Hey @ll,
After reading through some stuff here and elsewhere it seems to me that generally humans like to think in vectors. For philosophy that means that there are more expressed thoughts towards the “bigger” entity, towards a “god”, towards an “ultimate cause” and its meaning for us. The vector points from the human being straight to the superior one. People wonder whether there is a god or not, whether we are part of a bigger pattern etc. But why do so few people think the other way? Why can I see so few vectors going the other direction? Could it be that WE are gods, too? That WE are causes for something that happens in “lower realms”?
AND: if (!) there were a god and it would think in vectors, too? It would think away from us, wouldn’t it? Being preoccupied with the bigger things rather than worrying that IT is the cause for some small things happening to happen to some irrelevant little humans? :eek:

I've said this before a lot. So far, there is no god or supreme deity. There is only the human species, which, compared to anything else known to exist, is the greatest work of nature ever achieved. Anyone that can read this is a being of incredible power, able to accomplish feats that are incomprehensible to any other form of life. We are gods among animals. We don't have total control over the earth, or of the universe, but I'm sure that given time, and a little luck, it won't be long before everything has been conquered. May it be for better or for worse.

If we can survive ourselves, and the elements, domination of everything in existence is guaranteed. I remember seeing a quote somewhere, can't think of it directly, however someone said that the time in history we are in right now is the most important time there has ever been, because we stand precariously over the precipice of extinction, with total omnipotence just out of arm's reach. We may be the only lifeforms in the universe that are intelligent, so far there has been no evidence of any nonhuman intelligent life, and this means that the man is right. Isn't it exciting? One little move could devastate everything, wipe us all out--while perserverance could guarantee us whatever our magical minds can imagine.

I like your "line of thinking" we don't think the other way because
is doesn't seem to make sense, it's random and chaotic. It's easier to think towards a higher order because it's well... orderly, it’s something we can envision. It's easy to believe that we as conscious beings evolved from unconscious matter but is this the truth?

Hi moving,
That was your first posting here! Thanks.

I like your "line of thinking" we don't think the other way becauseis doesn't seem to make sense, it's random and chaotic.

But WHY?

It's easier to think towards a higher order because it's well... orderly,

But WHY is it easier?

You mean the fact of our "ascendence" makes us “think away from our roots”? But why?

Sorry for being a pest :)

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Sparkle - Nice question.

Asking (or answering) questions in the other direction is perfectly possible and very rewarding. It just takes a bit of suspension of disbelief (assuming you don't believe, not otherwise of course), and equal portions empathy, logic and practice. (Or you just take the non-thinking route of meditation).

Most people don't bother because they believe what Pollux said, (which is a faith-based personal opinion). Whether there is a God (or eternal consciousness, or Ultimate Being, or a monist foundation of existence, or Supreme Entity, or Cosmic Consciousness etc etc) is unknown to science and unknowable within science. That doesn't mean any of these things exist, but it means they could.

It therefore makes perfect sense to put ourselves in the place of this entity and, as you say, reverse the direction of our questions and explanations, at worst it's just a thought experiment. You don't have to believe anything in particular, it just takes some imagination. (It is possible to deduce that God (if there is such a thing and it's conscious) must share some important properties with human beings for instance).

Human consciousness and everything else evolved from something, and we don't yet have a scientific clue as to what it was.

Also - to start with what we know of the world and work backwards as we usually do is very difficult because it's working aginst the grain, from complexity to simplicity. In many ways it's easier, or at least complimentary, to build explanations in the other direction, starting with the hypothetical most singular state and trying logically to explain the world as we know it.

Sorry to waffle on but I thought it was a good question.

My thinking is that this universe and those that exhibit conscious thought are the physical and mental manifestation of god, Maybe he quite literally threw himself into his work and every single action in this vast physical domain is heading towards one inevitable conclusion, the reconstitution, for lack of a better word, of god. Doesn't he say, according to the christian bible, that he is the alpha and the omega, I don't totally think it's the answer but it's a possibility. Then again god may just be someone that wanted an ant farm (us being the ants) and then forgot he created us because he had other cool things to do.

The vectors do point in both directions.
That, very roughly, is the essence of "As above, so below" philosophy.

@ Canute,
thanks for your thoughts. Yes, I agree that it IS possible (and rewarding as well) to think the other direction, but it does not seem the natural way. Just look at the amount of books on the topic whether there is a “higher purpose” or not and if yes, what would that mean etc. On the other hand, there is almost nothing in comparison dealing with the problem the other way round: that we COULD very well be the guardians of this earth and what consequences arise from this position (I know that there are people who actually DO think this way, but they are not mainstream). In this respect I don’t understand why you say it is easier to think from complexity to simplicity. Can you explain that? Why is “thinking up” for you equal to “thinking towards simplicity”? For me it’s the other way round - I find “thinking up” more complex, because you get caught in a mesh of theories that nobody can prove. When you “think down” at least you have things you can experience with your senses, things you actually can WATCH. For me that would mean more simplicity. Still people don’t usually do it. And still, people like to think that IF there’d be a superior being, it would care to “think down”. That’s a contradiction to me. :confused:

@ Pollux, siledre
I am not clear what the absence or presence of a god would have to do with vectored thinking. Please explain. Whether or not there is one – it doesn’t change the fact that we tend to “think up”.

@ Circe
Please elaborate.:confused:

In my last post I was just pointing out a possibility, as far as I'm concerned I'm just an observer and have no expectations other than my death in about 50 to 60 more years.

Sparkle, you already said it yourself - we are a part of a bigger pattern - to which I want to add - and yet every part is a whole at the same time. Macrocosmos equals microcosmos.

Macrocosmos
/\
|
|
\/
Microcosmos

This is what As Above So Below postulates. Therefore, it also implies that the vectors point both ways, ie there's divinity in each and every one of us.

This is the main principle of the Hermetic philosophy.

correct me if i'm wrong sparkle but when you say "god" i get the impression you're actually thinking of a supreme being. when i think "god" i think "divine force" so that's why i think people tend to lean towards god for reasons. if you look in the past, you can see that people atributed alot more value to the power of the gods in the past than nowadays. the greeks had a god for everything, who was the cause for everything of the specific domain. science has helped us find the true reasons things happened, instead of attributing the gods for the acts.

Originally posted by sparkle
@ Canute,
...In this respect I don’t understand why you say it is easier to think from complexity to simplicity. Can you explain that? Why is “thinking up” for you equal to “thinking towards simplicity”? For me it’s the other way round - I find “thinking up” more complex, because you get caught in a mesh of theories that nobody can prove. When you “think down” at least you have things you can experience with your senses, things you actually can WATCH. For me that would mean more simplicity.

I think I said the opposite of this, that in many ways it's easier to think upwards FROM simplicity. All this means is that it is sometimes easier to create a simple hypothesis of what underlies existence and then test it by seeing if it is capable of explaining what we see here and now rather than to keep collecting more and more complex details and trying to work backwards from that to a simple hypothesis. How many more details do we need, for goodness sake?

As to proof I don't know. We do know from Goedel that truth extends beyond proof, in other words we know for certain that we cannot ever prove scientifically or rationally everything that is true. For related reasons I would argue that there is no provably true and completely logical explanation of existence, not just because of Goedel's theorum of incompleteness, but because there isn't one. By my calculations existence cannot be logically explained within any axiomatic (dualistic) system of explanation because in dualistic systems of thinking it always has at least two explanations, neither of which is quite correct. For this reason it is not just useful to 'reverse the vector', it is the only way of getting at the truth.

Apologies if that sounds cryptic but I'd bore you to death if I tried to justify it fully here. I'll just say that right or wrong it's an opinion based on logic and science, not revelation or a belief in some book or other.

Yeah Rubix, I think I have to correct you here. ;) I am atheist. That may be the reason for my not understanding the logic of religious followers: if god is basically the same as we are, it would logically think away from us – in the same way we think away from things that surround us. (circe, forgive me, I know Bardon’s philosophy a bit, but I think that there are not too many people knowing about hermetic philosophy.) If god were real, force or consciousness or a thing creating emanations or whatever, it would think towards maybe a “supergod”, wouldn’t it? Yes, I agree science gradually replaced god/s, but it also replaces spirituality. Anyway, science still tends to put everything in a bigger context, experiments how it would fit where and why etc. Science appaers not to take the viewpoint of being a tool of creatures at a higher level of consciousness than others and therefore responsible for those… *sigh* … difficult to explain, did you get me?

Circe: Hmmm, I read Bardon some years ago, but the connection slipped me. I’ll have some homework to do now, :). But say: would you state that we (most of us) divide our thinking between “up” and “down” in a 1:1 relation?

Canute: Why should your posting be boring? I am glad some people try to follow what I have so many difficulties explaining….:(

I think Circe is on the right track. The Bible say God is in EVERYTHING. The cells that make up our bodies, atoms, the universe, everything. Does this mean everything has knowledge and a conscience including the cells? Could we be gods to the cells in our bodies as they serve our cause? Could this be just one link in a chain?
Maybe thinking in the other direction doesn't seem to make sense because we don't want it to. It would be counter-productive.

If by 'God' you mean some fundamental form of consiousness then it's not just the bible that says it. Panpsychism is a common belief among people who think about such things, and always has been. As Nagel said "panpsychism appears to follow from a few simple premises, each of which is more plausible than its denial".

But if it's true we are not 'God of our cells'. They are as much 'God' as we are.

Originally posted by moving
Does this mean everything has knowledge and a conscience including the cells?
@moving
This sentence of you got me off. Thinking I mean. Let me throw that in here, knowing I have not finished thinking, but let’s see how others respond….What if cells ARE conscious? In a sense of being aware they “ARE”? Because only by being aware of who one is can one interact efficiently with others or dead matter. If a cell is able to carry out osmosis, to isolate harmful substances – then it must be aware that it is. (Hmmmm. Read this again…. for a bacteriophagus [sorry if English is not correct] or blood cells that looks right, but for normal tissue cells????) Anyway, if therefore consciousness starts in tiny portions at cell level and amasses somehow before it becomes THE consciousness, that would explain a bit this vectored thinking as we have a built-in “stream” from the lower to the higher and the thinking just follows it. (Aaaaaarghhh, that sounds so esoteric, but I’ll try to explain below.)

Of course cells could also work as a kind of pre-programmed unit, mechanical, without consciousness. Then the blood system and all others would work as a pre-programmed unit, too. Ultimately we would be pre-programmed units as well. Or why would we need consciousness? What for?

Pre-programming would require a very good programme with lots of built-in solutions for a lot of anticipated problems. Therefore I find it not very probable. By being conscious we learn to adapt and therefore don’t need such a big programme. We become self-regulatory. And now back to vectored thinking: we are conscious, we are self-regulating systems functioning on a life-long process of learning (a balance of “forgetting” and “unforgetting”). That means that each learning process has led us somewhere perceived better than the pre-learning state. What was before learning is, in general, “forgotten”. Is it this, what gives our thinking the momentum to go “up”???
Phew!:bugeye:

Great stuff. If you study the complex and goal-directed behaviour of bacteriophages it's hard to believe that they're not conscious.

What learning does is blind us to our basic and simple state of consciousness. Thus the 'unlearning' recommended by non-scientific philosophies of existence, and the metaphorical 'Tree of Knowledge' warning.