Earlier quoted context omitted.
To follow this line of thinking, are you suggesting I can have an intimate relationship with a rock? If you're not speaking to the point about intimacy, what point are you speaking to, because your post isn't very clear what point, if any, you were trying to make.
Why the fuck not, people have intimate relationships with human sized dolls
Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?
61–70 of 376 posts
Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?
#62I am extremely scientific and I believe in god. Not quite Spinoza's, more of a pantheistic view. If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. And it's learning about itself.
>I am extremely scientific and I believe in god I am vegan and I eat steak on weekends.
> With the first sip of science one becomes an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you
- some mediocre scientist probably nobody has heard of
Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> who created god That is why whatever that "thing" is, that's full-stop. That's why we refer to it as god. It requires no explanation, it must be. It's sort of like asking "why do we have something instead of nothing?". Because apparently that's the way it must be. That sounds crazy to scientifically-minded people, myself included, because we want answers to everything. But the turtles will go all the way down until…
Who created God? Good question. I did some digging and found this article, that reasons using references from a Christian point of view: https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/wp20140801/who-made-... Is is clear in the Bible that God does not exist in physical form. In the heavens, according to the Bible, he does not even exist in the same form as angels. At one time, Jesus was described in his human form, as "a lit…
Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?
#64Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?
#65Every moment of our existence brings about a certain amount of suffering, and a certain amount of joy. Depending on our choices and intentions, the amounts of joy and suffering for both us and other viewpoints varies. I believe that Universe is continuously solving for the maximum sum amount of joy from all the viewpoints combined. Of course, a certain amount of suffering is required to bring about the joy, whether b…
Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?
#66I am extremely scientific and I believe in god. Not quite Spinoza's, more of a pantheistic view. If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. And it's learning about itself.
Yes, thank you for stating what some might consider a tautology or frivolous fact, but is actually, utterly profound.
Generally, people have no trouble believing that they, themselves are conscious. But what part of them is conscious? All of it? Their toes and fingers? Clearly not...they are mechanical, I/O devices with just nerves, no brains. Same for most of you: your organs, muscles, tissues, blood. Not conscious. But what about your brain? Is it all conscious? Is the tiny part of your brain devoted to audio processing conscious, with a little person who speaks English inside? Clearly not. There are lots of mechanical parts. Is there then some "special" part of your brain that is the consciousness, and the rest is not conscious? Or is just the sum of the brain's parts conscious? Either way, it doesn't matter, it's the same principle; we ascribe a property of a part of a person, consciousness, part of the brain, to the whole person--we regard a person's hand or face with the reverance we regard for their brain, their face thinks and their hands feel with the full power of their consciousness.
So, too, the universe thinks with parts of itself, human and animal brains...
Every time I ponder this I arrive at Gaia. How can we deny that nature is conscious when it is so full of conscious things! Look at all the wondrous brains around! In animals, in insects, and now we see plants sense and respond to stimuli. All these pieces are conscious, and we must conclude that the sum of the biosphere is a conscious thing. It is truly a superorganism, a pan-organism.
Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?
#67>For one thing, it manages to create a profound metaphysical intimacy with God without denying His transcendence. this kind of thinking which I often see when people express pantheistic views is exactly what turns me away from it. It's just as much of an anthropomorphization as the article accuses traditional conceptions of God of. I guess you can think that the universe is in some vague sense conscious, although I d…
For example, I could say "you believe in pantheism because you find it comforting," or "you believe in materialism because it makes you feel like a strong, tough-minded person who does need that fuzzy comforting stuff."
Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Only one small part of your brain finds that idea ridiculous.
Do you have intimate relationships with rocks? and if so can you describe what that relationship is like? Does your conscious self acknowledge this relationship or are you just speaking in some metaphysical sense that is completely intangible?
Its extremely closed minded to think intimate relations are limited to human -> human interactions
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intimate
Nothing in the definition requires two humans
Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
How could you possibly deny the existence of your subjective experience? This is just utterly incomprehensible to me.
Eg. by the power of the Boltzmann Brain argument. In short, if Universe will exist forever (no matter its heat death, the Boltzmann Brain also works under those conditions), then all configurations of matter (locally) will appear over its "lifetime" infinitely many times. Consequently, you with your subjective experience and memories could have been created a picosecond ago by "random" motions of matter, without the…
Re: Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does it mean for consciousness to be an illusion?
We as a species may lack the mental faculties to truly understand the mechanisms by which life evolved the ability to analyze and reason about its surroundings and itself. We lack the scientific tools to properly differentiate or falsify "consciousness" from any other sufficiently complex phenomenon. We can't tell whether it's an emergent phenomenon arising out of a particular arrangement of energy and matter, or whe…