On 8/21/2010 6:21 PM, gruff wrote:
There is a rare definition of pantheism which I like, mainly due to
it's antithesis. A pantheist in this case is one who admits or
tolerates all gods while an atheist is one who admits or tolerates no
gods. I lay claim to the latter title (along with about a billion
others.)
Sometimes I feel at a loss, as I could choose a direction and run with
it and save myself a lot of trouble. However there are two acute pains
that result, for me, in the transcendental (spiritual) if I let go of
the natural, scientific studies and exercises, my mental
degradation/erasure accelerates which I am otherwise cursed with either
way. In the natural, I may stave it off for a while but eventually I
feel like I am dying in the innermost sense, and things always go full
circle anyway so what the hell why not ride it out. So I've come to see
three general sides to myself, as intelligent but also a romantic, and
the pragmatic which is the one that meets the world focusing the two.
Just my own little heaven(s)/hell(s) here. The high meets the low.
However, I'm not sure what panpsychism is, but according
to one source it is that the entire Universe is an organism which
possesses a mind (or that all material entities possess a mind), but
I'm not quite sure how that works. I could readily admit to all
higher forms of life possess a mind but whether that could include
flora and bacterial life I have serious doubts, but not absolute
doubts. After all, even the simplest of life forms will shy away from
harm and turn toward that which enhances life. Some call this simply
instinct but where in the whole of that life form would instinct be
seated but in some form of a mind even if we don't recognize it as
such. This is why I say my doubts are not absolute.
The description here sat well with me as a short intro, interesting
quotes by Quincey and Leibniz:
http://www.panpsychism.net/html/what_is_it.html
Another definition of pantheist is one who believes the entire
universe is a manifestation of god. This is closer to something I
would consider possible in the remote chance there was a god; which,
without a lot of mumbo-jumbo, implies that we are our gods in the
becoming. This ties in closely with what I believe to be our creation
of gods; i.e., that we created them out of fear and loneliness but in
doing so gave those gods characteristics and abilities we ourselves
possess. In other words, we are not created in gods image but rather
we created our gods in our own image.
This is very close to my own thoughts about self-creation, and I think
it implies a radical new alchemy for our species that embraces our
temporal character. In the sense that if we observe ourselves along
time-lines some interesting talents emerge, and though they may be
explained by other more material or spiritual categories, if we /choose/
to do so, what you describe may perhaps emerge more apparently, simply
and profoundly than we think possible. I hoped to bring this up in the
other thread where you mention one retaining ones unique identity but
time is running short for me.
Of course this is all based on my core perception that we are the
supreme creatures in the Universe.
Perhaps the difference between a hatchling fish that believes it is
supreme and the one that perceives it is that one will be swallowed
whole singing in the open blue, 'la la la'. No moral, but damn, look at
that fish go!
