By not presuming myself to be a saint.
That's a good start. And you presume me to be ... a demon?
They like him for what they hold dear, what they project into him.
Hero? Genius? Tenacious? And you don't think he lights the lamp in their projector?
Stephen Hawking may have many powers, but, like most humans, it is not within his power to control the affections of others.
I would like to think that this is a distributed phenomenon, that there is a collective activity, mostly subliminal, but also seen in the cheery effusively bubbly personas among us, your lotus perhaps, spread out among countless living breathing people who are sentient universals. And this is where affection arises, not in a selfish power, but one that is generous. I see in him that generosity that garners affection. His particular interest in black holes and the big bang singularity is the stuff of buddha I would think. Not a fat round faced jolly Buddha, but a slobbering hulk, ravaged by the nature he desperately clings to, while defying the fatal illness for ... almost 50 years now?
I have made it very clear that I am addressing those who claim to have superior knowledge of The Truth, of The Absolute Truth.
This gets bandied about all the time. Science oriented folks (SOFs) like to address best evidence and revisit facts and information to plug holes in weary brains etc. Maybe it's a holdover from social grooming, who knows. But as soon as some factual tidbit is on the table, truth has some reference point from which SOFs can gravitate. You seem to be saying you're not interested in trivia, you're here to address the Big Picture. But as soon as you bring that to a SOF, you're likely to evoke the answer that this is all there is and when it's over it's forever over. Maybe that's a turn off for you. But the SOF will likely answer: that is the Absolute Truth.
I've no issue with people who claim to have superior knowledge of Italian grammar, the biology of flea reproduction or Michelangelo's art.
Or any of the many trivial pursuits here either, then. The SOFs want to be present to this now even if it takes them tripping though some curiosity about the mite that inhabits the eyelash of a flea, or the mass of stone used to carve the
Pietà, or even what was going through his mind that he was able to pour out so much angst into a chisel. Somehow all of this adds up to that Absolute Truth, at least as the SOF is concerned.
(The best kind of exchanges were the ones where I was found wrong, and able to learn from it. In most cases I stumbled onto these discoveries while trying to remember what it is that I think I know.) Exactly. And this is what I am looking for, in regard to the topic of Absolute Truth.
I guess - since I'm just another SOF - I would have to ask you why it's not right under your nose. Do you own a microscope? Just look at what's crawling around all over the microcosm that you know is there, but which you may not find relevant in terms of that Big Picture. This is probably what derails SOFs in the exchanges with you. We want that truth, too, and we want it now.
A true buddha actually has the capacity to enlighten others.
I subscribe to this usage of enlightenment (in place of wielding it like a sword). SOFs probably also see this as a distributed activity. There are some remarkably bright contributors here who are excellent teachers even if it's not enlightenment in terms of the Big Picture you may be after. Here again I would encourage you to invest in sky watching or anything else you like to do that connects you to the present unfolding, insofar as I think that's what the SOFs are after, and in moments of awe and wonder all you have to do is tell yourself this is it, the Absolute Truth is a ripple on the timeline, a now that ever advances, cognizant of every other now that ever was or ever will be (at least conceptually) and put that in your pipe and smoke it. It may not be at all what you are trying to say to me but that's my take on it.
If we ever get around to the ideas of Stephen Hawking, and happen on land on the ideas of relative time - particularly timelessness - that's where the really Big Picture rolls in and eclipses all the trivia. At least that's my take.
