are we the reason for the universe?

[lunaone]

imagine ! :wink:

[DifferentDrummer]

Underneath the superficial self, which pays attention to this and that, there is another self more really us than I.
And the more you become aware of the unknown self -- if you become aware of it -- the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that is.
You are a function of this total galaxy, bounded by the Milky Way, and this galaxy is a function of all other galaxies.
You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes.
You look and look, and one day you are going to wake up and say, "Why, that's me!"
And in knowing that, you know that you never die.
You are the eternal thing that comes and goes that appears -- now as John Jones, now as Mary Smith, now as Betty Brown -- and so it goes, forever and ever and ever.

-Alan Watts

[Jabadoodle]

Apart from your brain, or some brain, the world is devoid of light, heat, weight, solidity, motion, space, time, or any other imaginable feature. All these phenomena are interactions, or transactions, of vibrations with a certain arrangement of neurons.

Thus vibrations of light and heat from the sun do not actually become light or heat until they interact with a living organism, just as no light-beams are visible in space unless reflected by particles of atmosphere or dust. In other words, it "takes two" to make anything happen.

~ All of ME, as Alan Watts

Or, in other words:

Wake up to find that you are the eyes of the world.

~ All of ME, as (Some other guy ;-)

[lunaone]

Apart from your brain, or some brain, the world is devoid of light, heat, weight, solidity, motion, space, time, or any other imaginable feature. All these phenomena are interactions, or transactions, of vibrations with a certain arrangement of neurons "

so a tree is not a tree unless somebody with a brain is able to percieve a tree ?
are you saying that the universe that sturrounds us is only real if we give words to define it?
is this reductionism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionist

[hammerofthegods]

we are the universe becoming conscious of itself

[Jabadoodle]

are you saying that the universe that sturrounds us is only real if we give words to define it?

Good question. I'm not sure. I'll type and find out.

I am certainly NOT saying the world is only real if we give words to define it.

Our brains are capable of many ways of perception, they don't have to use words to perceive it. When light falls on my face while I lay on the floor inside on a sunny winter afternoon, I experience wonderful light and heat. The words "light" and "heat" often never arise at all. In that moment I experience the universe without words.

What I think Watts IS saying is that qualities like "heat" do not exist unless there is a consciousness to experience them. That does not mean they aren't "happening" but only that the larger experience of them is not existing.

Think of it this way: You leave a television on in a room and it's playing a movie. So long as there is no person in the room to understand the plot of the movie, all that is happening in that room is a bunch of colored dots are lighting up and turning off. In fact, at the lowest level, really it's just a bunch of atoms doing the things that atoms do. ~ But as soon as a person walks into the room and starts looking at the screen, there is passion, love, hate, plot, dialog, etc. on that screen.

Consciousness (and it needn't be human consciousness) needs to be present for existence to manifest itself. Consciousness is part of existence. Like two sides of a coin, you can't have consciousness without existence or existence without consciousness.

I have a book that even argues that things we normally don't think of as conscious all have some form of consciousness. I tend to think this is true. Though how to understand different types of consciousness is really difficult. I certainly don't know what it's like to exeperience the world as, say, my dog does. Much less as a worm, tree, or piece of rock does. (Maybe I should eat my Special breakfast serial?)

As for words: They are tools, at times inspirational, miraculous, powerful, and full of wonder. But they can also separate us from reality. There are many smaller examples for all of us daily, but a gross example might be when a racist sees a "nigger" standing before him, rather than the truth of experiencing what is really there.



is this reductionism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionist


No, it's not reductionism at all. From the Wiki Link: "a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts."

Seems to me a reductionist would say that the TV playing in that room is nothing more than the blinks of colored dots. I don't believe that at all. The sum of what all those dots are doing is much more than just colors blinking on and off. Again, there is plot, love, hate, etc. ~ And the universe, with consciousness, is much more than the sum of a bunch of particles bouncing off one another.

[lunaone]

think when we see our lives in just the physical properties we possess,we lose out on how unique our time on this earth is. The more science defines us, the less sacred our presence becomes it seems . if life was purely a series of chemical reactions and our destiny had to rely on science to define it, no meaning can be had. our emergence on the scene means something , just what it is , i don't know,
what makes us a uniquely complex person different than other "material" in our know world has to do with our ability to ponder our existence, the ability to to expect and to strive for a better world, we are meant to do big things while we are here. to not see a hierarcy to our place in the cosmos is a form of denial i think.

[lunaone]

we are the universe becoming conscious of itself

i really like that!

[Cheezdude]

we are the universe becoming conscious of itself

Nice! We think, therefore, we are!

[PeaceFrog]

I think the internet is a vital link in the further evolution of universal conciousness.

[Cheezdude]

I think the internet is a vital link in the further evolution of universal conciousness.

Well, it's defininitely part of it, for good or bad. It's too late to turn
back now.

[PeaceFrog]

Well, it's defininitely part of it, for good or bad. It's too late to turn
back now.

So you're saying that maybe it's a little bit like Pandora's box?

[BoggleKng]

The thing I have been trying to figure out for years is.. Where do your thoughts come from? Where do people get things like inspiration? Is it just the firing of neurons in your brain making connections or something more? Where do ideas about things that aren't in our world come from? Stuff like fairies, aliens, all of fiction? Were they all real stories or experiences at one time in the existence of the universe? Is it just one big cycle repeating itself?

[Cheezdude]

So you're saying that maybe it's a little bit like Pandora's box?

Well, yeah. We can't unlearn what we know. Einstein once said,
"a mind, once expanded, can never return to it's original shape".

[Cheezdude]

Think about it this way, a hundred years ago, an idea, most likely stayed in the
mind of it's origin, or at best, nearby. Now ideas are flying around the planet
at the speed of light. Take this one for example.

[PeaceFrog]

awesome Einstein quote. Thanks.

I agree.

We have to be careful to allow free thought to remain free. If someone ever finds a way to control information on the internet, we're all doomed.

[Cheezdude]

awesome Einstein quote. Thanks.

I agree.

We have to be careful to allow free thought to remain free. If someone ever finds a way to control information on the internet, we're all doomed.

Well, I don't know if that's a verbatim quote, but it's close. The idea
is the same. It seems we can only go forward. I shudder to think
what would happen, if we lost all this technology. I don't think we
would know how to function. But, technology is a double edged
sword. For everything we gain, there's something we lose. But,
maybe that's ok. (Maybe it's not?)

[hammerofthegods]

The thing I have been trying to figure out for years is.. Where do your thoughts come from? Where do people get things like inspiration? Is it just the firing of neurons in your brain making connections or something more?

there are atoms flying around everywhere smashing into one another creating chemical reactions and physical interactions. Math and science do not define how the universe operates though; they only seek to understand it.

With the progression of science and the knowledge of our biology, it is possible that we are just a complex set of chemical interactions and nothing more. that we can be reduced down to the interaction of atoms. But then what of the soul? It seems like there should be more too it. I think that is the search for self. Whether or not we have a soul or there is a God we will never know (unless when you die you meet God and there you go). What is, is, and our beliefs do not change nature of things. They only change our perceptions and how we act. I think the intertwined relationship between science/knowledge and religion/spiritual beliefs has endless depths that I am only beginning to understand.

A couple of interesting essays by physicist Steven Weinberg
Without God http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21800#fnr2
A Designer Universe http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm

[Cheezdude]

There's still something to ponder here.

[lunaone]

food for thought
i really like this guy , becasue i agree with him :wink:

Human beings are animals, composed of nerves and sinews, cardiovascular systems and digestive tracts. We hang from the tree of evolution on the same branch as the chimpanzee and the bonobo and not far from those of the elephant, the zebra and the mouse. We are governed by the laws of biology, and even our thoughts and emotions are the result of electrochemical processes in the brain. Such, at any rate, is the conception fostered by popular science and tub-thumped into us by Richard Dawkins. What room is there in this picture for the soul — the divine spark that supposedly distinguishes humanity from the rest of creation and which bears within itself the meaning of our life on earth? Can we not give a complete account of the human condition in biological terms, without referring to the elusive soul-stuff within? And if that is possible, what grounds have we for thinking that the soul exists, still less that it is the inner essence, the originating cause and the final end of our existence?

Suppose you were to look at a painting — say Manet’s ‘Bar at the Folies Bergère’ in the Courtauld Gallery — and ask yourself how it is composed. From the point of view of chemical science, it is a canvas on which pigments are distributed. From the point of view of the art-lover, it is an image of a woman on whose face the last pale twilight of innocence is fading. You could draw a graph across the picture, and indicate exactly what pigment is to be found at every pair of co-ordinates. This description would not mention the woman, still less her fading innocence or her blank but haunting gaze. Yet it could be a complete description. Somebody who daubed a canvas in the way mapped by the graph would produce an exact copy of Manet’s picture. He would do this even if he had not noticed the woman and even if he was entirely blind to pictorial images. From the scientific point of view, therefore, the woman is nothing over and above the pigments in which she is seen.

But this woman exists in a space of her own. We see the back of her head, reflected in the mirror, some ten feet behind her. Of course, there is no part of this canvas that is ten feet behind any other part. The space within the picture is not mapped by our imaginary graph, even if it will be automatically reconstituted when we follow the graph’s instructions. Moreover, no smear of chrome white can possibly have a fading innocence, nor can patches of cerulean and Prussian blue look at us inquiringly or await our interest. But all those things can be seen in the painting, and someone who doesn’t see them doesn’t understand what he is looking at.

In short, the picture can be described in two contrasting ways, and the descriptions are incommensurable. This resembles the case of the human soul. We can imagine a complete account of the human being as a biological organism from which nothing observable has been left out. Any creature with just this biological constitution will behave as I do, and lead the life that is distinctive of our kind. So why add a further story about the soul? Why not draw the obvious conclusion, that because nothing needs to be added to the biology, the biology is all that there is?

That would be like saying that since no woman is mentioned in the scientific description of Manet’s canvas, there is no woman in the picture. We can tell two stories about Manet’s canvas, both complete. One explains it, the other tells us what it means. Likewise we can tell two stories about the human organism, one that explains its physical appearance and behaviour, the other which tells us what it means to us. Many concepts that feature in this second story have no application in the first. For example, we describe people as responsible and free. We praise them, blame them and see worth and meaning in the things that they do. We criticise, argue, persuade. A complex language has emerged through which we relate to each other, and this language bypasses reference to the organism in something like the way our description of the woman in Manet’s picture bypasses the physical constitution of the canvas.

As in the case of the picture, the two descriptions that we give of the human being are incommensurable. There is no place in the language of biology for the concepts of freedom and responsibility. Biology can describe grimaces and facial contortions, but it lacks the concept of a smile — ‘for smiles from Reason flow ... and are of love the food’, as Milton finely put it. The concepts that we spontaneously use to describe the human being do not explain; they interpret. And the interpretation that we favour describes a reasonable creature, accountable to his kind.

Crucial to this interpretation is the concept of self. Other animals are conscious, have thoughts, desires and emotions. But only we are self-conscious, able to address each other from ‘I’ to ‘I’ and to know ourselves in the first person, as subjects in a world of objects. As Kant plausibly argued, self-consciousness and freedom are two sides of a coin. It is I, not my body, who choose, and it is I who am praised or blamed, not my limbs, my feelings or my movements. There is a mystery here: how can I be both a free subject and a determined object, both the ‘I’ that decides and the body that carries the decision through? Kant argued that the understanding stops at the threshold of this mystery, and I suspect that he was right. It is precisely this mystery that religions try to normalise with the story of the soul.

The story varies from epoch to epoch and creed to creed. But it is never more simply put than in the language of the Koran, in which one word — nafs — means both ‘self’ and ‘soul’. This soul is raised in me: only by learning the ways of accountability do I rise to the condition of a free being, who realises his freedom in his deeds. Hence the soul can be corrupted. There is such a thing as the Devil’s work, which consists in undermining the self, tempting people to see themselves as objects, leading them to identify completely with their biological condition, to squander their selfhood in orgies of concupiscence and to refuse all accountability for what they are and do. The moral truth is conveyed with admirable simplicity in the great Sura of the Sun, Koran 91, which invokes the wonders of creation: sun and moon, day and night, heaven and earth, and finally ‘a soul, and what formed her, to which He revealed both right and wrong’. The Sura goes on to tell us that the one who safeguards the soul’s purity will prosper, while he who corrupts it is destroyed. It requires no metaphysics to understand the words ‘wa nafsin...’ — ‘and a soul...’. They are spoken in me and to me. The verse refers to the self that harbours knowledge of right and wrong, and it is just this that is the source of meaning in me.

Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists have other ways of capturing this simple thought, but the fundamental observation is shared. Human beings stand out from the rest of creation. They are subjects in a world of objects, and as a result they judge and are judged. Hence they can be redeemed and corrupted. This work of redemption and corruption is neverending. We do not need a metaphysical doctrine of the soul to make sense of this; as we learn from the Koran, the reflexive pronoun is enough. Faith adds just one crucial detail: namely, that the reflexive pronoun is used also by God.

Of course, seeing the matter in this way, we do nothing to justify the belief in immortality. Nevertheless, we can go some way towards making that belief intelligible. Although the woman in Manet’s picture is nothing over and above the pigments in which we see her, you do not destroy her by destroying the pigments. If Manet’s work were perfectly copied and then burned, we would confront a new canvas, but the same woman. The person seen in the new painting would be identical with the person seen in the old. This is a strange kind of identity, and not without paradox. But it provides a model for theologians, should they wish to explain the identity between the person that I encounter in encountering you and the person who exists eternally in God’s perception. Immortality, seen in that way, is not a prospect to look forward to but a light in which we stand.

http://catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0159.html

[ricksvw]

This is just a beginning.