I've heard nothing back from Chris L, or about a Phila meeting. Too bad. The complementarity that I see in the CTMU and the BPWH still stands, nonetheless.
I was a bit confrontational at the end of the SfA meeting, or it ended when I became confrontational. As with Jake, here. I continue to argue that Size matters more, in Xianity, than anywhere else. In the light of the X-event, quality matters infinitely more than quantity.
To some degree, this echoes an opinion piece in today's Times....... http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/the-myth-of-universal-love/?ref=opinion . If you can overlook most of the sociobiology stuff, his is an argument for the small world of the BPWH. The only additional point to keep in mind is, when given just one necessarily small, best possible, world, it is going, per force, to be a very crowded little world, at least up until the Day of Diclosure.
IOW, 10^10 critters is a maximal temporal challenge to our mortal powers of Agape. Yes? I'm fairly sure that Stephen Asma would agree.
Bill S adjourned the SfA early, and everyone left except Rick G. We kept going for another hour and a half, with my making liberal use of the whiteboard, and I only got to see the last 10' of our playoff with our old nemesis, the Indiannapolis Colts.
How much longer can the SfA stonewall the SoT? Or is the GFC just too small for both of us?
Jake,
It seems that you are inviting me to put an Xian spin onto the question of why there is something rather than nothing........
The Buddhist view is that we would have been better off with nothing. The material seeming world is simply a measure of our Karma. Our best option is to escape to the nullity of nirvana. On one level, I tend to agree, in that, IMHO, heaven will entail an eventual loss of our ego-consciousness. We will be submerged in the cosmic sea of Agape, being rocked in the bosom of Abraham, if you will.
So, what is the Xian take on existence and suffering? The answer is not clear, certainly not just from the Bible. The closest to an answer is found in Job and in the Passion. With Job, it is a wager between God and Satan, not terribly ennobling, taken at face value. With the Passion, it is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Well, that's ok, in theory, but it hasn't totally worked out, just yet.
I keep having to look up theodicy......... There is the argument from free-will, which, imo, only explains personal evil, and only a very local scale.
Here is the BPW deal....... We are in training to become godlets, and then God. It's not like there's a hierarchy, it's more just by inclusion, rather than a gradation. It is a strict monism, in eternity. The cosmic Monad or Self, is the asymptotic limit the ramified zodiacal trinity. Are there also angels........ with or without free-will? Why not? The more the merrier.......
This is the Telos. Is that ok with you, Jake?
And this is the best possible God with the best possible Creation. Would there were none? Wouldn't that be pretty dumb? But it may be impossible for there to be nothing. There is always liable to be a spontaneous something, so, given all the possible inferior somethings, is it not better to invoke a cosmic censorship, with the optimal degree of sponteneity and inclusiveness? And so we are looking at it, the BPW.
Suppose we want to be artists, and create our own little worlds.... How much choice would we have, sub-specie aeternitas? Suppose they were suboptimal. I can't say, off hand, but I haven't lost much sleep over it, yet.
1:15------------
Given that Creation is an essential part of eternity, the implication is that nothing exists beyond the pale of the cosmic mind. We can run, but we can't hide. That may be the biggest defect of existence. But is not privacy an essential human right? But privacy, even in the form of a Swiss vault, is only ever provisional and conditional. There is no absolute nothing!
3:35------------
Sam suggests that we talk about our various (Green) visions for the future......... what keeps a Green activist active? What keeps hope alive? Can we keep working without hope?
Are we hoping to improve the world/environment? Keep things from getting too much worse, too quickly? Just trying to save a small part of the world?
How dire is our present situation? How much worse might things get, before they get better? Or is human extinction and/or global collapse of civilization a definite possibility? IOW, does the world need to be saved?
How saved......? Technology vs. Politics? Can we see any way out of the human predicament? IOW, will it require a 'miracle'?
Has the human (evolutionary) experiment reached its natural conclusion? Interesting while it lasted! Are we just nature's little experiment? An experiment by which nature almost does itself in?
Were we intended to be Nature's stewards, but then succumbed to a mission creep, so that we have become merely a cancer on the planet? Were we invented so as to divert asteroids, or otherwise promote something akin to Biodiversity?
What are we to make of the so-called Anthropic principle? Rare planet in a rare universe?
But are we meat-machines?
The WAP does not fit with the mind/brain problem.
5:40pm------------
On what basis do we appeal to others, if there is not the possibility of a universal morality, a morality that transcends chemistry, perhaps. Is this important? Is there anything wrong with sociobiology? Even the Marxists were inclined to pour cold water on EO Wilson.
Biology is destiny? Biological determinism is considered inimical to liberal visions of human meliorism. It raises the specter of social Darwinism and eugenics.
(cont.)
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