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Question Everything, Believe Nothing - Chapter One - Suspending Disbelief
Question Everything, Believe Nothing
Chapter One
Suspending Disbelief
By
Cognitive Dissonance
Introducing a new portal into the mind of Cognitive Dissonance
Chapter Two may be found here.
Where are the outer boundaries of our mental box, that comforting space where we ‘believe’ the uniquely individual ‘me’ can be found? What is the limit of our ability to think and perceive beyond our current ‘belief’ system, to think outside the lines of our own perceptional box? Can we ever locate a clearly defined line of demarcation where we cross over from all that ‘we’ believe is ‘me’ and where the herding ‘we’ bulls ‘us’ over?
Is ‘our’ belief system entirely ‘yours’ or is it for the most part indoctrinated into you by ‘our’ culture and those who directly or indirectly influence our culture, thus by extension ‘you’? Who, or more accurately, what are ‘you’ if very little of substance differentiates ‘you’ from ‘us’? In many ways this is a chicken or egg question and it appears that a decent method by which we may answer it is to work backwards and examine what is ‘belief’ and what it means for us to ‘believe’.
One of the ways we have been mentally, emotionally and spiritually hijacked is through our language, a concept brilliantly described in Orwell’s classic work ‘1984’. For many, the words ‘believe’ or ‘belief’ are seen as strictly religious or fantastical thinking, and certainly not for the logical or scientific mind. In the worldview of most, which neatly encompasses their ‘belief’ system, there are ‘facts, science and math’, and then there is ‘belief’ and ‘faith’.
Sadly this is the Achilles heel of the average person (we are all more or less average when it comes to self awareness, though we love to ‘believe’ we are well above that mark) because by thinking this way, by believing in this manner, we create our own blind spots and exclude ourselves from what in many aspects we actually practice, essentially complete and total blind faith and belief in nearly all facets of daily thought and living.
How much of our thought, of our daily thinking, is original or organic and how much is slightly modified, then enthusiastically regurgitated, cultural beliefs indoctrinated into us from an early age. Reinforced by the echo chamber of news, advertising and TV programming as well as movies, books, social media, science, economics and politics, can any of us ever really tell which thoughts are ‘ours’ and which were created to be ours via cultural conditioning. Unless we force ourselves to first obtain, and then maintain perspective, it all becomes a blur of flashing lights and background noise to be willingly, even eagerly, accepted as just the way things are.
Our society is obsessed with the holy grail of facts, absolutes, and conclusive answers. We are taught as soon as we can comprehend that this is the way things are and we know these things to be true. We view our recent ancestors as backwards and uninformed, cavemen for all practical purposes, yet we never seriously consider that we are just as uninformed and will be considered so by the future ‘us’ in twenty, fifty, a hundred years from now.
There is no respect given (because none is seriously offered by ‘us’) to the inquiring mind willing to step outside the boundaries of conventional thinking, only empty vessels that wish to be fully indoctrinated into the present day belief system. The herd demands we believe what the herd believes and increasingly that belief is divorced from reality.
I suspect there are several reasons for this phenomenon. As I discussed in “The Science Delusion” the spectacular success of materials science (the mass production of ten million things) has contributed to the delusion that we know it all, that we have arrived, that there is certainty in many if not all things, and that we ‘know’ this ‘certainty’ with near absolute precision. All it needs is a few small tweaks here and there.
But I suspect something else is going on here and I don’t recall it being discussed much in the virtual circles I frequent. Until the advent of mass media, ‘modern’ man lived an existence surrounded almost entirely by physical reality, up close and very personal. In fact, until sometime after World War Two most homes did not even have central heat, indoor plumbing or a house wired for electricity. Life, to put it simply, was very raw.
There was once a mostly solitary and desperate immediacy to daily living (the present day homeless are quite familiar with this condition) and a mind that dwelled in fantasy and not focused on the needs of the here and now was often severely punished by Mother Nature. Dawdle too long in the petunias and you might die of exposure later because you did not put up enough firewood and salt away enough food.
Presently we trade our regimented labor for easily convertible script, also known as currency, which in turn we redeem for fundamental basics, creature comforts and desirable wants (as opposed to ‘needs’) that until 100 years ago were almost exclusively the realm of the very wealthy. This in turn has greatly diminished the immediacy of the here and now, and thus its apparent relevance and importance. While there is great debate over whether idle or free time has increased or decreased over the last hundred years, what we ‘do’ with our free time has dramatically changed, and in my opinion not for the better.
While man has always devoted some of his play time to alternative reality fantasy thinking, whether it was simply daydreaming on a warm spring day or reading a classic work of fiction, never in the history of ‘modern’ man has such a huge percentage of the population devoted hours upon hours every day exclusively to ‘suspending disbelief’. Nor have we done so in such a mentally and emotionally intrusive manner. I am, of course, speaking about television, movies and other forms of immersive mass media mind warping.
If you were to ask the average person if they understood the difference between ‘real world’ reality and TV or movie reality, you would be hard pressed to find someone who wasn’t absolutely certain they could tell the difference. And yet so much of the mass media we consume is integrated into our daily living so seamlessly that no longer can we clearly see the fine line of demarcation between reality and fantasy.
Just talk to an attorney, public defender or police officer about the public’s perception of justice and police processes after the public has drunk deeply from the CSI media cup for well over a decade and you will get an earful. We aren’t talking about ignorance here, as in a lack of knowledge, but rather deliberately distorted perceptions and programmed ignorance, a far more dangerous and easily controlled state of mind.
The only thing worse than someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about is someone who believes they do because they have been conditioned to think so, but still does not. The serially convinced are so much more dangerous to themselves and to others than the merely deluded delusional.
I don’t necessarily object to fantasy or fantastical thinking, of suspending disbelief in order to enjoy a depiction of alternative reality, which is essentially the altered mental and emotional state we enter into when consuming ‘pulp fiction’ mass media. In fact I was (and still am) a rabid fan of science fiction when I was a younger man. My problem is in the method of media immersion, completely passive rather than interactive and creative.
While reading (science) fiction, daydreaming or engaging in truly creative thought or artistic expression, the activity itself requires that we co-create the reality, to engage our creative energy and thinking process and actively interact. On the other hand mass media consumption requires of us, demands of us, very little (if any) real intellectual or creative effort on our part, only a willing suspension of disbelief and the near total surrender of our mind. Just turn on, tune out and tumble in.
The mass media alternative reality world is already imagined, produced and packaged for us by others and we are simply a passive recipient of the information download, or programming as the networks readily admit it is called. We are just along for the ride so buckle up, open your eyes wide and fully disengage the discerning mind. Suspending disbelief in three, two, one………
Do some research on brainwaves during different activities, then compare the mind while reading, writing, even dreaming, and when passively watching the television or a movie. Even when the brain absorbs so called ‘educational’ documentaries, when viewed through the brain imaging MRI, the results are little different from “CSI” or “Days of our Lives”. Garbage in garbage out makes for a garbage mind, with the body soon to follow.
Not only are we being deeply programmed into hundreds of alternative realities, the cumulative effect of which we are increasingly unable to discern, but we are also being conditioned to remain in a near constant state of belief suspension, the most psychically, emotionally and spiritually vulnerable condition we could possibly allow ourselves to remain in.
Comparable to Pavlov’s dogs responding predictably to specific stimuli, we willingly and eagerly suspend disbelief while consuming pulp fiction on TV and other mass media. While we claim the ability to re-enter the ‘real’ world when the news or a commercial comes on, from what I have learned our brain wave pattern doesn’t change all that much when we switch from ‘True Blood’ to the bloody evening news and then back again.
And make no mistake about it; mass media news and other ‘real’ programming is just another form of prepackaged pulp fiction that we vacantly consume with little or no discernment between one alternative reality and another. The principal difference is that we have been conditioned to believe that the news is ‘real’, thus it is even more deeply absorbed into our psyche as ‘truth’ where it mixes and melds with other deeply programmed beliefs we mistakenly call facts, reality and truth.
Similar to an inch worm’s incremental progress, as long as the latest alternative reality conditioning is similar to the old one (it doesn’t need to be exact) we inch our ‘real world’ perception further and further away from reality and closer to the world our handlers create for us. This is one of the reasons predictive programming is so successful. Repeatedly plant the suggested meme seed now and reap the harvested alternative reality later.
Reflexively we fall into a state of passive receptivity when plopped in front of the boob tube. And as much as we may protest to the contrary, there is less of a tendency to apply critical thinking when in front of the glowing conditioning apparatus then when reading the exact same material or discussing it with others.
The brilliance behind this type of deep conditioning is that it targets our natural tendency to rationalize away any negative aspects under the guise of entertainment. “Hey, we’re just having some fun. It’s a TV show for crying out loud, not real life.” The programmer doesn’t need to convince us to suspend disbelief when we willing do so under the cover of fun for all. Open wide and say “Please sir, may I have moar”.
The latest programming phase started more than a dozen years ago with so called ‘reality TV’ programming, which supposedly features ‘real life’ people dealing with contrived difficulties in purportedly unscripted situations. While I agree that every action seen on the viewing screen is not strictly or rigidly scripted, both the characters and producer, along with the editing room, insert false conflicts and drama where little or none would normally exist, all under the pretence of a ‘game’ show. More importantly we are shown, and expressly informed, that something is ‘real’ when clearly it is not. So once again belief is engaged by suspending disbelief in order to swallow whole the patently unbelievable.
If we examine the term ‘suspending disbelief’ we realize that what we are asked to do, what is demanded of us in order to ‘enjoy’ a harmless little activity and accept our programming, is to ‘believe’ what we are seeing in order to internalize and embody it as real. Our imagination is the creator of our own personal reality so hijack that and you and I are effectively controlled.
Only if we accept what we are seeing and hearing as ‘real’ will we express emotion and empathy and fully engage in the alternative reality. This in turn enables and allows our ‘self’ to be fully assimilated Borg like into the proffered fantasy hook, line and sinker. When all the moving parts click the programming results are spectacular. Just watch the apparatus work its magic when imminent war is being announced or the next financial crisis ‘suddenly’ occurs.
Every twelve to fifteen minutes during prime conditioning time our primary programming is interrupted for commercial breaks during which, while our empathy and emotions are fully exposed and vulnerable, we are showered with sales ads precisely designed to do the same. Meaning we are programmed to desire whatever it is they are selling using our own fully exposed emotion and empathy as leverage against us. Talk about striking while the fire is hot.
I looked up ‘belief’ and ‘believe’ in several dictionaries and found near universal definitions that often had little to do with religion and much to do with everyday living and thinking. For example, from Merriam-Webster comes the following.
be·lief: noun, a feeling of being sure that someone or something exists or that something is true; a feeling that something is good, right, or valuable; a feeling of trust in the worth or ability of someone; a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing; a tenet or body of tenets held by a group; conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence.
be·lieve: verb, to accept or regard (something) as true, to accept the truth of what is said by (someone), to have (a specified opinion), to have a firm religious faith, to accept something as true, genuine, or real; to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something; to consider to be true or honest; to accept the word or evidence of.
Wow, I could not have said it better myself. Who among us has the courage and internal steadiness to examine ourselves for any and all traces of unexamined belief, then thoroughly remove all threads from our everyday use, all while maintaining some semblance of continuity in relationships, work, play and growth. Personally I find the task daunting at best and just about impossible at worst. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t even try.
Chapter Two to follow soon.
03-05-2014
Cognitive Dissonance
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Those who misquote us make us wrong.
"Those who miss quotas make us strong" -- Dr. Sandi
Dr. Sandi,
Mrs. Cog just mentioned to me yesterday that we had not seen you around in a while. Thanks for stopping by and lighting up the ZH sky.
"I believe, that which can kill us makes us strong"
There and if you don't believe that, then your living in a virtual world.
Nietzsche said it too long ago "Those that kill us, make us strong"
*
I think without pointing fingers if I had to encapsulate the gist of the entertainment here I would surmise
"THOSE THAT FEED US SHIT, MAKE US WEAK"
Now there is something you all can believe in.
I have seen your type before Satoshi. The first one to talk a lot of shit until the chips are down, then your the first to squeal like a bitch. You wouldn't hesitate to throw me under a bus to save your own pathetic, weak, ass. No substance.
"Where are the outer boundaries of our mental box"-
Stopped right there asshat. We have boundaries? So pretty much you are a psyh major with nothing useful to contribute.
Got it.
Fuck me, just when I thought you were worth a shit.
You are too funny. I really mean it. Did I really trigger you that hard. OMG!
That you could determine the direction of my article based upon the first few sentences. You must be psycho psychic. :)
Nice avoidance, do we or don't we have limits?
Your moniker is appropriate.
We have physical limits. And those we allow others to impose on us or impose on ourselfs.
Read the article and find out.
Great article Cog....right on the fucking button, as usual....
+1,000
I read it. What you or I believe becomes irrelevant at some point.
I am a veteran Cog, let me make it easier for you.
I will lie down my life for you, will you do the same for me?
Real progress has always required sacrifice, I await your answer...
"real progress has always required sacrifice.." but of what kind, and for what reasons? No doubt being a vetaran requires a high degree of suspending one's disbelief in order to justify that experience.
The reaction itself proves that YOU, CD, are an artist.
Good art has the power to really piss people off.
That much is true.
However, it still does not balance the equation.
Think a bit more critically.
Nice.
If you don't read the whole article, you don't get a cookie.
I too am a Physicist, my two cents on the issue here is that COG is a Sim-City, Second-Life gamer, ... funny Mt-GOX and FIRST-META ( btc girl dead ), were all gaming virtual reality company's that started selling virtual currency for their worlds, then crossed into the 'real world' and got fucked hard. Bit-Coin Banking Singapore/Japan hard fucked by triads and yakuza. This is where virtual pussy's meet the real fucking world.
I think keep COG and his bit-coin crew, in the ZH virtual world is fine and dandy.
You can explain boundary-problems all day LP, and you will still never have a dog that can solve Diffy-Q, ... just let them live in their virtual ZH world and circle-jerk each other.
But remember CREW, that when you come into the real world with your SHIT, like bitcoin that you will get fucked and hard, and most of you will die.
"I too am a Physicist"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEbSABWJiJc
That movie remains a national treasure in my view. No sacred cow was left whole.
So by implication, you mean to say that some of us will not die? That's the best news I've heard all day! Tell me, am I one of those few?
Fucktard.
"Tell me, am I one of those few?" - Completely up to you.
Now that I have answered you, tell me, would you want it any other way?
laws of physics dictate that we don't end.
I have no doubt where I stand, of what I am capable, or even how I would react if that time comes. Let's hope not. Been there, done that.
As a veteran, you should well know that when one's life is most at risk of being extinguished is when one most feels alive. Or, perhaps, we had dissimilar experiences?
I'm guessing they didn't waste a lot of time teaching soft subjects like English composition during your extensive studies to become a Physicist.
IHMO if you got the fucking message presentation don't mean shit.
Does anybody else get the point?
I'm also a computational-physicists, so I know when to choose times for accuracy,
But IMHO when writing english, and especially in forums such as this, all I care is if the message is understood, form, and image I don't give a fuck about, spelling and grammar I don't give a fuck, only ideas matter.
*
What part of the IMPLOSION of BITCOIN and virtual-gaming in the black markets didn't you understand?
zionhead101..You claim that you are a "Computational" Physicist? (I've not ever heard of that description of a Physicist.)
If w(x,y) = (x + y)2
and if there is an associated error in the measurement of 'x' which we will denote as Delta(x)
and if there is an associated error in the measurement of 'y' which we will denote as Delta(y)
Then what is the error in 'w' denoted as Delta(w) ??? What does Delta(w) equal?
Inquiring minds want to know...since you are a "Computational" Physicist. (Sophmore Calculus)
(I wish we had access to higher level Math Symbols, Tyler...)
Tall Tom, I agree!!! + 10
Computational phsysicists should understand this theory below then, and "computational" makes no sense since all physics are computational, theoretical maybe or he meant quantum realtions. I dunno. Zionhead 101 explain to me the equation of canonical quanitizaiton formulation, minds do enquire. Feynman has given the answer to the formula, but i have yet to figure out how he got from A to B. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_diagram) Just a wiki page showing the formula, there are much better sites explaining.
be happy to talk physics and math on a more sober note. down vote away.
FYI- I love good art, and have been fortunate to buy some and have it in my home.
As to the mental masterbation that CD has recently decided to publish, masterbation is great, but it does not solve a damn thing.
The equation will be balanced, period. Some will live and some will die.
same as it ever was.
be thankful you have the choice to decide your fate.
"The equation will be balanced, period."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gödel
or if you prefer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yfXgu37iyI
"masterbation is great, but it does not solve a damn thing."
Suggest you immprove your technique. Has many benefits.
I have no boundaries - whatever exists, or possibly could exist is within my reality, but I dont believe anything in physical reality - nor do I believe in anything that is comingled with physical reality.
Physical reality, is at best - a theory.
Yeah but some of the actual theories rock hard.
The Grand Illusion.
The only reason that chair holds my 'weight' is because I fully, completely and without question 'believe' it is solid and will thus support my 'weight'.
The only reason that chair holds my 'weight' is because I fully, completely and without question 'believe' it is solid and will thus support my 'weight'.
Before you were able to conceptualize "solid" then why did you believe it?
Was it through observation and experience that you learned? Was it through Empiricism? At an eary age you were an autodidact. The programming destroyed that ability.
While there is evidence that some outcomes of experiments are due to the action (Belief is a verb, an action word) of the observer we cannot attribute all outcomes are due to the action of the observer.
Can that be a fallacy in your reasoning? We are NOT God and we do not have total control of our reality.
Lord give me the serenity to change the things which I can change
Accept the things which I cannot change
And the wisdom to know the difference.
What is South of the South Pole where the only direction is North?
It is not just me, myself and I who are creating this (physical) reality. I share the co-creation, and co-creating, with everyone else. So when very young I am living within the creation of others until I have been indoctrinated into the belief system. Once I am older my directed energy and thought is combined with others to strengthen the illusion.
It goes beyond the conscious realm. The saying "Either create your own world or you live in someone else's" has more meaning than just the more obvious interpretation.
Regardless of your view on this subject, the mental and emotional exercise is well worth the time to follow this rabbit trail.
Do you expect the behaviour of inanimate objects to be different in places completely outside of human observation so far to be different from similar objects that are part of the human observation?
Did physicists by deduction create balck holes where none existed before?
Did light have a different speed before it was measured to have the current value?
Has the expansion of the universe started accelerating only after 1998?
I am not disputing that consciousness chooes a reality out of many possible ones and this choice can be termed as creation/co-creation of reality. However, all of reality could not have possibly been the creation of human beings or of even conscious living entities that have created not only the physical laws but also a past in which these physical laws were valid. While consciousness does act through human beings and other living entities even while they seem constrained by physical laws that cannot be defied by consciousness, it must exist independent of any conscious entity for any reality, not co-created by any conscious living entity, to exist at all.
"However, all of reality could not have possibly been the creation of human beings....."
You may be absolutely correct. And you may not be.
My only response is the following. How do we know what is and isn't possible? How is it possible to make such a declaratory statement as to say something is impossible? It can only be possible for that to be said within the confines of our own mental, and finite, construct.
Without being insulting in the least I prefer to think that anything is possible. If nothing else that starting position increases the range of my mind and spirit.
No insult taken! Anything is possible is an excellent starting point, but only a starting point. Once something has been experienced, it is no longer a possibility, but a reality. Our interpretations of that experience and expectations of future experiences and for others still have a wide range of possibilities, but what has already been experienced is no longer open to possibility.
Solipsism, while self-consistent, has no logical necessity for eqnuiry about the nature of reality. The moment anyone acknowledges the existence of other entities besides self, it is a model of reality that has an observed separate from the observer. The concept of a reality external to oneself automatically arises from it. One's experience of this reality may be doubted for its closeness to the actual reality, but doubt about the existence of such a reality itself does not form part of the model. Such a model quickly gathers the elements that are supposed to describe this reality external to the observer, some of which are considered to be immutable across time and observer. It is from such a model that one comes to beliefs like the existence of objects before one came to notice them and being able to predict how they will behave in future when no one is observing them. Of course, quantum physics throws a spanner in the works of this model, placing limitations on how close an observer can get to in describing this reality.
May be as the Advaitis state, external reality is merely a projection of a unitary consciousness that has designed an elaborate game and one, who is actually this unitary consciousness operating in and pretending to be an individual in this projected reality, is simply playing the game according to the rules oneself designed. However intellectually appealing such a description of reality and consciousness may be, it conflicts with my experience and leaves me with no tools or model to deal with the reality as I experience it.
This: "all of reality could not have possibly been the creation of human beings" is absolutely correct.
However, our (collective?) consciousness may be the culprit. Only thing we can say for certain, is that we experience. We do this with our physical bodies, which may or may not be "real". We see blue skies, but the sky isn't actual blue, this is just our perception. A dog (or color blind individual) may not agree. Interesting when we see or hear ourselves (recorded audio or video), that the voice/appearance does not match our perception of ourselves (at least for me).
Saw this quote the other day and want to share.
Those wise ones who see that the consciousness within themselves is the same consciousness within all conscious beings, attain eternal peace.
(Katha Upanishad)
Admittedly I have not attained eternal peace :-)
Even if I recognise that there is a unity at the level of consciousness or atoms comprising all beings, I doubt it will do me much good, since the source of conflict with others is not what is common, but what is different.
We not only depend on our raw individual experiences to understand reality, but on shared experiences as well as deduction to understand and develop a model of external reality. In this model, as developed over a few thousand years of human experience and deduction called science, there existed a time in the history of the universe when no sentient life existed on earth, but earth itself existed. It is certainly possible to doubt that model, but I don't find an alternate model of reality that is as satisfying intellectually and in agreement with my own experience of reality and my experience of others experiences to the extent I can fathom them. In this very model there is an apparent inconsistency, at quantum level. Conscious observation instead of observing an independent external reality actually chooses one of many possible realities, in effect manifesting a reality, is one way we can explain reality in the quantum world.
However, I don't see how this manifestation can be undone into possibilities and a different manifestation done in its place at a later point of time. That is to say, the past cannot be undone, while the future is still unmanifest. If, according to the current model, there existed a manifest reality in the past when no conscious living entities, as we know them, existed, it opens up the possibility of a consciousness that is not of living entities that has been manifesting reality out of possibilities until living conscious entities came on to the scene to co-create reality. Since these conscious living entities too came into existence as part of the reality that was manifest by the consciousness extant before them, I tend to view the conscious living entities as vehicles for the expression of a-priori existing conciousness, rather than as distinct conscious entities different from it. But then the problem becomes, if it is same consciousness that is expressing itself through different entities, why is there a conflict between different expressions? Is conflict in the very nature of this consciousness? Or is there an underlying unity in the apparently conflicting expressions? I don't have any answers for these questions. Some people seem to, but I have gained nothing by listening to or reading them. Perhaps the answers to those questions are a matter of personal experience, which being rare, there are no appropriate words in the language to communicate them in.
"why is there a conflict between different expressions? Is conflict in the very nature of this consciousness? Or is there an underlying unity in the apparently conflicting expressions?"
Just wanted to pull those questions out for those reading this in the future that might otherwise miss them in the giant wall of text.
There was a time in my life where I would have made an arrogant attempt at an answer, but I've grown more stupid as I have gotten older.
The larger my ass gets, the stronger my belief must be.
CG Do u know Aletius Romulus? I may have the spelling wrong?
I don't know who you are referring to.
Edit: Mrs Cog thinks you might be referring to this person?
Mr. Dissonance,
I believe there is a time for thinking about things, for questioning what has been accepted, and then there comes a time for doing based on a reasoned analysis and conclusions drawn.
I believe in things simply because I choose to do so. Some things I do not choose to question, some beliefs require validation via pursuit of the most minute detail. In some instances, it is well-thought out and reasoned, in others, it is simply a matter of Faith. However, the choice is always mine. For instance, I choose to believe in a literal translation of the Bible. In my mind the Bible is God's Word, He created the Heavens and the Earth in 7 days, the Great Flood happened, Jesus was the Son of God, Immaculate Conception, and there is a Heaven and Hell. For those here who scoff, provide me the incontrovertible, concrete facts that I should believe otherwise. Yeh, yeh, hundreds of years of scientific evidence... Nope, I don't have an explanation for dinosaurs, and dont really care. Show me THE missing link. And according to Darwin the Black Folk are on even par about with the monkeys. I pretty much gotta throw up the bullshit flag on that. Evolution! Whatever. Animal husbandry is still practiced, though, to improve breeds. So, maybe Hitler wasn't all wrong. Again, to all of you who scoff at what others choose to believe in...
It is the Man without sense of purpose for his life that is truly searching. Whatever that "one" thing is that drives a man to look outside of himself and strive for, everyone of us has to have it or suffer dying an unfulfilled life. Getting rid of TVs and CPs is so wonderfully liberating! I don't look back at previous generations and discount their efforts. I try daily to bring forward from the past what can be incorporated into a healthy and satisfying modern daily life. I am busy doing, and therefore, have little time for following pop culture. I am more the ant, less so the grasshopper.
I am preparing for my future based on what type events I believe will transpire globally prior to the end of Obama the Dithering Idiot's term in office. China and/or Russia my wish to "strike while the iron's hot", so to speak. That basket of international reserve currencies, and all that entails, may be here sooner than we know.
As one of the mere "useful idiots" of the World, toiling away among the other 99%, there is no confusion in my mind. I have seen suffering, how little value a human Life can have, how a cunning predator can exploit another human for mere personal gain, how the opportunist will suffer after the fact for crimes committed but always after the fact, how people climbing the corporate ladder can revel in another's professional blunder, how a career politician will serve his own interests first, how a petty bureaucrat will lord their authority, and I say fuck 'em all.
I have traveled the World, and have found good people everywhere. When they often had nearly nothing, I have been provided for through their goodwill. There are good people around the globe who have no ulterior motives when you meet them. Even, there are those kinds of people right here among my neighbors and in my community.
My single purpose in Life is to protect me and mine from a Life short, nasty, and brutish. If I go to my grave for defending my beliefs, and doing what I know in my heart is right, so be it. To me it's pretty much a no-brainier. But, I am pretty simple-minded, not so smart. It really is black and white for me.
I wish all of you peace of mind.
You can think of dinosaurs as stumbling blocks for the wise.
The world is flat.
No I'm serious. It's flat.
I'm not even yanking your chain or anything here, or questioning that black/white thing you have going on.
The. World. Is. Flat.
The Bible doesn't mention the shape of the earth one way or another, that I am aware of. Because at the time it hardly mattered; it was whatever it was. The way leaves are green, whatever that means. Just the way they are.
Everything is the way it is, and what is -- is everything.
And within an Einstein spacial reference defined via gravity-bound relativistic coordinates, the earth is as flat as a table.
Fact. There is nothing deterministic or black/white about it. It's just how things roll in a universe where causality took the center of the chessboard some 10 billion years ago.
And once you get your brain stem wrapped around all that -- shit gets real.
It's true. Put a ball-bearing on a floor. If the earth were a sphere, revolving around the sun, the ball bearing would roll away to one side, at increasing velocity. As it does not do that Earth must be flat. QED
It's just the round camera lense, and the round eye lens, which creates our illusion that the earth is a sphere, within photos. It's quite obvious once you're aware of this effect, a good example of it:
http://www.astexhibits.com/astx/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Planet-earth-...
Satellite orbits are geometrc illusions too ... I just haven't figure out how is all ... I don't like satellites ... they're kinda poopy.
I accept everything pretty much is as it is, but it is truly beyond my ability to comprehend why much of it is so.
Surface tension, or the weight of a column of water, a vacuum, how no two snowflakes are the same, why a heart beats until it doesn't, why a leaf is green, gravity. I understand the scientific explanation of the physical how, just not the WHY.
The Law of Entropy- where will all of these charged particles that comprise me go?
My easy out may be through Faith in the Biblical explanation, after all, I appreciate it is still a means of explaining the inexplicable as it was then. The fundamental question has remained the same throughout the ages.
The black and white is my acceptance of my inability to comprehend. I can only stand in awe of all that is. And it is amazing! I feel so ALIVE at times. It is indescribable.
I don't deny any of what you have stated. Maybe causality is center stage, but I know I am only observing in passing from the wings. Nothing more.
It's extraordinary that people will accept a mere book as the ultimate authority, but will discount that we actually see fruit flies evolving their form, through successive generations, within lab experiments.
So, what? We ignore observation because the book said that doesn't happen? In that case the book is wrong, you were misled by it. Though I do understand that is a traumatic realization and takes time to process for many people.
I'd think a Supreme Being would would not want people to ignore the truth of things that we can test and repeat, given that would be intrinsically dishonest.