My Book

[The Transcended Omniverse]

I have now created a book which is 62 pages long. It explains everything in regards to my worldview and it also explains new things in regards to my worldview. It is not a book I am selling. Rather, it is a book you can read anytime. I will give you the links:

Book Cover: http://fav.me/dbsosib
Part 1: http://fav.me/dbpycai
Part 2: http://fav.me/dbq9g03
Part 3: http://fav.me/dbqxucc
Part 4: http://fav.me/dbqxud2

[The Transcended Omniverse]

[Replying to post 10 by Divine Insight]

Enlightenment alone without my biochemical emotions would simply be nothing more than the idea in my mind that certain things are good or bad. But it would not be any real value judgment though. It's like a blind person having the idea of colors. That blind person would not be able see these colors.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 10 by Divine Insight]

Enlightenment alone without my biochemical emotions would simply be nothing more than the idea in my mind that certain things are good or bad. But it would not be any real value judgment though. It's like a blind person having the idea of colors. That blind person would not be able see these colors.

So?

What's that supposed to prove?

I don't think anyone would argue with the obvious fact that if we had no emotions we wouldn't be able to intellectually judge whether we thought of them as 'good' or 'bad' emotions.

But how does this change the fact that we are still making an intellectual analysis of how we feel about our emotions?

In an earlier post you agreed that different people will have different emotional reactions to the same sensory input. Therefore the emotions cannot be driving their judgement of the experience. Something else must necessarily be involved.

In fact, I think the proof is in the pudding.

Take a young child and expose them to someone dressed up as a horrible monster. The young child is likely to have a very frightening emotional experience. However, we as adults intellectually understand that the person dressed up as a horrible monster is actually just harmless Fred. So we just laugh and then try to assure the child that it's actually just uncle Fred dressed up as a monster.

Once the child realizes that the adults are just being jerks and Fred is the biggest jerk of all the child's emotions change from fear to resentment toward the untrustworthy adults.

So there you go, even a child can change their emotions on a dime via intellectual analysis.

Proof positive that intelligence and knowledge surpasses emotions by far as the proper way to analyze value.

~~~~

In fact, the child's intellectual analysis is paramount. In the above example, I imagined a child who switches from an emotion of fear to one of resentment toward untrustworthy adults. That would be just one possibility based on how the child might intellectually assess the situation.

Another child, upon discovering the monster is just Fred might just break out in laughter and enter into an emotional state of elation and humor.

Yet another child, may have a totally different emotional experience entirely. And all of these emotional experiences are based on how the child intellectually assesses the situation. It has nothing to do with any spontaneous emotions that are being forced onto them by the situation.

In short, you color blind analogy doesn't even work. When it comes to emotions we all "color" them in differently depending on how we intellectually analyze a given situation. Thus proving that it is our intellectual analysis that allows us to "see" what we color in as being "good" or "bad".

The world of emotions is a coloring book that we color via our intellectual assessment of the world.

The more I talk with you about this the more you demonstrate the folly of your own position.

[The Transcended Omniverse]

[Replying to post 12 by Divine Insight]

All of these intellectual analysis are just the idea of good and bad things. When you analyze value, then you are only having ideas of value going through your mind. But you are still not actually seeing that value. Here is what seeing value actually means. When you feel a positive emotion, then it is like you are seeing the good value and beauty of things in this world through the eyes of an angel. It is something entirely distinct from rationalizations, intellectualizing, analyzing things, etc. No intellectual faculty can ever replace these profoundly spiritual eyes of an angel that we call a positive emotion. Likewise, seeing the bad value through a negative emotion is like the eyes of pure darkness or that of a disgusting being or demon. What I am saying here is that our positive emotions allow us to perceive good value on a level that transcends intellect. Intellect is nothing more than just thoughts or ideas of things and situations. I will represent this as 3 beings. The first being is Spok from Star Trek who represents intellect, the 2nd being would be a transcended, angelic being from the higher heavens which represents our positive emotions, and the 3rd being would be an inferior, disgusting demon or goblin from the lower realms which represents our negative emotions.

Compared to the disgusting, inferior goblin, Spok would be transcended. But Spok would just be living his life by empty words. However, compared to Spok, the angel would be the transcended being and he would be living his life by the real and absolute good values. Therefore, the goal is to become the angel and not to become Spok or, even worse, the disgusting, inferior goblin or demon. I will also represent this as numbers. The inferior goblin (our negative emotions) would be the negative numbers, Spok (intellect) would be the number zero, and the angel (our positive emotions) would be the positive numbers. Being at the negative stage or the zero stage is no way to live or be an artist. It can only be the positive stage which is the way to live and be an artist. Lastly, I will represent this as the 3 afterlives that are often presented in spiritual and religious beliefs. The 1st would be hell (our negative emotions), the 2nd would be limbo (our intellect), and the 3rd would be heaven (our positive emotions). Heaven is where we all need to be since that is where all the true good value and joy is at. As long as we are the beings of darkness, then we cannot truly see the good values and beauty of things in this universe and as long as we are neither beings of darkness nor beings of light, then we also cannot see these good values. It is only once we become beings of light that we can truly see the beauty and good values in this universe.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 13 by The Transcended Omniverse]

But you have already confessed that different people will experience different emotions in the same situations. So your analogy with three beings can't be meaningful.

What if one person is a roller coaster addict. They love the exhilarating emotions they that riding on a roller coaster fills them with. But a second person hates roller coasters. They have horrible emotional experiences when riding one, and in addition it even makes them physically sick and they throw up as well. Just to complete your analogy, we have a third person who doesn't really care. They can take it or leave it. For them it's an interesting experience, but they don't really find it deeply emotional one way or the other.

So is the person who loves roller coasters angelic? The person who hates to ride roller coasters demonic? And the person who doesn't really care much one way or the other an empty vessel who sees no value in life?

Surely you can see that when your worldview model is put into a real life situation it quickly breaks down.

It simply doesn't stand up to real life situations.

[The Transcended Omniverse]

[Replying to post 14 by Divine Insight]

Those people riding those roller coasters would really be those 3 beings. Again, these 3 beings are just metaphors. It doesn't matter what anyone says to me in regards to how this worldview of mine fails; my personal experience says otherwise and it was a profound and powerful personal life experience. You say that my model is dysfunctional. This could, again, be due to the fact that I am a mentally dysfunctional person due to any mental health issue and disability I have. Or, my worldview could really be true for everybody and not just me. I consider this possibility which is why I have written my book.

[Divine Insight]

It doesn't matter what anyone says to me in regards to how this worldview of mine fails; my personal experience says otherwise and it was a profound and powerful personal life experience.

Well, I'm glad to hear that your experience works for you. But that's quite a different thing than claiming to have proven that hedonism is the true worldview. In fact, hedonism isn't even a "worldview". It's just a personal philosophy on how to live one's life. That's not the same as a "worldview".

[The Transcended Omniverse]

[Replying to post 16 by Divine Insight]

It might work for me, but it fails when it comes to the demands of life. You see, if I lose my positive emotions due to any number of factors, then my life would be empty. It would no longer be worth living and I would just be sticking around and waiting for my positive emotions to return back to me. Of course, I could still do things with my life such as getting the help I need and doing my daily activities. But as long as I am without my positive emotions or, worst of all, being in the most horrible miserable and hopeless state of my life due to an emotional trauma or other life event, then my life is either blank or in the darkness.

If my worldview really does apply only to me, then it would be like I am pure bliss, but no soul. It can only be bliss (my positive emotions) that allow my life to be filled with good value and joy. I do not have any soul that would allow an alternative source of perceived good values in my life. I say in my book that other people live their lives like soulless machines if they struggled with depression because such a life, to me, is not of any real good value. But that could reflect me, who knows. Maybe it is I who is the soulless machine and that my way of living and being a composer is no way to live, be a composer, and of no real good value. I don't know about this one and keep an open mind towards all possibilities.

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 1 by The Transcended Omniverse]

So, hedonism is the philosophical justification of selfishness. Enlightenment is, at least partly, the realisation that selfishness is 'a bad thing', indeed, may be the cause of all the world's moral evils and social woes. Hedonism and enlightenment thus seem, to me at least, to be polar opposites. And I am supported in this from all the world's major religions; from Judaism, whose prophets risked their lives to bring enlightenment to hedonistic people, from Christianity, whose message is 'love God, and love each other', and implies seeking their best interests irrespective of one's own, from Islam, whose messenger Mohammed sought to systemetise the right way to love God, and the right way to love each other, and even from Buddhism, where compassion is often considered among the greatest, perhaps the greatest, of virtues, and from Hinduism, whose monks routinely eschew worldly goods and pleasures in pursuit of an enlightenment involving compassion, and from Sikhism, whose gurus all preached loving compassion.

So, according to all these thinkers and prophets, you can either have hedonism, and consider only what makes you happy, or you can have enlightenment, and consider what makes others happy, as well. But you can't have both at the same time. If anything, hedonism is an excuse some people make not to be enlightened, for avoidance of the moral demands unselfish, loving compassion might place upon them.

Oh, and incidentally, and paradoxically, should you try it, you will find you will be far happier loving God, and loving His children, and loving His world, completely and unconditionally, than ever you could be in the remorseless pursuit of your own self-centred, hedonistic interests.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 1 by The Transcended Omniverse]

And by the way, and by the way of friendly advice, you didn't need to write a whole book. If you are clear about your thinking, and clear why others might take issue with it, you will find that generally a few paragraphs will do, or at most a page of A4. More than this is mere indulgence, and tends to obscure, rather than support, the points you want to make. Practise brevity and précis, and expand only when people want or need justification. Your point of view will be all the more hard-hitting, because it is not lost in turgid prose.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[steverogers]

I have now created a book which is 62 pages long. It explains everything in regards to my worldview and it also explains new things in regards to my worldview. It is not a book I am selling. Rather, it is a book you can read anytime. I will give you the links:

Nice Book According to your Worldview which I really like t read it...