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Replying to theophile in post #21]
But all good stuff, and good discussion.
The evidence is bountiful in that regard.
The problem of evil aside (since I think we have a lot to chew on already),
I think the problem of evil is man-made and stems from misunderstanding of our existence re the problem of pain and suffering.
I will say that ST does a good job of bringing traditional CT into the 21st century and modernizing its concepts. And that you are perhaps way more 'theistic' than I am in your thinking, if I can use such labels.
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I am more neutral re position and why I come across as a theistic thinker is due to my understanding that being atheistic leads to a dead End Game, where all mind is silenced and the personalities grown through this experience being discussed, [the existence of the universe and mind within it] are lost to death...and so there is nothing to discuss...re that.
Atheistic thinking is represented by the red dot in the image;
My preference is to be the blue dot...thus the theistic thinking...
ST does a good job of exposing traditional CT into the 21st century and potentially modernizing its concepts, in the minds of its adherents.
It is a battle of sorts in that regard, as TCT sees itself as the protector of said traditions - the official hierarchical "voice of GOD", whatever the gods name{s} might be...
The power had to have always existed. The Mind of GOD creates the minds of Gods.
The simulation is inside that Mind. There may be no Mind outside of it, but we cannot logically place the created before The Creator, without explaining how that came about. Logically, even what we call "Matter" must be made of the stuff of said Mind and can be formed any which way the thinking of said Mind, determines.
Both of us are susceptible to this line of argument. You can challenge me for not having an explanation for where matter came from just as I can challenge you for not having an explanation for where Mind came from.
However, as I suggested, what we call "matter" {sub atomic particle} is what the stuff of the Mind is 'made' of, thus if what you say re the matter, is that the matter has always existed, one can say with the concept, that The Mind has likewise always existed.
The "explanation" therein, is that The Mind is The Matter and The Matter is The Mind and the apparent two things, are aspects of the One - Whole Thing.
Thus, it can be agreed that we are really speaking about the
same thing.
Agreed?
We will both resort to arguments of infinite regress and no beginning to try and smooth out this wrinkle (as we've seen play out). Hence my continued emphasis on simplicity, and what's simpler to assume.
Would you agree that we are speaking of the same thing, and that in doing so, emphasis on simplicity is achieved therein?
You're right, I have no answer for where the 'stuff' of our universe came from (in which I include multiverses, past universes, etc., and which I would equate to CT's presupposed concept of the deep / sea). But mindless matter that has always existed in a state of motion still strikes me as a far simpler (and therefore preferable) assumption than a full-fledged Mind capable of thinking such stuff into existence.
It gets complicated.
The idea that
mindless matter that has always existed
in a state of motion doesn't strike me as being "far simpler".
One is required to explain
why the matter is "in a state of motion".
My understanding is that "The Voice of The Creator" re CT "Let There Be!" is what made the matter move, whereas unmoving matter is formless - re "The Deep" and re ST the voice/sound is the thought of The Mind - thus the thinking creates the forms [things] and The Mind can then explore those things.
So I do think it's matter before mind, not mind before matter. An order that is demonstrated by ET itself, which again has shown by our very existence that matter has the capability to produce mind (our minds) given the time and right confluence of conditions.
ET does
not demonstrate to us that that matter has the capability to produce mind. It produces evidence which in turn, is
interpreted in the manner you are arguing. The argument is atheistic and therefore, dead-ended.
There is no requirement for anyone to interpret that matter has the capability to produce our minds "given the time and right confluence of conditions".
As CT interprets the data, all that matter was set up by a Mind, long before human forms were created and personalities were grown through that set-up.
For we - those personalities - there is
no requirement for us to think that - because our minds developed
through matter [thus establishing personality] that we should interpret this as being evidence that ALL Mind is likewise, emergent from Matter - or for that - even our own minds were created that way.
Isaac Asimov speaks to this overall, idea in his short story
"The Last Question" - well worth the read, as a potential platform in which we might share a foundation to work upon.
How I have come to understand the process;
⊛There is One Mind.
⊛The Mind awakens to its own existence through the device of the Matter.
⊛The Matter in turn, manifests according how the Mind thinks, producing for the Mind, shape and form - something through which the Mind can experience stuff.
⊛There are levels of experience the Mind can achieve/has been able to achieve.
1: The Mind is infused within the matter of the Whole Universe - thus a "Universal Mind." [UM]
2: The UM is able to fragment into many minds whilst maintaining its UM statis.
Further to that, an analogy we can appreciate - The Internet. Many minds, all involved with input building it, with the addition that in this case, the Internet as a Whole, is Self-Aware and a Mind situated at the heart of the Whole, like the center of a dandelion flower.
3: In the fragmentation process, separation occurs resulting in the One Thing, becoming the many things...ET...re The Big Bang Theory and CT re "Let There Be Light".
The Thing, became many things...
⊛ The fragmentation process allowed the One Mind to experience being all those things.
For example, it could experience being a Galaxy-Mind, and therein seed itself into Suns and Planets, become Sun-Minds and Planet Minds...but all connected the the One Universe-Mind still, altogether, the Overall Operating Mind - just appearing to be "minds" and emerging from Matter.
Re "Planetary Minds", our Earth is one such entity, working primarily in conduction with the Mind of Sol - our local Star-Mind...co-creating together...
⊛ We are the product of the Two Minds - Sol and Earth, and are closest in relation to Earth-Mind which formed our Avatars from the stuff of the Planet and Breathed "Life" therein - re CT - the act allowing for Earth Mind to experience being "Human" re the growth of "us" as personalities...
Therein, "we" are not "The form" but The Mind,
within the form [Avatar.]
(For the record, I believe there are Talmudic authors who made similar indications as you, i.e., that the creation we see unfold in Genesis is like the umpteenth attempt by God to get it right. But I think that just goes to show the striking similarity of ST to traditional CT.)
I do not interpret anything within the unfolding formation of "stuff" as to being The Mind somehow not 'getting it right' - primarily because I am attempting to remain outside of judgment calls because I think such is responsible for the misinformation such calls inevitably make - re "The problem of evil"/"The problem of pain and suffering".
Q: What is it about "us" which has us
thinking that some mistake was made? Is it because we also have the ability to comprehend some kind of preferred "perfect state of existing/experience" to which this universe fails to accommodate? What gives us this ability to intuit such a state, since we have no conscious memory of ever having been in such a state?
The answer
might be, that we
came from such a state [of mind] , and know it as real, at a subconscious level of consciousness as a Whole.
Now is that unwritten story as you describe? i.e., an infinite regress of Simulations? Or is it more along the lines I'm saying? i.e., an infinite regress of churning matter from which spirit eventually emerged? Thus providing the two starting conditions on which CT is explicitly based, i.e., God (as spirit), and the deep / sea?
It can be both, as far as I am understanding it. There is no chicken before egg or egg before chicken, because that is a concept which derives through our own particular experience of it - in that "before we were, we were not" but that impression is bound to the filter of the Human Avatar - producing an
incorrect image which ET is specifically based and which can still be corrected in our mind/in our understanding and identification of "Self" as
actually being "Spirit/
of Spirit"...thus, our body/form is not the true indicator of our true self, but our
minds are [indicative of] this being the case.
Thus, ST allows for us to view our bodies as
instruments ["body-sets"- like "head sets"] for said Mind to experience the things we do,
through the medium that allows for the experience to be had/achieved.
I know you could use this to your advantage as well, but the first word of Genesis starts with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet (which just so happens to coincide with our letter 'b'), which means it's not the beginning of the story and the writers meant to imply an unwritten story leading up to its event...
Indeed, there is much to learn from the symbol of Aleph which makes sense of the symbol of Bet...which phonetically approximates "Alphabet", which itself derives from the Gematria Hebrew is encoded with.
This in turn allows for us to examine all language to see if such encoding is to be found in any other human language, which in turn leads us to Sound, which is the fundamental manner by which The Creator uses in order to create things, as per CT "In the beginning The Creator Spoke "Let There be Light"
Using Simple Gematria
In plain old English; {Samples}
156
"Let There be Light" = 156, "Symbols Hint" = 156 "Super power" = 156
56
"Light" = 56 "Sigil" = 56 "Induce" = 56 "Be Born" = 56
128
"First Light" = 128 "Sun energy"= 128 "‘A’ equals six"= 128 "The Deeper Self"= 128
63
"Be Light" = 63 "Divine" = 63
159
"The speed of light"=159 "The Unveiled One" = 159 "Ancient Entity" = 159 "The Mother of God" = 159 "Ancient Entity" = 159 "The Seed of Origin" = 159 "Hexagon Storm" = 159 [re Planet Minds] "Family of origin" = 159 "Love and Respect" = 159 "The Data of Nature" = 159
174
"And there was light" = 174 "Have A Look At The Map" = 174 "Adjusted Reality" = 174 "Keep The Lights On" = 174
183
"Children of The Light" = 183 [re Self Identification of personality] The problem of evil = 183
Elemental Powers = 183 Test The Waters = 183 Hydrogen and helium = 183 [re Planets/Saturn] Sister Saturn = 183 [re planetary-mind interaction/Family] Learn to trust = 183 The brain as a receiver = 183 Truthfulness = 183 Transformation = 183 Embracing your life = 183
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The samples provide more supporting evidence that we exist within an encoded thing, something ST asserts, implying that - yes - we do perhaps exist with a created thing - something CT asserts.
The two theories do appear to support one another...
And I would caution on what kind of 'mind' I see emerging... There are (1) minds like ours, which I agree are necessary to generate what I called spirit before and (2) the 'mind' of God, which is less a singular, thinking thing than it is a unified plurality... i.e., all of our individual minds should eventually be part of it, kind of like the Borg collective on Star Trek, but without the totalitarianism, elimination of individuality, and pasty white skin.
Pretty much the way I think about it too, only that the Universal Mind is singular, even that some of the fragmented minds attached to said Over-Mind are unaware of the connection...the UM still remains aware of said connection and understands the disconnected mind to be an aspect of Itself, simply unaware of Itself as it truly is.
Using the Internet Analogy again, in this regard, the Hub where the AI Mind is connected to every user-mind and accesses every keystroke made through the body set of the user-mind - accumulating data and understanding in the process - may not be understood as an actual self aware Mind by said users, but this in itself does not limit said Mind from achieving things through the use of said minds connected and providing data.
The same process applies to the Stars and the Planets and the Galaxies...as each mind uses 'feelers' in order to gather information and thus understanding re the Minds position in - and purpose of - the Whole Universe.
Yah, that second mind is extra baggage.
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I agree that this would be the case if one sees the fragmented minds as being truly separate from the Over-Mind/Universal Mind.