Wax Philosophy

[Z³]

I wanted to start a thread where people would state their thoughts on philosophy to a certain degree, to perhaps coax people to speak about their own thoughts (and also to give myself a venue by which I can present my own). I will begin.

I've been enamored with pantheism, in some of its aspects. Pantheism is usually seen as defining the concept of god as the universe, or simply all of existence. I'm not truly theistic in this sense, because I dont literally worship anything, nor do I necessarily believe in any deity (self aware, or otherwise) as have tended humans tend to personify them.

I can best describe this through a metaphor involving numbers, although I warn you that I am not particularly brilliant when it comes to mathematics.

If you take everything that exists, and look at it as an objective whole you can say that it is One thing. Then you see anything that exists as a part of that (like an individual human) and say that it is essentially nothing more than a subdivision of that whole. You can divide one a million different ways, and you still have just one thing.

Technically the value of the universe in this case is a variable, because each of its fractions relate to each other. You have a chaotic system, but no matter what each of those fractions do you will still be able to add it all up and look at it as being an objective whole. There is a duality with that.

I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this, but I find that I always try to distance myself from human perspective in anything. I see humans as an aspect of nature, unique in that they are self aware and can create, yet not unique in that what they do is relatively inconsequential in universal terms.

When I think about what the human race is, I look at its cities and its networks of energy transfer and intercommunication, I see a primitive neural network being built, I also see massive equivilents of many other systems that we see in the human body... or in, say, a fungus.

I think an alien entity might think that the entire human race was simply a fungus, and not intelligent at all.

I think each individual human is little more than a single cell of a gigantic fungal bloom, and whats more... they are relatively unconcious of this fact. We build our worlds around our own perceptions, and as a result we tend to be vain and self centered creatures. Each individual human tends to be concerned primarily with its own needs, or worse... its wants. We like to do things that make us feel important, and we like to convince ourselves that these are noble aspirations.

We are unique, in a weird way, at least on this planet. We are evolving very quickly, but not necessarily in a literal physical sense. Technology has eliminated survival of the fittest as a factor in evolution, and now technology is the next phase of evolution. (television, the internet, highways, etc).

I do not apply negative or positive connotations to these things. These are merely passive observations, and I feel that the very concept of "good" or "bad" are purely human in their nature, and not a part of the nature of the universe as a whole (positive and negative, on the other hand, are. No connotation, just presence and absence).

When I try to imagine the relationships between opposites, between positive and negative magnetic poles, between positive and negative particles of matter, etc... it leads me to believe that this great cosmic mass is nothing more than a chaotic whirlwind of activity caused by all of these forces interacting, and that eventually there will merely be a primordial cosmic soup of very low frequency energy where nothing at all will happen. A great equilibrium, if you will.

Right now, this is how Zahn sees things. I'd like to hear peoples opinions on my opinions, and I'd like other people to state their own opinions so we have a frame of reference. Thank you.

Also, for reference, I'd like to say that my interest in philosophy began with eastern culture/history when I was very young... and although I've evolved a lot since then, taoism is still a huge influence on my thoughts.

Positive and Negative forces are the frameworks of the Tao, and its great because you can almost literally apply it to a variety of scientific fields. It seems to me like the Tao has true merit as being the underlying force of the universe, or at least a fairly close human understanding of it.

Thanks again!

[Trollax]

After a metaphysical dichotomy (spiritual breakdown) at age 13, I picked up a book by stuart wilde...
I instantly loved the way the right thing wasn't a chore and that martyrdom was just the quickest route to an afterlife not the best way to live.

After that I couldn't stop reading books, Dan millman, michael talbot, Stu (of course), After a time (about a year.) I started to form my own philosphical opinions...

After attempting to prove weird science right on a couple of counts I came up with the infinity theorum.

I was thinking (bad sign) if everything was created at the instant of the big bang (badder sign) then that means everything exists, because there's infinite space inside the universe that means there's an infinite volume for everything to happen in.

After that I refined it to come up with perceptual multiverses. (memes, allaphors etc.) After which I came up with the idea of coalescing (collapsing) quantum waveforms applying to physical space... meaning that the less you have seen, the more infinity there is because the more unexplored phase space you have. Kind of what Zombie was saying about relatable fractions.

Since then I've just decided that evil is a perceptual construction, meaning that satan lives in people's heads and can only exist there.

I often beat up evil just for fun.

I'll post more stuff... maybe.

~Ostensibly Exisitential Trollax~

[Y.M. Hut]

It seems as though you've had a flurry of right brain activity recently Z^3, good to see. I too have been questioning, well, everything as of late. I've come up with a few answers that I found interesting.

I began to think of everything I could, in order to find a pattern. In everything I, as a human, could find only one constant. Me, the human. Everything we, or specifically know, revolves around me myself. I (and others) like to take for granted some sort of objective force that unites the subjective (me) and the objective (everything else).

I have suspected and hypothesized for a long time now, that there very well could be no objectivity to the universe or reality. That it is in fact my universe or reality, either created or maintained by my own subjective mind. I have heard some people try and disprove a completely subjective reality through objective means. But this cannot work, if reality is truly subjective then there would be nothing objevitve to compare for it would define the parameters of comparison and thus bias any interpretation.

But why would the subjective distort reality in order to cause an appearance of subjectivity? In all honesty, I'm not exactly sure, but that's food for thought.

I have noticed that many movies, books and other literary forms have been created on these notions. For instance: Ubik, The Matrix, Memento, Waking Life and others have all had a theme of a distorted reality. But more importantly, a false reality formed by a character.


All we interpret is through our senses. All we can know is through our mind. This is obvious. It all comes down to our brain. Is our brain an objective unit? Even if we did decide that it is objective then couldn't we be using a subjective mind to do so? Our world, our laws, our logic, our reality is all defined by our mind. But what defines our mind?

You cannot prove faith. And objectivity is a faith, a faith that there is something outside our own minds, a faith that there is some binding universal law that stabilizes and orders. But as a discordian and an individual, I often doubt the existence of objectivity. There is certainly an implied objectivity to the reality we (I) live in, but there is no way to prove it. So the question is: Do you have faith in reality?

[livid E. T.]

Hrm for some reason your posts have motiviated me to want to share this, and I guess sharing it here will work.

My philosophy is that the universe is a complex system that we can't understand, but we can impose some sort of practical understanding upon it.

Now I don't understand why but I know that I have a role in this world, a destiny, and that is to help this girl I know achieve enlightenment.  For some reason I just know that is my sole purpose, and I know that if I fail she's going to miss doing something of vital importance in the grand scheme of things.  Now if only I was enlightened so I would know how to do that for her.

[NawnSeckWitter]

Hmm.. I'm a Roman Catholic... **does the dance of being relatively mainstream** I guess most know the Catholic dogmas/doctrines/other stuff.

[Z³]

Roman Catholic seems pretty unique for the Discordia message board. You get two points.

[Y.M. Hut]

Yes, definitely, two pints to the newcomer. Oh you said points, well I'll just have to offer these to Our Lady of Discord.

It's good to have diversity; so far we've got what seems to be pseudo-buddhists, pantheists, pagans, atheists, probably some Christians, Jews and Muslims lurking the shadows and zealots of a plethora of shapes and colors. Now we can add Roman Catholic to that list, yippee.


Today while eating dinner I divulged my little thought on a friend of mine. I pretty much mindfucked him. He couldn't stop asking questions and talking about it, so I gave him some of my other "theories" and we got into some good discussions. He's a good friend of mine and I've had philosophical discussions with him before but never have I seen him in such a state of being mindfucked.

Interestingly enough, he is a Roman Catholic as well.

[livid E. T.]

please share what you shared.

[feh]

I'd like to hear some opinions on the question of free will.

I don't believe it could be possible due to the fact that every cause can result in only one effect (no?).  This would apply to all energy and matter, including the wads of it we refer to as our brains.  

Also, because it's nifty to think about...the future is then completely predetermined.  The past is perfectly preserved in the present, the present being nothing more than the past after a series of logical permutations.  

Could it be said that all times essentially exist simultaneously then?
Does that even make sense?

I know very little of quantum physics and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which I've been told have some important implications on this topic.  Since they deal with human perception of events, do they really matter in regard to the premise of my belief( that every event has a definate subsequent one)?

[Y.M. Hut]

Well I mainly talked about my aforementioned theory, that of subjective reality (I know it's not mine but I was the first to introduce it to him).

I also mentioned some thoughts I've had about distances. After reading Xeno's paradox (I believe it's his first or third) on distances I began to think further into such things. I began to think of something approaching a wall or any stationary object, similar to Xeno's paradoxes, and how it does eventually touch it. But then I began to wonder if it actually touches the wall. It touches the wall as far as human eyes are concerned, but it would be miliseconds or even seconds later until a tiny organism would recognize (if it could truly understand) that it was touching. If we continued to magnify then we would be chasing this object as it supposedly approaches the wall. But could would we ever find an end to this approach, even on the atomic and sub-atomic level, if we continued to magnify? I guess this sort of ties in with Heisenberg's Uncertainly Principle and Shroedinger's Cat.

I've branched these thoughts in different directions, one pertains to infinite distances and there are others. But I'm not all that certain about any of them, they've been reworked and rethought in my head so many times now. In any case, they're braincandy as I like to call them, something to make you think in that level.

[Lister]

When I try to imagine the relationships between opposites, between positive and negative magnetic poles, between positive and negative particles of matter, etc... it leads me to believe that this great cosmic mass is nothing more than a chaotic whirlwind of activity caused by all of these forces interacting, and that eventually there will merely be a primordial cosmic soup of very low frequency energy where nothing at all will happen. A great equilibrium, if you will.

The scientific word for this is "entropy" I believe...

[Z³]

When I try to imagine the relationships between opposites, between positive and negative magnetic poles, between positive and negative particles of matter, etc... it leads me to believe that this great cosmic mass is nothing more than a chaotic whirlwind of activity caused by all of these forces interacting, and that eventually there will merely be a primordial cosmic soup of very low frequency energy where nothing at all will happen. A great equilibrium, if you will.

The scientific word for this is "entropy" I believe...

Yes.

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

My own thoughts:
I approach the universe from a Pagan perspective which is at times polytheistic, pantheistic, or nontheistic. All these mindframes teach me many things. As for a meaning to it all, I tend to think of meaning as a linguistic function as opposed to an intrinsic value, but even that will change with more evidence and experience.
I do respect the old Goddesses and Gods and the way I approach them is as an old friend, not as a subject or object. I do acknowledge their power and I frankly don't care whther they are real beings, power-symbols, or just parts of my own psyche. At some point those categories tend to limit the experience.

(My personal practice meshes with Wicca very well due to the similarities of outlook and magickal work. And out of all the titles and such, that term Wicca or Witch resonates as true within my life. To the outside/offline world that is what I am known as and people often come to me for my sarcastic humorous way of seeing things. )

Maybe I am just a panentheist. Or an earthy Pagan.

[Trollax]

What is the philosophical underpinning of a random post revival?
***NOTE: Not a real question...***

[SMFabal]

Allow me to present a practical demonstartion of the failure of Xeno's aformentioned Paradox:

Step 1: Find a brick wall.
Step 2: Swing your knuckles forcefully towards said brick wall.
Step 3: Feel the pain of the impact.
Step 4: Realize how incredibly stupid that was