a perfectly stable thing epitomize space? For space itself would be idealized by something that would never move position, no? Which would have perfect "spaceness"? And though time could not manifest directly on such an object, it stands to reason that it would not cease, either.
Space and Time are not objects. They do not exist as they possess no potential.
Space/Time are modes of comprehension.
It is how the mind interprets and understands flux/change.

Space time are not phenomena.
They are ways of perceiving and understanding phenomena.
They do not exist outside the mind.

Time, for example, is the interpretation of succession as the mind perceives it.
Space is the interpretation of accesibility.

Since the mind can only perceive and think of things in sequence this produces the before/after effect or temporality.
This sequence is unstable and so change is a part of it as the sequence produces discrepancies which the mind attempts to comprehend by using cause/effect or by generalizing patterns from the sequences.

The mind creates models by seeking patterns. It notices that one particular phenomenon is always followed by another. If this succession is persistent and can be used to make accurate predictions it calls this succession a rule or ‘logic’.
But the succession might be a human imprecise generalization.

The most we can say is that there are forces interacting and intermingling and establishing relationships. These relationships and interactions create matter, as the mind's translation of them in space/time.
What these forces are or how they manifest themselves is anyone’s guess.
All we can say about them is that they are unconscious and guided by chance.
life is an attempt to subtract chance from the equation and make the forces efficient.
Perhaps these forces are products of the flux itself.
The flux translated by awareness.

What sets this flux in motion?
What sets the universe in motion?
Spinoza's clockmaker God?
Unknown.
Does it need a prime mover?
If so, then at what point can we say that it doesn’t?
"The phenomenon would drop out of the temporal/spatial continuum and would simply BE.
It would have attained absoluteness or singularity or inertia or perfection or fulfillment.
There would be nothing to change into since it would have reached its full potential."

To simply be is not to simply not-be.To Be is to lack all potential. It is an absolute state of inertia.
Therefore it would have no spatial or temporal existence.

It would drop out of what we call ‘reality’.

What would it Be then?
Something.
Nothing else can be said about it.
"Consciousness is a product of Need and it therefore is determined by need/suffering.
Consciousness is a tool of fulfilling need and alleviating suffering.
Completeness would make consciousness obsolete and unnecessary. "

I agree.

"I don’t know.
Absence IS.
All human negative concepts like: Death, Dark, Cold do not require effort. They simply are.
The universe is dark and cold and dead."

Would not absence ISN'T, as it were?
Isn't that a double-negative?
An absence implies also the incapacity to manifest, because were it manifest, it would cease to be an absence, and therefore, the absence itself would not manifest.Therefore it must be a phenomenon trying to be something.
It is a process of becoming.
Since it is never fulfilled we cannot call it Something in the absolute sense but only call it something in the general human sense denoting a phenomenon which we can never completely perceive or comprehend.
It is never There, Here, Substance, Point, but always a fleeting phenomenon in between Nothingness and Somethingness.

A shadow.
"Life, Light and Heat require effort or something being consumed and rearranged.
Are you looking for a prime mover and certainty and final answers?
Talk to the imbecile lightgigantic.
I've only got hypothesis and skepticism and honesty. "

No prime mover, but yes, certainty and final answers, in so much as these are related to concepts which are necessary. However, on the temporal/transience of everything we will encounter directly - as oppose to exist within generally - I agree.There can never be certainty or else one becomes a fanatic. Furthermore certainly implies omniscience and a ‘Truth’.

What there is, are approximations; less accurate or more accurate approximations.
"Religion often offers a further comforting notion where suffering and life end but consciousness continues or is passed on.
This is why the weak and the weak-minded are attracted to them. "

I think I shall make a thread on this.

"Therefore it would cease being temporal and spatial.
It would be timeless and spaceless."

In so much as it would be eternal, it woul dnot be impacted by time, no. But it would also be perfectly spatial, as it would never cease to be.
Time is another way of saying Space as Space is another way of saying Time.
"Non-existent, in accordance to our human understanding of existence. "

That's better. According to human standards, which define existence in terms of the temporal and transient for almost all things.Whose standards would you propose using?

But also, what makes you think that human comprehension is completely false?

Our senses and our minds are products of this universe. They are made to exist and to be successful within it.
It follows to reason that our senses are not totally erroneous but only lacking in clarity and precision.
"Causality is the interplay of multiple manifestations inter-relating by each following its own need for completion."

Yet it is also deterministic, in that each relation produces but one end, in correspondence with the relational properties that arise.It is deterministic in that it produces unities or creatures that contain their entire historical background within their patterns.
Each phenomenon is a projection of its entire becoming up to the moment of its Willing.
The Will is how consciousness focuses its energies upon potentials/possibilities and what interacts with other Wills and other unconscious manifestations creating a web of inter-relations we call reality.

Only the mind can break free from patterns or divert them, and then with much effort.
This is why when I listen to imbeciles describing how rational they are or how selfless or how just or free, all the while displaying the opposite, it always amuses me.
"All we can say is that they are expressing a lack by manifesting at all and that they are breaking apart and deteriorating in the attrition of the flux, tumbling the universe into entropy. "

Only if this universe is all there is this necessitated. It stands to reason that exterior to the universe - if it is expanding, which implies something beyond - that entropy might not be increasing.You are assuming no less than the supernatural - might as well call this ‘outside’ god and be done with it.

The concept universe, for me, means all that IS – an enclosed system.
To imply an outside is to claim that you use the word universe to mean a part of a greater whole – UNIVERSE.

To speak of an outside is to speak about the non-existent, since to exist means to be within the universe and to posses potential and possibility and spatiality and temporality and, maybe, consciousness.
That which is in perpetual motion exists.

The inert cannot be said to exist.
"How could it not?"

A goal to annihilation could not arise from a goal for permenance if permenance would be attained. That is to say, permenance would be the direct opposite of annihilation.It’s a desire to return to the source; back to the nothingness from whence you came from.
You do not, of course, admit this to yourself or to anyone else.
You mask it behind ideals and absolute notions which contain oxymoronic concepts.

Thing is life is a perpetual, repetitive, self-sustaining process.
Its only goal is to continue living.

It is only a mind freed from the burdens of living that can contemplate its condition and intuitively desire to cease.
Nihilism is the natural destination of any thinking mind.

Nietzsche advises us to avoid falling into Schopenhauer’s Buddhist trap of denial of life, judging this to be a cowards and weakling’s way out, nor does he advise to fall into the imbecile’s trap of remaining obtuse and hypocritical and stupid so as to escape reality’s woes. He advises to embrace it all and stare into the void.

Silenus, king of the Satyr’s, left us with his message to King Midas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silenus

Yet man must face the choice.
Life and all that it entails or oblivion.

http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Silenus.html
"The search for absolute identity.
A paradox."

It does not seem that we so much want an absolute identity, as simply enjoying the identity we have at present, and growing larger and larger, without cessation, in our identity.Are you claiming to possess an absolute?
What you call your “identity” is simply a mantle to cover up the emptiness.

Peel away the layers of what you consider self, your status, job, sex, emotions and you have nothing at the core.

It is this nothing that offers you everything as potential.
"If absolutes are then the only thing that can be said about them is that they are not conducive to life or consciousness. "

Actually, I would argue that it is only in light of these absolutes that the temporal and transient have being. For how else could we explain the idea of something which has beginning and end without ascribing them as part of an infinite whole which does not ultimately? Indeed, the only reason I have ever found for such things, is that infinity demands such finitehood in order to be infinity and finitehood could not exist apart from infinity.The temporal and transient are labels given to what has no being.
It is this not-being, this becoming which expresses temporality/spatiality and the universe in constant flux.
"Singular is another way of saying absolute. "

So then the mind is not a single guiding executive of multiple functions/entities?The mind is, itself, a multiplicity.
The universe knows no singularities.

The superstring?
We shall see.
"No, a thought does not presuppose a thinker."

Then who, pray tell, is thinking the thought and perceiving the thought?No one.
Why does thinking demand a thinker.
Thinking is all there is.
I explained how the myth of the thinker comes to be.
There is no thing-in-itself.
The universe is completely and utterly accessible and direct and open.
It is our misunderstandings and lack which misinterprets it.
There is nothing behind the mask.
The mask is all there is.
There is no pure self, or core, or identity.
All there is are clothing over an emptiness trying to become something.

It is this emptiness which implies freedom.
"Thinking is simply thinking. To presuppose an unmoving, behind the scenes entity is to project hopes and desires for an absolute where ignorance lies. "

Where ignorance lies? If the self is self, this would be the prime certainty, as one would -be- it. Keep on reaching for a certainty.

Ignorance implies an absence of knowledge.
Nothing else can be said about it.

When I do not know I place there my deepest desires and insecurities.
"The thinking is all there is as one neuron sparks another and causes a cascade of flashes in a continuous process we call consciousness. "

A consciousness which primarily manifests to an internal eye, as it were.An EYE period.
Internal is a myth.
Consciousness is the only phenomenon that can pretend and mask and redirect using the Will.
What it hides or denies it calls internal.

Even so these things do come forth in multiple ways, no matter how much effort is dedicated to masking them.
Psychology is the discipline that studies these methods.

Nevertheless the physical is a projection of the mental.
The physical is form and color and movement.
Physique and Character.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=56944
"Consciousness separates a piece of it self and looks upon itself.
So a piece of thinking looks at the rest and this creates the dichotomy between Thinker/Thinking ort Body/Soul.
This piece can never look upon itself and so it calls itself by the mysterious Soul and projects there all its insecurities and ignorance and fears. "

Or does it not look on itself as a whole? Seeing that in all instances, there is a self behind it, in order for such things to be?

When we daydream, we do not perceive. Why? Because the self is absence from the perceptions.The piece that is missing is the piece that is perceiving or looking or thinking.
The picture is only partial.
Know Thyself can only be so accurate.
Most rarely see themselves or admit what they are to themselves until they die.
They live and die in complete ignorance.
"Nothing in the process of becoming Something.
This is why everything is ephemeral. "

What aspect could nothing have which would allow it to become something? If it is truly nothing, it could never seek something, as even seeking would need something and not nothing.Perhaps a particle of Something, a stain.
What would cause the Big Bang to manifest?
If before it all the forces were one and united what would tear them apart?
Unknown.
"Yes.
But in the east, as well, they’ve done away with the more childish conceptions of an anthropomorphic God – God as parent and emotion and authority – and have used the possibility of eternal recurrence to construct the possibility for eternal life by supposing a soul where the eye-that-cannot turn-on-itself is. "

The East has its fallacies, too, yes.

"Thinking and perceiving is all there is.
Descartes supposed a thinker where there was none."

Then what, pray tell, is a thought without a thinker? Without something to witness and understand said thought? The thinking understands itself. That’s why it is self-consciousness.
There is no second or third party involved.
Thinking itself is a multiplicity producing itself.

That’s why not even sleep stops brain activity.
The flow is ceaseless until death, just at the beating heart beats until death.
What makes the heart beat?
A beater?
"Thinking is temporal as one thought replaces another. "

Thinking may indeed be temporal, but a thinker needn't see only something which is not temporal in order to know itself as the perceiver and thinker of the thoughts.Huh?
"Thought is a spark of energy produced from a specific brain area which has stored information."

This only explains the physical processes, but does not explain the processes meaningfulness. That is to say, ther is nothing in a neuronal discharge that implies "thought"."Meaningfulness"?
Meaning is a human construct trying to gain a purpose for its suffering; trying to make its life have value.
"Information is the ordering of reality – the freezing of time/space in memory where it can be abstracted and used to construct models and patterns. "

yet what is doing the abstraction and construction of models and patterns?The thinking mind is constant motion and activity.
"Time is also a position.
Time is also arranged, by men, on a mental or technological grid."

Time is a position, but not one that can be found in space. Where is 10:30's address?
The context only changes.
You are using an imprecise abstraction to disprove an imprecise abstraction.
You are only offering a piece of the rid reference and asking for a position.

Ask: Where is 123 This or That Road is at 10:30 am?
You can say: Where is Bob’s position at this general point in time/space?

To use your thinking I will ask:
Where is 4 meters?
:rolleyes:

Einstein tells us that as you increase spatial participation in one dimension you decrease it in the others.
For instance, when approaching the speed of light the physical object gets stretched into a string. Its increase in temporal direction is accompanied by a decrease in spatial direction.
Or am I wrong?

Satyr:

"That's a big IF."

Consider, if you will, this simple argument I have devised:

If one can only have somethingness or nothingness, then it stands to reason that if somethingness were to have an end, that the only alternative would be somethingness beyond it (which would imply infinity) or nothingness beyond it, which is an impossibility, as nothingness cannot exist (lest it cease to be nothingness). Moreover, as this never could different, eternity is demanded.

"They are a way existence manifests itself or a way consciousness translates existence."

What reference would conscousness have to create space and time? Thought itself requires a sequence, which requires time.

"Are you obsessed with the symbolism of a triad?"

Beginning to become so, yes. It seems that the Hegelian dialectic wasn't too far off the mark, when it paired everything in threes. Practically everything comes not as a pair, but as a trinity.

"Potentiality is a relationship based on absence."

In what way can an absence produce relation? Or do you mean that such relation stems from the fact that currently, two things are not connected, but will have to be in order to manifest the possibility?

"Multiple manifestations of potentiality coexist.
Their interactions determine reality."

So you are claiming that it is the interaction of myriad possibilities that govern reality?

"If there were an absolute then it would limit potentiality or determine it. Therefore it would cease being free. "

Actually, I would argue that it would facillitate potentiality. For if there is no absolute foundation for pententiality - let us say, the stag eupon which the actors perform the play - then there is no way potentiality could possibly manifest. It'd be emerging out from a void with no content.

"That's the point - excuse the pun - it is nowhere. "

If it is nowhere, how does it get to somewhere?

"A photo is a frozen moment. It is like a memory: a generalized frozen moment of space/time depicting a phenomenon in the process of becoming.
Its substantiality is determined by your limited perspective.
If you could take a quantum photo of it, it would be a nothing. "

Actually, doesn't even the supposed "probablistic potentiality", if so "snap shotted", collapse into a single point?

"Reality has no frozen moments.
Your senses only perceive a generality and this gives you the illusion of substance. "

If reality has no frozen moments, how does time progress? How does motion exist?

"If this were so then all existence would have ceased.
There would be no reason for movement or time/space."

I disagree and I think I presented a (portion) of my metaphysic argument in the post beforehand. If not, I shall present it at the end of this.

"Nothingness and Somethingness can be considered opposites because neither of them is ever completely so.
Ying/Yang. Something contains nothingness and Nothing contains somethingness which makes both unstable and so forever tumbling towards purity or absoluteness or chaos or completion. "

I would view, actually, somethingness and nothingness as yang and yin respectively, and the mixture only occuring on the transient/temporal level, which can indeed be construed as "partially something, partially nothing" or having "mixed natures".

"Okay."

I gave an argument in the first paragraph above. A condensed version, but one which I think is quite effective. I also have a dialectical argument.

"Inter-relations are infinite (if that).
This does not necessarily mean that the energies involved are infinite or that the universe is so.
Inter-relations produce possibilities.
How does mobility entail finitehood?"

Well it stands to reason that an infinite amount of inter-relations could not be produced from a finite amount of parts. That is to say, a gigantic amount of interactions could exist, but not an infinite amount.

But mobility entails finitehood by virtue of the fact that an infinite object would have no place to move within. That is to say, if it were infinite, movement would imply that something was around it, and therefore, it would not -be- infinite at all. However, on the finite scale, finite things can clearly move and also, by virtue of being finite, have something around them. That they can do this implies then that movement is a special quality of finitehood, for it is possible on that level but not on the infinite.

"Space time are not phenomena.
They are ways of perceiving and understanding phenomena.
They do not exist outside the mind."

Kant understand you here, Satyr. For from whence would mind gain the notions of time and space - and even do things mandating a reality of time - without their existence outside it?

"The mind creates models by seeking patterns. It notices that one particular phenomenon is always followed by another. If this succession is persistent and can be used to make accurate predictions it calls this succession a rule or ‘logic’.
But the succession might be a human imprecise generalization."

Actually, it would seem the rules of logic are more specifically found by reference to necessity. Things, that is, which manifest an impossibility to be otherwise than what they are, and with their opposites being plainly absurd.

"What sets this flux in motion?
What sets the universe in motion?
Spinoza's clockmaker God?
Unknown.
Does it need a prime mover?
If so, then at what point can we say that it doesn’t? "

Worthwhile questions to ponder. What are your answers?

"To Be is to lack all potential. It is an absolute state of inertia.
Therefore it would have no spatial or temporal existence."

Tell me: When a statue is carved out of marble, does it "drop out of existence" because the potentiality of the marble was made into actuality of the statue?

"Isn't that a double-negative?"

It describes well what an absence must truly be: THat which is not.

"Therefore it must be a phenomenon trying to be something.
It is a process of becoming.
Since it is never fulfilled we cannot call it Something in the absolute sense but only call it something in the general human sense denoting a phenomenon which we can never completely perceive or comprehend.
It is never There, Here, Substance, Point, but always a fleeting phenomenon in between Nothingness and Somethingness. "

One must ask: Even if objects pass away and come to be, does this imply an absence? No. For they are real when they are, and real in terms of the substance which they are created from which does not share in its cessation.

"There can never be certainty or else one becomes a fanatic. Furthermore certainly implies omniscience and a ‘Truth’. "

One needn't become a "fanatic" to know for certain. Moreover, truth is to be found quite easily on the necessary level. It is really on the practical, every-day level, which we have problems.

"Time is another way of saying Space as Space is another way of saying Time. "

Not at all. For how can time exist as space, if it facillitates movement within space? Whereas how can space exist as time, if space requires time to manifest motion and to give time a medium of expression?

"Whose standards would you propose using?"

Standards of universal applicability and highest-order necessity. That is to say, ontological somethingness and nothingness.

"But also, what makes you think that human comprehension is completely false?"

Not at all. Human preception is accurate and human reason is infallible.

"Our senses and our minds are products of this universe. They are made to exist and to be successful within it.
It follows to reason that our senses are not totally erroneous but only lacking in clarity and precision. "

I concur wholeheartedly.

"It is deterministic in that it produces unities or creatures that contain their entire historical background within their patterns.
Each phenomenon is a projection of its entire becoming up to the moment of its Willing.
The Will is how consciousness focuses its energies upon potentials/possibilities and what interacts with other Wills and other unconscious manifestations creating a web of inter-relations we call reality.

Only the mind can break free from patterns or divert them, and then with much effort.
This is why when I listen to imbeciles describing how rational they are or how selfless or how just or free, all the while displaying the opposite, it always amuses me. "

So you are claiming this will can transcend causality?

"You are assuming no less than the supernatural - might as well call this ‘outside’ god and be done with it. "

Not at all. I presume an utter naturalness, only an infinity to existence. Supernatural things would be ridiculous. See the first paragraph for why I presume that if this universe is not infinite, then existence itsel fis.

"The concept universe, for me, means all that IS – an enclosed system.
To imply an outside is to claim that you use the word universe to mean a part of a greater whole – UNIVERSE. "

All right. Well I was refering to the scientific usage of the word, which implies an expansion. An expansion necessitates a finitehood and something beyond. If by "universe" you mean "existence", then we can agree.

"It’s a desire to return to the source; back to the nothingness from whence you came from."

Nothingness is not permenance, it is not even temporality, it is nothingness. Why would the Will to Permenance manifest such a thing?

"You do not, of course, admit this to yourself or to anyone else.
You mask it behind ideals and absolute notions which contain oxymoronic concepts. "

I actually hold no possibility of attaining anything absolute. I am a temporal being, as are you, and as are all of us.

"Thing is life is a perpetual, repetitive, self-sustaining process.
Its only goal is to continue living."

I agree, in so much as this also includes "living well". Living beings, at least of a specific complexity, do not wish just for baseline survival.

"It is only a mind freed from the burdens of living that can contemplate its condition and intuitively desire to cease.
Nihilism is the natural destination of any thinking mind. "

It is a particular degeneracy of the higher lifeforms, yes.

"Nietzsche advises us to avoid falling into Schopenhauer’s Buddhist trap of denial of life, judging this to be a cowards and weakling’s way out, nor does he advise to fall into the imbecile’s trap of remaining obtuse and hypocritical and stupid so as to escape reality’s woes. He advises to embrace it all and stare into the void."

Nietzsche was brilliant when he was brilliant - such as in this case - but horrible elsewise. Thank God (though he is dead) for his brilliance.

"Yet man must face the choice.
Life and all that it entails or oblivion. "

A profoundly great quote.

"Are you claiming to possess an absolute?
What you call your “identity” is simply a mantle to cover up the emptiness."

No, only that our identity is non-absolute and simply a process of growing, of enhancing, of flowering, as it were.

"Peel away the layers of what you consider self, your status, job, sex, emotions and you have nothing at the core."

One still has the perceiver. Of course, take that away, and you do indeed have nothing.

"The temporal and transient are labels given to what has no being.
It is this not-being, this becoming which expresses temporality/spatiality and the universe in constant flux."

It has no absolute being, but it certainly has being so long as it is manifest, and exists as potential from eternity till its manifestation, and indeed, once it is shown to be able to manifest, can again manifest an infinite amount of times over in an infinite amount of time.

"The mind is, itself, a multiplicity.
The universe knows no singularities. "

How then does a mind happen to decide upon one course of action? To act unified?

"No one.
Why does thinking demand a thinker."

Why does thinking demand a thinker? For in an absence of the thinker, the thought would not come to be, and if there were no thinking to perceive the thought, the thought would not be known.

"Ignorance implies an absence of knowledge.
Nothing else can be said about it. "

Yet are we ignorant of the self when it seems that it must exist in order for us to exist as thinking beings? That is what I am challenging: The ignorance.

"An EYE period.
Internal is a myth."

Where does the perception of sight come int othe mind if not in the internal state?

"Nevertheless the physical is a projection of the mental.
The physical is form and color and movement.
Physique and Character.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=56944"

I shall check that out shortly.

"The piece that is missing is the piece that is perceiving or looking or thinking."

If one is that piece, is one lacking it?

"The picture is only partial.
Know Thyself can only be so accurate.
Most rarely see themselves or admit what they are to themselves until they die.
They live and die in complete ignorance. "

Some people, yes, are those which we call self-deceptive in nature.

"Perhaps a particle of Something, a stain.
What would cause the Big Bang to manifest?
If before it all the forces were one and united what would tear them apart?
Unknown. "

It is indeed unknown in specifics, but we know indeed that it was a cause, and that the big-bang's constituent particles and forces were pre-existent.

"The thinking understands itself. That’s why it is self-consciousness.
There is no second or third party involved.
Thinking itself is a multiplicity producing itself."

Where is the capacity of understanding to be found in a thought itself?

"That’s why not even sleep stops brain activity.
The flow is ceaseless until death, just at the beating heart beats until death.
What makes the heart beat?
A beater?"

A heart does not need a thinker in order to be a coherent thing. A thought requires a thinker in order for it to satisfy thoughthood.

"Thinking may indeed be temporal, but a thinker needn't see only something which is not temporal in order to know itself as the perceiver and thinker of the thoughts.

Huh?"

Temporality of thought doesn't disprove a thinker.

""Meaningfulness"?
Meaning is a human construct trying to gain a purpose for its suffering; trying to make its life have value."

A thought is a packet of information. What is information without something there to make use and understand such information? This is its "meaningfulness". A neuron firing might well carry a thought upon it - although actually, I find such highly unlikely, although I point to the brain as the area which consciousness emerges relationally from - but if this neural-impulse's information does not have an "information perceiver", then its physical properties do not amount to anything but any other electric discharge, and its meaningfulness as a thought is non-existent.

"The thinking mind is constant motion and activity."

I agree, it is. The mind never ceases fully. In essence: We are on 24/7 until death. The thinker is always thinking.

"You can say: Where is Bob’s position at this general point in time/space?"

Yes indeed, but the position in space and the position in time are two distinct measurements of two distinct things. That one must clarify "at this time" implies this, for at other times, Bob would not be there, whereas the space would stay the same.

"Einstein tells us that as you increase spatial participation in one dimension you decrease it in the others.
For instance, when approaching the speed of light the physical object gets stretched into a string. Its increase in temporal direction is accompanied by a decrease in spatial direction.
Or am I wrong?"

I am not so sure that such is true, no. For one is not attaining so much a "temporal direction" by travelling at the speed of light, as one is simply taking on a spatial direction at extremely fast speeds.

Satyr:

"That's a big IF."

Consider, if you will, this simple argument I have devised:

If one can only have somethingness or nothingness, then it stands to reason that if somethingness were to have an end, that the only alternative would be somethingness beyond it (which would imply infinity) or nothingness beyond it, which is an impossibility, as nothingness cannot exist (lest it cease to be nothingness). Moreover, as this never could different, eternity is demanded.If Somethingness had an end then it would constitute a finite whole with a beginning and an end.

The universe we perceive is not nothingness. It is a vibrating field of Somethingness trying to return to its previous state by resisting the Nothingness from tearing it apart.
The universe was a singularity. We can call it Something but we cannot say that it existed since we define existing as that which manifests itself in Time/Space as phenomena.
Time/Space is how the mind interprets or perceives phenomena; a way of understanding them.

A flaw, (Call it a Negation) caused the expansion and fracturing resulting in this Nothingness to be launched as a process.
Nothingness is what was added, if you will, to the Something so as to create reality.

Let us change terminology.
There was order or near perfect order.
Within this order a speck of disorder caused fracturing and entropic decay – a lack, an absence.
Why?
Unknown.
Perhaps the universe is a constant flow where some regions flow towards order and others towards disorder in an endless loop – a river of entropy if you will. We exist within only a piece of the flow and so perceive it as unidirectional.
Life could only exist in our region of entropic flow because its opposite would entail no ‘positive’ resistance to the ‘negative’ flow but a ‘negative’ resistance to the ‘positive’ flow. In this theoretical other region everything would be reversed.
Life is a positive resistance to a particular entropic flow, we call negative because it is detrimental to life.
The negative requires no effort, in our region, because it is part of the normal entropic flow whereas resistance, the positive, does because it goes against the entropic flow.
The Big bang is the focal point the turning of this entropic river just as the Big Crunch is the opposite turning point.

This flow from order towards disorder we call temporality and spatiality because it is how we measure and perceive it.
It corresponds to a flux, a constant turmoil of fragmenting and joining and struggling to stop and reverse entropy.
This created ephemeral force/energy unities trying to construct order in the growing disorder.
This is felt as Need by living creatures. Consciousness interprets it as suffering.
"They are a way existence manifests itself or a way consciousness translates existence."

What reference would conscousness have to create space and time? Thought itself requires a sequence, which requires time. A reference?
It doesn’t ‘create’ space/time it is part of how consciousness functions.
But I concede that dimensions are references to something, since the brain doesn’t just imagine but, being a product of the universe, interprets.

The mind thinks in a general simplifying sequential flow and it projects potential, imprecise positions and/or destinations.
It perceives competing phenomena and barriers and difficulties who, like it project their own possibilities and who attempt to appropriate the forces necessary to achieve fulfillment or perfection.
This is reality.
"Are you obsessed with the symbolism of a triad?"

Beginning to become so, yes. It seems that the Hegelian dialectic wasn't too far off the mark, when it paired everything in threes. Practically everything comes not as a pair, but as a trinity.Why do you suppose?
I always believed that symbolisms are connected to biological reasons.
For example, the emotional value of music is connected to some biological memory of the womb and is, in turn, connected to vibrating energies in what we call the universe.
"Potentiality is a relationship based on absence."

In what way can an absence produce relation? Or do you mean that such relation stems from the fact that currently, two things are not connected, but will have to be in order to manifest the possibility?That and two things compete for the same potential.
This appropriation of energies towards possibility creates a conflict, cooperative relationship and eventually leads to unities such as animals.
"Multiple manifestations of potentiality coexist.
Their interactions determine reality."

So you are claiming that it is the interaction of myriad possibilities that govern reality?Yes.

There is a finite amount of energy in the universe. We compete to appropriate and use it to complete ourselves or to resist entropic attrition.
"If there were an absolute then it would limit potentiality or determine it. Therefore it would cease being free. "

Actually, I would argue that it would facillitate potentiality. For if there is no absolute foundation for pententiality - let us say, the stag eupon which the actors perform the play - then there is no way potentiality could possibly manifest. It'd be emerging out from a void with no content. Then you are a determinist?If there is a grand stage then we are only free enough to act upon it.
"That's the point - excuse the pun - it is nowhere. "

If it is nowhere, how does it get to somewhere?It never does.
The point is a generalization with no meaning. It is, itself, infinitely divisible.
When you say “I will go there” you are referring to two generalities with no specificity.
“I’ and ‘There”.

When you get to “there” you do not mean anything specific. The there is a perspective generalization. If you could shrink infinitely you would find a nothing there.

You call “there” a general hypothetical point in the fixed past this { }.
The first bracket represents the beginning of your thought and the other the end of it.
The middle is non-existent and non-specific.

There is no Here because if there were it would drop out of space/time. You are never anywhere absolutely but always in motion.
Being still is a perspective fallacy and illusion. You are never still. You are always moving and acting.

"A photo is a frozen moment. It is like a memory: a generalized frozen moment of space/time depicting a phenomenon in the process of becoming.
Its substantiality is determined by your limited perspective.
If you could take a quantum photo of it, it would be a nothing. "

Actually, doesn't even the supposed "probablistic potentiality", if so "snap shotted", collapse into a single point? A photo is a representation not the actual thing.
The photo itself is in decay the moment you create it.
The image is a representation.
Just like a statue is a representation, a symbol of a singularity, that is why art is so fascinating.
Art depicts a non-temporal image or form. Sometimes, as in music, it represents a non-physical form.
The art subtracts some of the dimensions through symbolism.

A statue of a woman isn’t the actual woman but a symbol of a woman, in stone which is in perpetual motion, frozen in time.

"Reality has no frozen moments.
Your senses only perceive a generality and this gives you the illusion of substance. "

If reality has no frozen moments, how does time progress? How does motion exist?Motion is temporal/spatial flow.
Time/Space is the flux made manifest. Time/Space is how our mind simplifies the phenomenon of entropic decay.

"If this were so then all existence would have ceased.
There would be no reason for movement or time/space."

I disagree and I think I presented a (portion) of my metaphysic argument in the post beforehand. If not, I shall present it at the end of this.

"Nothingness and Somethingness can be considered opposites because neither of them is ever completely so.
Ying/Yang. Something contains nothingness and Nothing contains somethingness which makes both unstable and so forever tumbling towards purity or absoluteness or chaos or completion. "

I would view, actually, somethingness and nothingness as yang and yin respectively, and the mixture only occuring on the transient/temporal level, which can indeed be construed as "partially something, partially nothing" or having "mixed natures".

"Okay."

I gave an argument in the first paragraph above. A condensed version, but one which I think is quite effective. I also have a dialectical argument.

"Inter-relations are infinite (if that).
This does not necessarily mean that the energies involved are infinite or that the universe is so.
Inter-relations produce possibilities.
How does mobility entail finitehood?"

Well it stands to reason that an infinite amount of inter-relations could not be produced from a finite amount of parts. That is to say, a gigantic amount of interactions could exist, but not an infinite amount.Then let us speak of finite relationhips and parts.

But mobility entails finitehood by virtue of the fact that an infinite object would have no place to move within. That is to say, if it were infinite, movement would imply that something was around it, and therefore, it would not -be- infinite at all. However, on the finite scale, finite things can clearly move and also, by virtue of being finite, have something around them. That they can do this implies then that movement is a special quality of finitehood, for it is possible on that level but not on the infinite.Agreed.

"Space time are not phenomena.
They are ways of perceiving and understanding phenomena.
They do not exist outside the mind."

Kant understand you here, Satyr. For from whence would mind gain the notions of time and space - and even do things mandating a reality of time - without their existence outside it?The mind evolves to facilitate survival. As such it simplifies and directs.
Its interpretation of time/space are simplified, yet effective ways of making sense of itself and the universe.

"The mind creates models by seeking patterns. It notices that one particular phenomenon is always followed by another. If this succession is persistent and can be used to make accurate predictions it calls this succession a rule or ‘logic’.
But the succession might be a human imprecise generalization."

Actually, it would seem the rules of logic are more specifically found by reference to necessity. Things, that is, which manifest an impossibility to be otherwise than what they are, and with their opposites being plainly absurd.

"What sets this flux in motion?
What sets the universe in motion?
Spinoza's clockmaker God?
Unknown.
Does it need a prime mover?
If so, then at what point can we say that it doesn’t? "

Worthwhile questions to ponder. What are your answers?I have hypothesis not answers.
Why complicate things by arbitrarily adding a conscious, prime mover?

I believe what consciousness or godliness exists in the universe is in us.
We are the universe becoming conscious of its self.

"To Be is to lack all potential. It is an absolute state of inertia.
Therefore it would have no spatial or temporal existence."

Tell me: When a statue is carved out of marble, does it "drop out of existence" because the potentiality of the marble was made into actuality of the statue?I dealt with this before.
The statue itself is not what it represents.
The human eye recognizes the form and the image it depicts.
The statue itself in marble, decaying and flowing, as you witness it representing a frozen form.

What makes marble appear hard is that it flows slower than us.
It’s hardness and seeming stability is a façade caused by our inability to perceive beyond a certain speed.
Marble is more resistant to entropic decay and so is more stable and lasting. This is interpreted, by the mind, as hardness.

"Isn't that a double-negative?"

It describes well what an absence must truly be: THat which is not.

"Therefore it must be a phenomenon trying to be something.
It is a process of becoming.
Since it is never fulfilled we cannot call it Something in the absolute sense but only call it something in the general human sense denoting a phenomenon which we can never completely perceive or comprehend.
It is never There, Here, Substance, Point, but always a fleeting phenomenon in between Nothingness and Somethingness. "

One must ask: Even if objects pass away and come to be, does this imply an absence? No. For they are real when they are, and real in terms of the substance which they are created from which does not share in its cessation.
In the universal region that we occupy there is no absolute nothing. Space is not in an absolute zero temperature state.
There is dissipating, background energy lingering as part of the expansion.
This is what we call the fabric of space/time.

Energies pool and appear as matter upon this fabric.

"There can never be certainty or else one becomes a fanatic. Furthermore certainly implies omniscience and a ‘Truth’. "

One needn't become a "fanatic" to know for certain. Moreover, truth is to be found quite easily on the necessary level. It is really on the practical, every-day level, which we have problems.To be forever skeptical is the mark of a healthy, honest, courageous mind.

Certainty is the mark of the closed-minded, hypocritical, cowardly mind, wanting definite answers to questions it can never know for sure but only speculate about.
Once someone comes to the table of discussion seeking final answers he sets himself up to be prejudice and needy.

The universe is uncertain and truth is built on competing/cooperating elements, forever constructing the real.
The uncertain is the free.

And while we are on the subject: How can you consistently respond to someone like lightgigantic with obvious mental deficiencies and psychological needs for certainty and moral high-grounds?
He’s set up a reality where the spiritual and the material are two different things: one evil and other good.
Then he references philosophy and uses terms like ‘epistemology’ or ‘ontology’, parroting them but never comprehending them, pretending he’s thought this out to this absolute end on his own and with honesty and courage.

He already knows what the destination is. All he wants to argue is how to get there.
That is the definition of prejudiced thinking.
The psychological reasons for this need for absolutes can be found in existence itself.

"Time is another way of saying Space as Space is another way of saying Time. "

Not at all. For how can time exist as space, if it facillitates movement within space? Whereas how can space exist as time, if space requires time to manifest motion and to give time a medium of expression?They both represent potential.

"Whose standards would you propose using?"

Standards of universal applicability and highest-order necessity. That is to say, ontological somethingness and nothingness.

"But also, what makes you think that human comprehension is completely false?"

Not at all. Human preception is accurate and human reason is infallible.Agreed.

"Our senses and our minds are products of this universe. They are made to exist and to be successful within it.
It follows to reason that our senses are not totally erroneous but only lacking in clarity and precision. "

I concur wholeheartedly.

"It is deterministic in that it produces unities or creatures that contain their entire historical background within their patterns.
Each phenomenon is a projection of its entire becoming up to the moment of its Willing.
The Will is how consciousness focuses its energies upon potentials/possibilities and what interacts with other Wills and other unconscious manifestations creating a web of inter-relations we call reality.

Only the mind can break free from patterns or divert them, and then with much effort.
This is why when I listen to imbeciles describing how rational they are or how selfless or how just or free, all the while displaying the opposite, it always amuses me. "

So you are claiming this will can transcend causality?I don’t know about “transcending” because then this would imply that man can become god, an absolute.
Since I do think absolutes are possible then it is the pursuit that gives meaning and identity to the pursuer.
It is the voyage and not the destination.

But, yes, I believe only Will can become master of destiny.
Intelligence and consciousness are evolutionary steps towards controlling and directing energies.
If man wants to become more than just an animal, then just calling himself reasonable is not going to do it.
Man has to train himself and learn how to control his drives and emotions and instincts and reason, with his Will.

"You are assuming no less than the supernatural - might as well call this ‘outside’ god and be done with it. "

Not at all. I presume an utter naturalness, only an infinity to existence. Supernatural things would be ridiculous. See the first paragraph for why I presume that if this universe is not infinite, then existence itsel fis.

"The concept universe, for me, means all that IS – an enclosed system.
To imply an outside is to claim that you use the word universe to mean a part of a greater whole – UNIVERSE. "

All right. Well I was refering to the scientific usage of the word, which implies an expansion. An expansion necessitates a finitehood and something beyond. If by "universe" you mean "existence", then we can agree.

"It’s a desire to return to the source; back to the nothingness from whence you came from."

Nothingness is not permenance, it is not even temporality, it is nothingness. Why would the Will to Permenance manifest such a thing?
Obviously nothingness is not permanence or else it would be an absolute.

Why?
There is no answer to this.
Why not?

Why, is a human question trying to find a conscious reason behind the unconscious unreasonable.

"You do not, of course, admit this to yourself or to anyone else.
You mask it behind ideals and absolute notions which contain oxymoronic concepts. "

I actually hold no possibility of attaining anything absolute. I am a temporal being, as are you, and as are all of us.

"Thing is life is a perpetual, repetitive, self-sustaining process.
Its only goal is to continue living."

I agree, in so much as this also includes "living well". Living beings, at least of a specific complexity, do not wish just for baseline survival.

"It is only a mind freed from the burdens of living that can contemplate its condition and intuitively desire to cease.
Nihilism is the natural destination of any thinking mind. "

It is a particular degeneracy of the higher lifeforms, yes.

"Nietzsche advises us to avoid falling into Schopenhauer’s Buddhist trap of denial of life, judging this to be a cowards and weakling’s way out, nor does he advise to fall into the imbecile’s trap of remaining obtuse and hypocritical and stupid so as to escape reality’s woes. He advises to embrace it all and stare into the void."

Nietzsche was brilliant when he was brilliant - such as in this case - but horrible elsewise. Thank God (though he is dead) for his brilliance.

"Yet man must face the choice.
Life and all that it entails or oblivion. "

A profoundly great quote.

"Are you claiming to possess an absolute?
What you call your “identity” is simply a mantle to cover up the emptiness."

No, only that our identity is non-absolute and simply a process of growing, of enhancing, of flowering, as it were.

"Peel away the layers of what you consider self, your status, job, sex, emotions and you have nothing at the core."

One still has the perceiver. Of course, take that away, and you do indeed have nothing. What makes man’s quest meaningful is the pursuit of this substance.

"The temporal and transient are labels given to what has no being.
It is this not-being, this becoming which expresses temporality/spatiality and the universe in constant flux."

It has no absolute being, but it certainly has being so long as it is manifest, and exists as potential from eternity till its manifestation, and indeed, once it is shown to be able to manifest, can again manifest an infinite amount of times over in an infinite amount of time.

"The mind is, itself, a multiplicity.
The universe knows no singularities. "

How then does a mind happen to decide upon one course of action? To act unified?Simple.
The mind acts as arbitrator of Need.

Multiple needs compete for the mind’s attention.

Once one need is temporarily placated another takes its place.
How does the mind decide?
It reasons and judges the value or seriousness of the Need by its volume.
When my hunger reaches a certain proportion all else fails to occupy my mind.
My brain is preoccupied with fulfilling this need - if I do not the suffering increases, vying for my immediate attentions.
When I feed the lowering of my need for nutrition is felt as pleasure.
This only lasts for so long before a new need takes the front.
And so it goes on and on, in a continuous cycle.

"No one.
Why does thinking demand a thinker."

Why does thinking demand a thinker? For in an absence of the thinker, the thought would not come to be, and if there were no thinking to perceive the thought, the thought would not be known. Knowing is absorbing.
The thinking incorporates the information into its thinking patterns. Then it is said to ‘know’.
It's like redirecting a river.

"Ignorance implies an absence of knowledge.
Nothing else can be said about it. "

Yet are we ignorant of the self when it seems that it must exist in order for us to exist as thinking beings? That is what I am challenging: The ignorance.The first and only thing you can know for sure is the self.

"An EYE period.
Internal is a myth."

Where does the perception of sight come int othe mind if not in the internal state?Internal simply indicates hidden from view.
Sight is the gathering of visual information and its integration within the thinking process, via the brain.

"Nevertheless the physical is a projection of the mental.
The physical is form and color and movement.
Physique and Character.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=56944"

I shall check that