[Nattering Nabob]

You mean each one of your 100 trillion body cells is self-aware? Awesome!

No, I meant that the collection of 100 trillion cells is self-aware...

[Potemkin]

No, I meant that the collection of 100 trillion cells is self-aware...

Then the universe (or at least one tiny part of it) has already achieved self-awareness, and nothing further needs to be achieved.

Remind me again what the point of this self-awareness is?

[Nattering Nabob]

Remind me again what the point of this self-awareness is?

I never said there was a point...existence doesn't seem to have a point either, so it seems that pointlessness is not a hinderance to something existing...

[Suska]

The point is Tathagata, the point is that it is, in as much as it is, for what its worth, while it is

[mikema63]

Shit happens, we don't know why.

[Verv]

Then the universe (or at least one tiny part of it) has already achieved self-awareness, and nothing further needs to be achieved.

Remind me again what the point of this self-awareness is?

We are part of the Universe... and the Universe has a stated goal?

I think if the Universe begins to have some sort of consciousness and awareness this is the God as we've been hearing everyone refer to it from the Christians to the Hindus.

The point is Tathagata, the point is that it is, in as much as it is, for what its worth, while it is

Tathagata I remember from the Diamond Sutra... was it in a bunch of other places as well?

[Suska]

I don't know what you mean by places Verv.

Tathagata means "thus come" and is an important title of the Buddha more or less parallel the Christian concept of "I am" though for some reason in English the concept is confusing to people. As I understand it the point is that life offers something other than stasis but causal thinking takes that to mean there's some sort of intent in some sort of future. In practice the neglect of the present, people say the ends justify the means, is a root characteristic of avidya - ignorance - whereas the Buddha, and [*]Iao (Yahweh if you prefer) even, both gave the concept as their name at some early point, that they simply are, suggesting something of the character of consciousness being an eternally present condition.

In practice its something a healer might tell a person who is over anxious, that their priorities are misplaced if they think something in the future or past can make up for a miserable present. So I say, "it is, in as much as it is, for what its worth, while it is" - I don't mean to say this is better formula, but at least it's different enough from "I am what I am" which people routinely misinterpret as a kind of adamant egotism, that they might take another look. There are other applications and interpretations of course, not just as a temporal perspective that emphasizes the present, but as a conceptual scheme that answers ultimate questions, and as a demonstration of the kind of thinking that leads to correct conduct; that is, an understanding of Buddha (or God) as imminent, leading to a conception of the world, that its greatest truth is in its being, rather than in the discussion of its being.

some strange and interesting conversations on the name Iao, which I've read at some point but cannot really vouch for
[*]THE NAME ΙΑΩ
[*]HERESIES AND SECRET SOCIETIES: IAO

[Potemkin]

We are part of the Universe... and the Universe has a stated goal?

I think if the Universe begins to have some sort of consciousness and awareness this is the God as we've been hearing everyone refer to it from the Christians to the Hindus.

My point is that the universe (or at least some small part of it) is already self-aware, and this self-awareness is us. To say anything else is unscientific mysticism (I'm not saying it's wrong, merely that it's no more 'scientific' than, say, the writings of medieval Christian mystics).

[Suska]

It's not a significant distinction though. That the Universe is self aware is self evident whether or not you believe that we operate by some exceptional rules. It is just as unscientific to assume the Universe is only self aware in us. Either way is an assumption, one of which has precedents.

[Potemkin]

It's not a significant distinction though. That the Universe is self aware is self evident whether or not you believe that we operate by some exceptional rules.

I don't dispute that some small part of the universe is self-aware. After all, I'm a small part of the universe and I like to think of myself as being self-aware. My point is that it is unscientific and not very meaningful - a metaphysical flight of fancy, in fact - to go beyond this and declare that the 'purpose' of human existence and of the evolutionary process itself is to enable the universe as a whole to become self-aware. What would that even mean anyway?

It is just as unscientific to assume the Universe is only self aware in us. Either way is an assumption, one of which has precedents.

I also make the assumption that the universe is not a gigantic avocado. What's your point?

P.S. Lol @ your sig quote: "Wild geese flying over a lake don't intend to cast a reflection and the water has no mind to retain their image". And this appears just below your post asserting that the universe should become 'self-aware'. As I said before, you're probably the most un-Zen person I've ever come across.

[Suska]

that the 'purpose' of human existence and of the evolutionary process itself is to enable the universe as a whole to become self-aware. What would that even mean anyway?

Sure, but like I was saying, purpose and universe together are in a way very different categories of thinking usually, we tend to take purpose as being the sort of purpose we have everyday, but Universe doesn't really allow us the room to talk about time and space, cosmos sure, but in that we mean Universe sincerely it means there is nothing else outside it, so it includes all time, and then purpose becomes pretty unconventional.

I also make the assumption that the universe is not a gigantic avocado. What's your point?

Almost everyone thinking in systematic experimental terms, including yourself apparently thinks that it's less likely the universe in conscious, but that assumption is actually really not more likely just because of what we see through telescopes, we don't even need eyes to know that some of the universe is conscious, it seems to me that the estimations of the scientific community as a whole on the matter are quite backwards. Like I say, looking through a telescope to decide about something that's everywhere you look if you aren't looking through a telescope.

the most un-Zen person I've ever come across.

I don't know what you're talking about. On this count I don't think you know what you're talking about. Terms like self-awareness and consciousness have tricky meanings. You are probably reading too much into it, besides I was trying to accomodate you guys by not using specialized language, really I was thinking in terms of an existentialist and scientific dialog, rather than something qualitative or metaphysical.

My mind rests with the concept within the Wild Geese saying, you act like it should rest absolutely, but that isn't zen.

[Potemkin]

Sure, but like I was saying, purpose and universe together are in a way very different categories of thinking usually, we tend to take purpose as being the sort of purpose we have everyday, but Universe doesn't really allow us the room to talk about time and space, cosmos sure, but in that we mean Universe sincerely it means there is nothing else outside it, so it includes all time, and then purpose becomes pretty unconventional.

Agreed. In fact, I would go farther, and say that to describe the universe as a whole as having a purpose is literally meaningless.

Almost everyone thinking in systematic experimental terms, including yourself apparently thinks that it's less likely the universe in conscious, but that assumption is actually really not more likely just because of what we see through telescopes, we don't even need eyes to know that some of the universe is conscious, it seems to me that the estimations of the scientific community as a whole on the matter are quite backwards. Like I say, looking through a telescope to decide about something that's everywhere you look if you aren't looking through a telescope.

We live in a rather atypical corner of the universe. Telescopes and other scientific instruments give us the ability to take a look at more typical parts of the cosmos.

I don't know what you're talking about. On this count I don't think you know what you're talking about.

A true Zen master would merely have smiled and then spoken some cryptic koan or something. You just failed the test, Suska.

[Suska]

A true Zen master would merely have smiled and then spoken some cryptic koan or something. You just failed the test, Suska.

It's just unkind of you to say that. Like I said before you posted...

My mind rests with the concept within the Wild Geese saying, you act like it should rest absolutely, but that isn't zen.

the universe as a whole as having a purpose is literally meaningless.

No it's not. Not at all. It's very meaningful, it's just temporally different than common purpose within a casual scheme (in other words it isn't ignorance). The point of saying "thus come" addresses the notion that nothing matters because it dies (within the causal scheme), but it doesn't exist to achieve something in the future like that, it means that if it doesn't like being what it is - it is on its way out - because the only real reason to be anything is that it is pleasing to do so. In the scheme of the Dao that means taking away what one needs knowing that it will be given back. In other words, "for what its worth" as an experience.

more typical parts of the cosmos.

But that's like saying we ought to regard each other as carbon.

[mikema63]

Change is inevitable, in the vastness of the universe a great deal will come to pass when change is inevitable.

Take the old saw about an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters, one of them will write hamlet eventually, but does that say anything to purpose in the monkey? Does it say anything about the monkey being unhappy without hamlet? Its meaningless, a false pattern from out of the noise that carries nothing real within it.

Shit happens, usually not for a reason.

[quetzalcoatl]

Sometimes I think I can almost grasp the idea of the world having meaning. But the almost-grapsed recedes like a tantalizing dream evaporating from the waking mind. Nor can I merely live in the present: it is the Eden denied me, having bitten the apple of self awareness.

[onemalehuman]

we don't know why.

Whom is the "we" to we don't know why?

The reason for why things happen is how everything continues to happen now all the time space never stays as it was, cellular adaptations age, minerals erode, liquids evaporate, gases combine to become liquids eroding mineral deposits and creating a primordial goo life within specific spheres grows to become what is here where "we" correspond in cyberspace now.

Self containment to an instant where what did, does, as it will do onward presently taking place within this compounding exponential moment. The reason no body can know what comes next is now is always here changing details. Yes one can predict possible outcomes due to everything functioning within relative cycles of combining molecular migration of, using this planet as the example, has 118 known characteristics working currently at the molecular level.

Is it characters of societal evolution, or characteristics of genetic continuation? Intellectual concepts or instinctive conceptions.

The answer is all 4 of the last two rhetorical questions.

This last page of discussion addresses a "point" that separates every individual thing included in everything present universally here now. "what it is", and "I am here". Self awareness. Each body of a lifetime is aware it is consisting of almost every molecular elements within the periodic table making up it's functioning lifetime passing through this moment never thye same adding details twice, i.e. aging. Space changing now all the time here, just as it does everywhere else universally self contained to the present conditions everywhere including within this atmosphere.

In all this universal motion, what stays in permanent positions from each point of balancing within contracting results of combining molecular elements to each object taking up space spaced apart and individual parts of this whole moment expanding the details adding currently within the atmosphere of this planetary position universally here as usual?

This is so simple it is unbelievable. So it takes understanding to comprehend real, not faith in reality. But without understanding real, reality will destroy the real things reality uses symbolic meanings of the substances not completely understood.

This is where conflicts of interest become designed flaws capitalized upon by ruthless individuals trying to rule the global population with metaphors from a capitol ideal.

Is this that universal consciousness being discussed by Bill Nye the science guy?

My idea makes clocks and calendars the corrupting force in humanity's laws that rule the moment as if time changes space.

[Potemkin]

This last page of discussion addresses a "point" that separates every individual thing included in everything present universally here now. "what it is", and "I am here". Self awareness. Each body of a lifetime is aware it is consisting of almost every molecular elements within the periodic table making up it's functioning lifetime passing through this moment never thye same adding details twice, i.e. aging. Space changing now all the time here, just as it does everywhere else universally self contained to the present conditions everywhere including within this atmosphere.

In all this universal motion, what stays in permanent positions from each point of balancing within contracting results of combining molecular elements to each object taking up space spaced apart and individual parts of this whole moment expanding the details adding currently within the atmosphere of this planetary position universally here as usual?

This is so simple it is unbelievable.

Indeed.

[mikema63]

....I.....see....

How are the girls OMH?

[Sithsaber]

I don't know what you mean by places Verv.

Tathagata means "thus come" and is an important title of the Buddha more or less parallel the Christian concept of "I am" though for some reason in English the concept is confusing to people. As I understand it the point is that life offers something other than stasis but causal thinking takes that to mean there's some sort of intent in some sort of future. In practice the neglect of the present, people say the ends justify the means, is a root characteristic of avidya - ignorance - whereas the Buddha, and [*]Iao (Yahweh if you prefer) even, both gave the concept as their name at some early point, that they simply are, suggesting something of the character of consciousness being an eternally present condition.

In practice its something a healer might tell a person who is over anxious, that their priorities are misplaced if they think something in the future or past can make up for a miserable present. So I say, "it is, in as much as it is, for what its worth, while it is" - I don't mean to say this is better formula, but at least it's different enough from "I am what I am" which people routinely misinterpret as a kind of adamant egotism, that they might take another look. There are other applications and interpretations of course, not just as a temporal perspective that emphasizes the present, but as a conceptual scheme that answers ultimate questions, and as a demonstration of the kind of thinking that leads to correct conduct; that is, an understanding of Buddha (or God) as imminent, leading to a conception of the world, that its greatest truth is in its being, rather than in the discussion of its being.

some strange and interesting conversations on the name Iao, which I've read at some point but cannot really vouch for
[*]THE NAME ΙΑΩ
[*]HERESIES AND SECRET SOCIETIES: IAO

One small reservation, tathagata and Yahweh (i'm a christian, i get to say it) aren't exactly the same. According to my brief studies on it, tathagata is more of a description of a being in nirvana, and thus no longer a being in the strict sense. Tathagata has gone beyond everything, and can no longer be considered to be alive or dead, even when the flesh still lives. I am that i am is more a statement of the incomprehensible nature of God, an eternal constant of omnipotence, omnipresence et cetera.

ps: I skimmed the sources, and some of it seems to be iffy. The jews being related to bacchus is odd, and the iao page is openly subjective, makes frequent use of jumps in logic, utilyzes a neo platonic world view and attempts to inject dualism into the discussion, and declares its devotion to abrasax in the first page. The scape goat bit seems to be clever, but coming from a mystical viewpoint connected to the book of Enoch this too seems fallacious. Besides the scape goat wasn't supposed to be attached with a holy significance, in fact the opposite was true. Like Jesus and the pigs, all evil and unclean aspects were supposed to be infused into the goat, which than either droven into the wasteland to die orwas cast off a cliff.

pps: 2 minutes into wikipedia and doctrine becomes more clear.

[Suska]

This is why I prefaced my links with a proviso. I'm not promoting Blavatsky, that would be silly. I don't disagree with that interpretation of the term Iao. I could have cited Graves but he doesn't seem to have any opinion of the meaning of the term. In that I am looking at the word as a matter of a phonetic formula, and in as much as those links confirm what is reasonably suggested by the structure and history of the word, I found it pretty interesting. In that we're talking about something associated with the name Blavatsky it ought to be obvious that it is a product of delusional paranoia typical of turn of the century secret societies, but on the other hand orthodox thinking has often deliberately obscured things which strange lore-keepers retain whole.

In this case it seems clear to me that the name Iao is valid and a more ancient and more culturally open form of Yahweh, the relation to Bacchus is interesting as Iacchus or Iaos, but this sort of linguistic reconstruction is always suppositional. That said, I don't mind the correlation, we are essentially talking about the prehistoric word for God, I think.