Absolutes

@KellyJay said
You will be blind to everything not related to hating Trump.

And you will forever defend Trump by not speaking out.
It sounds to me like you don't even think Trump is a convicted felon much less all the rest,

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fking’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Those are not MY words that is a DIRECT QUOTE, so why don't you actually talk about THAT rather than obsess with love/hate.

@sonhouse said
And you will forever defend Trump by not speaking out.
It sounds to me like you don't even think Trump is a convicted felon much less all the rest,

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fking’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. Pre ...[text shortened]... that is a DIRECT QUOTE, so why don't you actually talk about THAT rather than obsess with love/hate.

You cannot point to a thread I defend him, this shows you are not seeing things clearly.

@KellyJay said
You cannot point to a thread I defend him, this shows you are not seeing things clearly.

By not speaking out, you defend him, Dictators start up when good people do nothing.

@sonhouse said
By not speaking out, you defend him, Dictators start up when good people do nothing.

As I said you blame people for not hating him as you, nothing has to be said for or against you find a way to paint people in a dark light. Not proof is proof enough for you!

@KellyJay said
Truth has a gravitational pull to itself that narrows the conversation to interconnected truth statements that will not contradict each other. You are introducing a non-static variable “evolutionary change” to suggest something highly precise could be the product of that!

You cannot have variable fluctuation's in your processes that would be like instead of using a cal ...[text shortened]... ith facts that support each other’s part in the process. You make up something and claim it did it.

In chaos theory there are dynamical systems defined in simple mathematical terms that, once set in motion, soon exhibit exquisite fractal structures on a global scale known as strange attractors. Such large-scale order arises from underlying processes that are locally chaotic, and being purely mathematical, we can be sure the system has no mind governing the system's evolution. Look at the clouds of Jupiter for an example of patterns arising from randomness, with the Great Red Spot being a particularly stable attractor.

I brought this up some months ago in another thread here, but, the way I see it, while there is a need for mind at the basis of reality, that does not automatically entail or imply the existence of intent as either an ontological primitive or a fundamental property of consciousness. What I propose is that consciousness itself is the ontological primitive—that is, the sole existing essence of reality at its ultimate foundation. As for intent itself, that is a function of more structured mental processes—subsystems, say—operating within the greater whole of what I would call universal consciousness (UC), or what Buddhists often refer to in writing as Mind with a capital M.

The capacity to have, and act on, intentions is something generally associated with a conscious entity of some sophistication, such as a human or a personal god. A personal god is a hypothesis I reject as unnecessary, though not for the exact same set of reasons promulgated by Pierre-Simon Laplace in his famous conversation with Napoleon. For UC to give rise to our reality it need have no plan or intent, but instead something much more basic: a will, and specifically a will to have (what else?) experiences. Experiences are the content of consciousness, but more than that, they are the very doing of consciousness without which there is naught but void. As a whole UC exercises no conscious intent because it is consciousness in its rawest, most undifferentiated state.

I would say consciousness is an inherently continuous process, if for no other reason than the untenability of any proposal to discretize it. There is no absolute scale by which UC may be measured, and "gaps" in its experiences are necessarily void and so perforce simply cannot exist. (Incidentally, this is why I don't foresee any AI algorithm ever becoming capable of consciousness.) As a continuous process, consciousness "flows" rather like a fluid, and so like the clouds of Jupiter is bound to give rise to ordered structures and patterns.

I wouldn't say UC is exactly like a mathematical dynamical system, much less a physical one, but I see many parallels. A key difference between UC and a dynamical system is that "willing" I mentioned earlier. UC does not exist within a spacetime continuum, and so its experiences are not innately indexed with space or time coordinates. Everything is "just there," as potentiality say. What do I mean here by potentiality? I see it as the "possible experience not yet actually experienced." The terrain is out there, but it is not yet mapped. (Note our language has time references baked into it, with tenses and such, but such is the limitation of any attempt to literally describe the ineffable.)

So let me get to it. Each of us is a piece of UC, and we each navigate the terrain of potential experiences on continuous paths of a sort. Our very wanderings through the terrain actualize potentialities, bringing sensory experiences, emotions, and thoughts to our awareness. We see patterns all around us with our naked eyes, and with instruments we can see smaller and larger patterns. To a great extent we see what we expect to see, based on the rules of a consensus reality that pulled itself by its own bootstraps out of the terrain of UC. We see cells in our bodies carrying out seemingly impossibly complex processes that appear directed by an intelligence.

Yet how could it be otherwise? Our own intelligence dictates the associations we make in the patterns we perceive with our five senses. Take a dose of psychedelics, and lo—new associations are created in our map of reality's terrain, such that even trees have many faces, wind blows through the pines in slow motion, and dull patterns in a granite countertop suddenly come alive in amazing, interlocking ways.

No, this is not a soulless, dust-to-dust existence in which mindless particles come together in combinations to somehow give rise to awareness—an essence in a wholly different ontic category than matter itself (such miraculous emergentism has never been empirically documented except in the eyes of the faithful metaphysical materialist who would, with more than a pinch of circular reasoning, point to childbirth as proof). But the "miracle" of a biological cell, or DNA, or what have you, is all down to how we, as individuals and as a species, choose to characterize patterns playing out in sensory forms. What story shall we tell? What myth—or model, in modern parlance—shall we concoct? What's a sensible-seeming narrative we can set to all these forms and feelings?

If reality be mental (as I believe it is), then what a cell is doing is a doing of Mind itself in accord with its flowing, willed, and very mathematically patterned nature. Biological evolution is just a sensory representation of an evolution of mental structures (i.e. cognitive associations) in UC. I cannot prove it, but between the two extremes of personal gods and soulless particles I find peace in it, and beauty, and a ring of truth.

@Soothfast said
In chaos theory there are dynamical systems defined in simple mathematical terms that, once set in motion, soon exhibit exquisite fractal structures on a global scale known as strange attractors. Such large-scale order arises from underlying processes that are locally chaotic, and being purely mathematical, we can be sure the system has no mind governing the system's evolut ...[text shortened]... xtremes of personal gods and soulless particles I find peace in it, and beauty, and a ring of truth.

No time to read this at a glance it looks interesting. I will spend time on it, thank you.

@KellyJay said
No time to read this at a glance it looks interesting. I will spend time on it, thank you.

That's okay, I've been editing it a bit.

As I may have said before, I'm somewhere between the two usual camps: god and no-god.

If you've ever read Aldous Huxley's "The Perennial Philosophy," he points out the distinction between what you may call God, and something in a sense more fundamental than God called the Godhead or divine Ground. What I call universal consciousness would essentially be the divine Ground, which the Hindus call Brahman.

But I don't want to stray too far off topic.

@KellyJay said
As I said you blame people for not hating him as you, nothing has to be said for or against you find a way to paint people in a dark light. Not proof is proof enough for you!

When will you get it through your religion addled brain, it is ABOVE love OR hate, it is about a psychopathic malignant narcissist with ZERO feelings for the common man, he is a flaming racist and his ONLY black buddies are RICH black buddies, you be a clerk at Giant, forget it, you are WAY too far beneath him for him to even NOTICE much less actually talk to.
If you think I lied here, prove me wrong.
TAKE A FKING STANCE, you hide your head in the sand when it comes to Trump and BTW MILLIONS of people believe EXACTLY as I do, we want him GONE, preferably in prison as a TRAITOR.
For instance, he allows a RUSSIAN oil tanker into Cuba, he CUT the sanctions on Russia and Putin is LOVING it, ALL of it, that STUPID war is saving Putin's ASS because the economy was sinking fast but thanks to Trump they have BILLIONS extra in their coffers.
That is because Putin has SOMETHING on Trump, we don't know what yet but he IS holding something over Trump because Trump falls over and plays dead when it comes to Putin.

@Soothfast said
That's okay, I've been editing it a bit.

As I may have said before, I'm somewhere between the two usual camps: god and no-god.

If you've ever read Aldous Huxley's "The Perennial Philosophy," he points out the distinction between what you may call God, and something in a sense more fundamental than God called the Godhead or divine Ground. What I call universal consci ...[text shortened]... be the divine Ground, which the Hindus call Brahman.

But I don't want to stray too far off topic.

Tomorrow I will have time. I believe God is three persons One Being, so God is socially complex Being. God is One, speaks to His Being, and all of His attributes at once. He never betrays one attribute for another, holy, just, righteous, good, merciful, and so on. Which means all He does and says must line up with all of them.

@Soothfast said
In chaos theory there are dynamical systems defined in simple mathematical terms that, once set in motion, soon exhibit exquisite fractal structures on a global scale known as strange attractors. Such large-scale order arises from underlying processes that are locally chaotic, and being purely mathematical, we can be sure the system has no mind governing the system's evolut ...[text shortened]... xtremes of personal gods and soulless particles I find peace in it, and beauty, and a ring of truth.

"In chaos theory there are dynamical systems defined in simple mathematical terms that, once set in motion, soon exhibit exquisite fractal structures on a global scale known as strange attractors. Such large-scale order arises from underlying processes that are locally chaotic, and being purely mathematical, we can be sure the system has no mind governing the system's evolution. Look at the clouds of Jupiter for an example of patterns arising from randomness, with the Great Red Spot being a particularly stable attractor."

You have a lot to say here; I’ll take it in bite-sized pieces. Simple mathematical terms mean we can understand them at some level; we may not yet be able to calculate or predict, but if they follow rules, they are not the product of chaos.

@Soothfast said
In chaos theory there are dynamical systems defined in simple mathematical terms that, once set in motion, soon exhibit exquisite fractal structures on a global scale known as strange attractors. Such large-scale order arises from underlying processes that are locally chaotic, and being purely mathematical, we can be sure the system has no mind governing the system's evolut ...[text shortened]... xtremes of personal gods and soulless particles I find peace in it, and beauty, and a ring of truth.

"I brought this up some months ago in another thread here, but, the way I see it, while there is a need for mind at the basis of reality, that does not automatically entail or imply the existence of intent as either an ontological primitive or a fundamental property of consciousness. What I propose is that consciousness itself is the ontological primitive—that is, the sole existing essence of reality at its ultimate foundation. As for intent itself, that is a function of more structured mental processes—subsystems, say—operating within the greater whole of what I would call universal consciousness (UC), or what Buddhists often refer to in writing as Mind with a capital M."

With our minds, we process information, taking in things for our understanding, and we can send and receive information we produce to each other, even train other life to do what we want.

Chaos doesn’t produce steady-state information-bearing systems, so chaos can’t do this. In a chaotic system, there is no type of meaning or purpose, which is why we call it chaotic.

Our minds are housed in a biological body whose range of features is built from layers upon layers of cells, whose very arrangements, when we consider them, have a complexity beyond our understanding for just a single living cell. We have various types of cells in the trillions, organized into a harmonious, integrated system that functions under strict constraints to allow life to exist. This is not the product of a bottom-up, undirected, purposeless process; to say it could have is undefendable. One must not follow evidence but instead lean towards what they want to be true, only because they want it that way. So I agree a prime reality source has to have done this, identifying that takes some careful study, looking at all we know or think we know. Taking in all there is about us, we have consciousness, we are relational beings, we have notions of right and wrong; these have to come to us from our creator, so it must be personal.

I’ll come back for more.

@KellyJay said

I’ll come back for more.

I'm in no hurry. It may not be until next week that I get back here to address your points. I need to take more time crafting my longer posts so as to make them clearer.

@Soothfast said
I'm in no hurry. It may not be until next week that I get back here to address your points. I need to take more time crafting my longer posts so as to make them clearer.

I can be guilty of that, to many words-can bury the lead.

@sonhouse said
When will you get it through your religion addled brain, it is ABOVE love OR hate, it is about a psychopathic malignant narcissist with ZERO feelings for the common man, he is a flaming racist and his ONLY black buddies are RICH black buddies, you be a clerk at Giant, forget it, you are WAY too far beneath him for him to even NOTICE much less actually talk to.
If you think ...[text shortened]... t he IS holding something over Trump because Trump falls over and plays dead when it comes to Putin.

You clearly have no answer to what I wrote about the corruption and abuse of power of Donald J Trump. This is NOT simple hatred. This is a national and international EMERGENCY., Maybe you have your head stuck in the sand so deep you can't even IMAGINE the reaction to what Trump just said, I will obliterate your entire CIVILIZATION, to Iran.
Tell me how many other presidents EVER said ANYTHING approaching that level of vulgarity AND Stupidity.
Do you remember or even KNOW about the phrase Moral responsibility?
The USA has LOST moral standing in the entire world, our former allies now on their own, Trump wants to kill NATO, claims NOBODY EVER helped the US in an emergency, TOTALLY IGNORING THE FACT NATO CAME TO OUR AID AFTER 9-11 AND Dutch forces were deployed to Afghanistan SPECIFICALLY to assist our forces fighting the common enemy there.
Fast forward to 2026, now we have the Dutch deploying troops to Greenland to counter the threatened attack on Greenland "make it the 51st state, along with Canada' And you think he gets away with all the abuse of power, grift, corruption out in the open, not afraid of ANY retribution.
Remember BTW, that was the term he used in his campaign "I will be YOUR retribution', remember that?
He clearly meant MY retrobution which lead to Pam Bonding being AG and a 150% Magite doing ANYTHING Trump wants, when in FACT the NATIONS AG is supposed to be NON political. Bondi was anything but, Trump says I want to indict James Comey, remember him? former FBI director, where Trump DEMANDED 100% loyalty to TRUMP, Comey said My loyalty is to the constitution, THREE DAYS LATER TRUMP FIRES COMEY.

Then not satisfied totally fuking up Comey's life, he ORDERED Bondi to Indict him AND several others but the case was so STUPID, ALL FOUR cases were almost literally LAUGHED out of court.

So, not achieving the EVIL goals of Trump, Bondi got fired.
If Comey had been convicted and served a jail sentence, Bondi would be his favorite but now Bondi found out the HARD WAY just how much of a DIODE Trump is when it comes to loyalty, Rudy AND Bondi found out about THAT the hard way, loyalty like a diode for Trump, loyalty flows TO trump but NEVER away from Trump in support of his people.
And YOU think if we HATE that SON OF A BITCH TRAITOR TO THE US and that enables you to same your own precious ego so you convince yourself, since I hate that world class asssole would be dictator, that means you dissolve all responsibility to even LOOK up the charges I fed you and therefore Trump now becomes for YOU, a SAINT.