"It is essentially their ego and their perceived intellectual superiority that prevents these so-called philosophers from ever knowing anything of the truth."
And to prove my point, one clinging to ego in favor of absolute truth, one who rejects the the absolute truth of the mystic in favor of the walls of the mind:
"Like reading someone whose literary skills extend to "the cat sat on the mat" trying to critique James Joyce."
It happened randomly after deeply considering what black holes 'are'. I stepped outside myself. It felt as if I was going crazy. I quickly abandoned the new perspective and stepped back inside. I decided to pursue it further. I succeeded in stepping out of the cave and perceiving true knowledge for a day or so, it felt as if I were in wonderland - I knew that this was not real. Suddenly I had a complete disconnect from this false universe and became the source. I stopped taking life seriously.
It's okay, he's a silly human, like me. The only difference between us is that he thinks he knows something as a man, and I know that I don't know anything. I am therefore less ignorant than him.
Indeed. Churning thoughts, ratiocination, and analysis are not the activities or interests of the mystic. Thus what would he know about their perceptions. Stilling the mind, the work of the mystic, is the most difficult human attainment and his ilk did not pursue such goals. Oh, but I'm sure he knew lots of Big Word to impress the small minds. Enjoy.
@DivineFellowship Now you're just embarrassing yourself. Apart from being the co-founder of analytic philosophy, a master logician, mathematician, essayist and social commentator, Russell was admired for his simple and accessible prose style. He was not fond of "big words" - certainly not as fond as you appear to be. He also took to heart Marx's statement about changing the world, not merely describing or explaining it. As I said, he was a leviathan - you're a minnow. Learn to live with it.
@mikelheron20 To answer your question about Plato. He and Socrates were enlightened. You're crazy to believe that electrical impulses could perceive or understand true reality. Also, why is it that if this is the only true, ultimate universe, it is so mathematically perfect and balanced? Out of all the infinite possibilities of possible chaos, it is in such perfect harmony to create stars and life, and not at all chaotic. The probability of this occuring is infinitely small.
@sheepard9915 Educate yourself. You obviously need to. Read about the anthropic principle. I doubt you'll understand it but give it a go anyway. You could also try reading about "qualia" and Gilbert Ryle's Mind Brain Identity Theory. While you're at it look up "category mistake". When you've read all that and (here's the rub) understood it - then you may call me crazy. Until then you're just making noise.
The mystic dispenses with mere ratiocination and analyzing things-at-a-distance to actually seek the inner knowledge. Let the old coot mumble all he likes.
One can only prove the discoveries of the mystics to one's self. You can't sit there and churn thoughts about it, smoke your pipe, and pose as an expert on it if one's never tried the disciplines and mental concentration of the mystic. Russell is a typical western intellectual, a mere empty materialist with no realization.
@DivineFellowship Everyone - Christians, Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists and atheists have what you call "mystical" experiences. They are commonplace. But whereas some people claim for them some kind of transcendental origin and significance - the less fanciful of us regard them as completely natural phenomena resulting from the activity of the brain. They can be triggered by meditation, chanting or simply contemplating a sunset. They can be pleasant or frightening but are without significance.
@mikelheron20 Russell was perfectly aware of all this and as capable of staring at his navel reciting "Om mani padme hum", "Kyrie eleison" or "Hare Krsna" as any tree-hugging crystal worshipper or sexually frustrated nun. However,he used his brain and his time more profitably. It's very amusing when some people claim to have a special insight or gift in matters "mystical". Mystical experiences are like bouts of indigestion - we all have them at times.
It is essentially their ego and their perceived intellectual superiority that prevents these so-called philosophers from ever knowing anything of the truth. All they can do is describe the shadows dancing on the cave wall using their human senses (the chains), and describe them well. But they are still just shadows. Never will they know life outside the chains and under the true sun.
@sheepard9915 I see your disregard for "so-called philosophers" doesn't include Plato. Do tell us more about these "non-human" senses that you and others like you have and the rest of us don't possess.
Religion has nothing to do with mysticism. Religion is the antithesis to truth, and mysticism is the only real truth. Guys like Bertrand will never know anything of truth because they are stubborn, smug people and never desire anything other than what they can deduce for themselves. For them to accept mysticism would be for them to admit that they do not know anything, and everything they have held over others' heads for their lives becomes a lie and their ego becomes destroyed. Sad.
@sheepard9915 Throughout his long life, Bertrand Russell grappled with difficult matters well beyond your comprehension. He was intellectually honest enough to admit ignorance and to abandon cherished beliefs when they proved false. He nailed his moral principles to the mast even when it meant imprisonment. Up until the end of his life he worked for peace and maintained his mental acuity. He never lost faith in mankind. Nothing too sad about any of that. How will you be remembered I wonder?
The clown with the pipe never figured out that each person experiences his own reality, and that "others" are also one's own. Usually pipe smokers are smarter.
@DivineFellowship Thanks for your comment - it gave me a good laugh. Hilarious to read the mental equivalent of plankton ridiculing an intellectual leviathan like Russell.
@mikelheron20 -- A big talker doesn't necessarily know anything about mysticism. Did the thought-churner every try any of the disciplines of mysticism. (Not likely.)
@DivineFellowship "Big talker ...thought churner". Thanks again. Your comments are very amusing. Like reading someone whose literary skills extend to "the cat sat on the mat" trying to critique James Joyce. Keep them coming. It's good to have a laugh.
@sharlene This is what Jesus spoke of being born again. He's impling that its impossible to RETAIN the raw un-tapped spirit or energy, which ever you prefer, with a clogged colon. We must dispose the waste of this worldly system just to experience our original state. Or we will continue to here and accept such rubbish.lol.
@sharlene But it does show how limited our thought process is in this dimension. Therefore, what's sought, can't be revealed until we shed our physical conscious and learn to look with our inner self. Some may call it the third eye or the heart even. Nevetheless, we can't see until there's a cleasing.
And please don't put religion in this. This is strictly a spiritual awarkening to your orginal state.
My response to, say, the music of Bach, cannot be discounted because it is mere emotion. A person without emotion or states of exaltation is less than human.
We so widely vary that it may be difficult, impossible, to label what a human is. It would come down to a thing that we all share, and would make it very much like a scientific observation rather than a definition for the layman.
So sorry, you struck me as intelligent yet provocative.
I think we need to look at mystical experience as a subjective experience just as we see joy, sadness, lust, contentment, anger etc. These emotions we share with other animals, however what distinguishes us is our love of music, beautiful language and art etc, something a little extra. My love of art can't be seen through a microscope.
However neuroscience is now detecting "higher emotions" in the brain which may give credence to mysticism as a human faculty.
Hopefully science can redeem mysticism of its religious connotations and bring it into the 21st century. My own mystical experiences were of incredible joy yet I remain agnostic. Wether my experiences were pathological or not I will leave to science to discover.
The connotation and maybe even the denotation of "mysticism" likely points, not to higher emotion, but to a supernatural experience. We may need a new word or to popularize its second definition as you suggested, as "mysticism" as a higher emotion is an idea that needs to be expressed more and more over its supernatural counterpart.
@MrXephyr If you use a scientific approach to explain your ideas, it will probably be impossible to emulate your mystical experiences through test conditions and even if we somehow managed to explain your mystical experiences through science I doubt it would detail them very well at all. Try looking Beethoven sheet of music, it contains a galaxy of experience but yet it presents itself objectively as ink on paper.
@YetAnotherInfidel Thanks same to you, Xmass. a brain biologically damaged, needs to be repaired, but psychologically we humans share the same consciousness. which is despair, hate love, fear, pain, sorrow. the (sick) individual will resolve a situation with his memories/experience which incomplete or corrupted results in pain and fear. yet he is as human as you and me. He is in conflict and doesn't understand the cause of his suffering and so acts accordingly. but, this can change. k: ).
A person who willfully discards emotion or simply are biologically unable to have emotion are still human. So what is it that makes a person a person?
Is it in the physicalities? In genetics?
Well, certainly:
The brain produces the mind, and as such the mind is genetic.
Therefore, a "human" is the result of the pairing of two such creatueres before this individual.
What separates us from animals, as I think you are hitting on, is the fact that we think and have advnaced emotion. Many animals have emotion, but not to the degree that we have it. Therefore, we DO reserve a special spot on Earth as high primates. That is where I stand, I would like to hear more from you.
@YetAnotherInfidel If I may interject- What kind of evidence is there that humans have more "advanced" emotions than other animals? I think the difference is essentially that we dwell on our emotions with our intellectual faculties, relating such values more extensively into our thoughts, and thus enhancing them abstractly. But I'd think the brain mechanisms of pain, sadness, joy, etc. are the same. I don't know enough about the brain, but elephants greive over their dead too.
It may be the ability to concieve of an emotion without experiencing it that separates us, or rather, to reflect on emotion and express it. So basically, I agree with you and I see our ability to do such a thing as a big indication of human life. Well, not only human life, but advanced-specie life.
Without these people are still human, as to the firmest definition confirmable we can only be classified biologically, by our genetic makeup and body structure.
Perhaps our ability to control our emotions sets us apart. My anger may be channelled into political action for example. Then again some other creatures show cunning and calculation. It seems to me we share our emotions with other creatures but we are just better at it. A question of degrees.
It's impossible to take God out of science. God created science. Science didn't create Him. This is why science can't explain Him and many other things in the physical realm.
For instance, black energy and matter that takes up about 75% of our universe and keeping it intact. But we can't explain it or it's source in the physical realm. However, when we consider the spiritual realm and understand it's a relative, then it starts to make since.
@electricalcj Something being currently unexplained does not infer that such a thing can not possibly be explained. Something being unexplained means simply that. Unexplained.
"I cannot admit of any method of arriving at truth except by science."
Is that why you just spent 6 minutes giving us your opinions and acting as if these opinions were more "true" than others? Yes, Bert, your opinions may be "true" for you in that they describe your emotional state, but they don't establish what is real or what is objectively true outside of yourself.
@MillionthUsername i disagree. your statement is irrelevant. all russel is saying is that the profound revelations of two different people, both of whom feel equally enlightened, could be in complete opposition to each other. furthermore, the emotions of one person don't have greater value than those of anyone else. so... revelation, which is based in emotion, naturally carries less weight than things that can be scientifically verified. if you can logically disprove this... then go for it.
@mvan1225 The word revelation doesn't refer to emotion. It refers to knowledge being shared. So when you say, "revelation, which is based in emotion," you are simply spouting your opinion that there cannot be revelation, so emotion must always explain the claims to it.
I can do the same thing and spout my opinions about how the psychology of this man dictates what his opinions will be. His atheism is an expression of his alienation from God. It's a feeling, not "truth."
@MillionthUsername i don't know about that.. if you're a christian, you probably think that, say, what the prophet mohamed felt was the word of allah was in fact nothing. that it was his imagination or something. but you couldn't prove this in any way. on the same token, you would probably feel very close to god yourself. that spiritual closeness to a higer power you feel as a christian is the same as what mohamed felt as the founder of islam, but obviously both of you can't be right.
@mvan1225 "but obviously both of you can't be right."
No kidding. So what? I'm me. I'm not Mohammed. I live my life and use my brain and my will. There are dozens of political philosophies and hundreds of moralities in the world. They can't all be right. Does that mean that none are? Does it mean that all are equally wrong? Would you say there is no truth to discover about ethics because people hold different views on ethics?
@MillionthUsername not at all, i think that everybody's personal code of ethics should be a perpetually evolving thing, and that people should try to truly understand how others feel politically, morally, and in every way. nobody has all the answers. this has little to do with religion really, because there is no overlap between religions at their core. god and shiva can't both exist, in the way that elements of two different ideologies can be true.
@mvan1225 Sorry, I'm not following. Your "irrefutable statement" is that two conflicting claims cannot both be right where they conflict? I agree. Everyone agrees. It's a non-issue.
I think Russell's treatment of this matter was insufficient, invalid and philosophically unsatisfactory. Whilst he did raise the important points, he did not treat them thoroughly enough, certainly mysticism is a very fascinating phenomena and requires and explanation.
The deaf, dumb, & blind man does not know if anything can be trusted outside the realm of taste & touch. Likewise, the intellect is wholly unable to ascertain that which lies outside the psychic realm.
"Reality" is not used to refer to the emotional, but to that on which all else rests & depends. Facts change, but truth does not. What is factual 1 day may be false the next. Entities appear to die, but in reality they have changed form, just as the seemingly dead winter tree resurrects in spring.
The physical scientist can demand so little of those who would investigate his knowledge because the vast majority of humans are born w/ adequate physical senses. However, very few humans are born w/ psychic senses, & no humans are born w/ spiritual senses, for they are developed after Spiritual Birth.
The basic requirement for the apprehension of Reality is: You must be born of God. He who refuses to act upon this premise & discover its meaning reveals himself to be a disingenuous dilettante.
@OKandNOWwhat I'm am really sorry to put a bummer on your life, but that really is a delusional thought. I suggest educating yourself on how the brain works. This should hopefully steer you to understand exactly what I mean by "delusional thought." Sure, if you close your eyes and think about God really hard you might get a glimpse of him, maybe even "feel" him. But look, it isn't real. It's just your imagination. Hence the phrase, "figment of your imagination." Santa and Jesus alike.
The physical scientist is granted a glimpse into that which he is investigating, and, pursuing this hunch, he discovers that experiment bears it out. However, that hunch was not "real," as you say; it was just his "imagination." Likewise, those w/ spiritual perception know things which cannot be proven until they are made manifest to those who must rely upon physical senses to ascertain them. The blind insist there is nothing to see.
@OKandNOWwhat Dude, I am not denying you can't make yourself see God, Jesus, Allah, Krishna, etc. All I am saying is it is just a figment of your imagination. Google how does the brain work. or something like that. Brain is interchangeable with mind. The brain creates the mind, the ability to understand something.
If the brain created the mind, then braindead patients w/ taped eyelids would be unable to precisely recount the actions of physicians & others. For one example of this, search "the day i died part 3."
The brain is the physical organ that RECEIVES the mind and regulates the body.
My experiences w/ God are not caused by me, & they are verified by the fact that each time I'm told something will occur, it occurs, though it is beyond my control. I also have intersubjective corroboration.
@OKandNOWwhat The brain does create the mind. The mind isn't some special invisible thing that we can't see... we can't find it because it's created by the brain. Please go do some actual research. And I'm skeptic of that video about the guy being in a coma, standing above himself and being able to see the stuff happening to him. Not going to believe until I experience it.
No, not the man in a coma. I referred to the woman w/ an aneurysm whose brain death was induced by her surgeon in order to operate. It starts @ 2:27.
What you are calling research is just reading other people's ideas. Real research is hands on.
By your standards, even if you experience it, it is not real. I KNOW the Reality of which I speak & experience it daily. The man w/ experience is not at the mercy of men w/ opinions. As long as you pretend to know, you are unworthy of wisdom.
@OKandNOWwhat Pam? That is a figment of her IMAGINATION. I don't understand how you can't understand this. The brain is extremely powerful. I think you don't understand the meaning of the term "clinically dead." Look it up some times.
You can experience God, which I already said before. It is just in your mind, imagination. I don't think people should take magical wisdom seriously. Witchcraft is magical wisdom, do you like that too? Or are you just going pick and choose, like always.
She accurately "imagined" the the nurse's conversation w/ the surgeon & description of the drill. OK.
Witchcraft is communication w/ spirits. Revelation is communication w/ the Spirit. You have chosen your conclusion. But it is only your opinion. You have no direct personal experience. You have theories but no science (knowledge).
I have lived w/ Messiah for 11 years, and all that He tells me happens. I wish you well in your limited world. Convince yourself. I already KNOW. Bless you
@OKandNOWwhat I said I was a skeptic of that video. I still don't think its possible. And what you described isn't even what happened to her. She was just imagining. The way she was speaking, it sounded like they were past memories. And she was connecting them with what she remembers from the room and what she knows the doctor will do.
@OKandNOWwhat Actually, by scientific standards experiencing something does not therefore make it real, in the sense that it exist irrespective of your existence. An extreme example would be something like schizophrenia. Unless a phenomena can be scientifically shown to be "real" it remains in the realm of either non existant, or un demonstratable. Now, of course the experience is absolutely real in that, you really did experience it. But, your experience may not agree with physical reality.
True, but internal experiences that are corroborated by subsequent verifiable events & intersubjective occurrences (when two or more people independently concur on details of an otherwise subjective reality), though lacking the replication demanded by science, are still experienced & attested to by many.
It's usually not the experience that intellectualists reject; it's the purported explanation & its implications.
Science is the wrong tool for determining ultimate Reality.
@OKandNOWwhat I'm sorry, but that is just nonsense. What other tool is there! Show me an instance of ANYONE determining ultimate reality and I'll show you a person who is delusional, crazy, or stupid. The only method, or "tool" for RELIABLY determining TRUE causation is science. Otherwise we would use other methods to actually get things done. Understanding something as simple as the orbits of bodies in space only came about when the other "tools" for determining reality were abandoned.
The operative word in my offending statement was "ultimate." Science is quite useful for determining primary effects but useless for discovering ACTUAL causes (although "sciences" such as psychology attempt to do this in the human arena). Causes do not appear, only effects. Science gives us tools by which we can measure & predict these effects; that is all.
Knowledge of orbits does not equate to knowledge of their cause, nor does calling it "gravity" & describing its function.
@OKandNOWwhat Either you are totally confused, or you're playing a language game where nobody else knows the rules but you. Gravity isn't just something we are calling the cause of orbits, thereby simply renaming the unknown. Gravity is a bend in space/time caused by the presence of matter. Now, you could make the completely daft statement, 'yeah, but you're just calling it a bend in space/time; it's still unknown.' What a crock! You implied that there was a better method for determining :CON:
@OKandNOWwhat :CON: ultimate reality. WELL, what is it! You have actually shot yourself in the foot, because anytime we explain a cause for something in your book we have just renamed the unknown. So, when you use this/these "other method/methods," you still cannot determine the cause of something because you could always make the incredibly dumb statement, 'yeah, but what's the ULTIMATE cause.' The statment I am going to Atlanta, and, Atlanta is coming to me, in reality mean the same thing.CON:
@OKandNOWwhat :CON: Likewise, the statment gravity causes the orbits of planets, and, gravity is warped space in the presence of matter being pulled along a plane by planets, are the same!.THIS IS AN EXPLANATION OF A CAUSE and a subsequent EFFECT! I'm sorry if you do not understand that. If I say that the fire made my hands warm, would you then say to me, 'but what was the ultimate cause? Do you see how incoherant what you're saying is? If science can't find causes, the word cause means nothing.
@OKandNOWwhat BTW: What is an "ACTUAL" cause? Like I said, you're playing a language game. As a research scientist, if I told my boss that I couldn't find the ACTUAL cause that the computer model isn't matching up with the live test I would get FIRED! So, I don't know where you're getting your scientific education from, but it would not fly at any research station I know of.
Kudos! U framed & demolished arguments I am not making, replete with ad hominems. Emotionalism is the tool of rhetoricians rather than intellectuals.
"Actual cause"- that which precipitated the primary effect. To use your example, what is the cause of the matter which results in the bend in space/time? Though science can define matter; it has been unable to prove how the energy of matter came to be.
"Ultimate Reality"- that which is not contingent upon anything else.
It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature.
Albert Einstein
MsDenyEverything 22 hours ago
Dude should drop acid and eat mescaline like Huxley did
Franz1987 2 weeks ago
The first step is to accept that you know nothing,
sheepard9915 3 weeks ago
@sheepard9915 k
reznor12 2 weeks ago
This has been flagged as spam show
"It is essentially their ego and their perceived intellectual superiority that prevents these so-called philosophers from ever knowing anything of the truth."
And to prove my point, one clinging to ego in favor of absolute truth, one who rejects the the absolute truth of the mystic in favor of the walls of the mind:
"Like reading someone whose literary skills extend to "the cat sat on the mat" trying to critique James Joyce."
sheepard9915 3 weeks ago
It happened randomly after deeply considering what black holes 'are'. I stepped outside myself. It felt as if I was going crazy. I quickly abandoned the new perspective and stepped back inside. I decided to pursue it further. I succeeded in stepping out of the cave and perceiving true knowledge for a day or so, it felt as if I were in wonderland - I knew that this was not real. Suddenly I had a complete disconnect from this false universe and became the source. I stopped taking life seriously.
sheepard9915 3 weeks ago
It's okay, he's a silly human, like me. The only difference between us is that he thinks he knows something as a man, and I know that I don't know anything. I am therefore less ignorant than him.
sheepard9915 3 weeks ago
what an arrogant man ...
agilesilver 3 weeks ago
Indeed. Churning thoughts, ratiocination, and analysis are not the activities or interests of the mystic. Thus what would he know about their perceptions. Stilling the mind, the work of the mystic, is the most difficult human attainment and his ilk did not pursue such goals. Oh, but I'm sure he knew lots of Big Word to impress the small minds. Enjoy.
DivineFellowship 3 weeks ago
@DivineFellowship Now you're just embarrassing yourself. Apart from being the co-founder of analytic philosophy, a master logician, mathematician, essayist and social commentator, Russell was admired for his simple and accessible prose style. He was not fond of "big words" - certainly not as fond as you appear to be. He also took to heart Marx's statement about changing the world, not merely describing or explaining it. As I said, he was a leviathan - you're a minnow. Learn to live with it.
mikelheron20 3 weeks ago
@mikelheron20 To answer your question about Plato. He and Socrates were enlightened. You're crazy to believe that electrical impulses could perceive or understand true reality. Also, why is it that if this is the only true, ultimate universe, it is so mathematically perfect and balanced? Out of all the infinite possibilities of possible chaos, it is in such perfect harmony to create stars and life, and not at all chaotic. The probability of this occuring is infinitely small.
sheepard9915 3 weeks ago
@sheepard9915 Educate yourself. You obviously need to. Read about the anthropic principle. I doubt you'll understand it but give it a go anyway. You could also try reading about "qualia" and Gilbert Ryle's Mind Brain Identity Theory. While you're at it look up "category mistake". When you've read all that and (here's the rub) understood it - then you may call me crazy. Until then you're just making noise.
mikelheron20 3 weeks ago
The mystic dispenses with mere ratiocination and analyzing things-at-a-distance to actually seek the inner knowledge. Let the old coot mumble all he likes.
DivineFellowship 3 weeks ago
Comment removed
mikelheron20 3 weeks ago
One can only prove the discoveries of the mystics to one's self. You can't sit there and churn thoughts about it, smoke your pipe, and pose as an expert on it if one's never tried the disciplines and mental concentration of the mystic. Russell is a typical western intellectual, a mere empty materialist with no realization.
DivineFellowship 3 weeks ago
@DivineFellowship Everyone - Christians, Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists and atheists have what you call "mystical" experiences. They are commonplace. But whereas some people claim for them some kind of transcendental origin and significance - the less fanciful of us regard them as completely natural phenomena resulting from the activity of the brain. They can be triggered by meditation, chanting or simply contemplating a sunset. They can be pleasant or frightening but are without significance.
mikelheron20 3 weeks ago
@mikelheron20 Russell was perfectly aware of all this and as capable of staring at his navel reciting "Om mani padme hum", "Kyrie eleison" or "Hare Krsna" as any tree-hugging crystal worshipper or sexually frustrated nun. However,he used his brain and his time more profitably. It's very amusing when some people claim to have a special insight or gift in matters "mystical". Mystical experiences are like bouts of indigestion - we all have them at times.
mikelheron20 3 weeks ago
It is essentially their ego and their perceived intellectual superiority that prevents these so-called philosophers from ever knowing anything of the truth. All they can do is describe the shadows dancing on the cave wall using their human senses (the chains), and describe them well. But they are still just shadows. Never will they know life outside the chains and under the true sun.
sheepard9915 3 weeks ago
@sheepard9915 I see your disregard for "so-called philosophers" doesn't include Plato. Do tell us more about these "non-human" senses that you and others like you have and the rest of us don't possess.
mikelheron20 3 weeks ago
Religion has nothing to do with mysticism. Religion is the antithesis to truth, and mysticism is the only real truth. Guys like Bertrand will never know anything of truth because they are stubborn, smug people and never desire anything other than what they can deduce for themselves. For them to accept mysticism would be for them to admit that they do not know anything, and everything they have held over others' heads for their lives becomes a lie and their ego becomes destroyed. Sad.
sheepard9915 3 weeks ago
@sheepard9915 Throughout his long life, Bertrand Russell grappled with difficult matters well beyond your comprehension. He was intellectually honest enough to admit ignorance and to abandon cherished beliefs when they proved false. He nailed his moral principles to the mast even when it meant imprisonment. Up until the end of his life he worked for peace and maintained his mental acuity. He never lost faith in mankind. Nothing too sad about any of that. How will you be remembered I wonder?
mikelheron20 3 weeks ago
I don't think Bertrand ever met Ramana Maharshi
rhinohippo 3 weeks ago
The clown with the pipe never figured out that each person experiences his own reality, and that "others" are also one's own. Usually pipe smokers are smarter.
DivineFellowship 3 weeks ago
@DivineFellowship Thanks for your comment - it gave me a good laugh. Hilarious to read the mental equivalent of plankton ridiculing an intellectual leviathan like Russell.
mikelheron20 3 weeks ago
@mikelheron20 -- A big talker doesn't necessarily know anything about mysticism. Did the thought-churner every try any of the disciplines of mysticism. (Not likely.)
DivineFellowship 3 weeks ago
@DivineFellowship "Big talker ...thought churner". Thanks again. Your comments are very amusing. Like reading someone whose literary skills extend to "the cat sat on the mat" trying to critique James Joyce. Keep them coming. It's good to have a laugh.
mikelheron20 3 weeks ago
hahah 4:30 betrand baited himself out as a stoner
captainawsomeface 1 month ago
The narrator sounds like Alan Watts.
Morecake2 1 month ago
@sharlene This is what Jesus spoke of being born again. He's impling that its impossible to RETAIN the raw un-tapped spirit or energy, which ever you prefer, with a clogged colon. We must dispose the waste of this worldly system just to experience our original state. Or we will continue to here and accept such rubbish.lol.
electricalcj 2 months ago
@sharlene But it does show how limited our thought process is in this dimension. Therefore, what's sought, can't be revealed until we shed our physical conscious and learn to look with our inner self. Some may call it the third eye or the heart even. Nevetheless, we can't see until there's a cleasing.
And please don't put religion in this. This is strictly a spiritual awarkening to your orginal state.
electricalcj 2 months ago
My response to, say, the music of Bach, cannot be discounted because it is mere emotion. A person without emotion or states of exaltation is less than human.
MrXephyr 2 months ago
@MrXephyr
But what is a human?
We so widely vary that it may be difficult, impossible, to label what a human is. It would come down to a thing that we all share, and would make it very much like a scientific observation rather than a definition for the layman.
So sorry, you struck me as intelligent yet provocative.
YetAnotherInfidel 2 months ago
@YetAnotherInfidel
I think we need to look at mystical experience as a subjective experience just as we see joy, sadness, lust, contentment, anger etc. These emotions we share with other animals, however what distinguishes us is our love of music, beautiful language and art etc, something a little extra. My love of art can't be seen through a microscope.
However neuroscience is now detecting "higher emotions" in the brain which may give credence to mysticism as a human faculty.
MrXephyr 2 months ago
@YetAnotherInfidel
Hopefully science can redeem mysticism of its religious connotations and bring it into the 21st century. My own mystical experiences were of incredible joy yet I remain agnostic. Wether my experiences were pathological or not I will leave to science to discover.
MrXephyr 2 months ago
@MrXephyr
The connotation and maybe even the denotation of "mysticism" likely points, not to higher emotion, but to a supernatural experience. We may need a new word or to popularize its second definition as you suggested, as "mysticism" as a higher emotion is an idea that needs to be expressed more and more over its supernatural counterpart.
YetAnotherInfidel 2 months ago
@YetAnotherInfidel
Agreed. The fact that people have these experiences makes them "natural".
MrXephyr 2 months ago
@MrXephyr If you use a scientific approach to explain your ideas, it will probably be impossible to emulate your mystical experiences through test conditions and even if we somehow managed to explain your mystical experiences through science I doubt it would detail them very well at all. Try looking Beethoven sheet of music, it contains a galaxy of experience but yet it presents itself objectively as ink on paper.
jamafrican657 2 months ago
@YetAnotherInfidel
We all share the same consciousness, although we may look different.
and although we perceive ourselves as individuals, we are one, human kind.
k: ).
WolfEyesatNight 2 months ago
@WolfEyesatNight
What of the schizophrenics, the brain damaged?
What of the killers, the demons, the despots?
I know what you are saying, but I personally feel that there is not set definition of what a human is.
Lets just say that a definition refers to the norm, the average. But since there are so many way to be a human, I find it hard to label.
BTW, happy holidays. :D
YetAnotherInfidel 2 months ago
WolfEyesatNight 2 months ago
@WolfEyesatNight
Here is how I see it:
A person who willfully discards emotion or simply are biologically unable to have emotion are still human. So what is it that makes a person a person?
Is it in the physicalities? In genetics?
Well, certainly:
The brain produces the mind, and as such the mind is genetic.
Therefore, a "human" is the result of the pairing of two such creatueres before this individual.
48 chromosomes makes a human a human.
Cont-
YetAnotherInfidel 2 months ago
@WolfEyesatNight
--
What separates us from animals, as I think you are hitting on, is the fact that we think and have advnaced emotion. Many animals have emotion, but not to the degree that we have it. Therefore, we DO reserve a special spot on Earth as high primates. That is where I stand, I would like to hear more from you.
YetAnotherInfidel 2 months ago
@YetAnotherInfidel
Evil humans are basically ignorant, even thought some manage to accumulate power
or wealth, they still suffer the same as you. pain and loneliness is their main weakness,
so hey turn to rage, fear and violence.
for they live an empty life, they don't know true love.
You can't love and hate at the same time, you see.
The mind has memories, memories produce thought,
thought accumulates experience, experience stores knowledge.
So thought is behind all of our actions.
k: ).
WolfEyesatNight 1 month ago
@YetAnotherInfidel If I may interject- What kind of evidence is there that humans have more "advanced" emotions than other animals? I think the difference is essentially that we dwell on our emotions with our intellectual faculties, relating such values more extensively into our thoughts, and thus enhancing them abstractly. But I'd think the brain mechanisms of pain, sadness, joy, etc. are the same. I don't know enough about the brain, but elephants greive over their dead too.
SilvrDragon52 1 month ago
@SilvrDragon52
It may be the ability to concieve of an emotion without experiencing it that separates us, or rather, to reflect on emotion and express it. So basically, I agree with you and I see our ability to do such a thing as a big indication of human life. Well, not only human life, but advanced-specie life.
Without these people are still human, as to the firmest definition confirmable we can only be classified biologically, by our genetic makeup and body structure.
YetAnotherInfidel 1 month ago
@YetAnotherInfidel
Perhaps our ability to control our emotions sets us apart. My anger may be channelled into political action for example. Then again some other creatures show cunning and calculation. It seems to me we share our emotions with other creatures but we are just better at it. A question of degrees.
MrXephyr 1 month ago
@MrXephyr
if I may,
a person without anger, fear (emotion) is he or she still human?
can we live without them?
yes we can.
WolfEyesatNight 2 months ago
It's all relative.
It's impossible to take God out of science. God created science. Science didn't create Him. This is why science can't explain Him and many other things in the physical realm.
For instance, black energy and matter that takes up about 75% of our universe and keeping it intact. But we can't explain it or it's source in the physical realm. However, when we consider the spiritual realm and understand it's a relative, then it starts to make since.
electricalcj 2 months ago
@electricalcj Something being currently unexplained does not infer that such a thing can not possibly be explained. Something being unexplained means simply that. Unexplained.
Sharlene458 2 months ago
"I cannot admit of any method of arriving at truth except by science."
Is that why you just spent 6 minutes giving us your opinions and acting as if these opinions were more "true" than others? Yes, Bert, your opinions may be "true" for you in that they describe your emotional state, but they don't establish what is real or what is objectively true outside of yourself.
MillionthUsername 3 months ago
@MillionthUsername i disagree. your statement is irrelevant. all russel is saying is that the profound revelations of two different people, both of whom feel equally enlightened, could be in complete opposition to each other. furthermore, the emotions of one person don't have greater value than those of anyone else. so... revelation, which is based in emotion, naturally carries less weight than things that can be scientifically verified. if you can logically disprove this... then go for it.
mvan1225 3 months ago
@mvan1225 The word revelation doesn't refer to emotion. It refers to knowledge being shared. So when you say, "revelation, which is based in emotion," you are simply spouting your opinion that there cannot be revelation, so emotion must always explain the claims to it.
I can do the same thing and spout my opinions about how the psychology of this man dictates what his opinions will be. His atheism is an expression of his alienation from God. It's a feeling, not "truth."
MillionthUsername 3 months ago
@MillionthUsername i don't know about that.. if you're a christian, you probably think that, say, what the prophet mohamed felt was the word of allah was in fact nothing. that it was his imagination or something. but you couldn't prove this in any way. on the same token, you would probably feel very close to god yourself. that spiritual closeness to a higer power you feel as a christian is the same as what mohamed felt as the founder of islam, but obviously both of you can't be right.
mvan1225 3 months ago
@mvan1225 "but obviously both of you can't be right."
No kidding. So what? I'm me. I'm not Mohammed. I live my life and use my brain and my will. There are dozens of political philosophies and hundreds of moralities in the world. They can't all be right. Does that mean that none are? Does it mean that all are equally wrong? Would you say there is no truth to discover about ethics because people hold different views on ethics?
MillionthUsername 3 months ago
@MillionthUsername not at all, i think that everybody's personal code of ethics should be a perpetually evolving thing, and that people should try to truly understand how others feel politically, morally, and in every way. nobody has all the answers. this has little to do with religion really, because there is no overlap between religions at their core. god and shiva can't both exist, in the way that elements of two different ideologies can be true.
mvan1225 3 months ago
@MillionthUsername think about the implications of that rather indisputable statement
mvan1225 3 months ago
@mvan1225 Sorry, I'm not following. Your "irrefutable statement" is that two conflicting claims cannot both be right where they conflict? I agree. Everyone agrees. It's a non-issue.
MillionthUsername 3 months ago
Enlighten us, Samgurney88.
therealhoodedvillain 3 months ago
I think Russell's treatment of this matter was insufficient, invalid and philosophically unsatisfactory. Whilst he did raise the important points, he did not treat them thoroughly enough, certainly mysticism is a very fascinating phenomena and requires and explanation.
Samgurney88 4 months ago
OUT OF THIS WORLD.
tradecycles 6 months ago 2
The deaf, dumb, & blind man does not know if anything can be trusted outside the realm of taste & touch. Likewise, the intellect is wholly unable to ascertain that which lies outside the psychic realm.
"Reality" is not used to refer to the emotional, but to that on which all else rests & depends. Facts change, but truth does not. What is factual 1 day may be false the next. Entities appear to die, but in reality they have changed form, just as the seemingly dead winter tree resurrects in spring.
OKandNOWwhat 10 months ago
The physical scientist can demand so little of those who would investigate his knowledge because the vast majority of humans are born w/ adequate physical senses. However, very few humans are born w/ psychic senses, & no humans are born w/ spiritual senses, for they are developed after Spiritual Birth.
The basic requirement for the apprehension of Reality is: You must be born of God. He who refuses to act upon this premise & discover its meaning reveals himself to be a disingenuous dilettante.
OKandNOWwhat 10 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat I'm am really sorry to put a bummer on your life, but that really is a delusional thought. I suggest educating yourself on how the brain works. This should hopefully steer you to understand exactly what I mean by "delusional thought." Sure, if you close your eyes and think about God really hard you might get a glimpse of him, maybe even "feel" him. But look, it isn't real. It's just your imagination. Hence the phrase, "figment of your imagination." Santa and Jesus alike.
CntthnkO15 5 months ago
@CntthnkO15
You apparently conflate "brain" with "mind."
The physical scientist is granted a glimpse into that which he is investigating, and, pursuing this hunch, he discovers that experiment bears it out. However, that hunch was not "real," as you say; it was just his "imagination." Likewise, those w/ spiritual perception know things which cannot be proven until they are made manifest to those who must rely upon physical senses to ascertain them. The blind insist there is nothing to see.
OKandNOWwhat 5 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat Dude, I am not denying you can't make yourself see God, Jesus, Allah, Krishna, etc. All I am saying is it is just a figment of your imagination. Google how does the brain work. or something like that. Brain is interchangeable with mind. The brain creates the mind, the ability to understand something.
CntthnkO15 4 months ago
@CntthnkO15
If the brain created the mind, then braindead patients w/ taped eyelids would be unable to precisely recount the actions of physicians & others. For one example of this, search "the day i died part 3."
The brain is the physical organ that RECEIVES the mind and regulates the body.
My experiences w/ God are not caused by me, & they are verified by the fact that each time I'm told something will occur, it occurs, though it is beyond my control. I also have intersubjective corroboration.
OKandNOWwhat 4 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat The brain does create the mind. The mind isn't some special invisible thing that we can't see... we can't find it because it's created by the brain. Please go do some actual research. And I'm skeptic of that video about the guy being in a coma, standing above himself and being able to see the stuff happening to him. Not going to believe until I experience it.
CntthnkO15 4 months ago
@CntthnkO15
No, not the man in a coma. I referred to the woman w/ an aneurysm whose brain death was induced by her surgeon in order to operate. It starts @ 2:27.
What you are calling research is just reading other people's ideas. Real research is hands on.
By your standards, even if you experience it, it is not real. I KNOW the Reality of which I speak & experience it daily. The man w/ experience is not at the mercy of men w/ opinions. As long as you pretend to know, you are unworthy of wisdom.
OKandNOWwhat 4 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat Pam? That is a figment of her IMAGINATION. I don't understand how you can't understand this. The brain is extremely powerful. I think you don't understand the meaning of the term "clinically dead." Look it up some times.
You can experience God, which I already said before. It is just in your mind, imagination. I don't think people should take magical wisdom seriously. Witchcraft is magical wisdom, do you like that too? Or are you just going pick and choose, like always.
CntthnkO15 4 months ago
@CntthnkO15
She accurately "imagined" the the nurse's conversation w/ the surgeon & description of the drill. OK.
Witchcraft is communication w/ spirits. Revelation is communication w/ the Spirit. You have chosen your conclusion. But it is only your opinion. You have no direct personal experience. You have theories but no science (knowledge).
I have lived w/ Messiah for 11 years, and all that He tells me happens. I wish you well in your limited world. Convince yourself. I already KNOW. Bless you
OKandNOWwhat 4 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat I said I was a skeptic of that video. I still don't think its possible. And what you described isn't even what happened to her. She was just imagining. The way she was speaking, it sounded like they were past memories. And she was connecting them with what she remembers from the room and what she knows the doctor will do.
CntthnkO15 4 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat Actually, by scientific standards experiencing something does not therefore make it real, in the sense that it exist irrespective of your existence. An extreme example would be something like schizophrenia. Unless a phenomena can be scientifically shown to be "real" it remains in the realm of either non existant, or un demonstratable. Now, of course the experience is absolutely real in that, you really did experience it. But, your experience may not agree with physical reality.
chedillychedilly1 3 months ago
@chedillychedilly1
True, but internal experiences that are corroborated by subsequent verifiable events & intersubjective occurrences (when two or more people independently concur on details of an otherwise subjective reality), though lacking the replication demanded by science, are still experienced & attested to by many.
It's usually not the experience that intellectualists reject; it's the purported explanation & its implications.
Science is the wrong tool for determining ultimate Reality.
OKandNOWwhat 3 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat I'm sorry, but that is just nonsense. What other tool is there! Show me an instance of ANYONE determining ultimate reality and I'll show you a person who is delusional, crazy, or stupid. The only method, or "tool" for RELIABLY determining TRUE causation is science. Otherwise we would use other methods to actually get things done. Understanding something as simple as the orbits of bodies in space only came about when the other "tools" for determining reality were abandoned.
chedillychedilly1 3 months ago
@chedillychedilly1
The operative word in my offending statement was "ultimate." Science is quite useful for determining primary effects but useless for discovering ACTUAL causes (although "sciences" such as psychology attempt to do this in the human arena). Causes do not appear, only effects. Science gives us tools by which we can measure & predict these effects; that is all.
Knowledge of orbits does not equate to knowledge of their cause, nor does calling it "gravity" & describing its function.
OKandNOWwhat 3 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat Either you are totally confused, or you're playing a language game where nobody else knows the rules but you. Gravity isn't just something we are calling the cause of orbits, thereby simply renaming the unknown. Gravity is a bend in space/time caused by the presence of matter. Now, you could make the completely daft statement, 'yeah, but you're just calling it a bend in space/time; it's still unknown.' What a crock! You implied that there was a better method for determining :CON:
chedillychedilly1 3 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat :CON: ultimate reality. WELL, what is it! You have actually shot yourself in the foot, because anytime we explain a cause for something in your book we have just renamed the unknown. So, when you use this/these "other method/methods," you still cannot determine the cause of something because you could always make the incredibly dumb statement, 'yeah, but what's the ULTIMATE cause.' The statment I am going to Atlanta, and, Atlanta is coming to me, in reality mean the same thing.CON:
chedillychedilly1 3 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat :CON: Likewise, the statment gravity causes the orbits of planets, and, gravity is warped space in the presence of matter being pulled along a plane by planets, are the same!.THIS IS AN EXPLANATION OF A CAUSE and a subsequent EFFECT! I'm sorry if you do not understand that. If I say that the fire made my hands warm, would you then say to me, 'but what was the ultimate cause? Do you see how incoherant what you're saying is? If science can't find causes, the word cause means nothing.
chedillychedilly1 3 months ago
@OKandNOWwhat BTW: What is an "ACTUAL" cause? Like I said, you're playing a language game. As a research scientist, if I told my boss that I couldn't find the ACTUAL cause that the computer model isn't matching up with the live test I would get FIRED! So, I don't know where you're getting your scientific education from, but it would not fly at any research station I know of.
chedillychedilly1 3 months ago
@chedillychedilly1
Kudos! U framed & demolished arguments I am not making, replete with ad hominems. Emotionalism is the tool of rhetoricians rather than intellectuals.
"Actual cause"- that which precipitated the primary effect. To use your example, what is the cause of the matter which results in the bend in space/time? Though science can define matter; it has been unable to prove how the energy of matter came to be.
"Ultimate Reality"- that which is not contingent upon anything else.
Bless U
OKandNOWwhat 3 months ago
Such clarity and precision of word, this speaks well for conclusions drawn by the speaker. Don't you think?
LGH666 1 year ago 2