Isn’t this just cause and effect? How does endless cause and effect reveal our interconnectedness?

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So nominalism? Doesn’t interconnectedness erase relations altogether?

You can live your phases in a random order so that it makes a comedy atleast.

Consciousness emerges through integration of its parts

Consciousness both perceives the parts and integrates them. In that sense it appears self emergent. Some might say that reality only exists within consciousness.

Its hard to say what something is if you can never be outside of it.

I live in a forest, if you observe forests you can see how they are co-operative rather than competitive systems. Co-operation allows better utilisation of resources, so that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Humans can't separate themselves from the natural world, we rely too much on the resources it provides. My local authority recently removed some mature trees to pave several acres for a carpark for a sports ground. They didn't see any problem doing that, the trees were in the way, but future generations will pay as the expanse of paving heats up the whole area.

Beautiful quote from the Upanishad.

Which quote?

Upanishad is a religious text.. what’s it from again or about? It’s been a while

I feel like I just enjoyed a five page poem but even so, i'm still a pessimist in regards to this lonely existential plight people seem to think we have. We are no different to any of the other creatures in my view, its just our ability to reason and manipulate the world has been abstracted out to the extreme until we think ourselves seperate but we really aren't. We have no more idea about what is going on than birds and the trees do, not really. It might be worth revisting when we can shape time and space and create worlds though.

Doomed to be both the observer and the one being observed, but never allowed to be either entirely. Until death maybe!

Such an interesting read

Following that.

The universe is composed of a multitude of atoms that come together to form objects. The world is governed by a principle of cosmic sympathy in it's natural state. Some things are inherently in accordance (sympatheia) with one another. Some things clash, and some things have more sympathy than others. When they reach their natural state, they reach harmonies with other things in accordance with them.

But the question is do we really need to believe that everything is connected to everything, to act in a good or moral way?

It's kind of suffocating. That we can't know our reality.

Haha yeah I guess!

> We have no more idea about what is going on than birds and the trees do, not really

>just our ability to reason

I think you're right to a large extent, but you're severely downplaying us. I feel like this kind of thought is sort of a prisoner putting on their own shackles--you defeat yourself. It's kinda like that old saying "whether you think you can or can't, you're right". Whether you think we have a lonely existential plight, no different than dirt; or are pioneers of creativity and conscious thought, at the apex of creation, you're right. It's really a matter of words to some extent, but words are our tools, and sometimes also our greatest weapons.

There are magnitudes of difference between us and birds (especially trees). It'd be like saying: in a room with one adult and many children, the adult isn't any different and has no idea what's going on more than the children. It is a huge oversimplification. Why revisit later? Visit now. We already can shape time and space--and we already are creating our very first world right here. Will it also be our last? I hope not. I'd encourage you to use your powers to change perceptions in a positive, optimistic way

edit;

think of the quote at the end of the article: ". . . a world still whispering the rumours of that worn out idea put by Dante “the love that moves the sun and other stars"

It reminds me of one by Loren Eiseley on John Donne: >The body is the true cosmic prison, yet it contains, in the creative individual, a magnificent if sometimes helpless giant. John Donne, speaking for that giant in each of us, said: "Our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are borne Gyants.... My thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their Creator am in a close prison, in a sick bed, anywhere, and any one of my Creatures, my thoughts, is with the Sunne and beyond the Sunne, overtakes the Sunne, and overgoes the Sunne in one pace, one steppe, everywhere."

>This thought, expressed so movingly by Donne, represents the final triumph of Claude Bernard's interior microcosm in its war with the macrocosm. Inside has conquered outside. The giant confined in the body's prison roams at will among the stars. More rarely and more beautifully, perhaps, the profound mind in the close prison projects infinite love in a finite room. This is a crossing beside which light-years are meaningless. It is the solitary key to the prison that is man."

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

i would argue its less coop-vs-comp but more a synthesis of both of those processes , ie yin/yang are both at the same time opposing forces and intermingled and two sides of the same whole , duality/non-duality simultaneously

but yes i would definitely agree that a parking lot is a much worse utilization of space/ground than mature trees ; a good compromise would be to have a parking lot either build vertically to take up less ground space and/or incorporate a lot of trees/greenery into the structure itself ; and/or wind/solar generators if/or they could be integrated as well

it seems like these ideas will eventually be understood most everywhere , but we are at a rather painful transitionary period in our timeline where a vast majority of the human population does not understand our intimate and interwoven relationship with our world [ie they have been raised to see a difference/disconnection between man/nature when in reality there is none] , thus fueling the antagonistic approaches

i guess you could argue that reality would still 'exist' without consciousness

but then again there would be nothing to experience the qualia so how would you know?

XD

its wild/weird stuff , but it only seems that way becuz we were previously led/misled to believe something else/different XD

i would highly recommend listening to some alan watts on YT or wherevs ; his speech/lecture on 'the joker' is one that comes to mind here

=] GL

Yeah existential philosophy is just wierd. It's something most people think about but I honestly believe no one really has a clue and the people that do know you can't put some things into words, you can only directly experience a transcendental state.