A brief philosophical paper...

[Reflectionist]

Okay.... maybe it's not 'brief,' but I think it's philosophical. I'm putting it here because it deals with highly philosophical topics. It is about the search for knowledge, though. In addition, it deals with the obvious subjects such as God and Christianity, but it also looks at philosophical concepts such as perception of truth, experiences, motives, and practicality while using examples from the Matrix, early Socratic / Platonic philosophy, and other examples from my life and other's lives that I've noticed.

I think it's far too long to post directly, here. I'll certainly link to it, below.

I don't really have anything 'specific' to 'debate' on, I just want to bounce some thoughts back and forth between you guys and none of the discussion sub-forums seemed to be able to facilitate this sort of thing very well. Feel free to move if necessary, though. Thanks.

Of dogma, dichotomies, dilemmas and paradigms.

There's the writing itself. You're welcome to look at and question / criticize / reference my previous writings as well. Thanks. This is an ongoing process, as well. The next writing is in the works, but is currently in the free-write brainstorming stage.

--Jake--

EDIT -- Upon closer inspection, I do have a couple of questions up for debate.

Firstly, do you believe that religion is a matter of personal belief and is justifiable more in terms personal practicality, than correct / incorrect?

Secondly, are concepts such as science, reason, logic, and most importantly empirical proof even relevant to the search for spirituality, acceptance of, and communion with God?

[Reflectionist]

I mentioned Plato's Allegory of the Cave in my writing in the first post. Before I came here, I had followed my own reasoning and came upon the Integral Theory on my own. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

This is good discussion. Most of it is over my head, though. I'm catching bits and pieces, however. I'm still reading, don't think I haven't checked back.

[bernee51]

QED

I think I understand the point you're making here. There is certainly a type of person you can meet in the street who has a more restricted perspective on things than you do and vica-versa. The question is just how much overlap there is. To some people now is just a "Monday" and if it was not for the odd glimpse of a sky full of stars, the planet Earth could easily be the entire universe.

I agree. This is the question of relative vertical human perspective. A dog has only a horizontal perspective and lives through continuing reactions on the horizontal plane of,life.

A lot of humanity is like this and Plato referred to this existence as living in a cave. Yet there is humanity that has acquired vertical perspective in differing degrees. Jesus referred to this as being not of the world but rather having the ability to witness it from a higher perspective.

It is a pity that much of what Jesus 'said' has been misconstrued. Jesus was a monist. The 'higher perspective' he 'spoke' of was from an advaita perspective that the true knowledge (jnana) of the nature of being is one of an illusion of a seperate self.

The 'higher perspectivee' is a realization of this.

[QED]

What intrigued me recently was making a connection between the honeycomb structure in a Beehive and a tall office building divided into glass cells. While it's quite clear that no Bee architect had sat down to devise such a structure, I wondered if it's really so clear that a human architect had done something qualitatively different. If this can be unravelled I wonder if it might also solve the question of self awareness.

I feel I should warn you about suggesting such things. People could take this for being in sympathy with Intelligent Design and in this day and age, you could be strung up for it.

Rightly so.

However, since you said it, I believe science can reveal ID, and if so, it is not surprising that some of what it reveals can be obviously beneficial for us such as geometrical relationships.

Science reveals all kinds of things that could be called "Intelligent Design", however there's a lot of silly arguing because people are using different definitions for the words. The inevitable choice of words used in these topics has nothing to do with inevitabilities outside the linguistics. If people had thought to invent a different word for "natural designs" like those arising from convection cells for example, then our augmented vocabulary could at least be used to exclude a certain line of idiotic argument.

This business of conscious perspective seems obvious to me since I've come to believe that man is dual natured. He has the results of normal mechanical evolution normal for organic life and the purpose it serves. At the same time he has within him the seed of consciousness that involuted into him. It is this seed when beginning to awaken and develop that allows for the conscious experience of self awareness. In Christianity, its development is referred to as the "New man."

Perhaps it's still obscure to some, but the elemental components of organic life are after all, optional, functional arrangements of inorganic materials. With natural selection doing the arranging there comes a point (more likely a gradual dawning) of something we recognise as awareness on account of its functional advantages. So it would seem at any rate. The honeycomb is not in the Bees awareness in quite the same way as it is in ours -- but I can imagine an equidistantly "advanced" alien being visiting the Earth and looking at the honeycomb and the glass office block and seeing them both as products of lesser consciousness.

Of course we are not the first generation of philosophers to consider conscious reflection. Awareness inevitably gives rise to philosophy and so it should be no surprise to see all kinds of ancient attempts to "explain" and otherwise explore what it is to "be". To me much of Christianity smacks of people trying to "get down on paper" just another wave of emergence from the trogloditic existence that was the best evolution could do for so long. "Seeds of consciousness involuting into us" sounds like tapping into something that's deliberately been prearranged -- without any justification for seeing any forethought or deliberation. If it's simply the product of yet another "optional arrangment" of atomic material then any mystical backstory is as good as any other.

[QED]

This is good discussion. Most of it is over my head, though. I'm catching bits and pieces, however. I'm still reading, don't think I haven't checked back.

I'm sorry -- it seems to have gone Off-Topic rather early on and I think I'm mostly to blame