Why are we here?

First topic message reminder :

(This topic is a continuation of Personalism 102).

Why is there something rather than nothing?  

Looking at it statistically, the likelihood of nothing is minuscule compared likelihood of anything.  

However, from the perspective of modern cosmology, the Anthropic Principle tells that universes with observers are extremely rare.

But, by whose say so, can an unobservable universe be said to exist?  

A related question is what constitutes an observer?

What if any role might sapience play in the act of observation?
………  


But this first post is a header post…….. so I will continue in the following post…….



(cont………)

This reality is not susceptible to your intellectual understanding or the mechanizations of pretenders.

BBL,

‘Mechanizations’……. try machinations.  

We’ll know what we need to know, when we need to know it.

There is that of the microcosm in everyone of us.

You can’t seem to get that through your bunny brain.  

What is there about wholistic holography that is beyond your bunny brain?  

We don’t have to understand every little detail, all the time.

There is nothing beyond our reach.  

To assert otherwise, on no basis, verges on the misanthropically fcriminal.  

Better get back in your bunny hole ️ before the bunny Angels come to take you away.  



(cont………)

There is nothing to know.

You will never reveal reality through your thinking or words.

Ever.

You and your friends are pretenders.

“Philosophy does this: it enables a person to be cheerful within sight of death.”

I am supremely cheerful, how bout you?

Not because of philosophy, but clearly seeing reality.

Philosophy did assist in clarifying the muddy waters.

Face death smiling, no escape, no excuses.

Soon you shall forever sleep my wordy friend.

Then your friends will die and all that have known you and you have known.

And so it goes for all who live.

That will settle it.

We are always here to lend our assistance, bunny brain!

One can only help themselves.

People are searching for meaning.

It means what it is.

Keep it up, and you will burn in Hell, my furry little friend!  

Of course, Eric, I only mean that metaphorically.  

God couldn’t have created Hell, even if she had wanted to.  

But it does help to keep little children and some autocratic maniacs in check.  

If you go to Hell, it will only be temporary….. for your edification.

Part of Eric’s problem is that he never had an encounter with physics, or with the bomb.

Fear of God?

Hell, no!

That has never been within Eric’s somewhat limited imagination.

I think that California sunshine fried a few of his brain cells.



(cont…….)

Haha, I walk in the Garden, in here.

Hell is out there, I visit when needed.

You have never been obviously.

You are in fact, obviously, in hell.

I have great compassion for you.

You are riding an ass 🫏

Riding an Ass


Chapter XIV/17. In: The Golden Age of Zen 
by John C. H. Wu 
Taipei : The National War College in co-operation with The Committee on the Compilation of the Chinese Library, 1967, pp. 260-262.

According to Ch'ing-yüan, also called Fo-yen, there are two diseases in connection with the practice of Zen. “The first is to ride an ass in search of the ass. The second is to ride the ass and refuse to dismount.” It is easy to see the silliness of seeking the ass you are riding. As your attention is turned outwards, you will never look inside, and all your search will be so much ado about nothing. The kingdom of God is within you, but you seek it outside. There is no telling how many troubles in the world have had their origin just in this wrong orientation.

As Ma-tsu has said, “You are the treasure of your own house.” To seek it outside is a pathetic endeavor, because you will always be disappointed. For, at the bottom of your heart, you are seeking the real treasure. Although you may be satisfied for a few moments with faked substitutes, in the depths of your subconsciousness, you can never deceive yourself. Léon Bloy has uttered a profound insight when he said, “There is but one sorrow, and that is to have lost the Garden of Delights, and there is but one hope and one desire, to recover it. The poet seeks it in his own way, and the filthiest profligate seeks it in his. It is the only goal.” But the tragedy is that, not realizing that the Garden of Delights is within us, we seek it by flying away from it with an ever-increasing speed.

The second disease is even more subtle and difficult to cure. This time, you are no longer seeking outside. You know that you are riding your own ass. You have already tasted an interior peace infinitely sweeter than any pleasures you can get from the external things. But the great danger is that you become so attached to it that you are bound to lose it altogether. This is what Ch'ing-yüan meant by “riding the ass and refusing to dismount.” This disease is common to contemplative souls in all religions. In his Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton has uttered a salutary warning against precisely the same pitfall:

‘Within the simplicity of this armed and walled and undivided interior peace is an infinite unction which, as soon as it is grasped, loses its savor. You must not try to reach out and possess it altogether. You must not touch it, or try to seize it. You must not try to make it sweeter or try to keep it from wasting away

…

The situation of the soul in contemplation is something like the situation of Adam and Eve in Paradise. Everything is yours, but on one infinitely important condition: that it is all given.

There is nothing that you can claim, nothing that you can demand, nothing that you can take. And as soon as you try to fake something as if it were your own—you lose your Eden.’

In this light, you can appreciate the profound insight of Lung-t'an that the priceless pearl can only be kept by one who does not fondle it.

Ch'ing-yüan's final counsel is, “Do not ride at all. For you yourself are the ass, and the whole world is the ass. You have no way to ride it… If you don't ride at all the whole universe will be your playground.”

Dismount your ass
And touch the grass

Thanks…… words of some wisdom.  

The last paragraph is astute…… as above, so below…… within and without…..

Yes, the microcosm is everywhere.

This is simply holography.  

You could have learned this in physics.  

BBL thinks that he is smarter than the average joe.

He is and he isn’t.

The average joe is a Christian.

She knows that she’s not seen nothing, yet.

My furry friend thinks he’s seen everything.



(cont…….)

I learned it in the Garden, sitting with flowers, eating carrots

Can any computer know that 1 + 1 =  2?  

I will readily admit that any computer can do addition.  

A computer can do numbers….. it can remember numbers, but does that mean it can know a number?  

To know something is to be able to use or do something……… so say our behaviorist friends.

Fred and Eve S were friends of my parents, as I like to point out.  

It was my mother who introduced them.  

Poor Fred……. behaviorism was at its peak in 1950, just when WvO Quine hit the scene, in an adjacent department.

And Willard was a materialist.  

Technically Willard was a naturalist, but what is the difference?  

He was not a reductionist.  

A computer is a reductionist, so to speak.

A computer does binary operations.  

A computer can do neural operations…….. well, it can simulate neurons, like ChatGPT.  

Willard was a holist and even a coherentist.

A quantum physicist could say as much, today.  

That’s why the quantum mind hypothesis is popular.  

Ok, the quantum is holistic…… a single measurement can stretch across the universe.  

But who knows that 1 + 1 = 2?  

Yes, I know how to do addition, but I also claim to know what it is.

I have a feel for it.  Addition is something more than quantitative.

2 is something more than just quantitative.  

One is different from two in more than just a quantitative way.

But can I prove that, and what would a proof look like?  
………..  


This leads us to the knowledge argument…… and to the proverbial case of Mary’s Room…….

Mary is a brilliant neuroscientist who knows everything about color vision, but has been confined to a room that is color free.

When she is shown a color wheel, does she learn something new about color?  

With this thought, we can reexamine the distinction between quantitative and qualitative knowledge.  

Is there nothing qualitative about the distinction between singularity and plurality, for instance?

If we’ve seen one tree, have we seen them all, to quote James Watt.  
…………


This train of thought leads us directly to David Chalmers and his distinction between the hard and easy problems.

David suggests that reasoning is just an exercise in logic and quantities.

He suggests that zombies can reason without consciousness.

I suggest that mathematics requires human consciousness, for instance.  

Numbers have different qualities in different contexts.  

Mathematical intuition is hardly to be scoffed at.

Despite his limited dualism concerning the mind, David goes to considerable lengths to maintain his naturalistic credentials.  

It is a badge of professional honor to be able come up with philosophical puzzles 🧩, but to keep the individual puzzles well separated or siloed.  

God forbid that there be a metaphysical spillover!  

The philosophers would have to join some priestly union.

Hey, in this bailiwick, chick is just the garbage collector.

Long live the Academy!  

Of course, on the spiritual side of the ledger , things are just as strictly contained and constrained, with ethnicity adding a whole new dimension to the constraints.
………..


As the Katechon is seen to be more invulnerable, the question is raised as to how strong the Tribulation will have to be in order to blow the lid.  

That is not a good thought.  

Alternatively, a zombie apocalypse, as suggested by three, could be rather less painful.

Either way seems rather less than ideal.

This is a drawback of having us being the co-creators and co-maintainers.

The separation will just be that much more difficult!

One is sorely tempted try to implement the option with indefinite sustainability, if such an option were even remotely possible.

It would only be postponing the inevitable, and would be difficult to conform with any sort of narrative.

Jeremy Bentham spoke of the greatest good for the greatest number.

The fact of monism does tend to rule against such a straightforward calculation.



(cont………)

Monism is like monarchism……. Yes?

Yes, BUT…….. we all get to be Queen for a day…… or two…..

Actually, we could all be King for eternity, if we really wanted to.

But there might be more to existence than playing king of the mountain ️.  

If there is anything to do besides being a good social being, I’m guessing it would have something to do with Truth, assuming that Truth has something to do with Agape.  

Of course, those are very big assumptions.

The only real question is whether there is any other assumption that would be worth making.  

And then there is the issue that, in the best possible world, free will is mostly an illusion.  

If in doubt, just maintain a relatively steady course, and follow your gut intuitions.  

If Truth is not a total illusion, then immaterialism is probably a significant part of it.

Well, we should say that personalism would have to be a significant part of any Truth……. and immaterialism follows suit.  

So it’s not much of a leap to understand that, if there is any fundamental sense to the world, then, very likely, this is the best possible world.  

Hallelujah……. yes, sports fans?  

And there is really not much for us to do differently, except to try not to act stupidly.  
……….


This is not rocket science, now is it?

So who died and left chick in charge of the Truth?  

No one had to die, recently, but one had to choose between science or spirit.  

What about reason?  

Reason got thoroughly maligned (reduced) by science and chatGPT.

There was no home for holistic reason.

If you subscribe to holistic reason, it’s just a small leap to the Eschaton, and who wants to embrace the Eschaton……. chick !  

But who wouldn’t want to embrace the best possible Eschaton, especially if it’s not going to be an eschaton?  

It will be a close encounter with the big E!…….. just about as close as you’d want to get……. close enough to smell the coffee .  

It’s meant to scare the bejesus out of us…… well, you know what I mean.  

So who choreographed this denouement?  

Our better angels .

You don’t believe me?

Ok, but show me anything else worth believing.  

We hope for the best and prepare for the worst?

Sure, but don’t be a chump.

Live a little.

Bibi didn’t get the message?

Well, he’s in charge of the Katechon, right now…….. along with Saleh or whoever.

They’re putting a real good pas de deux.

Talk about smelling the coffee …..

What else do we need to know?

What about Vladimir?

Who is he working for?

All the tinhorns, in their most lucid dreams, think they are taking it upon themselves to put a stop to capitalism.

That might be a worthy cause……. but, really…… ye of little faith!



(cont………)

There is a bit of an uptick in aquarium related matters.

The question is whether two will have to give into three, concerning her boycott of one.

In the meantime there have been some interesting developments regarding particularly the Middle East.

There is a helpful interview of Salman Rushdie in the nyt.

Also there are useful developments in the Gaza situation.

The Gaza conflict is a case study in the evils of religion.

And so is three, from an opposite perspective…….. she is saying a curse on all their houses, including on science.

I attempt to wait patiently on the sidelines.

I have a rather profound faith in the simple fact that things will work out…….. especially in these End Times……. with or without a Tribulation.  

chick is arrogant in believing that much of the current drama revolves around the advent of the SoT.  

Guaranteed to be the most highly choreographed event in history.

The extreme of choreography is related to the probable extreme deficit of charisma on the part of the SoT.

The Truth needs no bells and whistles…….

1)  so as to not detract from the advent of the jguy.

2)  the Truth can stand on its own two feet.

3)  this ordinariness of the SoT is to emphasize the fact that there is that of the Truth in every single one of us.

Yes, Truth is very personal, almost as personal as love…… almost as personal as Agape.

Actually, Truth is rather similar to Agape, in its personal affect.

The issue with three is where does Truth stand in relation to the Opening.  

If it were possible, I would give Truth the priority over the Opening, any day.

And I don’t see why it shouldn’t be possible, with all the choreography that is presently in the works.

I need to have a sit down conversation with two……. something we’ve never had.  

So, no, I don’t go along with the five day zombie Opening, as presented by three.  

How, then, do I make my case?  

Who needs a zombie Apocalypse?

I will not stand for a Zombie Apocalypse.

Over my dead body?

I’m tempted to act it out, if necessary……. like the guy who ended up in the barn?

Perhaps……. perhaps I can do better.



(cont……..)

Bahahaha.

You guys are funny

This is one of the funniest places on the internet actually.

I watched a season of Walking Dead recently.

The evil CRM was defeated by love.

It was actually kinda good.

There has already been a zombie apocalypse.

Duh.

As far as the truth, no idea what Dan is talking about.

Survival comes before truth.

I love ya.

Ok, we have Truth and we have life……. what are the priorities?  

Do any of us wish to take Truth over life?  

I don’t know of anyone who would……..

Would I so choose?  

How about the Christians in the colosseum?  

What were they up to?  

Did they have a choice?  

I don’t even believe in free will.  

So much for truth and life.

What about truth and beauty?  

Does either one compare with life?  

Hardly.  

Does this mean that Charlie D had it all figured out?  

If we took a poll, today, it would be 50/50…… approximately.  

What, if anything, comes after survival?

You might wish to plant your survivors.

Then what?  

We wait.

We watch.

Those in the prophetic tradition watch for prophecy.

Those not……. wait for Nirvana……. or for Progress.  

By default, we wait for death….. that’s a no brainer.

We’ve covered the waterfront.

Before we get to the shore, we’re paddling to the sea……. or just drifting.  

But what’s in the sea?

Poetically, we often call it home…… home at last!

Many suppose that we come from nothing and go back to nothing.

Ok, that’s surely the default!  

Otherwise, folks just have to hope.  

And, no, we can’t eat hope.  

Can we survive on bread alone?  

That’s all we’ve been doing for the past thousand years, or the past billion years, depending on your POV.

What were the Gazans doing?  

I don’t think the Israelis could have cared less…… and still don’t, as long as the Gazans would just mind their own business.  

That’s a problem…….. for all of us……. or not.

Colleges are caught in the middle.  

The intelligentsia is caught in the middle.

Well……. that’s going on mainly in the US.

What do we have to do with it?

There is the melting pot theory.  

And what are we supposed to be smelting?  

E pluribus….. unum?  

The One?  

One what?  

Ok, so we have been fruitful…… together.

We wait for godot….. or something.  

Smelting……. alchemy…… refining….. gold….. soul…..

There is a saying……. there is that of godot….. in all of us.

Many are waiting for the Message from the stars .  

But maybe the message is in each of…… if we could put our heads together.  

To be slightly more direct, I’d say we’re looking for some cosmic Truth that all of us will recognize.

Yes, we’re waiting for the MoAPS.  

John 16 certainly speaks to this expectation.  

Things are getting sort of specific.  

Some Moslems put on their suicide vests.  

Others put on their thinking caps.

There is something about us that seems to stand out from the rest of nature.  

Naturalism just doesn’t quite make it.

We do have rather fertile imaginations……. to what end?

To what End are we?

Have we not found ourselves all in the same boat?  

Some folks think they have a hiding place.  

Are we going to hide from the One?  

Are we going to hide from the Truth?

And, let’s face it, how many of us wish to face up to any of this?  

Many project that civilization will collapse in the meantime.  

Well, that’s one way to avoid the Truth.  

There is something about us that doesn’t quite fit the mold of scientific materialism + ChatGPT……. squeeze though we might.

Modernism presents us with a Procrustean bed…… if we survive that long……

Heroic materialism has come…… and the Encore is far from clear.

What seems eminently clear is that materialism will have to change its tune…….. more or less drastically.  

How do we spell MoAPS?  

What might we do to prepare for or to facilitate the MoAPS…… there being nothing else for us to do, besides bide our time?  

Essentially we would be preparing for the Rapture.

But haven’t those in the churches and mosques already been doing this for the past millennia or two?  

Well, there have been plenty of distractions in the interim.

A humble suggestion is that we just get a bit more focused.  

There are plenty of charlatans out there, just waiting to show their stuff, for instance.  

Let a thousand flowers bloom…… and then exercise ample discernment.  

There will be phenomena and rumors of phenomena.  

But, yes, let the Truth be our guide.

Having a much better grasp of what’s what, we can strive to be on the same page.  

Let us conspire with our better angels.  

Who are we….. from whence did we come….. whither do we go?  

Keep in mind that every one of us is a walking portal…… providing a compass 🧭 to the Beyond.  

We strive for an extra bit of alignment.

Ok, we just follow the light.  

Pitfalls….. there will be many.  

Our collective unconscious will come into play.  

Of course, there will also be bio-chemistry for discerning application.
……….


And, if all else fails, we can always say hello to Tsar Bomba.  

That might open a portal…… or it might not.  

The idea is to not give up too quickly.

A big assist would come in realizing that we’re probably not just animals.

That would be a big adjustment for many.

And to realize that we’re not just predecessors to AGI.  

With these realizations, we would come know ourselves and experience ourselves as co-Creators of the best possible world…….. and as reflections of one another.

Thus would end the best possible Metanarrative.  

Would this be our cosmic letdown?

Well, as soon as you come up with a better story…. have at it.



(cont……..)

What is the truth?

That our souls are made of love.

That all meaning throughout our short time on this blue marble has been bound to and woven together by love.

A love to survive and die for.

Nothing else has really meant a damn to us.

I live for that.

I will surely die for it.

Choose wisely.

BBL,

Amen to that…….
………..


I recommend SEP entry on Idealism….. particularly the last section.

The thesis is that, contrary to popular opinion, idealism never died….. but it’s going to die in the general move to postmodern pluralism.  

Even, and especially, Russell and Moore never swore off idealism, they were merely rendering modern philosophy safe for (linguistic) analysis.  

Epistemological idealism never fell out of currency…… and it’s just a matter of convention…… the separation between epistemological and metaphysical idealism.  

There is virtually no support for metaphysical realism.  
……..


The very practical matter is that the last century was totally dominated by science and technology.  

But that domination has come and gone.

It was very disruptive of anything historical…… especially philosophy.

Now we’re trying to pick up the pieces.  

But no one is grabbing for the golden ring, besides chick……. and chick just got cut loose.  

This is a move that I have long anticipated.  

It is a crucial piece of the Endtimes story, or so I am easily able to imagine.

The final (personal) opening is still on track.  

How much time we have between the personal and the global may not have been signaled.  

It could be a day…… it could be a century.  

It could just be ASAP.  

Either way, I’m rather content with philosophy.  
……….  


I would be hard put to explain to a Gazan that this is the best possible world.  

But actually, maybe not.

The soldiers fervently believe that their martyrdom will land them straight into Heaven.  

I would tend to agree that we all land into Heaven……. eventually…… regardless.  

Heaven……. and that will be worth it?  

Well, what if it’s not?  Would anyone not come back for a second chance?  

And what if we can’t?

Well, it was something.  

It was definitely not nothing!  

Gaza or no Gaza.  
………


Technology is the best argument for scientific materialism.  

But it is a very short step from the Anthropic Principle to the technology principle.  

Understand that the ascendancy of technology was bound to be very time limited.  

Nothing speaks more directly to eschatology than the timing and the limitation.  

The closely related concept is the increasingly personal dimension of technology.  

Of course, technology can only be Anthropocentric.  

The communications dimension of technology is speaking to the necessarily inter-personal aspect of the Eschaton.  

It would seem that we are already well beyond the event horizon of any such.

But still, the Eschaton remains, very cleverly, in almost total stealth mode.

Well, guess what, sports fans, we’ve had all eternity to get this day down right.

Every day in history has been a carefully choreographed step toward the last day……. the last day of linear time, that is.

All systems are go?

We just don’t want to say that they’ve been double checked……. double……..

It will certainly be a leap of faith.

And it will still be a leap……. with or without the faith bit!



(cont………)

“If God is anything, God is a Poet!” —RWE

https://youtu.be/gbJSR2Zt80s
Minor adjustments of the vectors in preparation for the reunion.

I talk to my network of goats and bunnies through OMF too.

Wonder twins activate!

Blue 42!
Blue 42!
Delta X-Ray!
Red19!
Set…Set!
Hut!

The muppets are in the roost.

Repeat!

The muppets are in the roost.

RP,

I’m glad to see that you are still participating.

One of the other principals is now running silent.

Once again we are hearing about the vectors.

The last we heard is that the vectors were converging…… in September of 2016, which allegedly meant that they would not be providing guidance.  

Back then, the vectors were described as being socio-economic, in nature.

They were used to spot trends that might become of concern to various official interests.

That geophysical trends might also be of such interest was not mentioned.  

Should geomagnetic excursions be of eschatological interest…… I will give that consideration.

The given implication is that some vectors can and are being adjusted for the anticipated Reunion.

I’ve been given to understand that the Reunion is in preparation for the Opening.  
…………


In the meantime, we have the additional puzzle of determining where and how genetic engineering could fit into our metabolic/Metanarrative entanglement.

A scientific materialist would likely realize that genetic engineering would likely present the biggest stumbling block to a would be immaterialist.

What aspect of entanglement might we invoke, in responding to such a challenge?

How might this challenge differ from having to explain the designing or programming of a computer, for instance……. from an immaterial perspective?  

This would probably be the logical place to start in devising such an explanation.  

We’re talking about genetic programming, are we not?  

How does an immaterial computer work?

How does an abacus 🧮 work?

How does a sketch work?  

Any time we move an object, it remembers its new position.

How does it remember?  

I kick Samuel Johnson’s stone in the path.

That’s where this all started.  

This is known as the appeal to the stone…… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone ….. argumentum ad lapidem…….

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus."

The fact that Johnson’s foot rebounded off the boulder proved the objectivity of the boulder.  

Ok, so how would the pebble remember having been moved?  

How could an electronic gate remember having been switched?

Remembering a dream can be a feat.

How will the bacteria 🦠 remember if we switch a gene 🧬?
………


chick has been to the ends of the Earth, with the recently ensconced principal, in order to open/move a portal or two.

How would this differ from kicking a pebble or two?  

The metaphysical point is that the two events are not all that different.  

They are not all that different, when we understand that every hair on heads and every pebble on the path is numbered.

Imagine the magnitude of the cosmic memory!  
………


There is a universal solution to all such puzzles……. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvitur_ambulando or the walking around solution.  

This solution occurred to me on my just completed daily constitutional.  

It the same old solution that always comes up in these ontological matters……. attend to the Entanglement…… whether it’s kicking a pebble or programming a computer/bacteria.  
………


The entanglement of anything is micro/cosmic.

The cosmic aspect of the entanglement relates particularly to the Alpha and Omega……. especially to the Omega, ie…. the entanglement is of a teleological nature.  

Keep in mind that space and time are illusions.

There is the old saying that space and time are just God’s way of ensuring that everything doesn’t just happen at once.  

The only valid perspective on the Creation and the Metanarrative is sub specie aeternitatis……. and that is exactly where we’ll soon be heading….. as we become one with the One.  

Yes, things have gotten rather tangled up, down here.

It’s about time that we commence the process of disentanglement.  

Yes, we need to begin to straighten out the confusions and misunderstandings between us…… understanding that all of us, one way or another, are reflections of God.



(cont………)

Fourteen years ago the Princess declared it was time to initiate the process of disentanglement. That process is now nearly complete. Next comes Judgement with a Jury of Twelve. Will you be on the defense?

Now, we’re talking!

But first we have to prepare for your own trial. I have been asked to list the charges, and I will likely be asked to serve as persecutor. So far you are charged with banality, belligerence, bigotry, bonkers, boring, and bullying. Good news is you get to face your accuser.

Well, ok, look at us……. we’re still talking!!

chick can hardly wait!


(cont……)

RP has suggested that I assist in the defense of humanity.

I’m perfectly amenable to this task.
………..


But my defense would largely be predicated on the Small World.

Any normal jury would be more than a bit skeptical.



(cont……..)