Absolute thought

[No Robots]

It appears from the sudden silence that I may have gone too far. My apologies.

 

[lostone]

It appears from the sudden silence that I may have gone too far. My apologies.

I can agree that matter/energy/space-time could have some rudimentary consciousness, but I am not convinced that its consciousness is on any very high level

 

[No Robots]

I can agree that matter/energy/space-time could have some rudimentary consciousness, but I am not convinced that its consciousness is on any very high level

Yes, each form has its own distinct consciousness just as it has its own distinct body.

 

[steve_bank]

The cosmic consciousness mythical mumbo jumbo 'mob'.

Living in a world of quotes and profound revelations. When in doubt look up a quote, unconscious conditioned reactions.

You are the dead, the psychic dead.

An evangelical proselytizing mystic, you don't see that very often.

The feeling of extended consciousness and that the universe is alive is a subjective perception. You feel the 'energy' of the universe. It is placebo effect, and the basis of all mystical and religious traditions.
ve Jesus and I feel te love of Jesus in return. I feel good.

A New Ag type might say the universe is love, I love the inverse and it loves me back. Same affect as theist beliefs.

Theosophy has been around for a long time.

As I like to say it is not what you believe, but how you believe it. All religions and mystical traditions through faith and belief release those feel good hormones. That feel good feeling is real enough, it is brain chemistry.

There is no need to psychically go to Mars. We cam just astral project.

I looked up your future in the Akashic Record, I am sorry it does not look good for you.

 

[No Robots]

The cosmic consciousness mythical mumbo jumbo 'mob'.

Living in a world of quotes and profound revelations. When in doubt look up a quote, unconscious conditioned reactions.

You are the dead, the psychic dead.

An evangelical proselytizing mystic, you don't see that very often.

The feeling of extended consciousness and that the universe is alive is a subjective perception. You feel the 'energy' of the universe. It is placebo effect, and the basis of all mystical and religious traditions.
ve Jesus and I feel te love of Jesus in return. I feel good.

A New Ag type might say the universe is love, I love the inverse and it loves me back. Same affect as theist beliefs.

Theosophy has been around for a long time.

As I like to say it is not what you believe, but how you believe it. All religions and mystical traditions through faith and belief release those feel good hormones. That feel good feeling is real enough, it is brain chemistry.

There is no need to psychically go to Mars. We cam just astral project.

I looked up your future in the Akashic Record, I am sorry it does not look good for you.

You're a very amusing guy, bank. No hard feelings.

Here's a tip for you: The Pantelicon.

 

[steve_bank]

Back in the 70s Iread a book f Indian and Tivetan traditional stories.

From Tibet a techer puts two studebts in huts. To one he gives te tradionaly correct mantra and the oter one he makes up on the spot. He tells them to meditate using te antra for a dew moths.

When he returns the one with the bogus mtra is beaming with joy and happiness, the one with the correct mantra got nothing.

Its not what you belive but how yiu belive it.

From the Indian tradition monks are walking down a trail and coe upon a master meditaing on a wooden statue of Buddha. They ask what must they do to find enlightenment. The master says you must meditate on Buddha as I do.

The next day they find the master chopping up the statue. Somewhat puzzled they ask what he is doing.

He says 'It is cold and I need firewood". Do I have to translate for you?

Another from India.

A student is listening to a guru speak to a group. The guru says god is in yio and in all things. Filled with newfound bliss the student is walking down a trail and sees an angry elephant running towards him. He thinks as god is in me and god is in the elephant I have nothing to fear.

The elephant grabs him with his trnk and tosses the student aside.

Bewildered he asks the guru what went wrong. The guru says 'God in the elephnat was seaking to te god in yio telling you to get out of the way, and you were not listening".

I got a million of those from the 70s. Those were the days. Divine Light Mission, Moonies, EST,Ekankar, Scientology.

There is nothing you an throw at me I have not seen otrheard before. I read books on Tibetan Buddhism, filled with the supernatural and paranormal. Telepathy, levitation, telekinesis. In the 70s Transcendental Meditation offered levitation classes. What a joke and a scam.

Chinese traditions are filled with the supernatural. At the mystical level of Chinese martial arts one can kill, or kheal, at a distance with chi, your life force so to speak.

In the 70s Itraied usera traditioanl Chines martial arts teacher.He was autetic and was known as a fighter in Hawaii whenhe was yiunger. There was small group known as diecples, I was not part of it. A woman claimed the guy talked to her in her dreams.

Point being I know exactly where you are coming from.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

"There's a seeker born every minute."
- Firesign Theatre. - "Everything Thing You Know Is Wrong!"

 

[steve_bank]

"There's a seeker born every minute."
- Firesign Theatre. - "Everything Thing You Know Is Wrong!"

'Give them a light and they will follow it anywhere'

 

[No Robots]

In this era of intellectual freedom, it becomes difficult to choose the right path. Many have sought solutions in the East. Here is an argument against Buddhism and in favour of Spinoza: "Zen Buddhism and the Western Mind." Just because there is a lot of baloney out there doesn't mean we should give up the quest. As Spinoza says, all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. I had thought that the Internet would facilitate spiritual/intellectual endeavor. In some senses it has done so: arguing on the Internet has forced me to deepen and broaden my search. But I have not attained to any real sense of community as yet. The best I can hope for it seems is to leave enough of a trail for my reincarnated self to pick up.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

This is IIDB. Aimed at atheists, agnostics and skeptics. What did you expect to find here?

 

[No Robots]

This is IIDB. Aimed at atheists, agnostics and skeptics. What did you expect to find here?

Earnest free thinkers, willing to entertain any speculation. I was surprised at how entrenched the positions are here in opposition to any kind of spirituality. I am impressed by how ferociously the wholly physicalist outlook is maintained. On the flip side, I have been unable to find any real connection within spiritual discussion groups. IIDB remains a bastion of free discussion. I post at will without much in the way of censorship. I tried Metafilter but it has become prone to enforcing norms. I do benefit greatly from the dialectic here, even if I do find it extremely hostile and mean-spirited at times. I don't mind inflicting pwnage myself from time to time.

 

[steve_bank]

Can you define your 'search parameters'?

How do you know when your search is over?

A never ending quest is a very old and ancient tradition. The serch for some secret profound revelatun that answers yiur quetions.

Shangi La in the book and movie Lost Horizons. It is a good movie if you can find it on line. A man finds paradise, looses it, and fights hs way back.

It is a reflection of early 20th century utopianism and spiritualism. The search for happiness and contentment.

 

[No Robots]

Can you define your 'search parameters'?

How do you know when your search is over?

A never ending quest is a very old and ancient tradition. The serch for some secret profound revelatun that answers yiur quetions.

Shangi La in the book and movie Lost Horizons. It is a good movie if you can find it on line. A man finds paradise, looses it, and fights hs way back.

It is a reflection of early 20th century utopianism and spiritualism. The search for happiness and contentment.

When I started, my life was falling apart: marriage, health, political ambition, career. I had been interested in philosophy, religion and mysticism in university, but had laid it all aside as fruitless. I was pretty much at the end of my rope when I came across a book in the library of the town where I was teaching. It was Benoit Mandelbrot's The Fractal Geometry of Nature. That book kick-started my intellectual curiosity. I started looking into the books that dealt with the connection between spirituality and mathematics. I started to get pretty disgusted with what I saw as infantile and self-serving approaches to spirituality. I decided that I would try to find one writer who dealt adequately with the whole question of Christ. That would be my benchmark. I found what I was looking for in Constantin Brunner's Our Christ. From there I went to the rest of Brunner's work and found the same satisfaction. I have been proselytizing on this subject for 25 years. I have added a few other teachers to my spiritual college: Harry Waton, John MacMurray, Benjamin De Casseres, and very recently Robert T. Browne. I have found my happiness, but, as Spinoza makes clear, happiness is only complete when it is shared. There is a Brunner Group, and I get along with them. But what I really want is to initiate a world-transforming movement. I don't have the creative nature to do that myself, so I pilfer from the work of my spiritual confreres. Browne's Pantelicon is just what I need for a teaching programme. Now, all I need are students. I am considering paying people to take my courses.

 

[steve_bank]

I don't want to sound cold or indifferent, but everybody has a story. I live in a senior building and we all have stories. Pepole with cancer. People who came over as refuges and made a go of things. Peple with severe chronic pain who stay upbeat.

Some stay high or drunk to cope with problems. For some it is religion. For most of uspart of it it is socialzing and shared community. Without that you end up stewing in your troubles.

In the 70s I decided it was better to participate and do something useful for a living than hang around doing yoga, mediating, and getting high.

I had a lousy experience growing up. I also decided I was not going to dwell on it and have it bring me down. I was not gong to feel sorry for myself.

I have a black friend who grew up under the worse of Jim Crow in Louisiana. I listened to his stories. He never let his bad experience hold him back or get him down. Not a trace of anger or hatred.

One of my takeaways from the 70s is there are no answers. You can choose what works for you.

Traditionally philosophy was for the those who had the money to sit around intellectualizing.

So, what are you search parmters, what is your end game?

 

[No Robots]

My search is over. I have everything I need. Something may come my way, but I'm not seeking. The Pantelicon is the final piece. I can now start implementing what Browne called the Academy of the Nations. The only limit is money. But not much of that is required to get at least a trial on the go. I am sure that I can recruit a student or two by paying them a modest compensation for their time and attention. Ultimately, I see a vast learning institute that will see to all mankind's physical and intellectual needs.

 

[steve_bank]

Pantelicon, had to look that one up. A new world order? God luck with that.

 

[jab]

Absolute thought is the basis of the whole of reality. This has been understood for millennia by all true thinkers. Unfortunately, the concept of absolute thought is easily distorted. This distortion results from the fact that absolute thought is not a thing, but is wholly abstract. The vast majority of people are unable to think abstractly, but must instead correlate all abstractions to a material thing. Thus absolute thought is historically distorted into a god-thing. In our own time, absolute thought is replaced by absolute materialism.

The principle of absolute thought has been developed by a number of thinkers. One such thinker is Harry Waton, who developed the concept of absolute thought in his A True monistic philosophy. He writes:

The Absolute is substance, and substance is absolute thought—thought without form. The Absolute, then, is absolute thought without form. Spinoza tells us that substance by its nature is prior to its affections, or modifications. What is the affection or modification of substance? Since substance is absolute thought without form, the primordial affection or modification of substance is the assumption of form. This means that absolute thought assumes a form. When absolute thought assumes a form, then it becomes an idea. An idea, then, is the form of thought. It may be said that the definition of the Absolute as absolute thought without form is a contradiction in terms, for a definition already implies form. This is true: the Absolute implies form. Notice this. Spinoza tells us that substance by its nature is prior to its affections or modifications (which are forms); but Spinoza does not say that substance is prior to its affections or modification. The Absolute, as absolute thought, never was without form; but by its nature it was prior to its forms. Form already presupposes substance, for only substance can assume a form. We can conceive substance without form, although this will be a vague and abstract conception; but without substance form cannot be conceived. Hence we start out with the idea that the Absolute started out as absolute thought without form. How did the Absolute assume form? Thought by its nature thinks, and thinking requires an object of thought. The Absolute by its nature thinks, and the Absolute required an object for its thought. Since, however, besides the Absolute there is nothing else in existence, the Absolute thinks of itself, it comprehends itself in its own thought. This self-reflexion of the Absolute gave the Absolute an idea of itself, and an idea is a form of thought. Thus the Absolute, by acquiring of an idea of itself, comprehended itself in a form. This primordial idea, which comprehended the Absolute in a primordial form, Spinoza calls the Infinite Intellect, and the Kabbalah call the Kether, the Crown. Just as the crown comprehends the head, so the Kether comprehends the Absolute, or as the Kabbalah calls it, the Ain-Sof—the Absolute, Infinite and Eternal. Thus the Absolute clothed itself in form; substance assumed a form.

The principle of Absolute thought provides the ground of unity for atheism and Christianity. This Christian/atheist unity on the basis of absolute thought stands opposed to the superstitious distortions of traditional religion and of today’s absolute materialism.

define "substance" please
In your definition, please explain how "substance" can be without form: your definition shouldn't be circular

 

[jab]

I agree that mind without matter is absurd. My point is that matter without mind is equally absurd.

Well, that doesn't make sense. There is case where matter has mind as an emergent quality, but there is plenty of matter around the universe that has no mind.

We had some orange matter without a mind for four years in the white house.

Wrong: to paraphrase Connie Frances: "That fart has a mind of his own"--perhaps lending credence to the pan-mind stance of the OP

 

[jab]

In the 70s I heard somebody say 'Cosmic consciousness is when you are in the movie not just watching the movie'.

Of course metaphor for self awareness of your existence and your place in world. Nothing supernatural about it. Are you just reacting to the world yiu are without any real conscious thought or are you fully conscious and aware.

In Buddhism I read it is like becoming fully awake from a dream.

All metaphors for the same psychology.

One has to comsidier the possibility that maybe it is you who does not 'get it'.

'God' is a psychology.

I got dem old cosmic blues again mama.

Janis Joplin: kudos--all I could come up with was Connie Frances--so together we have the female alpha and Omega of the American 1960s.

 

[jab]

The cosmic consciousness mythical mumbo jumbo 'mob'.

Living in a world of quotes and profound revelations. When in doubt look up a quote, unconscious conditioned reactions.

You are the dead, the psychic dead.

"We are the Dead. short days ago we lived, loved and were loved, and now we lie. . ."