Catholic church says not to take Bible as truth

[Neo]

Your sense of self is derived from your seperation from others. I believe part of the reason we are here is that we are in love with the feeling of being an "I." We saw our own reflection in matter and started clinging to it. There are a few physical theories which suggest that eastern religions may be on the right track. There was some good discussion about what it means to have an identity in the clones thread I believe.

One thing I find interesting/amusing is Buddhism. Your goal as a Buddhist is the ceasation of desire since desire is the root cause of all suffering. You can't hurt if you don't want or long for something. They spend most of their time meditating and with the hopes of becoming as enlightened as is possible on this physical plane before rejoining what they consider God to be. In my opinion there's nothing wrong with doing this, but I figure that as long as we are on earth we might as well make use of our time. If we fell into matter because we wanted to know ourselves and to learn it seems like a waste to rush to get back where we started. Yes there will be suffering but pain is a part of life. Without pain and cruelty we wouldn't know joy and kindness.

And while I'm at it, I might as well mention that I think the ultimate purpose of existence is to experience joy. Some would say the purpose is to love. While loving may be the best way to obtain joy, it's still the joy itself we're after. Plus I feel like it's kind of a slap in the face to those who may have recently lost someone or gone through a bad break-up. Some suggest the purpose of life is to learn, but I ask why do we want to learn? We learn because it gives a different kind of joy. We wouldn't learn if it made us feel bad. Same thing with helping people. Helping people and sacrificing ourselves for them makes us feel good. This is really a type of egoism, but I could argue that all actions are selfishly motivated, even that of self-sacrifice. It just depends on your perspective.

I feel like christianity is kind of a jazzed-up version of spirituality. If religion is a book, then christianity is the flashy movie inspired by it. It has its players, heros, enemies, and a personified God which thinks, makes choices, and becomes wrathful. When you apply these qualities it necessarily generates philosophical problems which drive some people (me) up the wall.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Neo

Your sense of self is derived from your seperation from others.

Wrong. Your personality is derived from both nature and nurture, the latter being far more powerful. You are who you are because of those that you have lived with and learned from. Without them, you would be a retarded sociopath (this is fact, not opinion). Religion is a path that preserves the need for family and the group dynamic, which in turn preserves the individual and develops it. Its a two way street. To say that the group destroys individuality is absurd because the individual would not exist without the group, in both physical and phychological terms.

And while I'm at it, I might as well mention that I think the ultimate purpose of existence is to experience joy. Some would say the purpose is to love. While loving may be the best way to obtain joy, it's still the joy itself we're after. Plus I feel like it's kind of a slap in the face to those who may have recently lost someone or gone through a bad break-up. Some suggest the purpose of life is to learn, but I ask why do we want to learn? We learn because it gives a different kind of joy. We wouldn't learn if it made us feel bad. Same thing with helping people. Helping people and sacrificing ourselves for them makes us feel good. This is really a type of egoism, but I could argue that all actions are selfishly motivated, even that of self-sacrifice. It just depends on your perspective.

I agree that the purpose of life is joy, but its how we reach that purpose that tells the story of our lives and determines our ultimate happiness. Mass Murderers find joy through murdering people. Our values, which are reflected by laws, tell us we cannot do that and protects the individual from harm. Some find joy through promiscuity. Our values, reflected by our taboos, tell us that you should not do that and in turn protects us from venerial disease, unwanted pregnancy, etc. Some find joy in a lifelong selfish pursuit of self indulgence. Our values tell us to be generous to one another, which in turn builds a benevolent society, that in turn looks out for the individual. Yes, many Christian and religious social values are in the end selfish, but it is in their unselfish nature that the individual is preserved , protected and in the end is able to find joy. These morals and taboos are not arbitrary, they are to benefit us all.

I feel like christianity is kind of a jazzed-up version of spirituality. If religion is a book, then christianity is the flashy movie inspired by it. It has its players, heros, enemies, and a personified God which thinks, makes choices, and becomes wrathful. When you apply these qualities it necessarily generates philosophical problems which drive some people (me) up the wall.

Well what kaind of Christianity are you talking about? Lutheran? Methodist? Baptist? Evangelical? Catholicism? Orthodox? Mormons? Protestant (Church of England)? There are whole lot of very different versions which you have lumped together.

[Neo]

Originally Posted by Professor S

To say that the group destroys individuality is absurd because the individual would not exist without the group, in both physical and phychological terms.

Sorry I didn't mean seperation from others as in literally locking yourself in a room, I just meant the fact that you are you and aren't someone else is what defines you. I probably could have worded that better.

That's basically what I said, the individual cannot exist without something to define itself against. That can be other people, or the world at large. And yes your personality is derived from nature and nurture, but that just proves you are separate from them to begin with. In order to be changed by something it has to be something in its own right.

I agree that the purpose of life is joy, but its how we reach that purpose that tells the story of our lives and determines our ultimate happiness. Mass Murderers find joy through murdering people.

That's true, and I would have to say the purpose of life being the experience of joy is an overall arc. Mass murders may increase their own levels of joy but they do great damage to the levels of others. And you can probably question how real this joy is when you consider underlying feelings of guilt. For those who do not have the mental capacity to experience guilt their behaviors are still destructive to their long-term abilities to experience joy, in this life or any other.

Well what kaind of Christianity are you talking about? Lutheran? Methodist? Baptist? Evangelical? Catholicism? Orthodox? Mormons? Protestant (Church of England)? There are whole lot of very different versions which you have lumped together.

Well they all have similar ideas when it comes to personifying God. They all talk about what God wants, thinks, and feels. They differ on the details but I don't believe the differences between them are that significant.

[GiMpY-wAnNaBe]

Originally Posted by Neo

Well they all have similar ideas when it comes to personifying God. They all talk about what God wants, thinks, and feels. They differ on the details but I don't believe the differences between them are that significant.

nothing too significant, just a few wars .

[Neo]

More on the self...


Physicist John Wheeler believes that the universe should be viewed in terms of information with matter and energy as incidentals. Recent research in to black holes has yielded theoretical results which suggest that the universe may be a giant hologram. In other words the laws of our 3-dimensional universe (excluding time for the moment) may be painted onto a 2-dimensional surface. The information content of a black hole is dependent on its surface area, not its volume.

A hologram is created when a laser beam reflects off an object (like an apple) and then interfers with the incident beam on a film plate. If you shine a laser of the correct frequency through the plate you can re-create the image of the apple. The curious thing about these plates is that if you shatter them into several pieces and shine the laser through any one piece you can reproduce the entire apple. Any one piece contains the information of the whole apple.

This is important because it demonstrates that physical separation may be an illusion. Though we can measure the distance between the stem of the apple and the bottom, this distance does not exist on the holographic plate. All the information is condensed into a virtual point.

Also consider the phenomenon known as quantum nonlocality. A particle pair is created and its members are sent in opposite directions from one another. Each particle can have either spin up or spin down. The spins are always opposite in that if particle A is measured as spin up, then particle B has to be spin down. Because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle each particle exists in a superposition of spin up and spin down prior to being measured. It has been proven mathematically and experimentally that the degree of cooperation between the particles is such that the superposition is a real phenomenon and each particle simply doesn't have a definite spin until it is measured. The question of course is how does particle A "know" that particle B has been measured? As soon as particle B is measured then it instantaneously collapses the superposition of particle A, and vice versa.

Originally this was thought to violate relativity since the particles seem to instantaneously communicate with each other when we know that nothing can travel faster then the speed of light. What Einstein really said however was that no signal can travel faster than light. There are things that travel faster than light, such as the phase velocity of a radio wave, but as long as you are not transmitting information then you are fine.

And technically these particles cannot be used to send information. Even though we can choose to measure a particle and force it to pick a spin, we can't force it to choose spin up or down - the effect is random.

This is where psychics and mystics get totally tripped up. They use this experiment to "prove" how action at a distance is possible, but they don't understand this experiment simply doesn't allow that. The spins of the particles are correlated, nothing more. We are dealing with correlation not causation.

Still it is an interesting experiment and no real explanation has been put forth by mainstream science. The majority of physicists resort to the Copenhagen interpretation which isn't really an interpretation but more of a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. They treat these events in statistical terms only and kinda ignore the philosophical implications.

If we look at the universe in holographic terms then this experiment makes sense. I believe that even though the particles are separated by a vast distance, this separation is an illusion. On a subquantum holographic reality the particles are right next to each other (overlapping in fact).

So when I say our separation from others gives us our identity, I'm referring to the projections of an interconnectedness which exists on a fundamental level. On a subquantum level our souls or experiences are overlapping and combining (this is another topic by itself), and it's only through our existence on this physical plane that we can separate our "self" from other "selves" in order to have the feeling of being a unique person. I definitely understand that we need others in order to develop our identities, but we have exist separately from them to have a "self" to begin with. But even on this physical plane we wonder what the self really is or what it encompasses. Your experiences? Neurons? The body that sustains them? The air you breath? Where does your self end and the external world begin?

This is a controversial point but there is evidence to suggest that your own brain operates on holographic principles. Patients who have portions of their brain removed don't report the loss of any specific memories, which is what you would expect if the brain stored information locally. Rather their memories overall become more fuzzy, which is right in line with the notion that your brain stores memories holographically. Kinda cool, huh?

[GiMpY-wAnNaBe]

wow....best....explanation of one line.....EVER.



and that's a lot to swallow all at once, its one theory that i actually have never heard until now. For your second last paragraph asking where the mind ends and body starts, i believe in Dualism, which states that the mind and body are completely different entities. The conciousness is always alone, and by this theory i can see how you say individualization and seperation gives identity.

[Neo]

I think it is through a process of self-referencing that consciousness arises. A crude example involves a photon trapped between two mirrors. The wave reflects onto itself so that the photon can "see" itself. I think there is a complex process of self-referencing occurring in the brain which gives rise to the feeling of being self-aware.

Notice when you are not thinking about anything, or are just "zoning out" staring off into space, that you don't feel quite as aware? Our sense of identity varies from time to time based on how we feel. As we look down the food chain we see creatures with decreasingly complex levels of intelligence, and consequently decreasingly levels of awareness. A dog is driven by instincts, but is still more self-aware then a cockroach for example.

[Professor S]

I think your overstepping the value of physics when it comes to human identity.

To me it seems like asking a mathematician to explain Shakespeare. Sure, he used iambic pentameter, other patterns, and you can break apart Shakespeare's writings through these mathematical processes, but your not really explaining or understanding Shakespeare, are you.

Humanity is more than the human brain and it's chemical reactions. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.