Relativism VS. Absoulte

[Blackheart]

I have spent years in meditation approaching the absolute lady.

I am he who has been round the entire path of the Qabala and arrived in the world again, and knows the power of the fool.

I have learned that no matter how I approach the absolute, or let the absolute approach me, perception or apprehension is a purely human function, whether done through the empirical senses or means less prosaic, and as such it is subject to the relativity inherant in the very process of perceiving and apprehending.

I would say to you that the Taoist quote you use falls short of the situation.

The Tao that can be perceived, is not the true Tao.
The Tao that can be apprehended is not the true Tao.

If you snatch up a handful of water from the river, can you put the river in your pocket?

If you paint a picture of a mountain, can you put the mountain in your pocket?

If you say the word horse, can a blind man feel the mane?

[afro-elf]

I like blackheart have also walked that path and found it lacking.

I have lived, studied and travel in Asia.[ I am there now} One of my undergraduate was a focus in Asia philosophy and I spent quite about time in silence.

I like blackheart realized it was just an illusion. Once again I suggest reading : Persinger, Ramachandran, Newberg, Dennett, and Beyerstein

These mystic state can reproduced in the lab. You are your brain. the YOU is in your frontal lobe.

You talk about the absolute but have no evidence for it. Letting go, nirvana, the zone , is just getting high on endorphins in your brain. Feeling IT is not proof of anything preternatural.

It just ancient people's idea's without the benefit of neuroscience.
Feelings are not facts. Emotions are not evidence.

I have never felt freer since I stopped chasing phantoms and shadows. Or stop playing mental games with myself.

You and Blackheart have such hard angles to you

I can take that several ways.

I take it as compliment. That I just don't accept something just because it provides some emotional comfort. That I will analyse.

If it was meant as a personality trait perhaps you just do not know all my sides.

I hope that you do not think that we are attacking you or anything again you as a person.

It just a matter of discussion idea's and strengths and weaknesses

[Lady Vixen]

Okay this really hasn't a thing to do with this...or maybe it does?
(this is sort of a vent i suppose, I have no current personal beliefs, but a history dude once tried to tell me people's beliefs don't effect what they do.... exactly)
You cannot sperate a person's actions from their beliefs, or lack of, what a person believes changes who they are politically what they do militarily and what they do and who they are economically. Morals changes what people do.
I believe every person who ever lived and ever will live (not including criminally insane) has/had a chance of being morally sound. They had the chance of being good people but they chose not to, either by believing in something or thinking a certain way.
For an example: Hitler, okay he was part jew and his parents were cousins (a little bit like arkansas?) that's enough to mess anyone up but not only that his father beat him, Hitler (probably) grew up believing all jews were like that and thus they were 'under-evolutionized', the solution? Extermination.
Do you believe that Hitler just woke up one day and thought 'today I hate jews lets kill them all?' Perhaps if his father would have had good morals he would have had good morals...or maybe if he had known other people and knew what his dad did was wrong he wouldn't have done the terrible things he did?
Enough of 'perhaps' or 'maybe's it simply wasn't so. Hitler killed millions and thats a fact.
Okay if any of this made sense good.

P.s.
Something to replace the fluff in your head with. Joseph Stalin killed more people (his own people) than Hitler did.

[Aeryn]

I hate to say it but I think you are naive, im not saying that you don't have a point but you are oddly innocently (right word probably not) dark, does that make any sense you'd like the Orc Lord, eater of frilly underthings Blackheart. He's hilarious. opinoinated but hilarious, but I see that you are new and so I would like to inform you that just about everyone's nice and funny...except for the people who aren't!

[Lady Vixen]

And I suppose that little speech you gave you found funny?
'except for the people who aren't' ha...ha...ha. <--Yawns

[Blackheart]

Whazit? Can I eat your underwear?

[Lady Vixen]

Who are you talking to?

And who says I have ...*sly grin* n/m













J/k y'all I wear cute underwear.







I am sure that girl Aer would like her undies eaten....






Hee Hee

[Cirdan]

Sigh... underwear. Absolutely delicious, relatively speaking.

[Aeryn]

What a hoe, 2 posts and shes already telling people about her cheesy unniewears

















I hope that isn't rep. material.

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Aeryn
What a hoe, 2 posts and shes already telling people about her cheesy unniewears
I hope that isn't rep. material.

Puritanical, aren't we?

[Blackheart]

Relatively speaking... I absolutely do not care who's frilly underthings I eat.

If you aren't wearing any then I can't be held responsible for the consequences.

[BeardofPants]

Good grief. I leave the thread and I come back to... frilly underthings??

Aeryn, let's not be mean. If lady vixen wants to talk about her undies, then let her. Similarly, if I want to wax lyrical about my box; well if I can somehow tie it into the thread...


A question: Where have all the so-called absolutists gone?

[Aeryn]

No no no I was so for the whole Rhode Island colony
Well Laura is still a hoe for talkin' bout her panties.
And puh-lease Blackheart restrain yourself.

[Khamûl]

Stay on topic. Frilly underthings have nothing to do with Relativism vs. Absolutism.

[Arathorn]

Now I'm wondering about the word "frilly". Frilly relative to what? It looks like a relative term Or is there a state of absolute frilliness?

[BeardofPants]

Well, are we talking lace, or non-lace? It's all relative you know.

[Wayfarer]

Laura is still a hoe for talkin' bout her panties

Hmm... A hoe. You obviously don't choose your metaphor's very carefully.

These mystic state can reproduced in the lab. You are your brain. the YOU is in your frontal lobe.

Actually, aelf... I'd like to ask you a few questions on that.

Does the fact that we can reproduce a specific brain state render the original meaningless?
I.E. If we tell your brain that you're eating a steak, (which is juicy and delicious.), does that mean you don't need real food?

I'm interested in knowing why you think the human brain is hardwired to experience something that allegedly doesn't exist.
I.E. The biological need for sex would have to exist before the brain chemistry that make it pleasurable. So what reason is there for the brain chemistry of mysticism.

Another dilemma... Does the brain chemistry cause the experience, or does the experience cause the brain chemistry?

[Cirdan]

All parts of the CNS are inextricably interconnected. Alterations to any one region will effect others. It is clearly demonstrated be the effects of organic disorders on personality.

[Rána Eressëa]

Originally posted by Lady Vixen

For an example: Hitler, okay he was part jew and his parents were cousins (a little bit like arkansas?) that's enough to mess anyone up but not only that his father beat him, Hitler (probably) grew up believing all jews were like that and thus they were 'under-evolutionized', the solution? Extermination.
Do you believe that Hitler just woke up one day and thought 'today I hate jews lets kill them all?' Perhaps if his father would have had good morals he would have had good morals...or maybe if he had known other people and knew what his dad did was wrong he wouldn't have done the terrible things he did?
Enough of 'perhaps' or 'maybe's it simply wasn't so. Hitler killed millions and thats a fact.

People die everyday. Sometimes cruelly, sometimes peacefully. That's just the way it is. Hilter allowed his emotions to rule him - the number one fault that makes you go "coo-coo" to put it nicely. I can't say I hate the guy (even though I do have ancestors in which he played a part in murdering), but I know for sure I don't like him. Morals or no morals, he shouldn't have allowed emotions to get the best of him. In reality, morals had nothing to do with it.

I know three people who have been badly abused before, and they don't end up hating a certain group of people for it because they are sensible and use reason. It wasn't the abuse that drove Hilter to do those things; it was the way he handled the abuse.

[Wayfarer]

Originally posted by Cirdan
All parts of the CNS are inextricably interconnected. Alterations to any one region will effect others. It is clearly demonstrated be the effects of organic disorders on personality.

Actually, cirdan, I'm not denying that brain chemistry can effect a change on your personality. I have a family history of chronic depression, ADD, SAD, and whatnot. What I want to know is how you get off saying that the influence of brain chemistry on personality completely subordinates the self.

I'm having trouble understanding the rationale of saying we're all nothing more than biochemically generated programs... it's sort of difficult to place any stock in a hilosiphy (or quasi-philosophy) that claims you don't really exist as a person... Ya know?